Development of a Sustainable Biomass-Derived Nano-Adsorbent (NA1) from Watermelon and Pigeon Pea Leaves for Enhanced Pollutant Removal in Batch and Continuous Systems with Excellent Antibacterial Activity.

ABSTRACT

This study aims to develop a photo-induced nano-adsorbent material derived from watermelon leaves (WML) by incorporating green-synthesized titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂ NPs) using Pigeon Pea leaves extract. The prepared nano-adsorbent will significantly reduce reliance on traditional chemical-based methods for its synthesis. Morphological and structural studies confirm the successful formation of spherical TiO₂ NPs with an average size of 48 nm, whereas FESEM-EDX studies further validate the incorporation of NPs within the bio-adsorbent, and BET analysis demonstrates a substantial improvement in specific surface area from 31.6 to 96.99 m²/g after incorporating TiO₂ NPs in WML. The prepared nano-adsorbent was used for removing Cr (VI) from industrial wastewater, and the results depict the highest Cr (VI) adsorption percentage, up to 90% compared to pristine WML at optimized conditions. Kinetics and isotherm findings predict the pseudo-second-order model (chemisorption-controlled), and the Langmuir isotherm provides the best-fitting model to the experimental data. Response surface methodology (RSM) using central composite design (CCD) reflects good agreement between actual and predicted value under optimized condition signify the reliability and adequacy of the predicted model. Moreover, the antibacterial efficacy of the prepared nano-adsorbent was studied against Escherichia coli (E.coli) using extended Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (XDLVO) theory in terms of adsorbent surface charge and interfacial interactions between the foulant and the adsorbent surface. The result depicts a threefold reduction in interaction energy (less negative value of ∆GTOT) after incorporating TiO₂ NPs, depicting stronger antibacterial properties. Lastly, adsorption column design using Bed depth service time (BDST), the Adams–Bohart and Thomas model fitting concludes the mass-transfer-controlled adsorption process and deploy the scalability of the process in a packed bed application.

This paper examines the impact of anti-money laundering (AML) oversight on suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by real estate agencies in Norway. Using unique data on inspections, sanctions, and confidential SARs, the study estimates the effects of inspections on reporting through a difference-in-differences approach. The results show an increase in reporting post-inspection driven by entities with a low, positive number of prior filings, while report quality remains unchanged. There is no evidence of spillover effects; inspections do not influence the reporting of uninspected entities either geographically close to or affiliated with inspected ones. The findings suggest that AML oversight may create a learning effect for inspected entities but does not lead to sector-wide improvements beyond local effects. This paper contributes to the modest empirical literature on AML oversight effects and the general literature on regulatory enforcement and provides recommendations for improvements to the AML system.

Despite leachate contamination being common around dumpsites, studies integrating spatial variation, soil-depth profiles, groundwater quality, and associated environmental risks remain limited. This study assessed leachate, soil, and groundwater quality in the vicinity of a municipal solid-waste dumpsite in Jaipur, India, using spatial sampling structured by distance, direction, and soil depth. Leachate was alkaline and reducing, with pH of 8.2–8.8, electrical conductivity (EC) of 25–29 mS cm⁻¹, total dissolved solids (TDS) of 12,460–16,000 mg L⁻¹, and detectable Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, Ni, and Zn. Maximum soil EC and TDS values were higher at 0.3 m, whereas selected water-extractable ions showed variable depth profiles. Groundwater pH ranged from 6.5 to 8.2, EC from 0.4 to 3.6 mS cm⁻¹, and TDS from 200 to 1770 mg L⁻¹. Borewells east of the study dumpsite showed the highest EC, TDS, and chloride concentrations. Spearman analysis showed depth-specific soil associations and groundwater EC-TDS-chloride-calcium co-variation. Ecological-risk assessment identified Cd as the principal soil-risk driver, with moderate to considerable integrated ecological risk across the investigated soil profile. Soil non-carcinogenic hazard indices were below 1 for adults and children, whereas groundwater-ingestion hazard indices exceeded 1 at assessed locations, particularly for children, and were dominated by Cd. The absence of a consistent concentration decline with distance or depth indicates heterogeneous spatial and vertical variation. The single-campaign spatial design did not confirm source attribution or transport pathways. Leachate treatment, runoff control, protection of groundwater-use areas, and seasonal monitoring are recommended.

There is growing evidence of the occurrence of several types of goal displacement in regulatory enforcement agencies. A major underlying determinant of these phenomena is the neglect of ambiguities characterizing the goals of these agencies. This paper proposes three strategies that carefully consider these goal ambiguities to contain goal displacement. Each of them relates to an important underlying process in enforcement regimes. The first, multifocal scope selection, seeks to establish a balanced process of selecting regulated organizations to inspect. The second, multitier compliance perception, aims to increase the robustness of the translation of regulatory requirements to the specific settings of regulated organizations. Finally, multi-indicator means specification strives to solidify the subordinate position of means to goals in the process of means specification. These ambiguity management strategies may shed new light on how to optimally manage enforcement agencies to increase their effectiveness.

Whistleblowing in private and public sector organizations has gained momentum in the last decade. Most theories seeking to explain why some employees report wrongdoings largely disregard the interaction between the cognitive and emotional components of this decision. Our article addresses this gap in the literature and proposes a theoretical model that was initially developed in cognitive psychology and accounts for such an interaction. We explore empirically its relevance in the case of private and public sector employees in Romania, which is the least likely case for the use of whistleblowing. We use data from semi-structured interviews conducted with employees from the private and public sector. The key findings contribute to the debates on whistleblowing as a specific regulator in organizations: emotions and cognition have high explanatory power; the irrational beliefs matter in developing emotional and behavioral consequences for potential whistleblowers; and the organizational support is crucial in disputing these irrational beliefs.

