Institutional Rules Research Articles

Muslims in American Prisons: Advancing the Rule of Law through Litigation Praxis

Islamic ideas about justice and equality directly informed the development of prison law jurisprudence in the United States. Since the early 1960s, when federal courts began to hear claims by state prisoner-petitioners, Muslims began to look to courts to establish Islam in prison and inaugurated an ongoing campaign for civil rights. The trend is significant when considering Muslims represent a relatively small percentage of the American population. Decades of persistent litigation by Muslims in courts have been integral to developing the prisoners’ rights movement in America. The Muslim impact on prison law and culture is an underappreciated phenomenon that involves African-American Muslims, the criminal justice system, and a spiritual quest for justice and equality. This Essay explores how Islamic ideals contributed to the litigation and how mundane lawsuits were transformed into an expression of genuine religiosity which, in turn, helped create new rules and policies that expanded the law’s presence in prison. By appropriating courts in this way, Muslims emerged as staunch upholders of the rule of law. These lawsuits also unveiled a role-reversal between the guards and the guarded, since the prison staff and administration, entrusted to act lawfully, must be held accountable for violating institutional rules and even criminal law. Far from being antagonistic to American law, Muslims have not stopped attempting to ensure the rule of law prevails in prison.

Transparency in the Financial and Administrative Control Authority in the Sultanate of Oman: Pillars and Dimensions

The study aims to identify transparency in the Financial and Administrative Control Authority in the Sultanate of Oman. The problem of the study lies in the low status of Omani institutions in the Global Corruption Perceptions Index, which reflects the spread of financial and administrative corruption in the Financial and Administrative Control Authority in the Sultanate of Oman. The study highlights the importance of shedding light on transparency in the Financial and Administrative Control Authority in the Sultanate of Oman. The study followed the descriptive analytical approach to describe and analyze transparency in the Financial and Administrative Control Authority in the Sultanate of Oman. The study reached many results, including that the Financial and Administrative Control Authority is trying to apply governance standards in accordance with the instructions issued in this regard. The results showed that one of the most important dimensions of transparency is the possibility of separating powers, practicing transparency in the areas of public life, and activating the law. The results also showed that the pillars of transparency are clarity of work rules in institutions, the dimensions of suspicious personalities from financial and administrative work, rationalization of consumption, and ensuring access to information by the Financial and Administrative Control Authority in the Sultanate of Oman. The results concluded that the application of transparency greatly contributed to enhancing the freedom of access to information, and the reports of the supervisory bodies on the situation inside the institutions received a lot of attention from the public, which indicates the importance of the prominent media role played by the supervisory institutions in order to enhance the role of transparency. The study recommended the need to expand the application of transparency elements in the financial and administrative control body in the Sultanate of Oman. The study also recommended that the practice of transparency contributes to the spread of more freedoms in society, but it is of the opinion that the application of transparency should not be limited to the public employee in institutions only without looking at the higher leaders, as these leaders may be one of the causes of financial and administrative corruption. The study also recommended that the supervisory authorities have many foundations and standards in the matter of punishment and accountability without prejudice to the rights of the employee, as well as researching the reasons for his fraud and obtaining illegal funds from the institution in which he works.

Power to the people: Collaborative watershed management in the Cuyahoga River Area of Concern (AOC)

This project examines collaborative watershed management in the Cuyahoga River Area of Concern (AOC), focusing on the biophysical nature of the river system, the reciprocal relationship between local culture and strategic planning, and institutional rules that guide decision-making. Twenty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of the Cuyahoga River AOC Advisory Committee and supported by a thorough document analysis and direct participant observation to analyze the decision-making processes and collaborative relationships that shape management actions in the watershed. Results suggest that financial and technical resources, along with political support, are essential for large-scale and complex restoration projects like those found in the Cuyahoga AOC. Organizations with governmental ties and that have the capacity to donate resources for restoration have the biggest impact on environmental outcomes. Social outcomes are contingent upon successful collaboration and support community development and improved connection to the resource.

Virtual Visitation and Microethical Decision-making in the Intensive Care Unit During COVID-19.

Virtual Visitation and Microethical Decision-making in the Intensive Care Unit During COVID-19.

