Balanced or Biased? Interest Groups and Legislative Lobbying in the European News Media

This article examines the coverage of legislative lobbying in European news media. The starting point thereby is that lobbying in the crowded European Union (EU)-level interest community is not only a struggle for direct access to policymakers, but that in order to realize policy goals many interest groups rely on political attention generated by the media. Our main research question is how media attention is skewed toward particular interests and which factors explain these varying levels of prominence. Our empirical analysis is based on a set of 125 legislative proposals adopted by the European Commission between 2008 and 2010. For all these cases we identified 379 interest organizations that made public statements, we coded the amount of media attention these organized interests gained, the type of statements they made as well as some key organizational features. While the aggregate levels of attention look pretty balanced, our evidence shows that media prominence is skewed toward particular types of interests; in particular that organized interests which oppose a proposed policy gain significantly higher levels of media attention.     

美国大中亚安全战略规划评析

美国在形成一个中亚安全战略规划,在地理上以阿富汗为中心,涵盖中亚南亚,在主题上以区域一体为目标,这被称为"新丝绸之路愿景规划"。它以经济为重点,在贸易领域,推动实施美国—中亚《贸易投资框架协定》,重点发展大中亚区域贸易,帮助中亚国家相互降低贸易壁垒,推动中亚国家、阿富汗相邻区域整合;在能源领域,与中亚国家、拉脱维亚、俄罗斯等国建立北部运输网络,形成由公路、铁路、天然气管道以及电力传输线路构成的大中亚交通网络,繁荣区域贸易与经济;在反恐领域,加强与中亚国家安全领域的合作关系,确保驻阿富汗美军的交通线;同时,推动多边安全体制,在中亚实施巴尔干方案,加强对中亚国家的经济援助,促进中亚各国内部间的合作,实现该地区的持久和平。     

Exclusion through citizenship: civic deliberation and its limits in the Peruvian blogosphere

Research on the exclusionary nature of citizenship has concentrated on the state as the agent who defines the limits of citizenship, framing it as a legal status. Exclusionary discourses and practices resulting from everyday notions of ‘good citizenship’ have received less attention. A stronger focus on these can contribute to our understanding of the relationship between citizenship and exclusion by highlighting exclusion through citizenship. In other words, it emphasises the ways in which practices and discourses of ‘good citizenship’ simultaneously produce its limits, consisting of practices and discourses which are considered ‘not civic’. In this sense, exclusion happens because of, rather than in spite of, citizenship. The article examines notions of civic deliberation among Peruvian bloggers, arguing that these included clear limits, which, if violated, allowed for exclusion.     

(Im)possible citizens: Canada's ‘citizenship bonanza’ and its boundaries

This article discusses a recent amendment to the Canadian Citizenship Act, which retroactively restores or gives Canadian citizenship to ‘hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting foreigners, most of them Americans’ (P. Dvorak, 2009. Canada issues a wake-up call: you may be a citizen. The Wall Street Journal, 17 April. Available from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993183347727843.html) while also restricting the inheritance of Canadian citizenship to the first-generation born abroad. Aiming to redress past discriminations based on gender, marital status and dual citizenship while simultaneously curtailing modern citizenship's dubious ius sanguinis provision, the new law might be interpreted as perpetuating Canada's reputation as a world leader in interethnic relations and human rights. A contextual analysis of the new law, by contrast, shows that the opposite is the case: the boundaries that are being drawn by Canada's new citizenship regime follow the now common trend of re-ethnicization and securitization. Specifically, they conflate kinship and Whiteness, thereby leading, on the one hand, to the construction of possible citizens whose authenticity and loyalty to the nation are unquestioned. On the other hand, within the logic of the new laws and their surrounding discourses, non-White, non-Christian ‘impossible citizens’ emerge, whose lack of loyalty and instrumental use of their Canadian passport are said to be eroding the value of citizenship from within.     

