Proportionality and Self-Defense

Proportionality is widely accepted as a necessary condition of justified self-defense. What gives rise to this particular condition and what role it plays in the justification of self-defense seldom receive focused critical attention. In this paper I address the standard of proportionality applicable to personal self-defense and the role that proportionality plays in justifying the use of harmful force in self-defense. I argue against an equivalent harm view of proportionality in self-defense, and in favor of a standard of proportionality in self-defense that requires comparable seriousness and takes into account the wrong, as opposed simply to the harm that the victim is fending off. I distinguish the standard of proportionality in self-defense from proportionality in circumstances of necessity, and I discuss whether proportionality is an internal or an external constraint on the right of self-defense.     

The Relationship Between School Engagement and Delinquency in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

Engagement in school is crucial for academic success and school completion. Surprisingly little research has focused on the relationship between student engagement and delinquency. This study examines whether engagement predicts subsequent school and general misconduct among 4,890 inner-city Chicago elementary school students (mean age: 11 years and 4 months; 43.3% boys; 66.5% black; 28.8% Latino). To improve upon prior research in this area, we distinguish three types of engagement (emotional, behavioral, and cognitive), examine whether the relationship between engagement and misconduct is bidirectional (misconduct also impairs engagement), and control for possible common causes of low engagement and misconduct, including peer and family relationships and relatively stable indicators of risk-proneness. Emotional and behavioral engagement predict decreases in school and general delinquency. However, cognitive engagement is associated with increases in these outcomes. School and general delinquency predict decreased engagement only in the cognitive domain. Suggestions for future research and implications for policy are discussed.     

J.M. Keynes and the Personal Politics of Reparations: Part 2

The second part of this article shows that John Maynard Keynes worked closely with the German Finance and Foreign ministries as a supposed neutral expert in October 1922. He supported passive resistance to the French in the Ruhr without regard to its effects on the currency, secretly collaborated in writing the German reparations note of June 1923, and then praised his own work in a weekly that he controlled. Keynes opposed the 1929 Young Plan that re-scheduled the German debt and declined to accept modern thinking on overcoming the transfer problem.     

Family Firms,Transnationalism and Generational Change: Chinese Enterprise in Britain and Malaysia

This article reviews theoretical perspectives about the development of ethnic Chinese-owned enterprises in two major sets of literature. The first school is one that adopts culture as the primary explanatory tool for the dynamism of Chinese enterprise. The second school employs the concept of transnationalism, which has served to create a link between identity and capitalism, to analyse Chinese entrepreneurship. Both sets of literature argue that common ethnic identity facilitates the creation of business networks, which explains the rise of ‘Chinese capitalism’. This study questions the foundations of these theoretical arguments by tracing the evolution of family firms and by employing the concept of ‘generational change’.     

(Re)Creating the Comfort Zone: From Common Ethnicity towards Commonwealth: The Transnationalisation Process of Malaysian Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises

Though acknowledging that ethnic Chinese cooperate in networks in which they feel ‘comfortable’, scholars dispute what it is that makes ethnic Chinese cooperate transnationally, and they disagree as to what extent these networks can be regarded as independent of nation-state regimes. Phrased differently, there is no agreement on the contents of this ‘comfort zone’ and on how it is created. Scholarly debate focuses on ethnic Chinese businesses and on the nature of transnationalism, but fails to address the process of transnationalising businesses. By considering the different perspectives on transnationalism, identity and business development among ethnic Chinese, this paper analyses the process of transnationalisation of Malaysian Chinese small and medium enterprises.