Technological innovation in policing and crime prevention: Practitioner perspectives from London

Digital technology now plays a critical role in policing and security management, with policing apps, drones and body-worn cameras potentially being game-changers. Adoption of such technologies is, however, not straightforward and depends upon the buy-in of senior management teams and users. This study examines what obstacles practitioners face in the procurement, deployment and use of crime prevention and detection technologies. The issue is explored through a number of expert interviews conducted with practitioners in London between August 2019 and March 2020. This work expands previous, more theoretical, literature on the topic by adding a practical perspective and advances the understanding of issues faced in innovation processes and their management. We identified a variety of issues and obstacles to technological innovation for policing. These include the deployment of new systems at the cost of old ones, lack of financial and political support, issues in public–private partnerships, and public acceptability. Although individual practitioners may have the expertise and willingness to unleash the full potential of surveillance and crime-reduction technologies, they are usually restrained by institutional rules or, in some cases, inefficiencies. In terms of the latter, this study especially highlights the negative impact of a lack of technical interoperability of different systems, missing inter- and intra-agency communication, and unclear guidelines and procedures.

Сравнительно-правовое исследование ремиссии в арбитраже

Introduction: the institute of remission has only received significant development since 2016 with the adoption of the arbitration reform and the introduction of appropriate changes concerning remission. To date, the legal framework for the procedure for the return of the state court in case of finding serious shortcomings of the arbitration decision has not been fully formed. The purpose of the study: to analyze the remission in the arbitration court after the state court has returned the arbitration decision to correct significant shortcomings. Relevance: the importance and relevance of the work are since the regulations of Russian arbitration institutions do not have provisions on remission. The regulations of foreign arbitration institutions only contain a reference to remission, but do not disclose in detail the conduct of this procedure. At the same time, the institute of remission plays a significant role in arbitration proceedings. The number of applications to this procedure in foreign countries, as well as the beginning of its development in Russia, emphasizes the need and relevance of the study. Methods: in the paper, the research methodology includes the general scientific methods of cognition, specific scientific methods, and special legal methods, the comparative method of analyzing the rules of arbitration institutions is used, and the systematic method is used to determine the formation of the former composition of the arbitration or the new one. Results: the rules of the relevant arbitration institution should be considered as the applicable rules for remission. As a general rule, remitted issues are considered by the same panel of arbitrators that previously made the relevant award. The validity of the arbitrators’ mandate depends on the relationship between the remitted issues and the arbitration decision. The arbitration refusal of remission must be justified. Based on the results of remission, a new decision or an additional one may be made. Conclusions: the institution of remission is important, as it allows you to effectively and quickly correct significant shortcomings while avoiding the cancellation of the arbitration decision, and preserve the partnership of the parties. Based on the analysis and the conclusions drawn, the authors’ own rules are formulated, which can be included in the rules of arbitration institutions.

The Circulation of Evaluative Information

Given ongoing changes in the social structuration of evaluation, the circulation of evaluative information is becoming an increasingly important factor in the production of constitutive effects of evaluation. There is power in the circulation of evaluative information, and therefore also power in attempts to regulate or curb it. Based on one case exemplifying massive circulation of evaluative information (Google Scholar), and one with very limited circulation (workplace assessments), we show how infrastructure, interests and institutional rules are useful analytical entry points into studies of circulation. The paper proposes a new theoretical and empirical attention to circulation of evaluative information as a fragile and contested phenomenon.

Academic dishonesty in stricto sensu postgraduate programs in accounting

ABSTRACT The aim of this article was to analyze academic dishonesty in stricto sensu postgraduate courses in accounting from the perspective of students, teachers, and teaching institutions. There is a gap in the research on academic dishonesty in stricto sensu postgraduate programs in accounting, especially from the analysis perspective of this study, which considers hypothetical situations classified into five categories of dishonesty: fraud/cheating, helping other students, plagiarism, fabricating information, and self-plagiarism/similarities. The study is important due to the role of stricto sensu postgraduate courses not only in training professionals who work or will work in public and private institutions, but also and primarily in training teachers and researchers. Dishonest behaviors can influence the professional lives of those involved, who are predominantly motivated by opportunistic interests that cause damage to the image of professionals in the area and to society. The data were collected through applying two questionnaires adapted from the studies of Braun and Stallworth (2009) and Oliveira and Chacarolli (2013). Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon statistical tests were used to analyze the data. The findings indicated the existence of an expectations gap between teachers and students regarding academic dishonesty in stricto sensu postgraduate programs in accounting. The significant differences found in perceptions regarding cases of dishonesty underline the difficulty for students and teachers to evaluate what is dishonest or not in situations of fraud/cheating and helping other students to engage in academic dishonesty. The differences in students’ and teachers’ perceptions may occur due to a lack of clear rules in the teaching institutions. Therefore, universities could undertake actions to address/prevent dishonest behaviors by establishing internal regulations and promoting discussions involving the whole academic community.

