Regulating Political Donations by Companies: Challenges and Misconceptions

This paper analyses the regulation of company political donations in the UK. It argues that UK policy makers have failed to understand the nature of company donors and, consequently, that the UK Companies Act 2006 requirement for shareholder consent for company donations is not an effective solution to concerns about company donors. To this end, the paper presents a comprehensive empirical analysis of company donations to show that the vast majority of donor companies are closely held or owner‐managed entities where shareholder consent rules are ineffective. The paper highlights particular concerns that arise with donation by such companies and argues for a more accurate understanding of company donations in order to formulate effective policy responses to concerns about the role of company donors.     

铁路运输司法机构存废论

铁路运输专门司法机构的司法问题产生了一系列的社会矛盾,司法不公成为社会关注的焦点。其表现不但在理念选择上片面强调国家利益甚至是企业利益,牺牲社会正义和司法公正;而且行为方式上将行政权置于司法权之上,使国家司法行为蜕变为企业司法行为。由此带来诸多弊端并亟待消除。在改革的方式上,取消铁路运输法院是较为现实的选择。     

Employee concerns regarding self-managing work teams: A multidimensional justice perspective

The increase in the use of self-managing work teams in organizations has been accompanied by growing employee resistance and concern about what such dramatic changes mean to workers. Using an organizational justice perspective, this chapter identifies and examines employee concerns about the move to self-managing work teams in two Fortune 500 organizations. Employee fairness concerns regarding three types of justice—distributive, procedural, and interactional—are highlighted. Findings suggest that to address employee fairness concerns regarding the move to self-managing work teams, managers should act distributively, procedurally, and interactionally justly.[Self-managing work teams are] the right way and the only way to be productive.—Self-managing work team member in a Fortune 500 company     

美国量刑理论中的关注焦点理论

关注焦点理论是美国刑事司法领域解释量刑差异的主流理论。该理论认为,法官和其他刑事司法系统的决策者在作出量刑决定时有三个关注焦点:罪犯的可谴责性、人身危险性,以及实践中的可操作性。由于法官在量刑时缺乏完整的信息,因此使用"感官速记"把对这三个焦点的关注转化为对性别、年龄、种族等表面信息的关注,导致"类案不同判"。对关注焦点的研究,在理论上有助于理解司法过程中量刑差异的产生原因,在实践中有助于解决量刑不规范的问题。通过介绍美国的关注焦点理论,以及这个理论框架下的实证研究和对关注焦点理论的评论,反思对我国量刑理论和实践的借鉴意义。     

Playing fair: fairness beliefs and health policy preferences in the United States

Conventional wisdom suggests that the best way to persuade Americans to support changes in health care policy is to appeal to their self-interest - particularly to concerns about their economic and health security. An alternative strategy, framing problems in the health care system to emphasize inequalities, could also, however, mobilize public support for policy change by activating underlying attitudes about the unfairness or injustice of these inequalities. In this article, we draw on original data from a nationally representative survey to describe Americans' beliefs about fairness in the health domain, including their perceptions of the fairness of particular inequalities in health and health care. We then assess the influence of these fairness considerations on opinions about the appropriate role of private actors versus government in providing health insurance. Respondents believe inequalities in access to and quality of health care are more unfair than unequal health outcomes. Even after taking into account self-interest considerations and the other usual suspects driving policy opinions, perceptions of the unfairness of inequalities in health care strongly influence respondents' preferences for government provision of health insurance.     

Toward Understanding the Psychology of Reactions to Perceived Fairness: The Role of Affect Intensity

In social psychology it has been argued that the importance of justice cannot be overstated. In the present paper, we ask whether this indeed is the case and, more precisely, examine when fairness is an important determinant of human reactions and when it is less significant. To this end we explore what drives people's reactions to perceived fairness and argue that although social justice research has reported effects of fairness perceptions on people's affective feelings, a close examination of the literature shows that these reactions appear less frequently and less strong than one would expect. It is proposed here that this has to do with the neglect in the social psychology of justice of an important determinant of affective reactions: individuals' propensity to react strongly or mildly toward affect-related events. As hypothesized, findings of two empirical studies show that especially people high in affect intensity show strong affective reactions following the experience of outcome fairness (Study1) and procedural fairness (Study2). When affect intensity is low, however, weak or no fairness effects were found, suggesting that then fairness may not be an important issue. In the discussion it is thus argued that incorporating affect intensity into the justice literature may further insights into the psychology of reactions toward fairness.     

