Election outcomes under different ways to announce preferences: an analysis of the 2015 parliament election in the Austrian federal state of Styria

We use preference data from the 2015 parliament election in the Austrian federal state of Styria to analyze different voting rules. An exit poll right after the election collected data on ordinal and cardinal preferences from approximately 1000 actual voters. Our analysis is threefold. First, we determine the hypothetical social outcomes under different voting rules; second, we investigate the stability of the outcomes under those rules. Finally, we provide a categorization of different types of parties and analyze the impact of certain voting rules (Plurality Rule, Plurality Run Off, Hare System, Condorcet Method, Approval Voting, Borda Rule, Evaluative Voting, and Majority Judgment) on the performances of parties in those scenarios.     

Clash of Realities: Gazprom’s Reasoning on the EU Gas Trade

Abstract

Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian energy company, has major export markets in the European Union, but these are changing, challenging the established trading principles of Russian gas. The EU promotes switching to hub-based pricing, whereas Gazprom, despite adapting to some degree, has continued to highlight the advantages of long-term contracts. This article analyses the reasoning of selected Gazprom actors from an institutional-cultural perspective. Apart from conflicts of interest between Russia and the EU, it finds deep-seated differences in worldviews and perceptions of appropriate behaviour in trade relations. Such factors may play a larger role in decision-making than is generally acknowledged.     

Child Maltreatment in Diverse Households: Challenges to Law, Theory, and Practice

In the United Kingdom relatively little attention has been paid to 'race' and racism and the role of cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity in care proceedings. This paper will look at the background, law, and guidance on diversity in this field and explore the impact of notions of diversity in evidence before the courts. It will look at their relevance in allegations of 'significant harm' to children and failures of parenting, and the coverage of diverse backgrounds in expert reports and parents' statements. It will argue that while there is no evidence that the threshold criteria for a care order require reassessing, there is room for considerable improvement in attention to issues of diversity in evidence and in the experiences of parents attending court. The paper will explore the implications of the studies for theorizing law and the duties of the state and look at notions such as cultural relativism and concepts imported from cultural anthropology for determining culturally acceptable parenting. It will highlight problems with these approaches and demonstrate why 'paradigms of intersectionality' is a more useful and robust approach.     

The Criminal Justice Approach: Case Examples

The article presents a special form of a European comparative synopsis. For this case examples have been chosen ranging from administrative or minor (criminal) offences to increasingly serious offences and offenders. In this way it can be comparatively demonstrated how the criminal justice systems studied handle specific cases and whether they do so in a similar or different way.