The politics of reconciliation: Germany in central‐east Europe

The role of united Germany in the new Europe has been the source of considerable debate and speculation. This study analyses the impact of Germany's continued commitment to reconciliation with its neighbours in central‐east Europe (CEE) on traditional power relations in the region. It argues that the politics of reconciliation scramble conventional power calculations in substantive ways to elevate CEE authority in their relations with Germany. Moreover, the politics of reconciliation highlight the intersection of domestic and foreign policy which, since 1990, have favoured the ability of domestic factors in Germany and CEE to promote or impede reconciliation. The Treaties of Friendship, signed by Germany with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary after unification provide the empirical benchmark used to compare the different trajectories in bilateral relations which have developed under the umbrella of reconciliation.     

Terrorist Group Rivalries and Alliances: Testing Competing Explanations

ABSTRACT

Terrorist group rivalries and alliances have important consequences, but the sources of these relationships are debated. This article offers a side-by-side examination of correlates of terrorist rivalries and alliances. Global analyses of hundreds of terrorist groups find violent rivalry is associated with drug trafficking, state sponsorship, ethnic motivation, and operating in a civil conflict country. Alliances are associated with territorial control, intermediate membership size, and religious motivation. The idea that alliances are an indicator of weakness does not find much support. When relationships are disaggregated into theoretically relevant categories (inter-field and intra-field rivalries, and domestic and international alliances), further distinctions appear.     

A benefit of one's own: older women's entitlement to Social Security retirement.

This article explores differences in Social Security eligibility and benefit levels for older men and women using survey data from the Health and Retirement Study combined with administrative records on actual work histories and Social Security rules. We are able to determine the fully insured status of those persons, how close they are to meeting eligibility criteria when they are not fully insured, and their prospects for benefits. Around three-quarters of older women nearing retirement today will be fully insured for Social Security old-age benefits on the basis of their own accounts, but the rest would need substantial extra employment to rise above the eligibility threshold. Further, two-thirds of older married women who are fully insured have sufficient lifetime earnings to translate into an age-65 primary insurance amount worth at least half their husband's, but the other one-third can expect no additional retirement benefit from contributing to Social Security late in life. Finally, most wives will not be able to improve their benefits by working more under current rules. These results have mixed implications regarding the potential impact of women's rising labor force attachment on eventual retirement benefits. Working more years could increase women's chances of becoming eligible for Social Security benefits, but that effect is likely to be small. Furthermore, even when women do become fully insured according to the rules, not many wives will receive a higher benefit at the margin. The reason is that married women still receive higher Social Security benefits as a spouse than they do on the basis of their own work record. In fact, the net benefit from Social Security due to additional work is negative once one takes into account the Social Security contributions the women paid while employed. Benefits paid to widows are even more likely to be based on the spouse's work history rather than on the woman's. Hence, the rising labor market attachment of women in the future may increase their eligibility for benefits but will produce only modest (and often negative) impacts on their old-age Social Security benefits under current rules.     

School Choice: Money,Race, and Congressional Voting on Vouchers

Milton Friedman has suggested that the political power of the AmericanFederation of Teachers and the National Education Association (the twomajor teachers unions) has been instrumental in defeating the adoption ofeducational vouchers. We test this hypothesis.We find that a campaign contribution to a memberof the U.S. House of Representatives by either unionreduces the probability that also a Representative will vote for apro school choice amendment to the ``No Child Left Behind Act of2001.'' Also a Representative whose districthas a large African American population or who is Republicanis more likely to vote for vouchers.     

IP: the universal lubricant

Press coverage of IP law is generally pathological: it focuseson things that have gone wrong. Youngsters who have the brightidea of copying and file-sharing their favourite recordingsand movies end up in court, as do sellers of knock-off perfumesin street markets, as do fashion chains whose new ranges ofdresses or accessories bear a striking resemblance to the linespreviously unveiled on Paris catwalks by leading designers. Even when there isn't     

When Culture Means Gender: Issues of Cultural Defence in the English Courts

The use of cultural defence has been much discussed in the American context and has figured as one of the areas of concern in feminist assessments of multiculturalism. This paper examines two categories of cases from the English courts, those where cultural context has been seen as significant in interpreting the actions of female defendants, and those where 'culture' is invoked to explain severe acts of violence against women. It argues that cultural arguments become available to female defendants mainly when they conform to stereotypical images of the subservient non-Western wife. They have not, on the whole, been successfully employed by male defendants to mitigate crimes against women, though there are troubling exceptions. The larger problem is that mainstream culture itself promotes a gendered understanding of agency and responsibility, as when it perceives men as understandably incensed by the sexual behaviour of their women, or women as less responsible for their actions because of the influence of men. The conclusion is that the uses and abuses of cultural defence highlight issues that have wider provenance, for it is when cultural arguments resonate with mainstream conventions that they have proved most effective.     

A legitimate trespass

No editor can fail to be conscious of the burden placed uponhis shoulders when he begins to select the words that introducea new publication to an audience of unfamiliar readers. Howshould he justify a further trespass on their limited time andresources? At the launch of a new title such as JIPLP the editor can scarcelypoint to its self-evident