Of change,training and public affairs in Europe

European public affairs practitioners need to be increasingly professional in their reactions to an EU undergoing transformational change. The paper offers a comprehensive summary of the subtleties of institutional change in Commission, Parliament and Council in 2004. In particular, the author argues that expansion from 15 member states to 25 has fundamentally changed the nature of the Union's politics and the skills required to influence it. This new EU requires more of practitioners than experience and amateur instinct: to achieve results and avoid restrictive regulation, the public affairs community must adopt effective training strategies, challenging competence targets and regular self‐assessment of its performance and ethics. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

家族祭祀制度中的女性--对桂东南客家家族某村落的考察

国内外学者对于中国家族制度的研究已有多方面的成果,这些研究着重探讨家族制度与社会、民族、国家之间的关系。以往对家族制度文化的研究基本上是站在父权制的立场上进行的,长期以来,女性在家族制度中的地位和作用和女性自己的声音被普遍忽视。文章采用了女性研究中的访谈调查法和个案研究法,在获得的田野资料和吸收前人研究成果的基础上,尝试以社会性别的角度切入家族这一社会组织民俗中,通过对桂东南一个客家家族的个案分析,探讨家族祭祀制度与女性之间的关系。研究发现,家族祭祀体系中女性祖先的地位与男性祖先没有本质上的区别,传统的社会性别制度决定了血缘女性宗亲不可能获得与男性同等的地位。     

论禁止双重危险原则中的同一性问题——以美国法律实践为视角

禁止双重危险原则是刑事诉讼中保障被告人合法权益的重要制度设计。美国法院在执行这一原则时先后使用了同一要素标准、同一行为标准及同一证据标准。之所以出现如此反复,是美国司法实践在犯罪事实及刑罚对象认识方面不断深化的结果。我国刑事司法应当借鉴关国在禁止双重危险原则之同一性问题上的司法经验,合理优化吸收犯与牵连犯理论,落实罪刑相适应原则。     

Can We Blame it on Rio?

The Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games were the last major sporting event in a decade‐long cycle in the Brazilian metropolis. In the years leading up to the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games, the city's urban planning agenda was captured by the exogenous demands of hosting the quadrennial spectacular. This capture has exacerbated four tendencies that will pertain in Rio de Janeiro for the foreseeable future: consolidation of consumer sovereignty, restructuring of urban circulations, financialisation of urban territories, and securitisation of exception.     

交通肇事罪中“因逃逸致人死亡”问题探讨

新刑法对交通肇事罪进行了比较重要的修改,涉及到的“逃逸致人死亡”问题,在理论上争议颇多。本文将交通肇事罪中被害人最终死亡的具体情形一一作了分析、排除,借鉴日本刑法中的有益理论,将“逃逸”行为单独评价,以结合犯观点来理解新刑法中所作的修改。     

Migration Pessimism and the Subjective Well‐Being of Migrant Households in Mexico

A new migration pessimism argues that the economic benefits of international labour migration for migrant households may not justify the social costs. This article provides a test of this argument based on the author's survey of 304 households in Jerez municipio (municipality), Zacatecas, Mexico, in 2009. The results indicate that active households (those with at least one migrant abroad) perceived their economic situation to have improved more, but both their social cohesion and their happiness to be less than those of non‐active households. Social cohesion (family unity and maintenance of values) is shown to be pivotal in the happiness differential enjoyed by the non‐active households.     

B. F. Skinner's utopian vision: behind and beyond walden two

This paper addresses B. F. Skinner's utopian vision for enhancing social justice and human well‐being as it was introduced in his 1948 novel, Walden Two. In the first part, we address the historical, intellectual, and social context that situates the book in the utopian genre, the critiques of its premises and practices, and the fate of intentional communities patterned on the book. In the second part, we review practices in Skinner's book that advance social justice and human well‐being under the themes of health, wealth, and wisdom, and then focus on contemporary practices that are the legacy of his vision. His vision was neither the a priori truth of a particular premise about human behavior or a necessary practice (blueprint) for an intentional community but rather the use of empirical methods to discover premises and practices that work to advance the health, wealth, and wisdom of individuals and survival of the culture.     

Estimating Individual Contributions to Complex DNA SNP Mixtures.,

High‐throughput sequencing (HTS) of large panels of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) provides an alternative or complimentary approach to short tandem repeats (STRs) panels for the analysis of complex DNA mixture forensic samples. For STRs, methods to estimate individual contribution concentrations compare capillary electrophoresis peak heights, peak areas, or HTS allele read counts within a mixture. This article introduces three approaches (mean, median, and slope methods) for estimating individual DNA contributions to forensic mixtures for HTS/massively parallel sequencing (MPS) SNP panels. For SNPs, the major:minor allele ratios or counts, unique to each contributor, were compared to estimate contributor proportion within the mixture using the mean, median, and slope intercept for these alleles. The estimates for these three methods were typically within 5% of planned experimental contributions for defined mixtures.     

The Effects of Local Government Consolidation on Turnout: Evidence from a Quasi‐Experiment in Switzerland

In the last decades, municipal mergers have been one major element of local government reforms in Switzerland and beyond. In this article, we describe and analyze the political effects of this development. We use a quasi‐experimental setting to test the impact of municipal mergers on electoral participation. We find that in merged municipalities, the decrease in turnout is significantly stronger than in non‐merged municipalities. Further, the effect is more pronounced in relatively small localities. There is a temporal dimension to this effect—that is, turnout drops mainly in the first election after the first merger, but not so much after the second or third merger. Hence, the study provides a skeptical yet differentiated perspective on the democratic consequences of municipal mergers and points to further research avenues to develop a more comprehensive understanding of local government consolidation.     

The Impact of Child‐Parent Psychotherapy on Child Dependency Court Outcomes

Although parental compliance with court orders in child welfare cases is key to achieving physical parent‐child reunification and successful case closure, little research has examined how parent‐child relationship‐focused rehabilitative services uniquely influence case outcomes. This project fills this gap by investigating links between court ordering of and parental participation in Child‐Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) with court outcomes. Data were obtained from court records of 448 court‐involved parents. Hierarchical regressions revealed that greater participation in CPP led to reunification and successful case closure but not faster case closure. Courtroom professionals should consider parent‐child relationship‐based therapies as tools for achieving child welfare goals.