High-ranking Politicians Research Articles

The Private Eye of Public Life: Surveillance, Security, and Urban Governance in the City of Toronto

Market forces increasingly drive the development of urban space in globalized cities. Following deindustrialization, some municipalities have become dependent upon tax revenues derived from office towers. City managers and officer tower developers work under the pressure of competition to ensure their spaces are attractive to this highly mobile work force; safety and security are key selling points. In Toronto, large sections of urban space have been privatized and are policed by private security. Much of the privately owned space is designed to be publicly accessible, creating new dynamics between private security and public police. Changes to federal and provincial legislation, combined with a rapid expansion in the deployment of private security guards, signal an emerging urban governance model that supports private-public partnerships in policing. Under the supervision of David Murakami Wood, I conducted interviews with high-ranking politicians, security professionals, and social services executives in Toronto. These interviews revealed concerns about the erosion of public space, the treatment of marginalized populations, and inadequate private security regulations. Some argue the legal rights of private property owners permit security and surveillance practices that violate democratic values. Clearly, there is tension between the market forces that inform private policing, and the civic accountability of public police forces that remains unresolved. My research suggests new legislation is required to ensure this emerging urban governance model, which features private policing, preserves the democratic rights and freedoms of all citizens.

No, Prime Minister: PhD Plagiarism of High Level Public Officials

Based on a public office definition of corruption, this article uses the case studies of doctoral plagiarism of German Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Hungarian President Pàl Schmitt, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to show that, by shattering citizens’ confidence in and respect for political class, political parties, state institutions and rule of law, academic plagiarism of high-ranking politicians intertwines with and enforces the most serious democratic failures in their respective countries: degeneration of political culture in Germany, nationalist authoritarian trends in Hungary, a culture of corruption in Romania, and outright dictatorship in Russia. As such, this specific type of plagiarism goes far beyond academia. It represents a direct, aggressive, and effective threat against democracy itself.

After Death: Public Mourning, Discourse, and Myth in the Afterlife Representations of a Tanzanian Movie Star

When the Tanzanian film actor Steven Kanumba suddenly died aged 28 in 2012, the shocking news spread quickly via word of mouth and through the media. Some 30 000 people and high-ranking politicians joined in the public mourning at the funeral service; hundreds of young women fainted and the police were barely able to keep control over the evolving mass panic. After the funeral, the media event of Kanumba’s death continued in literature, news scandals, discourses, and myth, as well as in his post-mortem appearance in a movie. This paper looks at these mass-mediated practices and discourses of mourning and commemoration to reveal Kanumba’s social function as a celebrity in Tanzania, as well as the meaning and significance people ascribe to both his death and the relation between the real person and his fictional character in films. With these after-life productions, producers, fans, family, friends, as well as former enemies engage in the cooperative creation of a postmortem mythology through which they make meaning of Kanumba’s life and death.

The Gendered Parenting of Political Leaders

Do we have different expectations of male and female politicians regarding parenting when young children are involved? If so, what are the implications for political citizenship? The aim of this article was to examine the construction of parenting and gender in the portrayal in Swedish print media of high-ranking politicians Gustav Fridolin, leader of the Green Party, and Birgitta Ohlsson, a Liberal Party member of the Swedish Government. The study covers reporting from 2010 up to the end of 2012. Methodologically, a discourse analysis based on discourse theory was performed, implying a textual analysis of 39 articles through gender theoretical lenses. Although fathers were seen as primary caregivers in some of the articles, a recurrent phenomenon was the repetition in Swedish newspaper articles of the idea that mothers rather than fathers should be considered primary caregivers. Furthermore, since Ohlsson was criticized for not choosing parental leave and the critical remarks about Fridolin were instead about him choosing parental leave, the different expectations on women as mothers and men as fathers in politics imply that even in a Nordic country context young children are a greater obstacle for female rather than for male politicians. Thus, gender inequalities between women's and men's political citizenship continue to persist in Sweden.

