War,Aggression and Self‐Defence

In the 56 years of multinational oil corporations’ operations in Nigeria, issues relating to corporate responsibility and accountability have posed a great challenge in institutionalising robust environmental management standards, and getting the MNCs to account. In spite of the developments in the area of environmental management and law, victims of environmental degradation traceable to and associated with oil and gas activities in the Niger-Delta face a great many uncertainties in their quest for justice. This article examines the issues relating to corporate accountability in the Nigerian oil and gas sector, and the components of the uncertainties sustaining them.     

Public interest law revisited 1

This article undertakes a detailed examination of the practical desirability and legal validity of arbitration clauses under the Nigerian legal regime. This involves navigating through provisions of the relevant Rent Control and Recovery of Premises Law. Areas of incompatibility (including those bordering on jurisdiction, penal provisions and enforcement of awards) between the latter law and arbitration clauses are then discussed. Finally, recommendations are made to the effect that the Rent Control and Recovery of Premises Law should be amended.     

Against the Current: Social Pathways and the Pursuit of Enduring Change

Radical innovations and practices frequentlyfind themselves in an inhospitable environment,struggling against the gravitational force ofdominant norms, practices and relations. Thispaper explores the problems radical changeconfronts in its attempts to become sustainable.Against the postmodern valorisation of thetransient and ephemeral, the paper argues forthe importance of routinisation and repetitionin the process of creating and sustainingchange. A metaphor of social pathways isdeveloped to explore how new routines arecreated through de jure (governance) andde facto (usage) means. The paper arguesthat, in contrast to governance, the emergentdurability generated by usage enables routinesto outlive their conditions of existence.At the same time, routines at odds with theirsocial and institutional environment tend overtime to disappear. The second half of the paperdraws on four British attempts to introduce newpathways: lesbian and gay local governmentinitiatives, Conservative education reforms,Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp and LocalExchange Trading Systems (LETS). Through theseexamples, the paper reflects on attempts tocreate more conducive environments, and some ofthe difficulties this generates.     

The Importance of Trust in Government for Public Administration: The Case of Zoning

Many scholars argue that citizens with higher levels of political trust are more likely to grant bureaucratic discretion to public administrators than citizens with lower levels of trust. Trust, therefore, can relieve the tension between managerial flexibility and political accountability in the modern administrative state. Unfortunately, there is little empirical evidence showing that trust is actually associated with citizens' willingness to cede policy-making power to government. This article tests theories about political trust and citizen competence using the case of zoning. Trust in local government is found to be an important predictor of support for zoning, but trust in state government and trust in national government have no effect. These findings suggest that trust affects policy choice and helps determine how much power citizens grant to local administrators.     

New Thinking in Financial Market Regulation: Dismantling the “Split Share Structure” of Chinese Listed Companies

China’s distinctive set of stock market institutions was introduced in 1990. Among the characteristics of China’s stock markets was a strict separation between different categories of investors. Listed companies issued different categories of shares to state shareholders, domestic corporate investors, domestic individual investors, and foreign investors. By 2005, the barriers segmenting China’s stock market had been significantly relaxed. Domestic investors were allowed to purchase shares previously reserved for foreign investors, and approved foreign investors were allowed to purchase shares previously earmarked for domestic individuals. Nevertheless, a crucial barrier remained. An ongoing debate among Chinese academics, investors, and policy makers focused on how to resolve the “split share structure” (guquan fen zhi) in which a minority of shares were tradable while the majority of shares (namely those reserved for domestic corporate and state shareholders) were excluded from the market. The split share structure was blamed for distorting prices and inhibiting development of the stock market. This paper analyzes the policy adopted to address the split share structure. To what extent does this policy change reflect new thinking on the part of China’s market regulators? This paper argues that analysis of policy making in China’s capital markets can help to distinguish between two competing assessments of China’s political economy. One account sees China pursuing a gradualist strategy, slowly but steadily expanding the role of markets. Another account sees China trapped in a semi-marketized and increasingly corrupt development pattern. The implementation of the split share structure reform program provides evidence to support the gradualist account of incremental, but persistent, reform. Mary Comerford Cooper is an assistant professor in political science at the Ohio State University. Her recent research focuses on the politics of financial markets in China and Taiwan. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Comparative Politics Research Workshop/ Globalization, Institutions and Economic Security Workshop at Ohio State University in May 2007, and at the annual meeting of the Association for Chinese Political Studies in July 2007. I benefited greatly from the constructive and insightful comments of Bj?rn Alpermann, Melanie Barr, Jean-Marc Blanchard, Sarah Brooks, Joseph Fewsmith, Sujian Guo, Dane Imerman, Ryan Kennedy, Marcus Kurtz, Xiaoyu Pu, James Reilly, Alex Thompson, Daniel Verdier, Jianwei Wang, Alan Wiseman, Bin Yu, and an anonymous reviewer. I am also grateful for Lan Hu’s exceptional research assistance. All remaining flaws are purely my own.     

College Students’ Online Pornography Use: Contrasting General and Specific Structural Variables with Social Learning Variables

This research partially tests Akers’ social structure-social learning theory (SSSL). The data was collected online through a self-report questionnaire and nearly half (48.8%) of the sample of 812 college students reported visiting a porn site. To better understand this self-report behavior, bivariate correlations and three binary logistic regression analyses were conducted. In Model A, participants who were male, Hispanic, had more years in college, and more inclined toward homosexuality had an increased likelihood of visiting a porn site. In Model B, again, gender, ethnicity, year in school, and the sexuality scale were significant predictors. However, race appeared as significant for the first time along with number of sex partners, and frequency of masturbation, indicating that participants who were Black, had a greater number of sexual partners, and masturbated more frequently had an increased likelihood of visiting porn site. As with the first and second models, gender, race, sexuality scale, and frequency of masturbation were significant predictors in Model C. Additionally, differential peer association, differential reinforcement, and definitions favorable were significant, indicating that participants who had greater association with peers who viewed porn, who had observed someone watching porn and decided to mimic their behaviors, and who had defined visiting porn sites favorably had an increased likelihood of visiting a porn site. Overall, Akers’ SLT variables fully mediated ethnicity, year in school, and number of sex partners, but it only partially mediated gender, race, and sexuality scale.