Is the allocation of voting power among EU states fair?

It has often been claimed that the current allocation of votes among EU states is not fair. In this paper we verify this assertion by carrying out an evaluation of the distribution of power among the member states. The results show that the current distribution of votes for the qualified majority does not lead to a fair distribution of power whatever definition of the EU is considered. It can not be claimed however that the current voting process has a systematic bias in favor of certain states. We also present a simple method to derive voting weights which lead to a fair allocation of power.     

Nation-Building in the Philippines: Rooseveltian Statecraft for Imperial Modernization in an Emergent Transatlantic World Order

The acquisition of the Philippines in the wake of the Spanish–American War gave Theodore Roosevelt's presidency an unprecedented mandate for conflict resolution, post-war reconstruction and development through modernization and democratization. A network of bilateral inter-colonial relations contributed to the extension of triangular transatlantic reciprocal influence. The lessons of America's continental empire-building, assessment of competing colonial experiments, and modern attempts at public diplomacy fed into a strategy of preventive containment of Japanese expansionism through popular consent. The intention was to institute an enduring “special relationship” to build up America's power in the Pacific, and to transform the Philippines into a model that would then “naturally” expand into a transcontinental informal empire by proxy.     

Child abuse: practical application of autopsy, radiological, and microscopic studies

A 17-month-old male infant died at home. The infant's right arm was immobilized because of a humeral fracture 1 month earlier. The circumstances of death appeared unclear to the police investigators and a medicolegal autopsy was carried out. External examination revealed diffuse ecchymoses of varying color. Postmortem imaging was performed prior to autopsy (X-rays, multislice computed tomography [MSCT], and focused brain magnetic resonance imaging [MRI]). These investigations revealed four rib fractures of varying ages, one of which was posterior. Cerebral and pericerebral traumatic lesions were also diagnosed: bilateral subdural hematomas, intraventricular, meningeal, and interpedoncular hemorrhages. In the abdomen, fresh blood was visible within the anterior abdominal wall and the mesenteric root. Autopsy and microscopic study confirmed these lesions. This case report illustrates the valuable assistance rendered by MSCT and MRI to diagnose abuse when a child has died in unclear circumstances.     

Configuration in the flesh: challenges in publicly promoted clusters

In this article, we study how the configuration of a publicly promoted clusters policy??the Global Clusters policy initiated by the Walloon Government in Belgium??influenced the behaviors of R&D practitioners. At first, we explored the background of the Global Cluster policy in an effort to make the program configuration visible. This first step was conducted through the gathering and analysis of data from official documents as well as publications, conference speeches and workshops produced by policy makers, evaluators and their academic collaborators. Then, we observed the transmission of the six resulting features from the policy level to the project level: we studied their appropriation by R&D practitioners in ??Mirage??, an R&D project associated to the mechanical engineering Global Cluster. As a result, we show that the particularities of Walloon Global Clusters make them a powerful instrument to enhance collateral assets while facing potential lock-in. We finally consider the way these Global Clusters should evolve to favor the exploitation of the emerged outcomes while exploring future opportunities. A good balance between exploitation and exploration as well as adequate networking and clustering instruments to support both objectives appear necessary to ensure sustainability and growth of the involved actors.     

A critical reappraisal of some voting power paradoxes

Power indices are meant to assess the power that a voting rule confers a priori to each of the decision makers who use it. In order to test and compare them, some authors have proposed ‘natural’ postulates that a measure of a priori voting power ‘should’ satisfy, the violations of which are called ‘voting power paradoxes.’ In this paper two general measures of success and decisiveness based on the voting rule and voters' behavior and some of these postulates/paradoxes test each other. As a result serious doubts are cast on the discriminating power of most voting power postulates.     

Class and Politics in Denmark: Are Both Old and New Politics Structured by Class?

