Losing,but Accepting: Legitimacy,Positivity Theory,and the Symbols of Judicial Authority

How is it that the U.S. Supreme Court is capable of getting most citizens to accept rulings with which they disagree? This analysis addresses the role of the symbols of judicial authority and legitimacy—the robe, the gavel, the cathedral‐like court building—in contributing to this willingness of ordinary people to acquiesce to disagreeable court decisions. Using an experimental design and a nationally representative sample, we show that exposure to judicial symbols (1) strengthens the link between institutional support and acquiescence among those with relatively low prior awareness of the Supreme Court, (2) has differing effects depending upon levels of preexisting institutional support, and (3) severs the link between disappointment with a disagreeable Court decision and willingness to challenge the ruling. Since symbols influence citizens in ways that reinforce the legitimacy of courts, the connection between institutional attitudes and acquiescence posited by Legitimacy Theory is both supported and explained.     

One-Stop Shops Reform in China as Sequencing： A Case of Chuzhou City

The article describes the action trajectory and the value concept of e-government service innovation in Chuzhou City, Anhui Province during 2006-2012. The background, value orientation, innovation, and reconstruction results as well as implementation strategy of the sequence of four rounds of reorganizing a one-stop shop structure are analyzed. From the perspective of overall efficiency of government services, some recommendations are put forward to break fragmented services of local government. At the level of central government, ideas and future directions have been discussed. In this respect, the Chuzhou City Government has been a pace-setter. Last year, it launched a new round of government reorganization. The aims are to realize every ordinary matter by applying one examination and approval and one review exercise; further increase the rate of on-spot handling; and try to ensure that for every complex matter, the three steps of reception, examination, and approval procedure should be completed in five days.     

Actions taken in response to mental health screening at reception into prison

Screening for mental health problems on reception into custody has been criticised. However, there have been few studies on care pathways through custody as a result of screening identification. We aimed to identify what actions were taken as a result of screening positive for suicidal ideation and mental health problems. Case records for 2166 prisoners newly received into five prisons in England and documented contact with health care professionals in the following month were examined by hand over a four-month period. Altogether, 3% of prisoners were screened as having current suicidal ideas, of whom 30% had no contact with mental health services or risk assessment documentation. Another 21% of new receptions received psychotropic medication, for whom over 60% received no primary mental health assessment, and only 36% received psychotropic medication in prison. Care pathways need to be defined, and screening needs to be delivered as originally intended by initial screen for life-threatening matters, followed by a later, comprehensive assessment of health needs.     

Post-Breakup Unwanted Pursuit: A Refined Analysis of the Role of Romantic Relationship Characteristics

This study re-examined the role of romantic relationship characteristics in unwanted pursuit behavior (UPB) perpetration. Relationship characteristics were investigated accounting for the role of breakup characteristics using data from 396 divorced adults and advanced count regressions. The main effects of former relationship characteristics (except conflict) did not contribute explained variance to the frequency of UPBs when controlling for significant breakup characteristics (initiator status and post-breakup negative affect). However, moderator analyses revealed significant effects of relationship satisfaction, alternatives, investments, and anxious attachment in interaction with initiator status and of relationship alternatives in interaction with post-breakup negative affect. These findings illustrate that the association between relationship characteristics and UPB perpetration is more complex than previously thought and are theoretically and clinically valuable.     

Courts and New Democracies: Recent Works

Recent literature on comparative judicial politics reveals a variety of roles that courts adopt in the process of democratization. These include, very rarely, serving as a trigger for democratization and, more commonly, serving as downstream guarantor for departing autocrats or as downstream consolidator of democracy. In light of these roles, this article reviews six relatively recent books: Courts in Latin America, edited by Helmke and Rios‐Figueroa (2011 ); Judges Beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship: Lessons from Chile, by Hilbink (2007 ); Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America, edited by Couso, Huneeus, and Sieder (2011 ); The Legacies of Law: Long‐Run Consequences of Legal Development in South Africa, 1652–2000, by Meierhenrich (2008 ); Judging Russia: Constitutional Court in Russian Politics 1990–2006, by Trochev (2008 ); and New Courts in Asia, edited by Harding and Nicholson (2010 ).     

Advance directives as an instrument in an ageing Europe

Advance directives are written or oral statements that are intended to govern healthcare decision-making for their authors, for both positive and negative decisions, should they lose decisional capacity in the future. In a Europe which is facing an ageing population, advance directives play an increasing role to (help) formulate the wishes from elderly patient once they start losing the capacity to decide independently. Advance directives should not only be used as a formulation of the patients' previously made decision, but can also be used as guidelines to better understand the previous expressed wishes of the patient. If the advance directive is formulated in too vague form, the healthcare proxy and/or the healthcare trustee can help the physician interpret the directive. This broader approach towards advance directives is reflected in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as on the European legislative level.     

Peasant essentialism and the Agrarian question in the Colombian Andes

Our Daily Bread: The Peasant Question and Family Farming in the Colombian Andes, by Nola Reinhardt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988. Pp.xv + 308. US$35.

This review article considers a number of problems which arise from an incorrect theorisation of the agrarian question. Instead of a transformation in which some peasants become small capitalists and others de facto workers, rural change is said to involve an absolute opposition: in economic terms the whole peasantry either dissolves or persists. Since the former is clearly not the case, the continued existence of peasants in Colombia is attributed by the book under review to their economic efficiency. Its essentialist framework therefore conceptualises all peasants as a uniform body of commodity producers, rather than as internally differentiated strata incorporating disparate class elements. In contrast to this neo‐populist approach, it is suggested here that capitalist peasants and de facto proletarians are indeed present — but not recognised as such ‐ in the context studied.