Seeing War as Criminal: Peace Activist Views and Critical Criminology

A hallmark of critical criminology is its critique of the traditional definition of crime. For decades, critical scholars have proposed humanistic definitions of crime that bring state violence into the purview of academic criminology—although outside of critical criminology this is a matter of great contentiousness. This study investigates the views of those involved in peace activism, but not in any way associated with academic criminology, about the application of the term ‘crime’ to war, specifically the recent US war on Iraq. Given that there is no existing research on this subject, the article also examines how peace activists define crime generally and whether they believe those responsible for the war should be regarded as war criminals. Not surprisingly, semi‐structured interviews with 13 anti‐war activists reveal significant support for elements of critical criminological definitions of crime but an unexpected concern on the part of some that the application of the term ‘crime’ to war could be counterproductive in efforts to stop state violence. The rationales for this concern, as well as those for other issues addressed in the study, are largely presented in the interviewees’ own words.     

Ambivalence in Intergroup Evaluation: The Role of Fairness Norm

We conducted two studies to examine the role of the social norm of fairness on cognitive (beliefs and judgments) and affective (emotions and feelings) ambivalence in an intergroup context of evaluation. As predicted, we found that ambivalence toward the ingroup is constantly higher in the cognitive dimension than in the affective dimension. Instead, cognitive and affective ambivalence toward the outgroup are generally similar but when the outgroup is highly protected by the fairness norm (i.e., the elderly), cognitive ambivalence is considerably lower than affective ambivalence. These findings provide evidence that (1) cognitive ambivalence is more controlled by the fairness norm than affective ambivalence, and that (2) it holds an adaptive function, changing in accordance with the demands of the normative context.

社会变迁中的社会保险争议处理体制

权利救济体制是一个动态的历史范畴,因而很有必要从社会变迁的视角对我国现行社会保险争议处理体制进行研究。新中国成立以来,我国社会保险制度变迁呈现出一个保险社会化的过程。与此同时,社会保险争议的社会性也在不断增强,社会保险争议主体逐渐多元化,社会保险争议的内容也更加复杂化。我国现行社会保险争议处理体制的主要缺陷就是不能反映和有效应对社会保险争议社会化这一现状,因此有必要从理念上进行超越、在体制上进行重构。     

《婚姻法》中的社会变迁

婚姻立法是对一个社会的家庭、婚姻状况现实的描述及理想表达,本文通过建国后几部婚姻法的变化,把婚姻和家庭制度放回到社会、政治和文化背景中,把握半个多世纪以来我国婚姻家庭关系变化的特点,理解国家对家庭这一社会设置的治理路径：从全面介入到有限度退出。     

社会变迁中的法治

社会由社会观念、社会制度和社会结构三者构成，三者互动导致社会变迁。此模型解释了三种社会变迁的模式以及相应的合法性。法律制度化是解释社会变迁与法律转型关系的关键。中国在迈向现代化的过程中，法律转型应朝着法治方向发展。     

论失业弱势群体社会网络的断裂与重构

中国人的社会行动是关系取向的,人们的社会关系是呈网状结构的,而这种社会关系网络结构又是分层化的.在失业弱势群体的社会支持体系中,非正式社会网络支持发挥着重要的作用.但是,这种非正式社会网络的社会支持作用是有限度的.失业下岗人员的社会网络断裂,更使其社会支持功能的发挥大打折扣.因此,失业弱势群体必须充分借助正式社会网络的社会支持力量,重构自己的社会关系网络.     

When Bad (Good) Things Happen to Good (Bad) People: The Impact of Character Appraisal and Perceived Controllability on Judgments of Deservingness

When third parties judge the deservingness of outcomes experienced by others, what role does their appraisal of others' character play in their judgments? Two experiments examined this question by locating it within the framework of Feather's (1994a) theoretical analysis of deservingness. In both experiments, participants read 16 stories in which (a) people of good or bad character (b) experienced positive or negative outcomes in events (c) over which they had high or low control, then rated the extent to which each outcome was deserved. All three factors were found to affect ratings of deservingness, but the dominant influence was the Valence of Character × Valence of Outcome interaction. Outcomes were judged to be deserved when the valences attached to actors' character and their outcomes were congruent (either ++ or ??) and undeserved when the valences were incongruent (either +? or ?+). Most of the results supported Feather's formulations and, in addition, suggested how people integrate several perceptions into a composite judgment of deservingness.

