Policies and practices of fertility control under the state socialism

The socialist state run modernization produced low fertility throughout Eastern Europe. Fertility rates started falling soon after the end of the Second World War quickly reaching below replacement levels in many areas. This article examines the state responses to the falling fertility as well as birth control practices that individuals relied on in order to maintain small families. After outlining some common features of population policies under the state socialism, the article focuses on family planning policies in Yugoslavia. It is argued that liberal population policy and uninterrupted liberal abortion legislation in Yugoslavia, resulted, among other reasons, from the communist leadership's commitment to national and gender equality, respectively. It is further argued that gender hierarchy within the marriage and family remained almost untouched by the socialist project of women's emancipation and that these hierarchical gender relations shaped birth control practices in specific ways.     

论中国传统家族司法主体的权力——以国家法律对家族长权力的确认为视角

中国传统家族司法是当今法律文化研究的重点,其司法主体如何在司法过程中实施司法权和国家如何看待这一权力的应用,引发了对传统家族长权力现代变迁的深刻思考。我们在理解国家法律与基层司法相结合治理社会这一法律文化的基础上,研究中国传统家族司法主体的权力,能够得出现代家族长的权力与民族现代化发展互容互补的结论。     

Parliaments in Africa: Representative Institutions in the Land of the ‘Big Man’

This paper analyses the perceptions among survey participants, of African parliaments and presidents and examines their citizens’ attitudes towards the coexistence of these two institutions. It aims to determine the way citizens rate their parliaments compared with their presidents. It further seeks to answer the question of whether Africa remains the continent of the ‘big man’, where absolute power lies with an individual, feeding clientelistic relationships. In the decades following the transitions to independence, most of the continent was marked by a proliferation of monoparty regimes; in many cases, these were almost one-man regimes. A majority of the leaders symbolised, at an early stage of independence, the birth of the nation itself. Many times these presidents have sought to extend their incumbency perpetually. However, over the last two decades this scenario has changed considerably. Monoparty parliaments have been replaced by multiparty parliaments and executives, and presidents have found themselves needing to share their leadership of the nation with parliamentarians. Not much is known about how these emerging parliaments have been operating, but the little that is known tells us that they have faced a lack of institutionalisation and still struggle to assert their independence from strong executives. It is therefore reasonable to expect that parliaments will be perceived as dormant institutions in the public eye.     

专项治理的实施效果与法治前景——基于安镇脱贫攻坚行动的实证考察

打赢脱贫攻坚战为我国如期实现全面建成小康社会目标的关键一环,是助推基层社会治理体系和治理能力现代化的重要抓手和载体。然在具体实践过程中,基层政府因对"专项治理"政策工具的特性洞鉴尚浅,实证背景研判不足,未能恰当处理"专项"与"常规"政策工具之间以及政策工具与治理目标之间的关系,进而使政策工具在基层社会复杂应用环境中"空转",导致治理效果不理想。基于以上问题及困境,以安镇脱贫攻坚行动为研究对象,在深度剖析两大政策工具之理论及实践逻辑基础上,全局把握科学革命的齿轮状特点与终极导向。并据此分析传统专项治理作为科学革命的重要范式,在脱贫攻坚战中发挥着营造环境、整合资源、利益驱动、权力生产、全面治理等正向作用,同时也存在"目标置换""精英俘获""临时应对"等局限性一面。因此,在总结科学革命经验基础上尝试性提出新的常规科学建立的理想模型,以期不断创新与完善中国基层治理法治化路径。     

中国传统社会基层治理的法律机制与经验

基层社会治理对于整体社会治理起着重要的基础和支撑作用.在中国传统社会的基层治理中,形成了一套圆融自洽、顺利运行的法律机制,其中蕴含了我国在基层社会治理方面的宝贵经验.传统儒家法与道德相混成,一直将道德教化作为重要的社会治理手段,德治与法治相结合;而基层的自治制度,不论在立法还是司法上,都为国家法律体系的有机组成部分.中...     

