No description available.

Contains 400 of the most important and publicized scandals throughout the world since the beginning of the twentieth century. This title contains topics that include scandals that rocked the worlds of banking and finance, education, government and politics, health and medicine, publishing and journalism, and sports and entertainment.

The most challenging and spoken criminal phenomenon today is indisputably organised crime. It is a crime that both the general public, business community, commentators, researchers, scholars, journalists, writers, politicians, prosecutors, jurists and presiding officials debate with different interpretation and understanding of the concept as well as the manifestation of the phenomena. Debates on the subject have seen the dawn of rival terminologies of organised crime and crimes that are organised. While the United Nations has not assisted the nations in finding a definition of what organised crime is, the confusion has spread throughout the globe and South Africa has not been spared the pandemonium. The objective of this study is to comparatively assess the present understanding and setup in South Africa in comparison with Italy, Tanzania and the United States of America, identify the root causes of the confusion and find possible remedies to liberate the situation. The research concludes with the findings and recommendations. / Criminal and Procedural Law / LL.D.

This final thesis attempts to provide a closer ovierview of specific features of the Italian political arena, which is a mutual penetration of one sphere of organized crime - mafia and politics. The first part of this thesis defines the theoretical structure of the mafia phenomenon and essays to contextualize it within organized crime. The second part begins with an excoursion into the history of the mafia in Sicily from its beginings in the 19th century until the 1970s. The deeper analysis is then devoted to the crucial period of the 1980s and 1990s. The final part of the thesis examines the period of bomb attacks (1992-1993) through the aspect of new investigations. Key words: mafia, Cosa Nostra, politics, Italy, Palermo, organized crime.

This diploma thesis deals with relation between good governance and organized crime. The aim of this thesis is to test a theory claiming that level of democracy directly influences level of organized crime and then to test a hypothesis claiming that key factor for successful fight against organized crime is presence of principles of good governance. Existence and strength of the relation between democracy, good governance and organized crime is tested by statistical analysis on a wide range of states. Results of this analysis are then verified within frame of instrumental case studies of the states with low level of democracy, low level of good governance and high level of organized crime (states of Central Asia) and a state with low level of democracy, high level of good governance and low level of organized crime (Singapore).

In my thesis I will show the case of Mexico, a country that is struggling hard to fulfill its principles of national security - one of the most characteristic features of Mexico's policies. Simultaneously, Mexico is making efforts to fulfill human rights' obligations of both its nationals and foreigners. Increasingly especially since the turn of the millennia, the United States has been fortifying its border with Mexico with the aim to prevent the Mexican and other immigrants reaching the United States illegally. Yet, hard-line border controls and migration-related policies have not been adopted solely by the United States, but also Mexico has played a dominant role in fortifying its border areas, especially along the southern border with Belize and Guatemala. My research questions would then focus on what is driving Mexico to adopt dual approach towards Central American migrants along Mexico's southern border, and why is Mexico balancing between realistic principles of national security and human rights' obligations, which has espoused by signing and ratifying international conventions?

How can an alternative route to knowledge recognition create inclusive and accessible education? Can architecture and spatial practice create relevant learning opportunities for informally living Syrians in Izmir, Turkey? There is an acute access gap to quality education for marginalized communities all over the world. The formally recognized ways of producing knowledge in traditional institutions are not able to reach all parts of society. There is a need to reimagine the way we value and create learning environments, to forge alternative paths of knowledge recognition for a socially inclusive education.This thesis situates itself within the context of Izmir, Turkey, where many Syrians are currently living informally, unable to benefit from formal support and education. This requires us to rethink our approach to pedagogic strategies of empowerment for adults in an informal way. Through a review of relevant literature by educational experts, global actors, thinkers, and activists, and proof of successful practice through case studies, this thesis argues that educational empowerment can happen through critical dialogue and a desire to act for change. It proposes that not only is it possible for architecture and spatial practice to create alternative paths to learning, but also that this might innovate education and create learning environments of high quality and real impact.The research results in an architectural proposal that aims to reconnect knowledge production to real life through spatial practice. The proposal intends to bridge informally acquired knowledge with formal recognition by addressing local issues in the living environment. The project proposes self-organized courses in which communities come together to build knowledge around a certain issue. This practice opens for a collaborative opportunity to take part in the democratic debate, questioning right of access to the knowledge economy and a better living environment.The thesis concludes that this approach has a potential to create alternative paths to knowledge recognition, but that it needs to happen in a collaboration with important actors; local communities, innovators, universities, industries, governments, and NGO’s. It also discusses the appropriateness of this approach and its potential drawbacks, but states that this conversation is important to have in order to imagine a future of empowerment and social inclusion.