     

The Shadow Price of Social Change and Its Evaluation

This paper analyzes the “shadow price” of social transformation. For the first time, an attempt was made to determine the approaches to measuring this value with regard to nonmarket phenomena and processes, and to apply these approaches in an empirical analysis, based on a representative survey in Russia (N = 1,000) using experimental situations.

Specifically, it quantitatively evaluates (1) the degree of divergence between the real and the ideal structure of the time budget of several important domains of social life; (2) the ratio of social ills to social benefits; (3) individual public welfare functions; and (4) the social cost, legitimated by citizens, of reproducing two fundamental public goods: “the capacity to maintain ‘superpower’ status” and “the well-being of the future generations.”

The authors introduce and operationalize the novel concept of the socially suboptimal product of labor, that is, the product resulting from alienated (or unwilling) labor, and conversely, the product that could potentially result from using unutilized willing labor. In doing so we support the idea of distinguishing productive and unproductive forms within both the notion of labor and the notion of leisure. Aggregated estimates of these values show the share of gross domestic product (GDP) that could be optimized due to a redistribution of the time budget of the population between the main areas of life, according to ideal social preferences.

The balance of social benefits and social ills resulting from the life experiences and activities of individuals is empirically evaluated. We consider this balance, which is the sum of impacts of the social environment on the individual, as a suitable model for explaining how individuals make decisions about whether or not to participate in public life.

“Individual public welfare functions” are assessed empirically, demonstrating that individual utility depends on personal and collective consumption. Empirical testing covered a wide range of nation-building areas with public investment in relevant types of merit and public goods.

Then the authors propose and test on empirical data an opportunity cost approach to evaluating socially legitimate amounts of funding for the fundamental social benefits “superpower” or “additional power” of the nation.

The cost of the public good “well-being of the future generations” is calculated for the Russian sample.

Finally, the estimates of the discount rates of human lives and “healthy and prosperous years of life” were obtained for Russia for the first time.

The findings of the study are relevant for the efficient management of complex socioeconomic systems. The authors strongly believe that revealing the structure of existing social preferences and estimating their impact on various areas of social life will help improve policymaking by explicitly taking into account the specifics of the real social contract between the state and society.     

Partner Assaultive Men and the Stages and Processes of Change

Researchers have recently suggested that the Transtheoretical Model of behavior change (TTM; Prochaska, J. O. DiClemente, C. C., and Norcross, J. C., 1992, Am. Psychol. 47: 1102–1114) might help in understanding the mechanisms through which partner assaultive men attempt to change their abusive behavior. In the present study, we present data from 2 psychometrically sound scales designed to assess the stages and processes of change in a cross-sectional sample of 250 men attending 2 batterer's intervention and prevention programs: the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment Scale for Domestic Violence (URICA-DV; Levesque, D. A., Gelles, R. J., and Velicer, W. F., 2000, Cog. Therapy Res. 24: 175–200), which assesses movement through the stages of change, and the Processes of Change Scale (POC), developed by the authors to assess self-reported usage of behavior change processes. Cross-validated cluster analyses indicated a three-cluster solution based upon URICA-DV scores: Immotive, Unprepared Action, and Preparticipation. Results indicated that individuals in more advanced stages of change reported using more behavior change processes, although this did not appear to result from being in treatment for a longer period of time. These data are interpreted in light of recent data indicating relatively small effect sizes for batterer's treatment programs and how assessment of the stages and processes of change might assist in matching men to different levels of treatment.     

