Supreme Court Justices’ Economic Behaviour: A Multilevel Model Analysis

Supreme Court justices are overlooked, but important, national policy‐making players who render final and consequential decisions in cases on economic conflicts. The research question asks what forces explain the decisional behaviour of Supreme Court justices in economic rights cases between a private and a public party. Theoretically, the decisional behaviour of an individual justice is a function of his or her notion as to what makes ‘good’ law, pursued in a cultural‐collegial setting that is oriented by majoritarian requirements, while constrained by the legal nature of the case being considered. Empirically, all economic decisions made by Norwegian Supreme Court justices in five‐justice panels from 1963 to 2012 are analyzed. Our multilevel model demonstrates that individual, collegial and case‐level forces all contribute to explain the justices’ votes. These results suggest that case‐related dynamics, such as who the plaintiff is or the amount of disagreement between justices, matter, but also that ideology – via appointment mechanisms – matters when a nation's high court justices decide economic cases. Understanding the foundational assumptions and the institutional procedures is vital when transporting judicial behaviour models across polities.     

Governors-General during Pacific Island constitutional crises and the role of the Crown

Links with the Crown are often thought to play a largely ‘symbolic’ role in the contemporary politics of the Pacific Islands. Yet the Queen appoints Governors-General for three Pacific Island states, albeit acting on advice, and did so in Fiji until that country became a Republic in October 1987. All four countries have witnessed constitutional crises in which the Governor-General has played a critical role. This paper examines those crises, and other occasions that have tested the link with the Crown. It argues that the common minimalist defence of such institutions (influenced by one reading of Walter Bagehot's well-known views) – i.e. that such arrangements tend to work better than republican or presidential alternatives by elevating a relatively disinterested arbiter to broker political transitions – misses the fact that realm territories have tended to face similar and comparable difficulties to those Pacific nations that abandoned the link with the British Crown at independence, and that these issues have been no better or no worse handled by Governors-General than by locally selected Heads of State.     

Perceived police legitimacy: investigating its association with college-based informal social controls

Research has found that when private citizens view law enforcement as legitimate authority figures, they are more likely to obey laws and voluntarily comply with police demands. Although procedural justice has shown to be an important predictor of perceived police legitimacy, a recent line of studies has found other significant correlates of this outcome, including media exposure, ethnic identity and strain. To date, however, few studies have explored the role collegiate-based informal social controls play in predicting law enforcement legitimacy evaluations. Using questionnaire data from a convenience sample of college students, linear regression equations were estimated to explore whether Hirschi's four social bond measures predict the obligation to obey and trust in police constructs of police legitimacy. Across both models and even after controlling for procedural justice, respondent beliefs were positively correlated with these measures. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

The present and future of public sector extension in Africa: contracting out or contracting in?

Public sector extension has come under increasing pressure to downsize and reform. Contracting out—the use of public sector funds to contract non‐governmental and private service providers—is often held up as a potential tool in reform efforts. Much has been written about the possible advantages of contracting out of agricultural extension and it is being encouraged and promoted by numerous international organizations. However, a look at field experience in Africa shows that contracting out is relatively infrequent, especially compared with the reverse—contracting in—where private sector and non‐governmental organizations finance public sector extension delivery. Case studies from Uganda and Mozambique indicate that on the ground attempts to come up with solutions to providing services to farmers are resulting in innovative contracting approaches and combined public and private institutional arrangements. Contracting in and public–private coalition approaches, in contrast to purely public sector extension (characterized by ineffectiveness and inefficiencies) and purely private for profit extension (which may ignore public goods and concerns), may help achieve extension services which are both demand led and which internalize public concerns such as environmental protection, food security and socio‐economic equity. These coalition approaches can be improved and facilitated. They deserve greater analysis and may contribute to a better understanding of extension contracting and the roles of private and public organizations. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tinkering with the Machinery of Death: An Analysis of Juror Decision-Making in Texas Death Penalty Trials During Two Statutory Eras

The Texas death penalty statute originally approved by the United States Supreme Court in Jurek v. Texas (1976) was legislatively amended as a result of the Court’s decision in Penry v. Lynaugh (1989). The changes were intended to focus on increasing jurors’ ability to give mitigating effect to evidence in sentencing. Using data from the Capital Jury Project, we compared juror comprehension of sentencing guidelines, punishment responsibility, and deliberations in sentencing among a sample of 123 Texas jurors who deliberated under the Jurek and Penry statutes. In each area, we found that the amended statute failed to guide capital juror decision-making as intended.     