Platform companies like Uber and Airbnb are depicted as agile policy entrepreneurs who can navigate the boundaries of regulatory frameworks and manipulate regulations to their advantage; however, recent empirical studies suggest that their capacity to influence policy depends on the particular political and institutional context. This study investigates the evolving responses of local regulators to platform companies across 108 European cities between 2012 and 2022. Utilizing a regulatory stringency index, we assess how city governments have adjusted their regulations to counteract the growing influence of these platforms. Our research indicates a notable trend toward stricter regulatory measures, reflecting an increased determination among local authorities to enforce rules on platforms. We identify various patterns of regulatory change, which are shaped by sector-specific dynamics and differing national and local contexts. By examining the regulatory dynamics over time, this paper contributes to the understanding of the relationship between platform power and local governance.

Regulation can influence economic dynamism, the distribution of income, and various measures of economic welfare. Despite a substantial proportion of regulation in the United States originating at the state level, we are not aware of any comprehensive measure of excess regulation or “red tape” at the state level. We fill this notable gap by constructing a novel measure of state-level red tape based on the State RegData dataset. The red tape index measures the excess stringency of regulation in each industry relative to a benchmark level of regulation and then weights the extent of excess stringency on the industrial composition of each state. As a comprehensive measure of regulation, the red tape index differs fundamentally from other existing measures of state-level regulation, which tend to target a particular type of regulation (e.g., labor market regulation). The red tape index reveals wide variation in the level of industry regulation among states and that most states have regulations that go beyond a so-called “light touch” regulatory approach, implying that red tape is pervasive. This index may be of value for both empirically estimating the effect of comparatively high levels of state regulation on various outcomes of interest and for policy makers seeking to streamline administrative rules.

Accountability infrastructures' spread may give the impression that organizations are embracing accountability. Yet accountability professionals continue to encounter defensive reactions from those they are holding accountable. How do they navigate these reactions? Looking at the case of professionals in independent accountability mechanisms—grievance mechanisms at development finance institutions—this article identifies one approach: normalizing defensive reactions. Normalization is an emotion management strategy. It casts defensive reactions as an expected and explainable part of accountability processes. Particularly when accountability mechanisms depend on organizational stakeholders' participation, I argue normalization can help professionals diminish potential strain and keep running accountability processes—but only when defensive reactions do not cross boundaries that professionals draw between what is expected and not. For research and institutions, this raises future questions not only about emotions' role in accountability processes, but also about what organizational reactions should be expected in “normal” accountability and what inequalities could surround these expectations.

Drawing on insights from over 12 years of direct involvement in both state and industry regulation, this article examines whether extensive state involvement in social media regulation, particularly concerning disinformation, is always advisable. The South Korean case provides valuable lessons for other democracies, demonstrating how state-led institutions regulating defamation and social disorder can restrict political speech. By demonstrating the critical flaws of both state-driven and market-based regulation, the study underscores the necessity of transcending existing models and proposes an independent regulatory mechanism to prevent the abuse of power over political speech. Through the lens of historical institutionalism, the study argues that proactive state intervention has led to the emergence of another regulatory body, resulting in institutional layering.

This article examines how probation inspectors in England and Wales construct their self-legitimacy; the internal belief in their moral and professional right to inspect. Drawing on qualitative interviews and Bottoms and Tankebe's dialogic model of legitimacy, it shows how inspectors justify their authority through legal mandates, professional expertise, methodological rigor, and a commitment to public service. In the absence of coercive powers, inspectors rely on what this article conceptualizes as regulatory soft power, influence grounded in credibility, fairness, and moral purpose. Inspection emerges as a relational practice, shaped by how inspectors perceive themselves and how they are perceived by others. This study extends the concept of self-legitimacy from criminology into the regulatory domain, offering new insight into how regulators navigate authority in contexts marked by political sensitivity and limited enforcement tools. It argues that self-legitimacy is an overlooked dimension of responsive regulation and a key factor in regulatory effectiveness.

Regulatory governance and state-corporate crime studies link persistent industrial pollution to long-term regulatory–industry interactions, yet little is known about how these interactions evolve and become entrenched. This article examines two enduring cases of industrial pollution in the Netherlands—Hoogovens/Tata Steel and DuPont de Nemours/Chemours—to explore how regulatory–industry interactions shape the emergence, normalization, and persistence of pollution. Based on historical archives of government and company documents and media publications, four time periods since the 1960s are studied. Using path dependency as an analytical lens, this article identifies five interdependent, recurring patterns that enabled and sustained harmful corporate conduct: knowledge-asymmetry, regulatory co-design, economic dependency, regulatory fragmentation, and juridification. The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how regulatory-industry interactions can inadvertently facilitate enduring environmental harm, offering insight into structural dynamics that normalize pollution and complicate accountability and reform over time.

Wage theft remains a pervasive problem internationally and within the United States. In response, worker advocates have sought stronger laws to deter violations and promote compliance. Yet formal authority alone may be insufficient; labor departments often fail to use the full extent of their legal authority to conduct vigorous enforcement. This raises two empirical questions: to what extent do agencies deploy available enforcement tools, and with what consequences? Drawing on a novel survey of U.S. state labor departments, new measures of statutory strength in wage-hour laws, and state-level estimates of minimum wage violations, we find widespread nonuse of available powers. This misalignment of powers and practices has substantive consequences: the predicted probability of minimum wage violation falls sharply as strategic enforcement practices increase, conditional on strong labor laws. However, this effect shows no measurable impact for some of the most vulnerable workers, suggesting limits in reaching those at greatest risk. We conclude by outlining a forward-looking research agenda on the (mis)alignment of powers and practices.

This paper proposes a transdisciplinary approach to design future degrowth-oriented industrial policies in pursuing a well-being economy in the case of a specific growth model. Specifically, we show that the case of the Visegrad countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, V4s) is a clarion call for the degrowth literature to be much more modest and self-critical. It addresses the puzzling question of whether the future degrowth policies of the V4s are influenced by their unique industrialization path, which has historically relied on foreign capital. It proposes a transdisciplinary framework (based on political economy and ecological economics) to root degrowth-compatible industrial policies for the degrowth transition. It then analyzes the V4s' capital-dependent growth models historically to improve degrowth-oriented industrial policy research. It concludes with implications for future study on degrowth-oriented industrial policy, based on V4s' experience anticipated to remain in a wayward FDI-dependent mode, to make the well-being economy-seeking endeavor more scientifically sound.

