Recovery of DNA from Latent Fingerprint Tape Lifts Archived Against Matte Acetate

This study was driven by court order to examine methods to remove, extract, and STR‐type potential DNA entrapped between latent fingerprint lifting tape and matte acetate that was collected from a 1977 crime scene. Results indicate that recovery of appreciable quantities of DNA is more challenging once adhesive is attached to matte acetate cards and even more difficult when fixed following black powder enhancement. STR amplification of extracts from entrapped fingermarks collected following the dusting/lifting procedure did not produce robust profiles, and extraneous peaks not expressed by print donors were detected for some samples. A hearing was set to argue whether there was DNA remaining to be tested, and if so, whether that DNA could be exculpatory in this postconviction matter. The studies herein provided the basis for the court's decision to not require the testing.     

A test of Sprinzak’s split delegitimization’s theory of the life course of far-right organizational behavior

This article applies Sprinzak’s theory of split delegitimization to the American far-right. We examine a sample of 30 violent and 30 nonviolent far-right groups for each year of their existence, drawn from the Extremist Crime Database, and explore the violent and legal behavioral patterns over their lifecycle. Sprinzak hypothesized that far-right groups undergo a radicalization process through three stages, conflict of legitimacy, crisis of confidence, and crisis of legitimacy. He predicted that terrorism would occur at the peak of group radicalization or during the third stage. Results supported Sprinzak’s conceptualization of conflict of legitimacy and crisis of confidence stages. Groups initially selected nongovernment targets, but after experiencing disillusionment with the ruling regime, they equally attacked government and nongovernment targets. Importantly, prolonged and increasingly violent acts against government targets were not observed.     

Xenophobia across the class divide: South African attitudes towards foreigners 2003–2012

In May 2008 anti-immigrant riots in South Africa displaced more than a hundred thousand people. Despite the media attention that the riots attracted, there has been no study that presents trend data on anti-immigrant sentiment for the period after 2008. This paper uses data from the nine rounds of the South African Social Attitudes Survey over the period 2003–2012 to fill this gap and test the success of government commitments to reduce anti-immigrant prejudice. The results reveal that attempts to combat xenophobia have been ineffectual, with anti-immigrant sentiment prevalent and widespread in 2012. Afrophobia was observed, with a majority of citizens identifying foreign African nationals as the group they least wanted to come and live in South Africa. The government is advised to urgently address the alarming and widespread pervasiveness of anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa.     

Evaluation and policy learning: The learners' perspective

This article examines how evaluation induces policy learning – a question largely neglected by the scholarly literature on evaluation and policy learning. Following a learner's perspective, the article attempts to ascertain who the learners are, and what, and how, learners actually learn from evaluations. In so doing, it focuses on what different types of learners actually learn within the context of the evaluation framework (the set of administrative structures defining the evaluation goals and process). Taking the empirical case of three EU programme evaluations, the patterns of policy learning emanating from them are examined. The findings are that only two types of actors involved in the evaluation are actually learning (programme units and external evaluators), that learners learn different things (programme overview, small‐scale programme adjustments, policy change and evaluation methods) and that different learners are in control of different aspects of the evaluation (learning objectives and processes) according to the evaluation framework established by the European Commission.     

Innovation and public space: The developmental possibilities of regulation in the global south

Important product and process innovations are often developed in “public spaces” that promote collaboration and provide shelter from market competition. Given that most collaborative spaces are costly to establish, the possible implications are bleak for economically strapped developing countries. This paper highlights a less conspicuous – if not unknown – source of collaborative space: the regulatory process. Regulators can induce innovation by promoting collaboration across organizational, sectoral, and disciplinary boundaries in the interest of regulatory compliance. This paper documents the innovative consequences of efforts to regulate the use of lead‐based glazes in the Mexican ceramics industry and reconsiders several recent studies of upgrading in other countries that appear to have been driven, at least in part, by the regulatory process. Drawing on these cases, this paper makes four primary points: (i) that innovation in regulatory spaces is more common than previously acknowledged and is producing meaningful improvements in product quality and working conditions in developing economies; (ii) that promoting innovation in these regulatory spaces is an important developmental tool for countries that are “regulation‐takers” and have many low‐tech sectors; (iii) that this dynamic extends current conceptions of regulatory discretion, as well as development literature on state‐society synergies; and (iv) that establishing collaborative public spaces as a common conceptual framework is a critical step toward understanding the consequences of social regulation on upgrading.     

Revisiting the Instrumentality of Voice: Having Voice in the Process Makes People Think They Will Get What They Want

Research on procedural justice has found that processes that allow people voice (i.e., input) are perceived as fairer, and thus elicit more positive reactions, than processes that do not allow people voice. Original theorizing attributed these effects to beliefs that the provision of voice enhances people’s sense of process control, which people were assumed to value because it impacts their perceived likelihood of receiving desired outcomes (the instrumental perspective of procedural justice). Subsequent research questioned this perspective, arguing that outcome expectations do not account for the effects of voice. However, this subsequent research failed to directly examine the interplay of voice, outcome expectations, and reactions. The current studies revisit and extend research on this topic by asking whether manipulations of voice act as shared circumstance effects. Confirming an untested implication of the instrumental perspective, we show that giving everyone voice increases their belief, ex-ante, that they are likely to win an upcoming competition. However, this instrumental belief accounts for only part of the effects of voice on perceived procedural fairness and on general reactions to outcomes. Results suggest that voice does indeed have instrumental significance, an implication not adequately recognized in current justice theorizing. However, this instrumentality does not, by itself, explain why people value having a voice in processes that affect them.     

The English protoindustrial family: old and new perspectives

English research on protoindustrial communities in general and the protoindustrial family in particular has fallen somewhat behind that in many continental countries. Constrained by inadequate sources and a historiographical literature that has constantly placed the small and simple nuclear unit at the heart of English residential arrangements, English historians have often seen the protoindustrial family as little different in form and function from those to be observed in rural areas or market towns. This article uses sources generated by the English poor law to offer different perspectives. Focusing on Lancashire, as the protoindustrial phase of its development began to truly break down in the early 19th century, the article suggests that the English protoindustrial family was volatile in form and size and that the nature of underlying protoindustrial demography and the communal welfare system provided a powerful impetus to a process that saw the constant redistribution of kin between related households. It concludes that in Lancashire the expectation among protoindustrial families must have been volatility and that complex families rather than simple nuclear families have long held the English imagination.     

Serbia and Montenegro: The struggle to redefine Yugoslavia

The Bases of New Relations Between Montenegro and Serbia proposed by the ruling coalition of Milo Djukanovic is a dramatic change from the federal structure laid out in the 1992 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Constitution. The Bases of New Relations is Montenegro's attempt to shut out Milosevic, distance Montenegro from Serbia while avoiding civil strife, and lead the republic toward European integration. Largely viewed as a dead letter, the Bases of New Relations still stands as a concrete example of Podgorica's goals.