Courage,regulatory responsibility,and the challenge of higher‐order reflexivity

Contemporary regulators must respond to ever‐increasing societal demands in various domains. Regulators must cope with these demands under conditions of extreme epistemic scarcity and ideological divide. This leaves regulators perplexed about what action they should take. Regulatory praxis offers two primary responses to this moral and epistemic dilemma: technical canonization and reflexive regulation. While these two approaches represent contrary regulatory philosophies, they suffer from two common blind spots: (a) disregard of the critical role of discretionary judgment in regulatory action; and (b) disregard of the dilemma of higher‐order reflexivity. The article explores the idea of higher‐order reflexivity in the regulatory context. This exploration renders visible the abysses that are faced by regulators as they attempt to resolve regulatory dilemmas through a cognizant and introspective process. The article argues that the Socratic concept of courage and the idea of forward‐looking responsibility provide a plausible framework for thinking about the challenge of regulatory judgment. It concludes with a discussion of the legal and institutional mechanisms that could both facilitate and put to scrutiny the realization of this ideal (but noting also several features of the contemporary regulatory system which constitute potential barriers).     

浅论刑事被害人的权利保障

刑事被害人没有上诉权、最后陈述权,刑事被害人委托诉讼代理人的权利没有得到充分保障;被害人诉讼代理人的阅卷权和对强制措施的异议权存在不完善之处。我们应通过修改法律,保障刑事被害人及其诉讼代理人的上述权利。在刑事诉讼过程中,应避免造成新的侵害,对程序被害人的重大损失应给予赔偿。在刑事附带民事诉讼过程中,应允许被害人提出精神损害赔偿,并保障被害人得到充足的赔偿;在被害人无法从犯罪人处得到充分赔偿时,则应通过国家补偿制度防止被害人及其亲属因为犯罪行为而陷入生活的困顿。     

Exploring the potential of stricter gun restrictions for people with serious mental illness to reduce homicide in the United States

This study explores the potential that current efforts to limit access to firearms for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) have for reducing overall rates of murder by firearm in the United States. Official arrest, court and health records provided data on personal and offense characteristics of 95 individuals with SMI and 423 without, all of whom had been convicted of murder in the State of Indiana between 1990 and 2002. Bivariate analyses examined differences between the two groups and logistic regression models examined the relationship between SMI and offense characteristics. Compared to those without, a relatively small proportion of convicted murderers had a diagnosis indicating SMI. The presence of SMI was associated with reduced likelihood of targeting a stranger and was not associated with having multiple-victims or firearm use. Focusing on access to firearms exclusively by individuals with SMI will have little impact on multiple-victim or firearm-related homicides.     

电话网络诈骗案件中受害人研究

目的 在电话网络诈骗高发背景下开展对诈骗受害人心理等特征研究,深入了解此类犯罪,为此类犯罪的控制和预防策略制定提供依据。方法 采用案例回顾法对255例网络电信诈骗案件受害人特征进行研究和分析。结果 网络电信诈骗案件受害人中女性占51.6%,男性占48.4%,平均年龄29.75岁,学历分布在各个层次中。根据受害人表现的突出心理特征,分为“突陷困境后主动避难”类,占总数29%;“帮助他人”类案件,占总数23.1%;“期望好运气”类案件,占总数20.4%;“过渡信任网络交易安全”,占总数27.5%等。有40.4%的案件冒用警察等权威职业身份进行犯罪活动。研究证实受害人学历高低与信任和服从权威职业无统计学关系（F=4.627,P=0.201）。“期望好运气”受害人群有年龄差异,青年人更容易受骗。（F=32.4,P〈0.001）。结论 诈骗案件受害人特征与传统认识不同。受骗后存在急性应激心理、利他心理、服从权威、期望好运气等复杂的心理特征表现。     

