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The French Prosecutor As Judge. The Carpenter’S Mistake?, Mathilde Cohen Dec 2016

The French Prosecutor As Judge. The Carpenter’S Mistake?, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

In France as elsewhere, prosecutors and their offices are seldom seen as agents of democracy. A distinct theoretical framework is itself missing to conceptualize the prosecutorial function in democratic states committed to the rule of law. What makes prosecutors democratically legitimate? Can they be made accountable to the public? Combining democratic theory with original qualitative empirical data, my hypothesis is that in the French context, prosecutors’ professional status and identity as judges determines to a great extent whether and how they can be considered democratic figures.
 
The French judicial function is defined more broadly than in the United States, …

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Megan's Law: Crime And Democracy In Late Modern America, Jonathan Simon Oct 2014

Megan's Law: Crime And Democracy In Late Modern America, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

Deals with a study which explored the complex entanglements of democracy and governing through crime in the United States. Discussion on crime control as an integral part of democratic penal traditions; How the embedding of governing through crime into the new regime of liberal governance took shape in the country; Details on the adoption of `Megan's Law.'

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The Road Most Travel: Is The Executive’S Growing Preeminence Making America More Like The Authoritarian Regimes It Fights So Hard Against?, Ryan T. Williams Aug 2014

The Road Most Travel: Is The Executive’S Growing Preeminence Making America More Like The Authoritarian Regimes It Fights So Hard Against?, Ryan T. Williams

Ryan T. Williams

Since September 11, 2001, the Executive branch of the Unites States government continues to accumulate power beyond which is granted to it under the U.S. Constitution. This Article examines how the Executive wields this additional power through a secret surveillance program, the indefinite detention of terror suspects, and the implementation of a kill list, where Americans and non-Americans alike are targeted and killed without any judicial determination of guilt or innocence. Moreover, Congress and the Judiciary have condoned the Executive’s unconstitutional power accumulation by not only remaining idle and refusing to challenge this taking, but by preventing other American citizens …

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Conviction And Punishment: Free Press And Competitive Election As Deterrents To Corruption, Xiaowen Tian, Vai Lo Jul 2010

Conviction And Punishment: Free Press And Competitive Election As Deterrents To Corruption, Xiaowen Tian, Vai Lo

Xiaowen Tian

Democratic institutions are not equally effective in curbing corruption. Using a criminal behavior model, this study formulates the hypothesis that corruption offenders, being risk-inclined, are deterred more by conviction-reinforcing democratic institutions than by punishment-reinforcing democratic institutions. Evidence based on cross-country regressions strongly supports this hypothesis, indicating that compared with competitive election, free press is a more effective deterrent to corruption. While shedding light on why corruption remains rampant in some electoral democracies - particularly the illiberal democracies - this study identifies a key to corruption control.

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