Going Nordic—Can the Nordic model tackle grand challenges and be a beacon to follow?

Nordic countries are known for having extensive welfare services, a highly compressed wage structure owing to strong social partners, as well as effective regulation and governance in public administration. Various typologies capture aspects of the institutional features of families of nations across various policy areas, showing that there is a specific Nordic variant of political economy. While there is an extensive literature focusing on socio-economic outcomes in the Nordic countries, there is less scholarly focus on the linkages between the regulatory processes, and their policy output, in response to various challenges. This volume examines how exogenous challenges (market liberalization promoted by EU integration and the gig economy, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic) and endogenous challenges in the welfare state (regulation of child-care quality and retirement ages) are tackled in a selection of Nordic countries. After a bibliometric analysis on the state of the literature, features of the Nordic model are presented. Then, the contributions of the articles to the special issue are summarized, after which lessons for other models of political economy are pinpointed. We find that although there is high variation within the Nordics in the studies of the special issue, there is a trend whereby, over time, a broader range of actors involved in the policy and regulatory process. Although not perfect, challenges are solved incrementally and often at an early stage. In other words, the Nordic regulatory model is highly adaptable to different challenges. Thus, the Nordic model does present crucial lessons for other types of political economy.     

Race,Representation, and the Voting Rights Act

Despite wide scholarly interest in the Voting Rights Act, surprisingly little is known about how its specific provisions affected Black political representation. In this article, we draw on theories of electoral accountability to evaluate the effect of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the preclearance provision, on the representation of Black interests in the 86th to 105th congresses. We find that members of Congress who represented jurisdictions subject to the preclearance requirement were substantially more supportive of civil rights–related legislation than legislators who did not represent covered jurisdictions. Moreover, we report that the effects were stronger when Black voters composed larger portions of the electorate and in more competitive districts. This result is robust to a wide range of model specifications and empirical strategies, and it persists over the entire time period under study. Our findings have especially important implications given the Supreme Court's recent decision in Shelby County v. Holder.     

Fentanyl Detection Using Eosin Y Paper Assays,

Eosin Y is a potential new color test for use in detecting illicit drugs that has not been extensively studied. In the present study, a variety of drugs of abuse and fentanyl analogues were tested to determine which drugs will bind to eosin Y, which functional groups are capable of binding and eliciting a color change, and a mechanism for eosin Y binding to fentanyl. Further, these agents were combined with common cutting agents and other drugs of abuse in order to determine the fentanyl detection limit in a drug mixture using an eosin Y test strip. Additionally, cobalt thiocyanate was used to determine whether the combination of cobalt thiocyanate and eosin Y has the potential to identify fentanyl. Through the testing performed, we concluded that (i) Eosin Y is capable of detecting low amounts of fentanyl down to 1%, (ii) Eosin Y binds to select tertiary amines to produce an orange to pink color change, and (iii) Eosin Y binds to the nonpiperidine ring nitrogen of fentanyl as a primary binding site and the piperidine ring nitrogen as a secondary binding site. While the cobalt thiocyanate assay detected 1% fentanyl in some of the mixtures, eosin Y detected 1% fentanyl in all mixtures. Finally, eosin Y was able to detect fentanyl in forensic case samples containing heroin and various cutting agents. Based on our results, eosin Y has the potential to screen for fentanyl and fentanyl analogues and can detect fentanyl in low amounts when mixed with common cutting agents.