Digital Commons Network^™

Faith And Foreign Policy In India: Legal Ambiguity, Selective Xenophobia, And Anti-Minority Violence, Chad M. Bauman

Chad M. Bauman

Legitimacy Of Taiwan's Trade Negotiations With China: Demystifying Political Challenges, Pasha L. Hsieh

Pasha L. HSIEH

The Juarez Wives Club: Gendered Citizenship And Us Immigration Law, Ruth Gomberg-Munoz

Ruth Gomberg-Munoz

Trends In Public Opinion, 1989-1996, John M. Scheb Ii, William Lyons, Grant W. Neeley

Grant W. Neeley

In this chapter, we examine the party identifications and ideological orientations of Tennesseans from 1989 through 1996, as revealed through survey research. We also look at Tennesseans' positions on several issues of public policy that have been salient in state politics during this period. Our intent is to isolate any trends in the partisan and ideological character of the state while examining citizens' positions on key issues.

Mindful Justice: The Search For Gandhi’S Sympathetic State After Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

One of the most startling examples of unmitigated disaster occurred in Bhopal, India, in 1984, when a Union Carbide pesticide plant exploded tons of methyl isocyanate into the air, killing 3800 people overnight. 30 years later, the plant site has not been remediated, and the estimated death toll from the explosion now has reached over 20,000. Disaster victims repeatedly have sought relief directly from the government. Yet, the Indian and US governments and Union Carbide have refused to provide the necessary resources for proper remediation. In this Article, I examine the state’s response to the Bhopal disaster using the thought …

The Punishment/El Castigo: Undocumented Latinos And U.S. Immigration Processing, Ruth Gomberg-Munoz

Ruth Gomberg-Munoz

Dog Whistling, The Color-Blind Jurisprudential Regime And The Constitutional Politics Of Race, Calvin J. Terbeek

Calvin J TerBeek

Ian Haney Lopez’s new book, "Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class", has a provocative thesis. Lopez contends that dog-whistling, that is, coded racial rhetoric, “explains how politicians backed by concentrated wealth manipulate racial appeals to win elections and also to win support for regressive policies that help corporations and the super-rich, and in the process wreck the middle class." Though this may seem plausible enough, the thesis cannot stand up to scrutiny; the relevant political science literature provides no support for this. What is more, Lopez's treatment of the Supreme Court's …

Conceptualising (Re)Worked Narratives Of The American Family: From The American Dream To And American Decay In ‘New’ Television, Jo Coghlan Dr

Jo Coghlan

American television family dramas have long functioned for broadcast networks as a metaphoric framework to affirm the values of the Amerian Dream. 'New' television challenges this constuct.

The Myth Of The White Minority, Andrew Pierce

Andrew J. Pierce

In recent years, and especially in the wake of Barack Obama’s reelection, projections that whites will soon become a minority have proliferated. In this essay, I will argue that such predictions are misleading at best, as they rest on questionable philosophical presuppositions, including the presupposition that racial concepts like ‘whiteness’ are static and unchanging rather than fluid and continually being reconstructed. If I am right about these fundamental inaccuracies, one must wonder why the myth of the white minority persists. I will argue that by re-envisioning whites as a minority culture struggling against a hostile dominant group, and by promoting …

"Innovative Ideas In Civic Engagement Across Two-Year And Four-Year Colleges", Shyam Sriram

Shyam K. Sriram (ssriram@butler.edu)

No abstract provided.

The Death Penalty’S “Finely Tuned Depravity Calibrators” Fairness Follies Of Fairness Phonies Fixated On Criminals Instead Of Crimes, Lester Jackson

LESTER JACKSON

It has been loudly and repeatedly proclaimed by opponents that capital punishment is “unfair.” In their view, it is unfair because (1) only some murderers receive the ultimate sentence and (2) they are not the most deserving. Underlying this view is the remarkable assumption that fairness is subject to “fine tuning” and “moral accuracy.” It is argued here that this assumption is indefensible both in theory and in practice. As a theoretical matter, it is insupportable to suggest that matters of conscience, right and wrong, are subject to calibration or “accuracy.” Right and wrong are not determined in the same …

Stato Moderno E Pubblico Ministero. Il Modello Brasiliano, Eduardo Meira Zauli Dr.

Eduardo Meira Zauli

No abstract provided.

