Sexsomnia – a forensic psychiatric challenge – a case report

In rare penal cases, a defendant makes a claim that he or she was asleep at the time of an alleged crime. This article discusses a case of alleged sexsomnia where a man claimed that he had been asleep during a sexual encounter (rape) with a woman. The question that often arises during an investigation and in court is how complex a behaviour is someone able to perform and still be asleep? To assist the court in answering this question, forensic psychiatric experts may be appointed. But the experts were not present during the act and must therefore consider each case on the basis of the available information and existing research. This paper provides a brief overview of the research regarding sexsomnia. It will also discuss what kind of information is important to elaborate in these cases in order to clarify the premises for the experts’ conclusions to the court.     

South Korea: The Lasting Pitfalls of the ‘Imperial Presidency’

The use of the term ‘imperial presidency’ in South Korea refers to the fact that the country's 1987 constitution grants the state's highest office holder de facto imperial powers with regard to domestic and foreign policy making. This version of the term therefore differs from Arthur M. Schlesinger's usage in the US context, which was critical of the discretionary powers exercised by US presidents in efforts to subvert the checks and balances of the US Constitution. Concentrating political power in the South Korean presidency severely curtails the work of the other political institutions, including its parliament (the National Assembly). Every time the presidency changes hands, the leadership structures of all other public institutions are subjected to major restructuring according to political loyalty, which interrupts their routine functioning. Overall, the presidency in its current form is dysfunctional and works as a barrier against democratic deepening. This article examines why lengthy debate over South Korea's imperial presidency has so far failed to result in comprehensive constitutional reform.     

Australian Labor as a Federal Organisation: State Uniformity or Distinctiveness?

Is the Australian Labor Party (ALP) one party, or eight? Academic accounts of the ALP throughout its history have emphasised the importance of state-based policy-making and organisation as evidence that the “life of the party” occurs within state and territory branches. However, over the last three decades, changes to the national conference and constitution, the increasing prominence of national leaders and the professionalisation of campaigning practices have arguably created the conditions for a far more centralised organisation, raising the question of whether, in 2019, there is anything distinctive about the ALP state and territory branches beyond the jurisdictions in which they operate. In this article, we investigate the distinctiveness of state Labor branches in terms of their formal organisational diversity and the characteristics and attitudes of their supporters. Using data from an original survey of Australian party supporters conducted in 2016, as well as undertaking an analysis of formal party rules, we show that the ALP exhibits a high degree of organisational uniformity across its branches, and supporters of the party in all states and territories very closely resemble each other. We conclude that even though the party maintains a federal structure it is possible to study its supportership and formal structure as a national organisation.     

Trade ‘outside the law’: Uzbek and Afghan transnational merchants between Yiwu and South-Central Asia

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the trajectories of two transnational networks present in the Chinese city of Yiwu: Afghan merchants who trade goods in and out Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan; and Uzbek traders (citizens of either Tajikistan or Uzbekistan) who commercialize their merchandise in and out Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia. Our aim is to capture an ethnographically grounded understanding of informal markets and economies by analysing the notion of trade ‘outside the law’, including the contested yet widely used category of the ‘smuggler’. By paying attention to the fluidity of trading practices ‘outside the law’, we also address the uses and limitations of metaphors widely used in scholarly analysis of informal markets: notably those of ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ forms of globalization, and the transposition of formal-legal and informal-illegal exchanges onto the notions of economic ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’.