Prostitution in the Netherlands since the lifting of the brothel ban

In the Netherlands, the general ban on brothels was lifted on 1 October 2000. The essence of the amendment of the law is that, under certain conditions, those forms of prostitution in which prostitutes of age are voluntarily engaged are no longer prohibited. At the same time, the legislator intends to crack down forcefully on unacceptable forms of prostitution (in particular various forms of trafficking in human beings). A first evaluation of the amendment of the law was carried out in 2001 and 2002. The Minister of Justice promised Dutch Parliament that a second evaluation study would be carried out a few years after the amendment of the law had become effective. The Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) was asked to direct this evaluation. Three sub-studies were commissioned by and carried out under the supervision of the Research and Documentation Centre. In this report, the results of the sub-studies will be summarised and combined with relevant information from other studies and reports. The aim of this study is to provide information on the state of affairs regarding prostitution in the Netherlands in 2006 in the context of the evaluation of the lifting of the brothel ban, in order to be able, if necessary, to develop flanking policy. The research questions are: – What is the current situation regarding prostitution in the Netherlands with regard to municipal policy, enforcement and compliance? – What is the current social position of prostitutes in the Netherlands? – What is the nature and scale of involuntary prostitution, prostitution by minors, and prostitution by women who do not have a valid work permit? – Which developments have taken place in the prostitution sector during the past years, and to what extent is it plausible that shifts have (in part) been caused by the lifting of the ban on brothels

Dutch Tenses and the Analysis of a Literary Text

Wetensch. publicatieFaculteit der Lettere

Re-imagining the Borders of US Security after 9/11: Securitisation, Risk, and the Creation of the Department of Homeland Security

The articulation of international and transnational terrorism as a key issue in US security policy, as a result of the 9/11 attacks, has not only led to a policy rethink, it has also included a bureaucratic shift within the US, showing a re-thinking of the role of borders within US security policy. Drawing substantively on the 'securitisation' approach to security studies, the article analyses the discourse of US security in order to examine the founding of the Department of Homeland Security, noting that its mission provides a new way of conceptualising 'borders' for US national security. The securitisation of terrorism is, therefore, not only represented by marking terrorism as a security issue, it is also solidified in the organisation of security policy-making within the US state. As such, the impact of a 'war on terror' provides an important moment for analysing the re-articulation of what security is in the US, and, in theoretical terms, for reaffirming the importance of a relationship between the production of threat and the institutionalisation of threat response. © 2007 Taylor & Francis

Coalition theories: empirical evidence for dutch municipalities

The paper analyzes coalition formation in Dutch municipalities. After discussing the main features of the institutional setting, several theories are discussed, which are classified as size oriented, policy oriented and actor oriented models. A test statistic is proposed to determine the predictive power of these models. The empirical analysis shows that strategic positions as well as some of the distinguished preferences are important in the setting of Dutch municipalities. Especially, the dominant minimum number principle yields highly significant results for coalition formations in the period 1978–1986

Government Spending Cycles: Ideological or Opportunistic?

ands. The time series analysis, covering the period 1953–1993, allows for different types of government spending. In general, spending is inspired by ideological and opportunistic motives: all government expenditure categories show an upward drift during election times and the partisan motives behind government spending are clearly revealed: left-wing cabinets attach greater importance to social security and health care than right-wing cabinets and right-wing cabinets value expenditure on infrastructure and defense more than left-wing parties. Constructive comments by Frans van Winden, Wilko Letterie, Peter Cornelisse, Arie Ros, André de Moor, Harry ter Rele and an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged

Intelligence within BAOR and NATO's Northern Army Group

During the Cold War the UK's principal military role was its commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) through the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), together with wartime command of NATO's Northern Army Group. The possibility of a surprise attack by the numerically superior Warsaw Pact forces ensured that great importance was attached to intelligence, warning and rapid mobilisation. As yet we know very little about the intelligence dimension of BAOR and its interface with NATO allies. This article attempts to address these neglected issues, ending with the impact of the 1973 Yom Kippur War upon NATO thinking about warning and surprise in the mid-1970s. It concludes that the arrangements made by Whitehall for support to BAOR from national assets during crisis or transition to war were - at best - improbable. Accordingly, over the years, BAOR developed its own unique assets in the realm of both intelligence collection and special operations in order to prepare for the possible outbreak of conflict

What explains electoral responses to the 'Great Recession in Europe?

The ?Great Recession? in Europe started in early 2008 and was the greatest economic crisis facing the continent since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It produced a largescale loss of support for many incumbent parties. The purpose of this paper is to explain responses to the crisis among European electorates with the assistance of three rival models of electoral choice. The first is the cleavages model associated with Rokkan and Lipset which highlights the importance of social groups as the sources of electoral support. The second is the spatial model of party competition which focuses on the ideological distance between voters and parties in relation to divisive issues in society. The third is the valence model which argues that voters will support parties that deliver policies over which there is widespread agreement about what should be done. The paper models electoral support for incumbent parties using data from the European Social Surveys of 2006, conducted prior to the recession, and again in 2012 some four years into the crisis. The results show that all three models are relevant for understanding mass political responses to the crisis. It is also apparent that an ideological shift to the right occurred in electoral support between the two periods and this happened among both the voters and also the incumbent parties in Europe

An empirical framework of control methods of victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation

Although human trafficking for sexual exploitation is a frequently discussed area in current research, especially on the way that human traffickers control their victims, a recurrent problem is the lack of empirical basis. The present study examines control methods (or conditions) used against 137 victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation. A multidimensional scaling analysis (smallest space analysis (SSA-I)) of 23 control methods (and conditions) derived from a content analysis of police files from the Netherlands revealed three distinct forms of control. These could be interpreted in terms of Canter’s Victim Role model that has been the basis for differentiating offending styles in other violent interpersonal offences. Further analysis showed a relationship between these control styles and different types of prostitution. The three Victim as Object, Victim as Vehicle and Victim as Person modes are consistent with different control methods identified in previous research

The development of political science in Central and Eastern Europe : bibliometric perspective, 1996–2013

This research aims to develop a deeper insight into the development of political science from the bibliometric perspective by analysing peer-reviewed journal articles (n = 1117) indexed in the Scopus database and published by authors from fifteen Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in the period 1996–2013. Results indicate that the majority of articles (84%) by CEE authors have been published in international journals and in the English language. The visibility of these articles in international journals, measured by the mean number of citations, is 5.2 per paper, while the same indicator for CEE journal articles amounts to 0.2. Authorship analysis indicates a gradual but continuous increase in co-authorships. Additionally, there are significant differences in citations between single-authored and co-authored articles, both in international and CEE journals. Co-authorship among CEE authors is present in only 1% of the analysed articles, confirming weak collaboration between political scientists in CEE countries