Twenty years of femicide in Milan: A retrospective medicolegal analysis

Femicide constitutes a leading cause of premature deaths for women, yet it has been the subject of limited research until recently. Enhanced data collection and analysis on killings of women and girls are necessary to understand and address this unrelenting phenomenon. This study examines all cases of female homicide encountered at the Institute of Legal Medicine of Milan (Italy) spanning from 1999 to 2019; data from 2020/2021 were shown separately given the bias that the forced cohabitation and stay at home during the lockdowns of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic may represent regarding violence against women and femicide. In this study, specific factors were considered, including the age and nationality of the victims, the place of recovery of the bodies, the victim’s relationship to the perpetrator and the injuries they suffered. As a result, 200 female killings were found among the over 15,000 autopsies and 535 homicides investigated at the Institute of Legal Medicine of Milan from 1999 to 2019, representing an average of 9.5 femicides yearly. The majority of victims were Italian (74%) and half were aged between 18 and 49 years old. The killings were overwhelmingly committed in the domestic setting (78.5%) by male perpetrators (at least 85%), related to the victims as intimate or ex-intimate partners and members of the family (73.5%). The homicides were mainly perpetrated with sharp (32%) or blunt instruments (21.5%), shooting (18.5%) and asphyxiation (16.5%). This study is part of a growing effort to enhance data collection and analysis on femicide. Studying and monitoring the rates of femicide (or “femicide watch”) will permit to better understand, reduce, and finally end femicide globally.     

IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL? POST‐CONFLICT STATEBUILDING,PEACEBUILDING, AND THE GOOD GOVERNANCE AGENDA IN TIMOR‐LESTE

Statebuilding after conflict often entails liberal peacebuilding measures. The end of the UN mission in post‐conflict Timor‐Leste in December 2012 provides a unique opportunity to investigate statebuilding in practice. The liberal peacebuilding agenda has met with stiff academic resistance—mainly from the critical theorist camp—and is questioned as an appropriate measure of …statebuilding success. We deploy instead the good governance (GG) agenda as a hybrid local‐liberal guide. Drawing on field work, interviews, and secondary documents, we investigate what we see as four key, intertwined and overlapping aspects of GG: state capacity including the establishment of a state bureaucracy, participation and the engagement of civil society, institution building and rule of law, and corruption control and transparency. We note GG provides a useful policy heuristic, while abstract “one‐size‐fits‐all” liberal peacebuilding models, which avoid the complexities of machinery of government issues, the time taken to develop institutions, and historical and contextual environments of countries, are likely to face severe problems. New states may be dependent on external forces to maintain monopoly of violence. The reversibility and uncertainty of statebuilding and the decades‐long commitment needed by international agencies are noted. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE OPERATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF RESULTS‐BASED FINANCING

As part of a growing focus on the effectiveness of development assistance from the World Bank and other agencies, new efforts are being made to relate development finance more closely to outcomes achieved rather than to inputs used, through the results‐based financing approach. We provide a framework for analyzing the operational dimensions of results‐based financing, including the conditions that suit this approach, and how best to define, measure, and report results. We review some of the early World Bank experience with this approach. Noting that this approach is as yet not fully tested, we suggest evaluative issues for future research while highlighting strengths and challenges in the range of techniques adopted so far. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gamson rule not for all: Patterns of portfolio allocation among Italian party factions

This article investigates the dynamics of portfolio allocation within political parties to shed light on the patterns of conflict and cooperation between rival party factions. It provides a game‐theoretic model that helps in explaining differences in portfolio allocation due to alternative modes of party organisation or party system competitiveness. Focusing on party congresses to estimate the number, strength and policy positions of party factions, the Italian case is analysed by testing some hypotheses generated by the theoretical model. The results shown that, overall, spoils are shared in proportion to the strength of each faction, in line with the prediction of Gamson's Law. However, there are also some important deviations from this path. Rules that foster party leaders' autonomy in fact provide them with a higher degree of discretion that will be used to reward their followers and to ward off any credible and harmful threat to party unity. Indeed, strategic portfolio allocation might balance out a lower amount of policy payoffs and becomes a strategy to restrain minorities from breaking away, thus contributing to the preservation of party unity in highly competitive political systems.     

Elements of Successful Change: The Service Tasmania Experience to Public Sector Reform

For Tasmanians accessing Government services has traditionally required visits to various Lead Agency locations, as service delivery was fragmented and bureaucratic. The Tasmanian Government adopted a customer‐focused approach implementing ‘Service Tasmania’ a One‐Stop‐Shop service delivery concept. This paper investigates what led to the success of this public service reform and in particular what change management practices were applied during the change effort. Ten common factors of successful change have been identified in the literature; these are explored determining their relevance throughout this initiative. Data were collected with semi‐structured interviews conducted with 63 staff plus senior management. Data were analysed using a grounded theory approach and open coding was applied during the first pass through the data to reach the initial codes identifying critical terms and generic key issues. Findings confirm that several management interventions were necessary to address resistance and conflict issues and keep the government reform project on track.