State Livelihood Planning and Legibility in Vietnam’s Northern Borderlands: The “Rightful Criticisms” of Local Officials

Macro-level policies frequently transform and reconfigure local livelihood options. While there is a small but growing body of ethnographic work regarding ethnic minority livelihoods in Vietnam’s mountainous borderlands, there is far less research examining the state decrees and policies implemented there and the opinions of state workers who have to apply them. This article starts to address this gap. First, we examine contemporary Vietnamese state legislation regarding upland livelihoods. We focus on the directions found in 82 livelihood-related state decrees, examining their scope and edicts while critiquing what they overlook regarding upland livelihood needs and approaches. Then, from in-depth interviews with state officials in Hà Giang Province, a mountainous upland region with a proportionately large ethnic minority population, we explore the opinions of those charged with the implementation of these decrees. Building on O’Brien’s earlier work on rightful resistance in China, we suggest that a form of “rightful criticism” has emerged among upland state officials, allowing us to reveal the contours of political power in Vietnam’s borderlands. Moreover, we draw attention to the lack of acknowledgement of ethnic diversity in these uplands within policy and official practice.     

Reasons why law students should have access to learning law through a skills-based approach

The Legal Education and Training Review identified gaps in law students’ key skills development and this paper considers how skills training in three key areas of mooting, negotiation and client interviewing can be maximised so that law students have a sense of themselves as lawyer as well as law student from the beginning of their legal education. The research identifies numerous benefits to learning law through skills-based activities, but also discovers some possible apprehensions about participating from a student perspective. This paper draws on data taken from students who engaged in short-term optional courses in client interviewing, negotiation and/or mooting and considers the responses to a survey conducted prior to participation, a reflective survey post-completion and a focus group exercise. In total 64 students responded to the questionnaire. The research explores the expected and actual benefits of participating in the courses, discusses how these impact on students’ perceptions of their employability and the types of activities considered most valuable. The article considers how, in light of the research, experiential learning can be put to best use within the law curriculum.     

Policy,Practicalities, and PACE s. 24: The Subsuming of the Necessity Criteria in Arrest Decision Making by Frontline Police Officers

PACE, as amended by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, establishes a complex framework of factors that police officers must consider during arrest decision making. Officers must possess a reason to arrest, it must be necessary to arrest for that reason, and they must give at least a ‘cursory consideration’ to alternatives. Based on a four‐year ethnographic study of frontline officers from two forces in Northern England, we argue that the 2005 reforms have not achieved their aims. The new regime tasks officers with undertaking a complex legal assessment prior to arrest, but officers are often confused about the necessity criteria which, moreover, is typically a minor consideration in contrast to demanding practical and policy pressures. This means that unlawful and non‐human‐rights‐compliant arrests continue to be regularly made and, equally significantly, many suspects are escaping the criminal justice system because officers are not considering arrest alternatives.     

A Comprehensive Study of the Alteration of Ignitable Liquids by Weathering and Microbial Degradation,

The differing effects of weathering and microbial degradation are described here in a comprehensive study that involved 50 different ignitable liquids from the Ignitable Liquids Database and Reference Collection. Examples of ignitable liquid residues from each of the main classes established by the American Society of Testing and Materials are presented. Weathering was accomplished via evaporation, whereas microbial degradation was carried out on soil at room temperature for periods of up to 21 days. Major trends included the rapid degradation of long n‐alkanes and monosubstituted alkyl benzenes (e.g., toluene, ethylbenzene, and propylbenzene). Surprisingly, some longer branched alkanes (e.g., trimethyloctanes) were also susceptible to microbial attack. Although all ignitable liquids examined suffered at least to some extent from microbial degradation, gasoline, petroleum distillates, and oxygenates were the most susceptible. Isoparaffinic and naphthenic–paraffinic products were the most resistant to microbial degradation.     

