Recent legal developments

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LAW OF TRUSTS. By Simon Gardner. [Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1990. First Edition. 250 pp. £25.00 (hardback), £11.95 (paperback).]

EXPLAINING CONSTRUCTIVE TRUSTS. By Gbolahan Elias. [Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1990. First Edition. 177 pp. £25.00 (hardback).]

CHARLESWORTH &; PERCY ON NEGLIGENCE. By R. A. Percy. [Sweet &; Maxwell. Eighth Edition. 1,232 pp. incl. index. £135.00 (hardback).]

CLARITY FOR LAWYERS. By Mark Adler. [The Law Society. 1990. First edition. 128 pp. £10.00 (paperback).]

PLANNING LAW AND PROCEDURE. By A. E. Telling. [Butterworths. Eighth edition. 385 pp. incl. index. £16.95 (paperback).]

PRACTICAL APPROACH TO PLANNING LAW. By V. Moore. [Blackstone Press Ltd. Second edition. 401 pp. incl. index &; appendices. £19.95 (paperback).]

THE EVIDENCE OF CHILDREN. By J. R. Spencer and R. Fun. [Blackstone Press. 1990. 362 pp. £19.50 (paperback).]

CROSS ON EVIDENCE. By C. Tapper. [Butterworths. 1990. Seventh edition. 757 pp. £22.95 (paperback).]

EMPLOYMENT LAW. By C. J. Carr and P. J. Kay. [M. &; E. Handbook. Pitman Publishing. 1990. Fifth edition, xxiv &; 232 pp. (inc. index). £7.99 (paperback).]

REVISION WORKBOOK: LAND LAW. By Gordon Henry.

A PARENTS’ GUIDE TO THE LAW. By Jeannie Mackie and Lesley Taylor [Penguin Books. 1990. 419 pp. (inc. index). £7.99 (paperback).]

A GUIDE TO INHERITANCE CLAIMS. By Nasreen Pearce. [Fourmat Publishing. 1989. 162 pp. £12.95 (paperback).]     

Law,interrupted: on legislative disruption and deliberative democracy

This commentary piece teases out a theme that runs through the articles collected in this special issue: the relationship between legislative disruption and deliberative democracy. The practice of legislative disruption appears to go against the normative aspirations of deliberative democracy, but our discussion identifies several respects in which this mode of engagement can function to reinstate a deliberative environment in certain contexts. Drawing on the articles in this special issue, our analysis also brings to the fore certain inadequacies in deliberative democracy as a framework for evaluating legislative disruption.     

Predictors of Death Sentencing for Minority,Equal, and Majority Female Juries in Capital Murder Trials

The relatively small body of prior research investigating whether the sex composition of juries impacts sentencing decisions has produced equivocal results. Exploring this topic further, the current study used a large sample of capital cases from North Carolina (n = 675) to examine (a) whether jury sex composition predicted jury capital punishment sentencing decisions; and (b) whether there were different models of sentencing for male-majority, equal male-female, and female-majority juries. When we controlled for a number of legal and extralegal factors, our findings indicated that jury sex composition was independently related to sentencing outcomes. Specifically, equal male-female juries were significantly more likely and female-majority juries were significantly less likely to choose the death penalty versus a sentence of life in prison. In addition, different models (predictors) of sentencing were revealed for each of the jury sex compositions. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.     

Short notes on some books received

Africa's Management in the 1990s and Beyond: Reconciling Indigenous and Transplanted Institutions. By Mamadou Dia. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1996. Pp.xii + 293. NP. ISBN 0 8213 3431 X

A Land Without Gods: Process Theory, Maldevelopment and the Mexican Nahuas. By Jacques M. Chevalier and Daniel Buckles. London: Zed Books, 1995. Pp.x + 374. £55.00/$69.95 and £19.95/$29.95. ISBN 1 85649 325 3 and 326 1

Local Resource Management in Africa. Edited by J.P.M. van den Breemer, C.A. Drijver and L.B. Venema. Chichester: John Wiley, 1995. Pp.xii + 245. £40. ISBN 0 47196004 7

Third World Cities in Global Perspective: The Political Economy of Uneven Urbanization. By David A. Smith. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. Pp.xiii + 202. £40.95 and £13.50. ISBN 0 8133 8720 5 and 2998 1

