Using multidimensional scaling for the analysis of sexual offence behaviour: A replication and some cautionary notes

Abstract

Crime scene profiling has received considerable attention, particularly in popular media. First, since low inter-rater reliability would affect the validity of profiling, we tested inter-rater agreement for 33 variables often used in manuals for the coding of crime-related behaviour. Thirty cases were chosen randomly from 146 cases of assault rape with unknown male offenders in Sweden during 1990–1994. Second, we used multidimensional scaling (MDS) with all 146 cases to replicate earlier work by Canter and Heritage (Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 1, 185–212, 1990) regarding motivational dimensions in unknown assault rapists. On average, inter-rater reliability was good; physical behaviours were more reliably coded than were verbal behaviours. However, a two-dimensional MDS solution with the motivational dimensions suggested by Canter and Heritage was not replicated. We argue for better empirical support for the inclusion of specific variables in coding formats for crime scene information. This is particularly important for analyses like the MDS, since the number, representativity, and intercorrelations of such variables could affect results considerably.     

Performance Management in the Public Sector: Does It Decrease or Increase Innovation and Performance?

An important discussion in the performance management literature is how performance contingent incentives affect goal attainment. Incentivizing management tools are typically implemented to improve performance, but due to motivation crowding they may decrease innovation and performance. This article focuses on public research institutions and uses both existing performance studies of publications and two new innovation studies of patents to investigate effects of both financial incentives and sanctions within and between universities. Our findings indicate that public managers can create an environment supportive of innovation and performance through the use of performance management tools, but that this is no automatic link.     

Quantitative differences in think tank dissemination activities in Germany,Denmark and the UK

In recent years, the study of policy advisory systems has been advanced conceptually and analytically through studies of externalisation and politicisation. Still, the understanding of institutional variation in how organisations supply policy advice remains limited. The contribution adds to recent research on think and the study of policy advice by arguing for a focus on the dissemination of policy advice by asking how the dissemination activities of think tanks vary across different policy advisory systems and what this implies for the study of policy advice. This question is explored in a quantitative design which compares publications, events and newspaper mentionings of samples of think tanks from a coordinated (Germany), liberal (UK) and mixed (Denmark) system in 2012. The analysis indicates that think tanks in the UK have the highest level of dissemination on all three activities when controlled for the number of full-time staff. The study indicates that factors beyond the policy process such as developments of funding and media environments should be analysed further as they are likely to be important for how and where think tank disseminate their policy advice.     

The influence of standards and patents on long-term economic growth

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Formal standards codify knowledge. Next to patents representing the generation of innovative knowledge, standards can hence be used to proxy the diffusion of...     

Parties and institutions: empirical evidence on veto players and the growth of government

Does the effective number of veto players in a political system explain the rate of government growth? Panel data analyses are conducted in order to test several measures of veto players against each other, and these results are compared with similar analyses of government fractionalization. The analyses indicate that veto players and especially government fractionalization exert a constraining effect on changes in the size of government, but also that the effect is not consistent over time: neither veto players in general nor fractionalization of government in particular exerted any constraining effect during the decades of rapid government growth due to welfare state creation and expansion in the 1960s and 1970s. The strength of government fractionalization vis-a-vis the veto player measures in explaining changes in the size of government suggest that the constellation of partisan veto players within coalition governments matters, while the effect of institutional veto players remains uncertain.     

Review essay / against legal paternalism

Joel Feinberg, Harm to Self Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, xxiii + 412 pp.     

Building Regions on Economic Success: Prosperity and Regionalism in Rogaland

This article presents a political economy perspective on the growth of regionalism in Rogaland, where ever more political issues have been viewed through a regional lens over the last fifteen years. Rogaland has also experienced an economic boom since the 1970s, when it became the hub of Norway's oil adventures in the North Sea. The question is whether these developments are connected, and more specifically, whether the newfound economic prosperity can explain the growth of regionalism. After discussing the main political economy theories of regionalism, the capacity of each theory in explaining the developments in the case at hand is assessed. In particular, the article presents the theoretical argument behind the idea that economic prosperity could lead to regionalism, referring to cases such as Catalonia, Slovenia and Northern Italy. The growth of regionalism in Rogaland is demonstrated by a quantitative content analysis study, which shows that the growth in regionalism corresponds closely to the economic growth over the period 1960–2000. This leads to the conclusion that economic prosperity is the best explanation for the developments in Rogaland. The article then goes on to show specifically how the region's economic prosperity has been applied by political elites in the creation of a regionalist discourse, with examples of how regional elites have been using the region's prosperity in discussions over infrastructure investments, government representation and regional government.