Political corruption and the role of public prosecutors in Italy

This paper analyzes the problem of political corruption in Italy and the role public prosecutors have played in unraveling such a phenomenon. The factors that have contributed to fostering systemic corruption as well as those that have contributed to uncovering such a system are given careful consideration. The most relevant conclusion is that whereas endogenous forces in the judiciary (prosecutors and judges) — in particular, its low level of institutional autonomy — have prevented it from containing corruption, exogenous forces — which have broken the conditions that had favoured the stability of the so-called first Republic — have led prosecutors to engage in massive investigations.This article is a revised version of the paper prepared for delivery at the 1994 Workshop on Corruption and Politics held at the Instituto Internacional de Sociologia Juridica, Onati (Spain), July 13–14, 1994. I am appreciative to Prof. Giuseppe Di Federico (University of Bologna) for his deep insights of this complex matter and for his very useful comments.     

Juror decision making in the capital penalty trial

Two factors thought to influence jurors' penalty decisions in capital trials—the nature of the crime committed and the defense's portrayal of the convicted offender's character—were examined. Mock jurors were death-qualified and exposed to one of twelve simulated penalty trials. Each trial was comprised of one of three capital crimes and one of four defense strategies. Jurors were least punitive in robbery-murder conditions and most punitive in multiple murder conditions. A conceptual argument against capital punishment was the most effective defense; a mental illness defense was the least effective. Penalty decisions were mediated by three attributional variables: (a) juror perceptions of the defendant's volition, (b) juror perceptions of the defendant's future dangerousness, and (c) juror perceptions of the relative competency of the opposing attorneys.This article is based on the author's dissertation which received an Honorable Mention in the 1985 SPSSI Dissertation Prize competition. The research was made possible by grants from the University of California, Santa Cruz and Division 41 of the American Psychological Association. The author is indebted to Craig Haney, Elliot Aronson, and Dane Archer for their valuable suggestions and support.     

Cellularism, guanxiwang, and corruption: A microcosmic view from within a Chinese educational danwei

This paper, based on ethnographic field work, examines the interplay between three phenomena that exist within a university in the People's Republic of China: corruption, cellularism and guanxiwang.After a brief examination of the general literature on corruption in China, one university —Southern Tertiary — is studied and various types of corruption (both perceived and real) are explored.Over the past two decades Sinologists have debated the extent to which China is fiscally centralized or fragmented. Analysts now tend to agree that a cellular or honeycomb pattern characterizes center/periphery relations. Another feature, given China's underdeveloped legal and regulatory systems, is the prevalence of negotiation. Today autonomy-through-negotiation is not confined to national economic policy, nor to only national policies. This paper finds that the same pattern occurs within the danwei (work unit).What allows for (and in fact encourages) cellularity in the work unit is the emphasis placed on relationships and networking (guanxiwang). Cellularity is permitted-indeed, mandated-by the absence of certain systems, those involving flow of information, open discourse and faculty governance. The literature studying guanxi identifies the positive function that relationships serve in business. But the concept is more often associated with unhealthy practices. This paper argues that guanxi in and of itself is not a negative aspect of culture but is rather a cultural element that can be put into service across a whole range of morality. Certain conditions may encourage its use in ways which are perceived as corrupt.     

Globalisation and Conceptualisation in the Sphere of International Criminal Law

Professor Wiener mentions that [w]hile an agreement has evolvedin the juris-prudence concerning the meaning of criminal law' and publicinternational law', the opinions regarding what international criminallaw is still diverge to a great extent.1 The task of this report isto clear up what we mean by international criminal law, because itis not an exact expression.     

Information, Verfahren, Selbstregulierung, Flexibilisierung: Instrumente eines effektiven Umweltrechts?

Die Jahrhundertaufgabe Nachhaltigkeit verlangt danach, einmal grundsätzlicher nach der Effektivität der Grundstrukturen der deutschen und europäischen Umweltpolitik zu fragen. Dabei verdienen bestimmte neue Steuerungsinstrumente besondere Aufmerksamkeit. Ihre Beurteilung verlangt freilich auch eine prinzipielle Untersuchung, unter welchen Bedingungen politische Steuerung z. B. im Umweltrecht wirksam sein kann. Dieser Beitrag plädiert im Ergebnis für eine andere Steuerungsstrategie, die mit zunehmend dominanten Paradigmen wie Informationsgesellschaft, Prozeduralisierung und Systemtheorie skeptisch umgeht. * Eine rechtssoziologische, ökonomische und historische Analyse umweltpolitischer Defizite bietet Ekardt, Steuerungsdefizite im Umweltrecht—Ursachen unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Naturschutzrechts und der Grundrechte. Zugleich zur Relevanz religiösen Säkularisats im öffentlichen Recht, 2001. Die Analyse wird verbessert und auf das Wirtschaftsrecht (speziell Energierecht) ausgedehnt bei Ekardt, Zukunft in Freiheit: Eine Theorie der Gerechtigkeit, der Grundrechte und der politischen Steuerung—zugleich eine Grundlegung der Nachhaltigkeit, 2004, § 7 A. und § 8 B. II. Dazu jetzt auch die wesentlich präzisierte und ergänzte Taschenbuchfassung bei C.H. Beck: Ekardt, Das Prinzip Nachhaltigkeit, 200 S. In diesen Aufsatz gehen ferner einige Vorträge ein, die ich in den letzten Jahren gehalten habe (u.a. an den Universitäten Wuppertal, Juli 2003, und Rostock, Februar 2001).     