An assessment of adults’ views on white-collar crime

PurposeThis paper aims to update our understanding of the public’s opinion of white-collar crime and explains perceptions of white-collar crime using self-interest, political affiliation and in-group/out-group characteristics.Design/methodology/approachA state-wide phone survey of adults in North Carolina was conducted, and 421 adults responded. They provided their views of white-collar crime, the need for government intervention and whether they were more concerned about white-collar crime in the public or private sector.FindingsIn the survey, 74 per cent of the responders agreed or strongly agreed that white-collar crime is one of the leading problems in this decade, and 74 per cent of the responders suggested that it is not being adequately addressed by our legislators. Evidence suggests that individuals who are conservative, have high confidence in their economic circumstances or are demographically similar to stereotypical white-collar criminals perceive white-collar crime to be less of a problem than individuals without these characteristics.Originality/valueThis study shows that perceptions of the dangers of white-collar crime have increased since its inception. Additionally, this study extends our understanding about why certain demographics are more likely to care (and why high-ranking politicians are less likely to care) about white-collar crime.

The “Franco-Russian Marseillaise”: International Exchange and the Making of Antiliberal Politics in Fin de Siècle France

The “Franco-Russian Marseillaise”: International Exchange and the Making of Antiliberal Politics in Fin de Siècle France

The Satanist cult of Ted heath: Ethical implications of authority compromise

IntroductionSeven UK police forces are currently investigating the alleged involvement of the late Edward Heath (Prime Minister 1970–1974) in a child abuse ring with Operation Midland investigating specifically the alleged murder of three boys.ObjectiveThe presentation raises international awareness of the investigation, sheds light on the suspected ‘Satanist’ ideology behind the cult and explores the implications for professional practice.AimsThe paper highlights the corrosive impact on society of powerful pedophile rings that are protected by compromised authority representatives and professionals.MethodDetailed accounts circulate on the Internet that name dozens of individuals allegedly active in the cult including high-ranking politicians, psychiatrists, psychologist, police officers as well as journalists and academics. Some of the alleged crimes can be corroborated with news reports or successful court prosecutions while the vast majority appear to be ‘known crimes’ that are successfully covered up.ResultsThe widespread organisational structures parallel the Marc Dutroux case in Belgium. It appears to be the case that compromised mental health professionals and authority representatives shield the cult. It becomes an ethical obligation for the silent majority to speak out against such criminality and demand from their government effective investigation and prosecution.ConclusionWhilst an enquiry into historical allegations of institutional abuse is currently underway in the UK several cases emerged recently where satanic cults seemingly continue to be protected by the vested interests. Mental health professionals must stand up for victims and resist ill-conceived authority attempts to persecute abuse survivors and their supporters.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.

Documentary Animism: Material Politics and Sensory Ethics in The Act of Killing (2012)

