25,715 research outputs found

    Social Capital and the Food System: Some Evidences from Empirical Research

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    The paper stresses that in order to understand the current re-organizational processes in the food system, two kinds of social capital should be taken into account, trust and network-based social capital. Stemming from a case study, concerning the Italian processing tomato industry, it demonstrates that while trust seems to enhance social welfare, by reducing transaction costs and promoting cooperative behavior, network-based social capital mainly affects firm competitive behavior, with unpredictable effects on social welfare.social capital, trust, networks, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

    IRIS Quarterly Policy Report: Summer/Autumn 2000

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    Monopolist, Aristocrat, or Entrepreneur?: A Comparative Perspective on the Future of Multidisciplinary Partnerships in the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom After the Disintegration of Andersen Legal

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    Part II provides a snapshot of the history of multidisciplinary partnerships in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom and the responses of the organized bars at the national and international level. Part III explores how the structure, culture, and ethics of the legal professions in Western Europe contributed to the rapid growth of MDPs. Part IV examines the economic threat that the Big Five’s legal networks posed to U.K. and Western European law firms prior to the criminal conviction of Andersen and the consequent disintegration of Andersen Legal, its law firm network. Part V offers some preliminary reflections on how Andersen’s demise will shape the future of MDPs in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe. The Conclusion connects that future to deeply embedded competing models of the legal profession

    Exploring internal child sex trafficking networks using social network analysis

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    This article explores the potential of social network analysis as a tool in supporting the investigation of internal child sex trafficking in the UK. In doing so, it uses only data, software, and training already available to UK police. Data from two major operations are analysed using in-built centrality metrics, designed to measure a network’s overarching structural properties and identify particularly powerful individuals. This work addresses victim networks alongside offender networks. The insights generated by SNA inform ideas for targeted interventions based on the principles of Situational Crime Prevention. These harm-reduction initiatives go beyond traditional enforcement to cover prevention, disruption, prosecution, etc. This article ends by discussing how SNA can be applied and further developed by frontline policing, strategic policing, prosecution, and policy and research

    'Safety: everybody’s concern, everybody’s duty?' Questioning the significance of 'active citizenship' and 'social cohesion' for people's perception of safety

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    The catchphrase “Safety: everybody’s concern, everybody’s duty” implies that in order to safe-guard the social order and safety we, the professionals as well as the public, need to unite and work together. In this sense, social connectedness and civic engagement are perceived as the prime sources to counter crime and people’s perception of safety. In this paper, we will first clarify that the references to ‘active citizenship’ and ‘social cohesion’ in criminal policy discourse are the result of the development of ‘perception of safety’ as an autonomous subject for research and policy. Policymakers have come to see (in)security as a phenomenon that needs to be explained by taking into account crime and non-crime related factors. Next, we will describe the emergence of ‘social cohesion’ and ‘active citizenship’ as natural barriers against crime and other deviant behaviour and as prerequisites for people’s perception of safety. In the third part, however, we will point out that both concepts are not necessarily positively interlinked with people’s ‘perception of safety’. Moreover we will indicate that activating civic engagement and stimulating social cohesion can even be detrimental to people’s perception of safety. In the final part we will suggest that in order to understand people’s perception of safety, we need to consider the process of identity formation and social categorization

    Understanding Terrorist Network Topologies and Their Resilience Against Disruption

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    This article investigates the structural position of covert (terrorist or criminal) networks. Using the secrecy versus information tradeoff characterization of covert networks it is shown that their network structures are generally not small-worlds, in contradistinction to many overt social networks. This finding is backed by empirical evidence concerning Jemaah Islamiyah's Bali bombing and a heroin distribution network in New York. The importance of this finding lies in the strength such a topology provides. Disruption and attack by counterterrorist agencies often focuses on the isolation and capture of highly connected individuals. The remarkable result is that these covert networks are well suited against such targeted attacks as shown by the resilience properties of secrecy versus information balanced networks. This provides an explanation of the survival of global terrorist networks and food for thought on counterterrorism strategy policy.terror networks;terrorist cells;network structure;counterterrorism

    Benefits and Costs of vertical Separation in Network Industries. The Case of Railway Transport in the European Environment

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    The article is devoted to a phenomenon called vertical separation in the area of network industries. Vertical separation is understood as de-merging of infrastructure and delegating control over it to independent manager banned from operating on downstream markets which are subject to liberalisation. Arguments for and against these tendencies have been examined using the example of the European railway transport. The complete analysis presents vertical separation as a promising solution for the railway industry. One of the conditions for the success of this reform is forming of a close cooperative relationship, based on loyalty and trust, between the infrastructure manager and its clients – rail operators. Building such a relationship should be supported by the implemented regulatory policy.network industries, public utilities, railway transport, economic regulation, liberalisation, vertical separation

    Peacebuilding: A broad review of approaches, policies and practices

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    This background paper has been produced for a workshop on “Civil society views on next generation peacebuilding and conflict prevention policy and programming issues and responses”, convened by Peacebuild in Ottawa on March 14, 2011 with the support of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
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