The Duel of Honor: Screening For Unobservable Social Capital

The duel of honor was a highly ritualized violent activity practiced(mostly) by aristocrats from about 1500 to 1900. The duel ofhonor was held in private, was attended by seconds and othermembers of society, was illegal, and often resulted from trivialincidents. Duels were fought according to strict codes, theirlethality fell over time, and certain members of society werenot allowed to duel. We argue dueling functioned as a screenfor unobservable investments in social capital. Social capitalwas used during this period to support political transactionsin an age when high civil service appointments were made throughpatronage. The screening hypothesis explains the puzzling featuresof the duel of honor, its rise and fall over time and locations,and the differences between European and American duels. In a state of highly polished society, an affront is held tobe a serious injury. It must, therefore, be resented, or rathera duel must be fought upon it; as men have agreed to banishfrom their society one who puts up with an affront without fightinga duel.

—Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell

     

Book review

This article looks at the vast contributions political philosopher Hal Pepinsky has made to effecting a peaceful, needs‐meeting vision of justice in the academic fields of criminology and criminal justice over the past three decades. The article examines his life's work as reflected in his most recent book, Peacemaking: Reflections of a Radical Criminologist. This work demonstrates that those who push the boundaries of scholarly disciplines, such as he has done, sometimes find themselves in conflict with those most invested in controlling the allocation of the rewards those disciplines mete out. As Professor Pepinsky increasingly became an outsider he took the risk of taking on the burdens of other outsiders whose pain and suffering the vast majority of his academic colleagues turned their eyes from.     

Short notes on some books received

Africa's Management in the 1990s and Beyond: Reconciling Indigenous and Transplanted Institutions. By Mamadou Dia. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1996. Pp.xii + 293. NP. ISBN 0 8213 3431 X

A Land Without Gods: Process Theory, Maldevelopment and the Mexican Nahuas. By Jacques M. Chevalier and Daniel Buckles. London: Zed Books, 1995. Pp.x + 374. £55.00/$69.95 and £19.95/$29.95. ISBN 1 85649 325 3 and 326 1

Local Resource Management in Africa. Edited by J.P.M. van den Breemer, C.A. Drijver and L.B. Venema. Chichester: John Wiley, 1995. Pp.xii + 245. £40. ISBN 0 47196004 7

Third World Cities in Global Perspective: The Political Economy of Uneven Urbanization. By David A. Smith. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. Pp.xiii + 202. £40.95 and £13.50. ISBN 0 8133 8720 5 and 2998 1

Power of Development. Edited by Jonathon Crush. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Pp.xvi + 324. £35 and £ 14.99. ISBN 0 415 11176 5 and 11177 3

Financial Liberalisation and Investment. By K.L. Gupta and R. Lensink. London: Routledge, 1996. Pp.xii + 183. £40. ISBN 0 415 13879 5

Anthropology of Tourism. By Denison Nash. Oxford, New York and Tokyo: Pergamon, 1996. Pp.ix + 205. £41/US$66. ISBN 0 0804 42398 1

Politics of Technology in Latin America. Edited by Maria Ines Bastos and Charles Cooper. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Pp.xii + 258. £47.50. ISBN 0 415 12690

Voices from Mutira: Change in the Lives of Rural Gikuyu Women: 1910–1995. By Jean Davison. Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Reinner Publisher, 1996. Pp.vi + 271. £18.95. ISBN 1 55587 602 1

Women and Politics in the Third World. Edited by Haleh Afshar London: Croom Helm, 1996. Pp.xi + 210. £40 and £12.99. ISBN 0 415 13853 1 and 13861

Re‐Presenting the City: Ethnicity, Capital and Culture in the Twenty‐First Century Metropolis. Edited by Anthony D. King. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Pp.ix + 282. £42.50 and £13.99. ISBN 0 333 60191 2 and 60192 0

Women and Industrialization in Asia Edited by Susan Horton, London and New York: Routledge, 1996. £50. ISBN 0415 12907 9

Enterprise and the State in Korea and Taiwan. By Karl J. Fields. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1995. Pp.xiv + 269. NP. ISBN 0 8014 3009 7     

The politics and bureaucratics of rural public works: Maharashtra's employment guaranteed scheme

Abstract

The Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme stands out among rural public works programmes in developing countries for its size, longevity, the generosity of its funding arrangements, and the political sophistication of its design. Its mission is highly ambitious: to supply employment flexibly and rapidly by opening and closing public works in response to local, unpredictable weather variations in a poor agrarian economy. We explore the political factors that account for changes in its performance over more than 30 years, and identify the political lessons for the design of similar programmes elsewhere.     

Switzerland: Switzerland ratifies the Hague Trust Convention on 20 December 2006

After running out of time on 19 December to debate the ratificationof the Hague Convention of 1 July 1985 on the Law Applicableto Trusts and on their Recognition (Convention No. 30), theLower House of the Swiss Federal Parliament     

Inheritance tax on trusts

In addition to the extensive changes made by the Finance Act2006 to the inheritance tax rules on trusts, there is now afurther significant development. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)have recently responded to a number of questions raised by severalprofessional bodies including STEP (the Society of Trust andEstate Practitioners) and the CIOT (the Chartered Instituteof Taxation) on a number of detailed points on the new legislation.The responses from HMRC are very helpful and will clarify anumber of important matters, although there are a number ofissues that still need to be resolved. The main areas whichwere covered in the questions are outlined in this article.