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The effect of institutional characteristics and social norms on corruption in healthcare
No full textCorruption in healthcare is widespread and consequential. Informal payments (IPs) are a common form of petty corruption, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Using data from the Life in Transition Survey encompassing 33 countries across Europe and Central Asia, I analyze the prevalence and reasons behind IPs made to public health providers. In addition to individual- and system-level factors often used in literature, I also introduce a latent measure of social norms related to high levels of corruption. These are associated with a significantly higher prevalence of paying informally. This paper also bridges a gap between the corruption literature and health-related research by introducing a typology of IPs based on why they were made. I find that the association between health system characteristics and IPs prevalence differs based on the reason for payment. This difference is further exacerbated by the existence of corruption-related social norms. The results of this analysis highlight the need to revisit existing anti-corruption policies and align them to the underlying social norms
Aim or preference? Reflections on the commitment to the truth in the criminal process
No full textIt is widely accepted that the criminal process aims at the truth. It is also widely accepted that convicting the innocent is worse than acquitting the guilty. While apparently unrelated, these two claims are in tension with one another. The latter claim is traditionally used to justify a standard of proof that is skewed in favour of the defendant, aimed at protecting the innocent from conviction. A skewed standard, however, is not the standard of proof that minimises expected errors; that is, it is not the standard to choose if truth-finding is indeed the aim of the criminal process. The article attempts to overcome this tension. It argues that, if someone seeks consistency between the commitment to the truth and the commitment to protecting the innocent from conviction, they should treat true outcomes as a preference on which the process is based, not as a/the aim of the process. Notably, a preference entails a more modest practical commitment than that entailed by an aim. Taking this more modest commitment to the truth has implications for the regulation of any phase of the criminal process in which the value of truth appears to be in tension with non-epistemic values
Multivariate zero-inflated INAR(1) model with an application in automobile insurance
No full textThe objective of this article is to propose a comprehensive solution for analyzing multidimensional non-life claim count data that exhibits time and cross-dependence, as well as zero inflation. To achieve this, we introduce a multivariate INAR(1) model, with the innovation term characterized by either a multivariate zero-inflated Poisson distribution or a multivariate zero-inflated hurdle Poisson distribution. Additionally, our modeling framework accounts for the impact of individual and coverage-specific covariates on the mean parameters of each model, thereby facilitating the computation of customized insurance premiums based on varying risk profiles. To estimate the model parameters, we employ a novel expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. Our model demonstrates satisfactory performance in the analysis of European motor third-party liability claim count data
Forum: Dead-ends, disasters, delays? Reflecting on research failure in international studies and ways to avoid it
No full textThis forum urges international relations (IR) practitioners to rethink the nature of both failure and success, and their own responsibility in building an academy that enables scholars of all backgrounds to thrive. Reflecting on their own experiences, the contributors detail factors that commonly stymie promising work in IR. These range from the quotidian—rejections during peer review and frustrations around network-building—to more serious impediments, including the growing neoliberalization of the academy, employment precarity, illness and disability, and limits on academic freedom. The forum offers four central insights: First, we must recognize the difference between constructive and non-constructive research failure and create greater space for the former. Second, we must work harder to identify and address those contributors to research failure that should not be tolerated. This includes a recognition of privilege and positionality and an understanding of failure as fundamentally situational. Concurrently, third, we must also resist narratives that fetishize meritocracy and individual resilience, and render invisible structural barriers to success. Finally, we must better distinguish researcher failure from research failure. The barriers that slow or foreclose promising research harm not only our intellectual community but also our discipline, limiting its potential to address the most significant challenges of the present moment
Interrupting circulations: the politics of infrastructure in contemporary mobilisations for Palestine
