Never a final design: interviewing Norwegian alcohol smugglers

This paper presents a typology of respondents that have been encountered in interview-based research on the illegal alcohol market in Norway. Six distinct types (“the social talker”, “the expert witness”, “the flasher”, “the manipulator” and “the paranoid”) are distinguished and their relative value discussed from a scientific perspective. Students of organized crime must learn how to handle these characters both socially and analytically, and how to avoid certain pitfalls. Challenges a researcher may meet while studying organized crime will also be discussed, like “going nervous,” “going naïve”, “going native” and “going nonchalant”. Traditional Scandinavian literature on research methods has not been very helpful in this sense.     

Changes and Fluctuations in Issue Ownership: The Case of Sweden, 1979–2010

Issue ownership (IO) has been an important concept in the analysis of party behaviour, party strategy and party competition for several decades. More recently, it has also been of growing interest for research on voting behaviour. Traditionally, IO has been regarded as a stable phenomenon where parties have different issue profiles and are advantaged by different political issues or issue‐areas. Recently, however, many studies have reported change and fluctuations of IO, and the same studies also makes it clear that we know surprisingly little about what might cause, or facilitate, change in issue ownership. In fact, we do not even have systematic studies of how stable issue ownership is, or how frequent shifts in issue ownership actually are. The aim of this article is to explore the extent of change and stability in issue ownership in Sweden. For this purpose, the Swedish national election studies from 1979 to 2010 are utilised. Although recent research has indicated that changes in IO have increased over time, this is not supported in the Swedish case. Instead, issue ownership seems never to have been a particularly stable phenomenon. However, in line with our theoretical expectations, we show that ownership of economic issues is more volatile compared to ownership of other issues.     

Making borders and identities in South Sudan

In newly independent South Sudan, the state's not yet fully demarcated territory plays an intriguing and in certain aspects contradictory role in shaping and defining personal and group identities. While neighbouring states’ armies and their proxies interfere with South Sudan's international sovereignty, Juba is itself active beyond its borders by supporting Sudanese rebels. Nonetheless, the ruling elite hold onto the model of the unified and centralised territorial nation-state with clearly demarcated borders. Alas, the state's failure to territorialise its authority creates hybridity with regard to territorial control, which impacts negatively on the state's domestic legitimacy but also weakens attempts to propagate a national identity that transcends ethnic ties. Instead, the current civil war and calls for a decentralised federal structure are evidence of the continued salience of subnational loyalties while those non-state actors, like localised militias, that fill the areas void of government presence are generally themselves sources of insecurity.     

Distinct age-related differences among victims in cases of suspected child abuse

Evidence describing age-related differences among children with suspected physical and sexual child abuse is lacking. We describe findings in severe cases of suspected abuse. Cases with 756 children <15 years old were included during 2001–2013 at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Aarhus University, using forensic evaluation documents, medical records, and court proceedings. Eight percent of children <4 years old died from child abuse, 36% through violence resulting in death, and 64% by manslaughter, whereas 1% > 4 years old died, solely by manslaughter. External injuries were mainly located to head and torso in children <4 years old, changing to the upper and lower extremities in older children. Child sexual abuse was suspected in 52% of cases with living children <4 years old, 83% of children 4–7 years of age, 88% of children 8–11 years of age, and 93% of children >12 years old. Anogenital findings were mainly caused by other medical conditions in children <4 years old, hymenal clefts in the superior half of the hymenal rim were almost exclusively found in children between 8 and 11 years of age, whereas both superficial and complete hymenal clefts in the inferior half of the hymenal rim were found in children >12 years old. The present study describes age-related differences in victims of suspected child abuse. Fatal versus nonfatal child physical abuse and the significance of hymenal findings in child sexual abuse could be studied further.     