When Are Transport Pricing Policies Fair and Acceptable?

This study examines the relative importance of six policy outcomes related to different fairness principles for the perceived fairness and acceptability of pricing policies aimed at changing transport behaviour. The fairness and acceptability of six different types of transport pricing policies were systematically higher if policy outcomes were related to environmental justice and equality. The policy measures were evaluated as more acceptable and fair when respondents believed that future generations, nature and the environment were protected (reflecting environmental justice), and to a lesser extent, when everybody was equally affected by the policy outcomes (reflecting equality), irrespective of absolute differences in fairness and acceptability of the policies. Policy outcomes reflecting egoistic concerns (e.g. being financially worse off and being worse off than others) and equity (e.g. proportional to people’s income and contribution to problems) were related to the fairness and acceptability of some policy measures, but no systematic pattern was found across six policy measures. This suggests that policy outcomes related to distributions that focus on collective considerations appear to be more important for the fairness and acceptability of transport pricing policies than those focusing on individual interests. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

司法政策与监管政策的竞争——基于信用卡纠纷裁判的观察

政策对司法裁判产生实然的影响,当司法政策与监管政策发生竞争时,作为裁判者的地方法院面临选择困境。信用卡民事纠纷实证研究表明,法院对"费率限定"的司法政策与"费率约定"监管政策的认同基本抗衡并受到政策解释路径的影响。改进政策在技术层面的适用,应发挥抽象规则的威慑力,关注政策可能的不利后果,加强个案裁判说理论证。而从根本上化解政策竞争,需要建立司法权与监管权协调机制。一方面,加强职能履行过程的协调,适用法律对政策竞争予以解释,运用消极司法审查发挥个案裁判灵活性;另一方面,加强政策制定程序的协调,横向上明确规范性文件征求意见程序,纵向上完善规范性文件备案审查程序,从而超越政策竞争,实现协同治理。     

Is it Fair to Share? Perceptions of Fairness in the Division of Housework Among Couples in 22 Countries

This study explores the relationship between the actual division of housework and men’s and women’s perceived fairness in this regard. The central question is how the actual sharing of housework influences the perceptions of fairness in the division of housework. It is hypothesised that the perceptions of fairness differ between policy models. In countries where gender equality has been more present on the political agenda and dual-earner policies have been introduced, people are expected to be more sensitive to an unfair sharing or division of housework. By analysing the relationship between actual division of housework and perceptions of fairness in household work for 22 countries representing different family policy models, the study takes on a comparative perspective with the purpose of analysing the normative impact of policy. The analysis draws on data from the 2002 round of the International Social Survey Programme on family and changing gender roles. The results show that in countries that have promoted gender equality through the introduction of policies with an aim to promote dual roles in work and family, both women and men are more sensitive to an unfair division of household labour. The difference between perceptions in the different policy models is greater among men than among women, indicating that a politicization of the dual-earner family is more important for men’s equity perceptions than women’s.     

The Injustice of Enforced Equal Access to Transplant Operations: Rethinking Reckless Claims of Fairness

The globalizing or totalizing imposition of a particular understanding of justice, fairness, or equality, as seen, for example, in Canada's single health care system, which forbids the sale of private insurance and the purchase of better basic health care, cannot be justified in general secular terms because of the following limitations: (1) the plurality of understandings of justice, fairness, and equality, and (2) the inability to establish one understanding as canonical. The secular state lacks plausible moral authority for the coercive imposition of one such account on peaceable, consenting adults. This state of affairs, with regard to the weakness of human moral epistemological powers, means that the secular state fails to have the moral authority to forbid coercively the sale and purchase of organs. It further lacks the secular, moral authority to impose equal access to organ transplantations. Assertions of such authority amount to reckless claims of fairness, and for this reason, health care policy must be set within the constraints of limited, constitutional regimes.     

