比较犯罪学：目的、方法与结论

在以往的三十年内 ,比较犯罪学已经由一种经验性操作转变为一门理论学科。比较犯罪学的多项研究是在 2 0世纪八九十年代进行的 ,这些研究显示 ,犯罪形态上的差异在很大程度上取决于社会、经济、国家政治结构、宗教以及文化等方面的差异 ,而且 ,可以发现 ,社会经济发展与犯罪增长之间存在联系。由于许多国家 (尤其是亚洲国家 )目前正在由传统农业社会向工业社会转型 ,认识这一点显得至关重要。本文要讨论的是比较犯罪学的目的、方法及其理论 ,但对于拉美国家的“解放者犯罪学”运动特别给予了关注。     

Catch me if you care: International development organizations and national corruption

The Review of International Organizations - Many international development organizations (IDOs) have officially mandated anti-corruption criteria for aid selectivity. Substantial debate remains...     

A porous humanitarian shield: The laws of war,the red cross,and the killing of civilians

An important literature examines the attempts by the international community in inducing or coercing conflict parties in civil wars to refrain from committing atrocities against the civilian population. We examine in this article whether a non-governmental actor, the distinctively neutral and independent International Committee of the Red Cross, whose mission includes the promotion of humanitarian law and the protection of the civilian population, has such a restraining effect on the conflict parties. Our results suggest that the more time has passed since the ratification of the relevant Geneva Conventions and Protocols, the larger is the risk of civilian victimization. We cannot find evidence that the ICRC’s presence in conflict zones and the seminars it conducts to spread humanitarian law make a crucial difference. Case studies of Bosnia and Darfur indicate that shaming strategies and thus a relatively unusual instrument for the traditionally neutral actor did not abate the killings; the statistical evidence in the form of Granger causality tests rather show that the killing and harming precedes the naming and shaming.     

Organized crime or crime that is organized? The parrot trade in the neotropics

The illegal wildlife trade is one of the most profitable illegal industries in the world, only behind the trafficking of drugs, guns, and humans. Because of the relative ease in poaching wildlife combined with the possibility of high profit margins, many assume that organized crime is heavily linked to the trade. One group of species that is poached, trafficked and sold in illicit markets throughout the world are parrots. While some have claimed organized crime groups are involved in the trade, parrot experts contend there is no evidence of organized crime being involved. The purpose of this paper is to examine the structural organization of the illegal parrot trade in the neotropics to determine if the trade is driven by organized crime or if it is a simply a crime that is organized. The following study is based on 38 interviews with parrot poachers, middlemen, wildlife market sellers, and others knowledgeable on the trade in multiple cities within Bolivia and Peru to better understand the organization of the trade. The results garnered from these interviews do not support the notion that organized crime is involved in the illegal parrot trade in either country. The vast majority of participants are freelance operators where there appears to be no formal organization between or amongst those operating in the parrot trade. Implications of findings are discussed.     

The end of alternatives? Capitalist transformation,rural activism and the politics of possibility in China†

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the politics of possibility for rural activism in reform era China. By periodizing rural reforms from 1990, we explore the political-economic changes that have coalesced in the reform era, and how these changes condition forms and possibilities of activism. We argue that the current modernization–urbanization drive that emerged around 2008 is foreclosing opportunities for the pro-peasant cooperative forms that New Rural Reconstruction activists imagined earlier in the decade. Instead, as the process of capitalist agrarian change deepens in the countryside, food- and farming-related activism now resembles the state’s focus on markets and consumption, to the detriment of addressing social relations of production. Without a focus on distributional politics and power, this shift has the potential to further entrench existing inequalities within and across rural and urban spaces. The contextual work undertaken in this paper is currently absent from the emerging literature on China’s agrifood transformations.