Analysis of the Spectre of Urban Density From the Perspective of Compactness of Forms A Response to a New Urban Vulnerability

The concepts of ＂density＂ and ＂urban morphology＂ are today at the centre of debates on architecture and urban planning. The concept of＂density＂ provides a solution to the issue of urban sprawl and, consequently, offers a way of rethinking sustainable urban and rural development. The densification of urban centres makes it possible to reduce a vulnerability related to the excessive use of suburban areas. However, densification is not a ＂turnkey＂ solution. Numerous criteria relating to its use are poorly understood. As numerous contemporary experiences have demonstrated, urban densification exposes space systems to new, unknown forms of vulnerability. First, the concept of ＂vulnerability＂ will be defined, specifically that of urban vulnerability, as well as related concepts, such as those of risk, hazard, and challenges. Secondly, forms of vulnerability inherent in the over-densification paradigm are pinpointed： This will involve determining the specific hazards, challenges, and risks of this space system. Thirdly, the authors will demonstrate how the concept of ＂compactness＂ makes it possible to review at the different urban levels the densification processes of territories and urban areas. Finally, a tool for the optimisation of compact urban morphologies for use in countering the related hazards and risks will be proposed.     

To enforce or not to enforce? Judicialization,venue shopping,and global regulatory harmonization

The regulation of intellectual property rights takes place in a range of international venues. This proliferation of international venues greatly enhances the potential for venue shopping. We argue that different levels of domestic regulation and differing degrees of judicialization account for actors' preferences over institutional venues. We take into consideration two scenarios. Conceiving of judicialization as the delegation of adjudication to an independent third party and the enforcement through multilaterally authorized sanctions, we show that: (i) upward regulatory harmonization leads actors preferring weak regulatory intellectual property rights standards to strive for venues with low degrees of judicialization, whereas those favoring stringent intellectual property rights protection prefer highly judicialized venues; and (ii) downward harmonization leads to the opposite constellation of institutional preferences. We show how these expectations hold by way of in‐depth case studies of two instances of global intellectual property rights regulation: the regulation of plant genetic resources and intellectual property rights for medicines.     

Alternative sanctions for drug users: fruitless efforts or miracle solution?

In most Western European countries, including Belgium, judicial alternative sanctions are increasingly being used for drug users. Because no study into the effectiveness of Belgian judicial alternatives for drug users has yet been carried out, this became the objective of the current research. The design of this study comprises a pre and post measurement of the criminal activity, drug use and situation in different spheres of life of 565 drug-dependent offenders. Two conclusions can be drawn. First, after an alternative sanction or measure is imposed, there is a reduction in the criminal activity of the offender. Second, this crime reduction goes hand in hand with a progress in several relevant life spheres.     

Observation of tri-allelic patterns in autosomal STRs during routine casework

We report three cases of tri-allelic patterns observed during routine forensic casework on 5964 Belgian residents. These individuals had been typed for the following 15 autosomal STRs: CSF1PO, D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D16S539, D18S51, D21S11, vWA, FGA, TH01, TPOX, D2S1338 and D19S433.The first example of a tri-allelic pattern had the genotype 13;15;16 for the D8S1179 locus. In the second observation there was 16;21;22 pattern for the D18S51 locus. The third case had the alleles 10;11;13 also for D18S51.All cases belonged to the Type I tri-allelic pattern, with three uneven peaks, the sum of the heights of both smaller peaks equalling the height of the tallest peak.Three cases in 5964 typed individuals is a frequency for tri-allelic patterns in autosomal STRs of 0.05%.     

Unusual suicide with a chainsaw

Described here is a case of suicide with the use of a chainsaw. A female suffering from schizophrenia committed suicide by an ingenious use of a chainsaw that resulted in the transection of her cervical spine and spinal cord. The findings of the resulting investigation are described and the mechanism of suicides with the use of a chainsaw is reviewed. A dry bone study was realized to determine the bone sections, the correlation between anatomic lesions and characteristics of chainsaw. The damage of organs and soft tissues is compared according to the kinds of chainsaw used.