What is a good post-separation relationship? The perspectives of Australian parents

Socio-legal research has established the importance of a ‘good’ post-separation parental relationship; however there is little work addressing the definitions and experiences of parents themselves. Thus, we have few insights into how socio-legal expectations align with those of separated parents. This paper draws on interview data from 27 separated Australian parents to explore the question: how do parents define a good post-separation parental relationship? Our analysis indicated a typology of three relationships: allied, arm’s length and autonomous relationships. These were differentiated by parents’ emotional connection, practical interdependence and deliberate co-operation in caring for their children. They shared in common parents’ focus on the wellbeing of children, which both motivated parents’ on-going connection and informed their definition of a good post-separation relationship with their former partner. Our findings indicate an alignment between socio-legal expectations of good relationships and those of parents, albeit in sometimes unexpected forms.     

‘It’s an invisible wound’: the disenfranchised grief of post-separation mothers who lose care time

This paper enriches understandings of the implications of contemporary custody law for mothers and their children. It does so through a discussion of mothers’ grief and emotional pain over involuntarily losing care time with children. Mothers involuntarily lose care time by becoming non-resident parents against their will or by having a shared care parenting order imposed on them. Both experiences of losing maternal care time are becoming more commonplace as a result of the gender neutrality of custody laws across the Anglo-West and the increased emphasis given to shared care parenting as a viable post-separation parenting arrangement. Yet investigations into the emotions engendered by mothers’ loss of care time are sparse. Exploratory qualitative research with twelve mothers who involuntarily lost care time reveals the intensity and durability of their grief, its entanglement with emotions like fear, and its significance, as a relational welfare approach emphasises, to children’s best interests.     

What’s Inside and Outside the Law?

In this article I take up a conceptual question: What is the distinction between ‘the law’ and the behavior the law regulates, or, as I formulate it, the distinction between what is ‘inside’ the law and what is ‘outside’ it? That conceptual question is in play in (at least) three different doctrinal domains: the constitutional law doctrines regarding the limits on the delegation of legislative powers; the criminal law doctrines regarding mistakes of law; and the constitutional rights doctrines that turn on the distinction between state action and the acts of non-state actors. I argue that legal doctrines should turn solely on normative considerations and should not turn on answers to conceptual questions. However, the doctrines I discuss appear to turn on the conceptual question regarding what is ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the law. I show how each of these doctrinal areas appears to raise this conceptual issue, and I explain how the doctrines might or might not escape being held hostage to conceptual controversy.     

What’s Special about the Insult of Paternalism?

Law and Philosophy - A common assumption is that paternalism generates a special, and especially grievous, insult. Identifying this distinctive insult is then presented as the key to unlocking the...     

Raising the Question on ‘Who Should Get What?’ Again: On the Importance of Ideal and Existential Standards

This contribution compares the importance of ideal standards and existential standards on people’s ideas on fair earnings. Ideal standards refer to persons’ preferences for a distribution rule according to which earnings ought to be allocated among members of a social aggregate. Existential standards refer to conditions of the social context, like the average earning or pay inequality, that serves as points of reference when people shape their ideas on just earnings. In line with the theoretical literature, we find that both standards are relevant for shaping people’s ideas on just earnings. However, there seems to be greater consensus among our respondents on the importance attached to the existential standards than over that attached to the ideal standards. We also found a “reversed just gender wage gap”: by assigning higher earnings to fictitious female than fictitious male employees, our female and male respondents seem to compensate former gender-related income discrimination against female employees in the German labor market. Our analysis is based on the answers of 676 respondents living in Germany who participated in an internet-based factorial survey.     

