The Nordic governments' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic: A comparative study of variation in governance arrangements and regulatory instruments

Government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in the Nordic states—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—exhibit similarities and differences. This article investigates the extent to which crisis policymaking diverges from normal policymaking within the Nordic countries and whether variations between the countries are associated with the role of expertise and the level of politicization. Government responses are analyzed in terms of governance arrangements and regulatory instruments. Findings demonstrate some deviation from normal policymaking within and considerable variation between the Nordic countries, as Denmark, Finland, and to some extent Norway exhibit similar patterns with hierarchical command and control governance arrangements, while Iceland, in some instances, resembles the case of Sweden, which has made use of network-based governance. The article shows that the higher the influence of experts, the more likely it is that the governance arrangement will be network-based.     

Interdependence,asymmetric crises,and European defence cooperation

Although international crises are often believed to represent windows of opportunity to strengthen European defence cooperation, recent crises have not seemed to produce a clear convergence of European Union (EU) member states’ security interests. This article seeks to address this puzzle by arguing that European defence cooperation is a response to crises that place European states in a situation of military interdependence. Conversely, asymmetric crises, i.e. crises that affect European states unevenly, encourage those states to maintain their autonomy of action. This theoretical argument is supported by two case studies: the failure of the European Defence Community in the early 1950s and the current difficulties experienced by the EU’s military operations. These two cases illustrate a striking continuity in that, because of (neo)colonial ties in particular, European states are often unevenly affected by international crises, which tends to make defence cooperation less effective.     

Determinants of popular financial reporting: Evidence from Swedish municipalities

This paper investigates popular financial reporting, to determine how contextual factors can favour or hinder its development. A balanced panel dataset from 289 Swedish municipalities spanning the period 2015–2021 is utilised for the empirical analysis, which is based on bivariate correlations and logistic regression models. The results are interpreted through the lens of legitimacy theory, integrated with innovation and diffusion models. The findings suggest that, while political factors play a certain role, it is primarily the local accounting networks, which enable the exchange of experiences among neighbouring municipalities within the same regional area, that are the most influential factor. These results may prove to be helpful in various contexts, contributing to the academic debate on the relevance of institutional and contextual factors in explaining the voluntary decision to prepare popular financial reports.     

Evidence evaluation in fingerprint comparison and automated fingerprint identification systems--modelling within finger variability

Recent challenges and errors in fingerprint identification have highlighted the need for assessing the information content of a papillary pattern in a systematic way. In particular, estimation of the statistical uncertainty associated with this type of evidence is more and more called upon. The approach used in the present study is based on the assessment of likelihood ratios (LRs). This evaluative tool weighs the likelihood of evidence given two mutually exclusive hypotheses. The computation of likelihood ratios on a database of marks of known sources (matching the unknown and non-matching the unknown mark) allows an estimation of the evidential contribution of fingerprint evidence. LRs are computed taking advantage of the scores obtained from an automated fingerprint identification system and hence are based exclusively on level II features (minutiae). The AFIS system attributes a score to any comparison (fingerprint to fingerprint, mark to mark and mark to fingerprint), used here as a proximity measure between the respective arrangements of minutiae. The numerator of the LR addresses the within finger variability and is obtained by comparing the same configurations of minutiae coming from the same source. Only comparisons where the same minutiae are visible both on the mark and on the print are therefore taken into account. The denominator of the LR is obtained by cross-comparison with a database of prints originating from non-matching sources. The estimation of the numerator of the LR is much more complex in terms of specific data requirements than the estimation of the denominator of the LR (that requires only a large database of prints from an non-associated population). Hence this paper addresses specific issues associated with the numerator or within finger variability. This study aims at answering the following questions: (1) how a database for modelling within finger variability should be acquired; (2) whether or not the visualisation technique or the choice of different minutiae arrangements may influence that modelling and (3) what is the magnitude of LRs that can be expected from such a model. Results show that within finger variability is affected by the visualisation technique used on the mark, the number of minutiae and the minutiae configuration. They also show that the rates of misleading evidence in the likelihood ratios obtained for one of the configurations examined are low.     

Public Health and the Regulatory State

Public health has moved from the public good component of health to everything related to health and, then, to everything related to society. If we take public health in its wide, total, social sense, it presumably explains or justifies much of the regulatory state. Virtually all state activities contribute directly or indirectly to some citizens’ “physical, mental and social well-being” (as the World Health Organization’s definition says). Public health requires social engineering, which cannot be achieved without controlling the lifestyles that the Philosopher King doesn’t like. Controlling lifestyles cannot be done without regulating the businesses that would allow people to satisfy their sinful preferences, and without preventing these people from circumventing the controls through black markets or other violations of government regulation.