Logging in Muddy Waters: The Politics of Forest Exploitation in Cambodia

“Logging in Muddy Waters” analyzes the boom in forest exploitation that characterized the 1990s in Cambodia, focusing on the instrumentalization of disorder and violence as a mode of control of forest access and timber-trading channels. The article examines tensions existing between the aspirations of Cambodians for a better life, the power politics of elites, and the hope of some in the international community for a green and democratic peace. These tensions have produced both an interlocking pattern of “illegal logging” from the highest levels of the state to self-demobilized soldiers and peasants and sustained criticism that was only temporarily resolved through a legalization of the forest sector that benefited large-scale companies to the prejudice of the poor.     

Trajectories of Administrative Reform: Institutions,Timing and Choices in France and Spain

The influence of national administrative institutions on contemporary reforms has often been noted but insufficiently tested. This article enriches the comparative perspective of administrative reform policies by focusing on four interrelated dimensions: the choices of reformers, institutional constraints, timing and sequencing and long-term trajectories. This article tries to determine whether most similar administrative systems exhibit analogous contemporary reform trajectories in content, timing and sequence. By comparing the administrative reform policies of two ‘most similar’ Napoleonic countries, France and Spain, this article analyses the commonalities and divergences of decentralisation, territorial state reorganisation, civil service reforms and policies that focus on performance management and organisational design. The article identifies the ‘causal mechanisms’ that characterise the specific role of institutions and considers both the role of context and the importance of policy intersections.     

Personality and repeated suicide attempts in dependent adolescents and young adults

This study compared personality characteristics of subjects with dependence disorders who had previously made a suicide attempt. The population, recruited in France, Belgium, and Switzerland, was composed of 570 subjects (225 females, 345 males, mean age = 27.3, SD = 8.5). The subjects' psychological dimensions were investigated by means of several self-report questionnaires including: BDI-13 (Beck), Sensation-Seeking Scale (Zuckerman), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Taylor), Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (Hirschfeld), MMPI-2, and some additional scales. For most dimensions, repeat attempters, both past and recent, but more specifically the recent repeaters, had a more severe psychological profile compared to the other suicide attempters.     

Blood levels of 3-methylfentanyl in 3 fatal poisoning cases

Three fatal poisoning cases due to 3-methylfentanyl are described. In each case, the death was accidental and occurred after injection of the opioid combined with amphetamine, heroin, or other drugs. The victims' ages, ranging from 30 to 41 years, were higher than those typically found in heroin poisonings in Finland. The blood concentrations of cis-3-methylfentanyl, measured here for the first time by a specific tandem mass spectrometric method, ranged from 0.3 to 0.9 microg/L (mean 0.5 microg/L). These values are significantly lower than the levels reported for alpha-methylfentanyl and fentanyl in fatal poisonings. Repeated seizures of fentanyl and its analogs have been reported in Europe close to the Russian border.     

Study of the diagnostic value of iron in fresh water drowning

The aim of our study was to test the diagnostic value of iron (Fe) in fresh water drowning by investigating the postmortem levels of hemodilution in drowning cases compared to control cases. Twenty-six typical fresh water drowning cases were selected from 128 immersion cases autopsied in our Department of Forensic Pathology between 1998 and 2004. The exclusion criteria were a long postmortem interval and other causes of death than drowning. For all selected cases, the diagnosis of drowning was based on the presence of autopsy findings and positive diatom test. A control population of 12 cases was also selected. For each drowning and control case, iron blood levels were measured in the left ventricle (LV) and right ventricle (RV) of the heart. The mean difference of iron concentration (RVFe-LVFe) between the drowning group and the control group was statistically compared. Furthermore, iron measurements were performed in 19 drowning cases showing advanced putrefaction. The mean difference of iron concentration was significantly higher in the drowning cases compared with controls (P<0.001). All drowning cases showed hemodilution. No overlap was found in the RVFe-LVFe levels between the two groups. Resuscitation attempts seemed to have no effect on the results. In cases of drowning showing advanced putrefaction, the iron test was not reliable because biochemical iron measurement was often prevented by no sufficient blood in the heart or postmortem clots. In conclusion, according to our results, iron seems to be a good biochemical marker in fresh water drowning with a short postmortem interval.     

