Do Natural Disasters Open a Window of Opportunity for Corruption?

This study explores the link between natural disasters and corruption at the local government level. We examine whether a natural disaster affects official households more favourably than non-official households. We find that natural disasters decrease nonofficial household expenditures significantly, however, they have negligible effect on official household expenditures. Meanwhile, both kinds of households experience similar reduction in incomes, and have much the same disaster coping strategies. Together, the results imply that local officials may receive unobserved monetary compensation – we define as corruption – in the aftermath of natural disasters.     

The Effects of a Housing Mobility Experiment on Participants’ Residential Environments

We used the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) housing experiment to inform how Housing Choice Vouchers and housing mobility policies can assist families living in high-poverty areas to make opportunity moves to higher quality neighborhoods, across a wide range of neighborhood attributes. We compared the neighborhood attainment of the three randomly assigned MTO treatment groups (low-poverty voucher, Section 8 voucher, control group) at 1997 and 2002 locations (4–7 years after baseline), using survey reports, and by linking residential histories to numerous different administrative and population-based data sets. Compared with controls, families in low-poverty and Section 8 groups experienced substantial improvements in neighborhood conditions across diverse measures, including economic conditions, social systems (e.g., collective efficacy), physical features of the environment (e.g., tree cover) and health outcomes. The low-poverty voucher group, moreover, achieved better neighborhood attainment compared with Section 8. Treatment effects were largest for New York, New York, and Los Angeles, California. We discuss the implications of our findings for expanding affordable housing policy.     

Coping with Precariousness: How Social Insurance Law Shapes Workers' Survival Strategies in Vietnam

This article examines the role of social insurance law in the survival strategies of factory workers in Vietnam, especially when they are faced with pressing family needs and an uncertain future. Despite the official discourse of the law which encourages employees to accumulate social insurance for their pension benefits, workers in this study have considered their social insurance fund as a form of saving and opted to gain early access to it when they are in desperate need of money. Workers understand and use the law in a way that answers to their needs; however, such action simultaneously puts them outside the protection of the law. In workers' daily struggles, law generates a moral tension between rights and needs, and ultimately perpetuates their precarious, vulnerable condition. The article demonstrates how workers' legal consciousness varies according to their perception of their precariousness, a precariousness generated by the fragile nature of their work and underpinned by their traditional familial moral obligations. This research advances our understanding of the way state law in postsocialist regimes informs social action and consciousness in ways that oftentimes contradict the spirit of the law.     

Rural-urban migration in Vietnam and China: gendered householding,production of space and the state

The transition from state socialism to market socialism in Vietnam and China has been characterized by unprecedented rural-urban migration. We argue that this migration is integral rather than incidental to the gendered reproduction of state and society. A review of the emerging literature on trans-local householding explores the process whereby the reflexive engagement of the state and the household remakes rural-urban differentiation in ways that are deeply gendered and classed. As such, state regulation and control of migrants are part of a process of reconfiguring state-society relations in which the production of space and the symbolic valuation of ruralness and urbanness have become a central trope.     

A randomized trial testing deviant modeling,peer gender,and theft: replication and extension

Journal of Experimental Criminology - Replicate previous experimental findings on the causal effect of deviant peer modeling and assess whether the gender of peer models is an important determinant...     

Conceptualization of Intimate Partner Violence: Exploring Gender Differences Using Concept Mapping

While numerous studies have explored prevalence and determinants of intimate partner violence (IPV), one area that has yet to be sufficiently explored is whether men and women agree on the acts, behaviours, and attitudes that comprise IPV. Through the use of concept mapping, we examined the similarities and differences in the conceptualization of IPV among a diverse sample of men and women. Although men and women conceptualized physical and sexual violence similarly, men tended to rate non-physical behaviors related to control as less important to the definition of IPV than women. Moreover, even when men and women used similar labeling language for grouping of items, the statements included in each cluster were substantially different for non-physically abusive items. A greater understanding of similarities and differences in the conceptualization of IPV by gender can help inform appropriate gender specific IPV intervention and prevention efforts.     

论越南《竞争法》的立法目标及反垄断法律责任问题——以Vinapco垄断案为例

越南航空汽油公司(Vinapco)垄断案(1)是越南《竞争法》生效10年来由竞争行政管理机关依其职权唯一主动提起的滥用市场支配地位的案件。本文透过该案分析考察越南《竞争法》在立法目标及反垄断法律责任问题上存在的问题,并提出具体建议,以期待越南《竞争法》立法目标的统一性和反垄断法律责任的系统性。     

A Local History of Vietnamese Sinology in Early Twentieth Century Annam—the Case of the Bulletin Du học báo 遊學報

During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Sinology was known in Vietnam as “Hán h?c 漢學” (or occasionally as “Trung h?c 中學”), and due to the country’s long history of Confucian civil service examination, “Hán h?c”/“Trung h?c” was identified with Confucianism and Confucian learning. In order to avoid any grand narrative that overlooks the multifacetedness of reality, writing about the history of Vietnamese Sinology should start with “local narrative,” trying to answer a series of “WH-questions” to form a small piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Following this direction, the present paper focuses on the promotion of Confucian ethics in early twentieth century Vietnam through the case of a bulletin called Du h?c báo 遊學報 published under the sponsorship of the Nguy?n court in the protectorate Annam. In order to modernize their “half colonial, half feudal” kingdom technologically without touching the foundation of their political system, the Nguy?n court employed the bulletin as a forum to promote Confucian values interpreted accordingly to Western philosophy and ethics to keep their young elites away from socialist/communist influence during their overseas study.     

Two Intellectual Paths That Cross the Borders: Nguyen Huy Quy,Phan Van Cac,and Humanities in Vietnam’s Chinese Studies

The intellectual paths of two Vietnamese sinologists, Nguyen Huy Quy and Phan Van Cac, tell a distinctive history of Confucian scholarship in Vietnam. Through their intellectual growth, we hope to show how humanities have survived political upheavals of and between the two countries and returned in the process of national reform. The perseverance of humanist concerns demonstrates the relevance of individual determination in the evolution of Vietnamese scholarship on China, indicating an epistemological agency to transcend politics. Three particular aspects emerge as critical in the evolution of their scholarship: family, travelling, and determination. The mechanisms of historical cycles, strategic silencing, self-learning, and human judgment connect the individual paths to the larger historical context of Vietnamese sinology.