Recent literature calls for scholars to bridge the divide that has emerged between criminology and regulation and governance. In the current work, we propose that criminological opportunity theories provide one fruitful pathway to that end. Specifically, we introduce the notion of regulatory guardianship based on the concepts of guardians, guardian capability, and guardian willingness to intervene, and connect them to the regulation and governance literature. We demonstrate the utility of this perspective as the building blocks for improving theoretical understanding of the effectiveness of a broad range of parties engaged in compliance work in specific regulatory environments. Considering new empirical insights into regulatory guardianship in the design of future legislation and systems of oversight and accountability may also improve governance implementation and effectiveness.

The European Union (EU) is making regulatory efforts to allow for the safe integration of drones into civilian airspace through automated means. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/664 concerning unmanned traffic management (a system referred to as “U-Space”) furthers that commitment. Accordingly, drone operators must avail themselves of automatic traffic-related “U-Space services” concerning flight authorization, geo awareness, traffic information, and network identification before entering U-Space airspace. Using infrastructural analysis, as proposed within Science and Technology Studies (STS), this article shows that while automation is meant to ensure safe traffic, it could also challenge U-Space safety in at least three ways: by inviting reliability concerns for U-Space infrastructure; because of the transition from human-centric to automation-centric systems; and by being subject to irregularities within the EU's framework. An infrastructural analysis, therefore, helps in unveiling important factors which influence the safety of automated technologies and in critically discussing the role of law in their regulation.

This paper advances research on policy accumulation by analyzing its political consequences in the French housing sector. It argues that, in the context of decentralization reforms, the accumulation of policy instruments has undermined national steering capacities and intensified territorial inequalities. Decentralization accelerated accumulation by decoupling policy formulation from the costs and administrative responsibilities of implementation, shifting these burdens onto subnational governments. The resulting proliferation of instruments politicized implementation, as local authorities confronted capacity-driven trade-offs between adhering to national directives and pursuing local policies, while simultaneously gaining opportunities to innovate and build coalitions with non-state actors. Consequenty, local governments in economically dynamic areas could strategically leverage policy accumulation to advance their interests, whereas those in less affluent regions faced administrative overload. By adopting an institutional perspective on policy instruments, this paper shows how accumulation research can foreground the political consequences of accumulation, which increasingly shape the problem-solving capacities and legitimacy of modern states.

Conditionality was a central concern in the development literature of the 1990s. With the significant expansion of targeted public support to private firms since the Great Financial Crisis, the issue of conditionality has once again become a focal point in industrial policy debates. Despite the growing interest in the concept, the existing literature lacks a systematic conceptualization of conditionality within the context of industrial policy and does not outline the political factors that enable state actors to introduce it. This article addresses this gap by critically reviewing the existing literature and providing a systematic political economy of conditionality. We offer an overview of the literature on conditionality, examining different industries, historical periods, and national contexts. In doing so, we make three key contributions to the debate on industrial policy and regulatory instruments more broadly. First, we distinguish between two broad approaches to encoding conditionality in industrial policy: hard-coding and soft-coding. Next, we map the coalitional, institutional, ideational, and global contextual factors that facilitate conditionality. Finally, we present two vignettes of recent industrial policy initiatives in the European Union and the United States as illustrative cases. This conceptual exercise, intended to lay the foundation for future causal research on conditionality, demonstrates that the presence of conditionality is not merely a technical matter of political design but is instead shaped by configurations of political economy factors.

Preventing and reducing corruption has proven to be an enormous challenge. An important step in this process is to produce and use good metrics to identify where anti-corruption resources would be most beneficial. Most measures of corruption, however, rely on surveys of perceptions or bribery incidence. Such surveys suffer reporting biases, not least of which is memory bias. Furthermore, they paint a picture of corruption in broad strokes, while reducing corruption requires targeted policies and interventions. User Incidence Reports are collected in real time, reducing memory bias, and potentially provide the details required to target corruption where it is most frequently reported. In this study, we examine the potential research and policy value of user incident reporting platforms like “I Paid A Bribe” (IPAB). IPAB provides rich data on corruption dynamics in India, including specific corruption types, bribe amounts, regional variations, and affected sectors. Using a combination of descriptive statistics and illustrative user reports, we demonstrate IPAB's benefits and identify remaining challenges.

Through the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the European Commission targets sustainable products and value chains to curb environmental and social problems. Based on a combination of a complex systems lens and the global value chain and global governance approaches, the paper uses literature analysis and expert interviews, evaluated through qualitative content and causal loop analysis, to analyze the complex potential impacts on value chains and actors' evolving responsibilities within global value chains. Results show that textile chains are expected to experience positive and negative outcomes from the regulatory change. The impact upstream, such as on cotton farmers, remains unclear. Positive impacts of the mandatory regulatory change depend on facilitators like collaborative governance, value chain transparency, political support, measurability, external checks, and industry know-how. Barriers include power structures within global value chains, regulatory limitations, among others. The Regulation and the Directive can drive sustainability within garment supply chains, provided barriers are addressed from the beginning and facilitators are promoted throughout the supply chain. However, substitution of cotton by more easily traceable synthetic fibers may result in an effective traceability solution rather than an effective solution to solve social and environmental problems.

