Revisiting the “But Everybody Does That!” Defense

Law and Philosophy - It’s not uncommon for people to try to shield themselves from blame or punishment by saying, “But everybody does that!”. This BEDT defense seems more...     

Does fertiliser use improve household welfare? Evidence from Ghana’s cocoa industry

This article analyses welfare impacts of fertiliser adoption using data collected from 838 cocoa farm households in the four key cocoa-producing regions in Ghana. Using propensity score matching (PSM), the study indicates that application of fertiliser leads to significant gains in farm yields, farm income, consumption expenditure, consumption expenditure per capita, and value of productive farm assets. The article concludes that cocoa-specific programmes such as Cocoa High Technology (Cocoa Hi-tech), initiated to intensify the application of improved farm technologies such as fertiliser, should be strengthened through effective and efficient management systems.     

Ideological position,leaders' charisma,and voting preferences: Personal vs. partisan elections

The study compared the relationships between voting preferences and two predictors: voters' ideological position and the perceived charisma of political leaders, under two conditions: partisan elections and personal elections. It also examined whether these relationships are moderated by the ideological extremity of the parties standing for election and by voters' personal disposition to ascribe importance to leadership. The study was carried out a short time before the last general elections in Israel. Two comparable samples were used: one focused on relatively moderate parties and their leaders, and the other on more extreme parties and leaders. In both samples, voters' ideological position was strongly related to leaders' perceived charisma and to voting preferences, but leaders' perceived charisma added significantly to the prediction of voting preferences, especially under conditions of personal elections. In combination, voters' ideological position and leaders' charisma perceptions predicted voting preferences very accurately. These relationships were not affected by the two hypothesized moderators.The assistance of Amos Chividaly in data analysis is gratefully acknowledged.     

Environmental planning,administration and management in Nigerian Cities: The example of Benin City,Bendel State

Third World cities are characterized by weak administrative and managerial capacity for environmental planning. Benin City, Nigeria, is no exception. Benin's environmental problems result largely from its unplanned land use and weak development control. These problems include lack of open space, substandard housing and an increasing volume of refuse. The administrative arrangements to handle environmental problems include the Town Planning Division, which enforces building and housing codes and land use regulations; and the Task Force on Environmental Sanitation, responsible for solid waste management. However, these arrangements have not produced satisfactory results. Failure has been due partly to the ad hoc organization of environmental administration; the overlapping perception of environmental problems; the alienation of the public; dispersal of authority; and the scale of jurisdictional units. Effective environmental planning administration must adopt a holistic approach, which recognizes the need for a comprehensive environmental planning and a concentration of environmental authority. This is based on the premise that environmental issues are the responsibility of one agency but an obligation for all. Structurally, the concentration of environmental authority hinges on the principle of cooperative leadership by the Federal Government. This calls urgently for the establishment of a Federal Environmental Protection Agency at the centre, and Environmental Management Boards at state levels. The Boards would provide an administrative umbrella under which the management of various aspects of the environment are coordinated. In order to maximize the cooperation of the public, the traditional power structure of the Oba (paramount chiefs and community leaders) must be involved in the conception and implementation of environmental planning. Citizen participation would in turn be maximized if the neighbourhood is adopted as the jurisdictional unit, upon which environmental administration and management are systematically built.     

Contents of Volume 12

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 12     

Norms versus Action: Why Voters Fail to Sanction Malfeasance in Brazil

We show that Brazilian voters strongly sanction malfeasant mayors when presented with hypothetical scenarios but take no action when given the same information about their own mayor. Partnering with the State Accounts Court of Pernambuco, we conducted a field experiment during the 2016 municipal elections in which the treatment group received information about official wrongdoing by their mayor. The treatment has no effect on self‐reported voting behavior after the election, yet when informing about malfeasance in the context of a vignette experiment, we are able to replicate the strong negative effect found in prior studies. We argue that voters' behavior in the abstract reflects the comparatively strong norm against corruption in Brazil. Yet on Election Day, their behavior is constrained by factors such as attitudes toward local political dynasties and the greater salience of more pressing concerns like employment and health services.     

Measurement of drugs in neonatal hair; a window to fetal exposure

Because the hair neonates are born with grows during the last 3 months of pregnancy, the presence of drugs (e.g. cocaine) or environmental toxins (e.g. nicotine) reflects fetal exposure to such compounds. In the case of cocaine, hair measurement are several fold more sensitive than maternal history or urine measurements. Measurements of cotinine in neonatal hair are capable of distinguishing between fetal exposure to passive versus active smoking. Because most cocaine users also smoke cigarettes, neonatal measurements of both cocaine and cotinine will allow cumulative quantification of fetal risk.