Breaking The Shackled Silence: Unheard Voices Of Women From Kandhamal, Saumya Uma

Dr. Saumya Uma

Citizen Engagement In The Shrinking City: Toward Development Justice In An Era Of Growing Inequality, Barbara L. Bezdek

Barbara L Bezdek

What are the aims of the revitalization conducted by local officials: for which social goods? Good for whom? By what means can the city’s people understand and influence the tradeoffs made by their government in the redevelopment of city blocks already occupied by residents. This is more than a matter of development finance or physical redevelopment. It is a question of social justice, of whose reality counts in the legal process utilized to reach development decisions and approve significant public subsidy for the projects that are remaking American cities. Sherry Arnstein, writing in 1969 about citizen involvement in planning processes …

Book Review: Policing And The Poetics Of Everyday Life., Rodger E. Broome Phd

Rodger E. Broome

Policing and the poetics of everyday life. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008. 256 pp. ISBN 978-0-252-03371-1 (cloth). $42.00. Policing and the Poetics of Everyday Life is a hermeneutical-aesthetic analysis within a human scientific approach of modern policing in the United States. It is an important study of police-citizen encounters informed by hermeneutic aesthetic thought and the author’s professional experience as a veteran with a Seattle area police department in Washington, USA.

Capacity Building And The Afghan National Police Views From The Frontline, Gordon Marnoch, Gavin Boyd

Gordon Marnoch

The article reports on a study of an intelligence management capacity building programme involving former Police Service of Northern Ireland officers mentoring members of the Afghan National Police. The study contributes to the formative evaluation of a policy transfer based on principles and practices developed in Northern Ireland. A short discussion of Afghanistan, policing, intelligence management and policy transfer is provided, before attention is given to the capacity building programme. The study is context rich drawing on qualitative data. Analysis draws on face to face interviews conducted with mentors working with the ANP during 2010-2012. Interview questions were broad in …

Psychological Vulnerabilities And Propensities For Involvement In Violent Extremism, Randy Borum

Randy Borum

Research on the psychology of terrorism has argued against the idea that most terrorist behavior is caused by mental illness or by a terrorist personality. This article suggests an alternative line of inquiry – an individual psychology of terrorism that explores how otherwise normal mental states and processes, built on characteristic attitudes, dispositions, inclinations, and intentions, might affect a person’s propensity for involvement with violent extremist groups and actions. It uses the concepts of “mindset” – a relatively enduring set of attitudes, dispositions, and inclinations – and worldview as the basis of a psychological “climate,” within which various vulnerabilities and …

Indigenous Knowledge, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

Indigenous knowledge (IK) includes the expressions, practices, beliefs, understandings, insights, and experiences of Indigenous groups, generated over centuries of profound interaction with a particular territory. Its iterations and mechanisms are unique to each community, even where it shares certain features across groups by virtue of being embedded in a wider, common culture. In all locations IK is the foundation of Indigenous governance, ecological stewardship, social, ethical, linguistic, spiritual, medical, food, and economic systems, so that the continual production and reproduction of local, land-based knowledge is the basis of Indigenous identity and sense of place in the world, as well as …

Social Capital And Collective Efficacy: Resource And Operating Tools Of Community Social Control, Sami Ansari

Sami Ansari

Globalization's Shift In Accountability: Textile Suppliers And Merchants In 18th And 21st Century Bangladesh, Margaret Jennings

jenningsmargaret@icloud.com

The British East India Company in the 18th century and Wal-Mart in the 21st century share synonymous business practices: the exchange between a less developed nation's unlimited labor force and a developed country's insatiable appetite for cheap garments. By contrasting two events of corruption charges, the Warren Hastings' Trial of the Century and the Tazreen Factory Fire of 2012 illustrate how the accountability of the exchange between the merchant and the suppliers has shifted.

The Right To Freedom Of Expression And Media Reporting On Criminal Proceedings In Tanzania: Finding The Balance, Joseph Wawa Raphael Futakamba S

Joseph Wawa Raphael Futakamba s

This paper examines the impact of media reporting to crime and criminal court proceeding in Tanzania in the light of exercising the legitimate right to freedom of expression by the press, on one hand and the accused rights to presumption of innocence and fair trial on the other hand. The purpose of the discussion revolves around the effect of prejudicial crime reporting to the criminal suspects/accused and available remedies within the legal system. It also, looks upon the court practices and the law in dealing with interference with the course of justice. The paper also analyses the rights of the …

Informing Lone-Offender Investigations, Randy Borum

Randy Borum

This article examines the current research on targeted violence by lone offenders to inform intelligence and criminal investigations. It begins by analyzing the definitions and nature of lone offender attacks, discusses the role of "radicalization," and the ways in which mental illnesses may or may not be relevant.