The rationalization of corruption allows individuals to detach from moral imperatives, enabling them to perceive unethical or unlawful actions as acceptable or justifiable. Closely linked to the concept of moral disengagement, rationalization involves cognitive distortions that frame inhumane or immoral behavior as neither wrong nor inconsistent with the agent's values. Despite its conceptual significance, rationalization has been empirically understudied, largely due to the limited availability of firsthand qualitative data from corruption perpetrators. This study addresses this gap by analyzing how individuals involved in corruption rationalize their actions. We conduct an abductive thematic analysis of 141 h of testimony from 49 Odebrecht executives, collected as part of their leniency agreements during Brazil's high-profile Car Wash investigation. Through these depositions, we uncover and interpret the discursive strategies used by the executives to normalize their involvement in systemic corruption. Drawing on prior research and our empirical findings, we propose eight categories of rationalization. These categories offer a framework that not only advances academic understanding of corruption rationalization mechanisms but also provides practitioners—such as compliance officers, ethics trainers, and internal auditors—with actionable insights to design more effective ethics training programs and preventive strategies that focus on cultural and psychological mechanisms rather than legislation and market regulations.

In health care regulation, open outcome-oriented standards are used to provide flexibility for care organizations to determine how to deal with complex issues. What remains understudied is how this works out in practice. This paper studies how inspectors use open standards to regulate the complex issue of person-centered care. An exploratory qualitative multiple-method design was used to study the work of inspectors who assess the quality of nursing homes within the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate. Five mechanisms were found that hamper the assessment of open outcome-oriented standards for person-centered care: difficulties in triangulating information, estimating the reliability of the information, deviating from the schedule of the inspection program, judging direct care provision negatively, and indicating a clear boundary between sufficient and insufficient. When using open outcome-oriented standards, it is important to reflect on these mechanisms and evaluate whether outcomes still align with the societal values they attempt to regulate.

A large body of research demonstrates support for deterrence and organizational justice perspectives in regulating white-collar and corporate crime. While much of this literature focuses on corporate America, there are nonetheless some established consistencies in “what works” to promote compliance. Parallel to this literature, policing scholars tend to focus on negative outcomes, such as excessive use of force and other forms of misconduct, rather than through a glass-half-full lens of compliance. The current paper takes stock of the literature on the regulation of white-collar and corporate crime, with the goal of extending the lessons learned from corporate America to the context of police organizations. In light of the current legitimacy crisis in policing, the broader organizational justice literature offers a promising avenue for informing better research on compliance in policing, that is, how to get the police to do what the public wants as opposed to reacting to negative events. We recognize that there are inherent levels of accountability present in corporations that are more limited in policing (e.g., federal regulation) but there are still many internal mechanisms and processes common to both organizational settings that deserve more attention by policing scholars. The paper concludes with an overview of theoretically driven and evidence-based directions for future policing research that may simultaneously inform policy and practice in police organizations.

This article argues that if the aspiration is to enhance regulatory and governance responses to white-collar and corporate crimes, consideration of the organization of these offending behaviors must be central to the scholarly, practice, and policy discussion. Regulation and governance scholarship has thrived as a field of study in its contributions to the theories and practices of regulation (and regulators) but has backgrounded the dynamics of how regulatees organize their rule-breaking behaviors, and the implications of this for intentional interventions. Criminology has advanced our understanding of the procedural aspects of crimes but has largely marginalized business and organizational offending, with proportionately few criminologists displaying interest in how better to regulate organizations that violate the rules. To help bridge these gaps, in this article we draw on an “organizational perspective” to argue that “good enough” regulatory approaches should be directly informed by an understanding of how and why such crimes or offending behaviors are organized in the ways they are, and of the factors that shape these dynamics over time within particular contexts. We argue for the development of a program of research that synthesizes abstract and concrete research inquiry, and that challenges regulation academics to identify the necessary and contingent structures, mechanisms, and conditions that combine to produce white-collar and corporate rule-breaking behaviors to develop more plausible regulatory interventions, on a spectrum from immediate to long-lasting.

The regulation of business is increasingly characterized by “soft” governance regimes that blur the boundaries of public and private authority, as signaled by the rapid proliferation of multistakeholder initiatives in global governance. This article explores how the spread of multistakeholderism creates opportunities for new forms of strategic action, enabling actors to participate in multiple fora, successively or simultaneously in order to pursue a particular agenda. The article focuses on multistakeholder initiatives in UK food policy and corporate political strategy in the regulation of ultra-processed food. We adapt the concept of venue shopping, introducing the idea of venue hopping, which captures how actors advance agendas in multiple spaces and at multiple political levels. The analysis traces negotiations across two food policy partnerships, showing how industry actors operated in and between venues, playing one setting off against the other.

How legitimate is Financial Action Task Force (FATF)? We address this question with cross-country evidence spanning performance-wise aspects—standards, evaluation, strategy. FATF's legitimacy needs strengthening. Standards-wise, compliance to FATF's Recommendations generally contributes to both FATF's and external effectiveness proxies, yet the latter has much weaker evidence. Granularly, FATF's Recommendations pose challenges for good-faith developing states, since capacity constraints hinder compliance and effectiveness conversion. Evaluation-wise, the effectiveness appraisal may be biased due to heavy reliance on compliance ratings, evidenced by weak correlations with external corruption control and financial transparency indicators. Strategy-wise, though enhanced follow-up boosts persistent compliance, the dominantly punitive strategy system is detrimental to good-faith yet low-capacity states. Theoretically, we build an extended framework on Mitchell's theory by deepening the analysis of effectiveness and justifying its applicability to non-binding institutions. We also enrich the dialogue on the legitimacy of international organizations by presenting a quantitative, objective approach using official data.

States, firms, and other types of governors routinely rely on intermediaries to govern issues on their behalf. Such indirect governance drives regime complexity: governors frequently enlist multiple intermediaries for governing an issue. I theorize that governors foster complexity to maximize utility from indirect governance. When governors enlist intermediaries, they face the governor's dilemma: a tradeoff between the competence they can obtain and the control they can exert, I identify two strategies for mitigating this dilemma. Diversification creates competition among intermediaries providing similar competencies to prevent drift and slack. Differentiation promotes complementarity among intermediaries to exploit variation in the control elasticity of different competency types. In each case, governors increase regime complexity to obtain a preferred combination of competence and control. I illustrate my argument with examples from international cooperation. I conclude with a discussion of the broader implications of the article's findings for international relations and political science scholarship.

