Mortgage fraud and organized crime in Canada: strategic intelligence brief

Natasha Tusikov, Acting Manager, National Research and Methodology Development Unit, Criminal Intelligence Service Canada - Central Bureau, Intelligence Analysis and Knowledge Development Branch, November 2007     

On the Legitimate Objectives of Criminalisation

We discuss and respond to the contributions of Tatjana Hörnle, John Kleinig, and John Stanton-Ife, and clarify some aspects of the arguments made in Crimes, Harms, and Wrongs.     

Grand Coalition and Multi-Party Competition: Explaining Slowing Reforms in Gender Policy in Germany (2009–13)

Since 2005, the Christian Democrats (CDU) modernised family and labour market policy by supporting gender equality. Recent explanations trace this back to their competition with the Social Democrats (SPD) for female voters. What is missing from these accounts is a discussion of coalition dynamics. We argue that the drive for modernisation faltered under Angela Merkel's second term for three reasons: (1) coalitional dynamics in the new Conservative–Liberal coalition; (2) the traditionalist CSU wanted to distinguish itself from the moderate impulses of the CDU; and (3) the CDU reacted by moving away from its former ‘social democratisation’. As a result, gender equality policies in the family and labour market slowed and developed increasing inconsistency by indicating not only openness for modern but also emphasising conservative ideas. Despite the inherent contradictions this appealed to many different voters and contributed to a substantial victory for the CDU in the federal election of 2013.     

Power‐Sharing in the World's Largest Democracy: Informal Consociationalism in India (and Its Decline?)

India is one of the most diverse countries of the world but operates with a majoritarian Westminster constitution and simple plurality electoral system, albeit also with a federal structure. It was eventually coded as consociational by Arend Lijphart (1996) but this coding was questioned by authors such as Wilkinson (2000) and Adeney (2002). This article assesses the nature of both de jure and de facto power‐sharing in India over its 70 years of independence and tracks the evolution of de jure and de facto power‐sharing in relation to four dimensions of diversity: religion, caste, territory and language. It questions whether the electoral success of Hindu nationalism and the increasing acceptance of ethnic majoritarianism has reduced the degree of power‐sharing in India.