Victims' Responses to traumatic life events: An unjust world or an uncaring world?

Although the psychological literature has generally equated deservingness and justice, victims' responses suggest the need to disentangle the two concepts. Victims usually feel their traumatic experience was undeserved but typically do not consider the outcome in terms of justice or fairness. Rather, their feelings about not deserving the victimization derive from a second type of moral judgment involving caring rather than justice. These two orientations are discussed in light of recent developments in work on moral reasoning. A framework for understanding the trauma of victimization is presented; the shattering of assumptions related to a caring world—in which people are protected from harm—is highlighted in this model. The crucialrole of social support and specific cognitive strategies used by victims in the aftermath of their victimization are discussed in terms of survivors' efforts to rebuild their assumptions about a caring world. Although concerns about justice are less common among survivors, an effort is made to discuss when these isues are most apt to arise.     

Public Good, Private Protections: Competing Values in German Transplantation Law

Organ transplantation has become almost routine practice in many industrialized countries. Policy, ethical, and legal debates tend to center on fairness of allocation rules or alternatives to promote greater numbers of donations. There are also certain beliefs about the use of bodily materials that are often presumed to be homogenous across Euro–American societies. In Germany, however, the idea of using the bodies of some for the good of others, and the right to proclaim some bodies dead for large–scale medical and political purposes is highly charged. This is due to the historical context of medical experimentation, selection, and euthanasia under National Socialism, and the former East German socialist policies which intervened in the private lives and bodies of citizens. This article is based on an ethnography of organ procurement practices during the period when German policymakers struggled with writing a transplant law. Active public resistance revealed deep concern about state intervention in private matters and amplified the growing unrest over definitions of moral community in a changing, post–reunification society. The article shows how public disputes about health policy become a way through which societies deal with other social conflicts.     

Political Resistance: A Matter of Fairness

In this paper, I argue that the principle of fairness can license both a duty of fair play, which is used to ground a moral duty to obey the law in just or nearly just societies, and a duty of resistance to unfair and unjust social schemes. The first part of the paper analyzes fairness’ demands on participants in mutually beneficial schemes of coordination, and its implications in the face of injustice. Not only fairness does not require complying with unfair and unjust social schemes, but it also prohibits benefiting from such schemes. I use the case of racial segregation in the U.S. to illustrate this latter argument, and consider some objections to my investigation, given the availability and straightforwardness of justice. The second part of the paper elaborates the argument for the duty to resist. The Radical Reform argument first establishes, by elimination of the alternatives (exit and restitution), that the principal way for citizens to cease benefiting from an unfair and unjust social scheme is to radically reform it. The Resistance Argument then shows that resistance is crucial to bring about reform, so that one ought to resist unfair and unjust schemes from which one benefits. Next, I offer two arguments for collective resistance and political solidarity, one based on empirical considerations and the other based on fairness. Finally, I consider the costs of the resistance efforts which fairness may require.     

Convergence in British Cultural Policy: The Social,the Cultural,and the Economic

It is increasingly the case that cultural policy at all levels of governance is expected to address a suite of concerns much broader than those traditionally associated with the arts and creative practice. Indeed, in many nations, including most notably Britain, the concerns of cultural policy now embrace the economic and the social, as well as the cultural. In Britain, this convergence is occurring as part of a broader policy concern to ameliorate social exclusion by providing people with opportunities to participate in the creative economy. Drawing on the findings of a major study of the factors shaping cultural policy internationally, this article identifies and maps the priorities, key intersections, and convergences associated with these priorities in British cultural policy. The article argues that, in spite of taking different forms and having varying emphases depending on the constituency and the level of governance involved, the convergence agenda currently dominating British cultural policy is nevertheless remarkably consistent in terms of the discourses surrounding culture, the remit of the cultural sphere, and strategic policy implementation.     

