The contingent morality of war: establishing a diachronic model of jus ad bellum

According to most accounts of just war theory, jus ad bellum is concerned with the morality of initiating war. This gives jus ad bellum a temporal dimension, making it a set of principles that are applied to judge belligerents’ actions at the outset of a war, but that cannot be revisited after a war begins. I challenge this synchronic conception of jus ad bellum by arguing that the considerations the principles of jus ad bellum are meant to judge can, and often do, change substantially over the course of wars. It is inappropriate to determine the ad bellum justice of a war solely based on how the principles of jus ad bellum are satisfied at a war’s outset. Because of the mercurial nature of war, jus ad bellum principles should be applied diachronically, as moral norms that can be used to guide or to judge belligerents even after a war has been initiated.     

Does trading votes in national elections change election outcomes?

Although forbidden in democratic states a market for votes could improve efficiency. This paper examines the way trading votes will change the outcome of an election. A two-party model with two phases is presented. In the pre-trading phase the two parties set their agendas consisting of a direct subsidy and an income tax. In the trading phase voters buy and sell votes. On the basis of rational voter behavior and a given income distribution, it is shown that the outcome of the election depends mainly on how the selling voters are distributed among the voters.     

Limited Liability and Imperfect Information—On the Existence of Safety Equilibria Under Products Liability Law

In the literature on the economics of tort law the Cournot-Nash equilibrium concept has been undisputed. In particular, the existence of a Cournot-Nash safety equilibrium has been taken for granted, given the usual convexity assumptions. In this paper a simple model of strict liability with the defence of contributory negligence is considered. Liability is assumed to be limited. It is shown that for a certain range of liability limits no Cournot-Nash safety equilibrium in pure strategies exists. A mixed strategy equilibrium exists but it turns out to be suboptimal.     

Milosevic on Trial

International Law is argued to have a “civilized” component, but viewing the actions of supposed “civilized” states, it is hard to agree. An example is the case of Slobodan Milosevic, the former head of Yugoslavia, who was put on trial (until his death in The Hague) for acts, which were in fact committed by many, including heads of state who are not subject to similar charges let alone trials. A close examination of the articles on which this purported international law rests reveals serious doubts about the legal basis for the trial, while agreeing that the acts of Milosevic might well have been morally reprehensible.Emeritus Distinguished Professor of International Law     

Specialization and seriousness during adult criminal careers

Crime-type switching between arrests is examined for tendencies by adult offenders to specialize in crime types or to escalate in seriousness as offending continues. The adult offenders examined display higher levels of specialization than have been previously reported for juveniles; among adult offenders, those who remain criminally active until older ages are also more specialized. Also, there is some evidence of trends toward a worsening of offending: for selected crime types, adult offending becomes more specialized and escalates in seriousness for white offenders. However, similar trends are not observed for black adult offenders.Work on this paper was completed while at the School of Urban and Public Affairs, Carnegie Mellon University.     

Culture without the State? Reinvigorating Ukrainian Culture with Diasporic Efforts

This article explores the efforts of diaspora groups to reinvigorate culture. Cultural policy studies tend to focus on efforts of the state to fund and support the maintenance, enhancement, and preservation of national culture(s). This article contributes to this area of research by noting the effects of diaspora groups in achieving many of the same ends as official cultural policy through unofficial means. Using Ukraine as an interpretive case study, the article explores diasporic efforts to respond to a lack of cultural policy at home by invigorating Ukrainian culture abroad. Through the use of social networking tools, Ukrainian diaspora groups in the United States and Canada have been successful in maintaining their culture without the state. This study suggests that cultural policy research should involve not only official state‐centric efforts, but nonofficial diaspora‐centric efforts of cultural invigoration.     

Regulating Quality of Care in Nursing Homes in Hong Kong: A Social-Ecological Investigation

A social-ecological model aided by an adversarial methodology was employed to study the regulation of private nursing homes in Hong Kong over a five-year period. Specifically the study addresses the way quality of care and its definitions changed in response to shifting socio-political-economic conditions. The study began when only 2 percent of the industry was licensable. It was found that an initial period of harmful capture was replaced by a period of cooperation between government and the industry, following increased resource flow into the system that made it possible for desirable trade-offs to occur between the two parties. Six-and-a-half years after the introduction of the regulatory ordinance, all homes in the market achieved licensure status.     

Demographically disaggregated projections of prison populations

The need for improved long-run projections of prison populations has increased in recent years because of record-high numbers of inmates and severe overcrowding in state and federal prisons, and because of the growing importance of changing demographic factors in influencing corrections populations. A model is developed for projecting: general population demographics; demographic- and offense-specific arrest rates, imprisonment probabilities, and times served; and then the size and composition of prison populations. Model parameters are estimated for Pennsylvania and are shown to be sensitive to demographic factors, particularly age and race. Projections of future arrests, prison commitments, and prison population are developed for Pennsylvania using projections of demographic changes in the state's population. Arrests are expected to peak in 1980, prison commitments are expected to peak in 1985, and prison populations are expected to peak in 1990, with the subsequent declines reflecting the maturation of the postwar baby boom children out of the highly crime-prone ages and, somewhat later, out of the highly prison-prone ages.     

Tenure as a fact of academic life: a methodology for managing the performance of tenured professors

Academic freedom is the right, especially of a university professor, to free speech without fear of reprisal. Experts posit three means to academic freedom: tenure, due process and professional competence. A critical issue in current post-secondary education governance and administration that relates to each of these means is post-tenure review. Post-tenure review relates to evaluating and managing the performance of tenured professors. Performance fundamentals include accountability, competence and professional development. This article suggests a methodology for a performance-based approach to increasing the productivity of tenured professors while safeguarding academic freedom.