美国公司社会责任的流变及其启示

美国的公司社会责任制度具有非常悠久的历史。美国公司所承担的社会责任主要集中在三个方面:(1)对公司职工的责任;(2)对消费者的责任;(3)对资源、环境的责任。本文通过考察美国公司社会责任的流变史,认为我国也必须重视公司社会责任制度的建立,通过对公司法的修改,建立起营利目标和社会责任并重的公司法目标体系。     

Evaluating Legality: Toward a Cultural Approach to the Study of Law and Social Change

The role of law in social change has been a subject of many academic debates. However, not much attention has been given to the contradictory ways in which activists for social change justify or criticize the use of law. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 25 social justice activists, I analyze the ways in which activists evaluate the role of law in social change. I find that activists invoke three distinct schemas of evaluation: instrumental, political, and cultural. The instrumental schema emphasizes change in the allocation of concrete resources; the political schema views change as the empowerment of marginalized communities; and the cultural schema emphasizes the transformation of assumptions that are shared by all members of society. Each schema provides activists with a particular order of justification that enables them to justify or to criticize the role of law in social change. While the multiplicity of schemas sustains the commonsense notion of law as a means for social change, it also accounts for possible changes in this notion.     

论人的道德权利与社会变革的合法性——反思孟子心性论的人文价值

在"孔孟之道"所象征的儒家文化传统中,"孔仁孟义"中的"义"和"思孟学派"中的"心性"都与孟子的思想人格紧密关联。"义"具有"天下道义"的奥义,它对于"家"中的"亲长"权力和"国"中的"君父"权力均有神圣的超越性,常以"大义灭亲"和"替天行道"标而出之;"心性"则是对《中庸》"性命"观念的创造性转化,突出了儒家的认识论和宇宙论的主体性与伦理性。在孟子思想体系中,"心性"与"道义"的结合,揭示出了人的普遍道德权利和伦理义务,也蕴含着其对天子、国君和权臣的世俗权力的伦理性超越和限制,其辩证的结论就是:当世俗权力侵害普遍道德权利时,社会变革就成为维护人的普遍道德权利的必然而正当的选择。     

The Good,the Bad,and the Klutzy: Criminal Negligence and Moral Concern

One proposed way of preserving the link between criminal negligence and blameworthiness is to define criminal negligence in moral terms. On this view, a person can be held criminally responsible for a negligent act if her negligence reflects a deficit of moral concern. Some theorists are convinced that this definition restores the link between negligence and blameworthiness, while others insist that criminal negligence remains suspect. This article contributes to the discussion by applying the work of ethicist Nomy Arpaly to criminal negligence. Although not interested in legal issues herself, Arpaly has a well-developed theory of moral agency that explains moral concern in terms of responsiveness to moral reasons. Introducing her work to the ongoing scholarly debate will be helpful for two reasons. First, while a definition of negligence in terms of moral concern is recognized as one proposed solution to the negligence–blameworthiness problem, authors promoting it have yet to give a systematic account of moral concern and its relation to blame. Borrowing Arpaly's account will help clarify the idea of moral concern so that both proponents and critics of a concern approach to negligence can have a better-defined debate. Second, her theory of blameworthiness is especially suited to defending the blameworthiness of negligent actions, because it does not have recourse to a special quality of choice or self-control that must be active to render conduct blameworthy. To make this second advantage clear, the article argues that reliance on choice or self-control problematizes blameworthiness for negligence. Those who wish to defend blameworthiness for negligent acts should base their work on an account of moral agency that does not rely on either choice or self-control to explain when an action is blameworthy.     

Extending the Study of Continuity and Change: Gender Differences in the Linkage Between Adolescent and Adult Offending

Recently, Paternoster etal. used data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, a longitudinal study of 411 South London boys mostly born in 1953, to investigate the linkage between adolescent and adult offending and found that variations in adult offending were consistent with a random process after conditioning on adolescent offending. In this paper, we test the robustness of this early study across data sources and genders. Here, we use data from the Dunedin New Zealand 1972 birth cohort study to replicate previous findings regarding stability and change in criminal offending between the adolescent and adult years. In particular, our interest centers on the stochastic properties of the adolescent and adult conviction distribution in the cohort and whether the structure of this distribution is similar for males and females. This replication and extension of prior work is especially important since criminologists have little understanding of the pattern of female adolescent offending or how the patterns are linked to adult offending for women. The analysis reveals that variation in adult offending after conditioning on adolescent offending is consistent with a random (Poisson) process. Furthermore, this pattern is evident for both the males and the females in the Dunedin New Zealand 1972 birth cohort.     