Ethics and the Difficulties of Documentary ActivismEARLY IN THE ACT OF KILLING, we meet Anwar Congo and Herman Koto, both in high spirits as they plan to make film. Anwar tells Herman, Whether this ends up on the big screen, or only on TV, it doesn't matter; . . . this is who we are, so in the future people will remember. We find variations on this sentiment in many documentaries: the participants want to tell their version of the truth. Of course, Anwar's opening affirmation is not straightforward. Anwar and Herman are two small-time living in Medan, and Anwar is complicit in Indonesia's murderous past-the horrific genocide of 1965-66. Today these killers lead comfortable lives while socializing with popular paramilitary organizations, media moguls, and high-ranking politicians. The Act of Killing documents bizarre camaraderie of murderers and narrates their rise to fame, celebrity, and stardom as they work toward cinematic autobiography.Following military coup in 1965, new Indonesian government formed under President Suharto. The military hired out paramilitary death squads to cleanse the nation of dissenting factions, targeting the world's third-largest communist party (the PKI), the intellectual community, artists, and the ethnic Chinese minority. The film titles cautiously cite the number at one million disappeared, but authority figures within the diegesis testify on state-television talk show and boast of 2.5 million deceased under the military regime's two-year transition to democracy. The contemporary Indonesian government is development from the cultural and political foundations laid by the massacres. The state currently allows Anwar and fellow premans, as they are colloquially known, to live freely and without punitive measures.The word preman roughly translates into gangster and is an etymological derivative of the English phrase free men. This libertarian freedom exists as an unchecked and approbated criminality, as the premans are softly endorsed by democratically elected politicians, often complicit in the illegal acts themselves. Benedict Anderson clarifies the half-authorized status of the premans as a sort of half-hidden lefthand of the New Order Leviathan: uncivil servants (281). The premans speak openly about their past crimes without fear of judicial or social consequence and show little regard for global attitudes toward genocide. In the film, they favorably compare their past deeds to those of Idi Amin and the Nazis, laugh at the tenets of the Geneva Convention, display flagrant misogyny, and brag about raping underage women.Anwar and his gang of death squad associates have origins as the theater gangsters who made their first illicit marks by selling movie tickets to popular Hollywood cinema in the early 1960s-a practice banned by the then-influential PKI. Throughout Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary, these men testify that the embargo on Western cinema infringed on their business since Hollywood films were the most popular and greatest attraction for their customers. The killers insist that the PKI boycott of Hollywood movies engendered hatred for the people they subsequently murdered. This entanglement of murder, culture, and diaspora precipitates one of the more shocking claims advanced in the film: the premans contend that Western cinematic aesthetics helped guide their hands in the contracted assassination of Indonesia's communists and many others. Anwar and company are fluent in film history and venerate Hollywood. As Anwar lightly points out, watching film like an Elvis Presley musical would allow him to kill in happy way. The cinephilia of Anwar and his friends inspired Oppenheimer to adopt an unusual documentary technique that defines The Act of Killing: the killers reanimate their memories and dreams of the murders by making an autobiographical film. The result of the killers' cinema is striking and surreal in its beautiful renditions of familiar narrative genres including Westerns, film noir, musicals, melodrama, and horror. …

Politics, State Ownership, and Corporate Investment

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) form a significant part of the corporate sector in developed and developing economies. This paper shows the distortions in SOE investments due to political pressure by using the constitutionally mandated schedule of elections as a source of exogenous variation in politicians’ incentive to cater to voters. We track investments by non-financial SOEs around election years using a unique project level database of new investments announced in India and find that SOEs announce a greater number of projects during election years. These patterns are especially pronounced in politically competitive districts and districts associated with high-ranking politicians. Specifically, the number of investments announced by SOEs in election years is on average 36% (66%) greater in politically competitive districts (districts of high-ranking politicians). These projects have negative announcement returns suggesting that political influence results in projects that are likely negative NPV. These patterns are in stark contrast to those observed in a placebo set of non-government firms. Our results inform the policy debate on the efficiency differences between government and private firms and support the political view of government ownership.

A report on the first conference on physiological and physical employment standards, Canberra, Australia November 27 to 28, 2012

This is a report of the First Conference on Physiological and Physical Employment Standards. This was the first conference of its kind, attended by scientists, physicians, occupational medics, high-ranking politicians and military personal from ten nations.

Tax Return as a Political Statement

AbstractThis paper investigates the drivers of tax honesty of high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats in a developing country with a predatory tax system and an autocratic political regime. We argue that in this environment, high-ranking officials may report their income truthfully in order to send a credible signal of their strength to the political leadership, indicating that they are more costly to fire. This is because, in the setting that we study, tax honesty paradoxically increases the risks for taxpayers, making them more transparent and therefore vulnerable to the attacks of their opponents (especially in law enforcement agencies); only powerful officials can survive these attacks. We test our argument using a unique dataset of the tax returns filed by the Russian regional governors and members of their families for the year 2009.

The Battle of Shepherd's Bush

In the annals of sport history, the 1908 Olympic Games in London stand as an unprecedented success, setting new standards in organisation, event planning and sporting achievement. The games are also remembered as an occasion for competitive national self-assertion, as Great Britain and its trans-Atlantic cousin the United States clashed in a desperate struggle for Olympic mastery. Fuelled by Irish-American nationalism, biased British officiating, competing sporting ideologies, as well as sensationalist reporting on both sides of the Atlantic, an intense Anglo-American rivalry plagued the 1908 London games. The scenes of controversy and bitter recriminations between British and American athletes, officials and high-ranking politicians went a long way to solidifying negative British attitudes towards Pierre de Coubertin's international Olympic revival.