Fertility control in historical China revisited: New methods for an old debate

We revisit the debate over the deliberate control of reproduction in historical China through a reanalysis of data from the Qing (1644–1911) Imperial Lineage that accounts for physiological or other differences between couples that affected their chances of having children. Even though studies of contemporary and historical European fertility suggest that failing to control for such differences may obscure evidence of parity-specific control, previous studies of historical Chinese fertility have not accounted for them. We show that in the Lineage, failure to account for such differences leads the association between the number of children already born and the chances of having another birth to appear to be positive, but that once they are accounted for properly, the relationship is inverted. Based on this, we conclude that lineage members adjusted their reproductive behavior based on the number of children. We also show that the sex composition and survival of previous births affected reproductive behavior. We conclude by suggesting that one way forward in the ongoing debate over fertility control in historical China is through application of such methods to other datasets and comparison of results. We also suggest that progress in the debate over fertility in historical China has been impeded by confusion over the definition of fertility control, so that some behaviors are recognized as fertility control by some parties in the debate but not others.     

TOWARDS A HUMAN DIGNITY BASED APPROACH TO FOOD SECURITY: LESSONS FROM CHINA AND INDIA

Despite almost halving the proportion of the world’s undernourished over the past two and half decades, the number of undernourished people in the world remains staggeringly high. Efforts to address the global state of food insecurity must target China and India, which are home to the world’s highest and second highest number of undernourished people. This article analyzes the comparative experiences of tackling food security in China and India and adopts an inter-disciplinary approach, which melds legal, economic, and human perspectives to food security. Both China and India have made concerted efforts to improve food security of vulnerable populations in the past three decades. These efforts have historically focused on actively promoting grain production, which has been largely successful in achieving grain self-sufficiency and securing adequate availability of food for their populations. However, the contemporary challenges to food security are now increasingly driven by unsustainable dietary patterns and are exacerbated by growing populations, increasing wealth, and the globalization of food supply chains. As a result, the cause of food insecurity is no longer fundamentally about food supply, but rather about the extent to which marginalized populations are empowered with the rights, freedoms, and capabilities that enable them to attain healthy and productive lives. China and India apply markedly different approaches to address the issue of people’s access to food. In India, the right to food movement has gained momentum through the work of civil society actors and there is now a legal right to food. In contrast, in China the right to food is neither stipulated in Chinese law nor referenced to in the official policy rhetoric as the country seeks to ensure access to food by focusing on poverty alleviation more generally through an income transfer program and a non-food based, social safety net to help the poor. At the same time, the Chinese population’s high educational level provides enormous potential for effective interventions and education on nutrition and health. A comparison of the approaches to food security in China and India ultimately reminds us that efforts to tackle food insecurity must center on human dignity, which requires more wide-ranging investment in enhancing people’s capabilities, combined with effective enforcement of the right to food.     

The foster family in Poland,a custodial and educational environment (XX – the early XXI centuries)

ABSTRACT

A thorough study of the sources made it possible to conduct a retrospective analysis as well as outline normative and legal principles of the foster family in Poland as one of the main forms of child custody in the XX – early XXI centuries rooted in national traditions and social legacy. Foster family formation and early functioning indicate that its value depends on who is entrusted with a child to care for, what child is to be placed in foster care, what kind of support a foster family could expect, what control is exercised over it. The second half of the XX – the early XXI centuries mark the evolution of the legal and regulatory framework underlying foster care, one of the main institutional forms of child custody in Poland. It appears that the foster family provides a child with proper living conditions and a favourable environment for its education and socialisation, closest possible to those in a natural family. To this end, the state is to make sure that potential foster parents are properly trained. The development of foster care speeds up in the 1970’s and 1990’s. We have discovered that at the turn of the century, foster family functioning, provision of care and adequate conditions for a child’s development and upbringing etc. are defined by the social policy of the state. Of great significance for the international community is the Polish experience regarding the requirements for foster family candidates, children’s placement in such families, material assistance, foster parent salary calculations; the amount of money biological parents must pay for their child’s placement in a foster family. In modern Poland the foster family is an important social institution which promotes the development of a child deprived of parental care and is prioritized over other institutional forms of care.     

Fertility decisions in transition: young adults’ perceptions on fertility three decades apart in Spain

ABSTRACT

The aim of this unique study is to analyze the generational change in perceptions regarding fertility decisions between young Spanish adults in the mid-1980s and young Spanish adults in the early 2010s and to test the extent to which the theoretical perspectives on fertility are supported by individual narratives over time. For nearly thirty years, Spain has had low fertility levels that contrast with the persistent ideal family size of two children. However, the literature has barely explored individuals’ perceptions of fertility decision-making over time. This paper seizes the exceptional opportunity to analyze 97 in-depth personal interviews of highly educated young adults in urban Spain from two independent studies conducted in 1985 and 2012. The results indicate that although the value change associated with the second demographic transition remains over time, the changes in age norms and partnership formation norms underlie the main differences between the two generations. Economic uncertainty and the lack of support for work-life balance stand out as persistent structural factors that influence the fertility decisions in both samples. In addition, the respondents’ narratives confirm that the transition of gender-role norms towards greater egalitarianism remains unfinished. By assigning value to the perceptions of individuals, this study contributes to the understanding of how the normative framework and meaning of childbearing have changed under the rubric of the macrolevel theoretical perspectives that explain fertility decline.     

