Harvesting experience: A reappraisal of the U.S. Climate Change Action Plan

For mitigating climate change and adapting to whatever impacts we cannot avoid, there are no politically feasible alternatives to improvements in the U.S. Climate Change Action Plan at this time or for the foreseeable future. Yet improvements in the Action Plan have been obstructed by the diversion of attention and other resources to negotiating a binding international agreement, to developing a predictive understanding of global change, and to documenting the failure of the Action Plan to meet its short-term goal for the reduction of aggregate greenhouse gas emissions. Continuous improvements depend upon reallocating attention and other resources to the Action Plan, and more specifically, to the many small-scale policies that have already succeeded by climate change and no regrets criteria under the Action Plan. Sustaining the effort over the long term depends on harvesting experience from these small-scale successes for diffusion and adaptation elsewhere on a voluntary basis.     

Lethal child abuse (through the use of physical force) in the German Democratic Republic during the period 1 January 1985 to 2 October 1990. Results of a multicenter study

No reliable data are available on cases of lethal child abuse (by active force) in the area of the former German Democratic Republic. In a multicenter study we therefore examined the police and court records for such cases occurring in the period 1 January 1985 to 2 October 1990 in the entire area of the former German Democratic Republic. RESULTS: The study center received information on 39 cases of lethal child abuse which correspond to approximately 7 cases per year. However, a low percentage of undetected crimes which cannot be determined more precisely has to be taken into consideration. Almost 40% of the victims were younger than 1 year, 73% of the victims showed indications of repeated ill-treatment. The effects caused by using direct blunt forces, against the head in particular, were by far the most frequent causes of death. The male contact person (the victim's father, brother or stepfather as well as the life companion of the child's mother in particular) killed the child in most of the cases. As far as it is known, 37% of the male/female offenders suffered from chronic alcoholism; 32% of the male/female offenders were under the influence of alcohol when the crime happened. 83% of the male/female offenders who were found guilty made a confession shortly after the crime had happened or during the interrogations. Almost all the male/female offenders were sentenced to prison (the duration of the imprisonment varied between one year and for life). Due to the considerably lower section rate compared to the one in the German Democratic Republic, it is to fear that each second fatal child abuse is not detected in the new federal states.     

Argentine Nacionalismo before Perón: The Case of the Alianza de la Juventud Nacionalista, 1937–c. 1943

As the 1930s moved towards their close, a new generation of young men began to dominate the political wing of a generally more radical and assertive Argentine Nacionalismo, replacing the old guard that had found its inspiration in General José F. Uriburu and the regime he had led between September 1930 and February 1932. The Alianza de la Juventud Nacionalista, set up in September 1937, was the most important nacionalista faction of the period. It shared with other nacionalista factions the rejection of liberalism, parliamentary democracy and communism, but in contrast to the elitist and anti-popular orientation of earlier organisations, it aggressively tried to enlist popular support by portraying itself as a group genuinely concerned about the needs of the masses. The Alianza also distanced itself from the glorification of nineteenth-century Argentina, another hallmark of previous groups. Although it failed in its efforts to build up a significant following, the analysis nevertheless demonstrates that the organisation can be described as a genuinely fascist movement.     

What happens when a reform works? The need to study unanticipated consequences of mandatory processing of domestic violence

One of the primary facets of the sociology of law is concerned with the relationships between formal rules and regulations having the force of governmental social control and the values, norms and practices of those who enforce them (or not). This “law in action” perspective enables research to test out the differential impact on legal decisions of both formal and informal aspects of social control (Hawkins, 1992). One of the limitations of recent work on domestic violence is that it focuses too narrowly on one or two negative sanctions, e.g., arrest or restraining orders, to the exclusion of the other options and the mix of formal and informal decisions in the criminal justice system as a whole (Reiss, 1974). This research attempts through a close analysis of the workings of the Quincy, Massachusetts criminal justice system in response to domestic violence, to identify the consequences, unanticipated and anticipated, of decisions made in several domains (public, police, prosecutors, and courts) of the criminal justice system. This study uses in-depth interviews with batterers, victims and criminal justice agency and related personnel as well as agency policies, training materials and records to examine possible unintended consequences of aggressive intervention in cases of domestic violence. This study will explore the impact of the Quincy Domestic Violence Program, considered to be a national model, on the lives of victims and offenders who are treated by the court. We have selected the District Court at Quincy, Massachusetts as our research site. It has a well deserved national reputation treating abusers systematically from the initial intake by arresting officers through close supervision in probation.     

Fat Cats,Production Networks,and the Right to Fair Pay

Should there be a legal right to fair pay so that anyone might challenge the relative fairness of their pay? International human rights law does not clearly support such a right, partly due to the uncertain meaning of fairness in pay. The article challenges this uncertainty, explaining the marginal relevance of theories of distributive justice. Standards of fairness should be discovered instead in principles of interpersonal justice, particularly the bilateral principle of good faith, and in associational principles of desert by reference to contribution and recognition of persons. These contain an egalitarian impulse providing moral reasons for rejecting market rates of pay and, it is argued, should apply beyond single corporate entities, to corporate groups and networks of companies sharing an integrated production scheme. Finally, appropriate regulations enacting a legal right to fair pay are explored with a view to achieving reflexive yet effective regulation using works councils to fix outer limits to wage dispersal ratios.     

Nanny Bloomberg

In his twelve-year tenure, now ex-Mayor Bloomberg came to be called Nanny Bloomberg for having introduced an unprecedented number of rules and regulations in the area of public health, to which citizens were then subjected. He operated in many different areas, as he would say, for our own good. The question is: did it ever help and at what price? And: Cui bono?