Safeguarding adults and mass marketing fraud – Perspectives from the police,trading standards and the voluntary sector

Despite the growing awareness of mass marketing fraud (MMF) in the financial abuse of vulnerable older people, little empirical research has been undertaken in this area. This paper is one of the first to consider the perspectives of a range of professionals who work with victims of mass marketing fraud and financial crime. MMF is a growing threat in the financial abuse of older people, and is increasingly recognised as a concern for professionals involved in supporting and safeguarding vulnerable older people. This paper considers the themes emerging from a small exploratory qualitative study into the perspectives of professionals working to safeguard those at risk of MMF and considers some of the complexities involved in tackling MMF. This involves consideration of the techniques used to groom and lure victims in plausible looking frauds, and the factors that serve to reinforce their sustained involvement in such activity.     

Terrorism,Dynamic Commitment Problems,and Military Conflict

Since 9/11, several states have initiated military conflicts in the name of fighting terrorism. However, studies indicate that the costs of terrorism are insignificant compared to the damage created by war. This raises the question: Why do states initiate costly wars when the risk posed by terrorism appears marginal? This study presents two explanations. First, we argue that while terrorists frequently fail to achieve their strategic objectives, terrorists can accomplish tactical objectives and may transition to insurgencies by seizing control of pockets of territory. States may respond by initiating preventive wars to stop terrorists from consolidating control over their strategically valuable territories (e.g., resource‐rich areas). Second, rival states may opportunistically exploit terrorist violence by declaring that the government is a “weak state.” This allows rivals to seize portions of the government's territory under the cover of fighting terror. We test these hypotheses using post–Cold War African dyads from 1990 to 2006.     

Regionalist Protest through Shared Rule? Peripherality and the Use of Cantonal Initiatives in Switzerland

In this article, we are interested in the extent to which federalism is able to deal with peripheral protest through shared rule channels. Shared rule as a key dimension of federal states has not thus far received adequate academic attention. Empirically, we analyse the use of all cantonal initiatives in Switzerland over the past 25 years as a particular instrument of shared rule, subsequently focusing on two peripheral regions with successful regionalist parties, Ticino and Geneva. We find that regionalist parties contribute towards radicalizing peripheral demands in search of attention from the centre. This leads to the mainstreaming of peripheral demands by pulling other parties along. We conclude that shared rule properly designed gives even the most peripheral regions a voice in national decisions, but that regionalist parties may also use shared rule instruments to mobilize their electorate at home to fight their non-regionalist competitors.     

Congressional dysfunction: An information processing perspective

The public's approval of Congress is at an all time low. The parties seem to have taken the legislative process hostage for their own electoral gain. Whereas traditional arguments about congressional dysfunction focus on polarized voting coalitions or outputs – particularly legislation – in this article we highlight congressional information processing and how it has changed in this highly partisan era. By coding congressional hearings according to the kind of information on which they focus, we find that members of Congress are receiving one‐sided information to a greater degree and are spending less time learning about potential solutions. We use these results to make numerous recommendations for improving how Congress gathers its information.     

Worth Restoring? Taking Stock of the Northern Ireland Assembly

The ongoing and almost record‐breaking hiatus in devolved government in Northern Ireland has brought the sustainability of the region's Assembly into sharp focus. As parties in Northern Ireland consider their options for restoring (and possibly reforming) the devolved institutions, this article takes stock of the Northern Ireland Assembly's merits and demerits. It is argued that, amidst the public's understandable exasperation with the current stalemate, it is easy to forget that the Assembly operated for a decade without suspension (2007–2017) and performed some functions reasonably well. This, of course, is not to detract from the institution's serious shortcomings, though it is argued that the worst of these could be mitigated via institutional reform. Crucially, institutional inertia is not an option. Should parties fail to address the need for institutional reform, commentators may well be right to question whether the Assembly is worth restoring.     

Republican Freedom,Popular Control,and Collective Action

Republicans hold that people are dominated merely in virtue of others' having unconstrained abilities to frustrate their choices. They argue further that public officials may dominate citizens unless subject to popular control. Critics identify a dilemma. To maintain the possibility of popular control, republicans must attribute to the people an ability to control public officials merely in virtue of the possibility that they might coordinate their actions. But if the possibility of coordination suffices for attributing abilities to groups, then, even in the best case, countless groups will be dominating because it will be possible for their members to coordinate their actions with the aim of frustrating others' choices. We argue the dilemma is apparent only. To make our argument, we present a novel interpretation of the republican concept of domination with the help of a game‐theoretic model that clarifies the significance of collective action problems for republican theory.     

Finnish mitochondrial DNA HVS-I and HVS-II population data

We have analyzed the two hypervariable regions HVS-I and HVS-II of 200 Finnish male individuals for forensic purposes. The distribution of the haplotypes within Finland was determined by the geographical knowledge of the donors' maternal ancestors. In our population sample, we identified 135 different mtDNA haplotypes. Different mtDNA sequences were further divided to haplogroups using the EMPOP software. The most common haplogroups were H (40.0%) and U (27.5%). Subgroup U5b, which contains earlier described "Saami motif", consisted majority (65.5%) of the sample in the U haplogroup. Analysis of the mtDNA sequence hypervariable regions I and II showed that the mtDNA diversity within the Finnish population sample was comparable to other European populations and uniformly distributed. This is contrary to the Y-STR "minimal haplotype" diversity, which in Finland is lower than in any of the other European populations studied so far.     

Mitochondrial DNA population data of HVS-I and HVS-II sequences from a northeast German sample

Mitochondrial DNA sequences of the control region's two hypervariable regions HVS-I and HVS-II were determined for 213 unrelated west Eurasian individuals from northeast Germany (Mecklenburg). A total of 174 different mtDNA haplotypes were found, 25 of which were shared by more than 1 individual. The most frequent haplotypes were 263G-309.1C-315.1C, found in seven individuals, 263G-309.1C-309.2C-315.1C, found in six individuals and 263G-315.1C, found in five individuals. These sequences are also the most common haplotypes in other published European data sets. The sequence polymorphisms consisting of 150 polymorphic nucleotide positions were compared with other European databases. The genetic diversity and random match probability were calculated. Our results corroborate certain features which are characteristic for west Eurasian mtDNA population samples.     

'Unlawful Enemy Combatant': Status, Theory of Culpability, or Neither?

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 represents the United States’most recent effort to establish a forum to try detainees capturedin its ‘Global War on Terrorism’. This article brieflyexplores the Act's use of the term ‘unlawful enemy combatant’to define both subject matter jurisdiction as well as the potentialsource of criminal liability. The article highlights the term'sabsence from the positive law of war as well as confusion overits legal significance in United States domestic law. Examiningthe relationship between status and protections under the lawof war, the authors conclude the Act's use of the term ‘unlawfulenemy combatant’ reflects legal convenience more thanan objective assessment of the existing laws and customs ofwar.