Trouble with Ken: new labour's negative campaign in the selection and election process for London mayor

This paper examines the London mayoral selection and election process and discusses New Labour's negative campaign against the candidacy of Ken Livingstone. It discusses the objectives which lay behind the adoption of this new constitutional system of a directly elected mayor and traces New Labour's problems in getting their chosen candidate elected. It traces the Blair leadership's difficulties in choosing a viable candidate, the methods employed to manipulate the selection process and the stunts and dirty tricks used to undermine Living‐ stone's mayoral challenge. It places these problems in the context of media coverage of such a negative and divisive campaign. The paper concludes by outlining some wider implications for New Labour's future campaigning and suggests that voters now have a more tarnished image of New Labour as a result of this campaign. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

FROM THE INSIDE OUT: CALLING ON STATES TO PROVIDE MEDICALLY NECESSARY CARE TO TRANSGENDER YOUTH IN FOSTER CARE

It is well known that transgender youth in foster care often face egregious discrimination and victimization based on their gender identities. Unfortunately, transgender youth in foster care have also been deprived of transgender-specific medical care that is vital to their health and well-being. This Note advocates that child welfare agencies adopt legislation that will demonstrate their commitment to fulfilling their constitutional duty to provide medically necessary care to transgender youth in their custody. This Note examines recent case law on the topic and addresses counterarguments to the proposal, including risks associated with treatment, high cost, and the stigma of gender identity disorder. Ultimately, this Note concludes that adopting the proposed legislation is a necessary step toward securing health care rights for transgender foster care youth.     

Legislative Capacity and Credit Risk

Legislatures differ in their institutional capacity to draft and enact policy. While strong legislatures can increase the congruence of policy outcomes to the electorate's preferences, they can also inject uncertainty into markets with their ability to alter the political economic landscape. We argue that this uncertainty will manifest in a state's ability to borrow and hypothesize a negative relationship between legislative capacity and creditworthiness. Using ratings of general obligation bonds issued by the American states over nearly two decades and data on the institutional capacity of state legislative assemblies, we find support for the claim that having a legislature that is better equipped to affect policy change increases credit risk evaluations. The results we present broaden our understanding of the importance of legislative institutions, the determinants of credit risk, and the economic implications of democratic responsiveness.     

Elizabeth von Arnim’s The Pastor’s Wife: A Reassessment

Abstract

The Pastor’s Wife (1914) may seem at first reading simply another depiction of a woman struggling for liberation in the decades following the work of Thomas Hardy and Henrik Ibsen, being the story of how Ingeborg Bullivant escapes from an English patriarchal home, only to find herself trapped in another one in Germany. The novel, however, marks a turning point in Elizabeth von Arnim’s career; it is a novel that looks back to previous themes while anticipating those to come. It demonstrates, with comedy and bitterness, themes of alienation and exile; satirizes German codes and class; and provides a lyrical Romantic vision of the natural world. It also presents the married woman as a prisoner in a way that anticipates Vera (1921). The novel can also stand alone as an underrated classic that plays an important part in the history of English literature. Published at the beginning of high modernism, it shows, unlike the work of some canonized writers of the time, a fusion of realism and modernism. This essay argues that the novel is a proto-feminist work that is radical in its portrayal of women’s experience and influenced by literary naturalism in its childbirth scenes, but pessimistic about possibilities for change. The essay shows how the novel is modernist in its depiction of the alienated experience of the city; uses nineteenth-century realism in its narrative structure and comedy; and yet is forward-looking in its use of endings. A book that begins as a comedy but ends as a tragedy, The Pastor’s Wife deserves equal recognition with the work of H. G. Wells and E. M. Forster, writers with whom von Arnim was connected and by whom she was influenced.     

European national news

The regular article tracking developments at the national level in key European countries in the area of IT and communications – co-ordinated by Herbert Smith LLP and contributed to by firms across Europe. This column provides a concise alerting service of important national developments in key European countries. Part of its purpose is to compliment the Journal's feature articles and Briefing Notes by keeping readers abreast of what is currently happening “on the ground” at a national level in implementing EU level legislation and international conventions and treaties. Where an item of European National News is of particular significance, CLSR may also cover it in more detail in the current or a subsequent edition.