Choosing China: public perceptions of ‘China as a model’

This article examines East Asians and Chinese nationals who select ‘China as a model’ of development. The analysis looks at both macro and micro explanations to show that China's standing as a development model is not in sync with its status as a rising global and regional power. At the macro level, the focus is on country-level patterns, while the micro analysis is drawn from the third wave surveys of the Asia Barometer Survey data conducted from 2011 to 2013 in 13 different countries. The findings suggest that political values, history, geography and socio-economic conditions correspond to different views of China as a model and that those outside of China who select the country as a model are quite different from those in China itself.     

Fighting for Migrant Labor Rights in the World's Factory: legitimacy,resource constraints and strategies of grassroots migrant labor NGOs in South China

China's dizzying economic achievement is not mirrored in its labor rights protection record. Migrant workers in particular do not enjoy rights commensurate with their contribution to the economy. The pervasive infringement of labor rights and the failure of the official protective system have jointly created a niche for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This article investigates the grassroots migrant labor NGOs in the Pearl River Delta region, an area which has seen unprecedented increases in labor disputes both in terms of quantity and intensity. Making extensive use of in-depth interviews and participatory observations, it examines the strategies and tactics NGOs use for survival and growth in a hostile external environment. This article reveals that administrative illegitimacy and resource shortage have been the two key challenges for grassroots NGOs; in order to survive, they have developed a series of strategies to enhance legitimacy and explore resources. In the meantime, however, antagonistic thinking still drives the government's response to grassroots organizations unless the latter can skillfully balance political ideology and actual operation. Yet, overall, most NGOs still managed to survive despite various difficulties. Reciprocity and mutual trust are of critical importance to peaceful coexistence, if not cooperation, between the state and the grassroots. The building of long-term healthy labor relations in China necessitates more liberal thinking and collaborative governance.     

Treating incompetence to stand trial

InJackson v. Indiana (1972), the United States Supreme Court held that the primary justification for detaining defendants who are incompetent to stand trial is to provide them with relevant treatment. Unfortunately, the majority of forensic facilities place more emphasis on treating mental disability than on the specific symptoms that legally define incompetence to stand trial. Since this appears to be inconsistent withJackson, a study was conducted to test whether a treatment that deals with the specific symptoms of incompetence to stand trial would be more effective. As predicted, 21 patients who received such treatment showed significantly more improvement on an assessment instrument than 20 patients who received the more common form of treatment. In addition, more patients in the experimental treatment group than in the standard treatment group were able to be recommended to the court as competent. Implications are discussed.     

Generality, continuity, and change in offending

A number of criminological theories make either implicit or explicit predictions about the empirical relationship between prior and future offending behavior. Some argue that time-stable characteristics such as criminal propensity should account for any positive correlation between past and future criminal behavior for all individuals. Others contend that the positive association between offending behavior at different points in time are partly causal and partly spurious. Still others anticipate that different patterns will emerge for different groups (distinguished by their ciminal propensity) of individuals. Using a longitudinal data set comprised of 848 training school releasees, we test various hypotheses emanating from these different theoretical perspectives. The results indicate that (1) both stability and change have causal implications for one's offending behavior and (2) with but one exception, these effects do not vary between high and low criminal propensity groups.     

Equipoise and the Criteria for Reasonable Action

Critics of clinical equipoise have long argued that it represents an overly permissive, and therefore morally unacceptable, mechanism for resolving the tensions inherent in clinical research. In particular, the equipoise requirement is often attacked on the grounds that it is not sufficiently responsive to the interests of individual patients. In this paper, we outline a view of equipoise that not only withstands a stronger version of this objection, which was recently articulated by Deborah Hellman, but also plays important roles in clarifying the discussion.     

Keeping the ‘Lady’ Safe: The Regulation of Femininity through Crime Prevention Literature

Rape and the fear of rape have been understood by numerous feminists as an ideological weapon used by men to subordinate women. This paper argues that this analysis of power is overly reductive. The omnipresent threat of rape for women encourages them to engage in multiple ‘safe-keeping’ acts which have come to be a performative condition of normative femininity. These restrictive bodily acts (not dressing in certain ways, avoiding certain public locales) promoted through some strands of rape prevention literature, are not merely a reaction to the reality of rape, rather, these advisory narratives unwittingly operate to install rape as a fixed reality. Rape prevention literature (re)produces gendered bodies – the vulnerable/indefensible feminine and the potent/unstoppable masculine – which does not disrupt the possibility of rape, more exactly, it makes rape seem evermore inevitable and unstoppable.     

The school context as a source of self-control

Researchers investigating Gottfredson and Hirschi's General Theory of Crime primarily concentrated their efforts on the relationship between an individual's self-control and involvement in crime and/or analogous behaviors. Much less research examined the potential sources of an individual's self-control. In this study, an argument was developed for the importance of exploring the contribution of the school context in the development of self-control within individuals. In particular, Gottfredson and Hirschi's position on this front was theoretically elaborated by including school/teacher socialization practices in a larger model of the development of self-control. Using data extracted from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, it was found that the effects of school socialization on self-control were significant net of parental socialization. In addition, the effects of school socialization varied across parenting and neighborhood contexts. The theoretical implications of this research, specifically as they relate to the development of self-control, are discussed.     

Judicial Impartiality and Independence in Divided Societies: An Empirical Analysis of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia‐Herzegovina

The role of constitutional courts in deeply divided societies is complicated by the danger that the salient societal cleavages may influence judicial decision‐making and, consequently, undermine judicial impartiality and independence. With reference to the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia‐Herzegovina, this article investigates the influence of ethno‐national affiliation on judicial behaviour and the extent to which variation in judicial tenure amplifies or dampens that influence. Based on a statistical analysis of an original dataset of the Court's decisions, we find that the judges do in fact divide predictably along ethno‐national lines, at least in certain types of cases, and that these divisions cannot be reduced to a residual loyalty to their appointing political parties. Contrary to some theoretical expectations, however, we find that long‐term tenure does little to dampen the influence of ethno‐national affiliation on judicial behaviour. Moreover, our findings suggest that this influence may actually increase as a judge acclimates to the dynamics of a divided court. We conclude by considering how alternative arrangements for the selection and tenure of judges might help to ameliorate this problem.