Social meanings of terrorism: Reification,violence, and social control

Conclusion Terrorism as a force in social and international relations appears to some as a relapse into barbarism, a peculiar and dismal aberration of civilized life, and a step backward in the conduct of war. Whether terrorism as a way of settling disputes is better or worse than what preceded it is a value question that cannot be adequately addressed here. Most changes or innovations in war tactics have been regarded as unfair, sneaky, or unsporting upon their introduction, but circumstances usually force their acceptance and the sophistication of violence escalates. When set against the tapestry of a thousand years of military history, terrorism can be seen as a tactic frequently employed by both governments and individuals. It is modern industrial society's increased vulnerability to this form of violence which makes it appear so horrendous, and subjects it to moral indignation [27].In a behavioral sense, official and individual terrorism achieve similar results, although governments usually have greater resources on hand. It is above all a reified conception of governments, nation-states, and the legitimacy of official terrorism that permits the social meaning process to function as it does, i.e. individual terrorism is condemned as morally repugnant, while official terror is accepted as severe but necessary. With this bifurcation in mind, the sociologist has a choice — banish the term,terrorism altogether since it amounts to little more than moralized name-calling, or save the concept since it does in fact make an important distinction between types of violence, and apply the term even-handedly to both governments and individuals.I wish to thank Deirdre Daly for her editorial assistance     

Cockfight in the cotton: A moral crusade in microcosm

Due to its unique socio-cultural heritage, Louisiana is one of only four states in which cockfighting is legal. During the 1980s various animal-rights advocacy groups have attempted to stigmatize and criminalize the activity. This situation has precipitated local and state-wide conflicts in which urban-cosmopolitan progressive New South boosters, allied with traditional and non-conventional animal-rights activists, are pitted against congeries of rural, blue collar sports-men who are, in turn, allied with state and national lobbying organizations of their own. Participant-observation, archival research, content analysis and life histories are used in the exploration of a clash of cultures, or more specifically, a clash of world-views. Not surprisingly, the present lobbying activity and proposed legislation contain many of the attributes of the prototypical moral crusade. In addition, the milieux of both cockfighters and reformers are described and contrasted.A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victim. — Thomas Jefferson     

The insurgent economy: Black market operations of guerrilla organizations

This paper is a study of the finances of insurgent groups. It takes the view that a model guerrilla movement evolves through three stages, with corresponding changes in both its expenditure responsibilities and its fundraising activities.In the earliest stage it engages in hit-and-run operations against individual symbols of the state, either officials or isolated institutions like police stations and army outposts. At that stage, the group's expenditure requirements are relatively small and mainly military. Hence, it can rely on fundraising activities based on similarly sporadic and predatory actions such as bank robbery and kidnapping that closely approximate the activities of blue-collar criminals.In the next stage the guerrilla movement begins openly disputing the political power of the state, mainly through the conduct of low intensity war against the infrastructure of the formal economy. The guerrilla group's expenditure obligations are not only much greater in absolute amounts, but also include a rising social security component, for the care of dependents of its militants, as well as providing some assistance to the population whose support it is attempting to win. Fundraising therefore shifts from once-for-all, predatory operations to parasitical ones that yield a steadier, more dependable flow of income at the expense of the formal economy. The most important will be the revolutionary taxation of income and wealth, an activity that more closely approximates that of an organized crime group.In the final stage the guerrilla movement succeeds in implanting itself firmly on a piece of territory from which the state is effectively excluded. To its obligations for military operations and social security for dependents of militants are added those arising from the provision of social services to the general population of the controlled area and the building of the infrastructure necessary for the growth and development of a parallel economy. The most important sources of revenue come from indirect taxation — sales taxes on domestic commerce and/or export and import taxes on foreign trade along with user fees for the public services the insurgent group is providing. Fundraising thus ceases to be parasitical with respect to the formal economy controlled by the state and becomes symbiotic with the emerging parallel economy controlled by the guerrilla group.Although at any point the guerrilla movement may find itself with a temporary surplus of operating funds, it is in the symbiotic stage, with regular revenue flows, that problems of asset management are likely to become significant. Therefore, at this stage, while fundraising activities take on increasingly overt and legitimate-looking forms in areas under the group's governance, fund-man-agement activities require the guerrilla group to interface with the formal and international economy in much the same manner as white collar crime, seeking to hide and launder the returns from its fundraising.     

