THE ROLE OF THE NATIONAL JUDGE IN EUROPEAN STATE AIDS SECTOR

The article analyses the role and powers of the national judge in the context of State Aids litigation in light of the EU Commission＇s policy adopted in 2009. By analysing the EU Commission＇s policy designed to stimulate the interest of privates to claim judicial protection in front of the national Judge and the judgements of the European Court of Justice, the paper illustrates benefit and problems arising from the enforcement of EU Law in the domestic courts. The paper is focused on the role of the national judge in European state aids sector analyzing the state aids from the national Judge＇s perspective. It is highlighted that the judicial tools are available for the national judge to address the EU Commission and the EU Courts in order to receive support, if needed. Considering that the national Judge cannot analyse State aid＇s compatibility with the EU market-- because this competence belongs only to the EU Commission--it is of the outmost importance that the national judiciary is aware of its role. The EU jurisprudence illustrates that control of legitimacy operated by the Commission and the formal control operated by the national Judge are separate, but complementary to each other. The intervention of the national Judge is to reduce the anti-competitive effect of illegal supports supplied. The role of the national Judge appears very large as he enjoys some precautionary duties--such as the interruption of the aid＇s allocation and the revocation of it--and some curative duties--as the compensation for damages condemning the Member State or the beneficiary.     

THE U.S. CIRCUIT JUDGE NOMINATING COMMISSION

This article examines the institution of the U.S. Circuit Judge Nominating Commission as a new actor in the recruitment process to the federal judiciary. The mandate and operation of the commission are examined and, through the utilization of mailed questionnaires, the research attempts to tap the decisional criteria employed by commission members. Criticisms of the commission and its operation are developed utilizing questionnaire responses as well as documents comprising the commission mandate. The implications of "merit" recruitment for both the district and appeals courts are examined.     

PUNISHING POLITICAL OFFENDERS: THE EFFECT OF POLITICAL MOTIVE ON FEDERAL SENTENCING DECISIONS*

Although political motive is frequently avoided as an issue in the prosecution of terrorists, previous research indicates that these offenders consistently receive longer sentences than nonterrorists convicted of similar offenses (Smith, 1994). This study assesses the ability of three theoretical models (consensus, conflict, and structural-contextual) to explain these differences in sentencing patterns. Data on terrorists (N = 95), provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, is matched with data on a sample of similarly convicted nonterrorists from the Federal Court Cases Integrated Data Base, 1970-1991 (N = 403). Controlling for a number of demographic and sentencing-related variables, the results indicate that the official label of “terrorist” is not only a significant predictor of sentence length, but emerges as the dominant explanatory variable in the analysis. The results provide general support for both consensus and conflict hypotheses, but only partial support for structural-contextual theory. The findings also raise procedural questions regarding the extensive variation in sentencing between similarly situated defendants when political motive is used as a primary criterion for sentence enhancements.     

CORRELATES OF VIOLENT POLITICAL EXTREMISM IN THE UNITED STATES*

Although research on terrorism has grown rapidly in recent years, few scholars have applied criminological theories to the analysis of individual‐level political extremism. Instead, researchers focused on radicalization have drawn primarily from political science and psychology and have overwhelmingly concentrated on violent extremists, leaving little variation in the dependent variable. With the use of a newly available data set, we test whether variables derived from prominent criminological theories are helpful in distinguishing between nonviolent and violent extremists. The results show that variables related to social control (lack of stable employment), social learning (radical peers), psychological perspectives (history of mental illness), and criminal record all have significant effects on participation in violent political extremism and are robust across multiple techniques for imputing missing data. At the same time, other common indicators of social control (e.g., education and marital status) and social learning perspectives (e.g., radical family members) were not significant in the multivariate models. We argue that terrorism research would benefit from including criminology insights and by considering political radicalization as a dynamic, evolving process, much as life‐course criminology treats more common forms of crime.     

SURRENDER OF JUDGMENT AND THE CONSENT THEORY OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY

The aim of this paper is to take the first steps toward providing a refurbished consent theory of political authority, one that rests in part on a reconception of the relationship between the surrender of judgment and the authoritativeness of political institutions. On the standard view, whatever grounds political authority implies that one ought to surrender one's judgment to that of one's political institutions. On the refurbished view, it is the surrender of one's judgment – which can plausibly be considered a form of consent – that makes political institutions practically authoritative.     

SURRENDER OF JUDGMENT AND THE CONSENT THEORY OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY

The aim of this paper is to take the first steps toward providing a refurbished consent theory of political authority, one that rests in part on a reconception of the relationship between the surrender of judgment and the authoritativeness of political institutions. On the standard view, whatever grounds political authority implies that one ought to surrender one's judgment to that of one's political institutions. On the refurbished view, it is the surrender of one's judgment – which can plausibly be considered a form of consent – that makes political institutions practically authoritative. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.