Pursuing ‘full gender equality’ in the European Commission: the case of a constrained selector

ABSTRACT Numerous European leaders have formed cabinets that contain equal numbers of women and men. But forming a gender-equal team at the center of the European Union remains a particularly difficult undertaking. This article analyses the case of Ursula von der Leyen, who, in 2019, set out to form a gender-equal college of commissioners. It analyses why von der Leyen’s first leadership project did not initially succeed and assesses the longer-term prospects of gender equality in the European Commission. Employing a framework drawn from studies of Commission leadership, commissioner selection, and gendered executives, it conceptualizes Commission presidents-elect as constrained selectors. Even with personal dispositions that support gender equality and access to powerful institutional resources, treaty-based rules and situational settings obstruct the ability of presidents-elect to achieve their representational goals. In the future, even presidents-elect who are strongly committed to gender equality will likely struggle to achieve fully balanced colleges.

A fork in the road: Perspectives on sustainability and decentralised governance in digital institutions

A digital institution is a set of computer-based rules that perform intermediating roles upon which one or more person’s well-being depends. This article argues that governance, the processes and customs by which rules are agreed, is critical to the sustainability of the digital institution and therefore of society more broadly. The objective of this work was to interrogate whether emerging decentralised architectures (blockchain) can offer new perspectives on digital sustainability in the form of decentralised governance. Firstly, the literature on decentralised modes of governance was synthesised. Then, existing digital institutions were reviewed, categorised and mapped onto a multi-domain layered conceptual framework that draws out three distinct modes for enactment of changes to digital institution rules; direct, integrated, and fork-based. We concluded that the coupling of decentralised governance approaches with fork-based or integrated enactment stands to enhance digital sustainability through increased perception of trustworthiness afforded through independently verifiable and cryptographically secure audit trails.

A Psychiatrist to Doctors Is Witness to Impact of Stigma on Physicians

A Psychiatrist to Doctors Is Witness to Impact of Stigma on Physicians

Institutional bricolage and the (Re)shaping of communal land tenure arrangements: Two contrasting cases in upland and lowland Northeastern Laos

• Farmers’ view on communal land tenure is rooted in their farming strategies. • Farmers (re)shape their strategies through negotiation of their access to resources. • Power relations influence the shaping of communal land tenure rules and practices. • Farmers navigate through these relations through institutional bricolage. • Institutional bricolage reveals farmers’ (in)ability to benefit from the land. This article examines the factors shaping communal land tenure and livelihood practices in two villages in Houaphan province, Northeastern Laos. It employs the concept of institutional bricolage to show how local actors combine communal tenure, state intervention, donor programs and local power relations to (re)shape formal rules and day-to-day land tenure and livelihood practices. In particular, it highlights how state territorial strategies in lowland and upland rural spaces have differently shaped state interventions in communal land use and access, producing hybrid forms of communal land management rules and practices. The two cases highlight different processes by which communal tenure is eroded or adapted in the process of state incorporation, raising questions about competing authorities over land and the interests and objectives of different actors in land administration. The village cases illustrate how local communities’ (in)ability to shape, adapt, and reproduce institutional rules and arrangements pertaining to access and use of communal land is closely interlinked with: 1) how farm households perceive communal land tenure in relation to their livelihood options and farming strategies; 2) how power relations among local communities and between local communities and state actors shape decision-making processes and distributional outcomes; and 3) the role of the state in sustaining and advancing its control over land and how this changes over time.