Comparing the Social Service Utilization, Exposure to Violence, and Trauma Symptomology of Domestic Violence Female “Victims” and Female “Batterers”

Although some authors have suggested that women batterers may really be self-defending victims, to date, no research has been initiated to empirically support this assertion. This paper describes the design and outcomes of a research project that investigated the similarities and differences between women adjudicated as domestic violence batterers and women identified as domestic violence victims. Findings indicated group similarities in the areas of exposure to violence and social service utilization. Although both groups reported high levels of trauma symptomology, victim scores were significantly higher.     

Justifying law: An explanation of the deep structure of American law

Conclusion Charles Darwin argued that human beings are what happen whenphysical laws act upon a planet with the characteristics that earthhad five billion years ago. Similarly, I have argued that theprimacy of individual will is what eventually happens when asociety allocates and limits coercion based upon rights. From timeto time particular visions of the good or the right dominate publicbehavior, but they are eventually enframed by rights — the authoritative claim of each person to respect.I have argued that the propositional structure of American law—the laws themselves — can be seen to be a logically consistentsystem of propositions stemming from the axiom that the will ofeach person is worthy of respect. This is an explanatory, not anormative, proposition. The axiom was not put there by anyoneand the law derived from it, any more than the human brian wasput there and the theory of relativity derived from it. The axiomcame to be embodied in k because of a fact — the single universalcharacteristic of human beings that is relevant to the question ofarranging coercion is individual will — and a process — the right ofeach person to demand a justification for coercion used upon him.Since will is universal to human beings, this would suggest thatany rights-based legal system would evince a general structuresimilar to our own. Particularities of national culture, naturalresources, population density, and so on would produce a verydifferent liberty frontier from the one facing this country andhence, different laws. But the general structure of law — the relationship between principle and policy decision, the role of thebasic rights, and so on — should be similar. This similarity shouldprovide a common basis for cooperation between states, transcending particularities of economic structure, political structure and ideology. We have seen that a very broad range ofeconomic and political institutions may be justified. The essential difference between states lies not in the different ways that theyarrange institutions but in the different ways that they justifythem. Those that justify them to people as persons are similar.Those that justify them by conformity to a design are different.The theory set out here is not a design. It is an explanation. Onevirtue of explanations is that they draw forth other explanations.More importantly, they offer perspective — they tell us what weare up to. As the social relations which law must rationalizebecome ever more complex, perspective becomes ever more necessary. The simple laws have already been written. The connectionbetween the doctrine of consideration and the first principle isobvious. The connection between the hard look doctrine ofreviewing administrative agencies and the second principle isnowhere near so obvious (though it is a lovely example of thejudicial process enframing the realm of uncertainty). The morecomplex and artificial the institution, the poorer the guidance ofintuition and the more necessary are conscious guides to decision.Justification comes easy to printers. Most of them don't knowwhy a page of print that has straight margines left and right isjustified. They don't need to know, for the idea has immediateintuitive appeal; it is easy to accept and to remember, and, onceremembered, it is an effective guide to behavior. It is easy to seethat this line of print is not justified and to do somethingabout it. It is not so easy to tell whether the hard look doctrine orthe enforcement of a surrogate motherhood contract sits fairly on itspage. Justification of law requires an understanding of thecriterion against which it is being done. There is an intuitive core— a sense — to any act of judgment, but that core can be illuminated and developed by an understanding of the framework withinwhich it operates.     

Political corruption in Brazil

This paper analyzes instances of political corruption in Brazil since the 1985 return to civilian rule, and concentrates on the impeachment of Pres. Fernando Collor in 1992, and the so-called Budgetgate episode in 1993/94. Linkages between political corruption and campaign financing are described, as well as recent legislation to inhibit same.Revised version of a paper presented to the Research Committee on Political Corruption and Campaign Finance, XVI Congress of the International Political Science Association, Berlin, Germany, August, 1994.     

Expanding coupled shock fronts of urban decay and criminal behavior: How U.S. cities are becoming “hollowed out”

This work attempts to formalize an emerging paradigm in criminology, examining the structural consequences of feedback between community physical decay and behavioral pathologies caused by the social disintegration resulting from that decay. Adaptation of a standard reaction/diffusion approach produces a model of radially expanding coupled traveling-wave shock fronts of interrelated contagious physical decay and criminal activity. The standard threshold theorem associated with the model equations suggests that currently advocated triage policies, which recommend the virtual abandonment of bad communities behind the expanding front, will fail spectacularly. The model suggests that, just as the hollowing-out process has a complex, synergistic and dynamic structure, so, too, must interventions be interactive and mutually reinforcing, adaptively, targeted at communities in all stages of the phenomenon.     

