Statistics of Legal Infrastructures: A Review of the Law and Finance Literature

Two books on law and development and the law-and-finance literaturehave produced a major opening for the field of internationalstatistical comparisons of legal systems. This review providessome background from microstructure to help the understandingof the effects the statistical comparisons demonstrate and pointsout opportunities for further research.     

SEAFET and ASA

The opening paper gives an account ?C partly drawn from the archives of an outside state, New Zealand ?C of the ancestors of ASEAN: ASA and SEAFET. ASEAN developed a life of its own. Yet SEAFET and ASA give some hints of its aims and some indications of its methods: the need to restrict the intervention of major outside powers; and the need to avoid the dominance by one substantial regional power, but to allow it due influence. The paper suggests that a strong motive behind the early attempts at a regional association was an attempt to deal with the disparate size and power of one state, Indonesia. If ?C but only if ?C its urge to regional primacy could be moderated and accommodated would it be possible to diminish recourse to or opportunity for the intervention of outside powers.     

Accumulating meaning,purpose and opportunities to change ‘drip by drip’: the impact of being a listener in prison

Established in 1991, the Listener scheme, regulated by the Samaritans, is currently the best-established peer support scheme in place to help reduce suicide in prisons. Each prison Listener team is comprised of a group of inmate volunteers who provide face-to-face emotional support to their peers. Although the scheme has been in operation for over 20 years, empirical research on the scheme is limited. A deeper understanding of how being a Listener affects prisoners' attitudes, beliefs, emotions and experiences of imprisonment is needed. The present study is a qualitative analysis on the experience of being a Listener and the impact it has on individuals and their prison experience. Interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The analysis revealed two main superordinate themes: ‘Listening and Personal Transformation’ and ‘Countering Negative Prison Emotions’. These themes are unpacked and the analysis focuses on their implications for desistance and offender reform. Results suggest that prisoners who adopt Listener roles experience profound internal changes, shifts in self-identity and gain meaning and purpose from prison. Implications for how such schemes may be utilised in the future and suggestions for further research are offered.     

Who's in charge? Lessons in discerning the source of authority for a rural local government's decision to retain od help

In the face of increasing demand in this era of “fend for yourself federalism,” greater numbers of university-based organization development consultants will likely be working closely with city and county governments in the coming years. Questions of authority to engage the consultant and to implement any new policies which result from the OD intervention process are not always easy to answer. This paper describes an illustrative case study in which failure to answer these questions resulted in the premature termination of an ongoing intervention. Lessons learned from this “failure” and steps which might be taken to avoid similar outcomes in comparable circumstances are discussed.     

Social Capital and the Number of Governments within a County: A Potential Problem with Social Capital

Social capital has been demonstrated to be a benefit to a community in a variety of ways. However, researchers have begun to point out that social capital does have a downside. Communities that use bonding social capital to mobilise residents to action have the potential to exclude outsiders from their communities. The number of governments in a county could be used as an indicator of bonding social capital within a region. Residents use their local government to create and pass laws that have the potential to exclude others. The current analysis used the number of governments as a proxy for bonding social capital. Findings demonstrate that as the level of bonding social capital (the number of governments) increased the social capital in the county increased. Residents use their bonding social capital to respond to others, which then increases the level of social capital to be able to mobilise in the future.     

Normative power and organized hypocrisy: European Union member states' arms export to Libya

The 2011 Libyan civil war prompted a reassessment of the normative foundation of the EU's conventional arms export control regime as armaments manufactured in Europe were used by Gaddafi's forces during the war. The EU's foreign policy identity is based, partly, upon a common approach to arms export involving respect for common criteria for export licences. Yet, prior to the civil war, considerable amounts of military equipment had been exported by member states to Libya, notwithstanding grounds for restraint on the basis of several of the criteria. This article traces member states' arms export to Libya during 2005–2010 to explore whether member states favoured restraint or export promotion. It concludes that although aware of the risks of exporting, in a competitive market for military goods, member states sought commercial advantage over restraint, and comprehensively violated export control principles. This casts doubts on assertions of the EU acting as a “normative power”.