Neutralization and Tax Evasion: How Effective Would a Moral Appeal Be in Improving Compliance to Tax Laws?

The failure of individuals to pay their taxes in full is a serious budgetary problem for the federal government. Existing research (Schwartz and Orleans, 1967; Grasmick and Scott, 1982) suggests that efforts to increase the guilt feelings experienced for tax evasion might improve compliance. However, neutralization theory (Sykes and Matza, 1957) predicts that guilt feelings can be reduced by neutralization strategies which justify guilt-producing behavior, compromising the inhibiting effect of guilt feelings. Our research shows that through the use of neutralization strategies which justify tax evasion the inhibiting effect of guilt feelings is sharply reduced. The implications of this finding for tax compliance programs based on appeals to the moral obligation of paying taxes are discussed.     

三位民国法学家关于中国法理自觉的探讨

本文从民国时期三位法学家的理论入手,通过分析他们的理论,发掘他们主要因应的社会、法律问题,从而指出他们的法律理论几乎都沿着晚清的礼法之争,试图在理论上为西方法律在中国社会的有效性及其正当性,提供理论支持,代替西方法律只有政治支持的局面,以期最终莫定西方法律在中国社会的基础.同时,通过检讨他们的理论的有效性,指出他们的法律理论在中西之间的理论困境.     

The Origins of the ‘Nonmarket Economy’: Ideas,Pluralism & Power in EC Anti‐dumping Law about China

‘Market’ and ‘market economy’ exercise a powerful, even magnetic grip on our collective imagination. But what do we mean by ‘market economy’? Does it make sense to speak of a ‘nonmarket economy’, and if so, what does it mean? How are the ideas of ‘market economy’ and ‘nonmarket economy’ related? Focusing on EC anti‐dumping law, this article seeks to answer these questions. It argues that the legal concept of ‘nonmarket economy’ in EC anti‐dumping law has been socially constructed, by means of relations among a plurality of institutional and normative sites, as part of a changing configuration of legal ideas in specific historical circumstances, and in contexts of political, economic, social, and symbolic power. This argument is articulated in three parts. First, the concept of ‘nonmarket economy’ in EC anti‐dumping law, though drawing on earlier elements, had its main roots in the early Cold War. Second, starting in the 1960s, the GATT multilateral negotiating rounds began to define more specific international rules of the game, but a variety of more localised processes played essential roles as forces of change. Of special importance were, first, the tension between legislative rules and administrative discretion in the United States, and, second, the Europeanisation of foreign trade law in the course of European integration. Third, the EC law concept of ‘nonmarket economy’ was born in the late 1970s. The main reasons were changes in the international anti‐dumping law repertoire, specific ideas in Europe about comparative economic systems, and the perceived emergence of new economic threats, including exports from China.     

公序良俗视角下同性结合法律问题研究 ——从我国台湾地区修法争议谈起

不同国家或地区对同性结合态度悬殊不一,从完全施加打击到全面予以保护的谱系中,我国内地、香港地区、澳门地区三法域落入中间区域,而台湾地区正朝加强保护的方向过渡。同性结合是否构成违法、应否进行立法保护及是否赋予婚姻权利,实质蕴含不同国家或地区的公序良俗标准有所迥异。尊重同性恋现象、尊重同性结合者权益以及尊重多元成家趋势,我国台湾地区选择修法。然而修法同时,传统伦常应被尊重,市民社会多数人生活方式应被尊重,民法概念及体系价值应被尊重。在尊重与被尊重之间,同性婚姻不宜一次性进入台湾地区“民法”,立“同性伴侣法”乃是我国台湾地区保护同性结合权益的一个理想选项。对台湾地区修法争议的考察,是我国其他三法域思考同性结合利益保护问题的窗口。     

生态环境损害的赔偿、移转与预防:从私法到公法

如何赔偿、移转和预防损害是当代损害赔偿法律的核心内容,也应是构建生态损害赔偿法体系的三个任务.对生态环境损害立法,应树立“损害赔偿体系”的大观念.生态环境损害制度的研究和设计,应置于“生态损害赔偿体系”的概念框架下,进行全盘观照、整体布局、全面推进.传统损害赔偿法主要体现为私法,但如今公法也越来越多地介入到损害赔偿领域,损害赔偿从私法向公法移转是当代损害赔偿法的普遍趋势.基于生态环境损害的特殊性,生态环境损害赔偿的移转应当是我国立法设计和理论研究的一个重点领域,是一项迫切任务.     