Suicide by intracerebellar ballpoint pen

Self-inflicted eye injuries among psychiatric patients are relatively common. Transorbital penetrating traumas are more rare but if undiagnosed may cause lethal intracranial lesions. We report a fatal case of a 25-year-old schizophrenic man who introduced a plastic ballpoint pen through his right orbit up to the cerebellum. The computed tomography findings were misinterpreted as a penetrating track from a bullet. The patient died 4 days after the trauma, and the causative object was identified only at autopsy. When no precise information about an apparently trivial ocular trauma is available, clinicians and investigators must adequately consider, especially in psychiatric patients, the possibility of an intracranial penetrating lesion.     

An unusual oxidation type on bulb filament after a car crash dive

A car with two dead bodies trapped inside was discovered in a gravel pit. The main hypothesis of investigators was a traffic accident simulation by night. Examination of a broken light-bulb revealed both a rather unusual oxidation type and small rounded cavities never reported before. Tests were performed and allowed forensic scientists to establish that the lightbulbs were switched on during the crash dive, in contrast with the investigators idea.     

Evaluation in France,a Component of Territorial Public Action

Evaluation practices developed in France, especially by local authorities and above all by regional councils, provide an interesting opportunity to examine from the inside the way public policies are constructed. Taking evaluation practices seriously as a subject of study reminds us, in a way, of the necessary empiricism needed to analyse public policies. At a time when this discipline experiences, at least in France, a surge in conceptual proposals, the point of view expressed here aims to point out the necessary modesty we have to show in the face of the complexity of the subjects studied and of the usefulness of evaluation practices to explain territorial public policies.     

The political economy of targeting

One of the most widely used method of targeting is to reduce welfare benefits as income rises. Although the need for such targeting is clear enough, it also entails two important difficulties. Firstly, the prospect for the recipients of losing part of their benefits if they were to earn more can be a deterrent to work harder. Secondly, by reducing the number of recipients, targeting reduces the political support for taxation and redistribution. The purpose of this paper is to study the voting equilibrium of the degree of targeting and the level of taxation in an economy where labour supply is variable. The analysis reveals that targeting may be fatal for redistribution even though it rejects strictly less than the richest half of the population, and that it is not possible for a coalition of the extremes to form and reject the middle income group from the welfare system. Moreover, because targeting affects labour supply, we find that Pareto improvements are possible when targeting is either “too low” or “too high”. We also find that voting simultaneously over taxation and targeting is favourable to the poor in the sense that they can converge to their most-preferred policy by successively forming a majority coalition with the rich to increase targeting and with the middle to increase taxation.     

Trading in Dordoi and Lilo bazaars: frontiers of formality,entrepreneurship and globalization

ABSTRACT

Cross-border trade is central to the socio-economic structure of the former Soviet republics and their integration in the world economy. In the Caucasus and Central Asia, bazaars have functioned as nodes that enable multi-directional, cross-border trade. While there have been studies on the bazaar trade in the Soviet successor states, few have used quantitative methods. Drawing from 600 structured interviews with traders in Dordoi (Bishkek) and Lilo (Tbilisi), the data from Dordoi highlight the relationship between informality and entrepreneurship, unlike Lilo, where there are clearer markers of formality, but where bazaar trade also seems to be less profitable. The data from the 600 interviews illustrate that Dordoi functions as a globalized trading hub, its transnational linkages forged by the bazaar traders and the buyers themselves. By contrast, trade in Lilo is more localized. Hence, ‘globalization from below’ presents itself differently across the post-Soviet space.