POLICING CORRUPTION AND ECONOMIC CRIME — HOW CAN WE DO IT BETTER?

While history records that economically motivated crime and misconduct in its various forms has existed since the earliest civilizations and has always raised issues of fairness and integrity, in recent years additional concerns have come to the fore. Economic stability particularly in an interdependent world, has thrown up issues related to stability and security. The tools that have been developed to address certain manifestations of economic misconduct and in particular the development of financial intelligence are now used across a much broader spectrum than merely the control of fraud and corruption. We use, for example, the regimes that have been designed to identify suspect wealth for a variety of purposes including the raising of revenue which have less relevance to the direct interdiction of financial crime. This paper considers from a practical rather than conceptual standpoint how best to address the risks and issues thrown up by economically motivated crime and also the mechanisms that have been adopted to address it. In particular it seeks to examine various ways in which economically motivated crime may be better discouraged and its impact mitigated. It does not pretend to be a deeply conceptual analysis of the relevant law given its aspiration to have a wider significance and purchase than one jurisdiction. What it does do, however, is to seek to build upon practical experience and apply it to the fashioning of enhanced weapons in the fight against economic crime.     

A human rights-based approach to sex offender management: The key to effective public protection?

Abstract

This paper outlines recent ‘public protection’ legislation in the United States of America as a basis for considering possible outcomes when public concern and political pressures combine without due regard for efficacy and appropriate balance. It highlights concerns about the implications of policy measures developing in this way and questions whether a human-rights based approach should be applied in terms of public protection policy in order to develop more effective public protection.     

Group-Based Dominance and Opposition to Equality Correspond to Different Psychological Motives

Social Dominance Orientation, one of the most popular individual differences measures in the study of generalized prejudice, can be understood as having two components: Opposition to Equality (OEQ) and support for Group-Based Dominance (GBD). We consider these components in terms of system justification theory and social identity theory. We find that each component best explains different kinds of political views, consistent with the theory that they arise from different motivations. OEQ reflects system justification motives. It better predicts attitudes towards redistributive social policy, political conservatism, and a lack of humanitarian compassion for the disadvantaged. GBD reflects social identity motives. It is more associated with hostility toward outgroups and concerns about intergroup competition. GBD and OEQ have different personality and demographic correlates, exhibit distinctive relations with explicit and implicit attitudinal preferences, and differentially predict a variety of policy attitudes. Use of GBD and OEQ as separate constructs enriches the understanding of prejudice, policy attitudes, and political ideology.     

The Changing Role of Central Banks and the Role of Competition in Financial Regulation during (and in the Aftermath of) the Financial Crisis

Rescue cases involving guarantees (contrasted with restructuring cases) during the recent Financial Crisis, have illustrated the prominent position that the goal of promoting financial stability has assumed over that of the prevention or limitation of possible distortions of competition which may arise when granting State aid. The importance attached to maintaining and promoting financial stability—as well as the need to facilitate rescue and restructuring measures aimed at preventing systemically relevant financial institutions from failure, demonstrate how far authorities are willing to overlook certain competition policies. However, increased government and central bank intervention also simultaneously trigger the usual concerns—which include moral hazard and the danger of serving as long‐term substitutes for market discipline. How far central banks and governments should intervene and how far distortions of competition should be permitted ultimately depends on how systemically relevant a financial institution is.     

Social Citizenship,Housing Wealth and the Cost of Social Care: Is the Care Act 2014 ‘Fair'?

This article assesses the extent to which it is ‘fair’ for the government to require owner‐occupiers to draw on the equity accumulated in their home to fund their social care costs. The question is stimulated by the report of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support, Fairer Care Funding (the Dilnot Commission) and the subsequent Care Act 2014. The enquiry is located within the framework of social citizenship and the new social contract. It argues that the individualistic, contractarian approach, exemplified by the Dilnot Commission and reflected in the Act, raises questions when considered from the perspective of intergenerational fairness. We argue that our concerns with the Act could be addressed by inculcating an expectation of drawing on housing wealth to fund older age: a policy of asset‐based welfare.