Taking its cue from the growing frequency of disruptive crises, new research argues that crisis-induced turbulence calls for robust governance based on adaptation and innovation. While law plays a key role in the effort of governments to govern robustly, the robustness of law has received scant regard. To compensate for this gap, this article defines robust legality, analyzes its conditions of emergence, reflects on the different forms it might take, and considers the prospects for advancing robust legal regulation. Studying legal robustness enables public management researchers and practitioners to better understand the role of law in times of heightened societal turbulence.

This paper examines the strategic communication of the European Commission about developing a regulatory approach and financial instruments to foster the greening of the European economy over a period of 14 years (2009–2023). We investigate in-depth the strategic communication of three European Commission Colleges led by Barroso, Juncker, and von der Leyen, respectively. We analyze an original dataset of 57 Commission Communications using qualitative content analysis. The paper demonstrates that, over the past 14 years, the EU's strategic agenda-setting has moved away from a predominantly neoliberal approach of limited state involvement in the economy to one foreseeing more active state intervention, especially in the provision of financial resources and the design of integrated policies to guide the green transition. The findings highlight the crucial role of the Commission in steering the EU's climate action policies, as shown by the adoption of the European Green Deal in 2019.

The present study examines diversity in corporate offending. Corporations can be diverse or rather specialized in their pattern of rule violating behavior. Offending diversity (or crime mix) constitutes an important dimension of the criminal career and different theories of offending lead to different predictions with regard to the extent of offending diversity expected. Though a bourgeoning literature has begun to view corporate offending through a criminal career lens, extant studies tend to focus on the frequency of corporate offending, rather than on corporate crime mix. Here, we examine corporate crime mix using regulatory inspection data on 567 Dutch corporations subject to the Seveso-III Directive pertaining to occupational safety, external safety and disaster control for companies handling large amounts of hazardous materials. Seveso corporations show high levels of offending diversity. Latent class analysis reveals three distinct patterns of corporate offending driven by the frequency of inspection and offending, rather than by clustering of offenses within corporate criminal careers. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Business organizations have increasingly adopted compliance strategies in response to heightened regulatory requirements. Prior research has examined the role of compliance programs in curbing unethical behavior and enhancing corporate governance, but it has often overlooked their defensive function and proactive role in legal risk management. This paper develops the concept of defensive compliance and investigates whether compliance programs reduce corporate criminal liability and punishment through prosecutorial and sentencing decisions and outcomes. Analyses of US Sentencing Commission organizational offender data provide some evidence of defensive compliance: fewer conviction counts, reduced fines (only during the Biden administration), and shorter probation terms. However, its effects are muted or even reversed in other outcomes or contexts. The results also show little support for the propositions that public company status and managerial involvement moderate defensive compliance. These findings suggest that the efficacy of defensive compliance evolves over time and is highly context-dependent. Future research should further develop the defensive compliance framework and examine its operation across varied institutional settings.

In a systematic narrative review of 33 longitudinal corporate crime studies, we identify and describe corporate criminal career dimensions: participation, frequency, crime mix, and duration. Themes and patterns across data sources are assessed, including information collected that informs a corporate criminal career perspective and what remains unexamined. Main findings reveal: (1) most longitudinal studies do not explicitly focus on the corporate criminal career; (2) a significant number of companies offend occasionally over time, but others offend often (chronically) or not at all; (3) typically, studies examine one or two types of offending, offering little insight into crime mix; and (4) identifiable groups of corporations show evidence of both stability and change over time. Studies provide insights for understanding the dimensions of corporate criminal careers (some more than others), but more explicit and detailed longitudinal work is needed. We conclude by identifying potential areas for theoretical advances and future research.

In most political systems, cities are not formally part of national policymaking. However, since they are often responsible for the implementation of national policies, they are likely to seek influence on these policies. Existing literature deals mostly with institutionalized policy cooperation and collective municipal organizations. As such, we know very little about how individual cities try to pursue their interests in national policymaking, let alone the conditions for their success. Documenting early policy influence is difficult as processes are tightly closed. Based on unique access to deep archival material (30,000+ pages) combined with 17 elite interviews, this study shows how Danish cities influenced upcoming regulation of vulnerable social housing areas. Using process-tracing logic, the study systematically shows how multiple attempts were made by cities to alter new policy targeting “ghettoes.” Not all attempts were successful, but in crucial cornerstones, city influence on policy formulation can be documented. The study contributes to our understanding of intergovernmental relations on national regulation and shows that the exchange of city resources—especially technical knowledge and implementation capacity—is a key condition for successful influence on national policymaking.

How do regulatory bodies ensure that including the beneficiaries of regulation in regulatory processes improves governance? In many regulatory arrangements, beneficiaries' “fire alarm” monitoring and reporting of targets' violations via complaint mechanisms activate regulatory bodies' enforcement role. This article theorizes how beneficiaries may misuse complaint mechanisms, undermine regulators' performance, and prompt regulators to adopt strategies within and beyond the complaint process to regulate beneficiaries' behavior. It argues regulators' assessment of the issues driving misuse and their enforcement approach (cooperative or deterrent) affect their strategies for influencing beneficiaries. Case studies of two Canadian human rights institutions, which have different enforcement approaches but experienced similarly extreme levels of beneficiary misuse during the COVID-19 pandemic, evaluate these theoretical claims. Overall, the study illustrates potential enforcement challenges arising from using beneficiaries as intermediaries for monitoring and reporting violations and how regulating beneficiary participation may be required to improve decentralized regulatory governance.