‘Are the ‘others’ coming?’: Evidence on ‘alien conspiracy’ from three illegal markets in Greece

In the early 1990s Greece accepted a large number of immigrants from a variety of contexts. Since then ‘organised criminality’ has become an important aspect of the immigration nexus in the country, and ethnicity has been viewed as an extremely important-if not the primary–explanatory variable. Simultaneously, there has been very little empirical research on ‘organised crime’ in Greece in general and ‘organised crime’ and ethnicity in particular. The purpose of this article, which is based on previous research that the author has conducted on three illegal markets in Greece (a. migrant smuggling business, b. the cigarette black market, and c. the market of stolen cars and car parts), is to show the extent to which these illegal markets are controlled by foreign nationals, and establish whether there is such thing as an ‘alien conspiracy’ in the particular country.     

The Dragon’s shadow: an introduction to the special issue on ‘Chinese organized crime’

This paper provides an introduction to the articles submitted to the special issue of Trends in Organized Crime bringing forward numerous empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on Chinese organized crime in China and beyond.     

Making mothers: parenting classes in a women’s jail

In the wake of the War on Drugs, more mothers are incarcerated in US prisons and jails than ever before. Parenting classes have become ubiquitous in penal facilities that incarcerate women, but research about mothers’ experience in parenting class is limited to measures of efficacy about things like parenting attitudes and mental-health indicators. This study supplements existing research by adding an ethnographic lens to women’s experiences with parenting classes during incarceration. Drawing on 18 months of participant observation in the women’s unit of a county jail and 83 interviews with incarcerated mothers, I analyze incarcerated mothers’ experiences with parenting classes. Staff and inmates used parenting classes to create ways for women to do mothering during incarceration. Mothering in your head, longing to mother, and guilt as mothering enabled incarcerated mothers to maintain their identities as mothers despite their separation from their children. However, these practices could also be poor substitutes for spending time with children and did not necessarily reflect the reality of women’s lives outside of jail. These ways of doing mothering from afar were also a form of social control for the penal institution, as these mothering behaviors were consistent with being a good inmate.     

Ritual Texts and Literary Texts in Abhinavagupta’s Aesthetics: Notes on the Beginning of the ‘Critical Reconstruction’

In a recent paper in this Journal Hugo David discussed the possible sources for the comparison that Abhinavagupta draws between ritual and literary discourse at the beginning of his “critical reconstruction” of the theory of rasa in the sixth chapter of his New Dramatic Art. The question of Abhinavagupta’s sources raises more general questions about Abhinavagupta’s use of the concepts and analytical procedures of Mīmā?sā in his literary-theoretical works. What, if anything, does Mīmā?sā really have to do with the analysis of literary texts? How, if at all, can we construct parallels between ritual and literary texts such that the hermeneutics of one can illuminate the hermeneutics of the other? And more specifically, what are the examples that might convince us that there are such parallels? With these questions I attempt, modestly, to reach a somewhat better understanding of the beginning of Abhinavagupta’s “critical reconstruction,” which has already received a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention. I also hope, however, that this passage might serve as an example for how to think of the “borrowing” of concepts typically associated with Mīmā?sā into the realm of literary theory.     

Introduction: Chile’s ‘Constituent Moment’

Law and Critique - The introduction looks at the constitutional situation in Chile since the demand for a new Constitution erupted in demonstrations all across the country, and argues that the...     

‘Lex Cryptographi(c)a,’ ‘Cloud Crypto Land’ or What? – Blockchain Technology on the Legal Hype Cycle

Based on the reception of DLT/blockchain, this article argues that legal discourse is subject to hype cycle dynamics. Thinking in hype cycle categories provides a structured way for analysing the legal implications of a particular innovation. This critical engagement with enthusiasts, sceptics and pragmatists through the different stages may help to present a more realistic picture of DLT/blockchain's potential from a legal perspective in the short and medium term. Consequently, this article discusses the potential for disruption to the legal system envisaged by enthusiasts at the height of inflated expectations, attempts to deconstruct the arguments levelled at the technology by its detractors during the trough of disillusionment, charts the emerging legal landscape that seeks to harness the potential of DLT/blockchain up the slope of enlightenment, and concludes by risking a glimpse towards the plateau of productivity.     

