Patriarchy in the Balkans: Temporal and cross-cultural approaches

The article deals with the history, distribution and ideology of Balkan patriarchy; the Balkan agnatic kinship system; and with the most significant patriarchal family structures. The demographic analyses are based primarily on the Serbian state census of 1863 (the first available census listing women) and the Federal Yugoslav census data for 1948, 1953, and 1961, coupled with archival and field data for the central Serbian village of Oras?ac for 1818–1975. Balkan patriarchy has much in common with similar well-documented systems in Asia and the Middle East. The Balkan situation was differentiated, however, in that this system existed both within and outside formal state structures. The patriarchal ideology shaped kinship and family patterns, as well as coresidential patterns within households. These patterns reproduced patriarchal structures, but the full reproduction of the system was constrained by economic circumstances.     

Mapping Legal Semiotics

The essay seeks to harness the diverse and innovative work to date of legal semiotics. It seeks to bring together the cumulative research traditions of these related areas as a preclusion to identifying fertile avenues for research.     

British Intelligence and the ‘Fifth’ Occupying Power: The Secret Struggle to Prevent Jewish Illegal Immigration to Palestine

At the end of the Second World War, British intelligence struggled to enforce strict limits imposed on Jewish immigration to Palestine. Holocaust survivors and Jews wishing to escape communism in Eastern Europe flooded the western Zones of occupation in Germany and Austria, while the Zionist movement worked to bring them to Palestine. Illegal immigration to Palestine was the key policy dispute between Britain and the Zionist movement, and a focus for British intelligence. Britain sought both overt and covert means to prevent the boarding of ships at European ports which were destined for Palestine, and even to prevent the entry of Jewish refugees into the American zones. This article highlights Britain's secret intelligence-gathering efforts as well as its covert action aimed to prevent this movement. It highlights a peculiar episode in the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the United States, during which cooperation and partnership was lacking. British intelligence promoted a rumour that Soviet agents were using Jewish escape lines to penetrate Western Europe and the Middle East in order to persuade American authorities to prevent the movement of Jewish refugees. Instead, this article argues, American intelligence secretly cooperated with the Zionist organizers of the escape routes so to expose Soviet agents. Britain's attempt at deception backfired, and provided effective cover for the movement of hundreds of thousands of Jews during a critical period. Meanwhile its intelligence had dramatically improved, but policymakers failed to reassess Britain's ability to sustain immigration restrictions and the indefinite detention of tens of thousands of illegal migrants.     

Voting at 16: Turnout and the quality of vote choice

Critics of giving citizens under 18 the right to vote argue that such teenagers lack the ability and motivation to participate effectively in elections. If this argument is true, lowering the voting age would have negative consequences for the quality of democracy. We test the argument using survey data from Austria, the only European country with a voting age of 16 in nation-wide elections. While the turnout levels of young people under 18 are relatively low, their failure to vote cannot be explained by a lower ability or motivation to participate. In addition, the quality of these citizens' choices is similar to that of older voters, so they do cast votes in ways that enable their interests to be represented equally well. These results are encouraging for supporters of a lower voting age.     

Recreating Cities as Bodies of Power,Knowledge and Space

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

Contrasting First- and Second-Order Electoral Behaviour: Determinants of Individual Party Choice in European and German Federal Elections

In contrast to national elections, both parties and voters are assumed to think that ‘less is at stake’ in European elections: Campaigns are less intense, turnout is lower, and citizens are more inclined to ‘vote with their hearts’. The latter should be reflected in differing rationales of voting – party choice should not be based on identical determinants in national and European elections. However, this hypothesis has not been sufficiently tested and most of the research is based on the analysis of aggregated data while causal explanations are located on the micro level. This paper compares vote functions of individuals in regard to the 2009 European Parliament election as well as the 2009 German Federal election. Using data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), comparison of explanatory models shows that party choice on both levels is neither fundamentally different nor does it fit into the pattern of second-order electoral behaviour.     

Débat sur la Parite: Troisieme Critique Debate about Parity: Third Critique

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

The implementation of the EU Transparency Obligations Directive--a country-by-country analysis

Dr Axel Gehringer Hengeler Mueller Stefano Cuccia Head of Market Supervision, TLX, Milan David Byers McCann FitzGerald, Solicitors, Dublin Henri Wagner and Anne-Marie Thomas Allen & Overy, Luxembourg Petra Zijp and Matthieu van Straaten NautaDutilh NV, Amsterdam José Manuel Cuenca and Yolanda Azanza Clifford Chance Daniel Bushner and Jonathan Parry Ashurst, London The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.