Women in Urban Local Government in Bangladesh: A Study on Narayanganj City Corporation

Women's equal participation in politics is critical to women's advancement. This determination, however, is not to be made uniformly across the globe. Yet, in contemporary periods, it has witnessed a significant shift in women's political participation globally. The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of women's overall participation, their socioeconomic status, and their valuable role in urban policy formulation and implementation in Bangladesh. In this analysis, primary and secondary data are integrated. Primary sources are referenced to substantiate theories and arguments asserted in the secondary literature, which are based on the case study of Narayanganj City Corporation. It is completed with the assistance of theories and contentions gleaned from secondary sources. Additionally, this study concludes with an examination of Bangladeshi women's position in the decision-making process. Another pressing need is to broaden the participation of women in political culture at the grassroots level. In urban areas, the City Corporation must interact with various government, autonomous, and semi-autonomous bodies. The situation of female ward councillors has deteriorated to the point where there is some ambiguity. Women's involvement in politics has been limited by a decline in financial capital and family support. Women can appeal to low-level politics thanks to a patriarchal viewpoint. In Bangladesh, women continue to struggle for equal rights and face political challenges. Societal norms enforce gender stereotypes. Religious restrictions are the most severe concern among Bangladesh's status issues, which have a complicated structure. Women are not politically socialized enough to participate in the political life of their country. The City Corporation's institutional rules and responsibilities are of little concern to women, and the existing regulations are insufficient. Therefore, the paper can reveal the actual scenario of women's representation and obstacles in the urban level of Bangladesh.

Firm‐level aggregate corruption and competition: The role of telecommunications infrastructure

AbstractThis study examines the relationship between competition and corruption in the presence of enhanced telecommunications infrastructure. We use firm‐level aggregate data provided by the World Bank Enterprise Surveys and collected between 2006 and 2018. Our fixed‐effects results are two‐fold. First, the number of competing firms increases corruption in developing countries. This result is consistent with the previous literature on the competition‐corruption nexus. Second, corruption decreases as the number of competing firms increases in countries with better information and communication technology endowment. Our results are robust to controlling for endogeneity via the two‐step, feasible efficient generalized method of moments and suggest that e‐governance may help to reduce firm‐level corruption in a competitive environment. Given the negative impact of corruption on investment and growth, developing countries should aim at adopting and using more telecommunications infrastructure, along with the traditional approaches of combatting corruption that are based on enforcing rules of law or building stronger institutions, just to name a few, to boost investment and economic growth.

It's Ordered Chaos: What Really Makes Polycentrism Work

AbstractThis forum reimagines polycentric governance. It develops ideas of “ordered polycentrism” that can help international relations scholarship make fuller sense of contemporary governance of global affairs. How can we theorize the implicit bonding forces that bring deeper order to the surface disorganization of polycentric governance? We offer a key corrective to actor-focused institutionalist understandings by showing how polycentrism also involves deeper relations and structures. Six contributions offer various avenues to theorize deeper order in polycentric governance, each with reference to a substantive issue area. Jens Steffek draws upon constructivist theory of “norms” to argue that standards acquire autonomous ordering power in polycentric governance of global business. Maryam Deloffre adopts a “metagovernance” perspective to identify norms as aspirational visions structuring the regulation of humanitarian assistance. Next, Frank Gadinger explores polycentrism through the lens of “practices” that organize the everyday activities by multiple actors such as negotiating as well as the objects, technologies and expertise they use in these governance efforts. Zeynep Mencutek highlights “techniques” as micro-carriers of ordering practices in polycentric governance of irregular migration, stretching the limits of institutional rules. Maria Koinova discusses “informality” as a deeper structuring force in the governance of transit migration and diasporas, and how it is shaped by state capacities, political regimes, and regional dynamics. Finally, Jan Aart Scholte adds “underlying order” through macro-frameworks and, with illustrations from Internet governance, suggests that polycentrism is structured through a threefold combination of norms, practices, and underlying orders. Together, the six commentaries offer a menu of ways that future research can explore order in what institutionalism has depicted as chaos.

Mobilization against Sexual Harassment in the European Parliament: The MeTooEP campaign

The international #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment constitutes the most prominent contemporary campaign against sexual harassment worldwide. It exposed the issue by undermining the ‘culture of silence’ prevailing in several contexts, including political institutions. This article analyses one specific variant of #MeToo, the campaign MeTooEP that emerged in the European Parliament (EP). MeTooEP is unique in many ways: it was the first collective action against sexual harassment in parliaments emerging in the #MeToo aftermath and it was the first collective action within the EP led by members of the staff, which eventually drove some internal policy changes. Using a unique, large interview dataset, the analysis shows how the actors behind MeTooEP were crucial in shaping the campaign. Their knowledge of institutional rules, practices and daily presence in the EP facilitated their advocacy and transformed the Parliament into an enabling platform for their actions. With the help of Feminist Institutionalism, the analysis demonstrates how the formal and informal institutional EP bodies with their rules and regulations shaped MeTooEP in ways that constrained and empowered it.