Power of Development. Edited by Jonathon Crush. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Pp.xvi + 324. £35 and £ 14.99. ISBN 0 415 11176 5 and 11177 3

Financial Liberalisation and Investment. By K.L. Gupta and R. Lensink. London: Routledge, 1996. Pp.xii + 183. £40. ISBN 0 415 13879 5

Anthropology of Tourism. By Denison Nash. Oxford, New York and Tokyo: Pergamon, 1996. Pp.ix + 205. £41/US$66. ISBN 0 0804 42398 1

Politics of Technology in Latin America. Edited by Maria Ines Bastos and Charles Cooper. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Pp.xii + 258. £47.50. ISBN 0 415 12690

Voices from Mutira: Change in the Lives of Rural Gikuyu Women: 1910–1995. By Jean Davison. Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Reinner Publisher, 1996. Pp.vi + 271. £18.95. ISBN 1 55587 602 1

Women and Politics in the Third World. Edited by Haleh Afshar London: Croom Helm, 1996. Pp.xi + 210. £40 and £12.99. ISBN 0 415 13853 1 and 13861

Re‐Presenting the City: Ethnicity, Capital and Culture in the Twenty‐First Century Metropolis. Edited by Anthony D. King. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Pp.ix + 282. £42.50 and £13.99. ISBN 0 333 60191 2 and 60192 0

Women and Industrialization in Asia Edited by Susan Horton, London and New York: Routledge, 1996. £50. ISBN 0415 12907 9

Enterprise and the State in Korea and Taiwan. By Karl J. Fields. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1995. Pp.xiv + 269. NP. ISBN 0 8014 3009 7     

Africa's crisis

Africa in Economic Crisis. Edited by John Ravenhill. London: Macmillan, 1986. Pp.359. £35 and £14.95. ISBN 0 333 37173 9 and 37174 7.

Africa and the International Monetary Fund. Edited by Gerald K. Helleiner. Washington: International Monetary Fund, 1986. Pp.277. $10. ISBN 0 939934 61 2.

Strategies for African Development. Edited by Robert J. Berg and Jennifer Seymour Whitaker. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986. Pp.603. £33.50 and £13.50. ISBN 0 520 05784 8 and 05782 1.

World Recession and the Food Crisis in Africa. Edited by Peter Lawrence. London: James Currey, 1986. Pp.314. £25 and £9.95. ISBN 0 85255 309 0 and 304 8.

Food in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Edited by Art Hansen and Della E. McMillan. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner; London: Frances Pinter, 1986. £28.50. Pp.410. ISBN 0 931477 59 X and 58 1 (Rienner)/0 86187 598 2 (Pinter).

Structural Distortions and Adjustment Programmes in the Poor Countries of Africa. By Hartmut Brandt, Ansgar Eussner, Hans Gsanger, Gudrun Lachenmann, Wolfgang Schneider‐Barthold and Wolfgang Zehender. Berlin: German Development Institute, 1985. Pp.377. DM20. ISBN 3 88985 042 1.     

Measuring trade strategy in the presence of non‐tradeables: Theory and some evidence for the Caribbean

This article models trade policies in the presence of non‐tradeables, and investigates trade strategy interventions and outcomes where the price of non‐tradeables endogenously adjusts to trade interventions. Trade regime bias and neutrality issues are examined within a three‐sector, open economy model. The theoretical framework is operationalised using empirical evidence for Trinidad and Barbados. The robustness of partial equilibrium measures of protection for classifying trade strategies is challenged and evidence on alternative general equilibrium or ‘true’ measures of protection is reported. ‘True’ or revealed trade strategies are shown to differ from those apparently intended by policy‐makers.     

Building the Education Revolution: Another Case of Australian Government Failure?

Since the 2007 federal election, the Australian government has implemented a plethora of new programs, many with dual economic and social objectives. A significant number of these initiatives have not only proved unsuccessful, but have also been criticized for their implementation and subsequent administration. This paper examines the Building Education Revolution Program, which commenced in 2009 with the objective of stimulating employment growth and improving school infrastructure, through the analytical prism of the government failure paradigm as well as the literature on “hollowing out” and decentralization. It is argued that the BER Program represents a “case study” of how governments should not pursue large-scale public expenditure programs.