Regulators increasingly rely on public information disclosure to influence organizational behaviors. Prior research is mixed on the effects of information-based instruments in an environment of abundant online information. The study applies a behavioral perspective to examine how regulatory ratings shape the responses of regulated entities by serving as carriers of attention. We present evidence based on a natural experiment arising from regulatory changes in the United Kingdom and a dataset of the food hygiene rating scores of 286,605 food outlets within 2015–2019. The findings demonstrate how responses from food outlets vary based on features like physical versus online-only disclosure. We discuss how behavioral responses can inform regulators' choice architecture of instrument design.

People frequently compete with one another for awards, benefits, contracts, positions, or roles. One of the regulatory challenges in these contexts lies in preventing people from making dishonest claims to win such competitions. Honesty pledges, asking people to commit to ethical behavior ex ante, have been found to reduce cheating under non-competitive settings (when rewards were given based on individual reports only). However, as people behave differently under competitive settings, it is unclear whether honesty pledges could be effective and recommended in such situations as well. In four experiments, we apply honesty pledges to competitive and non-competitive settings, finding that pledges remain effective in reducing cheating behavior under competitive contexts (Studies 1–4). Moreover, this effect is not crowded out if a sanction (fine) is added to the honesty pledge (Study 2). Honesty pledges are also effective among people who tend to cheat more, due to low or overestimated task-related ability (Study 2) or due to high competitiveness (Study 3). Additionally, people's estimations regarding others' cheating behavior explain why pledges accompanied by descriptive honesty norms affect cheating behavior (Study 3). Lastly, even in high-stakes competitive environments that demonstrably increased dishonesty, honesty pledges remained effective in reducing dishonesty (Study 4). These findings demonstrate that honesty pledges can serve as effective non-coercive regulatory instruments to reduce dishonesty in competitive environments, offering advantages over traditional enforcement mechanisms while remaining effective even among individuals most prone to cheating and under high-stakes conditions, with important implications for organizational policy design and regulatory approaches.

We approach public communication of bureaucratic organizations as a means of reputation management and argue that social media communication that abstains from making reference to other agencies is in line with a turf-protective strategy, whereas communication that seeks to establish a link to other agencies is in line with a strategy to embrace new issues and expand policy competencies. Using climate policy communication by EU agencies on the social media platform Twitter (currently X), we show that agencies operating in policy fields traditionally linked to climate policy and holding a policy mandate refer less to their counterparts in their social media communication than agencies without such a climate mandate and operating in policy fields more recently linked to the issue. We find that agencies opt for either turf protective and risk-averse or expansive and reputation-building strategies, depending on what fits their interest best.

Transnational private institutions (TPIs) operate at the intersection of technocratic efficiency and democratic accountability, raising important questions about when and why they adopt particular legitimation strategies. This study theorizes and empirically examines the role of regulatory issue area as an explanatory variable by analyzing the legitimation strategies of a prominent TPI: the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which presents a unique case due to its expansion from technical to societal standard-setting. Drawing on a two-dimensional conceptual framework from the literature on international organizations and a novel dataset covering ISO's full standard portfolio, the study shows that ISO's legitimation strategies vary systematically depending on whether a standard addresses societal or physical issue areas. These findings reinforce the argument that issue area shapes the use of democratic and technocratic legitimation strategies among TPIs. The insights are especially relevant as TPIs increasingly engage in the governance of societal concerns, a development that, as this study suggests, significantly shapes how they seek legitimacy and merits further scholarly attention.

During and following the Covid-19 pandemic, the European Union (EU) is taking first steps toward a European Health Union (EHU). There is no set definition of what an EHU is, but in this paper, we explore the popular support for different designs of an EHU, including a pillar in which healthcare policy competences are shared between the EU and national governments, a risk-sharing, and a redistributive pillar among countries. The analysis draws on two conjoint experiments in which respondents are presented with policy packages, as well as on a follow-up survey on political attitudes. One of the experiments focuses on a central fiscal capacity that provides financial help to countries hit by adverse shocks, including financing of national healthcare spending, while the second focuses on joint procurement of medical countermeasures. The surveys were fielded in five EU countries at the end of March/beginning of April 2020, in July 2020, and in November 2022. Our findings are the following: there is support for all three pillars of an EHU, which moreover rises with trust in the EU; respondents tend to prefer a health-related fiscal capacity to other forms of EU fiscal capacity; direct experience with serious Covid-19 infection raises both trust in the EU and support for the EU sharing in social policy competences; and more trust has a larger positive effect on support for an EHU for those without serious Covid-19 experience than for those with. These findings suggest that to promote further EU integration, the European Commission may want to develop strategies to bolster trust in the EU.

In contrast to the “quiet” politics of the pre-2008 period, macroeconomic policy has become “noisy”. This break raises a question: How do independent agencies designed for quiet politics react when a contentious public turns the volume up on them? Central banks provide an interesting case because while they are self-professed adherents to communicative transparency, individual case studies have documented their use of strategic silence as a defense mechanism against politicization. This paper provides a quantitative test of the theory that when faced with public contention on core monetary policy issues, central banks are likely to opt for strategic silence. We focus on the most contested of central bank policies: large-scale asset purchase programs or “quantitative easing” (QE). We examine four topics associated with particularly contested side effects of QE: house prices, exchange rates, corporate debt, and climate change. We hypothesize that an active QE program makes a central bank less likely to address these topics in public. We further expect that the strength—and, in the case of the exchange rate, the direction—of this effect varies depending on the precise composition of asset purchases and on countries' growth models. Using panel regression analysis on a dataset of more than 11,000 speeches by 18 central banks, we find that as a group, central banks conducting QE programs exhibited strategic silence on house prices, exchange rates, and climate change. We also find support for three out of four country-specific hypotheses. These results point to significant technocratic agency in the de- and re-politicization of policy issues.

