Crime,punishment, family violence,and the cloak of legal invisibility

Abstract

In this article, the authors trace how the Anglo-Australian system of criminal law constructs crime within the family differently from other forms of crime. The zone of legal impunity for intrafamilial crime was carved out by special defences and immunities, such as provocation and marital rape, as well as policing policies and practices that effectively decriminalised “domestic” forms of physical and sexual abuse. Legal impunity was never absolute, and there were notable exceptions where the familial and gendered aspects of the crime in fact aggravated the offence, such as the law's treatment of spousal murder by females as a form of “petty treason”, warranting the most severe punishment of burning at the stake. Reforms in the late twentieth century removed overt forms of gender discrimination from the criminal law, exposing a new legal visibility of crime within “the family”, though as the authors conclude, there are still remnants of differential treatment in fields of sentencing law and practice.     

From Medusa Past Kantolo: Testing the Effectiveness of Canada's Enemy-Centric and Population-Centric Counterinsurgency Operational Strategies

Canada's counterinsurgency in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, involved two distinct operational strategies: an initial enemy-centric strategy and, after 2009, a population-centric strategy. Using insurgent-initiated attacks against civilians as a measure for the level of control and security provided by the counterinsurgency, this article tests the effectiveness of these two strategies using a quasi-experimental research design. This article finds that a population-centric counterinsurgency strategy that aimed to provide security to the population rather than destroy the insurgency resulted in the most controlled and secure environment for the civilian population. To the extent that a secure civilian population is important for successful counterinsurgency, the post-2009 population-centric operational strategy of the Canadian Forces, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and the United States increased the chances of a successful counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.     

A supranational party system and the legitimacy of the European Union

China’s emergence as an economic and military power has given rise to apprehensions globally, related not only to China’s cultural and historical ‘alienness’, but also to its apparent willingness to challenge the global system and architecture of global governance. While non-Western countries are wary of the possible impact on them and on the global order of Chinese actions, they appear to be willing to cooperate with China on some global issues in order to change a system often seen as inequitable and unbalanced. Yet, the West seems to conflate the idea of a rising China with that of other emerging markets. Given their historical, political and cultural experiences, however, their access to power and influence, if and when it happens, need not necessarily take the same route as China. This is true particularly of India; India is likely, at least for the foreseeable future, to remain within the existing paradigm of global governance, though it may seek to adapt the rules and structures to better reflect its economic, political and security interests. This would not preclude cooperation on a selective basis on specific global issues with different partners, particularly in the realm of global challenges such as climate change, non-proliferation, international trade and finance and the global commons, such as space, the oceans and cyberspace.     

Foreword papers in honor of chester I. Barnard

I hope that I will not be regarded as demeaning either myself or my fellow contributors to these papers in honor of Chester Barnard if I suggest that the most valuable product of this exercise may be to cause some readers who have never done so to read The Functions of the Executive, and some others who have done so in the distant past, to read it again.⁽¹⁾ Barnard's book is often referred to as "hard," both in the senses of hard to read and rigorous; no one is likely to recommend if for bedtime or ocean beach reading. But I believe that its "hardness" is closely related to the depth and rigor of its ideas, and that it is written about as clearly and simply as the nature of these ideas will admit. Barnard does not use long words where short words will do, nor many words where few will do. For anyone who devotes thought to organizations, its messages are pretty clear, and refreshingly creative. When read attentively, it can be read with enjoyment.     

Antigovernment Networks in Civil Conflicts: How Network Structures Affect Conflictual Behavior

In this article, we combine a game‐theoretic treatment of public goods provision in networks with a statistical network analysis to show that fragmented opposition network structures lead to an increase in conflictual actions. Current literature concentrates on the dyadic relationship between the government and potential challengers. We shift the focus toward exploring how network structures affect the strategic behavior of political actors. We derive and examine testable hypotheses and use latent space analysis to infer actors’ positions vis‐à‐vis each other in the network. Network structure is examined and used to test our hypotheses with data on conflicts in Thailand from 2001 to 2010. We show the influential role of network structure in generating conflictual behavior.     

Churches as Societal Veto Players: Religious Influence in Actor-Centred Theories of Policy-Making

The article argues that the study of western democracies benefits from a conceptualisation of Christian churches as societal veto players characterised by three features: their power, which depends on their potential for mobilisation; their preferences, which can be deduced from churches' official statements and which are often outside the political spectrum; and their coherence, which determines the size of their indifference curve. Conceptualised as societal veto players, churches can be included in actor-centred theories of policy-making. Particular attention should be paid to veto points, church–state relations and religious parties, as these are the features of the political system that affect churches' behaviours. A comparative study of churches' roles in stem-cell policies illustrates the use of the concept. The study shows that the Catholic Church is a ‘stronger’ veto player than protestant churches, but that this stronger role can have paradoxical effects on the resulting policies and the policy process.     

‘When I find myself in times of trouble …’ : The conditional effect of international organisations on policy convergence

Most quantitative analyses of policy convergence treat transnational communication in international organisations and domestic economic problems as additive factors. By contrast, this article argues that domestic economic problems motivate governments to search for successful policies, while international organisations offer channels for policy learning. Thus, both factors interact, magnifying each other's effects. The argument is corroborated by a quantitative analysis of the privatisation of telecommunications providers in the Western OECD world. A dyadic logit model shows that joint membership in international organisations increases the likelihood of policy convergence if governments face budget deficits. The argument of the article builds a bridge between theories of international organisations and domestic theories of policy making. Theories of the former gain an important scope condition specifying the conditions under which transnational communication works, while exploring the latter gains a theory specifying where new policy ideas come from.     

Access to Space: A Strategy for the Twenty-First Century

The United States (US) launch infrastructure is at a crisis point. Human access to space embodied in the Space Shuttle is due to be phased out by 2010. Currently, there are no heavy lift, 100 ton class launchers to support the US national vision for space exploration. Medium and large expendable launch providers, Boeing's Delta IV, and Lockheed-Martin's Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles are so expensive that the Delta no longer carries commercial payloads and the Atlas is unlikely to show significant growth without equally significant cost reductions and commercial traffic growth. This set of circumstances questions US dependence on these launch vehicles for national security purposes. High cost growth also exists with small launch vehicles, such as Pegasus, and the promising new field of small and microsatellites is little developed in the US, while foreign efforts, particularly European, are expanding largely on the availability of low-cost Russian boosters. One bright point is the emerging private sector, which is initially pursuing suborbital or small lift capabilities. Although such vehicles support very limited US Department of Defense or National Aeronautics and Space Administration spaceflight needs, they do offer potential technology demonstration stepping stones to more capable systems needed in the future of both agencies. This article outlines the issues and potential options for the US Government to address these serious shortcomings.     

Empirical testing of estimated DNA frequencies

Direct empirical testing of forensic DNA micro-probabilities has proved difficult. Substantial support for the population genetic models on which these micro-probabilities are based has come from powerful but indirect means. However for many people empirical testing rather than models remains the ideal.Following the example set by Weir and Evett we report here a large-scale empirical test of a population genetic model incorporating substructure and relatedness. Given that all models represent simplifications of reality the fit of observed and prediction is remarkable and gives substantial support to the reliability of current methods.