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Research on race and policing has consistently documented the link between race, space, and policing with racial disparities in perceptions and experiences often explained by nature of policing within low-income, distressed communities of color. This study adds a new dimension to past research by examining the relationship between race, racial composition of place, and residents' experiences with southern police across public and semipublic spaces within a middle-class, low-crime, tourism-driven resort area. Using grounded theory methods, this study combines survey data with in-depth group interviews and structured observations to reveal variability in participants' experiences with southern patrols. Specifically, African American participants expressed concern for excessive police distribution, differential enforcement, and social exclusion, offering the least supportive attitudes regarding officer demeanor. These findings highlight the importance of using comprehensive measures to access residents' experiences with police and contribute to the understanding of how various geographic contexts might produce racial disparities, highlighting the salience of race in the policing of ethnically diverse public spaces.

This paper starts with a theoretical discussion on the relationship between performance and accountability in public organizations with a special focus on administrative reforms. Accountability theory, based in the work of Dubnick/Romzek, Bovens, Behn, Bouckaert, Halligan and Pollitt, is discussed and related to different aspects of performance. How ambiguous is the relationship between accountability and performance? Do different types of accountability relate to different aspects of performance or pose certain challenges in NPM reforms, post-NPM reforms and hybrid reforms? The second part of the paper illustrates performance and accountability relations in a large welfare administration reform in Norway by addressing the experiences different actor have had of performance and accountability dynamics. We focus on how the reform has affected different kinds of accountability relations and the relationship between accountability and performance. The data used are document studies, interviews and survey data from a large evaluation project. A main finding is that the relationship between administrative reform and accountability is ambiguous and contested.

Scholars often assume that some issues globally evoke moral reactions, whether these issues are presented as moral dilemmas (e.g., trolley problems) or as controversial issues of the day (e.g., the legal status of abortion). There is considerable individual variation, however, in the degree that people report that their position on specific issues reflects a core moral conviction. This chapter reviews theory and research that explores the role moral conviction plays in predicting people's political thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Variance in moral conviction associated with specific issues has important social and political consequences, such as predicting increased political engagement (voting, willingness to engage in activism), inoculation against the usual pressures to obey authorities and the law, and greater acceptance of violent solutions to conflict. The normative implications of these and other findings are both reassuring (moral conviction can protect against obedience to potentially malevolent authorities) and terrifying (moral conviction is associated with rejection of the rule of law and can provide a motivational foundation for violent protest and acts of terrorism).

The presented paper summarizes a basic theory of indirect condition assessment including a definition of condition assessment, factors contributing to deterioration and possible outputs of the condition assessment. Furthermore, the legal requirements concerning this issue specifically in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic are listed. As a part of the intended complex methodology for condition assessment of water distribution systems (WDS), a methodology for condition assessment of water mains was developed. The methodology is based on condition indicators (CI) and multi-objective optimization. The paper presents the proposed methodology and its application in two case studies. The proposed methodology achieved good results and it showed certain significant benefits – e.g. satisfactory level of detail, optional user modification. ; Předložený článek shrnuje základní teorii nepřímého hodnocení technického stavu včetně definice hodnocení technického stavu, faktorů přispívajících k technickému stárnutí vodovodů a možných výstupů hodnocení technického stavu, legislativních požadavků v České a Slovenské republice. Článek dále představuje navrženou metodiku hodnocení technického stavu vodovodních přiváděcích řadů včetně dvou z provedených případových studií.

This paper explores a fruitful convergence between the distributive and procedural dimensions of environmental justice theory and current debates in the field of development studies over capitals and capabilities, institutions, and discourse formation to shed new light on natural resource management projects in the developing world. Specifically, we document the planning and implementation of two types of water interventions in two contrasting regions: watershed development programmes in northeast India and small reservoirs in sub-Saharan West Africa.We find that there is a contradiction between the inherently political nature of water interventions and the fact that such projects remain grounded in apolitical, technical and managerial narratives. In contrast to the new semantic of development, this depoliticization results in the near absence of attention paid to procedural (participation and empowerment) and distributive (equity) justice concerns and in local actors having to revert to covert ways to achieve their ends. A constructive dialogue between development studies and environmental justice scholars can offer a fresh look on the society-environment nexus in the developing world.