Insanity,justification, and culpability toward a unifying schema

Insanity has long been viewed as an excuse rather than a justification: Insane people are acquitted not because they did nothing wrong, but because they are considered morally blameless for their wrongful conduct. A new substantive test based on justificatory rather than exculpatory principles—a quasisubjective justification (QSJ) test—is compared to Finkel's relative culpability test, and to two excuse oriented tests, ALI and IDRA, across seven cases. QSJ and Finkel's test both produced significant verdict differences, whereas ALI and IDRA verdicts were not significantly different. The QSJ effect, however, was observed only in cases judged low in justification, and thus did not play a determinative role across cases; other variables, such as perceived severity of the disorder and culpability for bringing about the disorder, to which only Finkel's test was sensitive, seem to have more explanatory power.     

Intergroup Biases as a Function of Reflected Status Appraisals and Support for Legitimizing Ideologies: Evidence from the USA and Israel

Theory and research suggest that members of high-status groups feel more positively about their own group than members of low-status groups feel about their group. The studies presented here test two hypotheses derived from this general idea (1) that members of high-status groups will show greater bias in favor of the in-group when they believe that others perceive the status difference between their group and relevant low-status groups to be larger; and (2) that this relationship will be stronger when high-status group members also endorse ideologies legitimizing their privileged status. However, because low group status may have self-protective properties, it was hypothesized that imputed status differences would not relate to out-group bias among low-status group members, regardless of ideology endorsement. Two studies—using samples from the United States and Israel, respectively—provided clear support for these hypotheses. Implications for the study of both intergroup biases and legitimizing ideologies are discussed.     

Crime and the multi-ethnic society: A view from Europe

The old questions about possible relationships between race or ethnicity and crime are shown to be unsatisfactory as they have been based on the wrong assumption that race and ethnic background constitute natural categories. The author discusses recent crime patterns in Europe —and in The Netherlands in particular — that have emerged as a result of societies becoming multiethnic. His research agenda includes the study of contrasting crime profiles, patterns of police selectivity, discrimination and racist violence, culture conflict and internationally organized crime.     

The Cost of the Game: A Taxonomy of Social Interactions

This paper considers the role of reciprocity rules in various strategic settings. After distinguishing four typical categories of social interaction, the paper examines three forms of reciprocity constraints. An ideal rule of perfect incentive alignment (structural reciprocity) serves as a benchmark for the analysis of a golden rule of reciprocity, characterized by a mechanical linking of one player's strategy to that of the other player; and a silver rule of stochastic reciprocity, characterized by a probabilistic symmetry in the relationship between the players.     

Transition,dysfunctionality and change in the Czech and Slovak Republics

The paper considers the problem of creating a market economy and democratic polity simultaneously in a post-Communist state. In the context of weak inherited political and judicial systems, the attempt at rapid transition to a market economy is likely to have unfavourable consequences in terms of corruption. This prediction is supported by preliminary evidence from research on the privatisation process and its control framework.This article is a revised version of paper presented to the Third International Conference on Ethics in the Public Service, Jerusalem, June 1993.     

Explaining Controversial Organizational Decisions: To Legitimize the Means or the Ends?

We investigated the influence of information legitimizing the means—or decision procedures—versus information legitimizing the ends—or the decision outcome—on observers' reactions to an undesirable organizational decision. One hundred and sixty-one employees read an account of a company layoff occurring in a nearby city. The content was experimentally manipulated, such that participants either (i) did or did not receive information legitimizing the layoff procedures, and (ii) did or did not receive information legitimizing the layoff itself. Furthermore, participants received one of two versions of the manipulations, to assess the generalizability of the results across two operationalizations of the primary independent variables. Whereas both information legitimizing the means and information legitimizing the ends were necessary (and neither sufficient) to mitigate observers' judgments of outcome unfairness, procedural information was necessary and sufficient to influence evaluations of the organization. Overall, the data are consistent with the notion that the effectiveness of managerial accounts might be determined not only by information explaining why but also information explaining how decisions are made.     

Plan and counterplan: Notes on moving beyond the crisis in planning theory

Conclusions In developing a working class perspective of planning theory, I have suggested that neither bourgeois nor Marxist planning theories can incorporate the dissensus tactics that are at the heart of working-class movements. Neither can they deal with the class nature of planning nor the class composition of planners. As the current social, political and economic crisis was forced on capital by the struggles (plans) of the working class, it follows that working-class counter-plans should deepen the crisis so that benefits will accrue to our side. The development of our successful counter-plans will throw their planning theory deeper into crisis. Ultimately, crisis resolution must be on the terms of the (ex-)working class.