Are transformational and transactional types of leadership compatible? A two‐wave study of employee motivation

Transformational and transactional leadership strategies have become prominent in public administration research, but it is unclear whether they are compatible or whether they could undermine each other. We examine the combined and interactive effects of transformational and three types of transactional leadership (contingent verbal rewards, material rewards, and sanctions) on employee work motivation, conceptualized as work engagement and intrinsic motivation. Panel analyses using repeated measures of 385 leaders and 3,797 employees show that transformational leadership and contingent verbal rewards increased employee motivation. However, simultaneous use of contingent material rewards undermined the benefits of transformational leadership. Thus, the motivational potential of service‐ or community‐oriented visions was undercut when leaders also appealed to extrinsic material motives. This could help explain why financial incentives do not always have the expected benefits in public organizations. We therefore argue that research and practice should pay more attention to how different leadership strategies work in combination.     

The politics of culture and the space for Islam: Soviet and post-Soviet imaginaries in Uzbekistan

This article examines how possibilities for Muslim expression were and are shaped by the political imaginaries in Soviet-era and independent Uzbekistan. It develops the concept of social ‘imaginary’ in Charles Taylor's critique of Western secular modernity. Political imaginaries are the assumptions about the nature of being, the essential categories through which the world is understood and acted upon, that are produced within dominant state discourses and that shape the space for the political. The article compares the Soviet vision of socialist modernity and the logic of the current state ideology in independent Uzbekistan, and discusses how these have framed the possibilities for being Muslim. It argues that the category of culture is produced in distinct and contrasting ways in these imaginaries, and plays a central role in delineating the public space for Islam.     

Professional development leadership in turbulent times: Public administration symposium: Robust politics and governance in turbulent times

Intense turbulence means that parameters change, interdependencies unexpectedly become critical, and public organizations experience unpredictable tempo shifts. Existing studies have explored how public managers can exercise leadership specifically aimed at obtaining dynamic resilience, but more knowledge about leadership and turbulence intensity is needed. Combining existing theoretical knowledge about robust governance in turbulent times and in-depth analysis of 31 interviews, we examine how public managers exercise professional development leadership in situations where events, demands, and support interact in variable, inconsistent, unexpected, and unpredictable ways. We find it highly relevant for public managers to both develop and (de)activate professional norms and knowledge in such situations, implying that professional development leadership is important in turbulent times.     

Silent innovation: corporate strategizing in early nanotechnology evolution

Nanotechnology offers a rare opportunity to study the early evolution of a new generic technology in real time. This paper suggests focusing more on the market formation side, rather than technology generation, when seeking to explain technology evolution. Applying an evolutionary capabilities perspective, the paper examines how firms organize innovation in the early embryonic stages of a technology and how the market as a selective device undergoes qualitative change as part of economic evolution. The traditional Danish window chain is used as a case. A model of nanotechnology evolution is proposed which suggests that nanotechnology commercialization is significantly driven by small and medium-sized firms based on their internal knowhow, with larger firms as important suppliers of know how. These smaller firms are adept at addressing social needs which appear to be key factors in the nano-commercialization process. A taxonomy of nine enterprise strategies for entry into nanotechnology is suggested. The paper identifies a marked shift in marketing strategizing among the nanotechnology innovative companies, from being “loud” around the turn of the millennium to becoming increasingly “silent” at the present time, illustrating the unconsolidated stage of the current nanotechnology market.     

Toxicology and characteristics of deaths involving zolpidem in new South wales, australia 2001-2010*

Abstract: All cases presenting to the New South Wales Department of Forensic Medicine between January 1, 2001 and September 31, 2010 in which zolpidem was detected, were retrieved. A total of 91 cases were identified. The mean age was 49.4 years, 65.9% were male, and 61.5% were suicides. Zolpidem was a factor contributing to death in 35 (37.3%) cases, of which 31 (34.1%) involved zolpidem toxicity. The median blood zolpidem concentration was 0.20 mg/L (range 0.05–3.50 mg/L), with no significant gender difference. Drug toxicity cases involving zolpidem had significantly higher median blood zolpidem concentrations than other cases (0.50 vs. 0.10 mg/L). In 83.5% of cases, psychoactive substances other than zolpidem were detected, most commonly antidepressants (46.2%), benzodiazepines (35.2%), opioids (26.4%), and alcohol (39.6%). In summary, zolpidem was a factor contributing to death in a large proportion of cases, predominately involving drug toxicity and suicide.