COMPARING ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE

Among the many important changes wrought by Regulation 1/2003are the decentralization of responsibility for enforcing EUcompetition law from Brussels to Member States and the creationof the European Competition Network to encourage coordinationand information-sharing among the 26 competition authoritiesin the EU. This article contrasts Europe's new system of competitionenforcement under Regulation 1/2003 with that of the UnitedStates. I focus upon two of the more significant features ofthe U.S. system: the dual legislative and enforcement authorityof the States and the Federal Government, and private enforcement.The Commission is presently evaluating measures to facilitateprivate enforcement and is set to release a Green Paper on thattopic later this year. I highlight a few characteristics thathave made private enforcement such a significant component ofthe U.S. antitrust regime, in some ways and at some times providingtoo much incentive for plaintiffs, at the expense of neutralor procompetitive business activity.     

CHILD SUPPORT IN THE UNITED STATES

This article reports on the results of a telephone survey conducted with a random sample of households screened for eligibility to receive child support in the state of Colorado. Despite the recent enactment of ambitious child legislation at the state and federal levels, the accounts of 731 custodial parents reveal a massive level of unmet need, with child support problems being most extreme for those never married to the chilďs other parent. These mothers typically lack an order establishing a legal obligation to pay child support and have incomes that fall below the poverty level. Overall, women of Colorado with child support orders received only about half of the support they were due, and 73 per cent of all women due support reported that they had experienced problems in collecting support either currently or in the past. The average amount of back due child support owed to the 60 per cent of women in the sample who reported an arrearage was $12,000. Analysis revealed that payment behaviour tracked with the length of time since separation with payment patterns worsening over time and irregular visitation and/or the presence of problems around child access. Female obligors exhibited the same payment patterns as their male counterparts but were more apt to maintain visitation. The article documents the dramatic, negative economic consequences of irregular or missing child support payments for custodial parents, and discusses the additional legal and financial commitments needed to improve the situation. The efficacy of private child support transfers to achieve an adequate standard of living for all children is called into question.     

THE LAWS,POLICIES, AND POLITICS OF REGULATING LEAD POLLUTION IN CHINA

This article examines the politics, laws and policies related to regulating lead pollution from lead-acid battery related manufacturing facilities in China. Particularly, this paper examines how China＇s Ministry of Environmental Protection （MEP） was able to force the temporary closure of nearly 90 percent of lead-battery manufacturing facilities within a period of months in 2011, after years of enforcement failures. The authors analyze the extent to which the Government＇s response to address lead pollution was based on laws and policies that can be systematically and consistently deployed by MEP as needed, or whether such measures are reliant on political will from outside MEP. Additionally, the authors are concerned with the extent to which China ＇s governance response to lead pollution primarily addresses environmental and public health issues; or rather it primarily addresses political and economic development issues, and whether this difference is significant. The article makes suggestions for how China can improve its environmental enforcement, and in so doing, contributes to a growing field of scholarship that examines environmental governance issues in the context of developing countries.     

CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES*

Criminologists continue to debate fundamental issues about the nature of their work. Some of the issues were built into the field by the criminal anthropologists who founded it a century ago. By examining the work of major American criminal anthropologists—a nearly forgotten group—one can identify the origins of three enduring problems: criminology's difficulties in (1) establishing its disciplinary boundaries; (2) defining its methods: and (3) deciding whether its primary goal is crime control or the production of knowledge with no immediate use-value. The study of criminology's roots in criminal anthropology cannot settle these debates, but it can put them in historical perspective and clarify their substance.     

REGULATING THE PROCUREMENT OF STATE ENTERPRISES IN CHINA: CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE POLICY CONSIDERATIONS

While the procurement of state enterprises is one of the most contentious issues for China's GPA accession negotiation,the regulation on such procurement is also of concerns under domestic law.From the Chinese domestic perspective,this Article first analyses the extent to which the procurement of state enterprises is regulated by national,ministerial,as well as firm-level procurement rules.On that basis,the incentives for adopting a principled approach to regulating such procurement are explored,such as value for money,preventing corruption,and fighting against local protectionism.A brief suggestion is made regarding the consolidation of the exiting rules in the context of complicated underlying institutional framework.     

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.     

A REGIONAL ANALYSIS OF HOMICIDE RATES IN THE UNITED STATES

Variations in regional homicide rates are examined in order to determine whether or not these areas are homogeneous An analysis of varbnce repeatedly isolates southern regions as having pronounced homicide rates. Intraregional varintions are noted. They indicate a need for a revision of Gastil's “Index of Southernness.” Finally, varktions are interpreted within a subcultural context.     

THE EVOLUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT-BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES: COLONIAL TIMES TO PRESENT

Everything has a history. At least part of the answer to any question about the contemporary world can come from studying the circumstances that led up to it⃜The more you understand about these past influences, the more you will know about the present subject to which they are related.¹