The International Criminal Court and Africa: Exemplary Justice

This is a theoretical and empirical investigation into the causal link (if any) between international criminal trials and preventing violence through exemplary prosecutions. Specifically how do representative trials of persons accused of having the greatest responsibility for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole, supposedly bind recurrent violence? The argument pursued is that by using an accused as an example, a court engages in an indirect and uncertain substitution of personal rights for social harmony and order. These prosecutions combine a peculiar rhetoric, logic and aesthetic, all which substitute the responsibilities for a society in general to a particular individual in order to redeem that society by transferring its communal responsibility onto the individual punished as a form of atonement or expiation. International and domestic trials, as well as truth and reconciliation commissions, are part of a suite of options addressing communal mass violence that can work in tandem. However, because those convicted do not have a monopoly on criminality, nor do those merely reconciled have a monopoly on virtue, exemplification through punishment only targets a few on behalf of the many. Indeed such a redemptively sacrificial economy distinguishes legal justice from mere vengeance.     

Catalyst or Cause? Legislation and the Demise of Machine Politics in Britain and the United States

In the nineteenth century, British and American parties competed by hiring electoral agents to bribe and treat voters. British parties abruptly abandoned this practice in the 1880s. The conventional explanation is that legislation put an end to agent‐mediated distribution. But this explanation leaves many questions unanswered. Why did the parties use agents for decades, even though they imposed great expense on candidates and were viewed as untrustworthy? And why, after decades of half‐hearted reforms, did the House of Commons pass effective antibribery reforms only in 1883? In our formal model, parties hire agents to solve information problems, but agent‐mediated distribution can be collectively suboptimal. Legislation can serve as a credibility device for shifting to less costly strategies.     

Self-reported personality traits in forensic populations: a meta-analysis

The current study covers a systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of self-reported deviant or disruptive personality traits: anger, aggression, hostility, antisocial traits, psychopathy, and impulsivity in forensic populations worldwide. A computer-based search of titles was carried out using the PubMed electronic database for articles published in English that included a self-report instrument for personality characteristics in combination with a forensic population (i.e. detained in remand, sentenced and/or in enforced treatment, or on parole). The final sample consisted of 39 studies (N?=?11,716) that together used 17 different instruments and reported on 32 subscales or constructs that fitted our current interest. Results showed significantly higher levels of self-reported antisocial and psychopathic features in forensic samples, including a significant effect of the assessment instrument and subscale used. No significant differences were found for self-reported impulsivity, anger, aggression, or hostility in forensic populations compared to norm scores of non-forensic samples. Possible explanations, including suggestions that forensic populations are prone to providing socially desirable answers on self-report questionnaires, possibly to gain advantages such as a lower prison sentence or to avoid enforced treatment, are discussed, as well as limitations, and suggestions for future research and clinical practice.     

An experimental study of compressed work schedules in policing: advantages and disadvantages of various shift lengths

Objectives  

The objectives of this research were to test the impacts of three shift lengths (8-, 10-, and 12-hour) on performance, health, safety, quality of life, sleep, fatigue, alertness, off-duty employment, and overtime among police.     

Lone Actor Terrorist Attack Planning and Preparation: A Data‐Driven Analysis,

This article provides an in‐depth assessment of lone actor terrorists’ attack planning and preparation. A codebook of 198 variables related to different aspects of pre‐attack behavior is applied to a sample of 55 lone actor terrorists. Data were drawn from open‐source materials and complemented where possible with primary sources. Most lone actors are not highly lethal or surreptitious attackers. They are generally poor at maintaining operational security, leak their motivations and capabilities in numerous ways, and generally do so months and even years before an attack. Moreover, the “loneness” thought to define this type of terrorism is generally absent; most lone actors uphold social ties that are crucial to their adoption and maintenance of the motivation and capability to commit terrorist violence. The results offer concrete input for those working to detect and prevent this form of terrorism and argue for a re‐evaluation of the “lone actor” concept.     

Make and Buy—An Alternative to Make or Buy? An Investigation of Four Theoretical Explanations in Danish Municipalities

The question of whether public organizations should provide services themselves or buy them from external suppliers has become increasingly relevant due to public-sector modernization. The literature has focused on it as a question of either make or buy. Contrarily, we focus on the reasons for public organizations to simultaneously produce and contract out similar services. The article investigates different theoretical explanations for concurrent make and buy. A survey of Danish municipalities shows that make and buy seems to be a steady choice. However, the results show little support for the theoretical explanations indicating the need for more public-oriented explanations.     

Applying Functional Analysis to the Case of a Malfunctioning Education System: Addressing System Complexity and Tangled Causes

A 4-year decline culminating in a collapse of school leaver exam results sent shockwaves through the Tanzanian state education system. Students and citizens attribute the collapse to visible deficiencies in classroom teaching, which is the product of a complex, government-administered system of teacher training colleges, schools, schools inspectorate, an examinations council, and a curriculum development institution. A model of the system is constructed and ‘interrogated’ to establish a research framework of key questions and propositions for functional analysis and evaluation of the system.     

Book reviews

Mike Marqusee, REDEMPTION SONG: MUHAMMAD ALI AND THE SPIRIT OF THE SIXTIES (Verso Books, 1999)

Marilyn Buck, David Gilbert, and Laura Whitehorn, ENEMIES OF THE STATE, (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Resistance in Brooklyn Publication, 1998). Meyer, c/o WRL, 339 Lafayette Street, NY 10012 or mmmsrnb@igc.org.

Viviane Forrester, THE ECONOMIC HORROR (Cambridge, UK: The Polity Press [in association with Oxford, UK, and Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers], 1999).

Peter Roman, PEOPLE'S POWER: CUBA'S EXPERIENCE WITH REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999).

Stanislao G. Pugliese, CARLO ROSSELLI: SOCIALIST HERETIC AND ANTIFASCIST EXILE (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999).     

Book reviews

Anthony Giddens, THE CONSEQUENCES OF MODERNITY (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1990). Anthony Giddens, MODERNITY AND SELF‐IDENTITY: SELF AND SOCIETY IN THE LATE MODERN AGE (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991)

Robert B. Westbrook, JOHN DEWEY AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991)

David Harvey, THE CONDITION OF POSTMODERNITY: AN ENQUIRY INTO THE ORIGINS OF CULTURAL CHANGE (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989)

Robin Blackburn, ed., AFTER THE FALL: THE FAILURE OF COMMUNISM AND THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM (London and New York: Verso, 1991)

Andrew Hacker, TWO NATIONS: BLACK AND WHITE, SEPARATE, HOSTILE, UNEQUAL. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992)

Ridgeway, James, BLOOD IN THE FACE: THE KU KLUX KLAN, ARYAN NATIONS, NAZI SKINHEADS AND THE RISE OF A NEW WHITE CULTURE (New York: Thunders Mouth Press, 1991)

Gene H. Bell‐Villada, THE CARLOS CHADWICK MYSTERY: A NOVEL OF COLLEGE LIFE AND POLITICAL TERROR. (Albuquerque, NM: Amador Publishers, 1990)