Anatomy of the Rise and Fall of a Price-Fixing Conspiracy: Auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's

The Sotheby's–Christie's price-fixing scandal that endedin the public trial of Alfred Taubman provides a unique windowon a number of key economic and antitrust policy issues. Thetrial provided detailed evidence as to how the price-fixingworked, and the economic conditions under which it was startedand began to fall apart. The role of the amnesty program wasimportant to the case, and does not appear to have had a rolein the cartel's enforcement of price-fixing or the cartel'sdemise. The outcome of the case also provides evidence on theauction process used to choose the lead counsel for the civilsettlement. Finally, though buyers received the bulk of thedamages, a straightforward application of the economic theoryof auctions shows that it is unlikely that successful buyersas a group were injured.     

The Pursuit of Equality in Public Administration

Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell, Fairness versus Welfare
Samuel Leiter and William M. Leiter, Affirmative Action in Antidiscrimination Law and Policy: An Overview and Synthesis
Stephen L. Ross and John Yinger, The Color of Credit: Mortgage Discrimination, Research Methodology, and Fair-Lending Enforcement     

Reforming Global Sport: Hybridity and the Challenges of Pursuing Transparency

In light of recent controversies in global sport, this article surveys the challenges of pursuing transparency in this particular domain of governance. Although corruption in sport is attracting more scholarly attention, there remains little sociolegal research that reflects critically on corporate governance in sport and its implications. This article outlines current calls for greater transparency in global sport and considers how capitalistic underpinnings and distinct hybrid arrangements complicate the task of transparency. It concludes by reflecting on how insights from studies of regulatory capitalism can inform alternative approaches to transparency and accountability in global sport.     

Impact of procedural factors on perceived justice in divorce settlements

We used a decision-making conceptual framework from family resource management combined with procedural justice frameworks from social psychology to (i) articulate the elements and rules of procedural fairness, (ii) develop a theoretical organization and code to include procedural fairness principles as applied to legal decision processes in divorce, and (iii) describe the perceptions of divorcing parties about the violations of procedural fairness principles in their own divorce process. Procedural fairness principles included accuracy, consistency, ethicality, bias suppression, correctability, and representativeness. Results of qualitative data analyses were consistent with experimental studies in that divorced people were concerned with fair procedures and particularly with violations of the principles of ethicality, consistency, accuracy, and representativeness.     

Central Governing Incapacity and the Weakness of Political Parties: Russian Democracy in Disarray

Political parties can be an important mechanism by which tobetter integrate states in the developing world. Despite this,in Russia parties continue to penetrate provincial politicsonly weakly and thus do not help to integrate the state andenhance its abilities to govern in the periphery by extension.Drawing on evidence of weak central-state capacity to governin the Russian provinces and correspondingly weak politicalparty penetration, emergent political and economic actors havelittle interest in building political parties and increasingstate integration and capacity as a result. The article concludeswith a discussion of the implications of the argument and analysisfor the future of Russian political and economic development.     

Elimination of Bioweapons Agents from Forensic Samples During Extraction of Human DNA

Collection of DNA for genetic profiling is a powerful means for the identification of individuals responsible for crimes and terrorist acts. Biologic hazards, such as bacteria, endospores, toxins, and viruses, could contaminate sites of terrorist activities and thus could be present in samples collected for profiling. The fate of these hazards during DNA isolation has not been thoroughly examined. Our goals were to determine whether the DNA extraction process used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police eliminates or neutralizes these agents and if not, to establish methods that render samples safe without compromising the human DNA. Our results show that bacteria, viruses, and toxins were reduced to undetectable levels during DNA extraction, but endospores remained viable. Filtration of samples after DNA isolation eliminated viable spores from the samples but left DNA intact. We also demonstrated that contamination of samples with some bacteria, endospores, and toxins for longer than 1 h compromised the ability to complete genetic profiling.     

Conjoint Behavioral Consultation: Implementing a Tiered Home–School Partnership Model to Promote School Readiness

An ecological perspective to school readiness focuses on child and family readiness by enhancing the developmental contexts and relationships within which children reside (e.g., home environment, parent–child relationship, home–school relationships). The Getting Ready intervention is an ecological, relationally based, tiered intervention providing both universal and intensive services to children and families to promote child and family school readiness. Intensive level consultation services were provided via Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC; Sheridan & Kratochwill, 1992 Sheridan , S. M. , & Kratochwill , T. R. ( 1992 ). Behavioral parent-teacher consultation: Conceptual and research considerations . Journal of School Psychology , 30 , 117 – 139 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2008 Sheridan , S. M. , & Kratochwill , T. R. ( 2008 ). Conjoint behavioral consultation: Promoting family-school connections and interventions () , 2nd ed. . New York , NY : Springer . [Google Scholar]). The purpose of this article is to describe the implementation and effects of CBC within the Getting Ready intervention to promote child and family school readiness. Keys to successful implementation of the CBC intervention and issues needing further investigation are discussed.     

Incurable Sex Offenders, Lousy Judges & The Media: Moral Panic Sustenance in the Age of New Media

There is consensus that since the 1990s, we have experienced a spike in public concern over sexual offenders. Analyzing this concern as a moral panic, this paper argues that national television coverage, as it picks up local news, adds heat to the fire by re-naming the villain as an inadequate judicial system. This process helps to sustain a moral panic, while narrowing the available discourse about the nature of appropriate punishment. Drawing upon a well-publicized example of a media event in Vermont, this paper extends the theory of moral panics to add another stage to the process—a stage presented by the advent of cable news programming, the relationship between local and national media, and the explosion of blogs. In order for a panic to sustain over an extended time period, the rhetoric about it must transform. In particular, the claimsmaking about the nature of the problem must evolve. In particular, the panic has evolved from sex offenders as folk devils to an attack on judicial discretion. The development of the outcry over judicial discretion was due, in part, to media distortion of the case. I will thus trace the trajectory of this one case to demonstrate the role of the media in shaping and sustaining the panic.