The Legal Case File as Border Object: On Self‐reference and Other‐reference in Criminal Law

What do case files do? With help of an ethnographic study on the care, maintenance, and use of legal case files in a Dutch, inquisitorial context, we work through Latour's and Luhmann's conceptualizations of law. We understand these case files as enacting and performing both self‐reference and other‐reference. We coin the term border object to denote the way the legal case file becomes the nexus between two worlds it itself performatively produces: the world of ‘law itself’ on the one hand, and the ‘world out there’ on the other. As such, our discussion offers clues for a partial reconciliation of Latour's and Luhmann's conceptualizations of law: while Luhmann's insistence on other‐referential operations assist in showing how law forges an ‘epistemic relationship’ with the realities it seeks to judge, Latour's concentration on the materialities of epistemic practices assists in situating these other‐referential and self‐referential operations.     

Jealousy,intimate abusiveness,and intrusiveness

An examination of self-report scales of 160 men and 76 of their partners or former partners found significant correlations between jealousy and abusiveness (for coupled dyads) or intrusiveness (for separated dyads). Jealousy was related to borderline personality and to MCMI-II measures of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Rejection sensitivity leading to pathological acts, such as abusiveness and intrusiveness, is seen as originating in early insecure attachment and exposure to shaming experiences.     

Competency management and civil service professionalism in Dutch central government

Competency management has only recently been introduced into personnel management in Dutch central government. The decentralized nature of Dutch central government and its personnel management systems generates marked variation in the degree to which competency management is being applied across the Dutch civil service. The success or otherwise of competency management schemes in both government departments and the higher civil service in The Netherlands, the Senior Public Service, show mixed results. Although all departments have taken steps in the direction of competency management, a few well-developed programmes are in use. The competency management system of the Senior Public Service, then, serves as a basic tool for its management development programmes. Its aim is to enhance civil service professionalism among senior civil servants. The practical effects of competency management programmes, however, can be questioned. Because competency management links personnel development to pay and career decisions, it could well elicit strategic behaviour by staff members; at worst, it could run the risk of becoming a self-defeating initiative.     

Contradictory interests: Work, parents, and offspring in early modern Holland

The consistory notes of the Dutch Reformed Church (1573–1700) reveal conflicts over work between parents and children during the early modern period. Two issues that caused particular tension were the labor experience of future sons-in-law and the division of household tasks. Parents' concerns about the financial position of their future son-in-law were sincere and realistic. Skills definitely bettered the new family's chances to survive financially. Children were not expected to take care of their destitute parents nor were parents obliged to support their poverty-stricken married children. Power struggles between children and stepparents also resulted in conflicts over work. After a widowed parent remarried, children and stepparents had to redefine their roles in the new situation. The child who had assumed responsibilities when a parent died resisted a stepparent who took over those tasks. Although the cases presented may not represent everyday interactions between parents and children, they do provide insights into how work caused problems between parents and older children.     

Poisoning caused by a paint stripping agents containing dichloromethane]

It is widely known that inhalation of the solvent dichloromethane can lead to severe intoxication. We report on a fatal accident of a 29-year-old painter. He had to remove the old chlorocaoutchoucpaint of two overflow pools adjoining an empty swimming pool by sand-blasting. After obviously having finished his work in the first pool the painter was found dead, lying on the floor of the second pool. Later an almost empty 10-kg-canister of a paint stripper (macerating agent) the main component of which was dichloromethane was found in the car of the painter. Blood samples of the corpse measured by head space gas chromatography and electron capture detection showed dichloromethane levels in the range of 513-773 micrograms/ml.