Civil Cases and Society: Process and Order in the Civil Justice System

It is not an exaggeration to say that we live in an era preoccupied with the problems and challenges of obtaining justice in civil cases. Concerns expressed about the civil justice system range from warnings that civil court dockets are clogged by disputants too litigious for their own good to complaints that the legal system is used too rarely in civil cases.
The authors approach their analysis with a sense that this subject area is in need of more and better theory. It is an unfortunate fact that discussions of civil justice—and suggestions for reform—have been marked by contradiction and confusion and have been engrossed with small matters that tend to obscure from view the system as a whole.
The first part of this essay focuses on what the civil justice system is and does. It presents a five-stage model of civil case processing and examines relationships between this model and the criminal justice system. The second part of the essay considers this model in a broader context. Here the authors examine two paradigms of civil case processing and their implications for the implementation of legal norms and the pursuit of justice in society.     

Cases, Conflict, and Accommodation: Patterns of legal Interaction in an American Community

This article provides an overview of an empirical study of a civil trial court and the environment of indigenous law and conflict resolution in which the court operates. The article combines an analysis of civil cases and litigants with an investigation of alternative nonjudicial approaches used by residents of the community. The first section of the article examines the emergence of legal conflicts from the fabric of social relationships in the community and compares cases and parties in the court with those that gravitate toward nonjudicial settings. The second section compares processes and outcomes available in the court with those that may be obtained nonjudicially. The article concludes that different categories of cases emerge from different kinds of social relationships and for this reason are associated with fundamentally dissimilar patterns of values, norms, procedures, and outcomes. It also emphasizes the benefits to be obtained from investigating the complex relationships and interchanges that link local level trial courts to their communities.     

Cultural Attributes and Adaptations Linked to Achievement Motivation Among Latino Adolescents

This exploratory study examined whether associations between perceived school experiences and achievement motivation varied by language acculturation and generational status among a sample of immigrant and U.S. born Latino adolescents (n = 129). Ogbu's (1993) notion of primary and secondary cultural differences was adapted to better suit comparisons within this Latino group using the terms cultural attributes and cultural adaptations. Academic competence, school belonging, and parent involvement were positively related to achievement motivation. Academic competence and parent involvement were strongly related to achievement motivation among students who spoke English or were born in the U.S., suggesting that these associations may be cultural adaptations. Future intervention programs for Latino students, regardless of acculturation or generational status, should focus on making them feel supported and included. Acculturated Latino youth and youth who have lived in the U.S. for a long time should be targeted for programs that enhance academic competence and parent involvement.     

Mitigating the impact of HIV and AIDS on rural livelihoods in Southern Africa

A variety of interventions to mitigate the increasing impact of the HIV and AIDS epidemic on smallholder agricultural production and food security are currently implemented in sub-Saharan Africa. However, documentation and dissemination of such interventions is limited and patchy. Building on emerging experiences from the field, this article seeks to move beyond charting the impacts of HIV and AIDS on rural livelihoods to review existing mitigation policies and programmes, identify the challenges to mitigation, and provide suggestions for future mitigation strategies and policy priorities. The experiences cited in the article are mainly drawn from the hardest-hit regions in Southern and Eastern Africa, but they provide useful lessons for AIDS-affected rural communities in other contexts. The main conclusion is that, as current initiatives are to a large extent ad hoc and localised, there is a need for documentation, dissemination, and scaling up of existing interventions, as well as greater coherence and co-ordination in policies and programmes to extend their reach and make the most of limited resources.     

Financial management conservatism under constraints: tax and expenditure limits and local deficit financing during the Great Recession

This paper investigates the relationship between tax and expenditure limits (TELs) and local government deficit financing decisions following the recent recession. Cities under the resource constraints are hypothesised to practise conservatism in financial management decisions and thus less likely to deficit finance during difficult times. Using data from 2005 to 2012 Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports of the 50 largest US cities, this paper finds that cities subject to a binding TEL are more likely to control expenditure growth from pre-crisis years to years following the recession; these cities are also less likely to increase deficit financing following the recession, as indicated by a relative increase in their net assets. Although continuous deficit erodes fiscal sustainability and is an undesirable management practice, deficit financing during recessions may be needed for smoothing expenditure and sustaining service provision. The management conservatism associated with the fiscal rules may contribute to the cyclicality of local spending.     

从"生存"到"发展":金融危机下的农民工问题——基于"60后"、"70后"、"80后"三代农民工进城心态的差异研究

当前,面对经济结构转型升级的内在压力和金融危机的外在影响,农民工的退路和出路问题成为政府、学者和全社会关注的热点.本文以对浙江省返城农民工的实地调研和个案访谈作为经验材料和叙事文本,通过"60后"、"70后"、"80后"三代农民工进城心态的对比,发现农民工的行为导向逐步由生存理性走向发展理性.由此,金融危机下解决农民工退路问题应重点关注农民工群体的内部分化及其行为差异,农民工对自身的定位和行为选择差异将决定政府政策制定的导向.     

No Sex,No Crime,No Shame: Privatized Care and the Seduction into Responsibility

The article reflects on the interrelation between neo‐liberal economy and sexuality. The neo‐liberal paradigm issues a paradoxical appellation of individualization and privatized responsibilities. The latter not only refer to personal well‐being and growth, but also demand for care relations, which substitute for the shrinking of the social system. The thesis is that homosexual lifestyles figure as avant‐garde positions, which promise to provide a “solution” to the paradoxical demands for individualization and care. Reading visual representations of lesbian and gay figures in media and advertisements the author argues that non‐normative genders and homosexual ways of existence gain access to the mainstream via the mechanism of “projective integration”. This mechanism stimulates a new hegemonic consensus via the disarticulation of the socio‐political contradictions of the global capitalist economy and the affirmation of not only new forms of intimacy, but also new forms of exclusion.