Gender-Based Violence in Moroccan Folktales

Men in Morocco have always employed many strategies whereby they have established their domination over women. Their patriarchal tendencies have proven incommensurable with the discourse of wisdom they purport to advocate. Accordingly, they have had to concoct elaborate stories and excuses to actualize their proclivities. Patriarchal hegemony has manifested itself in different ways and resulted in many phenomena, the most influential of which is undoubtedly violence against women that is predominant in the domestic sphere and the public sphere. This omnipresence accentuates through its portrayal in popular culture, including proverbs and folktales. Since folktales encapsulate a culture’s inherited customs, traditions, and values, this article’s primary concern is to investigate whether Moroccan folktales represent the logic dictated by Moroccan patriarchal institutions, aiming at reinforcing the oppression of women through violence. Specifically, the article seeks to address the representations of violence against women in folktales collected by Inea Bushnaq and Malika El Ouali Alami. The findings in this article prove that Moroccan folktales validate the Moroccan cultural norms that highlight the position of women as subordinate characters ready to follow the rules of patriarchal institutions. A recurrent theme throughout these tales is Gender-Based Violence. Thus, this article attempts to demonstrate the representations of GBV in Bushnaq’s and Alami’s tales.

Wilfully submitting to and publishing in predatory journals - a covert form of research misconduct?

A predatory journal could be provisionally defined as one masquerading as a genuine academic publication but offer little, if any, rigorous peer review. Predatory journals or publishers place a focus on maximising financial profit, as opposed to regulated dissemination of scientific advancements. As a result, authors can often get their work published in such journals with little scrutiny on quality. Although generally warned against and discouraged, universally practiced sanctions against researchers’ submission to and publication in predatory journals are not common. Predatory publishing thus remains prevalent, particularly in places where academic success is measured by the quantity rather than quality of publication output, which feeds the journal’s business model that thrives upon significant market demand. However, such an undesirable enterprise has the potential to flood the scientific literature with unsound research that could be misleadingly perceived as authoritative. This may result in or add to the confusion of policy makers and the layperson, consequentially bringing disrepute to science and all parties involved. Here, we argue that wilfully submitting one’s manuscript to a predatory journal may constitute an active act of avoidance of rigorous peer review of one’s work. If such is the intention, it would be a questionable research practice and could be considered an, albeit covert, form of scientific misconduct. If labelled as such, and with institutional and funding rules erected to discourage the practice, predatory publishing could be effectively put out of business through diminishing the consumer demand.

Institutions for reoperating reservoirs in semi-arid regions facing climate change and competing societal water demands: insights from Colorado

ABSTRACT Reservoir reoperation is analysed from the perspective of institutions (rules) governing water resources. A new definition is provided, going beyond ‘modifying dam operations’ found in the literature to instead focus on changes to the allocation of water stored and released from a reservoir. Through interviews and archival research, we assess 32 large reservoirs in the US state of Colorado. Using tools from institutional analysis, we find that reoperation is often the result of institutional ‘crafting’ by reservoir managers and water users, that property rights strongly influence outcomes, and that well-designed policy can promote water sharing in otherwise rigid institutional settings.

Agenda-setting through topic shift in Tanzanian parliamentary debate: The derailment of strategic manoeuvring

This article examines a specific attempt of agenda-setting which is realised by topic shift in the confrontation stage of a critical discussion as an MP introduces a ‘new agenda’ of discussion in an institutional context of the Tanzanian parliamentary debate in Kiswahili. The article further investigates how this topic shift results in a derailment of strategic manoeuvring as the institutional rules of parliament are violated. The data analysed in this article come from the Hansard transcripts of official parliamentary proceedings as collected in their original form from the Bunge’s website. These data are analysed from the perspective of pragma-dialectics, paying particular attention to the confrontation stage. The findings indicate that the kind of topic shift in which an MP introduces a completely different topic can result in the violation of the institutional rules (dialectical standards) of the Tanzanian parliament, hence derailment of strategic manoeuvring. The article further suggests that, although the possibilities for the introduction of a new irrelevant topic in parliamentary debates are strictly limited, MPs still attempt to make strategic topic shifts by (sub)consciously violating the institutional rules of the parliament.