Bringing the Spoken Words Back In: Conversationalizing (Postmodernizing) Police-citizen Encounter Research

In prior police-citizen encounter research, the words citizens and suspects articulate were used as the primary representation of their demeanor toward the police. Despite its central role in prior works, language has been presupposed into the analysis as a formalistic assumption, and unanalyzed in its own right. Realizing this deficiency, Mastrofski and Parks (1990) advocated changes in methods of observing police work. In this article, a discourse analytic method of capturing the neglected details of the encounter between police and citizens is proffered by using a reality based TV show about police work as data. The article provides the theoretical and methodological framework for overcoming deficiencies in existing police research. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Prime Minister and the Bomb: John Gorton,W.C. Wentworth and the Quest for an Atomic Australia

The efforts of the Liberal government led by John Gorton to acquire a locally built nuclear deterrent stretch back into the 1950s when Robert Menzies preferred to rely on the American or British nuclear umbrella for protection. Gorton took a different view and the advocates of an independent Australian nuclear capability rejoiced upon his elevation to the Liberal leadership. We argue that Gorton's ambitions advanced as far as they did in the latter 1960s due to the support, or urgings, from an informal coalition of scientists (particularly Philip Baxter) and discontented fringes of the parliamentary Liberal Party. In particular, the maverick backbencher, W.C. Wentworth, played a key role in mobilising support for Gorton's controversial quest to acquire an independent nuclear capacity.     

Excessive Prices: Using Economics to Define Administrable Legal Rules

European competition laws condemn as ‘exploitative abuses’the pricing policies of dominant firms that may result in adirect loss of consumer welfare. Article 82(a) of the EC Treaty,for example, expressly states that imposing ‘unfair’prices on consumers by dominant suppliers constitutes an abuse.Several firms have been found to abuse their dominant positionsby charging excessive prices in cases brought by the EuropeanCommission and the competition authorities of several MemberStates. Those cases show that the assessment of excessive pricingis subject to substantial conceptual and practical difficulties,and that any policy that seeks to detect and prohibit excessiveprices is likely to yield incorrect predictions in numerousinstances. In this paper, we evaluate the pros and cons of alternativelegal standards towards excessive pricing by explicitly consideringthe likelihood of false convictions/acquittals and the costsassociated with those errors. We find that the legal standardthat maximizes long-term consumer welfare, given the informationtypically available to regulators, would involve no ex postintervention on the pricing decisions of dominant firms. A possibleexception to this general rule is discussed.     

Rorschach-in-Action: Some Further Observations on the Semiotic Summons in Police-Citizen Encounters

The police are one of the mostauthoritative and visible agents of thecriminal law; yet, they have often beenconceptualized in an ``unofficial' way, aspseudo-parental figures, counselors, andmediators – and as inkblots that evoke a widerange of reactions from citizens, from anxietyand rage to fear. Explanations for these typesof reactions have been overly impressionistic,speculative, and psychological. In this note, Iconsider the notion of the police as``Rorschach-in-uniform.' By using data fromroutine traffic stops, I demonstrate how thesummons/answer sequence that is commonly foundin social and bureaucratic encounters isreduced and adapted to meet the situationalrelevancies of police work. I argue that it isthrough the semiotic summons that the Rorschachis given a practical embodiment.     

The business of translation: The Johns Hopkins University Discovery to Market program

This article describes the design and implementation of a technology commercialization course at a major research university. It discusses the integration between the scientific research enterprise and the business of innovation through an practice based course, the resources required, the challenges encountered, and the results of the initiative. Policy implications from the lessons learned are discussed. Suggestions on how such a program could be implemented in other institutions of higher learning, together with thoughts on future directions and improvements are offered.     

With Arms Wide Shut: Threat Perception,Norm Reception,and Mobilized Resistance to LGBT Rights

This article utilizes original survey and interview data to explore why norms governing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights mobilize an active resistance in some cases and not in others. Based on a comparison of Poland and Slovenia, this article shows that differing perceptions of threat define the way international norms are received in distinct domestic realms. Threat perception is heightened in cases where religion is historically embedded in the essence of the popular nation. In Poland, the Catholic Church created a role for itself as a symbol of the nation. There, the domestic opposition succeeded in framing a narrative that linked LGBT rights to external forces threatening national values. By contrast, the Catholic Church in Slovenia could neither maintain nor (re-)establish similarly strong ties to the popular nation, stifling the opposition's ability to mobilize a robust popular resistance. Whether resistance is effectual, however, is a related but separate question. The data suggest that resistance produced in high-threat contexts can be self-defeating in that it enhances the salience of the norm in the domestic setting.     

Jurisgenerative role of auditors in transnational labor governance

This article builds on the model of regulatory intermediaries by incorporating insights from the field of legal hermeneutics about the process through which the meaning of a legal rule emerges. It describes how intermediaries can take on a jurisgenerative role in the development of legal rules through their interpretation of legal rules. This role is demonstrated through an analysis of social audits from Chinese and Vietnamese factories involved in the Fair Labor Association (FLA). The analysis illustrates how the integration of fundamental labor rights into the FLA's private Code of Conduct requires auditors to develop new interpretations of the Freedom of Association as a result of uncertainties and contradictions between legal requirements at various levels, as well as with the FLA's own rules. Through this empirical analysis, the article contributes to the literature by identifying regulatory intermediaries’ jurisgenerative capacities when they monitor fundamental labor rights referenced by private governance instruments. It further highlights why legal and regulatory governance scholars need to consider the transformative effects that transnational private labor governance may have on international labor law.     

Variation in the Measurement of Cranial Volume and Surface Area Using 3D Laser Scanning Technology

Abstract: Three‐dimensional (3D) laser scanner models of human crania can be used for forensic facial reconstruction, and for obtaining craniometric data useful for estimating age, sex, and population affinity of unidentified human remains. However, the use of computer‐generated measurements in a casework setting requires the measurement precision to be known. Here, we assess the repeatability and precision of cranial volume and surface area measurements using 3D laser scanner models created by different operators using different protocols for collecting and processing data. We report intraobserver measurement errors of 0.2% and interobserver errors of 2% of the total area and volume values, suggesting that observer‐related errors do not pose major obstacles for sharing, combining, or comparing such measurements. Nevertheless, as no standardized procedure exists for area or volume measurements from 3D models, it is imperative to report the scanning and postscanning protocols employed when such measurements are conducted in a forensic setting.