The Middle Way: The Discourse of Planning in Britain,Australia and at the League in the Interwar Years*

Through an examination of speeches, articles and scholarly writing, this article traces the development of the idea of planning and the related doctrine of rationalization in Australia, Britain and at the League of Nations up to the Second World War. These terms denoted scientific control of social forces, an idea that emerged as the major response to interwar perceptions of crisis. Although rationalization and planning were viewed as potentially international in scope by the League's Economic Section, their treatment in Britain and Australia tended towards the provincial, with the rhetoric surrounding them progressively being tailored to suit local and imperial concerns and commitments. The defences of planning often relied on sentimental appeals to British character and traditions, although these same appeals were later used to undermine its rhetorical status.     

The possibility of an Asian monetary union drawing from the EMU experience

This academic exercise evaluates the possibility of formation of a monetary union within East Asia, with the European Monetary Union (EMU) providing a referential framework against which lessons and comparisons are drawn. The benefits and drawbacks to Asia of adopting such a union are discussed, and their relative magnitude weighed against each other by employing the theory of the Optimum Currency Area (OCA). Although studies under the OCA framework have not yielded irrefutable or definitive results on the economic sustainability of an Asian monetary union, it is concurred that such a union is as economically viable as the EMU. The political sentiments towards monetary unification in East Asia are also examined, and though leaders remain generally unreceptive to such an undertaking, it is receiving serious consideration as cooperative monetary efforts accelerate and integrative initiatives deepen across Asia. Attention is also given to the existing monetary union between Singapore and Brunei (MUBS) as it commands relevance in our analysis due to its residence within Asia itself, and its smooth functioning despite economic disparities between its two members. A gradualist approach towards East Asian monetary unification, whereby smaller monetary unions are first formed to be eventually merged to make up an East Asian-wide monetary union is also discussed.     

Perceived responsibility and the least of evils principle

In a 3×3×2 factorial experiment subjects were asked to make a series of judgments about a hypothetical defendant. Varied in theinvestigation were the coercive characteristics of the situation for the defendant, the amount of harm done to the victim, and the legitimate alternatives available to the defendant to meet the demands of coercion. Observers judged the actor harshly for performing an illegal action when a legitimate alternative was available and when the amount of harm to the victim exceeded the level of coercion used against thedefendant. However, the defendant was exonerated from blame and punishment when legitimate alternatives were not available and when coercio level exceeded harm level. The implications of the findings were discussed in relationship to both jury decision making and the attribution of responsibility literature.     

Intergenerational Transmission: Physical Abuse and Violent vs. Nonviolent Criminal Outcomes

In this paper we test several specific hypotheses derived from the intergenerational transmission of violence thesis to see if exposure to physical abuse has a special role in the etiology of violence. We employ a systematic statistical approach using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Our findings suggest that a history of physical abuse is strongly associated with frequency of violence, but the association is not specific to violence and is mediated by their common association with nonviolent offending. Further, the association between physical abuse and violence is not significantly larger than the association between neglect or sexual abuse and violence. In summary, the data suggest that the association between abuse and violence is not unique to physical abuse and that the impact of physical abuse is not specific to violent behavior.