Confucian Constitutionalism? The Emergence of Constitutional Review in Korea and Taiwan

This paper documents the recent emergence of constitutional review of legislative and administrative action in Korea and Taiwan, two East Asian countries seen to be historically resistant to notions of judicial activism and constitutional constraint. It argues that the ability to draw from foreign legal traditions, especially those of the United States and Germany, empowered judges in these countries and therefore helped to alter the structure of public law away from executive-centered approaches of the past. This is consistent with viewing judicial review as essentially a foreign transplant. Nevertheless, the institution of judicial review has some compatibilities with Confucian legal tradition, a point that has implications for how we think about institutional transfers across borders. By constructing a locally legitimate account of what is undeniably a modern institution of foreign origin, the paper argues that constitutional constraint should not be viewed as an imposition of Western norms, but as a more complex process of adaptation and institutional transformation.     

Predictors of the quality of the home environment that adolescent mothers provide for their school-aged children

The primary question addressed in this study is, What factors distinguish between adolescent mothers with school-aged children who are providing relatively supportive home environments for their children, and their peers who are providing less supportive care? Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth merged mother- child data set were used to address this question. Variables from four major categories were useful in identifying mothers who were at greatest risk for providing less supportive environments: (1) characteristics of the mother, (2) characteristics of the family of origin, (3) current SES level, and (4) the composition of the mother's household.     

Mobilizing the Law in China: "Informed Disenchantment" and the Development of Legal Consciousness

This article critically examines the development of legal consciousness among legal aid plaintiffs in Shanghai. It is based on 16 months of research at a large legal aid center and in‐depth interviews with 50 plaintiffs. Chinese legal aid plaintiffs come to the legal process with high expectations about the possibility of protecting their rights; however, they also have only a vague and imprecise knowledge of legal procedure and their actual codified rights. Through this process of legal mobilization, plaintiffs' legal consciousness changes in two separate dimensions: changes in one's feelings of efficacy and competency vis‐à‐vis the law, and changes in one's perception/evaluation of the legal system. Put another way, the first dimension is “How well can I work the law?” and the second is “How well does the law work?” In this study I observe positive changes in feelings of individual efficacy and competency that are combined with more negative evaluations/perceptions of the legal system in terms of its fairness and effectiveness. The positive feelings of efficacy and voice provided by the legal process encourage labor dispute plaintiffs in the post‐dispute period to plan new lawsuits and to help friends and relatives with their legal problems. Disenchantment with the promises of the legal system does not lead to despondency, but to more critical, informed action. This study provides new evidence on the nature of China's developing legal system with a focus on the social response to the state‐led “rule of law” project.     

The Employment of People with Criminal Records in the European Union

This paper summarises a large-scale research project, jointly funded by the European Commission and the Northern Ireland Office, about the legislation, policies, and practices which act against the employment of people with a criminal record in the European Union. The disparity of legal guidance between countries effectively restricts the opportunities for people with a criminal record to work in the country they choose. This paper intends to increase awareness of the policies across Europe which affect the employment of people with a criminal record with a view to addressing the marginalisation of this group and thereby encouraging the re-integration of ex-offenders into society. Details of the work undertaken by a project based in Northern Ireland, 'Coping with Convictions' which endeavours to tackle some of the existing barriers to ex-offender employment are described. In addition, the recent introduction of UK legislation, allowing employers greater access to criminal record information, and the implications this may have for ex-offenders seeking employment are also discussed.     

Is informalization equalizing? Evidence from Kinshasa (DRC)

As a consequence of a concatenation of external and internal events, the economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has informalized to an unprecedented level over the last few decades. A comparison of budget surveys carried out in 1975 and 2004 respectively allows us to ascertain the effect of this process on income inequality and poverty in Kinshasa. We find that the extent of inequality in the capital city of the DRC has remained largely unchanged, which strongly suggests that informalization has been a viable survival strategy for those at the lower-income end of society. Unexpectedly, whereas distinctions such as gender and age lost much of their profiling power in the period considered, other cleavages such as education and geography, which may be assumed to be much more intimately related to the formal sector, continued to play an important role in structuring inequality in Kinshasa’s deeply informalized economy.     

The relationship of the outcome and procedural fairness: How does knowing the outcome influence judgments about the procedure?

Justice theories distinguish between fair procedures and fair or favorable outcomes. However, it is not clear whether people can clearly separate judgments about procedures from knowledge of the outcomes of those procedures. Two experiments are reported which address that question. In both studies respondents evaluate the fairness of decision-making procedures. In one case those evaluations occur prior to knowing the outcome of the procedure (behind the veil), while in the other the outcome is known before the procedural evaluation (in front of the veil). Two hypotheses about outcome influence are tested: that knowing the outcome changes themeaning of procedural fairness and that knowing the outcome changes theweight given to procedural fairness. Findings of both studies suggest that prior knowledge about the outcome does not change the way people define the meaning of the fairness of a procedure. However, people place less weight on their judments about procedural fairness when evaluating the decision maker if they make those judgments already knowing the outcome of the procedure.