“Who Is a Homosexual?”: The Consolidation of Sexual Identities in Mid‐Twentieth‐Century American Immigration Law

This essay uses court records to trace the federal government's attempts to regulate homosexuality among immigrants in the mid-twentieth century, asserting that such attempts illustrate the state's struggle to make homosexuality visible, to produce a homosexuality that could be both detected and managed. I focus on the process by which two competing paradigms for understanding homosexuality (status and conduct) were consolidated into a single model in which homosexual identity could be deduced from homosexual acts. Federal officials and the courts initially treated homosexuality as a form of conduct, most commonly deporting homosexual aliens for having committed crimes of moral turpitude. Later, these same government entities relied on status provisions, deporting immigrants charged with homosexuality as aliens "afflicted with psychopathic personality." While the "psychopathic personality" terminology supported the notion that the homosexual was a kind of person rather than a set of behaviors, it also depended upon psychiatrists to support the claim that homosexuals were by definition psychopathic. When many psychiatrists distanced themselves from that idea, the government refused psychiatric opinion that differentiated psychopaths from homosexuals by arguing that these terms connoted legal-political rather than medicalized identity categories. While this conception arose out of a conservative impulse by immigration officials and the courts to fix homosexuality as identity so that it could be regulated (by bureaucrats rather than psychiatrists), I argue that the emphasis on legal-political identity categories licensed a conception of the homosexual as a kind of citizen that had some emancipatory as well as repressive effects.     

Linking Gender,Minority Group Status and Family Matters to Self‐Control Theory: A Multivariate Analysis of Key Self‐Control Concepts in a Youth‐Gang Context

The variable roles of family, gender, and race are underdeveloped in Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime, also called self control and propensity‐event theory. Using cross‐sectional data generated as part of the National Evaluation of the Gang Resistance Education and Training program, we assessed the links between the self‐reported gang involvement of 5,935 eighth‐grade public school students residing in eleven widely dispersed cities and their levels of self‐control, gender, minority group status, and family context. We found that youths with low self‐control levels reported that they were more deeply involved in gangs than youths with high self‐control, as were youths who were not closely monitored by their parents. We also found differences by gender, minority group status, and family structure. This article explores the limitations and implications of these findings for gang research, theory, and juvenile justice practice.     

Applying the Strategies of International Peacebuilding to Family Conflicts: What Those Involved in Family Disputes Can Learn from the Efforts of Peacebuilders Working to Transform War‐Torn Societies

Intractable international conflicts and difficult or intractable family conflicts have much in common. Relationships are damaged or destroyed, escalation causes parties to become polarized and make bad decisions, communication is strained or nonexistent, and competition and coercion take the place of collaboration. Similarities also exist in the realm of solutions, and those caught in (or intervening in) difficult family conflicts can learn much from the strategies and tactics of international peacebuilders. This article describes eight steps that peacebuilders at both the family level and the international level can take to make very damaging conflicts more constructive.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Limiting escalation is important in both contexts.
• Preventing or correcting misunderstandings is key to resolution in both contexts as well.
• Be sure you are focusing on the real problem(s).
• Get the facts straight (and agreed upon) before making agreements.
• Healing past wrongs is important for long term stability.
• Working both within and beyond the zone of possible agreement (ZOPA) is essential in both contexts.
• Working to improve relationships helps all parties and improves the outcome.

     

Political Self‐control and European Constitution: The Assumption of National Political Loyalty to European Obligations as the Solution to the Lex Posterior Problem of EC Law in the National Legal Orders

Current understandings of the constitutional effectiveness of EC law emphasise the European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) claims of supremacy and direct effect, and the acceptance of those claims by the national courts. However, the lex posterior problem of EC law in the national legal order—the problem whereby the application of European obligations in the national legal order could be legislated away by subsequent contrary national legislation—has been addressed not by national courts' acceptance of Costa but by national courts' assumption that national legislatures do not intend to legislate contrary to prior European obligations, often developed from separately established national doctrines which assume legislative fidelity to treaty obligations. As such, the solution to the lex posterior problem of EC law in the national legal orders rests on these national legal doctrines combined with pervasive national legislative self‐restraint. Political self‐control in the Member States supports the European legal order.