Crisis and contract breach: The domestic and international determinants of expropriation

The Review of International Organizations - In this paper we address how external factors shape government decisions to break or uphold contracts, specifically focusing on how economic shocks and...     

Development and validation of videotaped scenarios: a method for targeting specific participant groups

Researchers using scenarios often neglect to validate perceived content and salience of embedded stimuli specifically with intended participants, even when such meaning is integral to the study. For example, sex and aggression stimuli are heavily influenced by culture, so participants may not perceive what researchers intended in sexual aggression scenarios. Using four studies, the authors describe the method of scenario validation to produce two videos assessing alcohol-related sexual aggression. Both videos are identical except for the presence in one video of antiforce cues that are extremely salient to the young heterosexual men. Focus groups and questionnaires validate these men's perceptions that (a) the woman was sexually interested, (b) the sexual cues were salient, (c) the antiforce cues were salient (antiaggression video only), and (e) these antiforce cues inhibited acceptance of forced sex. Results show the value of carefully selecting and validating content when assessing socially volatile variables and provide a useful template for developing culturally valid scenarios.     

Ethics and Government: Preliminary Considerations

This symposium reproduces several of the papers presented during the international conference sponsored by the Queensland University of Technology Centre for the Study of Ethics, at Parliament House, Brisbane, 11-13 February, 1999. The theme of the conference was 'Government and Business: Integrity and Accountability'. The papers have been revised following discussions within a research colloquium associated with the conference. They were initially presented within a strand entitled 'Competition, Marketisation, Public Services and Public Ethics' which explored ethical issues for contemporary government within different national contexts (New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Australia) around the impact of economic policies that have reframed the role of government primarily as a servant of the international market.     

Corruption is bad for growth (even in the United States)

We estimate the impact of corruption on growth of output per worker in U.S. states. We improve on existing studies of the cost of corruption by using a better specified empirical model, focusing on a study population that is less likely to be affected by parameter heterogeneity, and controlling for endogeneity using political variables to instrument for corruption. We find that corruption plays a significant and causal role in lowering growth and investment across the states.     

Integrity and resilience in the face of multiple crises: commentary from Puerto Rico

Since 2010, the population of Puerto Rico has declined by 11.8％ and is currently 3.3 million people [1]. This worrisome trend is a result of a plethora of island-wide challenges spanning financial difficulties, natural disasters, and epidemics. Following over a decade of economic hardship and debt, incapacitating hurricanes, Irma and Maria, destroyed large swaths of the island in 2017. While still recovering from that disaster, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake centered about 5 miles off the southwestern coast on January 7, 2020, destroying buildings and roads in southwestern Puerto Rico. This event, and subsequent aftershocks that continue until today, further aggravate an already stressed population. In the mix, viral epidemics have brought further economic, social, and health-related suffering. Puerto Rico was the centre of the 2016–2017 Zika virus infections, representing over 85％ of the US infections in 2016 [2].     

Encounters with the clandestino/a and the nomad: the emplaced and embodied constitution of non-citizenship

Taking the ‘encounter’ as an analytic, this paper will argue for an understanding of citizenship as an emergent condition that is emplaced and embodied, rather than as simply a collection of rights to be possessed or endowed. This is not to deny the importance of legal status to the ways in which one inhabits the city (and therefore the nation-state), but show how this status is modulated in the everyday to constitute a range of legitimately and illegitimately present non-citizen subjects. The nature of the encounter as a constitutive event in which particular bodies are deemed in- or out-of-place will be discussed relative to two imagined figures that have been used to represent outsiders that are deemed to be illegitimately present in Italy: the clandestino/a and the nomad. These figures have been invoked in legislation and in political and popular discourse. In this paper, they are also imagined to be encountered in the spaces of the city.     

Invasion of the western Ampelmännchen

Since the unification of Germany in 1990, academics have debated the consequences of the integration of the former German Democratic Republic with the Federal Republic of Germany. We explore the rise of the Ampelmannchen within the context of the Ostalgie industry to argue that East Germans have turned to one imported institution as a vehicle for the expression of their interests and identity: the market. In contrast to other GDR icons, the Ampelmannchen is finding popular resonance because it is entirely untainted by the negative aspects of GDR life. Its economic success contributes to the creation of an eastern cultural identity.     

RNA/DNA co-analysis from blood stains—Results of a second collaborative EDNAP exercise

A second collaborative exercise on RNA/DNA co-analysis for body fluid identification and STR profiling was organized by the European DNA Profiling Group (EDNAP). Six human blood stains, two blood dilution series (5-0.001 μl blood) and, optionally, bona fide or mock casework samples of human or non-human origin were analyzed by the participating laboratories using a RNA/DNA co-extraction or solely RNA extraction method. Two novel mRNA multiplexes were used for the identification of blood: a highly sensitive duplex (HBA, HBB) and a moderately sensitive pentaplex (ALAS2, CD3G, ANK1, SPTB and PBGD). The laboratories used different chemistries and instrumentation. All of the 18 participating laboratories were able to successfully isolate and detect mRNA in dried blood stains. Thirteen laboratories simultaneously extracted RNA and DNA from individual stains and were able to utilize mRNA profiling to confirm the presence of blood and to obtain autosomal STR profiles from the blood stain donors. The positive identification of blood and good quality DNA profiles were also obtained from old and compromised casework samples. The method proved to be reproducible and sensitive using different analysis strategies. The results of this collaborative exercise involving a RNA/DNA co-extraction strategy support the potential use of an mRNA based system for the identification of blood in forensic casework that is compatible with current DNA analysis methodology.