Industrial concentration in Europe

The European Union has been trying to achieve its long-term goals through partnerships and cooperation with other like-minded global actors. Africa (through its regional institutional body, the African Union) has been the first and only multilateral entity with which the EU has forged a long-term partnership. Despite its rhetorical language, the Africa--EU Strategic Partnership is unlikely to upgrade the political and economic interaction between the two partners. In the past few years, serious rifts have grown between the EU and its African counterparts concerning trade agreements and development policies. Moreover, new actors have made significant inroads in Africa, providing an alternative to its long-standing dependence on Europe.     

Italy and monetary events of 1971

The many regional and intrastate wars and conflicts have contributed significantly to Africa's overall economic, political and strategic marginalisation in world affairs. The AU's new African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) is designed to provide conflict prevention, peace-keeping and peace-building on the continent, but lacks autonomy. The UN, EU, G8 countries, China and, to some extent, NATO and India are active players on the African peace and security scene and are engaged in assisting APSA's operationalisation. But the multiplicity of actors, the magnitude of resources involved and the enormity of the challenges point to the need to enhance coordination by setting up a single entry point for channeling international assistance. Having provided the most funding to date, and with its strong strategic ties with Africa and its extensive participation in other regional and global fora, the EU is best equipped to coordinate support to minimise wasteful duplication, ensure synergy in developing the APSA and implementing its mandate.     

The Management of Power in Municipalities: Psychoanalytically Informed Negotiation

The paper takes the view that the psychoanalytic process is a form of negotiation or mutually constructed reality and applies these clinical insights to dispute resolution between two municipal entities: a fire department and a city government. The success of the mediation process is described as depending on the disputants' developing awareness of the impact of power struggles on their own thinking and functioning, and how group dynamics shape perceptions. Operating as a change agent, the mediator needs to be aware of three commonly recurring issues that interfere with the negotiation process: transference/counter-transference enactments, enactment by fundamental attribution error, self-serving enactments, and self fulfilling enactments. Vignettes are given to illustrate these conceptual issues.     

Commodities and economic growth

The process of social integration of the people associated with immigrant organisations, and the social (and potentially religious) change that comes with it, present the organisations with the difficult challenge of justifying their legitimacy to various societal actors. This is certainly true of Muslim organisations in Western immigration societies. In Germany, this process is quite clearly reflected within the community of established organisations, which play a part in creating intergenerational change. This is not to say, however, that they will be the only relevant – or even the predominant – actors involved in establishing Islam in Germany in the future, despite their roots in their countries of origin, nor that they will automatically become redundant over time.     

The Role of Forensic Botany in Solving a Case: Scientific Evidence on the Falsification of a Crime Scene

Forensic botany can provide useful information for pathologists, particularly on crime scene investigation. We report the case of a man who arrived at the hospital and died shortly afterward. The body showed widespread electrical lesions. The statements of his brother and wife about the incident aroused a large amount of suspicion in the investigators. A crime scene investigation was carried out, along with a botanical morphological survey on small vegetations found on the corpse. An autopsy was also performed. Botanical analysis showed some samples of Xanthium spinosum, thus leading to the discovery of the falsification of the crime scene although the location of the true crime scene remained a mystery. The botanical analysis, along with circumstantial data and autopsy findings, led to the discovery of the real crime scene and became crucial as part of the legal evidence regarding the falsity of the statements made to investigators.     

The power of presentation: How attire,cosmetics, and posture impact the source credibility of women expert witnesses

Gender stereotypes may negatively affect perceptions of women professionals' credibility, including forensic experts. This study investigated the impact of behavior-based and appearance-based factors on women expert witness's credibility. Jury-eligible adults were shown one of 16 conditions depicting a woman expert which varied based on combinations of three primary independent variables: (1) attire, (2) cosmetic use, and (3) posture. Expert attractiveness and participants' sexist attitudes served as covariates. Results revealed that women experts were seen as marginally more credible when wearing a skirt suit with a closed posture stance than when wearing a pant suit with a closed posture. Secondary analyses indicated expert attractiveness and participant sexist attitudes accounted for the most variability in credibility scores. Credibility of women expert witnesses may be impacted by irrelevant peripheral cues. Findings can inform discussions aimed at mitigating extraneous factors that inadvertently undermine the reception of women expert witness testimony.     

Social capital,individual disorders and property offences

This paper examines the relevance to delinquency of social capital that is directly embedded in the relationships that teenagers have with peers, parents, and those in positions of authority and those indirect social capital that teenagers may benefit due their parents' relations with their school or friends. The analysis employs data from the Canadian National Survey of Children. The study shows that personality traits are the most important predictors of property offences. Nevertheless, we also show the importance of social relationships embedded directly in individuals themselves and these are more important than those embedded indirectly through their family. Well connected youth with good friends and quality teachers commit significantly less property offences when controlling for personality traits and parents' social capital.