A voice or a choice? Children’s views on participating in decisions about post-separation contact with domestically abusive fathers

ABSTRACT

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child explicitly calls for children to be granted the right to participate in legal proceedings that affect them. Despite this legal obligation and an evolving consensus that recognises children as social and competent actors, this rhetoric has struggled to achieve translation into meaningful practice reality, particularly when decisions are being made about contact arrangements for children where there has been a prior history of domestic violence. Drawing on the narratives of children who participated in three separate research projects in Ireland between 2009 and 2015, this paper will consider the manner in which they were involved in the decision-making process and the extent to which their views were ascertained and their voices heard. This paper concludes by raising the key question of how the child’s best interests can be served if the child’s views are not sought, heard or considered.     

Liberal versus conservative public policies on crime: What was the comparative track record during the 1990s?

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of social control and social support policies associated with conservative and liberal political ideologies with respect to violent crime in large U.S. cities during the 1990s. Eighty-five cities with populations of 150,000+ were included in the analysis; these cities accounted for fifty-two million urban area residents of the U.S. The use of the two-way, fixed-effect panel data method of statistical analysis enabled the authors to assess the relationship between change in local government expenditures for police and court services (social control) and expenditures on community development and park/recreation (support policy) and corresponding changes in crime rates documented within these cities. The findings indicated that expenditure on both police services and community development initiatives had significantly suppressive effects on crime in these cities during the period of the 1990s. It appeared that both conservative and liberal policies had their merits as effective countermeasures to crime.     

The construction of ‘So What?’ criminology: a realist analysis

From a realist perspective there is a growing body of criminology that can be classified as ‘So What?’ criminology in that it involves a low level of theorisation, thin, inconsistent or vague concepts and categories, embodies a dubious methodology or has little or no policy relevance. The production of ‘So What?’ criminology is, of course, no accident but the outcome of a number of lines of force that have served to shape the nature of mainstream academic criminology in recent years. The aim of this article is to identify some of these lines of force and to assess their impact.     

What Constitution? On Chile’s Constitutional Awakening

Law and Critique - This paper explores the political awakening of the Chilean people that began in October 2019. It puts forward an alternative reading of the people’s claim for a new...     

Suppressing Vote-Buying: the ‘War’ on Electoral Bribery from 1868

Electoral bribery is an ancient phenomenon, but its manifestations and pathologies can only be understood in the context of particular electoral norms and political practices. The spark for electoral bribery in the Westminster tradition was the shift from parliamentary service as a duty to a privilege, whilst its paradigm forms of treating and crude vote-buying are traceable to a shift from buying a seat to buying the voters. The gradual move from cultural acceptance to legislative and ethical condemnation of electoral bribery is attributable to a concern with the rising cost of elections and developing notions of fair electoral competition. This article focuses on the seminal period in the ‘war’ on electoral bribery from 1868 to the early twentieth century, giving a taxonomy of the various forms of bribery and judicial responses to them, as well as an explanation of the role played by statutory developments. The ultimate success of this war on corruption is shown to lie in a confluence of politico-legal techniques – election courts, tighter legislation, the secret ballot and the mass franchise – and institutional developments, in particular the rise of centralised, professional parties.     

Exploring the influences on Australian agricultural professionals’ genetic engineering beliefs: an empirical analysis

This paper analyses what influences professionals’ beliefs on agricultural genetic engineering. A telephone survey was conducted in 2004 on Australian public agricultural professionals. Using an ordered probit regression, some of the significant key influences on overall beliefs were: age; research relevance; ethnicity; farm background; information and occupational effects; attitudes towards the current sustainability of conventional agriculture; attitudes towards agricultural research issues; and attitudes towards the individual aspects of genetic engineering. Somewhat surprisingly, subjective knowledge of genetic engineering was not a significant factor in influencing overall beliefs, although it did play a positive influence on some individual beliefs (such as the technology’s profitability benefits and that there is no need for more long-term research before further general release of genetically engineered products). However, more research on the links between actual knowledge and acceptance are needed before any definitive conclusions can be drawn.