The effectiveness of judicial instructions on eyewitness evidence in sensitizing jurors to suggestive identification procedures captured on video

Journal of Experimental Criminology - One of the legal safeguards designed to educate jurors about eyewitness evidence is judicial instructions. However, their effectiveness in sensitizing jurors...     

The Politico-Military Alliance of Russia and Belarus: Re-Examining the Role of NATO and the EU in Light of the Intra-Alliance Security Dilemma

This article examines Belarusian strategies in the bilateral politico-military alliance with Russia, focusing on the issue of recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in addition to the evolution of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. It argues that the approaches interpreting the alliance as a response to decisions of external actors cannot fully account for the disagreements between the parties. The analysis of Belarusian strategies demonstrates how the decisions of external actors, such as the European Union and to a certain extent the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, function as bargaining chips for the Belarusian leadership. Due to the intra-alliance security dilemma, external actors have at times even weakened the alliance rather than automatically inducing its cohesion.     

Women in Eastern Europe: Survey of literature

Since 1975 there has been a considerable increase in the amount of literature, written in English, about the status of women in Eastern Europe. In this article it is argued that the growth of interest is related to the re-emergence of the Women's Movement during the sixties when feminists were looking towards socialist states for role models and for strategies to guide the transition to sexual equality in the West. This article reviews the literature on women in Eastern Europe and considers the impact of Women's Studies on East European Studies as a whole.     

Ukraine,Russia and the strategic partnership dynamics in the EU’s eastern neighbourhood: recalibrating the EU’s ‘self’, ‘we’ and ‘other’

The present contribution explores the changing relationship between the European Union (EU) and the two largest countries in its eastern neighbourhood, namely Ukraine and Russia, between 1991 and 2014. Taking the differential between the existence of the EU Strategic Partnership (SP) with Russia and the absence of such an arrangement in the relationship with Ukraine as a point of departure, it investigates how the EU has dealt with different aspirations and challenges stemming from its two largest eastern neighbours. Adopting the Social Identity Theory perspective, the contribution analyses the interrelationship between the evolution of the EU’s SP approach towards the eastern neighbours and the development of (particular dimensions of) the EU’s identity. It demonstrates how the process of categorization relating to the ideational ‘self’, ‘we’ and ‘other’ took place; and how only the EU’s relationship with Russia and not that with Ukraine has accumulated the discursive markers of a strategic partnership. The contribution, furthermore, analyses the challenges to the EU changing approach stemming from the 2013–2014 Ukraine crisis.     

A review of the evolution and state of transboundary freshwater treaties

Internationally shared basins supply 60 % of global freshwater supply, are home to about 1/3 of the world’s population, and are focal points for interstate conflict and, as importantly, cooperation. To manage these waters, states have developed a large set of formal treaties, but until now these treaties have been difficult to access and systematically assess. This paper presents and makes publicly available the assembly and organization of the largest known collection of transboundary water agreements in existence. We apply for the first time a “lineage” concept to differentiate between independent agreements and groups of legally related texts, spatially reference the texts to a global basin database, and identify agreement purposes, goals and a variety of content areas. The 688 agreements identified were signed between 1820 and 2007 and constitute 250 independent treaties which apply to 113 basins. While the scope and content varies widely, these treaties nominally govern almost 70 % of the world’s transboundary basin area. In terms of content, treaties have shifted from an earlier focus on regulation and development of water resources to the management of resources and the setting of frameworks for that management. While “traditional” issues such as hydropower, water allocation and irrigation are still important, the environment is now the most commonly mentioned issue in treaty texts. Treaties are also increasingly likely to include data and information sharing provisions, have conflict resolution mechanisms, and include mechanisms for participation beyond traditional nation-state actors. Generalizing, treaties have become more comprehensive over time, both in the issues they address and the tools they use to manage those issues cooperatively.     

The Effects of Corruption on Satisfaction with Local and National Governments. Does Corruption ‘Grease the Wheels’?

Abstract

A causal association was found between higher levels of corruption and lower levels of satisfaction with local and national governments. However, interaction term analysis provides suggestive evidence that: first, as public service satisfaction increases, the effects of corruption change from negative values to positive values for both local and national governments; second, as political situations improve, the negative effects of corruption diminish for both local and national governments; and, third, as the economic situation improves, the negative effects of corruption diminish for local, but not for national governments.