Stepping out of terrorism

Terrorist organizations, groups, cells or just ‘bunches of guys’ are systematically compared with other types of criminal or deviant organizations: organized crime such as the mafia, street gangs and religious sects. Of course there are many differences between them, especially where motivation is concerned, but they share the common factor that it is almost impossible or very difficult for individual members to step out. However, de-radicalization may follow analogous paths: aging out, accepting exit programs in prison or disengaging ideologically. The article discusses the obstacles that a government strategy that encourages desistance from terrorism by stepping out may encounter. It may be sufficient and more realistic to discourage radicals from using violence than to try to de-radicalize them by using counternarrative techniques.     

On Valuta Dealings in USSR Territory

In order to improve the procedure for handling valuta valuables in USSR territory, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet decrees:

1. To establish that operations in USSR territory to purchase valuta valuables from organizations and citizens as well as to sell such to them, is the exclusive right of the State Bank of the USSR. Other organizations may engage in such operations only when commissioned to do so by the State Bank. Valuta valuables comprise:     

THE ELUSIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS AND CRIME: AN ASSESSMENT ACROSS DISADVANTAGED AREAS OF THE SOUTH BRONX

Several theoretical perspectives posit a negative association between the extent of a neighborhood's organizational infrastructure and crime; yet, empirical support for this proposition has been limited in that researchers generally examine only a few types of organizations or combine them into one aggregate measure. Studies with few measures may omit organizations that are effective at reducing crime, whereas those using aggregate measures obscure differences across organizations in their ability to control crime. Using data from 74 block groups in the South Bronx, NY, this research seeks to specify more clearly the relationship between organizations and crime in a disadvantaged urban environment. We examine the relationship among nine different types of organizations and violent and property crime controlling for prior crime, land use, and area sociodemographic characteristics. Consistent with theories that highlight the importance of organizations for establishing ties outside the neighborhood, we find that block groups with more organizations that bridge to the larger community experience a decrease in crime. Property crime also is reduced in block groups with more organizations that promote the well‐being of families and children. We find that schools are associated with an increase in property crime, whereas the effects of other organizations are context specific and vary based on neighborhood racial composition, commercial land use, and disadvantage.     

ENTER THE DRAGON: INSIDE CHINESE HUMAN SMUGGLING ORGANIZATIONS*

This paper examines the inner workings of Chinese human smuggling organizations. Contrary to widely held conceptions about Chinese organized crime, most alien smugglers are otherwise ordinary citizens whose familial networks and fortuitous social contacts have enabled them to pool resources to transport human cargoes around the world. They come from diverse backgrounds and form temporary alliances to carry out smuggling operations. With the exception of a shared commitment to making money, little holds them together. The smuggling organizations mostly resemble ad hoc task forces and are assembled for specific operations. These organizations have clear divisions of labor with limited hierarchical structures. We discuss the theoretical implications of their unique organizational characteristics.     

A place in the Sun? IRENA’s position in the global energy governance landscape

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), created in 2009, is the only intergovernmental organization dedicated to renewable energy. Drawing on several new datasets, this article explores IRENA in the context of three other major international energy organizations: the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Energy Agency and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Through this analysis, several empirical approaches to comparing international energy organizations are tried out. Direct comparison between IRENA other international energy organizations is found to be problematic as each organization is different and comparisons inevitably encounter apples and oranges type issues. The study finds that IRENA’s niche in international renewable energy governance is not yet fully carved out, but that the organization’s mandate and institutional structure, as well as recent international developments, indicate that it may grow rapidly in importance.     

Why procedural justice in organizations?

This article reviews the existing research and theory on procedural justice and considers how it may be applied to the study of organizational behavior. It begins by distinguishing between the concepts of distributive justice and procedural justice and noting the historical contexts within which they emerged. Existing conceptual contributions and the research inspired by them are reviewed. The few existing studies applying procedural justice notions to organizational contexts are summarized, and the contributions of the articles to the present issue of this journal are reviewed relative to these efforts. The article closes by discussing the dual benefits of studying procedural justice in organizations: the enhanced understanding of the concept of justice and the behavior of people in organizations.     

An integrated model of perceived unfairness in organizations

Attitudes and behaviors of employees in organizations are influenced by fairness judgments employees make about organizations. A model is presented that proposes (i) when fairness becomes an issue to employees, (ii) how certain rules are chosen to evaluate a situation as fair or unfair, and (iii) the psychological and behavioral reactions that may result from judging something as unfair. The managerial implications of the model are discussed.     

Redundant Regulation: Sanctioning Broker-Dealers

Using data from the SEC Docket this paper examines Securities and Exchange Commission administrative actions involving broker-dealer violations, focusing on disparities in the sanctioning of individual and organizational defendants. The analysis shows that the overall severity of sanctions received by individuals and organizations is similar, but the determinants of sanctions differ substantially. For individual violators, conventional measures of culpability figure prominently into the sanctioning decision. For organizations, operational viability is the principal determinant of sanction. This reliance upon measures of viability renders much of the SEC's control of organizations redundant: the most severe sanctions are reserved for firms that are already operationally or financially moribund. This pattern of regulatory redundancy is interpreted as an alternative accommodation to the difficulties of sanctioning organizations.     

