Triggered by the recent Paris attacks the authors make an attempt to answer the question how liberal democracies can react to religious extremists that respond with violence to utterances they consider to be blasphemous. After a brief historical survey of the reactions to blasphemy in penal law and philosophy, the authors compare blasphemy laws and their relation to the freedom of speech in various European countries. Then they analyse the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the U.S. Supreme Court. In their conclusion the authors defend the position that liberal democracies should be cautious in order to prevent the principles of liberal democracy from being subverted by self-censorship induced by fear of extremism.

In this introductory article we introduce the subject of our thematic issue on ‘macro criminology’, and illustrate it with a short historical overview and examples of ‘typical macro criminological’ research. Successively we address the recent decrease in crime in many Western countries (the ‘crime drop’), the increased tendency to punish more severely in the last decennia (the ‘punitive turn’), and historical developments in homicide (‘history of violence’). After that we address an important theoretical and philosophical problem with regard to macro criminology: the balance between micro and macro factors in explaining macro phenomena. Finally, the contributions of this thematic issue are introduced.

International criminal courts have made an important contribution to the development of international criminal law. Through case law, the courts have fine-tuned and modernized outdated concepts of international crimes and liability theories. In studying this practice, scholars have so far focused on the judicial interpretation of statutory and customary rules, thereby paying little attention to the rules’ application in individual cases. In this article, I reveal the limitations of this approach and illustrate how insights from casuistry can advance international criminal law discourse. In particular, I use the example of genocide to show that casuistic case law analyses can help scholars clarify the meaning of the law and appraise the application of substantive legal concepts in individual cases. Based on these observations, I argue that scholars should complement their current research with studies into the casuistry of international criminal law.

Scientific misconduct takes place at the heart of higher education organizations. Organizational culture (meso level) shapes scholars’ behaviors and perceptions (micro level) about what should be problematized while conducting research and teaching. In this paper it is argued that there are organizational mechanisms at place by which organizational goals (funding) and professional goals (recognition) become indistinguishable. The mechanisms are: pressure, loose social control, scarce resources and lack of alternatives. Scholars may strategically react to these mechanisms by accepting, fitting in, resisting or giving up. It is at the heart of these mechanisms and strategies that problematic behaviors may emerge.

Recent years have seen a growing interest in scientific malpractice. In the Netherlands, for example, several major cases of plagiarism, fabrication of data and falsification of findings have come to light. The scandal surrounding the Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel, who simply made up the results of empirical research, prompted worldwide attention. As a result of these scandals, universities have, in the past few years, increased their efforts to better ensure the integrity of scientific research. In this process it is sometimes overlooked that scientific integrity is not a clear-cut concept. By examining three ethical issues relevant to criminological research, this article aims to illustrate that the assessment of integrity is a complicated matter. The first dilemma relates to maintaining confidentiality: how to ensure that the privacy of respondents is protected and the research will not harm their interests? The second dilemma has to do with the degree of openness and transparency required from the viewpoint of scientific accountability. How transparent can one be when it comes to conducting scientific research based on secret information and closed sources that are only accessible to the researchers? Finally, the third dilemma concerns the independent position of criminological research. What are the possibilities and limitations of free and independent research in the field of criminology?