China in Russia's Foreign Policy Strategy

China has traditionally occupied as important a place in Russia's foreign policy strategy as Russia has in China's foreign policy strategy. The bitter polemics over Russia's national-state interests and, accordingly, various statements by Russian leaders and political figures make studies in this area especially timely today. Some speak of a strategic or pragmatic partnership with the West, others mention simultaneously having a constructive partnership with China or even one opposed to the West.     

对吉林省女村官队伍建设问题的思考

女村官队伍建设是衡量农村妇女参政状况的指标,基层民主建设和村民自治为女村官队建设提供了良好的政治机遇,国家的法律、政策是强有力的保障.本文分析了吉林省女村官队伍建设的现状和面临的困境,并以社会性别为视角探讨了其中的不利因素,在此基础上提出了今后的发展思路.     

Public Attitudes toward Auxiliary Police in China: a Preliminary Investigation

Despite their colossal size and importance in policing, China’s auxiliary police forces have garnered very little research attention. This study attempts to fill our knowledge gap by first describing key features that distinguish the auxiliary police from the regular police in China and their counterparts in Western societies, followed by an empirical investigation of public attitudes toward the auxiliary police in China. Based on survey data collected from a coastal city in China, we reported the general patterns of people’s evaluations of auxiliary officers and assessed whether variables representing institutional trust, media exposure, and neighborhood context are predictive of Chinese attitudes toward the auxiliary police. We found that Chinese citizens rated their local auxiliary officers very positively. Trust in the government and police and known negative reports about the auxiliary police are linked to Chinese’ global satisfaction with the auxiliary police. Trust in the police, exposure to and belief in negative media reports about the auxiliary police, and perception of neighborhood collective efficacy are associated with people’s specific attitudes toward auxiliary officers. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.

     

Police Enforcement of Domestic Violence Laws: Supervisory Control or Officer Prerogatives?

Police officers are afforded a high degree of discretion in the exercise of their authority, and the control of this discretion is an important issue. While it is assumed that individual officer attitudes and preferences shape their discretionary activity, these officers are also members of a paramilitary organization with leaders over them. The present study explored the influence of both officer attitudes and management influences to explain variation in officer domestic violence arrest rates. Hierarchical linear modeling was used with a sample of 311 patrol officers and 61 supervisors from 23 municipal police agencies across multiple states. Unlike much of the previous literature, the results revealed that officer occupational attitudes had no effect on this particular officer work behavior. Management influences (such as rewards and written policies) significantly influenced officers’ domestic violence arrest behavior. The findings emphasize the complexity involved in the control of officer discretion.     

THE HEDGEHOG DILEMMA IN THE COURT-MEDIA RELATIONSHIP IN CHINA

This paper explains why Schopenhauer＇s ＂Hedgehog Dilemma＂ may be the most apposite metaphor for the relationship between the courts and the media. Whatever they get from each other, the media＇s role representing the public and the court＇s role representing justice are both essential to modern democracy. Therefore, their relationship has attracted attention, not just in legal and media professions, but also in public and government debate. In the last two decades, China ＇s highest court has issued judicial interpretations and guidelines to regulate the activities of the media and the court, which has brought the topic to a new level of discussion. As a drafter of these official documents, the author will comment on development in this field and their interaction with values inherent to democracy.     

‘Two children to make ends meet’: the ideal family size,parental responsibilities and costs of children on two sides of the Iron Curtain during the post-war fertility decline