Banking on Politics: When Former High-ranking Politicians Become Bank Directors

New data are presented for a large number of countries on how frequently former high-ranking politicians become bank directors. Politician-banker connections at this level are relatively rare, but their frequency is robustly correlated with many important characteristics of banks and institutions. At the micro level, banks that are politically connected are larger and more profitable than other banks, despite being less leveraged and having less risk. At the country level, this connectedness is strongly negatively related to economic development. Controlling for this, the analysis finds that the phenomenon is more prevalent where institutions are weaker and governments more powerful but less accountable. Bank regulation tends to be more pro-banker and the banking system less developed where connectedness is higher. A benign, public interest view is hard to reconcile with these patterns. Banking sector development, institutions, political economy.

Hermann Roesler: Dokumente zu seinem Leben und Werk (review)

Reviewed by: Hermann Roesler: Dokumente zu seinem Leben und Werk Sven Saaler Hermann Roesler: Dokumente zu seinem Leben und Werk. Edited and with an introduction by Anna Bartels-Ishikawa. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007. 191 pages. Hardcover €56.00. Many facets of Japan's modernization during the late nineteenth century continue to be traced to influences from Germany. Advisers from Germany have been recognized for their contributions to such fields as medicine and the military, and, in addition, have been considered particularly influential in the making of modern Japanese law. One of these advisers who came from Germany to Japan during the Meiji period was Hermann Roesler. After graduating from the University of Erlangen and teaching law at Rostock University for several years, Roesler was invited to come to Japan and work for the government. He arrived in Japan in 1878 and lived and worked there until 1893. He advised the Foreign Ministry on the revision of the unequal treaties that the Western powers had imposed on Japan from the 1850s; supervised the drafting of Japan's commercial code; and, after 1884, advised Itō Hirobumi on the drafting of the Meiji Constitution, which was eventually promulgated in 1889 and contained several clauses recommended to Itō by Roesler, including an article guaranteeing freedom of religion. Roesler also represented Japan during negotiations with China in 1885 and in the same year attended a conference in Antwerp on the codification of international commercial law. Important and time-consuming tasks, one might think, but life in Japan obviously had its less onerous aspects, too: after leaving for work every day at 8:00 A.M., he usually returned home for lunch with his family at 12:30 and smoked half a cigar between 1:00 and 2:30 P.M.—confirming his own remark that "a real work-load is not imposed on me" (p. 139; also quoted p. 60). While German advisers in Meiji Japan are considered to have contributed greatly to the development of close Japanese-German ties and even to a "Golden Age of Japanese-German relations," in the closing decades of the nineteenth century Roesler himself poured cold water on the notion of Japanese admiration for Germany and a "Golden Age" in bilateral relations, claiming that only a small number of high-ranking politicians and military officers had a positive image of Germany, while the Japanese [End Page 198] press and the general population alike harbored strong anti-German sentiment. According to Roesler, these anti-German attitudes had sprung from the refusal of the German government to consider a revision of the unequal treaties with Japan. Although Minister Resident Karl von Eisendecher (in Japan 1875 to 1882) favored the rapid overhaul of the treaty between the two nations, negotiations failed because there was little enthusiasm for revision among the other Western powers as well as in the German Foreign Office in Berlin.1 Hermann Roesler: Dokumente zu seinem Leben und Werk consists of an eighty-page introduction by the editor, Anna Bartels-Ishikawa, followed by transcriptions of a body of materials relating to Roesler kept in the archives of the S.J. House at Sophia University. The volume has successfully fulfilled its main objective of making these materials accessible to a wider audience. The documents presented consist of letters sent by Roesler to his family and transcriptions of letters written by his sister, mother, and daughter (pp. 98–124); the (previously unpublished) recollections of Roesler's daughter Elisabeth, written in 1938–1939 (pp. 124–63); a number of family photographs (pp. 163–82); and the scrapbook of Roesler's sister Lina (pp. 183–85). The Roesler Archive in the S.J. House was created during the 1930s upon the initiative of Josef Keller, S.J., who was interested in Roesler's role as a promoter of religious freedom in Meiji Japan. Keller intended to write a biography of Roesler and asked the latter's daughter Elisabeth, living in Bozen (Italy) at that time, for assistance. The recollections of her father that Elisabeth Roesler wrote in response are a part of the Roesler Archive today and a part of the volume under review. The daughter also provided Keller with the photographs included...

