Justice Excused: The Deployment of Law in Everyday Political Encounters

This paper examines the use of legal claims by government officials and citizens in everyday political encounters involving civil rights. Data come from 580 letters sent to the federal government between 1939 and 1941, and from the replies sent by the newly formed Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department. In almost every case, the department refused to intervene and explained its refusal by making legal claims about federal jurisdiction. These legal claims masked the department's discretionary choices and thus helped depoliticize the encounters. Surprisingly, however, a substantial number of letter writers challenged the government's legal claims by deploying their own legal and moral arguments. The willingness of these citizens to challenge official legal pronouncements cautions against making broad generalizations about the capacity of ordinary people to respond effectively when government officials deploy legal rhetoric.     

Assessing Asylum Claims in Africa: Missing or Meeting Standards?

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Appellate and trial court caseload growth: A pooled time-series-cross-section analysis

This is an econometric study of factors behind filing growth since 1970 in state trial courts and, especially, appellate courts. The model posits two categories of variables: those affecting the supply of disputes and those affecting the costbenefit considerations of potential litigants. The study uses a pooled time-seriescross-section design and a fixed-effects regression procedure. The overall conclusion is that factors determining the supply of disputes overwhelm other factors entered in the model. At the trial level, economic conditions 2 years earlier strongly affect civil filings, and crime rates for the current and prior year have moderate impacts on criminal filings. The output capacity of trial courts, measured by the number of judges, has a strong impact on appeals. Economic conditions and trial court filings influence civil appeals in later years, and prison commitments influence criminal appeals. The great majority of cost-benefit factors, such as simplification of appellate procedure and interest-rate differentials, showed little or no impact on appeals.In view of the rising emphasis on replicability (Dewaldet al., 1986; Campbell, 1986; Cook and Zarkin, 1986), we stress that the data for this research are available from the Inter-Univarsity consortium for Political and Social Research, and we will provide copies of the computer printouts giving the programs (that apply SAS) and the results. In addition, Court Studies periodically updates the data set, and it will supply current data upon request.     

Narcotics use,property crime,and dealing: Structural dynamics across the addiction career

Structural-equation modeling is used to test causal relationships between narcotics addiction and the associated cost-support activities of property crime and drug dealing across four critical periods of the addiction career. It is argued that structural-equation methodology yields greater insight into the causal dynamics of such activities than the typical methodologies of comparing means and proportions. Using structural coefficients of longitudinal models to infer causal relationships and stability, it is found that (1) dealing is often a predictor of future narcotics involvement; (2) narcotics use, property crime, and dealing are mutually interrelated during periods of elevated narcotics use and are not related during periods of reduced narcotics use; (3) dealing appears to be the most stable of the three variables, although narcotics use and property crime show appreciable stability as well; and (4) property crime and dealing appear to be inversely related to a moderate extent. The relevance of these findings to the understanding of the economic behavior of addicts during the initiation and cessation of addiction, relapse, and maturing out is discussed.     

Partnership Through Pragmatism

The Sino-European relationship has been relatively harmonious for approximately 30 years since the end of the Cold War.Differing political ideologies and some disagreements have not reduced either side’s appetite for cooperation.Last year was difficult and intense in comparison to previous ones,due to the European Parliament’s non-ratification of a comprehensive EU-China investment agreement,frictions regarding contradictory interpretations of human rights.