Comparing Electoral Systems: A Geometric Analysis

This paper constructs a game-theoretic model of elections inalternative electoral systems with three or four candidates.Each electoral system specifies how the platforms of thecandidates and their scores give rise to an outcome. Whengeometrical analysis shows that two outcomes can competeagainst each other for victory, a pivot probability isassociated to that pair. Each voter is rational and picks thecandidate that maximizes her expected utility, which resultsfrom the balancing of her preferences and beliefs about thepivot-probabilities. Candidate positioning is endogenous andthe result of a Nash game. The possible equilibria arecomputed for plurality and runoff majority systems.     

women,migration and precarity

This focus group took place at the Università di Napoli ‘L'Orientale’ and was structured around recent female migration patterns in the south of Italy. The discussion included academics, artists, and care workers. The condition of women migrants was seen as one of precarity in the two main contexts we discussed: work and places of encounter. In an effort to move away from the purely material dimension of migration and deal with its emotional and creative sides, many facets of the question of being away from home and creating a new home were fleshed out: expectations, defence mechanisms, nostalgia, stereotyping, racism, and multiculturalism. Participants raised a wide range of issues and proposed different perspectives which also point to larger tensions and challenges in gender and race relations.     

Campaign Strategies in the 2015 Swiss National Elections: Nationalization,Coordination, and Personalization

This research note examines parties' campaign strategies in the 2015 Swiss elections. We base our analyses on a collection of more than 5000 party advertisements, which were published in the forefront of the national elections in more than 50 daily and weekly national and cantonal print media. By comparing the amount of party and candidate ads, as well as the content and nature of the political advertisements, we explore the degree of professionalization of electoral campaigns in the most recent federal elections in terms of nationalization, coordination and personalization. First results show that although national campaign coordination exists, Swiss elections are to a considerable extent still cantonal and personal affairs.     

The Debate on the Writer’s Responsibility in France and the United States from the 1920s to the 1950s

The debate on the responsibility of the writer was, in France as in the USA, an attack against literary and artistic modernism. From Charles Maurras to Irving Babbit, the reaction against modernism presented itself as a defense of classicism and of tradition against romanticism. Far from being politically neutral, this attack identified romanticism with revolution and the destruction of the social order. The opposition between responsibility and freedom structured the debate from the end of the nineteenth century until World War II. The war entailed a loss of autonomy of the literary field which fostered, like during World War I, the imposition of national moralism. In both countries, a debate arose on the question of the responsibility of the writer, but it took a different form. Whereas the opposition between art for art’s sake and responsibility continued to structure it in the USA, the notion of responsibility was appropriated in France by the literary Resistance and redefined by Sartre at the Liberation.     

Thiodicarb and methomyl tissue distribution in a fatal multiple compounds poisoning

Abstract:  Thiodicarb is a nonsystemic carbamate insecticide whose acetylcholinesterase activity is related to its main methomyl degradation product. A 40-year-old woman was found dead in her car. Empty packages of medicines and an open bottle of Larvin^® containing thiodicarb were found near her body. No signs of violence nor traumatic injuries were noticed upon autopsy, and police investigations strongly suggested a suicide. Systematic toxicological analysis performed on postmortem specimens revealed the presence of various sedatives, hypnotics, and antipsychotic drugs in blood, urine, and gastric content. Some of the compounds identified were determined at blood concentrations well above the known therapeutic concentrations: zolpidem (2.87 mg/L), bromazepam (2.39 mg/L), nordazepam (4.21 mg/L), and levopremazine (0.64 mg/L). Specific analysis of thiodicarb and of its methomyl metabolite was then performed on all fluids and tissues collected during autopsy by liquid chromatography ion trap tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS). The anticholinesterase capacity of blood, urine, and gastric content collected at autopsy was 83%, 82%, and 32%, respectively (normal value: 0%). The presence of thiodicarb in the bottle found near the body corroborates the hypothesis of an intake of that compound. Although thiodicarb was only detected in gastric content (24.3 mg/L), its methomyl metabolite was quantified in most postmortem tissues and fluids: gastric content (19.9 mg/L), peripheral blood (0.7 mg/L), urine (8.5 mg/L), bile (2.7 mg/L), liver (0.7 mg/kg), kidney (1.7 mg/kg), lung (1.5 mg/kg), brain (9.3 mg/kg), and heart (3.6 mg/kg).     