The Composition of the College of Commissioners

Recent theoretical studies question the view that the European Commission is a preference outlier. This paper addresses this question by discussing the composition of the European College of Commissioners and by focusing on the appointment process. The analysis is based on a data set that contains biographical information for all Commissioners since 1958. The analysis highlights the importance of Commissioners' party affiliation and their previous political positions. Multivariate regression analysis shows that smaller member states have tended to send more high-ranking politicians to the College of Commissioners than have larger member states. However, party affiliation has not become more important as an appointment criterion. What has changed with time has been not the party link but the calibre of positions held by Commissioners before they are appointed to the College.

GEOPOLITICAL IMAGINATIONS ABOUT THE EUROPEAN UNION IN RECENT POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS

ABSTRACTWith the end of the Cold War the concepts of the geopolitical order of Europe have changed. Within this process the European Union plays a significant role. When the Iron Curtain came down, negotiations about the potential enlargement to the East started and the EU positioned itself differently regarding worldwide conflicts and wars. The influence of the new geopolitical situation on national long‐term orientations and changes in the representations of the national representatives is the focal point of this paper. It analyses the current discourses on Europe, the European Union and its global role based on selected interviews with high ranking politicians. The main issues are: how far does Europe extend and which part of Europe will form the EU? And which internal power relations will the EU develop in the future. A discourse analysis shows how the current problems are verbalised within the geopolitical representations and how they affect the political arena. In this paper the word discourse is used to describe a social process which can be called ‘inclination of sense’ or, in a more sophisticated manner, ‘genesis of meaning’. This meaning refers to (a) the processual character of political, social and territorial organisation, (b) its reflection in the mass media and its construction of what can be called ‘European’ or ‘familiar with Europe’ and (c) the influence of the semantic order on political decisions, which impose a specific structural order and social organisation.

Reflections on the Treatment of the Notions of Control of the Crime and Joint Criminal Enterprise in the Stakić Appeal Judgement

One of the areas of international criminal law that has experienced a deeper evolution in the last decade is that of the applicable modes of liability other than superior responsibility. This evolution has been, to an important extent, the result of moving away from cases where the accused is a physical or low-level perpetrator, such as the Tadic case in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (“ICTY”) or the Akayesu case in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (“ICTR”). In this context, the Stakic Trial Judgement constituted a landmark decision insofar as it resorted for the first time in the jurisprudence of the ICTY to the notion of control of the crime. It did so with the aim to overcome some of the shortcomings of the traditional notion of joint criminal enterprise in cases against high ranking politicians and military leaders. Hence, the judgement of the Appeals Chamber in the Stakic case was very much expected insofar as it was supposed to deal with the issue of whether the notion of control of the crime is part of the applicable law before the ICTY.

Lubavitchers as Citizens: A Paradox of Liberal Democracy (review)

