“Who made the code in the first place?”: Delinquency and justice in an American Indian community

This paper examines the emergence of official categories of delinquency and a formal system for the legal processing of youth on one American Indian reservation. The creation of the legal code, Children's Court and Juvenile Detention Center, and the ongoing activities of these agencies are placed in the context of the larger social system of the reservation and the history of federal policies toward Indian peoples. Through in-depth interviews, participant observation, case file review, and the analysis of existing statistics, perceptions of delinquency and justice and trends in the legal processing of adolescents in this community are explored. The implications of this imposed system of law and justice for this community are discussed.     

Book reviews

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Narratives of Irishness and the Problem of Abortion: The X Case 1992

This paper considers the ways in which discourses of abortion and discourses of national identity were constructed and reproduced through the events of the X case in the Republic of Ireland in 1992. This case involved a state injunction against a 14-year-old rape victim and her parents, to prevent them from obtaining an abortion in Britain. By examining the controversy the case gave rise to in the national press, I will argue that the terms of abortion politics in Ireland shifted from arguments based on rights to arguments centred on national identity, through the questions the X case raised about women's citizenship status, and women's position in relation to the nation and the state. Discourses of national identity and discourses of abortion shifted away from entrenched traditional positions, towards more liberal articulations.     

Same same but different. Die Feldtheorien Fligsteins und Bourdieus und das Potenzial einer wechselseitig informierten Perspektive für die Wirtschaftssoziologie

Field theoretical approaches have become popular within economic sociology. Many even consider the notion of ?field“ a suitable alternative to the hegemonic paradigm of ?embeddedness“. This article outlines the epistemological potential of a field theoretical perspective by systematically comparing the approaches of Neil Fligstein and Pierre Bourdieu. By examining their respective contexts of emergence, their theoretical and methodological references, their research interests and their central concepts, both similarities and differences between the two approaches become visible. The resulting insights allow for a field theoretical and profoundly relational perspective on economic phenomena that might stimulate ongoing debates within economic sociology.     

Good for some,bad for others: US investors and non-trade issues in preferential trade agreements

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) trigger investment through their commitment to a liberal market economy. Increasingly however, PTAs go far beyond liberalizing trade and investment flows. Especially controversial features included in most modern PTAs are environmental and labor standards. Do these standards affect business activity? If so, how do investors react to such non-trade issues in trade deals? The literature provides inconclusive findings about the impact of standards on foreign direct investment (FDI). Some contributors argue that strict standards decrease FDI, whilst others claim that environmental and labor protection increases productivity and, in consequence, inward investment. In all likelihood, the usage of aggregated FDI data, as is the case for most studies, causes confusion. I expect standards to influence investors’ decisions – but heterogeneously across sectors. Environmental and labor standards should reduce FDI in polluting and low-skilled labor endowed industries, but increase investment in environmentally clean and high-skilled labor abundant sectors. Based on an original dataset of environmental and social standards in trade agreements and at the sector-level disaggregated US-FDI data, I find robust support for my argument. The paper provides a more nuanced picture on the standards and investment nexus: Standards have no uniform effect on multinationals. Instead, they are good for some, but bad for other industries.     

The Logic of Terrorist Target Choice: An Examination of Chechen Rebel Bombings from 1997–2003

The current article seeks to add to the quantitative approach to understanding terrorism by examining the logic underlying terrorist choice of targets and timing within the context of the Chechen–Russian conflict. Using data on Chechen rebel bombings in Chechnya and Russia from 1997–2003, the analysis revealed support for a logic underlying terrorist choice of targets. The results indicated that civilian targets were more likely to be targeted in Russia than in Chechnya, illustrating the importance of examining contextual effects within quantitative approaches to terrorism. The results also implicated an affect of weather and urbanization. Implications of the results and future directions for research are discussed.