Social Learning,Self-Control,and Offending Specialization and Versatility among Friends

American Journal of Criminal Justice - While it is generally understood that people tend not to specialize in specific types of deviance, less is understood about offending specialization and...     

Peace-building and the predatory political economy of insecurity: evidence from Cambodia,East Timor and Afghanistan

International peace-building interventions in post-conflict countries are intended to transform the socio-political context that led to violence and thereby build a stable and lasting peace. Yet the UN's transitional governance approach to peace-building is ill-suited to the challenge of dealing with the predatory political economy of insecurity that often emerges in post-conflict societies. Evidence from peace-building attempts in Cambodia, East Timor and Afghanistan illustrates that the political economy incentives facing domestic elites in an environment of low credibility and weak institutionalisation lead to a cycle of patronage generation and distribution that undermine legitimate and effective governance. As a result, post-conflict countries are left vulnerable to renewed conflict and persistent insecurity. International interventions can only craft lasting peace by understanding the political economy of conflict persistence and the potential policy levers for altering, rather than perpetuating, those dynamics.     

Oversight of Administrative Rulemaking: Judicial Review

The role of the courts in the review of administrative rulemaking raises profound questions as to the legitimate interference of courts in the exercise of administrative activities, which are often carried out in the pursuance of a legislative mandate. In contrast to the review of administrative acts of individual application, the Union courts have shown a more hesitant approach in the review of administrative rulemaking activities. This contribution will discuss the review by the Union courts of administrative rulemaking for compliance with procedural as well as substantive standards and will explore whether a convincing rationale for their more deferential attitude to the review of administrative rules can be provided. The article will explore to what extent lessons can be learned from the jurisprudence of the federal courts in the USA, which have struggled, even after the adoption of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), with similar problems.     

The Conditional Nature of Political Risk: How Home Institutions Influence the Location of Foreign Direct Investment

What determines whether countries' institutions attract or deter investment? Although existing theories predict that multinational enterprises (MNEs) avoid locations where institutions cannot constrain public and private actors' opportunistic behavior, we argue host institutions' attractiveness depends on firms' home environment. Home country institutions shape firms' practices and capabilities, thus helping to determine the environments that firms are best prepared to face abroad. We test our predictions using multiple data sets at different levels of analysis: firm‐level data on MNEs' foreign subsidiaries, data on bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) positions, and longitudinal data on bilateral FDI flows. We find that states with independent judiciaries are particularly attractive to investment from countries also possessing independent courts. Similarly, countries with low judicial independence disproportionately send FDI to countries lacking independent judiciaries. These findings' implications challenge conventional wisdom: “Good” institutions may not attract all investors, and “bad” institutions may not always deter, as current research suggests.     

The Closeness Problem and the Doctrine of Double Effect: A Way Forward

A major challenge to the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) is the concern that an agent’s intention can be identified in such a fine-grained way as to eliminate an intention to harm from a putative example of an intended harm, and yet, the resulting case appears to be a case of impermissibility. This is the so-called “closeness problem.” Many people believe that one can address the closeness problem by adopting Warren Quinn’s version of the DDE, call it DDE*, which distinguishes between harmful direct agency and harmful indirect agency. In this paper, I first argue that Quinn’s DDE* is just as vulnerable to the closeness problem as the DDE is. Second, some might think that what we should therefore do is give up on intentions altogether and move towards some kind of non-state-of-mind, victim-based deontology. I shall argue against this move and explain why intentions are indispensable to an adequate nonconsequentialist theory. Finally, I shall propose a new way of answering the closeness problem.