Personality and criminality a summary and implications of the literature

Recent studies purporting to correlate criminality and personality are reviewed to update the earlier works of Schuessler and Cressey, and Waldo and Dinitz. It was found that fifty-two different tests were used in the recent literature compared with the twenty-nine different tests found both in the Schuessler-Cressey and Waldo-Dinitz works. It was also found that more recent tests are no better at differentiating between the criminal and noncriminal than the older tests were, although the majority of the current tests find more differences within the groups.     

Parole: How it is working

This paper presents some relevant information on parole and on several determinate sentencing proposals. Guidelines formulated by the United States Parole Commission demonstrate that release decisions can be structured to (1) enhance equity, (2) facilitate the explanation for decision variance, and (3) expose decision policy to public evaluation and debate. Empirically, parolees have a higher success rate or lower proportion of new convictions than those released in other ways. In contrast, the determinate sentencing proposals merely displace discretion to other areas of the criminal justice system where it is less visible and, hence, less subject to control.     

患方维权误区的法理学剖析

随着法治进程的推进,公众维权意识的提升,越来越多的患者在认为自身权利受到侵害时,倾向于主动维权。然而在实践中,相当一部分患者基于对权利概念和维护行为的错误认识和理解,在维权过程中陷入误区。一系列典型事例揭示出迷信行政权力、重实体轻程序、滥用权利、缺乏法律信仰等法理学层面上的患方不稳定因素。而相对于医方因素和社会因素,患方不稳定因素易被忽视,以致无法全面、客观分析当前日趋尖锐的医患冲突,对和谐医患关系的构建产生负面影响。     

现代建筑中噪声振动影响及其控制对策

讨论了影响现代建筑物“声环境”的典型噪声振动污染源及相关噪声振动控制技术     

Political Consequences of Welfare Regimes: Social Assistance and Support for Presidentialism in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Tackling redistributive expansion in developing countries, this paper explores broader political consequences of social assistance programmes. Drawing from the Turkish case, where social welfare expanded since the 2000s, it examines attitudes of social assistance beneficiaries towards transition to presidentialism, which was approved in a referendum in 2017, and took effect in 2018. Using the results of an original survey, it indicates that social assistance benefits played a significant role in increasing support for presidentialism, by garnering votes from opposition voters, especially those with high-risk perceptions, in return for benefits. Given the character of Turkish presidentialism, devoid of vital checks and balances, the findings reveal that incumbents can mobilise support by using redistributive instruments in the context of democratic backsliding.     

Economic evaluations vs. ideology: Diagnosing the sources of electoral change in Turkey, 2002–2011

Turkish elections reflect two competing influences. One concerns a long-term increasingly conservative ideological orientation; the other, more short-term pragmatic evaluations primarily on the economic policy front. This article uses three nationwide representative surveys from 2002, 2007 and 2011 to assess the relative merits of these competing hypotheses. The findings indicate that the critical election of 2002 is not shaped by economic performance evaluations but rather by indicators of ideology at large and left–right ideology in particular. The influence of ideology appears to rise from 2002 to 2007 and 2011. Economic performance evaluations increase in salience from 2002 to 2007 but seem to have somewhat lost their power for 2011. Implications of these findings for the Turkish party system and further research questions are discussed in the concluding section.     

Political and social networks in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan: ‘clan’, region and beyond

A major debate among scholars studying Central Asian societies concerns the structure of social and political networks in the region. Still unresolved is the issue of whether to define such networks in terms of ‘clans’, ‘regionalism’, or personal networks. This article, based on data collected during fieldwork in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, attempts to understand these social and political networks. It suggests that networks are very complex. The networks in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan draw on various loyalties including ties of family, friendship, work, education, and patron-client relationships. They are neither purely regional nor purely clan-based. Personal networks, factions, and self-interest play important roles. At the elite level, networks more closely resemble patron-client networks, which may or may not include regional or kinship ties. Among ordinary people, such ties tend to be based on localism, kinship, and/or patronage relationships.     

The Rhetorical Syllogism (Enthymeme) in Judicial Argumentation

The thesis here expounded can be divided in three parts: in the first place, it is supposed that the syllogism is not the rhetorical way, and less still the logical way, indeed used to reach the decision in the legal proceedings monopolized by the modern State. At the most, it can be seen as a form of presenting a decision that has already been reached by other means. It sure constitutes a highly functional procedure, effective and legitimating. It is generally not a conscious strategy on the part of the so called official legal agents (judges, prosecutors, state attorneys, lawyers, plaintiffs), which seem to believe that the decision before the concrete case is in fact produced by the previous general norm enunciated by the system. If there would be a chronological order, the general norm comes afterwards. In the second place, the judicial discursive structure seems to be rather enthymematic than syllogistic, because not all the effectively used norms are revealed, many of them staying not only out of question but also hidden. Finally, it is suggested that, in the atmosphere of faking dogmatic law in which acts the underdeveloped State, those implicit norms are not just presupposed as evident, but they are also uncertain, being rendered to manipulation.