Hongkong Chinese emigration and investment patterns in response to the 1997 problem

The transfer of Hongkong from British to PRC sovereignty has resulted in an apparently large outflow of Hongkong Chinese emigrants and investments abroad. The outflow is motivated by a variety of causes: Political fear, uncertainty, and economic considerations. These motivations in turn are mediated by the socio-economic position of potential migrants, their preference for developed. Western, liberal, English-speaking countries and the interplay of these factors with the international institutional system of legal migration. Because of these factors, the possibility of Communist rule after 1997 has in fact generated not a single response from Hongkong Chinese, but a variety of different responses. They range from economically eligible migrants choosing to stay and invest in Hongkong to outright emigration and divestment.     

Investigation Delayed Is Justice Denied: Proposals for Expediting Forensic Examinations of Digital Evidence*

Abstract: There is an urgent need to reduce the growing backlog of forensic examinations in Digital Forensics Laboratories (DFLs). Currently, DFLs routinely create forensic duplicates and perform in‐depth forensic examinations of all submitted media. This approach is rapidly becoming untenable as more cases involve increasing quantities of digital evidence. A more efficient and effective three‐tiered strategy for performing forensic examinations will enable DFLs to produce useful results in a timely manner at different phases of an investigation, and will reduce unnecessary expenditure of resources on less serious matters. The three levels of forensic examination are described along with practical examples and suitable tools. Realizing that this is not simply a technical problem, we address the need to update training and establish thresholds in DFLs. Threshold considerations include the likelihood of missing exculpatory evidence and seriousness of the offense. We conclude with the implications of scaling forensic examinations to the investigation.     

Delegation and digital mandates: Legal requirements and security objectives

Now that more and more legal transactions are being performed online, it is increasingly necessary to enable integration of legal mandates within identity and information management systems. The purpose of this article is to outline the legal framework surrounding delegation and to identify basic requirements for any technical application which seeks to provide recognition to legal mandates and delegation processes. Special consideration is also given to the legal implications in situations where a (presumed) mandate holder acts without or outside his authority. Based on these considerations, this article attempts to outline an approach which can significantly reduce the potential risks for both mandate issuers and relying service providers.     

Modeling Risk for Intimate Partner Violence among Recent-Era Veteran-Partner Dyads

Using an actor-partner interdependence model, we examined whether veterans’ posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) contributed to partners’ drug abuse symptoms, whether partners’ drug abuse symptoms contributed to intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration, and whether drug abuse symptoms mediated PTSS-IPV perpetration associations. Participants were recent-era veterans who participated in the Mid-Atlantic Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center Post-Deployment Mental Health study. Veterans who took part at one site and their partners (N = 49 couples) completed a follow-up study in which drug abuse symptoms and IPV perpetration were assessed. Veterans’ PTSS contributed to veterans’ drug abuse symptoms. Veterans’ drug abuse symptoms were associated with their IPV perpetration (i.e., an actor effect) and their partners’ IPV perpetration (i.e., a crossover effect). Drug abuse symptoms mediated the association between veterans’ PTSS and partners’ reports of IPV perpetration. Findings suggest complex relationships between PTSS, drug abuse problems and IPV perpetration among these dyads.     

Economic prosperity or democracy: Dilemma of development in Hong Kong and China

After Hong Kong is integrated with mainland China in July 1997, the economic and political environments of the two places will inevitably link up with each other. Economic modernization significantly not only improves the living conditions of the Chinese, but also alters their social structure and political values. As such, economic prosperity and democracy become the two conflicting values in Hong Kong and China during the transition to 2000. The people of Hong Kong and China are presented a choice over two mutually exclusive targets: economic prosperity vs. democracy. On the one hand, the choice for economic prosperity will imply no democracy because a conservative political system will be maintained to preserve the political status quo. On the other hand, the choice for democracy will imply no economic prosperity, because democratization will be suppressed and hence the economy will suffer as a result of political instability. However, neither of these two choices could offer the people of Hong Kong and China a genuine prosperity and stability. Therefore a congruent relationship between the economy and the political system must be established and maintained. As prosperity is contributed by both economic growth and political stability, neglection of either of these two elements will not result in a long‐lasting prosperity. Thus, economic development and democratization are two complementary rather than contradicting forces on the road to development in China.     

How Authoritarianism Intensifies Punctuated Equilibrium: The Dynamics of Policy Attention in Hong Kong

The punctuated equilibrium theory contends that government attention allocation is universally leptokurtic in that long periods of stability are punctuated by bursts of rapid and radical change; the empirical evidence in support of this claim is however exclusively drawn from democratic systems. The absence of electoral politics and institutional decentralization in authoritarian regimes could presumably affect institutional friction; whether and how this might pose as a qualification to the thesis is of major interest. By analyzing four streams of government actions in Hong Kong from 1946 to 2007 straddling the colonial and postcolonial regimes, we have found that government processes are generally leptokurtic even under authoritarian regime institutions, with the degree of the dispersion of decision‐making power across the streams of actions affecting the magnitude of punctuation. We have also found that punctuation was greater when the political system was more centralized but declined as the political system democratized.