One of the major corollaries of the post-war fertility boom and decline is that two-child families became common across Europe after the 1970s. Despite the general agreement on the convergence of fertility trends, there is still little understanding of how this change took place in a comparative perspective of Western and Eastern Europe, which at that time were characterised by Cold War tensions of different ideological regimes. This study addresses this aspect by focusing on individual decisions around childbearing, child-rearing and family size. Based on 104 oral histories from Switzerland and Ukraine, this study illuminates that the urban setting provided parents with a similar set of constraints and opportunities, which eventually resulted in strikingly similar perceptions of the costs of childrearing on two sides of the Iron Curtain. Individuals’ motives to postpone first birth in Switzerland and second birth in Ukraine rested on a similar aspiration to invest in the well-being of children by ensuring material security for the family. This aim was increasingly achieved through female labour-force participation and adoption of modern contraception – the pill in Switzerland and abortion in Ukraine. While the timing of returning to the labour market and the share of women working after entering parenthood might have varied across the two contexts, a good mother became increasingly defined in both contexts in terms of providing emotionally and financially for her children. Although the introduction of modern birth control methods allowed couples to plan family size more carefully, it also made Swiss and Ukrainian women increasingly carry the major costs and actual burden of birth control. Altogether, this study challenges the common assumption around the persistence of strikingly different demographic realities in post-war Western and Eastern Europe by uncovering the mechanisms behind the stabilisation of family size around the two-child family ideal.     

Fighting the obscene, pornographic, and unhealthy—an analysis of the nature, extent, and regulation of China’s online pornography within a global context

China??s Internet development has experienced an explosive growth in the last two decades. As China became the largest Internet user in the world, cyber crimes presented a new challenge. In its efforts to combat cyber crimes, the Chinese government singled out online pornography and labeled it ??online narcotics.?? Using the reports of online pornography found in the People??s Daily, a leading national newspaper, this study examines the extent and nature of online pornography in China??s unique context and how the Chinese government has worked to counter such crimes. The analyses of the official reports indicate that the number of China??s porn users has reached millions and continues to grow. To combat such behavior, the Chinese government has adopted a number of countermeasures such as increased law-making, strengthened law enforcement, and the use of new technology. While these countermeasures parallel those of other nations, China??s regulation also presents a number of unique features, such as its broad and sweeping control of online pornographic and unhealthy material for both adults and juveniles, its campaign-style policing, and its emphasis on building consensus with little dissenting opinion. China??s overreaching and proactive approach indicates substantial differences in national standards, value systems, and legal practices between China and many other nations.     

The Impact of Safe Harbor Legislation on Court Proceedings Involving Sex Trafficked Youth: A Qualitative Investigation of Judicial Perspectives

The passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) facilitated the conceptual shift in reframing youth involved in sex trafficking as victims, rather than criminals. Many states have passed legislation in the form of Safe Harbor laws to protect sex trafficked juveniles from criminal charges and provide rehabilitative services (Polaris, 2015). Nevertheless, limited research has examined the impact of Safe Harbor laws and the role juvenile and family court judges play in how minor victims of sex trafficking are treated by the court system. Consequently, the purpose of this qualitative study was to examine juvenile and family court judges’ knowledge and perceptions of Safe Harbor legislation and identify legal challenges when presiding over cases involving sexually exploited youth. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a national sample (N = 82) of family and juvenile court judges. Findings suggest that respondents perceive Safe Harbor laws to have positively affected both attitudes and practices, although several challenges and unintended negative effects were identified. Further, dispositional issues, difficulties with case identification, legal and policy issues, and challenges with interagency collaboration were identified as ongoing issues to address. Legal implications as well as practice and policy considerations based on the study findings are discussed.     

Crown Copyright Regulation in the UK - Is the Debate Still Alive?

Having been an observer of public policy towards Crown copyrightfor a number of years now it is interesting to see just howfar government has moved over the past decade in its stanceon the issue. What began as a fairly entrenched viewpoint thatCrown copyright was a necessary instrument of control over theprocess of official publication, seems now to have moved forwardto a position that permits more radical thinking about the policy.Originally the enforcement of Crown copyright was seen as ameans of maintaining control over the publication of the material,with a licensing policy for re-use and added-value exploitationby the private sector publishing industry. The private sectoritself had long argued that the policy diminished prospectsfor the proper exploitation of official information. This itargued had had a detrimental effect, both for the industry itselfand the degree to which the information might be used for thebenefit of the national economy. Government began to listento these arguments but HM Treasury consistently maintained theneed for departments and agencies to recover costs and in somecases obtain profits from the distribution of official information.It was seen very much as a resource belonging to cost centresthat should be exploited. Since the fall of the former ConservativeGovernment it has become clear that those engaged in this debateare no longer as committed to these trenchant positions as theyonce were. Instead it would seem that a more open debate isunderway within a broader reassessment of the nature, organizationand functioning of the public services. This article exploresthe progress in that debate and assesses where the policy nowstands.