Offending Frequency and Responses to Illegal Monetary Incentives

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - We examine how responsive offenders are to illegal monetary incentives. We draw from rational choice theory, prospect theory, and models of labor supply to...     

Islamism and the state after the Arab uprisings: Between people power and state power

This paper examines the trajectories of different Islamist trends in the light of the Arab uprisings. It proposes a distinction between statist and non-statist Islamism to help understand the multiplicity of interactions between Islamists and the state, particularly after 2011. It is outlined how statist Islamists (Islamist parties principally) can contribute to the stabilization and democratization of the state when their interactions with other social and political actors facilitate consensus building in national politics. By contrast when these interactions are conflictual, it has a detrimental impact on both the statist Islamists, and the possibility of democratic politics at the national level. Non statist-Islamists (from quietist salafi to armed jihadi) who prioritize the religious community over national politics are directly impacted by the interactions between statist Islamists and the state, and generally tend to benefit from the failure to build a consensus over democratic national politics. Far more than nationally-grounded statist Islamists, non-statist Islamists shape and are shaped by the regional dynamics on the Arab uprisings and the international and transnational relations between the different countries and conflict areas of the Middle East. The Arab uprisings and their aftermath reshaped pre-existing national and international dynamics of confrontation and collaboration between Islamists and the state, and between statist and non-statists Islamists, for better (Tunisia) and for worse (Egypt).     

Retropharyngeal Hematoma Secondary to Cervical Spine Surgery: Report of One Fatal Case

A 53‐year‐old woman suffering from radicular pain due to cervical herniation underwent a spinal surgery consisting of anterior cervical discectomy and fusion with an implantable titanium cage. Five hours after the procedure, the patient developed cervical swelling and dyspnea. An emergency surgery permitted evacuation of a deep cervical hematoma and intubation of the patient, who died some minutes later. The family of the deceased lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor because of unclear circumstances of death. After analysis of the medical records by two forensic pathologists, a medicolegal autopsy was ordered. Massive retropharyngeal and mediastinal hematomas were diagnosed. Pathological study confirmed acute cervical hemorrhage, but failed to detect the source of bleeding. The forensic pathologists concluded that death was due to mechanical asphyxia secondary to pharyngeal compression by the cervical hematoma. To the best of our knowledge, death secondary to retropharyngeal hematoma in this neurosurgical context is rarely encountered.     

Washington’s Cold War Diplomacy in Italy in the 1970s

This article examines Washington’s cold war diplomacy in Italy as a case study of policy making. Italy caused concerns to US leaders throughout the cold war because of its strong and dynamic communist party (PCI). Worries became even more acute in the 1970s after the PCI spelled out its “historic compromise” strategy whose objective was to propel the communists into cabinet positions within a broad coalition government. How did the White House, Foggy Bottom, the Rome embassy, the CIA and Congress view such a development and who got the final word? How strong were domestic factors? This paper tries to analyze the differences in opinions and their influence in policy making.     

An Integrated Theory of Budgetary Politics and Some Empirical Tests: The U.S. National Budget, 1791–2010

We develop a general theory of budgetary politics and examine its implications on a new data set on U.S. government expenditures from 1791 to 2010. We draw on three major approaches to budgeting: decision‐making theories, primarily incrementalism and serial processing; policy process models; and path dependency. We show that the incrementalist budget model is recursive and that its solution is exponential growth, and isolate three periods in which it operates in pure form. The equilibrium periods are separated by critical junctures, associated with wars or economic collapse. We assess policy process dynamics by examining the deviations within equilibrium periods. We offer three takeaways: (1) exponential incrementalism is fundamental to a theory of budgeting; (2) disjoint shifts in the level of exponential incrementalism are caused only by critical moments; (3) temporally localized dynamics cause bends in the exponential path, longer returns to the path within budgetary eras, and annual punctuations in budget changes.     

Constructive Ambiguity: Comparing the EU’s Energy and Defence Policies

This article explores the paradox of constructive ambiguity. Based on a focused, longitudinal comparison of the European Union’s energy and defence policies, it analyses the role played by strategies of ambiguity in European integration. Ambiguity is found to be an attractive strategy for political entrepreneurs when member state preferences are heterogeneous and the EU’s legal basis is weak. It is likely to be effective, however, only if it is embedded in an institutional opportunity structure – that is, a formal-legal context – that entrepreneurs can fold into their strategic repertoire of ideas. While ambiguity can be strategic in circumstances where clarity would create strong opposition, it is not sufficient to entrench a European policy if it does not rest on an institutional basis. This suggests that European political entrepreneurs should be wary of relying on coalition building by ambiguity only.     

Personality traits,political attitudes and the propensity to vote

This article examines the link between personality traits, political attitudes and the propensity to vote in elections, using an Internet panel survey conducted in two Canadian provinces at the time of the 2008 federal election and the subsequent provincial elections. It first establishes that the two most proximate attitudes that shape one's propensity to vote are political interest and sense of civic duty. The article then look at specific personality traits (altruism, shyness, efficacy and conflict avoidance) that could affect level of political interest, civic duty and the propensity to vote in elections. In the last part of the analysis, a model is proposed and tested, according to which the impact of personality traits is indirect, being mediated by interest and duty. The article shows that the data are consistent with such an interpretation.