Fairness in Animals: Where to from Here?

In the last decade, there has been an explosion of work investigating non-human species?? behavior as it relates to the human sense of fairness and justice. This research has provided a much needed evolutionary perspective on humans, and highlighted ways in which humans?? behavior is both similar to and different from that of other species. In this concluding paper, we outline the major threads of the work highlighted in this and the previous special issues of Social Justice Research and provide thoughts on future directions for the field. This is a very exciting time in our exploration of the evolution of human justice and fairness, and we eagerly await the developments of the next decade.     

The black chamber in the Dutch republic and the seven years' war, 1751-63

Using mainly primary sources, this article looks first at the complicated framework of the Dutch state and its foreign policy during the period under investigation, tracing the roots of the Black Chamber and its first results with regard to the Prussian codes. It then attempts to explain how and why the first French codes were broken and shows under what conditions the Black Chamber acquired permanent status. Finally the article investigates the scope and limits of its success.     

On the economic theory of interest groups: Towards a group frame of reference in political economics

This paper evaluates the development of the economic theory of interest groups. Although there is important progress, many substantial lacunae in our knowledge exist. I argue that part of the problem is the way Public Choice theory developed. Methodological individualism has led to an overindividualized ('a- social') view of human behavior. Furthermore, the importance of imperfect information has been underexposed. Acknowledging the essentially social character of human behavior and the lack of information leads to the conclusion that a more prominent place should be given to the role of social groups. A shift towards a “group frame of reference” is advocated.     

Power to the legal professionals: Is there an Americanization of European law?

Twelve years ago, Robert Kagan asked “Should Europe worry about adversarial legalism?” He answered this question with a qualified “no,” and identified a number of sources of resistance to such a trend. More recently, he broadened the issue in this journal by asking whether European countries experience an “Americanization” of their legal systems. The articles in this Symposium on the Americanization of European Law all revisit that question. The present article introduces the topic, discusses the elements that make up adversarial legalism, and summarizes and compares the findings of the articles in the Symposium. The articles find an increase in one dimension of adversarial legalism, namely, more legalism, that is, more litigation, more formalism, and more verdicts interfering with politics, but hardly any increase in adversarialism. Tenacious pre‐existing national legal and political cultures and institutions resist a further move in the direction of American style adversarial legalism. The mix of more litigation, more legalism, and more politicization, overlaid on the pre‐existing hierarchic authority of courts and legal functionaries has, however, strengthened the societal and political power of the judiciary vis‐à‐vis other powers. A professional elite is increasingly making the political choices that in a democratic society ought to be made by democratic representatives. Perhaps Europe should worry about this.     

Parental Smoking-specific Communication,Adolescents’ Smoking Behavior and Friendship Selection

In this study, we investigated whether parental smoking-specific communication is related to adolescents’ friendship-selection processes. Furthermore, we investigated whether adolescents and their best friends influence each other over time, and what role parents play in this process. In the present study we used data from the Family and Health project in which at baseline 428 full families participated. In this 2-year, three-wave longitudinal study data were available from fathers, mothers, early adolescents (aged M = 13.4 years, SD = .50), and middle adolescents (aged M = 15.2 years, SD = .60). The majority of the participating adolescents were of Dutch origin (>95%). There was an almost equal distribution of boys and girls, and adolescents with lower, middle, and higher educational levels were equally represented. Analyses were conducted by means of Structural Equation Modeling. Results demonstrate that a high quality of the smoking-specific communication is related to a lower likelihood of adolescent smoking, whereas the frequency is positively associated with adolescent smoking. Both the quality and frequency of parental smoking-specific communication were related to adolescents’ selective affiliation with (non-)smoking friends. The findings suggest that parental smoking-specific communication is associated with adolescent smoking directly but also indirectly by influencing the friends the adolescents will associate with.

Personality disorders in a sample of paraphilic and nonparaphilic child molesters: a comparative study

This article renders the results of research that investigated personality disorders in a sample of paraphilic and nonparaphilic child molesters. The sample contained 36 paraphilic child molesters and a matched comparison group of 34 nonparaphilic child molesters. The analyses of the research results show that four personality disorders discriminate between both groups. Only the obsessive-compulsive personality disorder contributes significantly to the explanation of paraphilic child molestation. This result also contributes to the development and differentiation of the treatment of paraphilia-related disorders. For several child molesters, psychological approaches to the treatment of sexual offending (e.g., cognitive-behavioral treatment, psychotherapy in general) are limited and cannot be expected to immediately reduce risk. Interest has been expressed in medical approaches to reduce recidivism, in combination with psychotherapy.     