Advocacy And Influence: Lobbying And Legislative Outcomes In Wisconsin, Daniel C. Lewis

Daniel Lewis

Gauging the influence of organized interests in the American legislative process is undeniably a difficult undertaking. Interest groups and their lobbyists have little incentive to publicly reveal their goals and the extent of their efforts in pursuing those goals. Nationally, and in most states, lobbyists and interest groups are only required to publicly report their lobbying expenditures and the general policy areas in which they are interested in. Thus, it is extremely difficult to assess whether groups are successful in advocating for or against a particular bill. However, a few states have recently begun to require lobbyists and organized interests …

Reassessing Corporate Personhood In The Wake Of Occupy Wall Street, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

This article is about corporate personhood, discussed on the backdrop of class consciousness and criticisms of capital generated, in large part, by the recent and continuing Occupy Movements. I am at first concerned with articulating the evolving jurisprudence of corporate personhood as developed in the Supreme Court of the United States. Combined with this doctrinal approach, I offer a Marxist criticism of corporate personhood jurisprudence that culminates in a discussion of the Occupy Movements' logic of resistance to corporate domination in the United States' law and policy. First, I discuss the role Marxist criticism has played in legal discourse and …

The Great Gun Control War Of The Twentieth Century--And Its Lessons For Gun Laws Today, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

A movement to ban handguns began in the 1920s in the Northeast, led by the conservative business establishment. In response, the National Rifle Association began to get involved in politics, and was able to defeat handgun prohibition. Gun control and gun rights became the subjects of intense political, social, and cultural battles for much of the rest of the 20th century, and into the 21st.

Often, the battles were a clash of absolutes: One side contended that there was absolutely no right to arms, that defensive gun ownership must be prohibited, and that gun ownership for sporting purposes could be, …

México 2010-2011. Los Últimos Años De Una Gestión Cuestionada, Benjamin (Benny) Temkin, Rodrigo Salazar-Elena

benjamin (benny) temkin

El presente artículo describe los eventos políticos y económicos más relevantes ocurridos en México durante los años de 2010 y 2011. Durante estos años la economía mostró signos de recuperación, tras la recesión de 2009, pero la violencia continuó su incremento, en parte como resultado de la política de combate al crimen organizado. El gobierno intentó, sin éxito, impulsar una reforma del sistema político. En el terreno electoral, el PRI fue el partido con mejor desempeño en las elecciones locales, al mismo tiempo que su candidato a la presidencia aparece en las encuestas como favorito.

Sociolegal Studies In Mexico, Julio Ríos-Figueroa

Julio Ríos-Figueroa

This article reviews recent sociolegal scholarship on Mexico related to three topics: (i) the judiciary, the courts, and judicial behavior; (ii) public security and the criminal justice system; and (iii) legal culture. While existing scholarship provides a wealth of information and systematized data on legal phenomena, there is still a conspicuous scarcity of explanations and of systematic empirical analysis. This makes for a lot of research opportunities for sociolegal scholarship in a country that has been under profound and peculiar political, social, and economic transformation in the last three decades. Keywords: Courts; Judicial Behavior; Public Security; Criminal Justice System; Legal …

Justice System Institutions And Corruption Control. Evidence From Latin America, Julio Ríos-Figueroa

Julio Ríos-Figueroa

This essay explores whether the design of justice system institutions helps control corruption. Applying the basic logic of checks and balances to intrabranch institutional design, the main argument is that any justice system where judges and prosecutors, of different ranks and levels, are unchecked actors generates incentives for them to abuse their positions. In other words, while generally judges and prosecutors are considered organs that oversee other branches of government, they may also constitute sources of corruption if left unchecked. The essay offers preliminary evidence on the specific hypotheses derived from the general argument from samples of eighteen Latin American …

Transfer And Translation Of Policy, Diane Stone

Diane L Stone

The past two decades have seen a wealth of papers on policy diffusion and policy transfer. In the first half, this paper reviews some of the trends in the literature by looking backwards to the political science diffusion literature, and forwards to the expanding multi-disciplinary social science literatures on policy ‘learning’, ‘mobilities’ and ‘translation’ which qualify many of the rationalist assumptions of the early diffusion / transfer literatures. These studies stress the complexity of context that modifies exports of policy and the need for interpretation or experimentalism in the assemblage of policy. The second half of the paper focuses on …

Neofunctionalism And Supranational Governance (Unabridged Version), Alec Stone Sweet

Alec Stone Sweet

No abstract provided.