Epistemic emotions in prosecutorial decision making

The article examines epistemic emotions as part of the emotive-cognitive processes of prosecutors’ knowledge seeking and decision making in preliminary investigation and court proceedings. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and shadowing of prosecutors in Sweden, we show how emotions motivate and orient prosecutors’ inquiries and the fundamental role of the ‘certainty–doubt spiral’ for ‘doing objectivity’. In conclusion, we discuss the centrality of emotions for conscientious and well-considered decisions in legal work. The study contributes to the field of law and emotion by exploring the epistemic quality of emotions, notably the certainty–doubt spiral, in legal work.     

Media Coverage of Congress in the 1990s: Scandals,Personalities, and the Prevalence of Policy and Process

In this article, we provide a comprehensive, systematic examination of media coverage of Congress in the 1990s. Specifically, we content analyze over 2,600 congressional news stories from the New York Times and CBS Evening News from 1990 through 1998. We find that the news media covered substantive policy concerns and the legislative process quite regularly and that stories focusing on individual personalities and political scandals were comparatively infrequent. We also find that legislative maneuvering is a mainstay of congressional media coverage, and the democratic process is most often framed as conflict between parties and Congress and the president.     

Breaking the ‘Silence’ of the Military Regime: New Politics of Memory in Brazil

This article elucidates the latest developments in the ‘politics of memory’ regarding the military regime in Brazil. Only recently, I argue, has the Brazilian state abandoned its ‘politics of silence’ and started to actively champion the memory of the left‐wing ‘resistance’. This new strategy climaxed in a governmental crisis over a historic plan to establish a National Truth Commission to investigate human rights violations during the military regime. The article analyses key incidents and debates prior to the crisis, and contrasts the post‐dictatorial collective memory of Brazil with that of other Latin American countries.     

FROM RED TAPE TO WHICH PERFORMANCE RESULTS? EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RED TAPE AND VARIOUS DIMENSIONS OF PERFORMANCE IN HEALTHCARE WORK UNITS

Decades of research on red tape have still to provide final answers as to whether red tape reduces performance. This may be due to not distinguishing the different dimensions that public service performance consists of. Shifting the focus to rules and their characteristics, this study analyses how the degree of compliance burden and lack of functionality of rules relates to overall and dimensional public performance. Building upon the argument that red tape reduces resources and motivation and by doing so influences performance, hypotheses are put forward regarding the relationship to performance. Using red tape reports from employees in 49 work units and performance rated by the supervisor, this study shows that performance is at its lowest when the rules have a high compliance burden and lack functionality. Moreover, the dimensional analyses show that compliance burden may be most detrimental for output, whereas lack of functionality reduces responsiveness and democratic outcomes.     

Judicial Waivers of Parental Consent for Abortion: Tennessee's Troubles Putting Policy into Practice*

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, minors seeking abortions are entitled to petition for relief from state‐mandated parental consent. To facilitate the actualization of this right, Tennessee included procedural mechanisms that go beyond those in effect in most states in its parental consent statute. This paper examines whether these additional mechanisms allow Tennessee to succeed where other states have failed. Our findings indicate that these mechanisms mitigate to some extent the sort of implementation failure observed in other states. However, the magnitude of this mitigation is not sufficient to establish that parental consent statutes can be implemented in accordance with Supreme Court requirements.     

Children Seeking Asylum in Wales

While there is an emerging body of research on children seekingasylum, the UK-based studies have to date been largely conductedin England. This paper presents the findings of qualitativeresearch on the experiences of children seeking asylum in Wales,a nation within the UK whose National Assembly has devolvedresponsibility for social welfare and educational services.The research involved interviews and focus groups with children,relevant professionals and a small number of parents. The findingsdescribed in this paper relate to some aspects of the children'sdaily lives, their hopes and fears and their attitudes towardsbeing dispersed to a strange and unknown country.     

Qipao Comeback

正WHEN I was about 13 years old,a shop called Shaolin opened up in my hometown in southeast England.At that time,I had no idea what or where the name Shaolin came from–my friends and I would pronounce it"shay-oh lin"–but after my first visit to the shop,I was certain it would become a firm favorite on our list of places-to-hang-out on a Saturday afternoon.Shaolin was an Aladdin’s cave of Chinese goods.On entering,you were fi rst struck by atmospheric,dim lighting and the heady smell of incense.Then,the sounds:A CD of bamboo flute music accompanied by sounds of nature,and the tinkle of wind chimes evoked a sense of calm that made you want to stop and browse.For me,these sensory experiences became synonymous with"the Orient,"and     

THE EFFECT OF ETHNICITY ON CRIME ATTRIBUTION

This study investigates the impact of ethnic origin on the attribution of criminal offenses to faces seen in portrait photographs. The underlying hypothesis is that ethnic stereotypes are a result of the way people perceive themselves and other groups (that is, the relation of in-groups to outgroups) and that ethnic stereotypes directly affect a person's readiness to attribute particular offenses to given portraits. Thus, this study explores cross-ethnic and intra-ethnic offense attribution.