Drug trafficking is popularly associated with high-levels of violence; however, this relationship does not hold across all cases. This dissertation asks: why do traffickers sometimes decide to use violence, but other times demonstrate restraint? Building on recent work on criminal politics and patterns of drug violence, this dissertation explores how criminal organizations’ choices of strategy impacts drug-related violence in the areas where they operate. I specifically focus on a certain type of trafficker that has received less attention in the academic literature to-date: Central American transportistas. I argue that politics and institutions incentivize drug traffickers to use different strategies in different locations. Specifically, traffickers’ strategies are determined first by whether or not the country where they are operating has institutionalized corruption. In countries where there is institutionalized corruption, the centralization of political power and electoral competition are important in determining whether traffickers will pursue collusion strategies or attempt to co-opt politics. In the absence of institutionalized corruption, I argue traffickers are left with evasion as their only means of operation. These strategies lead to different levels of narco-related violence: collusion results in the lowest levels of violence, evasion yields moderate levels of violence, and co-optation produces the highest levels of violence. In addition, I explore how traffickers’ relationships to communities at the local level further impacts their modus operandi and levels of violence. I show how narcos have assumed roles traditionally associated with the state and gained support and legitimacy within some communities in Central America. I argue that support for illicit economies occurs when (1) traffickers are operating in their own communities, (2) in rural spaces, (3) in highly marginalized areas, and (4) are not reliant on evasive strategies. Communities where narcos have greater levels of support experience lower levels of violence, all else being equal. Moreover, narcos’ strategies vis-à-vis both states and communities have implications not just for the overall level of violence, but also for the visibility, geography, and nature of the violence. I explore this theory with comparative ethnographic methods, drawing on over two years of fieldwork in several drug trafficking hubs along the Caribbean coast of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. During this time, I conducted participant observation and spoke with over 200 individuals, including politicians, residents, police, drug dealers, and both former and current traffickers ranging from low to relatively high-level. Ultimately, there are policy lessons evident in the differences in violence related to narco strategies vis-à-vis both states and communities. Illicit economies do not have to be violent. Policy priorities should shift away from intercepting drug shipments and arresting transportistas and instead focus on limiting violence related to the drug trade. / 2025-02-28T00:00:00Z

How do individual qualities of interest groups and group interactions influence public policy through the courts? This research is grounded in two primary assumptions: 1) neither are all amicus briefs (formal tool to lobby the court) equal, nor do amicus-filing organizations have the same attributes, and 2) the behavior of Supreme Court justices is shaped by the qualities of actors external to the court. Through advanced statistical techniques, and the tools of network analysis, I build on previous scholarship to provide a large-scale study of how the qualities of amicus brief cosigners, and their interaction within their advocacy network over time, bear on judicial politics. Making use of the total population of amicus-filling organizations to U.S. Supreme Court cases between 1945 and 2012, chapter 1 uses a dynamic network analysis to investigate the evolution of organizational identity and coalition behavior of interest groups based on the issue area they advocate for. Chapter 2 investigates the impact of the ideological composition of interest groups supporting the litigants on the justices’ vote. Chapter 3 analyzes how decision at the agenda-setting stage interacts with outside lobbying to influence the opinion-writing process on merit. The results provide a more comprehensive picture a more comprehensive picture of judicial lobbying; a crucial piece in the operation of the American democracy.

[pt] Neste trabalho desenvolvemos e testamos um modelo para explicar a escolha entre diferentes atividades criminosas nas favelas. No modelo, os criminosos dessas comunidades escolhem uma ocupação entre ser assaltante, ser traficante de drogas, ser miliciano ou trabalhar honestamente. Mostramos que essa escolha depende da renda do indivíduo, bem como da riqueza média da comunidade e das comunidades vizinhas. Mostramos ainda que a transição do tráfico para a milícia é brusca, mesmo sem externalidades nas atividades criminosas, e essa mudança depende exclusivamente da razão entre a renda da favela e a renda dos bairros vizinhos. A segunda parte desse trabalho é empírica. Nas regressões básicas, o efeito dessa razão sobre probabilidade de uma favela ser dominada pela milícia em oposição ao tráfico é estimado como positivo e significante. Entretanto, quando controlamos para medidas de distância da favela a órgãos públicos o coeficiente associado a essa relação perde significância. / [en] In this article we develop a model to explain the choice between different criminal activities in favelas. Criminals in these communities may choose between being muggers, drug dealers, militiamen or working honestly. We show that this choice depends on the agent’s wealth, his community’s average wealth and the wealth of the communities near him. Also, we have shown that the transition from drug dealing to militia is abrupt, even in the absence of externalities across criminal activities and that furthermore this change depends exclusively of the ratio between the favela’s wealth and the wealth of its vicinity. This article’s second part is empirical. In the basic estimations, the effect of this ratio over the probability of a favela being ruled by a militia in opposition to drug dealers is estimated as positive and significant. However, when we control for measures of distance to public institutions, the coefficient associated to this ratio loses significance.