Hair analysis to document a clinical case of TCDD over-exposure

Dioxins and related compounds (furans) are persistent environmental contaminants that cause adverse biological effects. Their influence on humans is still unclear, except for accidental high-dose exposure. Chronic exposure to these compounds seems to be involved in cancer, endocrine disruption and neurobehavioral effects. For several years, a large concern about the potential health risks of dioxins is emerging in Europe and United States. The case of a 50-year-old man victim of an acute over-exposure to tetrachloro dibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD or Seveso dioxin) is reported here with particular focus on hair investigations. The developed method involved the decontamination of the hair strand using picograde level methylene chloride, the homogenization of hair segments with scissors and their extraction in presence of 13C12-marked dioxin congeners under reflux of toluene using a Soxhlet, 8h at 130 degrees C. After reduction of the toluene fraction to 1 ml and addition of purification marker (37Cl4-2,3,7,8-TCDD), dioxins purification was achieved using three successive columns: silica, alumina/sodium sulfate and carbon/Celite columns. Finally, the toluene eluent was evaporated and the extract injected in the analytical system. After chromatographic separation, detection was achieved in single ion monitoring mode using a high resolution mass spectrometer operating in electron impact ionization mode (40 eV, minimal resolution of 10,000). The analysis of the first hair segment (0-6 cm) revealed the presence of 2,3,7,8-TCDD at 65 fg/mg when the distal one remained negative (LOQ=0.3 fg/mg). All other congeners (n=16) were in the range of those determined in the general population (0.62 and 0.89 fg/mg in the two hair segments, respectively). The extremely low dioxin levels generally found in hair specimens (low fg/mg range) lead us to analyze them using the very sensitive and specific gas chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry apparatus. From the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of over-exposure to Seveso dioxin through hair analysis reported in the literature.     

Advance directives in bipolar disorder, a cognitive behavioural conceptualization

Mental Health Advance Directives (MHADs) are potentially useful for bipolar patients due to the episodic characteristic of their disease. An interest for the development of a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) approach in the creation process of MHADs arises because of a lack of efficiency of the non-collaborative processes, the potential impact of psychopathology and the awareness of the illness in MHADs' content, the link between the patient's directives interest and the case manager's interest, and the lower interest reported by the potentially high MHADs beneficiary. The CBT intervention in the MHADs creation process that is proposed in this article is based on: the self-determination model for adherence, the cognitive representation of illness model, and the concordance model. The principles of the intervention were adapted from Motivational interviewing's (MI), emphasising personal choice and responsibility, and focusing on the patient's concerns about the treatment through Socratic dialogue. During the course of 2004, 20 advance directives written by patients (17 with bipolar disorder, 3 with schizoaffective disorder) have been collected following the described intervention. Therefore, this intervention seems to be relevant for patients with bipolar disorder.     

From Rebellion to Extinction: Where have all the Tory Remainer MPs Gone?

This article examines the process of extinction of former remainer Conservative MPs who followed different paths in the run-up to the 2019 general election: either choosing to stay loyal and merge with the rest of the parliamentary party, or to express their discontent and leave the party. When they chose to rebel against the leadership, only a small minority dared to vindicate their position. The other rebels constantly played down their identity as remainers and justified their views in an apologetic way. More remarkably, they were treated differently by Boris Johnson, who eventually suspended the last remainers and called for a general election to renew the composition of the party. The consequences of this last move are crucial in order to understand the radical transformation of the Conservative Party into the actual (and only) ‘party of Brexit’.     

Somewhere Between Love and Justice: a Roman Catholic Church in Paris Responds to the European Migration Crisis

The European migration crisis has had a transformative impact on many transit and destination localities in Europe, and in doing so it has mobilised many faith-based communities. This paper analyses the social action of Saint Bernard de La Chapelle, a Roman Catholic parish in northern Paris, which hosts a semi-formal association called Solidarités Saint Bernard (SSB) involved in support and relief activities for indigent migrants in the local area. Based on ethnographic research conducted within the parish and the association, I analyse how the topic of migration has become a point of exchange between the parish community and local civil society, how religious and secular discourses and motivations co-exist within SSB, and how these influences shape SSB’s social action. Through this micro-scale approach, and drawing on Luc Boltanski’s theoretical framework of regimes of action, my aim is to identify conceptual elements to better understand the broad convergence between religion, social action, and migration, and to better understand the relation between charity and justice within faith-based social action in the domain of migration advocacy more specifically.