Teenage kicks: Urban narratives of dissent not deviance

This article utilises contemporary social and cultural theory in an interrogation of the ideological construction of activities nominated as social problems. Specifically the article analyses the events of computer hacking, joyriding and raving, activities which are prevalent within youth culture. These activities have been subjected to criminal sanction and regulation and therefore bought within an arena of (governmental) surveillance. This article assesses these events not within the paradigms of criminology and deviancy but as examples of an affirmative cultural politics operative through the technologies of inversion and appropriation which are in excess. These subcultural events assume the status of resistant practices not in terms of ideology but rather in terms of alternative narratives of dissensus representing possible moments of community.     

Managing Autonomy: Analyzing Arts Management and Artistic Autonomy through the Theory of Justification

Arts management has commonly been analyzed as a microcosm of the art field, in which struggles between artistic, economic, administrative, and societal considerations are constantly being fought. Using the field theory of Bourdieu, scholars have attempted to uncover levels of functional differentiation within arts organizations, and interpreted differentiation between artistic considerations and economic and administrative considerations as a core element in defining the artistic autonomy of such organizations. In this article, I present an alternative approach to the interpretation of artistic autonomy in arts management. Through the stories of three artistic directors and the way in which they run their theatres, I aim to show the theory of justification (developed by Boltanski and Thévenot) and shed new light on the interpretation of arts management, as well as on the understanding of artistic autonomy more generally.     

Teenage Drivers and Fatal Crash Responsibility

Data from national files on fatal crashes are analyzed to reveal that young drivers, especially sixteen and seventeen year olds, are more often responsible for fatal crashes than are older drivers. This is particularly the case for young males. Moreover, those killed in crashes for which teenagers are responsible are disproportionately people other than the teenaged drivers. A possible explanation for these facts lies in the "macho" culture of teenaged males. Potential countermeasures include those directed to limiting the driving exposure of teenagers as well as technological devices to moderate the injury-producing forces in crashes.     

Autonomy and death

In this Article, Professor Clark explores the contours of the current debate over physician-assisted death. She beings by focusing on the legal issues raised by statutory attempts to either legalize or criminalize physician-assisted death, with particular emphasis on the constitutional questions that are currently before the United States Supreme Court. She then examines physician-assisted death from both medical and societal perspectives. Professor Clark uses a thought experiment in which assisted death is facilitated by persons other than physicians, and in doing so, questions whether physicians are the proper persons in whom to rest power over assisted death. She points out the irony in a process that would set up physicians as protectors of individual autonomy, and ultimately concludes that by deferring to the medical profession in this process, we risk losing the very autonomy that assisted death is designed to effectuate.     

Teen Court: A Way to Combat Teenage Crime and Chemical Abuse

Though some controversy surrounds the effectiveness of juvenile diversion programs, at least one program, the Teen Court Program in Odessa, Texas, seems to be having an impact. After 1,987 trials, the recidivism rate is less than 15 percent for traffic offenses and zero for first time Class C and Class B misdemeanors. The success of that program has lead to its expansion, and now the program includes first time drug offenders who not only go through the restitution phase of Teen Court but are required to attend, with their parents, a drug education and prevention workshop. After two years of operation, there has not been one repeat case of drug usage by a first offender referred to Teen Court. The procedures followed in the workshop and the results are discussed.     

Michel Foucault: Regimes of Punishment and the Question of Liberty

‘Sex abuse’ has recently become an object of knowledge of the human sciences and thereby, juridical punishment. While not diminishing the problem of sexual violence, this paper explains the intensification of the sexual abuse discourse as contingent upon an incitement to talk about it in a ‘confessional society’. The paper argues that notions such as ‘normality’, ‘deviance’ and therefore (ab)use, are produced by power and are, consequently, contestable. It examines the ways that under the current punitive disciplinary rationality, there is an imperative of continuous production of knowledge that incites the sex abuse discourse. In a liberal society, failure to determine such knowledge is a threat to liberty and thereby, liberalism itself.     

在管制与自治之间的我国公司法

公司的管制与自治是公司法的基础理论问题,管制意味着股东意思自治的空间较小,而自治则意味着股东享有较大的意思自治空间。进一步看,管制分为事前与事后两种模式,结合公司法的立法目的,需要放宽和减少事前管制,但同时又必须强化事后管制。     

Performance-Based Regulation and Regulatory Regimes: The Saga of Leaky Buildings

Regulatory reformers have widely endorsed greater use of a performance-based approach to regulation that defines objectives in terms of desired outcomes. The appeal of the performance-based approach is as much about introducing a regime that overcomes problems of overly rigid rules and inflexible enforcement as it is about regulating for results. The case of leaky buildings in New Zealand provides a cautionary tale of a flawed performance-based regulatory regime. It allowed for flexibility without sufficient accountability and in so doing showed the Achilles' heel of performance-based regulation.     

Stability in Parliamentary Regimes: The Italian Case

Abstract: In this article, we distinguish legislative stability from government stability and argue that the character of the relationship that exists between them is a complex one in which various combinations are possible. We focus on Italy because of the manner in which it has combined legislative stability with government instability. Our findings indicate that the relationship between legislative and government stability in Italy is best seen as curvilinear, that the analysis of government stability must take the number of governments as well as the duration of governments into account, and that the attributes of the party system that stabilize the legislature destabilize governments. Given these findings, we discuss their implications for explaining stability in parliamentary regimes in terms of events, “strong parties,” and strategic calculation. We conclude that legislative stability should not be treated simply as a secondary or derivative effect of government stability and that Italy can serve as a benchmark for further study of the nature and determinants of the relationship between the two in other parliamentary systems.     

Transitional Regimes and the Rule of Law

Abstract. This paper seeks to establish a connection between the existence of a legal system and the ideal of the rule of law. Its point of departure is the phenomenon of a transitional regime that is attempting to restore or institute the rule of law. Lon Fuller's formulation of the canons of the rule of law as an internal morality of law is expounded as well as his notion of legal pathology as symptomatic of departure from the canons' requirements. The existence of a legal system, it is argued, is a matter of degree, covariant with the degree to which the rule of law is realized. Problems inherent to the implementation of the rule of law are examined, such as the effect of the passage of time on reasonable expectations. While legal pathology is always a matter of degree, police states are shown to suffer seriously from it. Among the examples discussed are Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany, though it is granted that there are moral differences between them. Finally, a response is made to some contemporary critiques of the rule of law.