Risk-based approaches to regulatory governance are ubiquitous. One aspect of such approaches suggests regulators direct their attention towards companies that have already violated regulations. However, such approaches have made little use of available data to explore these companies, especially compared to companies that do not transgress. This article represents a first step towards informing regulatory practice with an analysis of such data, examining whether companies that violate environmental regulations both once and multiple times can be distinguished from companies that have remained compliant. Companies pursued by the Environment Agency for England and Wales between 2010 and 2021, including both one-time violators (n = 445) and repeat violators (n = 1826) were compared with companies with no record of environmental violations (n = 4500). The results of the multinomial logistic regression suggested that increases in the log of current liabilities and return on equity were associated with an increased likelihood of being both a one-time and repeat violator, while decreases in return on capital employed and the logs of assets and net income were associated with the same. Finally, utilities companies were associated with an increased likelihood of being a repeat violator. The results have implications for where environmental regulators should direct their efforts. Financial difficulties in particular may serve to be an important indicator of whether a company may be at risk of violating environmental regulations.

The 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic triggered large economic stimulus packages in most countries. While aimed primarily at saving the domestic economy from widespread bankruptcies and mass unemployment, these stimulus packages also offered governments windows of opportunity for pivoting toward decarbonization. Drawing on a new dataset covering 40 of the world's largest economies' stimulus spending during the two crises, this article addresses two questions: (1) Did the allocation toward green investments increase in government stimulus packages from the GFC to the Covid-19 downturn? (2) What country characteristics are associated with green stimulus spending in each crisis? Grounded in distributive-conflict theory, we hypothesize that the relative strength of green and fossil stakeholders in the economy is decisive in shaping climate policy outcomes. Consistent with this theory, our empirical analysis reveals (1) a (small) uptick in major economies' net green spending from 2008 to 2020 and (2) that robust green industrial interests strongly predict cross-country variation in green stimulus spending. In contrast, countries' levels of fossil fuels production did not exert a proportional influence. Notably, our research also uncovers a pattern of path dependency, with countries leading in green stimulus spending during the GFC maintaining this position also through the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall, this article contributes new insights to the comparative political economy literature on climate change by analyzing how economic recessions affect the energy transition and how economic structures drive cross-country variation in investment-based climate policy.

Transparency is a key concern in global governance scholarship, yet its contribution to good governance remains deeply ambivalent. Scholars are increasingly questioning the idea of transparency as a silver bullet, emphasizing the need to better understand its potential, pitfalls, and regulatory challenges. This article focuses on the field of business and human rights (BHR), and recent regulatory advancements in human rights due diligence (HRDD) in the European Union specifically, to examine the conditions under which transparency supports business responsibilities for human rights. Drawing on expert and policymaker interviews from the negotiations of the EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence, complemented by document analysis of related laws, policies, and research, the study identifies four interrelated dimensions that condition transparency as a regulatory pivot in HRDD: the design and audience of disclosure, the operationalization of reporting standards, the balance of accountability mechanisms, and the role of stakeholders and their modes of engagement. The analysis demonstrates that transparency operates within complex tensions—between capacity-building and control, politics and law, and cooperation and contestation. By tracing how these tensions are addressed in EU-level policymaking, the article advances understanding of how integrated communicative practices, clear and fair standard-setting, accountability governance, and a culture of plural and deliberative stakeholder engagement can shape transparency as a means of good governance rather than an impediment to it. The findings extend beyond BHR to broader global governance debates on information disclosure, effectiveness, accountability, and democratization, while underscoring the need to recognize businesses as global governance actors.

Policy makers are showing increased interest in understanding the impacts of public policies on subgroups of the population. We provide the first cross-regional comparison of distributional analyses by examining 907 benefit–cost analyses (BCAs) in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union from 2016 through 2020. In these regions, we find almost no quantification of net benefits for a population subgroup (2 US BCAs, 0 UK BCAs, and 1 EU BCA). Distributional weights were also rarely used (5 UK BCAs, none elsewhere). Moreover, when distributional weights were used in the United Kingdom, they were used mainly to evaluate policies involving income transfers between low- and high-income groups rather than in broader regulatory analyses. We consider possible explanations for the lack of quantification of net benefits by subgroup along with the implications of our findings for conducting distributional analysis.

JEL Classification: K23, K32, Q58, I0

Mediator discretion in community mediation is inevitable yet often invisible, which can obscure legitimacy, accountability, and bias in publicly funded or state-adjacent settings. This conceptual design paper uses integrative synthesis, drawing on street-level bureaucracy, procedural justice, and dispute system design, to derive a practice-ready and auditable way to govern within-session discretionary process moves without disrupting conversational flow or capturing confidential narratives. I define transparent mediator discretion as the practice of making discretionary process moves visible through brief reason-giving, authorizing them through bounded party choice, making them reversible through a normalized reset pathway, and documenting them through minimal coded entries. The paper's results are design outputs: a fairness-by-design framework centered on a brief rationale-and-consent loop, a proportionality ladder, a menu-based set of move options, and a code-only documentation structure. Worked examples illustrate how the loop can be delivered as a human micro-competency and supported by digital decision aids without replacing human judgment. I also specify falsifiable propositions, privacy-minimizing indicators designed to avoid narrative capture, and low-cost evaluation designs that can be implemented in low-resource programs. Next steps include piloting in both voluntary and court-connected contexts, testing safeguards for stalemate and power imbalance, and assessing how AI-assisted support can preserve party choice, reversibility, and accountability under human oversight.

Regulatory sandboxes have become increasingly prevalent over the past decade. In this paper we systematically review 15 peer-reviewed studies and 5 gray literature sources (2016–2025) identified through structured searches of Scopus, Web of Science, and regulatory repositories. Treating effectiveness as contested and multidimensional, we combine existing studies to demonstrate when, how, and for whom sandboxes generate benefits and risks. Three patterns emerge. First, the clearest gains are ecosystem spillovers: once a sector has its first sandbox entrant, funding for non-participating firms often rises, consistent with signaling and information diffusion. Second, direct firm-level funding advantages largely fade after accounting for staggered adoption, with positive effects concentrated in smaller firms. Third, system-level impacts depend on context, varying with supervisory capacity, complementary policies, and wider pro-innovation reform bundles. Overall, the evidence base is small, UK-centric, and methodologically heterogeneous, so findings should be read as indicative. We conclude with evaluation implications for regulators.

