Emerging donors: the promise and limits of bilateral and multilateral democracy promotion

This paper examines the evolving pattern of democracy promotion by three emerging donors: India, Brazil and South Africa. It first asks how the emerging donors promote democracy through their development assistance. The paper argues that despite the risk of compromising security and trade interests, the emerging donors have adapted to a 2 × 2 (two by two) model of democracy promotion by which they circumvent risk by promoting procedural democracy through bilateral means and non-procedural democracy through multilateral frameworks. Second, the paper asks why these three countries exhibit the same pattern of democracy promotion in spite of not having coordination among them. In response, the paper provides a structure–agent explanation. The paper contends that the structural constraints imposed on emerging donors are conducive to the operation of the 2 × 2 model in promoting democracy. While the model safeguards the emerging donors from criticism of being undue interveners in other countries' domestic affairs, it also privileges them with international recognition for being responsible partners in democracy promotion.     

High‐throughput Sequencing of Trace Quantities of Soil Provides Reproducible and Discriminative Fungal DNA Profiles

High‐throughput sequencing (HTS) offers improved resolution between forensic soil samples by characterizing individual taxa present; however, the heterogeneous distribution of taxa in soils, and limited quantity of material available, may hinder the reliability of HTS in casework. Using HTS of the internal transcribed spacer, we examined the effect of soil mass (50, 150, and 250 mg) on fungal DNA profiles, focusing on reproducibility and discriminatory power between close proximity soils, and samples with similar textural classification. The results show that reduced soil mass had no significant effect on sample differentiation and that 150 mg soil provides the most reproducible DNA profiles across different soil types. In addition, Ascomycota was identified as a robust fungal target for forensic intelligence as this phylum was detected consistently across all samples regardless of sample quantity. Overall, this study highlights the value of trace quantities of soil for use in forensic casework.     

International Criminal Courts and Political Reconciliation

In A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, Colleen Murphy devotes a full chapter to arguing that international criminal trials make significant contributions to political reconciliation within post-conflict and transitional societies. While she is right to claim that these trials serve an important function, I take issue with her with respect to what that important function is. Whereas Murphy focuses on the contributions international criminal prosecutions might make to political reconciliation within the borders of transitional societies, I claim instead that their primary function is to restore order at the international level and to dispense justice. The aims of justice are not always consistent with the aims of reconciliation. Moreover, several features of international criminal trials should give us pause with respect even to how well, in fact, they manage to serve the ends of international justice.     

Principles,patient welfare and the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000

The law surrounding decision-making for adults who lose their capacity varies considerably internationally. In many cases legislation has taken a protective and consequently restrictive role for adults with incapacity and often the issue of capacity assessment within the appropriate legal framework is circumvented. In Scotland, the introduction of the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 modernised that nation's approach to incapable adults. This article describes briefly the pre-2000 Act situation in Scotland, discusses the main provisions of the Act, reviews the use of principles in incapacity legislation in Britain, and discusses issues relating to patient welfare. The use of principles to extend patient autonomy into incapacity is demonstrated and compared with the English and Welsh Mental Capacity Act 2005 (the 2005 Act) through a discussion of how the principles in each of those Acts promotes particular ideologies of decision making. Finally, the article examines recent Scottish case law relating to the 2000 Act and discusses how the courts are currently interpreting the principles of the Act.     

Dancing across difference: Experience and identity in the classroom

This article uses Liquid Sky to consider the possibilities of feminist reorientations outside of formal and political orthodoxies and suggests that such disengagements from the dominant are alienated from the utopian rather than re-imagined as transgressive modes of utopian resistance. These disengagements are theorized as a postpunk feminist dystopia: that is, a de-emancipatory system of gendered and aesthetic practices that spatio-sonically shapes queer female sexuality as extrinsic to social and sexual ideals. This dystopia specifically frames the lesbian subject as a bodily terrain of self-estrangement, and names the film's network of alienated corporeal, subcultural, and sonic space. Feminist dystopia ultimately describes female empowerment's precarious position in a sexual and sonic landscape of non-normativity and offers a way to visualize oppositional practices that do not readily correspond to liberation.     

The Role of Child Sexual Abuse Images in Coercive and Non-Coercive Relationships with Adolescents: A Thematic Review of the Literature

The objective of this article is to present a thematic review of literature that pertains to the role of child sexual abuse images in online coercive and non-coercive relationships with adolescents, synthesize and contextualize current research on this topic, and identify some of the complexities in the self-production of sexual images by adolescents and their potential use by offenders. This review examines why there is a trend for child abuse image production to be increasingly associated with adolescent self-produced sexual images and how this may be related to individual coercion, as well as changing social and Internet contexts. Practitioners need to understand the technological and social affordances offered by the Internet, particularly in relation to the ability to produce sexual images, as part of a more ecological approach to understanding online abuse and exploitation.     

When Trust Matters: The Case of Gun Control

Political Behavior - Declining trust in government is often cited as the cause of declining support for policies that require ideological sacrifices. Yet pivotal to the effect of trust is the...