Strange bedfellows: Dynamics of government‐business relations between Chinese local authorities and Taiwanese investors

China poses a theoretical challenge in that corruption and rent‐seeking activities have not hindered foreign direct investment and economic development. Studies in development have documented the problems of rent‐seeking. International capital presumably hesitates to step into a Third‐World country such as China, which cannot protect private property rights with a comprehensive legal framework. However, for the last decade in China export promotion, foreign capital, and industrial development have proceeded simultaneously. This research argues that local officials helped investors overcome the problem of high transaction costs during a period of institutional uncertainty and local informal rules supplied foreigners with effective protection of property rights under corrupt circumstances. By controlling rent‐seeking activities, local officials created a wide variety of ad hoc patronage for private and foreign investments within their administrative domain. In return, local governments received extrabudgetary payments for the official patronage. This article provides an in‐depth case study of the so‐called joint venture between Taiwanese enterprises and Chinese local authorities in the Pearl River Delta, the institutional bases for their collaboration and the dynamics of the relationship under institutional change.     

Sexual and nonsexual offenders with intellectual and learning disabilities: a comparison of characteristics, referral patterns, and outcome

This article reports an evaluation of a community intellectual disability offender service over the period from 1990 to 2001. Men who committed sex offenses or sexually abusive incidents (n = 106) and men who committed other types of offenses and serious incidents (n = 78) are compared on personal characteristics, referral sources, forensic details, and outcome up to 7 years after referral. The cohorts are older than one would expect from the criminology literature, and, at about 33%, the incidence of mental illness is consistent with some previous studies. A greater proportion of sex offenders had criminal justice involvement and a formal disposal from court. Fire raising was not overly represented as an offense. There was a higher rate of reoffending in the nonsexual cohort, which persisted up to 7 years. Investigating only reoffenders, there was a considerable amount of harm reduction recorded up to 7 years, statistically significant up to 5 years following initial referral.     

Writer identification using hand-printed and non-hand-printed questioned documents

Several federal district court judges have recently referred to the purported lack of information on the proficiency of forensic document examiners (FDEs) in identifying writers of hand-printed documents. In order to provide the necessary information, we have re-analyzed data on writer identification that were collected in 1996 from 90 forensic document examiners and 34 laypersons. These data were used previously to assess the proficiency of FDEs using handwritten documents in several different types of writing. In the new analysis we separated data on hand-printed (HP) documents from data on non-hand-printed (NHP) documents and compiled error rates and statistics in each category. The main findings are: (1) whether or not the documents were hand-printed, the performance of FDEs was much better than that of laypersons; (2) statistical tests found no difference between the data provided by the FDEs in the HP and NHP categories; (3) statistical tests found no difference between the data provided by laypersons in the HP and NHP categories; and (4) statistical tests found differences between the data provided by the FDEs and the laypersons in both the HP and NHP categories. Similar results were obtained when hand-printed documents were compared to cursive documents and when cursive documents were compared to non-cursive documents. All the evidence indicates that in our proficiency test the performance of FDEs in writer identification was much better than the performance of laypersons in each one of the following document categories: (1) hand-printed; (2) non-hand-printed; (3) cursive; and (4) non-cursive.     

法典修订与理论更新——论“97刑法”典总则的价值取向

通过与“79刑法”相比较,详细论证了“97刑法”的九大价值取向,指出新刑法是对中外刑法理论研究成果和司法实践经验的科学总结和升华。     

改革是社会主义中国的强国之路——邓小平改革理论探析

改革是邓小平理论最重要的内容,是决定当代中国命运的历史性决策,是新时期我国最鲜明的特征。本文系统探讨分析了邓小平关于我国社会主义改革的必然性、迫切性,改革的对象、目标和性质,以及改革同发展与稳定的关系。这对于深入学习邓小平理论,深化我国改革具有重要的现实意义。     

当事人更换理论浅论

当事人理论是民事诉讼的三大理论基石之一。在当事人制度的诸多问题当中,非正当当事人及其更换理论在诉讼法学理论界是一个颇有争论的问题。本文从介绍非正当当事人及其更换理论入手,分析我国非正当当事人更换理论的现状,并针对这一现状进行分析,重构我国的当事人更换理论。     

Democratization without decentralization: Local government in Hong Kong

The literature on democratization tends to neglect the question of decentralization. The case of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People's Republic of China shows that there can be partial democratization without decentralization. Democratization in Hong Kong took place in the mid‐1980s and 1990s, when more directly elected seats were introduced to political institutions at the territorial, municipal and district levels. However, democratization has not been accompanied by an attempt to decentralize administrative and political power to the institutions at the local level. These political institutions, including the Urban Council (UrbCo), Regional Council (RegCo) and District Boards remain relatively weak vis‐à‐vis the executive branch of the government. The recent attempt by the HKSAR government to abolish the UrbCo and RegCo represents a move toward centralization of administrative and political power. Moreover, District Boards remain consultative and politically powerless. It is the dynamic relationship between democratization and decentralization at which future research should be directed.