Manners of Imagining the real

What counts as evidence? What is accepted as true in court given the evidence admitted? How are subordinated peoples further oppressed in courts because they cannot demonstrate that their experience is fact? Drawing on the confirmation brings for Clarence Thomas as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and the testimony of Anita Hill in those hearings, the author explores the ways in which representations of sexual violence against women can be seen as not “real.”     

The free rider problem: Experimental evidence

This paper addresses the need to learn more about the relative desirability of the current FASB and its alternatives. It responds to this need by demonstrating how a given standards-setting alternative might be preliminarily analyzed in terms of its feasibility and the degree to which its theoretical objectives are operationally attainable. The analysis emphasizes that it is not the existence of possible operational shortcomings that is important, but how its operational properties compare with those of other available alternatives. The analysis itself reveals that, in spite of operational shortcomings, standards-setting by means of a demand-revealing process may be an alternative worthy of further consideration both in its own right, and as a basis of comparison for assessing the relative strengths and limitations of the current FASB.     

Assessing Instrument Mixes through Program‐ and Agency‐Level Data: Methodological Issues in Contemporary Implementation Research

Theories of policy instrument choice have gone through several “generations” as theorists have moved from the analysis of individual instruments to comparative studies of instrument selection and the development of theories of instrument choice within implementation “mixes” or “governance strategies.” Current “next generation” theory on policy instruments centers on the question of the optimality of instrument choices. However, empirically assessing the nature of instrument mixes is quite a complex affair, involving considerable methodological difficulties and conceptual ambiguities related to the definition and measurement of policy sector and instruments and their interrelationships. Using materials generated by Canadian governments, this article examines the practical utility and drawbacks of three techniques used in the literature to inventory instruments and identify instrument ecologies and mixes: the conventional “policy domain” approach suggested by Burstein (1991 ); the “program” approach developed by Rose (1988a ); and the “legislative” approach used by Hosseus and Pal (1997 ). This article suggests that all three approaches must be used in order to develop even a modest inventory of policy instruments, but that additional problems exist with availability and accessibility of data, both in general and in terms of reconciling materials developed using these different approaches, which makes the analysis of instrument mixes a time‐consuming and expensive affair.     

The European Union,regional integration,and conflict transformation in the South China Sea territorial disputes

Asia Europe Journal - This study assumes that the EU can contribute to a constructive transformation of regional conflicts in the South China Sea. To prove this assumption, the author investigates...     

Global Luck Egalitarianism and Border Control

This paper discusses what implications global luck egalitarianism (GLE) has for border control. Some authors suggest that an open‐borders policy follows from GLE. The idea is that various unchosen inequalities inevitably follow from differences in birthplace, such that GLE will always have principled reason to condemn closed borders. Others are skeptical of the assumption that GLE will have liberal implications for border control, because open borders may have other, adverse effects that outweigh the reductions in unjust inequality. Against such skeptics, we argue that GLE will (typically) have quite liberal implications for border control. However, this connection is not a principled one: Whether (and to what extent) GLE favors opening or closing borders will depend upon empirical circumstances.