No full textAn unprecedented popular mobilisation for Palestine has in recent months engaged with the transnational infrastructures that enable and sustain the settler-colonial occupation and genocidal onslaught in Palestine. A series of mobilisations has taken flows of energy, armaments and capital as their terrain of struggle. Solidarity activists have targeted arms factories, military tankers, coal mines and oil companies in attempts to disrupt the production and circulation of key commodities that make Israel’s settler-colonial occupation possible. The authors argue that attention to the infrastructural politics of these disruptions is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, beyond symbolic actions, resolutions or condemnations, these disruptions take solidarity as a material practice, and offer a diagnostic tool to reveal the transnational, historical and material underpinnings of Israeli settler-colonialism. Second, the authors argue that locating ‘circuits’ of struggle, and centring the histories of indigenous anti-colonial resistance that inform contemporary tactics of intervention and interruption, opens up possibilities for a radical internationalist politics of solidarity, with Palestine at its heart
Does reducing child benefits mean parents work more? A mixed-methods study of the labor market effects of the United Kingdom’s "two-child limit"
No full textChild benefits can play an important role in supporting families during a life stage of increased household needs. However, they may also have negative effects on parental work incentives, potentially limiting any mitigation of child poverty. We examine the employment effects of a substantial benefit cut affecting larger families in the United Kingdom. The “two-child limit” restricted means-tested child benefits to two children only, affecting new births from April 2017. Using difference-in-differences models, we find no effect on employment at the extensive margin. Among coupled mothers already working, but not lone parents, we find small increases in working hours. Qualitative research with affected families helps make sense of these limited effects, indicating inelastic labor market responses resulting from a strong commitment to unpaid care, the challenges of caregiving responsibilities, and gaps in suitable child care. We further find that hardship linked to the policy may make labor market engagement harder for some parents
Beneath the insuperable barrier: accumulation, state managers and climate policy in Britain
No full textThis article presents the first archival case study of the drivers of UK climate policy and the creation of the UNFCCC. I contribute to the literature on the green state and green capitalism, firstly by arguing that existing approaches do not fully capture the state’s and most importantly policymakers’ position in capitalism. Secondly, there remains scope for more refined empirical examination of policymakers and how they navigate the contradictions of environmental policy. I address these weaknesses by analysing newly declassified British governmental documents through form-analytic Marxism, demonstrating the drivers behind the Thatcher government’s climate policies and push for an international convention. I argue that policymakers occupy the site of the state’s contradictory pressures, and thus find themselves ‘beneath the insuperable barrier’ as their commitment to accumulation and capitalist logics supersedes their drive to design ambitious environmental measures. This reveals fundamental tensions with policymakers’ ability to address the climate crisis
It's the kids that suffer’ exploring how the UK's benefit cap and two-child limit harm children
No full textThe benefit cap and the two-child limit reduce entitlement for households claiming means-tested benefits and disproportionately affect households with dependent children. This article explores the harms the policies are doing to children through drawing upon data collected from interviews with parents affected by the benefit cap and the two-child limit. To investigate the impacts of these policies we draw on the Investment Model and the Family Stress Model, models principally developed by quantitative scholars seeking to understand how economic disadvantage adversely affects children over the longer-term. While there has been frequent quantitative analysis of these models, there has been very little qualitative engagement with them: this article directly addresses this gap in the literature. We show that the benefit cap and the two-child limit cause multiple and severe overlapping harms to children, principally by exacerbating and deepening financial economic disadvantage. Our research evidence illuminates causal processes underpinning both the Investment Model and the Family Stress Model, but also reveals additional harms that are not foregrounded by either model. We conclude by calling for the removal of both policies as a vital first step in reducing child poverty, and further reflect on the need for greater recognition of the harm child poverty does to experiences of childhood; as well as to their future selves
An ideological divide? Political parties' discourse in Italy's migration cooperation with Libya and Albania
No full textItaly’s migration agreements with Libya in 2017 and Albania in 2023 serve as crucial cases for investigating how political parties in Europe position themselves on immigration policy. By comparing parties across the Italian political spectrum, this research assesses whether they have articulated distinct stances on the externalisation of migration in the two selected cases. A qualitative analysis of parliamentary debates reveals two dominant logics in party discourse: a security logic and a rights-oriented logic. These two logics can cut across party lines, particularly in times of crisis, with frequent references to the European Union (EU) as both an arena for Italy’s influence and a source of legitimacy