The trend within studies of voting and political attitudes has been to give less attention to class as a structuring dimension and more to postmaterial values. The basic argument of this article is that this is a false opposition: The adherence to different sets of values is related to social background, although in complex ways, which can only be discovered with a multidimensional conception of class. This conception may be found in Pierre Bourdieu's analytical approach, which is here applied in an analysis of survey data from the Danish city of Aalborg. Data from a survey of political attitudes are subjected to multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), which reveals a pattern of attitudes that is highly structured by both the old and the new dimensions of politics. Up to this point, the results converge with the state of the art. However, the methodology utilised (MCA) allows one to link the constructed space of attitudes to a set of indicators based on a two-dimensional conception of social class. On the basis of this analysis, the article concludes that the political landscape appears as highly structured by the two principles of social differentiation from Bourdieu's class model: volume and composition of capital. The conclusion is that social class understood in this way is closely related to both old and new politics, as well as to the propensity to vote for a political party from the left- or right-wing alliance.     

Governance Structures and Political Processes in a Public System: Lessons from Quebec

Debates about the form and nature of changes in the management of public systems have for some time now been articulated under the theme of governance. All definitions of governance are related to the problems of securing convergence among a diversity of actors and organizations, of redistributing power in an organizational or social field characterized by a high level of heterogeneity and of gaining sufficient legitimacy to act in the name of the collectivity. This paper concentrates on the dynamics involved in the emergence of new governing capabilities in public systems. More precisely we study the implementation of regionalization policies in the health care field (in this case of Canada) conceived as one major attempt to renew the governance structures in a large public system. Our study draws on the comparative analysis of empirical regulation in three health regions as contrasted with three ideal type models of governance in regionalized systems. The first model is inspired by an economic approach to organizational behaviour and focuses on mandate‐giving, execution and control. The second model is based on a political interpretation of behaviours and focuses on negotiation processes between actors. Finally, the third model is based on the theory of deliberation as well as the institutional school of policy analysis and focuses on direct public participation in public affairs. Evidence for this article is primarily derived from interviews with key informants and documentary analysis. Our analysis shows that none of the three models is sufficient in itself to grant regional structures the authority and legitimacy they need to create added value in terms of regulation that could ensure their survival. Regional Boards are thus forced by environmental constraints to conceive and implement original mixes of these models. The two predominant logics in regional action are inspired by the first two models although the last one also has an influence. Overall, our study also suggests that the implementation of new sources of governing authorities in a public system is rather fragile because of dependence on existing institutions. Clearly, the attempt to modify the dynamics of governance in a given system must be conceived as a political exercise and not just as a technical problem consisting of the rational adjustment of policy instruments.     

Concentration of drugs in blood of suspected impaired drivers

Analytical records concerning 440 living drivers suspected of driving under the influence of drug (DUID) were collected and examined during a 2 years period ranging from 2002 to 2003 in canton de Vaud, Valais, Jura and Fribourg (Switzerland). This study included 400 men (91%) and 40 women (9%). The average age of the drivers was 28+/-10 years (minimum 16 and maximum 81). One or more psychoactive drugs were found in 89% of blood samples. Half of cases (223 of 440, 50.7%) involved consumption of mixtures (from 2 to 6) of psychoactive drugs. The most commonly detected drugs in whole blood were cannabinoids (59%), ethanol (46%), benzodiazepines (13%), cocaine (13%), amphetamines (9%), opiates (9%) and methadone (7%). Among these 440 cases, 11-carboxy-THC (THCCOOH) was found in 59% (median 25 ng/ml (1-215 ng/ml)), Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in 53% (median 3 ng/ml (1-35 ng/ml)), ethanol in 46% (median 1.19 g/kg (0.14-2.95 g/kg)), benzoylecgonine in 13% (median 250 ng/ml (29-2430 ng/ml)), free morphine in 7% (median 10 ng/ml (1-111 ng/ml)), methadone in 7% (median 110 ng/ml (27-850 ng/ml)), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in 6% (median 218 ng/ml (10-2480 ng/ml)), nordiazepam in 5% (median 305 ng/ml (30-1560 ng/ml)), free codeine in 5% (median 5 ng/ml (1-13 ng/ml)), midazolam in 5% (median 44 ng/ml (20-250 ng/ml)), cocaine in 5% (median 50 ng/ml (15-560 ng/ml)), amphetamine in 4% (median 54 ng/ml (10-183 ng/ml)), diazepam in 2% (median 200 ng/ml (80-630 ng/ml)) and oxazepam in 2% (median 230 ng/ml (165-3830 ng/ml)). Other drugs, such as lorazepam, zolpidem, mirtazapine, methaqualone, were found in less than 1% of the cases.