Eliciting cues to deception by tactical disclosure of evidence: The first test of the Evidence Framing Matrix

Purpose. Research on real‐life suspect interviews shows that disclosure of evidence is a very common tactic and that it occurs in all phases of the interview. It is therefore remarkable that there is hardly any research on the effectiveness of different disclosure tactics. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of three different disclosure tactics: presenting the evidence early and two versions of the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique. Methods. For the SUE‐Basic technique (SUE‐B), the evidence was disclosed late in the interview. For the SUE‐Incremental technique (SUE‐I), we used a stepwise disclosure tactic derived from the so‐called Evidence Framing Matrix. The tactic consists of revealing evidence of increasing strength and precision. A mock‐theft scenario was employed with 195 participants who were randomly allocated to one of six conditions: guilty or innocent suspects were interviewed with one of the three techniques. Two measures of inconsistency were used as dependent variables: statement‐evidence inconsistency and the newly developed within‐statement inconsistency. Results. By interviewing with SUE‐I, strong cues to deception were elicited, especially for the statement‐evidence inconsistency variable. For the SUE‐B, significant but smaller differences between guilty and innocent suspects were obtained. Conclusions. We found that both when and how the evidence was disclosed moderated the effectiveness of disclosure. With respect to when, it was more effective to disclose the evidence late (vs. early), and with respect to how, it was more effective to disclose the evidence in a stepwise (vs. direct) manner. The tactical aspects of evidence disclosure are discussed.     

Performance Contracts and Goal Attainment in Government Agencies

ABSTRACT

Public sector reforms introducing performance contracts provide a unique opportunity to investigate goals set for government agencies and factors affecting goal attainment. The article maps the set of goals contained in performance contracts for Danish government agencies in 2000, 2005, and 2008. Performance contracts are found to reflect the complex character of agency goals with performance goals ranging from project initiation to reducing case work time or increasing productivity. The article also analyzes factors affecting goal attainment. Agencies with a large percentage of goals focused on project initiation and production exhibit higher levels of goal attainment. Also, goal attainment improves as agencies and ministries gain experience with performance contracts.

For practitioners, it is relevant that contracts target a wide variety of goals and over time focus increasingly on results. Contracts serve to focus agency attention as three quarters of all demands are met. A crucial factor seems to be whether agencies are in control of formulating and meeting goals. Efforts to improve the contract regime may thus concentrate on enabling government departments to secure ambitious and relevant performance goals.     

Kurdish migrant mothers in London enacting citizenship

The article explores the mothering work of a group of Kurdish women in London as enactments of citizenship. Rather than focusing on their integration, it foregrounds the migrant mothers' ability to disrupt hegemonic citizenship narratives and bring into being new political subjects. They co-construct diasporic citizenship, through their mothering work, producing their children's cultural identifications as both British and Kurdish. These identifications are contingent, involving intra-ethnic contestations of legitimate Kurdish culture. Kurdish migrant mothers' cultural work is not simply about making nation state citizens. By giving meaning to cultural continuity and change, the mothers reference multiple levels of belonging (local, national and diasporic) which challenge state boundaries. The article shows that although mothers play a key role in constructing their children's cultural identities and their articulation in ethnic and national terms, they also contest the meaning of ethnic minority cultural practices and group boundaries, potentially disrupting hegemonic narratives of good citizenship as ethno-national.     

FACE‐R—A 3D Database of 400 Living Individuals' Full Head CT‐ and Face Scans and Preliminary GMM Analysis for Craniofacial Reconstruction

In the past, improvements in craniofacial reconstructions (CFR) methodology languished due to the lack of adequate 3D databases that were sufficiently large and appropriate for 3‐dimensional shape statistics. In our study, we created the “FACE‐R” database from CT records and 3D surface scans of 400 clinical patients from Hungary, providing a significantly larger sample that was available before. The uniqueness of our database is linking of two data types that makes possible to investigate the bone and skin surface of the same individual, in upright position, thus eliminating many of the gravitational effects on the face during CT scanning. We performed a preliminary geometric morphometric (GMM) study using 3D data that produces a general idea of skull and face shape correlations. The vertical position of the tip of the (soft) nose for a skull and landmarks such as rhinion need to be taken into account. Likewise, the anterior nasal spine appears to exert some influence in this regard.     

National Parliamentary Control of European Union Affairs: A Cross-national and Longitudinal Comparison

The article tests the argument that group–membership relations vary between public interest groups and other types of groups. While public interest groups draw their members from diffuse constituencies supporting the causes of the groups, sectional groups exhibit a closer correspondence between the interests advanced and the members recruited. According to the literature, differences can therefore be expected both in the patterns of membership recruitment and in the degree of membership influence in groups. The analysis draws on a survey of all national interest groups in Denmark. It demonstrates that public interest groups differ from other groups in their patterns of membership recruitment. However, it finds no tendency for public interest groups to be either less or more democratic than the average group.     

Varieties and crises of neoliberal globalisation: Argentina,Turkey and the imf

Argentina and Turkey are two important ‘emerging market countries’ that experienced a major economic crisis during the same year. Focusing on the period leading up to the respective 2001 crises in the two countries, this article attempts to place the two experiments in historical perspective and provide an understanding of the common elements as well as the diversity of the neoliberal restructuring process in semi-peripheral settings. The article also attempts to identify some of the key mistakes made by the imf, which was, in part, responsible for the crises experienced. A central conclusion is that ‘new’ or unconsolidated democracies find themselves particularly vulnerable when they are suddenly and prematurely exposed to financial and capital account liberalisation. The outcome is a highly fragile, debt-led growth path with costly consequences. Indeed, although both countries have managed to accomplish impressive recoveries in the post-crisis period, given their past trajectories and the heavy debt burden that they face, it is too early to say that the recovery process will be translated into sustained and crisis-free growth. The regional environment in which the two countries find themselves might be particularly important in this context, with the powerful EU anchor a possible important advantage in the Turkish context.     

Monopolising the Centre: The AKP and the Uncertain Path of Turkish Democracy

The loss of reform momentum and rising authoritarianism during the most recent phase of AKP government indicate that Turkish democracy is in crisis. Although the Gezi protests emerged as a movement from below reacting to the rising authoritarianism of the AKP government, it did not turn into an organised and sustainable movement. Similarly, external anchors or reputational effects are failing to reverse the backsliding of Turkish democracy. The notion of ‘bounded communities’ is a key concept in accounting for the continued dominance of Erdo?an and the AKP in the face of significant pressure for change. Erdo?an’s victory in the August 2014 presidential elections generates both benign and pessimistic scenarios for the future of Turkish democracy.