Rule‐Intermediaries in Action: How State and Business Stakeholders Influence the Meaning of Consumer Rights in Regulatory Governance Arrangements

The boundaries between public and private actors are increasingly blurred via regulatory governance arrangements and the contracting out of rights enforcement to private organizations. Regulation and governance scholars have not gained enough empirical leverage on how state actors, private organizations, and civil society groups influence the meaning of legal rules in regulatory governance arrangements that they participate in. Drawing from participant observation at consumer law conferences and interviews with stakeholders, my empirical data suggest that consumer rights and, in fact, consumer law, mean different things to different stakeholders tasked with adjudicating consumer rights. Rights afforded consumers who purchase warranties are now largely contingent on first using alternative dispute resolution structures, some created and operated by private organizations with soft state oversight and others run by stakeholders but with greater state oversight and involvement. Using new institutional sociology and regulatory governance theories, I find that stakeholders involved in overseeing and administering these dispute resolution systems filter the meaning of consumer rights through competing business and consumer logics. Because consumer laws mean different things to stakeholders tasked with adjudicating consumer rights, two different rights regimes simultaneously exist in this field. I conclude that how rule‐intermediaries administering private and state‐run dispute resolution systems conceptualize what consumer laws mean in action may have implications for regulatory governance and more broadly, consumers' access to justice.     

Ownership conversions in health care organizations: who should benefit?

Because equity capital is becoming an important financing source for health care organizations, the conversion of many such organizations from nonprofit to for-profit status is a significant public policy issue. Since many states require converting nonprofits to repay the "community" for its investment during the nonprofit status period, three questions arise: (1) How much is the entity worth? (2) How much of that worth should be returned to the community? (3) In what form should it be returned? The paper addresses these questions, and demonstrates why responsible public policy calls for them to be carefully considered if community interests are to be preserved.     

德国民间组织监管体制的特点与启示

悠久的结社传统使得德国民间组织的发展极为成熟.众多的民间组织在德国的政治、经济、社会、文化等领域发挥着极为重要的管理和调节作用.在其发达的民间组织背后,是一套由健全的法律制度框架、政府管制方式以及民间组织自律机制所共同构成的、特殊的德国民间组织监管体制.     

Freedom to bargain and disputes’ resolution

When two parties are embedded in a dispute, they generally have the possibility to bargain before an external solution is imposed to them, notably through alternative dispute resolution. This bargaining phase may either result from a choice of disputants to negotiate or be imposed by laws or legal contracts. The aim of this paper is to analyze the differences in terms of parties’ bargaining behavior, depending upon the fact that bargaining has been imposed to them or comes from their own will. We conduct an experimental analysis and find out that, under some conditions, a procedure in which parties are forced to bargain leads to more agreements than when parties are free whether to do so. This main result is interpreted in the light of behavioral economics.     

对我国民法上非法人组织概念的质疑

我国民法典第102—107条对非法人组织的规范重点没有放在其"社团性"和"团体性"上,而是将其放在"不具有法人资格,但是能够依法以自己的名义从事民事活动"、"其出资人或者设立人承担无限责任"上,没有能够反映出非法人组织的本质特征。更为严重的是:(1)不区分经营性与非经营性非法人组织,一律让其成员承担无限连带责任。这不符合很多非经营性,甚至公益性非法人组织存在的宗旨,对其存在和发展不利,也不符合中国国情和比较法上的一般理论与实践。例如,中国法学会下属的许多学会都是典型的非经营性非法人组织,会员如何能够对学会的债务承担连带责任?无论从会员加入学会的愿意和内心、人们对学会的期望,还是习惯,都是不可能的。(2)明确把合伙企业纳入到非法人组织中去。这样一来,就彻底抹杀了非法人组织与合伙的基本区别,从而也就无从把非法人组织与我国法上的"两户"区分开来。另外,业主大会与业主委员会关系及主体性问题也应当在非法人组织的框架内得到妥善的解决。     

The Fate of the State Revisited

The State, which during the three and a half centuries since the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) has been the most important and the most characteristic of all modern institutions, appears to be declining or dying. In many places, existing states are either combining into larger communities or falling apart; in many places, organizations that are not states are challenging them by means fair or foul. On the international level, we seem to be moving away form a system of separate, sovereign, legally equal, states towards less distinct, more hierarchical, and in many ways more complex political structures. Inside their borders, it seems that many states will soon no longer be able to protect the political, military, economic, social and cultural life of their citizens. These developments are likely to lead to upheavals as profound as those that took humanity out of the middle ages and into the modern world. Whether the direction of change is desirable, as some hope, or undesirable, as others fear, remains to be seen.     