Social safety nets are essential to a resilient and adaptive economic system. This study examines their influence on corporate tax avoidance using the staggered implementation of U.S. state-level paid family leave (PFL) programs, social safety net policies designed to enhance employees' work-life balance, as a quasi-natural experiment. We find a statistically and economically significant decline in corporate tax avoidance following PFL adoption. The results hold across various robustness tests. A structural equation model shows that the effect is mediated by decreases in employee turnover and improvements in employee productivity. The effect is stronger among firms facing greater financing frictions and among labor-intensive firms. Overall, this study identifies a reduction in corporate tax avoidance as an unintended consequence of social safety nets.

Polymer sorbents offer versatile solutions for removing heavy metals, dyes, PFAS, and pharmaceutical contaminants from wastewater. This review connects material design with adsorption performance, regeneration, and circular economy concepts while highlighting machine learning–driven discovery, scale-up challenges, and research priorities that shape the next generation of sustainable water treatment technologies.

ABSTRACT

Industrial effluents containing heavy metals, synthetic dyes, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pharmaceuticals, and endocrine-disrupting compounds remain a major challenge for wastewater treatment. Conventional adsorbents, including activated carbon and zeolites, often show limitations in selectivity, regeneration, or adsorption capacity for complex wastewater systems. Polymer sorbents offer an alternative because their chemical structure and surface functionality can be tailored for specific separation and adsorption applications. This review examines studies published between 2021 and 2025, with particular attention to the relationship between polymer structure and adsorption performance. The discussion considers the effects of crosslinking density, pore architecture, and functional-group modification on adsorption behavior across different classes of polymer sorbents. Representative examples include molecularly imprinted polymers for selective recognition, poly(ionic liquid)-based materials for PFAS removal, stimuli-responsive hydrogels with swelling-dependent transport properties, and magnetic polymer nanocomposites that combine adsorption with straightforward separation. The review also discusses regeneration efficiency, structural stability during repeated adsorption–desorption cycles, and the balance between mechanical strength and biodegradability. Although substantial progress has been reported at the laboratory scale, pilot-scale investigations and studies involving multi-component wastewater remain relatively limited. Recent work applying machine learning to polymer design is briefly considered as a promising direction for accelerating material development. By bringing these aspects together, this review provides an updated overview of current polymer sorbent technologies and identifies priorities for future research and practical wastewater treatment applications, with the aim of supporting informed material-selection decisions by treatment-plant operators, regulators, and technology managers.

Marine-derived microplastic contamination has emerged as a growing food safety concern in artisanal sea salt production, where pollutants may become concentrated during solar evaporation and crystallization. In East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, traditional cooking salt often fails to meet edible-grade standards because of elevated divalent mineral impurities and microplastic contamination. However, cost effective practical mitigation strategies for small scale producers remain very limited. This Study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of three local natural filtration media, namely: Sugar palm fiber (Arenga pinnata), sea sand, and coconut shell charcoal used to filter brine prior to crystallization via boiling. A completely randomized design (CRD) framework was adopted, evaluating four distinct treatment conditions: a non-filtered control (P0), sugar palm fiber filtration (P1), sea sand filtration (P2), and coconut shell charcoal filtration (P3). Physicochemical measurements and FTIR spectroscopy showed a significant difference in (p<0.05) the particle count and salt properties between the experiments. In terms of NaCl recovery and polymer reduction effectiveness, coconut shell charcoal filter (P3) gave the most satisfactory results. Using the SNI 4435:2017 Class 1 edible salt standard, P3 achieved an increase of NaCl purity from 84.14% to 94.62 % in addition to achieving the 41.78 % reduction of microplastics and the removal of 80.6% magnesium impurities and decreased the number of particles from 35 500 particles kg-1 to 20 666 particles kg-1. Fiber shaped particles and smaller than 100 µm particles were the most reduced particles after filtration. FTIR results revealed lower values of several polymer peaks in the filtered salt samples in comparison with the controlled ones. Under the experimental conditions evaluated, coconut shell charcoal filtration improved the physicochemical quality of artisanal salt and reduced microplastic contamination prior to crystallization.

The accumulation of non-biodegradable plastics is driving the search for environmentally friendly, low-cost alternatives. This study investigated the production of biodegradable bioplastics using starch extracted from Ipomoea batatas and Manihot esculenta tubers. The tubers were pulverized, and starch was extracted. Bioplastic was produced by reacting the starch with ethanoic, methanoic, and propanoic acids in the presence of glycerol and water at 80°C for 25 min. The starch yield and the physicochemical, mechanical, and degradability properties of the bioplastics were determined. The results showed starch yields (57.5%; 52.26%), moisture content (12.38%; 13.74%), pH (6.9; 6.7), amylose content (20.4%; 20.67%) and amylopectin content (79.6%; 80.2%) for Ipomoea batatas and Manihot esculenta tubers, respectively. The mass of bioplastic produced was directly proportional to starch content and the number of carbon chains present in the organic acid. The mechanical properties showed that tensile strength was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than that of the control, except for the 15 g bioplastic produced. Shear strength also showed a trend similar to tensile strength. The elongation/break properties significantly (p < 0.05) increased in the methanoic acid-derived bioplastic. The bioplastic degradation rates were (0.0059, 0.0056 and 0.0043 mg/ml/h) for Ipomoea batatas and (0.0099, 0.0098 and 0.0091 mg/ml/h) for Manihot esculenta-derived biodegradable plastic, respectively, using Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The results of this study show that starches from Ipomoea batata and Manihot esculenta tubers could be a good source for bioplastic production because they are inexpensive, renewable, and readily biodegradable when disposed of in the environment.