Trends and Developments in Program Evaluation in General and Criminal Justice Programs in Particular

The paper first describes general trends in evaluation in (mainly) western societies. Why is evaluation growing, what are the characteristics of this ‘growth industry’ and what developments are occurring outside western societies? Trends in the evaluation of criminal justice programs in the USA, the UK and the Netherlands are then discussed. Two important developments are therafter highlighted: experimental evaluations and theory-driven evaluations. Both approaches are discussed, and some pros and cons are listed. Finally, the paper outlines some challenges for future work in the evaluation of criminal justice programs, stressing the importance of combining good designs with both program and social science theories.     

Landlords,sharecroppers and agricultural labourers: Changing labour relations in Rural Java

It has mainlv been the large landowners in Gondosari who have been in a position to take advantage of the modernisasi of agricultural production. Long before the seventies they enjoyed a dominant economic, social and political position in the village. Closely linked by family ties,⁷ they have occupied all the important positions (such as village head and members of the village administration) since the end of the last century. In this way they have been able to maintain and enlarge their economic power. Although several of them attempted to engage in commercial farming in the past, particularly in the twenties, until recently such efforts did not always meet with success. The cultivation of cash crops such as peanuts and kapok was practically under their complete control, but because profit margins were narrow, this did not lead to accumulation on a large scale. In the period 1930 to 1950, when monetized trade practically disappeared as a consequence of economic depression, war and revolution, commercial production was rather unattractive. Although the Indonesian government tried to create an “agricultural middle class” in the first years of independence, the efforts soon failed in Gondosari because of monetary inflation and the lack of an adequate economic infrastructure (roads, marketing) on the one hand and the political mobilization of small peasants and landless on the other. It was not until after a second major effort was made to increase commercial rice production through the Bimas programme in the wake of the 1965 military coup that the large owners in Gondosari could make the transition to “rural capitalism”. Capital investments were shown to bear fruit provided that production costs could be reduced by limiting the number of labourers and by cutting down wage in cash or in kind. Given its virtual monopoly of land ownership, the government support it has received, the growing number of landless households and the destruction of the peasants' unions, the village élite was able to carry its strategy into effect without too much opposition. The landlords are becoming “entrepreneurs” not only in agriculture, but also outside it. In Gondosari and some other villages they have introduced new rice hullers; purchased ‘Colts’ (pick-ups adapted for public transport) that visit all the main villages in the district; acquired diesel-powered generators, the electricity from which they sell to other villagers; and engaged in trade in agricultural produce (peanuts, chillies, cloves and citrus fruits). On the other hand, it is also they who purchase the imported luxury goods such as televisions, radios, motorbikes, cassette-recorders and amplifiers. In the houses of the village élite these have become common status symbols in recent years.

The agricultural labourers have seen only the negative effects of this transition to rural capitalism, namely a drastic decrease in employment as the rationalization of rice and peanut production on the lands of the large landowners where they used to work has gradually resulted in the expulsion of their “superfluous labour”. In the absence of any other employment prospects they are increasingly driven into the marginal sectors of the village economy such as petty trade, various forms of handicrafts and cottage-industry and the illegal felling and selling of teak wood from the government forest. Such forms of activity generally provide much lower returns on labour.

For the sharecroppers, commercialization of agriculture has led not to a decrease in employment, but ironically to its very opposite. Sharecroppers are now expected to make a greater financial and physical contribution to production for a proportionately smaller share in the harvest. The mode of production debate in India has shown that a developing rural capitalism does not necessarily put an end to precapitalist relations of production, but sometimes reinforces them (McEachern, 1976: 453). The case of Gondosari also shows that sharecropping for the large landowners is the most profitable relationship and is therefore also maintained in a commercial context.     

Affect and Fairness in Economics

A strained relationship exists between mainstream economics and ethics. Over the last decade, behavioral economists have strongly argued for the importance of fairness in motivating behavior, based on substantial experimental evidence. Two main approaches to the modeling of fairness have been proposed: the outcome-based inequity aversion approach, and the intention-based reciprocity approach. Both approaches have been quite successful in explaining the experimental evidence. Nonetheless, this paper questions the role that is assigned to fairness in these models and the way fairness is incorporated, using recent experimental findings concerning emotions and fairness perceptions. The analysis supports the view that feelings are important for justice, also from a policy perspective, and pleads for closer attention being paid to the functioning of emotional brain systems.