The Mediterranean: Migration Corridor,Border Spectacle,Ethical Landscape

Talk of a ‘migration crisis’ calls forth three related spatial renderings of the Mediterranean Sea. Their social production involves a particular politics of visualization. First, the Mediterranean is but one leg of a longer migration corridor, yet as such substantiates a geo-racial border zone. Second, scenes of rescue at sea have functioned as border spectacles, naturalizing migration politics. Third, expanding surveillance infrastructure has undermined a firewall between border patrolling and search-and-rescue, thereby helping to create and sustain an ethical landscape of response-ability to routinized emergency. Visualizing and disseminating this landscape has, for the moment, created a political space between wanted and unwanted mobilities.     

Fuel for thought? South Africa's position on the multilateralisation of the nuclear fuel cycle

The proponents of international nuclear fuel banks maintain that these banks will contribute to nuclear non-proliferation, whereas those opposing it maintain that nuclear weapon states support these banks in order to control and multilateralise the nuclear fuel cycle, thus preventing developing states from developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Global inequalities pertaining to nuclear energy continue to persist despite developing states’ efforts to reform the international nuclear energy regime. Moreover, some developing states maintain that these nuclear fuel banks perpetuate inequality in international relations. This is one of the reasons why some leading developing states, such as Brazil and South Africa, oppose these banks. South Africa, for example, intends to re-establish its nuclear fuel cycle and has declared uranium a strategic resource. Against the aforesaid, this article, following a constructivist approach, analyses the emergence and social construction of nuclear fuel banks as a practical expression of nuclear non-proliferation norms. The discussion also considers the inter-subjective understanding of these banks, as well as South Africa’s opposition to them. The article concludes with an analysis of the implications of these opposing views for global equity, equality, nuclear non-proliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.     

Weak Enforcement,Strong Deterrence: Dialogues with Chinese Lawyers About Tax Evasion and Compliance

This article analyzes why Chinese lawyers report a high level of perceived deterrence in relation to tax evasion even though enforcement is weak. It finds that deterrence here originates from multiple sources, most directly through clients and more distantly through the firm and the state. Lawyers have highly contextual notions of detection probability and a vague understanding of sanction severity unfitting of the high deterrence found here. In the cases studied, deterrence arises out of a general fear lawyers have of state authorities and clients, as well as through personal morals and social norms in their firms. This shows a broader and deeper approach to deterrence, beyond certainty and severity of punishment for the violation studied, one in which the general perceived risk of such violation is central, whatever its source.     

Improving Children’s Interviewing Methods? The Effects of Drawing and Practice on Children’s Memories for an Event

In the present experiment, we were interested in the effects of drawings and practice on children’s memory performance. Younger (6/7-year-olds; n = 37) and older (11/12-year-olds; n = 44) children were presented with two videos that differed in complexity. Half of the children had to practice recalling an experienced event (i.e., last holiday) before remembering the two videos. The other half was not presented with such practice. Then, all children had to tell what they could still recollect about the first video. For the second video, all children were allowed to draw and tell during the recollection of the event. As expected, we found that for the complex video, making a drawing increased the completeness of children’s statements, but also reduced the accuracy of their statements. Although we found that including practice reduced the completeness of statements, it did not negatively impact the accuracy of children’s memory reports. Taken together, our results imply that interviewers should be cautious in using drawings as an interviewing method as it might elevate the production of incorrect information.     

Prosocial Behavior and Public Service Motivation

Although research on public service motivation (PSM) is vast, there is little evidence regarding the effects of PSM on observable behavior. This article contributes to the understanding of the behavioral implications of PSM by investigating whether PSM is associated with prosocial behavior. Moreover, it addresses whether and how the behavior of other group members influences this relationship. The article uses the experimental setting of the public goods game, run with a sample of 263 students, in combination with survey‐based PSM measures. A positive link is found between PSM and prosocial behavior. This relationship is moderated by the behavior of other group members: high‐PSM people act even more prosocially when the other members of the group show prosocial behavior as well, but they do not do so if the behavior of other group members is not prosocial.     

National Varieties of Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs): A Comparative Analysis of PPP-Supporting Units in 19 European Countries

Most countries that have adopted the public–private partnership (PPP) model as a means of implementing infrastructure projects have launched dedicated supporting units to guide policy development and stimulate project implementation. This paper draws on the theoretical notion of PPP-enabling fields to carry out a comparative analysis of the roles and functions of PPP-supporting units across 19 European countries with varying PPP experiences. We distinguish four categories of national support of PPPs, from skeptical systems of zero support to full-fledged PPP systems. Furthermore, we take initial steps to analyze the possible link between national differences in institutionalized PPP support and the amount of implemented PPP projects. Finally, pathways for further research on PPP-supporting units are discussed.     

Familial Vehicular Murder‐Suicide

A certain number of single‐vehicle crashes into stationary roadside objects such as trees are thought to be occult suicides. However, is it possible that some cases of multiple deaths within a family in similar crashes are due to unrecognized familial murder‐suicides? A 39‐year‐old woman and her 11‐year‐old daughter are reported who died of injuries following a vehicle impact with a tree. Unusual behavior of the mother leading up to the crash, and assessment at the scene, raised the possibility of this being a nonaccidental event. However, difficulties in retrospectively determining the intent of a driver in a vehicle crash, and the nonrecording of, or lack of separate coding for murder‐suicides on registers, make determination of the incidence of these types of events extremely difficult. It may be that this is a subcategory of murder‐suicide that is underdiagnosed and so is not being registered on central motor vehicle crash databases.     

An economic approach on countering the misuse of the right to challenge judges: an experiment

Parties can challenge a judge (request a recusal) when they have reasons to believe that a judge is not impartial. In practice this procedure is sometimes abused by lawyers who, for example, want to delay proceedings. Countries have taken different measures to deter the improper use of the procedure to request a recusal, like fines for dismissed requests, or immediately dismissing evidently unfounded requests. In a laboratory experiment we examine the effects of a summary review whether a challenge is evidently unfounded, with or without fines. We find that a review without fine improves legal protection in practice as well as efficiency by reducing unfounded challenges and increasing challenges that have a substantial chance of success. Overall the number of challenges declines. With a fine, challenges decline, but also legal protection.     

Understanding China's Court Mediation Surge: Insights from a Local Court

This article seeks to understand how reported mediation rates in Chinese courts are produced and what they actually signify. It analyzes data obtained through prolonged fieldwork at a court in central China. The article finds that the court has directly responded to central level mediation incentives by enhancing its overall mediation rate. It has done so strategically by seeking the highest increase using the fullest discretion in the mediation incentive structure and seeking to optimize the highest rate at the lowest cost and risk to the court. This has undermined the objectives of the central level incentives toward mediation, while also drawing the courts' scarce resources away toward unnecessary mediation practices, in part far removed from the courtroom. The article concludes by drawing out broader theoretical conclusions about how information asymmetries, discretion, and goal displacement play out in hierarchical control structures of authoritarian courts.