Contests Among Bureaucrats

This paper deals with double lobbying: several bureaucratsparticipate in joint lobbying to get a high total departmental budget, butthey also engage in antagonistic lobbying to reap as high a share of thetotal budget as possible. The antagonistic lobbyingconstitutes a contest among the bureaucrats. This papercharacterizes the Nash equilibria in lobbying and shows inwhich way exogenously fixed bureaucratic incomes induce thesame or different lobbying behavior as incentive incomes.     

Importance of radiological diagnosis applied to necroscopy

The authors evaluate the consequences of incomplete necroscopic examinations wherein it was impossible to apply radiological resources to locate firearm projectiles. The study includes 8185 reports from the Instituto Médico-Legal Afranio Peixoto in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, representing the totality of corpses processed from January to December 2001; of these, 3122 were gunshot victims, 309 of which were buried with unremoved projectiles, being liable to future judicial reappraisal. During the same period, there were 23 exhumation requests by police authorities, 12 of them querying the existence of projectiles. The authors looked into the formal reasons assumed by the medico legal experts to conclude their reports from incomplete examinations, and suggest that gunshot necroscopic examinations should follow specific protocols, as incomplete autopsies will require further exhumations, at unnecessary additional costs.     

Solid-phase microextraction for the determination of cocaine and cocaethylene in human hair by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

A method for the simultaneous determination of cocaine (COC) and cocaethylene (CE) in human hair was developed, using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) as analytical technique to identify and quantify the drugs. Selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode was used to obtain higher sensitivity. The deuterated-labeled analogues were used as internal standards. The detector response was linear for the drugs studied over the range 0.4-15 ng/mg, with correlation coefficients higher than 0.995. The coefficients of variation oscillated between 0.65% and 14.18% and the accuracy was in the range from 0.73% to 11.20%. The limits of quantitation and detection were found to be acceptable. Finally, this method was applied to 15 hair samples from cocaine users, obtaining positive results in all cases. The mean concentrations were 5.39 ng/mg (range: 0.43-8.98 ng/mg) for cocaine and 1.11 ng/mg (range: 0.42-2.23 ng/mg) for cocaethylene.     

Do ideological and political motives really matter in? the?public choice of local services management? Evidence from urban water services in Spain

This paper studies the influence of ideology and political motives on the choice of management for urban water services. Our contribution is two-fold. Firstly, we use a considerably more detailed set of variables to represent ideological and political motives than previous research. Secondly, the variables that explain local politicians’ decisions are observed at the time decision-making occurs, rather than at a later date. Beyond pragmatic reasons, we find that ideological and political motives also matter when explaining decisions regarding the management of water services. Furthermore, considering the time dimension of decision-making noticeably improves the explanatory power of our model.     

Negotiating Urban Space: The Challenge of Political Steering in Market‐ and Network‐oriented Urban Planning

This article examines challenges related to the political steering of New Public Management‐inspired planning practices in Norway and asks if local politicians have sufficient and adequate instruments to hand, and if they are willing and have the knowledge to use them. The discussion is based upon a broad survey of the 145 largest municipalities and qualitative interviews in the three largest cities. It is found that local politicians do not lack steering instruments, as the different managerial practices represent a spectrum of suitable tools for giving direction to urban development. However, the data indicate that local politicians do not utilise the full steering potential of the instruments due to lack of knowledge and will. These findings contribute to the discussion of the strategic steering role of local politicians.