US Travel Writer E. G. Squier and the Construction of Racialised Geographies in Nineteenth Century Honduras

This article examines the ideological foundations of American diplomat Ephraim George Squier's Notes on Central America (1855), and its effect on the formation of Honduran identity. I detail the type of racial constructions and judgments Squier made of the distinct ethnic populations, and contextualise them within the nineteenth‐century transnational debate on the origins of mankind and the surge of imperialism. I also argue that Squier's writings played a role in the employment of a series of state‐initiated civilising projects and legislative actions that clearly demonstrate how Honduras was defined both racially and spatially.     

On The Reasonable in Law

Abstract. In practical reasoning, reasonableness - as opposed to rationality - is an important concept. This paper explores the notion of reasonableness as applied exclusively to legal decisions. Conflicting values or legal requirements can make rationally deduced solutions unattainable, and may call for criteria of reasonableness, Conflicting values must be weighed, and weighed against each other, in search of a point of equilibrium between them. Legal cases are more or less difficult to solve, depending on the difficulty of finding a unique optimal equilibrium. The relevance of factual and ideal consensus for the determination of a reasonable legal decision is underlined. Finally, a definition of "reasonable legal decision" is proposed.     

Permissions, Principles and Rights. A Paper on Statements Expressing Constitutional Liberties

Abstract. In the first part of the paper the authors analyze how the distinction between mandatory rules, principles in the strict sense and policies can be understood in structural terms and in terms of reason for action. In the second part, they attempt to clarify which kind of legal provisions embrace constitutional statements recognizing liberty rights are.     

Histories and Memories in the Organisation and Struggles of the Santiago II Neighbourhood of El Alto,Bolivia

This article analyses how relocated miners in the Santiago II neighbourhood of El Alto reframed their histories and their memories of struggle and organisation in the mining camps. It focuses on the ways in which residents organised the neighbourhood and how these histories and memories rose to the political surface during the time of crisis in October 2003.     

VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE … BUT HOW? A DECISION‐MAKING PERSPECTIVE ON THE VICTIM–OFFENDER OVERLAP*

This study applied a decision‐making perspective to examine the causal mechanisms underlying the relation between violent victimization and offending. We theorized that having been victimized affects an individual's appraisal of subsequent potentially conflictive situations in such a way that victims become more attuned toward the benefits of violence perpetration than toward its costs. Furthermore, we argued that this altered appraisal mediates the relation between violent victimization and violent offending. We tested these hypotheses by using data from the Zurich Project on the Social Development of Children and Youths, a longitudinal study of Swiss youth (N = 1,013; 11–15 years of age). In line with expectations, path analysis results showed that prior victimization influenced the appraisal of decision‐making situations that, in turn, predicted subsequent self‐reported violent offending. Importantly, these mediation effects held when controlling for a variety of time‐stable factors, such as self‐control and risky activities, as well as prior victimization and delinquency. Implications for research and theorizing on the victim–offender overlap are elaborated in the discussion.     

The Purposes of Legal Punishment

There is a vast literature on the meanings of legal penalties. However, we lack a theory that explains them according to the formation of the modern state. Oakeshott's theory can help explain this phenomenon, leading to an attempt of the individual to take over as many powers of the state as possible. Thus, Kant's and Smith's retributivism is the most consistent of all those theories. Nevertheless, the preventive and resocializing theory of Bentham succeeded eventually. But is this a liberal theory? We contrast the explanations of H.L.A. Hart and Frederick Rosen in order to lay the groundwork for a liberal theory of the meaning of legal sanctions.     

Financial Markets Must Not Return to "Bad Old Ways"

Thanks to the draining effects of the Iraq war and the financial meltdown emanating from Wall Street, a powershift away from American dominance is taking place. Caught between a rising China and an America in relative decline, the new leadership in Japan is recalibrating its post-World War II relationships. The G-20 has usurped the role once played by the G-8 as the governing committee of globalization. And the symbiotic coupling of "Chimerica", born out of the credit bubble built up over the past two decades, is being put to the test.
In this section, the new prime minister of Japan, the president of the European Union, the president of Brazil and a leading economic historian assess these shifts.