Is Fertility the Unspoken Issue in the Debate Between Liberal and Conservative Family Values?

In two recent books, Linda McClain, The Place of Families: Fostering Capacity, Equality, and Responsibility (2006), and James Q. Wilson, The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families (2002), lay out the respective positions in the opposing family values that divide the United States. Wilson maintains that family well-being rests on the foundation of a strong cultural commitment to marriage, while McClain articulates liberal feminist values that require equality within and among families. This article maintains that delayed childbearing, not marriage or equality, holds the key to the new middle-class morality and discusses the prospects for family law pragmatism in an era of values polarization.     

China's Power and Will: The PRC's Military Strength and Grand Strategy

China's international behavior exhibits elements of both threat and peaceful intentions. Greatly increased defense budgets, the acquisition for more advance weapons systems, and certain pronouncements of the leadership argue for the threat scenario. Beijing's efforts to enhance the PRC's soft power, its more active participation in international problem-solving activities, and certain pronouncements of other leaders can be taken as evidence for more peaceful intentions. Even assuming that the leadership's motives are not benign, a combination of domestic weaknesses and foreign resistance could thwart them. The future is not predictable.     

坚持不懈推进司法所建设 进一步打牢做好三项重点工作的基础

全国政法工作电视电话会议明确指出，要深入推进社会矛盾化解、社会管理创新、公正廉洁执法三项重点工作，并以此作为全面推进政法工作和队伍建设的活动载体，把政法工作和队伍建设提高到新水平。吴爱英部长在会议上强调，今年的司法行政工作要紧密围绕这三项重点工作，进一步加强法律服务、法律保障、法制宣传工作，进一步加强基层基础建设和队伍建设，深化司法行政体制和工作机制改革，努力提高司法行政工作专业化、规范化、法制化、信息化水平，为经济社会又好又快发展提供更加有力的法律服务和法律保障。     

证据与推论——兼论概率与似真性(英文)

今天的讲座和前四讲有一些不同。在前四讲中,我所分析的都是证据法的公认领域,试图说明我们何以能够通过运用各种分析工具来更深刻地理解它们。今天我不想讨论证据法的传统领域,而要讨论在美国和其他几个国家正在进行的一项重要研究工作,这涉及我们所称的司法证明的性质。该研究领域并不论及像传闻规则那样的证据法特定领域,而是关于证据法根基的探讨。     

Opening of the women's library,London

This article interrogates the ways in which post-feminism and third wave feminism are used interchangeably, both within the academy and in the media. As it identifies the ways in which third wave feminism seeks to define itself as a non-academic discourse, it points up the tensions implicit in the contemporary feminist project. It outlines such popular components of third wave feminism as girl culture, the grrrl movement and BUST magazine, before addressing the arguments concerning agency in such icons as Courtney Love, Madonna and the Spice Girls. Positing that the metonymic gap between the personal and the political allows post-feminism to be a viable alternative to feminism, it argues that the wave paradigm paralyses feminism, pitting generations against one another.     

NEGLECTED INFANTS IN FAMILY COURT

This paper applies the science of early childhood development to the question of neglect in infancy to offer best practice guidance to family law and child protection professionals charged with acting in their best interest. The paper discusses the challenges of presenting cases of infant neglect, particularly emotional neglect, to the court. Current science on the implications of neglect for brain development, and long term mental health are discussed. Recommendations for assessment, intervention and questions that should be addressed in court deliberations are outlined.     

Women negotiating heterosex: Implications for AIDS prevention

The AIDS epidemic has made it imperative that sexual behaviour be changed. This paper examines heterosexual negotiation, which will form the focus for behaviour change. The processes involved in such negotiation are little understood.Research was carried out using the method memory work, which generated and theorised data relating to women's past experiences in sexual encounters. The method, originated by Haug, provides a way to examine how sexuality is produced and reproduced through reflection and reconstruction of past experiences. Memories are analysed by examining gaps and absences, cliches and metaphors, in the search for the common understandings and taken-for-granted assumptions which set the boundaries within which encounters take place.The memories obtained can be partly understood in terms of three discourses documented by Hollway. These are the male sex drive discourse, the have/hold discourse, and the permissive discourse. The data may also be understood in relation to three permissible figures for women identified in Irigaray's analysis, namely virgin, wife-mother, and whore. The paper acknowledges that these theoretical perspectives are quite distinct, even contradictory, but nevertheless finds that each in its own way illuminates the data. It is shown that some common understandings underlying sexual encounters render negotiation not only impossible but largely unintelligible. The permissive discourse may possibly provide space for some negotiation, but the paper concludes that it is essential to develop a truly woman-centered discourse of sexuality out of which male sexuality can be problematised.     

INVESTING IN PEOPLE

Education and training may be the single most important elements of a national revitalization strategy. In spite of their importance, public policies which address the major issues in education and training do not exist for the most part. Where policies do exist, they are founded on incorrect premises or are made inappropriate by incompatible policies in other domains. This paper attempts to identify the problems and offers solutions to the issue of education and training.