Are Monetary Unions Inevitable?

With the rapid growth of cross-border competition among currencies, informed observers predict that the new monetary unions are virtually inevitable in many parts of the world. In fact, predictions of such alliances are misleading and almost certainly wrong. Monetary unions necessarily imply a measure of collective action in the issue and management of money. An alliance requires allies—other states with similar preferences and a disposition to act cooperatively. A survey of proposed monetary unions shows that willing partners among sovereign states are just not all that plentiful. Conceivably some governments could be attracted to less demanding forms of monetary alliance, depending on bargaining context. But prospects for many full new monetary unions are dim at best.     

Prospects for Managed Democracy in Russia

The 2003 Duma election resulted in the victory of the party of power, thereby strengthening managed democracy in Russia. Since then, political trends in Russia's regions and rural politics provide considerable evidence of the increasing ability of pro-Kremlin forces to maximise their electoral fortunes in national contests. These political trends make it likely that United Russia will not only emerge as the dominant party in the 2007 Duma election, but will provide the Kremlin and Putin's successor with a compliant lower house. The outcome is that Putin's successor will find the political infrastructure to continue managed democracy.     

The Rule of Law and the UN Peacebuilding Commission: a social development approach

There is a danger that the Rule of Law Assistance Unit of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission will employ the same dominant but problematic paradigm that the international development community has pursued across the globe. This top-down, state-centred paradigm, sometimes known as ‘rule of law orthodoxy’, stands in contrast to an alternative set of strategies: legal empowerment. Legal empowerment involves the use of legal services, legal capacity-building and legal reform by and for disadvantaged populations, often in combination with other development activities, to increase their freedom, improve governance and alleviate poverty. It is typically carried out by domestic and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), but also by governments and official aid agencies. This alternative approach focuses directly on the disadvantaged and integration with other development activities, which means it often operates under the de facto rubric of social development. Legal empowerment strategies vary among countries and NGOs. But their impact includes reforming gender-biased, non-state justice systems in Bangladesh; ameliorating the legal system's corruption in post-conflict Sierra Leone; keeping the human rights flame burning in post-conflict Cambodia; advancing natural resources protection and indigenous peoples' rights in Ecuador; and strengthening agrarian reform in the Philippines. Addressing such priorities can help alleviate poverty, ameliorate conflict and prevent chaos or repression from dominating the disadvantaged, particularly in conflict or post-conflict societies.     

Race as a factor in university admissions

In two recent cases, Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306. (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244. (2003), the Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause permitted state schools to use race-sensitive admissions in order to obtain the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. The diversity-based argument for race-sensitive admissions, scholarships, awards, and other opportunities at universities should have been rejected because it does not consider the full range of costs and benefits and because the more narrow educational effects probably weigh against such programs. However, this does not suggest that applicants’ race, ethnicity, and gender should be ignored. Rather the same consideration that led to the defeat of the diversity argument, i.e., reasoning capacity, supports the consideration of demographic factors. However, attention to such factors further undermines the consequentialist case for affirmative action.     

Juvenile justice reform and the courtroom workgroup: Issues of perception and workload

Criminal justice policies may be enacted, but the actual implementation of those policies depends upon those working on the frontline. Policies that affect how cases are processed in the courtroom can be thwarted by the efforts of courtroom workgroup members. The present study analyzed how courtroom workgroups adjusted to a new juvenile justice policy. Qualitative interviews demonstrated that while there was widespread agreement on the basic tenets of the reform, perceptions of the reform varied by confidence in workgroup membership. Further, the reform inherently increased the workload for some and decreased the workload for others. Those whose workload increased discussed subverting the reform effort in order to continue with business as usual. These findings demonstrated that effective policies must consider the needs of workgroups as adaptation of policies in actual practice depend upon workgroup members' support.     

Comparison of fingernail striation patterns in identical twins.

The fingernail ridge patterns of a pair of identical twins were compared to each other, their parents, and an unrelated subject. The patterns of the twins' nails showed regions of strong similarity but were distinguishable from one another. Fewer similarities were found when comparing the nails to those of the parents and the unrelated control. The twins were shown to be monozygotic by means of DNA profiling. This therefore represents the first demonstration of unique fingernail ridge patterns in subjects shown conclusively to be identical twins. When the fingernail ridge patterns were examined with a scanning electron microscope, the backscattered electron (BEI) images were found to have superior contrast when compared to the secondary electron (SEI) images.