Reviewed by: Lubavitchers as Citizens: A Paradox of Liberal Democracy Barry Trachtenberg Jan L. Feldman . Lubavitchers as Citizens: A Paradox of Liberal Democracy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 212. Lubavitch Hasidim appeared in Lithuania at the end of the eighteenth century as one of many Hasidic sects to form in the wake of the death in 1772 of the movement's second leader, Dov Ber of Mezeritch. The founder of the Lubavitch sect, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), based his movement on a theological doctrine derived from the principles of hokhmah (wisdom), binah (understanding), and da'at (knowledge), earning the group the acronym HaBaD (or, more commonly, Chabad). Over the next two centuries as it spread throughout Lithuania and beyond, its members (like so many other Jews) experienced oppression under the tsars, persecution by the Soviets, and near total destruction at the hands of the Nazis. At the same time, Lubavitch Hasidim were forced to compete for Jewish hearts and minds against other Hasidic sects, mitnagdim (Orthodox opponents of Hasidism), Maskilim (advocates of the Jewish Enlightenment), and various waves of modernity that swept across Eastern Europe. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the sixth Lubavitch rebbe, Yosef Yitshak Schneersohn (1880-1950), reestablished the headquarters of the sect in Brooklyn, where it began to transform itself into an international movement with emissaries and religious schools throughout North America, Europe, Israel, and South Africa. With his passing in 1950, his son-in-law Menachem Mendel (1902-94) assumed leadership of the movement. In the forty-four years that he served as rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn expanded the Lubavitch community to its greatest heights of influence. Although it numbers today approximately 200,000 members out of an estimated thirteen million Jews worldwide, this does not reflect the movement's strength and presence in either the Jewish community or the larger world. At one time forced to practice in secret, the Lubavitch movement found in the United States a society that granted full rights of citizenship without threat of violence or persecution. Operating from this base of unparalleled tolerance, Lubavitch Judaism now boasts a massive network of 2,400 outreach centers in two-thirds of the countries of the world, an annual budget estimated at one billion dollars, and literally millions of Jews who have participated in its outreach campaigns. In recent years its mission has been to keep Jews fully within the Orthodox fold, which leads its activists to fight interfaith marriage, to reach out to [End Page 390] single Jews, and to establish strong ties with influential Jews in politics, business, and entertainment. In this work the movement has at times been very public, very influential, and very controversial. Many Americans have come to learn about the Lubavitch and other Hasidic groups through periodic controversies. These controversies and scandals have included street battles between African Americans and Lubavitchers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; court battles over public displays of menorahs during Hanukkah; storms of protest over the creation of a school district in Kiryas Joel, New York; charges of voter fraud in Hasidic neighborhoods; and the pardons for the leaders of New Square, New York, by outgoing President Bill Clinton. Recent articles in the press have discussed the messianic activism that has sprung up around the figure of Menachem Mendel and that has left divisions in many Lubavitch communities. Like all other groups of Jews who found safety in North America, Lubavitchers have been forced to contend with the political, economic, and cultural demands of a modern and largely secular society. They too have struggled to find the right balance between their desire to remain isolated from the potentially corrupting influences of modernity and the need to incorporate those aspects of the outside world that are beneficial to the community's survival. For the most part, they have been quite successful at maintaining many of their long-standing communal practices while at the same time keeping abreast of the high-tech, fast-paced world. Despite maintaining a separatist status, they conduct widely publicized telethons, run their own media outlets, court high-ranking politicians, and have countless sites on the Internet. Recent years have witnessed several excellent scholarly...

The political economy of centralization and the European Community

Since 1972, the share of central government expenditure in total public expenditure has continued to increase in most industrial countries. In an international cross-section analysis, it has a significant positive effect on the share of government spending in GDP. The actors who have an interest in centralization are analyzed. The dynamics of centralization are attributed to a response asymmetry and two thresholds. “Popitz' law” of the attraction of the larger budget is tested with respect to the EC Commission: high-ranking politicians come mainly from the smaller member states. The voters' attitudes toward European unification are analyzed in a pooled regression. Ten years hence, 80% of our economic legislation, and perhaps even our fiscal and social legislation as well, will be of Community origin (Jacques Delors, Debates of the European Parliament, 6 July, 1988, No. 2-367/140).

The Political Economy Of Centralization And The European Community

Since 1972, the share of central government expenditure in total public expenditure has continued to increase in most industrial countries. In an international cross-section analysis, it has a significant positive effect on the share of government spending in GDP. The actors who have an interest in centralization are analyzed. The dynamics of centralization are attributed to a response asymmetry and two thresholds. 'Popitz's law' of the attraction of the larger budget is tested with respect to the EC Commission: high-ranking politicians come mainly from the smaller member states. The voters' attitudes toward European unification are analyzed in a pooled regression. Copyright 1994 by Kluwer Academic Publishers (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)