In this article, the author suggests that in recent years climate change is gravely affecting the stability of the international order. The reason is not only the recklessness of the industrial sector as a source polluter, but also the lack of political will in drafting a global blueprint for creating a unique international climate regime. Even though the effects of climate change are getting worse each year, the selfish interests of states, the realpolitik in foreign policy and anarchy dominate international relations, thus representing an obstacle to creating an international climate regime. The author examines ways to overcome these obstacles to international institutionalization of climate issues by introducing three IR theory perspectives: realist, rationalist and idealist. The synthesis of these three perspectives is that the international climate regime should be decentralized; its legal acts should be drafted from inter-state agreements on specific issues, while its principles should be incorporated to the already existing international legal acts. Adapted from the source document.

The Eisenhower administration's policy toward Latin America is typically viewed as a failure. The general view is that by ignoring calls for increased economic aid and undermining governments suspected of harboring Communist sympathies, U.S. policymakers allowed relations with Latin American countries to deteriorate so much that Vice President Richard Nixon was almost killed during a goodwill tour. Belated efforts were then made to improve relations, but only the rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba and the Kennedy administration's embrace of modernization theory -- the argument goes -- saw a genuine change in U.S. attitudes. Using a wide variety of sources, including rarely studied personal papers and newly released oral histories, this article demonstrates that even before the Nixon trip a small group of experts on Latin America were determined to adjust attitudes in Washington. Understanding their impact and achievements casts fresh light on the policies of the Eisenhower administration and the nature of hemispheric relations in the subsequent decade. Adapted from the source document.

The study of crime and crime control is a fruitful field for sociological research. We are dealing with phenomena here that are determined to a large extent by social forces. Consequently, on the one hand, they practically compel an explanation derived from social relationships; on the other hand, they lend themselves especially well to an illumination of these relationships. The reason for this is that mystification and cover-up, which make the investigation of other social interconnections so very difficult, are to a great extent forced aside by the brutality of these phenomena and by conflicts that must necessarily be fought in the open. The social function of crime and criminal justice can be clarified far beyond previous research, if simple axioms of economic theory are used and one does not presuppose a more or less static and a historical system of class relations. In this paper, some basic ideas for research along these lines will be proposed and discussed. Adapted from the source document.

In this research I propose that the concept of diversionary theory provides at least a partial explanation for North Korea's conflict activities. I examine and analyze the country's data on diplomatic and military activities from 1997 to 2011 and argue that North Korea's domestic conditions influence its willingness to engage in external conflict. I also examine the impact of such external influences as UN sanctions, leadership changes in the region, national capacities of the US, South Korea and Japan, and strategic military exercises on DPRK-initiated conflicts. This study provides insight into the activities of this reclusive state and also demonstrates useful techniques that can be applied to analyze other similarly closed nations. The findings suggest that there are identified links between internal conditions and the Kim regime's aggressive actions between 1997 and 2011 in support of the diversionary argument. Concurrently, there is less evidence that North Korea's hostile diplomatic and military activities are based on external pressures.

Decentralization is meant to improve access to public services, but relatively few studies examine this question empirically. We explore the effects of decentralization on access to health and education in Colombia using an original database covering over 95 % of Colombian municipalities. We show that decentralization improved enrollment rates in public schools and access of the poor to public health services. In both sectors, improving access was driven by the financial contributions of local governments. Small increases in own-shares of spending led to surprisingly large increases in the access of the poor in both sectors. Our theoretical model implies that where local information dominates productive efficiency, elected local governments will provide services better tailored to local needs. Decentralizing such services should increase their use by the public. Together, theory and empirics imply that decentralization made the Colombian state more accountable. It provided local officials with the information and incentives they need to allocate resources in a manner responsive to voters' needs and improve the impact of public expenditures. Adapted from the source document.

Declining economic conditions over the past several years have identified a disturbing trend; more and more households in the US are being pushed to the brink of financial insolvency. Current legal and market protections (including, but not limited to the use of collateral and mortgage insurance, consumer credit counseling and bankruptcy protection) provide relief after financial distress occurs, but do nothing to prevent the likelihood of distress. Recent research argues that the use of preventive measures are superior to ex post measures, but can only be implemented with the help of predictive models to identify at risk households. This paper uses tools drawn from evolutionary game theory, economics and public health to create a simple model of "financial epidemiology", which illustrates the role that social dynamics play in shaping household financial decisions. The model facilitates the prediction of financial insolvency by constructing phase diagrams which illustrate "tipping points" beyond which households move down an inexorable path towards insolvency.