Social Correlates of Party System Demise and Populist Resurgence in Venezuela

Considering its strong, highly institutionalized two-party system, Venezuela was surely one of the least likely countries in Latin America to experience a party system breakdown and populist resurgence. That traditional party system nevertheless was founded on a mixture of corporatist and clientelist linkages to social actors that were unable to withstand the secular decline of the oil economy and several aborted attempts at market liberalization. Successive administrations led by the dominant parties failed to reverse the economic slide, with devastating consequences for the party system as a whole. The party system ultimately rested on insecure structural foundations; and when its social moorings crumbled in the 1990s, the populist movement of Hugo Chávez emerged to fill the political void. This populist resurgence both capitalized on and accelerated the institutional decomposition of the old order.     

What's 'Social' about 'Social Capital'?

Debates around the concept of social capital are often also debates about the level at which social capital can be abstracted for analytical use. Yet while many theorists and commentators involved in these debates implicitly discuss the issue of abstraction it is rarely done explicitly. In this article I attempt to overcome this missing link in the social capital literature by theoretically examining the 'social' in 'social capital' through interconnected levels of abstraction. In particular, and at a high level of abstraction, I argue that social capital is underpinned by a contradictory relationship associated with what I term as 'isolated reciprocity'. At lower levels of abstraction I show how isolated reciprocity poses problems for the establishment of 'good' social capital in the UK.     

Data transfer to third countries: Transfers of personal data to third countries: the role of binding corporate rules

This article explores an EU Working Party report that examines the role of contractual solutions, such as binding corporate rules, on transfers of personal data to third countries.     

Not everyone strongly supports the death penalty: Assessing weakly-held attitudes about capital punishment

Polls exploring attitudes toward the death penalty typically impose a simple, dichotomous response structure: respondents are asked whether or not they support or oppose capital punishment. This polling strategy deprives respondents of expressing an indication of the strength of their opinions. When asked whether they support (or oppose) the death penalty “strongly” or “not strongly,” significant proportions of respondents select the latter category. This suggests that many proponents and opponents of the death penalty have weakly-held views regarding the issue. These respondents are of great interest because they are the individuals most likely to change their views. This article analyzes responses to two national surveys in order to explore the variables that differentiate respondents with strongly-held and weakly-held views. A theoretical account is offered to explain why some people have weakly-held views on this critical social issue.     

Why Victims of Intimate Partner Violence Withdraw Protection Orders

While reasons for returning to abusive partners have received considerable attention in research on intimate partner violence, few studies have examined the reasons why victims fail to follow through with the protection order process, regardless of whether or not they return to their abusive partners. Fifty-five women who were in the process of withdrawing a protection order against a male intimate partner were surveyed in the present analysis. Recognizing that reasons given for withdrawing a protection order often follow common themes, individual responses were organized into several “domains,” or groupings of such reasons. The most commonly cited domain involved a “concrete change” on behalf of the victim or defendant, which made the protection order less necessary in the victim’s view. This was closely followed by the domain addressing emotional attachment to the abuser. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.     

‘First Among Equals’: Breaking the Deadlock in Parental and Sibling Funeral Disputes

Family disputes over a loved one’s funeral arrangements are increasingly frequent, with courts intervening if consensus cannot be reached. In many common law jurisdictions, the law favours the executor where the deceased made a will and the highest ranking next-of-kin where the deceased died intestate. But what if two or more people fall within the same kinship tier and have equal rights to determine the deceased’s fate—who has the final say? Adopting a uniquely comparative approach which draws the authorities together for the first time, this article analyses the factors devised by judges in Australia and England, and contrasts them with the discrete statutory tests adopted in parts of Canada and the United States. Having evaluated the various approaches, the article proposes its own hybrid legal solution for breaking the deadlock in so-called ‘equal kinship disputes’.     

Frozen Corpses and Feuding Parents: Re JS (Disposal of Body)

In October 2016, a dying teenager won the legal right to have her remains cryogenically frozen and stored indefinitely in an American clinic. The cryonics aspect was novel, posing questions around the legality of this particular method of corpse ‘disposal’ in the UK and the processes involved. More significantly, the case raises other substantive legal issues around the fate of the dead, including the status of funeral instructions under English law, and how courts adjudicate parental disputes over the funeral arrangements for a dead child.