On the Undecidability of Legal and Technological Regulation

Law and Critique - Generally, regulation is thought of as a constant that carries with it both a formative and conservative power, a power that standardises, demarcates and forms an order, through...     

End of the Lone Wolf: The Typology that Should Not Have Been

This research note argues that the “lone wolf” typology should be fundamentally reconsidered. Based on a three-year empirical research project, two key points are made to support this argument. First, the authors found that ties to online and offline radical milieus are critical to lone actors' adoption and maintenance of both the motive and capability to commit acts of terrorism. Second, in terms of pre-attack behaviors, the majority of lone actors are not the stealthy and highly capable terrorists the “lone wolf” moniker alludes to. These findings not only urge a reconsideration of the utility of the lone-wolf concept, they are also particularly relevant for counterterrorism professionals, whose conceptions of this threat may have closed off avenues for detection and interdiction that do, in fact, exist.     

Analysis of off-farm work decisions among smallholder farm households in Burkina Faso

This article investigates off-farm work decisions by smallholder farm households. Using data on 1,101 households from Burkina Faso, it demonstrates that in addition to the usual household socio-demographic characteristics, remittances, access to information and beneficiary of specific training affect off-farm work decisions, as well as rainfall factors and idiosyncratic health shocks. Community characteristics such as accessibility and number of inhabitants are also key factors. While suggesting that off-farm work is less likely to be undertaken for accumulation purposes, these results have important policy implications. In particular, policy measures should consider each segment as a separate entity.     

The Interplay of Adolescents’ Aggression and Victimization with Friendship and Antipathy Networks within an Educational Prosocial Intervention

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - How the interplay between peer relationships and behaviors unfolds and how this differs between classrooms is an understudied topic. This study examined whether...     

New Zealand lawyers and conveyancers disciplinary tribunal cases involving vulnerable clients, 2011–2017*

ABSTRACT

This research analyses disciplinary decisions of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal (NZLCDT) from 2011 to 2017 that involve vulnerable clients. Increasingly, scholarship discusses vulnerability as an ethical concept, including in the legal context. Based on published decisions, the present study inquires whether some legal clients’ vulnerability warrants special attention. Twenty-five of the 193 clients in the NZLCDT decisions qualified as vulnerable based upon age, gender, mental health/neuro-disability or immigrant status. The results may inform disciplinary bodies and inspire preventive strategies by lawyers, educators and regulatory bodies. Ultimately, this evidence-based analysis magnifies the importance of client-centred approaches to risk reduction in legal practice.     

Searching for Autonomy before the Transition to Higher Education: How do Identity and Self-Determined Academic Motivation Co-Evolve?

Identity and academic motivation are particularly at stake before the major transition to higher education. However, few studies have explored their changes and their longitudinal bidirectional links. To fill this gap, a three-wave study from the end of the 11th grade to the end of the 12th grade was conducted to explore changes in identity processes and academic motivation and to investigate how they might be interconnected over time. 599 adolescents (mean age 17.4; 59% girls) completed questionnaires containing measures about identity processes and three types of academic motivation: autonomous, controlled, and impersonal. Throughout the study span of one year, four identity processes increased: commitment making, identification with commitment, exploration in breadth and exploration in depth, while the process of ruminative exploration decreased. Simultaneously, late adolescents encountered an increase in impersonal motivation, more salient for boys. The results also revealed unidirectional links from motivation to identity processes, with no gender or age moderator effects: exploration in breadth and exploration in depth were positively predicted by autonomous motivation, ruminative exploration was positively predicted by autonomous, controlled, and impersonal motivation. In addition, impersonal motivation negatively predicted commitment making. On the other hand, identification with commitment positively predicted autonomous motivation. Practical implications are discussed.

     

Three cheers for liberal modesty

ABSTRACT

Many liberals have been immodest in postulating that their own progressive, secular liberalism is the only one that can be justified in public reason. In Liberalism’s Religion, I articulate a more modest theory of liberalism and religion. While I personally endorse progressive secular liberalism, I argue that it is only one of the reasonable conceptions of liberal justice. This liberal modesty has profound, hitherto unnoticed implications for (i) the role of religious arguments in the public sphere, (ii) the legitimacy of religious establishment, and (iii) the justifiability of religious exemptions. In this article, I defend these three claims by providing replies to my critics.     

Chapter 2: Pay Now So You Won't Pay Later: The Effectiveness of Prevention Programming in the Fight to Reduce Delinquency

Community-based delinquency prevention programs, designed to work with youth and families before they become involved with the official court process, are relatively rare. Likewise, few studies have been published concerninge valuative research on such programs. This article reviews some background on program concepts, describes the operations of the Oakland County Probate Court Youth Assistance casework services program, and reports the results of a comprehensive program evaluation project. The findings suggest that prevention programming is one effective strategy to aid in reducing the likelihood of more costly court interventions. Recommendations for program development are offered.     

Justice,Fairness, and World Ownership

It is a central tenet of most contemporarytheories of justice that the badly-off have aright to some of the resources of the well-off.In this paper, I take as my starting point twoprinciples of justice, to wit, the principle ofsufficiency, whereby individuals have a rightto the material resources they need in order tolead a decent life, and the principle ofautonomy, whereby once everybody has such alife, individuals should be allowed to pursuetheir conception of the good, and to enjoy thefruits of their labour in pursuit of suchconception. I also endorse the value offairness, whereby the right person orinstitution makes the decision as to whether tobring about justice.I show that justice and fairness can besatisfied only if we all enjoy a combination ofprivate and collective rights over the world.In making that case, I shall argue that the setof ownership rights I advocate differs fromreadily available conceptions of restrictedprivate ownership in two important respects.First, it is such that in some circumstances,two individuals or more can have control rightsover the same property at the same time, not,as is standardly the case in legal systems, bycontracting with one another (through gifts andjoint purchase), but simply on grounds ofjustice. Second, it allows that, if necessary,property-owners be expropriated from theirproperty without compensation.