Double Pairs*

Abstract
This article discusses C. E. Alchourrdn and E. Bulygin's ideas regarding the distinction between strong permission and weak permission . The author takes for granted that the distinction between the two terms should be placed at the level of the assertive metalanguage about norms. But the symbolizations and the definitions of strong and weak permissions offered by Alchourrdn and Bulygin, as well as their thesis concerning the relations between the two concepts are challenged.     

ORGANIZATIONAL PATHWAYS TO COMPLIANT REFORM IMPLEMENTATION: EVIDENCE FROM MEXICAN CIVIL SERVICE REFORM

A technocratic pathway to public management reform stresses the need for committing sizeable resources to reform implementation. Building on an institutional framework, we argue that there are alternative pathways to compliant implementation for government agencies with limited resources. Our comparative study of 55 Mexican government agencies that were the object of the 2003 Civil Service Reform Act reveals the co‐occurrence of both technocratic and institutional pathways to compliant implementation. The common denominator across pathways in organizations with limited resources was the absence of strong oppositional norms (patronage) and the presence of robust interpersonal trust. We conclude that the role played by available resources in compliant reform implementation is far from straightforward, and depends on different combinations of public organizations' endogenous characteristics.     

Revisiting the Transatlantic Triangle: The Decolonisation of the British Caribbean in Light of the Anglo-American Special Relationship

The international collapse in the price of sugar, together with increasing immigration restrictions in the late 1920s and 1930s, produced great pressure on wages and employment throughout the British Caribbean. The underlying tensions reached their boiling point in the years between 1935 and 1938. The chronology proved fateful and speaks for itself: a sugar strike in St. Kitts, 1935; a revolt against an increase of customs duties in St. Vincent, 1935; a coal strike in St. Lucia, 1935; labor disputes in the sugar plantations of British Guiana, 1935; oil strikes in Trinidad and Tobago, 1937; urban riots in Barbados, 1937; and acute disturbances in Jamaica, 1938. While these disturbances, together with the radicalization of the colonial discourse, facilitated the archipelago's constitutional decolonization, attributing all social, economic, and constitutional postwar reforms to the riots alone constitutes an immense leap of faith. A careful analysis of the chronology, let alone a detailed study of the archival records, suggests a robust correlation between the islands’ constitutional evolution and the geopolitical worries of the Anglo-American alliance. The German threat, on the one hand, led Britain to re-articulate its colonial project and, on the other, compelled the US to make sure the British did not walk away from their responsibilities. The strategic importance of “the slums of empire” came to light dramatically once the theater of war became apparent. The Caribbean now became “the show window” where British and American interests collided against each other.     

Practical Logic and the Analysis of Legal Language*

Abstract. One of the theses of the present work is that, at the strictly logical and methodological level, practical logic has neither made, nor can it make any contribution to the philosophy of law, since none of the three branches of practical logic that have been taken into account, namely, the logic of norms, deontic logic and legal logic, seems to be theoretically possible. The contribution of practical logic to the analysis of legal language is assessed in terms of both the instruments of analysis elaborated by practical logic, the artificial languages, and the results obtained in two capital subjects, the negations of norms and the permissions.     

The tie that divides: Cross‐national evidence of the primacy of partyism

Using evidence from Great Britain, the United States, Belgium and Spain, it is demonstrated in this article that in integrated and divided nations alike, citizens are more strongly attached to political parties than to the social groups that the parties represent. In all four nations, partisans discriminate against their opponents to a degree that exceeds discrimination against members of religious, linguistic, ethnic or regional out‐groups. This pattern holds even when social cleavages are intense and the basis for prolonged political conflict. Partisan animus is conditioned by ideological proximity; partisans are more distrusting of parties furthest from them in the ideological space. The effects of partisanship on trust are eroded when partisan and social ties collide. In closing, the article considers the reasons that give rise to the strength of ‘partyism’ in modern democracies.