What Does Corruption Mean in a Democracy?

Despite a growing interest in corruption, the topic has been absent from democratic theory. The reason is not a lack of normative issues, but rather missing links between the concepts of corruption and democracy. With few exceptions, political corruption has been conceived as departures by public officials from public rules, norms, and laws for the sake of private gain. Such a conception works well within bureaucratic contexts with well-defined offices, purposes, and norms of conduct. But it inadequately identifies corruption in political contexts, that is, the processes of contestation through which common purposes, norms, and rules are created. Corruption in a democracy, I argue, involves duplicitous violations of the democratic norm of inclusion. Such a conception encompasses the standard conception while complementing it with attention to the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within democratic politics. By distinguishing the meanings of inclusion and exclusion within the many institutions, spheres, and associations that constitute contemporary democracies, I provide a democratic conception of corruption with a number of implications. The most important of these is that corruption in a democracy usually indicates a deficit of democracy.     

Race, Sex, and Clarence Thomas: Representation Change in the EEOC

The theory of representative bureaucracy concerns whether bureaucracy mirrors the origins and values of the population and, if so, whether such representation makes any difference. This article extends Hindera's examination of active bureaucratic representation within the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to determine the effect of introducing new goals (disability discrimination) and priorities (sexual harassment) on the EEOC's representational patterns. Using data from the late 1980s and late 1990s, we find the extent of active representation of African Americans declined. Although the EEOC is now pursuing more cases of sex discrimination, no evidence of active representation exists for women in EEOC district offices.     

Temporal Order and Causal Inference

Measures of change in pairs of attitudinal variables can provideimportant insights into the structure of the political beliefsystems of mass publics. Panel data reveal evidence of the greatercentrality of some idea elements rather than others in the contextof short-term dynamic constraint. Specification of the theoreticallyrelevant voter attributes makes it possible to test for expectedstructural differences connecting policy related predispositionsand policy preferences; specification also makes it possibleto test propositions involving the reciprocal effects of attitudesand emerging vote preferences. Some of the more helpful specificationsdisclose the extent to which population heterogeneity producesa blurred image of relationships when analysis is based on thetotal electorate rather than limited to voters or subsets ofvoters specified by theoretical criteria.     

Crime scene analysis and the escalation of violence in serial rape.

The current study examines the crime scene behavior manifest by 108 serial rapists responsible for the perpetration of 565 rapes across various cities within the US. The goal of the current study is to identify which aspects of crime scene behavior reported to law enforcement by the victim are most useful in predicting, early in a series of offenses, which rapists are most likely to escalate into higher and, at times, life threatening levels of violence. Using 58 scales that quantify the verbal, physical, and sexual behavior manifest by a rapist in his interaction with his victim during his first reported rape and 36 modal variables that summarized approach, timing, demographics, and weapon usage across the series of rapes, the study attempts to differentiate between those rapists who escalate in their use of blunt force (Increasers) from those who do not (Non-Increasers). A logistic regression indicates that rapists who are white rather than of minority status and who, at the time of their first reported rape, rape their victims for longer periods of time and use more profanity are more likely to escalate in their level of blunt force than those rapists who do not exhibit these behaviors. The relevance of this type of predictive framework for law enforcement in its attempts to prioritize particular investigations is discussed.     

A Meta-Analytic Review of Pretrial Research: Risk Assessment,Bond Type,and Interventions

This study makes an attempt to aggregate what we currently know about pretrial decision making and jurisdictions’ responses to the pretrial population. This meta-analysis began with an exhaustive search for pretrial research which may have revealed the most prominent finding—that being a distinct lack of research that utilizes any amount of methodological rigor. The findings of this meta-analysis hold several policy implications for the field of pretrial research and practice. First, future research studies in the field of pretrial need to focus on methodological quality and rigor. Second, it appears that some conditions of release may be related to a defendant’s likelihood of failure to appear. Third, it appears that none of the conditions of release reviewed in this study are related to a defendant’s likelihood of re-arrest while on pretrial release. Finally, it is recommended that the field of pretrial develop a sound research agenda and execute that plan with rigor, transparency, and an approach that favors the continued cumulation of knowledge. Strong conclusions about the impact of pretrial release conditions cannot be made as the quality of the pretrial research, overall, is weak at best.     

‘Customary internet-ional law’: Creating a body of customary law for cyberspace. Part 2: Applying custom as law to the Internet infrastructure

The shift in socio-economic transactions from real space to cyberspace through the emergence of electronic communications and digital formats has led to a disjuncture between the law and practices relating to electronic transactions. The speed at which information technology has developed require a faster, more reactive and automatic response from the law that is not currently met by the existing law-making framework. This paper suggests the development of special rules to enable Internet custom to form legal norms to fulfill this objective. In Part 2 of this article, I will construct the customary rules to Internet law-making that are applicable to electronic transactions by adapting customary international law rules; apply the suggested rules for determining customary Internet norms and identify some existing practices that may amount to established norms on the Internet, specifically practices relating to the Internet Infrastructure and Electronic Contracting.     

A Review of Evidence-Based Biopsychosocial Laws Governing the Treatment of Pain and Injury

The impact of scientific findings on medical, psychological, and legal concepts has led to the adoption of laws and regulations that do not easily fit into the established legal categories of medical law or mental health law. Instead, this convergence of forces has resulted in laws and regulations mandating biopsychosocial treatment guidelines, where both medical and psychological cares are integrated within the framework of a single paradigm. Laws and regulations of this type have been adopted by a number of US states and Canadian provinces, and could be considered to represent a new category, for which we offer the term “biopsychosocial law.” Biopsychosocial laws currently pertain to medical treatment guidelines for workers’ compensation, a medical treatment system noted for high costs, high levels of litigation, and psychological involvement. There are a number of examples of biopsychosocial laws, but the most noteworthy are based on guidelines developed by the Colorado Division of Workers’ Compensation, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the Work Loss Data Institute, and The Reed Group. These guidelines differ significantly with regard to features, conditions covered, and strength of evidence basis. However, all of these guideline systems were developed with the intent of providing good care while controlling costs, are evidence based, integrate the practice of medicine and psychology, and are legally mandated in certain jurisdictions. Taken together, these guidelines represent a growing convergence of scientific evidence, professional society positions, payor policies, and legal regulations. These forces are propelling a broad societal shift away from Cartesian assumptions that the body and mind are separate, and toward a biopsychosocial paradigm for the treatment of injury and illness.     

Retracted: A Legacy of Lynchings: Perceived Black Criminal Threat Among Whites

This article examines the legacy of lynchings on contemporary whites' views of blacks as criminal threats. To this end, it draws on prior literature on racial animus to demonstrate the sustained influence of lynching on contemporary America. We hypothesize that one long‐standing legacy of lynchings is its influence in shaping views about blacks as criminals and, in particular, as a group that poses a criminal threat to whites. In addition, we hypothesize that this effect will be greater among whites who live in areas in America where socioeconomic disadvantage and political conservatism are greater. Results of multilevel analyses of lynching and survey data on whites' views toward blacks support the hypotheses. In turn, they underscore the salience of understanding historical forces, including the legacy of lynchings that influence contemporary views of blacks, criminals, and punishment policies.