Audit for Whom? Time to Review Roles of Independent Auditors in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong government has been reforming its laws regarding accounting practices in recent years, to pre-empt problems similar to that of Enron. It correctly recognizes an opportunity to enhance and distinguish the financial system in Hong Kong and create a competitive advantage for Hong Kong. The sixty-five billion dollar question is: what is the right approach for accounting practice reform? One obvious approach is to model reform after the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX). The SOX increases personal liabilities of senior management and introduces extremely cumbersome compliance processes (s 3 (b)(ix) of Minutes of Bills Committee of Financial Reporting Council Bill. (19 July 2005)). While this approach may be the right move for the United States, because rescuing investor confidence is paramount, a similar approach may not be optimal for Hong Kong. Hong Kong relies, to a great degree, on foreign investments and a heavy-handed approach may scare investments away (Charles E. Schumer &; Michael R. Bloomberg To Save New York, Learn from London, Wall Street Journal 1 Nov 2006). This paper, argues that failure of independent auditors was mainly caused by bad incentives. In particular, auditors were hired by and responsible to the management of companies. Thus, there is no surprise that auditors were less diligent in finding problems caused by management. Furthermore, proposing of an alternate to the SOA’s approach. Specifically, a new legal approach should be enforced that allows shareholders to sue auditors when failure to uncover accounting issues causes loss of shareholders’ values.     

NATO: The United States, Transformation and the War in Afghanistan

During the Bush years, NATO exhibited in stark form two trends which have long characterised its development: periodic exposure to crisis and division, and a subordination to American leadership. Despite signs of American indifference towards the alliance, talk of the Bush administration levering a break with NATO was always overstated, particularly so during its second term of office. Views of NATO after 2004 were shaped by Afghanistan giving rise, in fact, to a return to the alliance on America's part. NATO remains important to Bush's successor but on terms which are as demanding as those of his predecessors. NATO, in other words, is valued in so far as it accords with current US foreign policy priorities. The safest assumption in this regard is that Obama will continue to favour the trend towards a global NATO pursued by the Bush administration. However, retreat (or defeat) in Afghanistan could hasten a contrary trend towards a consolidating NATO with a renewed concentration on the wider Europe.     

Military Power and Food Security: A Cross-National Analysis of Less-Developed Countries, 1970–1990

Addressing the long-standing debate over the social impact of military power and recent discussions of military-induced famine, we conduct a panel analysis of aggregate food supply and child hunger rates in 75–79 less-developed countries (LDCs). Distinguishing between militarization , as the growth of military resources, and militarism , as the use of military force to handle political conflicts, we show that militarization is both beneficial and detrimental to food security, whereas militarism is consistently detrimental. Arms imports and associated increased military spending plus praetorianism and military repression reduce food security, whereas increased military participation and arms production boost food security. Increased food supply reduces child hunger and is largely confined to the more developed of the LDCs. These military power effects show net economic growth, which "trickles down" to improve food supply and reduce child hunger among the more developed LDCs, reflecting the growth of global economic inequality. Contrary to views that see militarization as a single unified process, use of armed force is not strongly rooted in either praetorianism or militarization.     

A Survey of Perspectives on Intergovernmental Relations: A Comparative Analysis of the Czech and Slovak Republics

The results of a survey of local government officials from the Slovak and Czech Republics taken in December of 2005 are presented and analysed. Attitudes about and perspectives on intergovernmental fiscal relations in the two republics are probed. Differences and similarities in Czech and Slovak views are established regarding some of the perceptions of local autonomy and the sufficiency of available funds; whether or not public services are supplied by the appropriate levels of government; the potential benefits of adopting a serious rather than a nominal property tax; and the flexibility of local budget planning in Czech and Slovak cities and towns.     

Resistance and Creativity in Social Interaction: For and Against Memory in Poland, Israel–Palestine, and the United States

In this paper, I present an analysis of Adam Michnik’s notion of “Amnesty without Amnesia”. His was a wise political judgment presented at a critical moment in the struggle to constitute a democratic polity in Poland. Mine is an appreciation of his political position, along with a sociological analysis that highlights the empirical difficulties of its realization in practical action. I will show how at critical moments of social change creative political action works to erase memories of the relevant past, which act as a repressive force, while “re-remembering” (to use Toni Morrison’s formulation). Three cases will be compared, Michnik’s, after the fall of the communist regime in east central Europe, and cases drawn from the Palestinian–Israeli conflict and the American presidential campaign. A paper prepared for presentation at Cerisy, France, Summer, 2008.     

Population in Motion: Salvadorean Refugees and Circulation Migration

The profound socio-political crisis in El Salvador fully revealed itself in the events of 1979 and 1980, developing into an open civil war beginning on 10 January 1981. The conflict generated a series of profound changes in the social structure of the country (Segundo Montes, 1988:107).     

美国未成年人司法制度的发展

本文旨在介绍美国的未成年人司法制度。文中除了介绍其不同于成年人的司法制度之处以外,还特别介绍此制度近期的发展,着重于停止按未成年人司法程序审判(移交成年人法庭)、校园暴力、未成年人团伙及“三击不中”政策等。     

Gender,ethnicity and feminism: an intersectional analysis of the lived experiences feminist academic women in UK higher education

Studies have begun to explore how those women academics committed to social justice, namely feminist academics, are navigating the increasingly managerial Academy. To understand how these multiple social identities, including gender and ethnicity, interact and intersect, this paper adopts an intersectional approach to understanding the heterogeneity of women’s experiences in academia. Five focus groups with feminist academics (n = 6–10 in each focus group) reveal concerns of hampered career progression as a consequence of being female and openly feminist. Some ethnic minority academics felt that they were forced to choose between a feminist identity or that of their ethnic background. For some women, their feminist identity provided opportunities for challenging dominant practices. The paper concludes that the heterogeneity of feminist academics’ experiences within academia is under-researched and that the lens of intersectionality helps to illuminate this. This paper advances understanding of multiple identities at work, though demonstrating that intersectionality can lead to the accumulation of advantage as well as disadvantage in relation to social identities such as gender and ethnicity, and a political identity such as feminist.     

Transformative Illegality: How Condoms ‘Became Legal’ in Ireland, 1991–1993

This paper examines Irish campaigns for condom access in the early 1990s. Against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis, activists campaigned against a law which would not allow condoms to be sold from ordinary commercial spaces or vending machines, and restricted sale to young people. Advancing a conception of ‘transformative illegality’, we show that illegal action was fundamental to the eventual legalisation of commercial condom sale. However, rather than foregrounding illegal condom sale as a mode of spectacular direct action, we show that tactics of illegal sale in the 1990s built on 20 years of everyday illegal sale within the Irish family planning movement. Everyday illegal sale was a long-term world-making practice, which gradually transformed condoms’ legal meanings, eventually enabling new forms of provocative and irreverent protest. Condoms ‘became legal’ when the state recognised modes of condom sale, gradually built up over many years and publicised in direct action and in the courts.