Attempts to Define ‘Terrorism’ in International Law

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Social capital

In parallel with, and as a complement to, globalisation, ‘social capital’ has enjoyed a meteoric rise across the social sciences over the last two decades. Not surprisingly, it has been particularly prominent across development studies, not least through heavy promotion by the World Bank. As a concept, though, as has been argued persistently by a minority critical literature, social capital is fundamentally flawed. Although capable of addressing almost anything designated as social, it has tended to neglect the state, class, power, and conflict. As a buzzword, it has heavily constrained the currently progressive departure from the extremes of neo-liberalism and post-modernism at a time of extremely aggressive assault by economics imperialism. Social capital should not be ignored but contested – and rejected.     

Tailoring Representative Democracy to the European Union: Does the European Constitution Reduce the Democratic Deficit?

Abstract Even if the institutions of representative democracy that have developed in the nation‐state context cannot be simply transposed to the European Union, for practical and normative reasons they do provide the main starting point for any reflection on the EU's ‘democratic deficit’. This article draws upon the Constitution prepared by the European Convention to reconstruct the concept of representative democracy in the EU. Drawing on the proposals put forward, it identifies two distinctive challenges that need to be overcome if the concept of representative democracy is to be successfully applied to the EU: the multilevel character of the polity and the shift of the centre of political gravity from legislative to executive politics. The article then examines the extent to which the institutional proposals contained in the Constitution go to meet these two challenges and also highlights some aspects in which these proposals fall short.     

Book reviews

Roland Axtmann, Liberal democracy into the twenty‐first century: Globalization, integration and the nation‐state (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1996), 198 pp., ISBN 0–7190–4304–2 (hb), 0–7190–4305–0 (pb)

Paul Kapteyn, The Stateless Market: The European Dilemma of Civilization (Routledge, London and New York, 1996), 194 pp., ISBN 0–415–12232–5 (hb), 0–415–12233–3 (pb)

Richard Werbner and Terence Ranger (eds), Postcolonial Identities in Africa (Zed Books, London & New Jersey, 1996), 292 pp., ISBN 1–85649–415–2 (hb), 1–85649–416–0 (pb)

Mark Wheeler, Politics and the Mass Media (Blackwell, Oxford, 1997), 274 pp., ISBN 0–631–19783–4 (hb), 0–631–19784–2 (pb)

Nigel Harris, The New Untouchables: Immigration and the New World Worker (Penguin Books, London, 1995), 254 pp., ISBN 0–14–014689‐X (pb)

Gilles Kepel, Allah in the West (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1997), 273 pp., ISBN 0–7456–1557–0 (hb), 0–7456–1558–9 (pb)

Leonard Weinberg, The Transformation of Italian Communism (Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1995), 147 pp., ISBN 1–56000–180–1 (hb)

Brian Jenkins and Spyros A. Sofos (eds), Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe (Routledge, London, 1996), x + 294pp., ISBN 0–415–12312–7 (hb), 0–415–12313–5 (pb)

Stuart Parkes, Understanding Contemporary Germany (Routledge, London, 1997), 247 pp., ISBN 0–415–14123–0 (hb), 0–415–14124–9 (pb)     

关于“法理分析”和“法律分析”的断思

经过二十余年的法学复兴,中国学者开始重视法学方法论的研究,其中以法律分析、法理分析、法理透视、法哲学思考命名的论文日益增多.这表明学者已认识到法学乃至于法理学是一门相对独立的学科,其学科知识的体系性、思维方式的独特性已受到程度不同的关注.但是,那种简单贴标签式的命题值得推敲.本刊编辑陈立风与山东大学法理学专业的部分师生举办对法律分析和法理分析进行反思的小型学术沙龙,展开了对话式的探讨.现刊载部分,意在引起学界对此问题的共鸣.