Dr. Death? Professionalism,Virtue, and U.S. Physician Participation in the Death Penalty

In the United States at present, the death penalty is a possible sentence in 31 out of 50 states, as well as within the military and for federal cases. In the U.S., numbers of executions are declining, in part due to moratoriums in place and challenges to execution by lethal injection. Participation by physicians in lethal injection executions has been steadfastly viewed by professional medical organizations as contrary to their ethical standards. However, physicians have participated in lethal injection executions, and the morality of the death penalty itself is a matter of intense social and political debate. Medical ethics commentators and professional organizations have typically held that the prohibition on physician participation in the death penalty is independent of the ethical status of the death penalty itself. This article argues that this view is untenable, and that it is tied to a view of professional role virtue that is similarly untenable. At the same time, it argues that, given the morally uncertain status of the death penalty, it is plausible that virtuous physicians may either refuse or choose to participate in some aspects of the death penalty.     

VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS AND NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME: A DYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE*

Although numerous theories suggest that voluntary organizations contribute to lower crime rates in neighborhoods, the evidence for this proposition is weak. Consequently, we propose a dynamic perspective for understanding the relationship between voluntary organizations and neighborhood crime that involves longitudinal analyses and the measurement of the age of organizations. By using longitudinal data on a sample of census blocks (N = 87,641) located across 10 cities, we test the relationship between age‐graded measures of different types of voluntary organizations and neighborhood crime rates. We use fixed‐effects negative binomial regression models that focus on change within neighborhoods of the relationship between voluntary organizations and neighborhood crime. Our results show that although each type of voluntary organization is found to exhibit crime‐reducing behavior in neighborhoods, we find that many of them are consistent with what we refer to as the “delayed impact scenario”—there is a pronounced delay between the placement of a voluntary organization and a neighborhood subsequently experiencing a reduction in crime. With protective effects of organizations typically not demonstrated until several years after being in the neighborhood, these patterns suggest a need for long‐term investment strategies when examining organizations.     

Waiver of certain membership requirements for certain health maintenance organizations (HMOs), and state option for disenrollment restrictions for certain HMOs under Medicaid--HCFA. Final rule

These regulations revise current Medicaid rules to bring them into conformity with statutory changes that (1) expanded the waiver authority of the Secretary to permit certain health maintenance organizations (HMOs) meeting specified requirements to exceed the composition of enrollment limit, (2) permitted certain organizations to contract on a risk basis, (3) permitted continuation of benefits to recipients enrolled in certain organizations after they have lost entitlement to Medicaid, and (4) granted States the option of restricting a Medicaid enrollee's right to disenroll from certain types of risk HMOs and other organizations. The statutory changes that are reflected in these regulations were enacted in section 2364 of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, as amended by section 9517 of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 and section 4113 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987. We are also making a technical correction concerning HMO and PHP contracts.     

Building successful technology transfer teams: A theory of cascading commitment

The attempt to transfer a technology from a publicly funded laboratory to a profit-oriented manufacturer can be a lengthy and complex process, involving several organizations and several key individuals within each organization. For example, a product technology transfer team may include the public lab itself, one or more end user organizations during product development and trial, a transfer agency, a public funding agency, the receptor manufacturer, and a private funding agency. Studies of such multi party transfers have suggested many factors that have contributed to their success or failure. We feel that most of these factors can be organized under the rubric of a more general theory of cascading commitment. Specifically, in this paper we propose that the likelihood of a transfer's success can be substantially affected by excellent management of the team building process by the public lab's R&D manager/director. Successful teams are built by gaining the commitment of appropriate individuals from appropriate organizations in a sequential cascading effect, by insightful and customized solicitation of each new team member to join at the appropriate stage of commercialization. To do this, the manager must be cognizant of, and individually appeal to, each new team member's perceptions of three sets of variables: evidence of the prior members' credibility, evidence of the prior members' commitment, and the set of personal benefits to be gained from participation.     

农村集体经济组织成员资格标准的法律分析与实践

成员资格标准的法律缺失是农村集体经济组织内部征地补偿费等成员利益分配纠纷频发的主要原因。成员资格标准的法律缺失根源于农村集体经济组织的擅变和农村集体经济组织相关立法的逻辑障碍。通过立法完善成员资格标准时,应以在本集体内生产、生活的状态和对本集体土地利益的生存依赖作为基本依据,淡化户口对于认定成员资格的作用。在此基础上,本文以天津高级人民法院的规定为基础,提出一个农村集体经济组织成员资格标准立法的建议方案.     

论商会组织的跨法人运作

本文分析了商会跨法人运作的基本形式及主要目的。认为商会跨法人运作会带来商会运作营利化、损害法人人格及公共资源不合理使用等问题;提出了商会跨法人运作的监管对策,应禁止商会成立和控制其它社团;允许商会成立民办非企业单位,但禁止商会形成对民办非企业单位的控制;允许商会跨法人经营企业,但应给予更细致的规范。