Diplomacy at the United Nations: The dual agenda of the 1992 security council summit

The Security Council summit meeting of 31 January 1992 was supposed to be a momentous event that would determine the course of the world body and international peace and security in the post‐Cold War era. Despite high expectations, though, the actual meeting did not produce much more than a broadly‐phrased declaration of good intentions. The article examines the hypothesis that the meeting had a dual agenda, with a hidden as well as a public part. It is argued that the main item on the hidden agenda was the confirmation, beyond any doubt or potential challenge, of Russia as the rightful successor to the USSR permanent seat on the Security Council. This suited well the weakened major remnant of the former Soviet Union as well as the other permanent members of the Security Council, especially the UK and France, who had good reasons to want to defer indefinitely any reexamination of the Council's composition and powers.     

Central Banker Contracts, Incomplete Information, and Monetary Policy Surprises: In Search of a Selfish Central Banker?

Approaching monetary policy as a principal-agent problemprovides a useful framework for interpreting alternativedelegation schemes. In this paper, we consider theeffectiveness of central banker incentive schemes when theprincipal delegates monetary policy through contracts butremains uncertain about the central banker's responsiveness tosuch schemes. We adopt a simple principal-agent model andassume that the central banker's trade-off between socialwelfare and the incentive scheme is private information. Weconsider two types of central bankers; one who responds to theincentive scheme (``selfish'') and one who does not and onlycares about social welfare (``benevolent''). We demonstratethat when a benevolent central banker accepts a contractdesigned for a selfish central banker, positive inflationsurprises occur and output exceeds its natural rate. Wefurther show that a benevolent central banker with aninflation bias has an incentive to masquerade as selfish.Mechanisms exist that solve that problem by achievingpreference revelation. We consider a simple mechanism indominant strategies that induces the benevolent type eithernot to breach or not to accept the appointment (contract) inthe first place. This multi-period mechanism works with eitherinflation targets, or the appointment of a conservativecentral banker. Our results suggest that more complicatedincentive schemes, embedded within broader constitutionalarrangements, are required in the presence of privateinformation for them to work effectively.     

Illicit pharmaceutical networks in Europe: organising the illicit medicine market in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands

It has been widely suggested that the global market in counterfeit, falsified and illegally traded medicines has expanded at a tremendous rate in recent years, offering lucrative opportunities for criminal entrepreneurs with little legal risk. However, with a few exceptions, there has been little criminological research conducted on the trade’s actors and organisation. Of the few studies that are available, most position the supply of these products in the context of ‘transnational organised crime’, often presupposing the overwhelming presence of large-scale, hierarchical structures in the trade. This article, based on two extensive research projects in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, offers an account of the illicit supply of medicines in two European jurisdictions. The research outlines the nature and dynamics of the trade including the roles played by each national context as nodes in the global supply chain. The focus then shifts to the modus operandi, actors, online trade and social organisation in both countries. In contradistinction to the ‘transnational organised crime’ narrative, the empirical data outlined in this paper demonstrates that actors and networks involved in the trade are highly flexible and complex structures that straddle the categories of licit and illicit, online and offline, and global and local. This suggests that operations supplying illicit medicines vary largely in terms of size, reach, organisation and legality.     

The undecided voters and the economy: Campaign heterogeneity in the 2005 British general election

Research and conventional wisdom suggest that undecided voters are especially prone to campaign persuasion. Little has been done, however, in the way of uncovering the decision pathways followed by these voters. In this paper we seek to assess the undecided voters’ alleged campaign susceptibility and, most importantly, to explore which campaign considerations inform their final voting decisions. Our central finding is that their behaviour is driven to a larger extent by economic performance and less by leadership or other valence evaluations. This finding has important implications for parties’ campaign strategies in an era where the ranks of undecided voters are steadily expanding from one election to the other.     

About Form and Function: An Overview and Typology of UN Reforms Since the 1990s

The article examines UN reform efforts over the last quarter-century, during the tenures of Secretaries-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon. The harvest of innovations introduced into the UN during this period proves to be quite rich, including the creation of new institutions like UNAIDS, UN Women and the International Criminal Court, new intergovernmental bodies like the Human Rights Council and the Peacebuilding Commission, new concepts like the responsibility to protect, new goals like the MDGs and the SDGs, and much more. All this is presented in the form of a typology, in response to the questions what, how & when, who and why. This approach helps analyse, in addition to the many forms that reform may take, the modalities, timing, actors and root causes that lead to it. The article ends with a brief assessment of reform trends in the first months of Antonio Guterres’ tenure as UN Secretary-General and some overall remarks on the past, present and future of UN reform.     

Individual Behavior as a Defense in the “War on Cyberterror”: A System Dynamics Approach

ABSTRACT

The problem of cyberterrorism, despite its contested nature, is an important area of research. Scholars agree that the most dangerous targets for such attacks are critical infrastructure and organizations that are vital to society due to their interconnectedness to the modern world and their increasing reliance on the cyber domain for their operations. Thus, their security and protection against cyberterrorism is of elevated importance. Given the lack of documented cases of cyberterrorism, the purpose of this article is to simulate the threat of a terrorist act on a critical infrastructure, using a computer virus and to investigate how the individual behavior of employees affects security.     

Diplomacy at the United Nations: The dual agenda of the 1992 security council summit

The Security Council summit meeting of 31 January 1992 was supposed to be a momentous event that would determine the course of the world body and international peace and security in the post-Cold War era. Despite high expectations, though, the actual meeting did not produce much more than a broadly-phrased declaration of good intentions. The article examines the hypothesis that the meeting had a dual agenda, with a hidden as well as a public part. It is argued that the main item on the hidden agenda was the confirmation, beyond any doubt or potential challenge, of Russia as the rightful successor to the USSR permanent seat on the Security Council. This suited well the weakened major remnant of the former Soviet Union as well as the other permanent members of the Security Council, especially the UK and France, who had good reasons to want to defer indefinitely any reexamination of the Council's composition and powers.     

The Impact of the Registered Intermediary on Adults’ Perceptions of Child Witnesses: Evidence from a Mock Cross Examination

Registered intermediaries are communication specialists appointed to facilitate the communication of vulnerable witnesses participating in the criminal justice system in England and Wales. Intermediaries assess the vulnerable individual’s communication and provide recommendations to practitioners for how to obtain the individual’s ‘best evidence’ during police interviews and in court. The scheme was implemented nationally in 2008, but has not been subject to rigorous research. The aim of the current article is to provide an account on adults’ perceptions of the vulnerable individual when an intermediary assists their communication in court. In the present study 100 participants viewed a mock cross examination of a child witness either with or without an intermediary present. Participants rated the child’s behaviour and communication, and the quality of the cross examination, across a number of different variables. The age of the child was also manipulated with participants viewing a cross examination of a four or a 13 year old child. The results showed the children’s behaviour and the quality of the cross-examination were more highly rated when the intermediary was involved during cross-examination. The older child’s cross-examination was rated as more developmentally appropriate, however no other age differences or interactions emerged. The findings have positive implications for jury perceptions of children’s testimony when they are assisted by an intermediary in court, regardless of the age of the child witness. The success of the intermediary scheme in England and Wales may encourage the implementation of intermediaries internationally.