Frontière Dépassée,Frontière Recomposée

La notion de frontière est au c?ur d’une ambivalence entre son caractère délimitateur, son rôle de contour spatial et la contestation des séparations qu’elle opère. La frontière juridico-politique, limite de systèmes, est soumise à de profonds bouleversements. Dès lors, elle fait l’objet d’une nouvelle acception et devient le lieu d’une coopération entre des acteurs soucieux d’un développement harmonieux et d’un retour à la normalité au bénéfice d’une nouvelle dimension de l’espace: le transfrontalier. Comment le droit a t-il accueilli ces évolutions? Quelle définition s’impose au juriste devant la notion de frontière?     

Japanese Network Capital: The Impact of Social Networks on Japanese Political Participation

Recent scholarship shows that social capital has a large influence on political behavior. Social capital’s definition includes trust, norms of reciprocity, and social networks. Most studies, however, ignore the networking component. Here, we test the influence of social networks on political participation using new Japanese survey data. We separately test the effects of involvement in formally organized voluntary associations and informal social networks. We also examine whether hierarchical networks have a different impact on participation than equal relationships. To determine if networks with bridging or bonding social capital affect participation differently, we also measure the openness to outsiders of these networks. Negative binomial regression models indicate a strong positive relationship between formal and informal social networking—including network hierarchy and some forms of openness—and political participation.     

Analyzing the representativeness of internet political participation

Political participation researchers have developed several evaluative techniques to assess the representativeness of political participation patterns. Yet, while the Internet has become a mainstream avenue for political participation in the United States, current assessments of online participation insufficiently apply these methods. To incorporate these methods we begin by drawing upon resource theory to inform two-stage ordered-logit models of online and offline political participation. Our results suggest that the factors predicting online participation often differ from the factors that predict offline participation. Even so, we find that those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds tend to disproportionately possess these distinct online determinants. Next, we use a wide spectrum of political opinion questions to determine whether online participators opinions reflect or distort those of the general population. Overall, we find that online participation tends to relate moderately with liberal preferences. However, because offline participation relates to political attitudes similarly, the Internet only marginally advantages the political voice of liberals. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results.     

Corporate Governance: Towards a Theory of Regulatory Shift

Providing effective corporate governance regulation and controls is a contemporary challenge to all law makers. There exists a need to restore investor confidence while seeking to facilitate and encourage enterprise. This paper reflects on the traditional choice between shareholder versus stakeholder models of corporate governance and suggests that these are inappropriate in the light of emerging news theories of the firm. Instead this paper suggests that law makers should accommodate a shift away from the traditional paradigms of these models in favour of a processual approach of governance. This would require a recognition of the tensions that exist in the regulation of corporate governance and invite the application of a collibratory process to the control of governance. The development and reform of directors’ duties and liabilities, in the UK, is provided as an illustration of the need for the recognised application of a collibratory process. Within that we also consider the application of the economists concept of ‘rent-seeking’ and the conflict between private property rights and public interference.JEL M14, D72, K22, K33     

A Political Economy Model of Workers Representation: The Case of Union Elections in Spain

In this article we present a political economy model to analyse the effects of union elections. Union elections are the prerequisite for participating in collective bargaining and they are a unique Spanish institution for union recognition. We apply standard political economy assumptions to model the union elections in order to understand their influence on the dynamics of the unemployment rate. Although union elections give the right to vote to virtually all workers, we show that insider power exists and that it introduces a hysteresis effect on the unemployment rate. In addition, the model shows how the date of the union elections can amplify the business cycle. An empirical analysis confirms the main predictions of the model.JEL Classification: K31, J51, E24     

Counterfeiting and an Optimal Monitoring Policy

This paper studies the impact of adopting a monitoring system on counterfeiting, in which a criterion to minimize welfare losses due to counterfeiting is provided. If the degree to which the genuine product is imitated (hence the imitation rate) is not high, then counterfeit products might be allowed to exist in such a market. For the case of a high imitation rate, the use of a counterfeit monitoring regime with an optimal counterfeit-monitoring rate is the best policy. If the duration of intellectual property protection is set as infinite, then a higher monitoring rate corresponds to a narrower protection scope. Finally, the enforcement of the laws of intellectual property rights should be flexible according to a products inherent attributes as pertaining to the difficulties at imitating the original products.JEL Classification: D42, K42, L43     

Political Journals in Germany

Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries possessed a wealth of monthly political journals. The period after the Second World War saw a renaissance of monthly journals, which offered orientation to a populace disoriented by National Socialism and war. Today there is a limited number of monthly political journals and their total circulation does not exceed 100,000. But their readership constitutes the small group of citizens who take an interest in politics and in political discourse. Their quantitative influence cannot be measured, their qualitative influence cannot be overestimated. The article focuses mainly on the magazines Neue Gesellschaft/Frankfurter Hefte and Die Politische Meinung. The former is supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, the latter by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.     

The Relationships Between Childhood Sexual Abuse,Social Anxiety,and Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Women

The relationships between childhood sexual abuse, social anxiety, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder were examined in a sample of 313 undergraduate women. Thirty-one percent of the women reported some form of sexual abuse in childhood. Women with a history of sexual abuse reported more symptoms of anxiety, distress in social situations, and posttraumatic stress disorder than other women. Women who experienced attempted or actual intercourse reported more avoidance than women with no history of abuse and women with exposure only, and more PTSD symptoms than all other groups of women. Women who experienced fondling reported more PTSD symptoms than women with no history of abuse. Pressure, age of onset of abuse, abuse by a family friend, and abuse by other perpetrators were all significant abuse characteristics in predicting adult social anxiety. Implications of these results for research and interventions are discussed.     

Violence in Police Families: Work-Family Spillover

This article uses a path model to examine the relationship between violence exposure and domestic violence among police officers with the expectation that the relationships would be both direct and mediated. The mediation factors included burnout, authoritarian spillover, alcohol use, and department withdrawal. The model was tested through an analysis of data collected from 413 officers. Four mediation chains were identified; the most powerful of these was burnout and authoritarian spillover. Suggestions for future research include understanding violence in the context of unique workplace cultures, classifying violence types, and clarifying how this population defines violence and control.