The webs of belief around ‘evidence’ in legislatures: The case of select committees in the UK House of Commons

A wide‐ranging literature has explored the relationship between research, knowledge and policy. However, legislatures have often been overlooked in this research. While some studies have looked at ‘who has access’, the literature on how parliaments seek to engage with knowledge claims is particularly scarce. This article addresses this gap through a case study of UK select committees. By adopting an interpretive lens, the article explores how MPs and officials make sense of evidence in committee settings. It finds that legalistic definitions around ‘evidence’ shape wider beliefs in how to engage with knowledge claims and the practices of undertaking inquiries, and are underpinned by a distinctly political function of knowledge use in politics. Beliefs around evidence have significant repercussions and highlight tensions (i) around the authority of committee reports, (ii) between epistemic and democratic claims and (iii) with respect to who is included and who is excluded.     

The migration of fragments of glass from the pockets to the surfaces of clothing

During the last decade or so there has been some discussion in the forensic community in the United Kingdom concerning whether it is necessary to search the pockets for glass particles in garments attributed to suspects arrested for glass breaking crimes. The removal of this practice would help expedite the searching and recovery process since examining only the surfaces of clothing would reduce the cost of recovering glass evidence. However, it is believed by many scientists that some glass fragments originally acquired in pockets can migrate to the surfaces of clothing prior to examination by the forensic scientist. As glass fragments have been encountered in the pockets of garments during examinations of casework items in the LGC Laboratories, the implications of this change in practice needs to be assessed. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate this possibility that fragments of glass migrate from a pocket of a garment to its surfaces during police and laboratory handling after a person is suspected of breaking glass during an offence. If this occurs to a significant extent then it could affect the evaluation of the glass evidence when using a Bayesian approach. Sixty fragments of glass were seeded into a pocket of a fleece jacket and a pair of denim jeans. Three experiments were performed; one examined a searching, recovery and blanking procedure, another examined the pre-laboratory 'handling' process of an item in an evidence bag, and the third experiment looked at the removal of an object from a pocket laden with glass and subsequent removal and packaging of the garment. Up to two (3.3%) fragments were recovered from the surfaces of the fleece jacket and the denim jeans via the searching, recovery and blanking procedure. Similar numbers were also recovered from the insides of the evidence bags. Up to four (6.7%) fragments were recovered from the surface of the fleece jacket and up to five (8.3%) fragments were recovered from the surface of the denim jeans after pre-laboratory 'handling'. Again similar numbers were recovered from the insides of the evidence bags. Comparable numbers to those from searching/recovery experiments were observed when garments were removed after taking an object from a pocket. In addition, up to two (3.3%) fragments were recovered from the object (a mobile phone). The findings show that some migration can occur particularly in the second experiment and therefore modification of the evaluation strategy may be required.     

Recovery Risk and Labor Costs in Public–Private Partnerships: Contractual Choice in the US Water Industry

We use an ordered logistic model to empirically examine the factors that explain varying degrees of private involvement in the US water sector through public–private partnerships. Our estimates suggest that a variety of factors help explain greater private participation in this sector. We find that the risk to private participants regarding cost recovery is an important driver of private participation. The relative cost of labour is also a key factor in determining the degree of private involvement in the contract choice. When public wages are high relative to private wages, private participation is viewed as a source of cost savings. We thus find two main drivers of greater private involvement: one encouraging private participation by reducing risk, and another encouraging government to seek out private participation in lowering costs.     

Governing migration from a distance: interactions between climate,migration, and security in the South Mediterranean

Links between security and migration are well established and are associated with the meaning, status, and practice of borders in the international political system. This article assesses how and with what effects the effects of environmental and climate change have entered this relationship between migration and security. It does so by assessing the EU’s external governance of migration in “South Mediterranean Partner Countries” (SMPCs): Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia. It is argued that a focus on promoting “adaptation” and building “resilience” has developed that is consistent with the logic of governing migration from a distance. However, the article challenges ideas that environmental/climate change act as simple migration “triggers” and instead explores implications of movement towards and not away from risk, as well as the potential for populations to be trapped in areas that expose them to risk. It is shown that both have important implications for the relationship between migration, environmental/climate change, and security in SMPCs.     

A Rising Tide? The Salience of Immigration and the Rise of Anti‐Immigration Political Parties in Western Europe

In this article, we consider the causes of the increase in voting for anti‐immigration parties in western Europe in the past decade. We first note that one of the most commonly assumed reasons for this increase is an associated increase in anti‐immigration sentiment, which we show is likely to be false. We also outline the major theoretical explanations, which we argue are likely to be incomplete. We then introduce our proposed explanation: these parties have benefitted from a sharp increase in the salience of immigration amongst some voters. We show that there are strong correlations over time between the salience of immigration and the polling of such parties in most western European countries. We argue that aspects of immigration in the last decade have activated pre‐existing opposition to immigration amongst a shrinking segment of the populations of western European states.     

Inflicted head injury in infants

There is scant neuropathological information in the child abuse literature; even the best reviews include assumptions based on the findings of a few inadequate early studies. Our recent series of 53 fatal cases (Brain 124 (2001) 1290, 1299 [1,2]) demonstrated age-related patterns of brain injury and showed the substrate of severe encephalopathy in the infants to be hypoxic brain damage, not diffuse traumatic axonal injury ('DAI'), as had previously been thought. About one-third had craniocervical injuries, particularly in the brain stem, suggestive of stretch injury to the neuraxis. Our interpretation was that this finding implied a mechanism of injury--brain stem damage from stretch injury to the neck with resultant apnoea--that could account for the clinical scenario in many cases, and for which violence would not necessarily be required. Since publishing this study we have turned our attention to the subgroup of infants who die without objective signs of injury, such as skull fracture or impact, whose carers are accused of abuse, usually, "violent shaking", on the pathologic findings alone. Given the striking discrepancy that there often is in such cases between the relatively trivial findings in the brain and the accusations of violence, we have been looking at the pathogenesis of the typical intracranial bleeding. A histologic study of dura from 50 paediatric autopsies, none of whom had suffered a head injury, has led us to propose that the subdural and retinal bleeding in such cases may well have a physiological aetiology, rather than being caused directly by trauma.