经济法与社会公共性论纲

经济法调整的经济管理关系的本质特征在于社会公共性。社会公共性的凸显所体现的时代精神和反映的社会要求,使经济法应运而生。社会公共性是经济法的核心范畴。社会公共性决定并表现在经济法的产生、经济法的价值、经济法的主体、经济法的权力（利）和义务,经济法的属性等各个方面。     

The Electronic Pillory: Social Time and Hostility Toward Capital Murderers

In early modern Europe, popular hostility toward criminals could be expressed through the use of the pillory (a device in which offenders were restrained and publicly displayed). Modern electronic communications have facilitated the emergence of contemporary versions of the pillory. One such example is prodeathpenalty.com , a Web site created by supporters of capital punishment that permits members to post comments about particular executions. Most such comments are markedly hostile toward the convicted offender. But is the hostility random or patterned? A new theory by Donald Black predicts that hostility will increase with changes in social space, or the movement of social time. Testing Black's theory, we find that the number of online comments hostile to the killer and supportive of the execution increases with the degree to which the murder was a movement of relational, vertical, and cultural time. Moving beyond the electronic pillory, we argue that Black's theory has much to offer to law and society scholars.     

Legislating Dangerously: Bad Samaritans,Good Society,and the Heroism Act 2015

The Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Act 2015 is a troublesome statute. The Act requires that, when considering a claim brought against a defendant in negligence or for breach of statutory duty, the court must assess whether that party was ‘acting for the benefit of society or any of its members’ (section 2), or ‘demonstrated a predominantly responsible approach towards protecting the safety or interests of others’ (section 3), or was ‘acting heroically’ (section 4). However laudable the Coalition Government's attempts to foster a ‘Big Society’ might have been, this enactment was not the proper vehicle to achieve it. Some provisions merely repeat longstanding common law principles. Others may have been intended to amend the common law to encourage ‘good citizenship’, but fall well short of that aim. And some aspects of the Act's drafting have the (perhaps unintended) potential to sit uncomfortably with established common law negligence principles.     

法学意义上的社会弱势群体概念

对社会弱势群体概念的理解和认识不应当局限于社会学领域。因为那只是对社会弱势群体的多元化解释中的一种。既然法律是调控人类社会生活的主要规则 ,社会弱势群体就必然需要法律的调整、帮助和保护。那么 ,从法学的角度对社会弱势群体进行解释就并非毫无意义。在法学中 ,社会弱势群体是指由于社会条件和个人能力等方面存在障碍而无法实现其基本权利 ,需要国家帮助和社会支持以实现其基本权利的群体。因此 ,社会弱势群体概念的外延决定于现时社会中被人们认可的基本权利。同时社会弱势群体并不是严格意义上的比较性概念 ,而是身分性概念。     

Crime Victims and the Social Services: Social Workers' Viewpoint

The aim of this article is to analyse how social workers in the social services describe crime victims and their role in supporting these victims. Based on focus groups with social workers in the social services, it is established that social workers discriminate between a categorical understanding of crime victims and an assessment of individuals in need. The categorical understanding of crime victims is connected to weakness and innocence, and the discussions are constructed with a focus on women and children. However, when the social workers move beyond this idea and describe individual victims of crime they have met, they attribute a more complicated picture and acknowledge the complexity of crime and victimization. The social workers give themselves a vague role regarding support to victims of crime. They consider themselves as able to connect individuals in need with helping resources, but they do not regard themselves as resources in this area. According to the social workers, an individual should not receive support from the social services just because he or she is categorized by them as a victim of crime. One conclusion is that the category ‘crime victims’ has not gained acceptance among the social workers.