High‐End Demand: The Legal Profession as a Source of Judicial Selection Reform in Urban China

Most studies of comparative judicial politics suggest that judicial autonomy emerges from democratic competition, but despite its authoritarian political system, China has introduced reforms that increase merit‐based competition, transparency, and modest professional autonomy in local courts. Variations in judicial selection procedures across urban China reflect differences in local markets for professional legal services: when mid‐ranking judges can easily find lucrative local employment as lawyers, court leaders strategically reform appointment and promotion mechanisms to retain these young, but experienced, judges. These findings are based on nearly fifteen months of in‐country fieldwork, conducted between 2012 and 2014, including forty‐nine interviews with judges across three different cities: Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. Employing the subnational comparative method, this article not only builds theory regarding the legal profession's role in authoritarian states, but also offers new empirical detail regarding the selection, performance evaluation, and behavior of judges in urban China.     

Keep Rowing: Amitai Etzioni and History

Reflecting on the most recent stage of his career, the communitarian, Amitai Etzioni, gives three reasons for what he perceives as his loss of influence. First, the media prefers an argument between strongly opposed positions, but Etzioni is neither liberal nor conservative. Second, the media prefers specialized intellectuals, but Etzioni has refused to “stick to his knitting.” Third, Etzioni has taken an unpopular, dovish position on China. I argue that Etzioni is mistaken about the reasons for his and communitarianism’s rise and perceived fall and offer a more optimistic assessment than he does of the potential influence of his thought. I use this local problem of historical interpretation to question Etzioni’s global interpretation of modern history.     

The politics of judicial discretion: Rethinking the interaction between national courts and the Eurpean court of justice

The recognition that courts play a significant role in the process of European integration has focused attention on the interaction between national judges and the European Court of Justice. The prevailing theoretical model of this interaction holds that a variety of incentives impel national judges to co‐operate with the ECJ by providing it with frequent preliminary references. This article tests the ability of the model to account for the behaviour of national courts during the period 1972–94. In assessing the utility of the model two central claims are made. First, that the model as currently constructed is incapable of explaining the patterns of references originating from various member states, particularly the consistent lack of references from British courts. Second, that the level of British references, and patterns of judicial co‐operation in general, can be better understood by questioning the model's core assumption ‐ that national judges face powerful incentives to refer to the ECJ. As a first step in this direction, the article examines how the discretion to make or withhold references bestows on national judges the power to hasten or retard the pace of integration as well as to influence specific policy outcomes.     

The Fate of an Orphan: The Hawley Board and the Debates over the Postwar Organization of Medical Intelligence

The US Army's medical intelligence program developed during World War II to meet the requirements for information on the medical threat facing soldiers deployed in the first truly global military conflict. The war served as a proving ground for the application of medical intelligence on a strategic, operational and tactical level. However, hasty postwar demobilization decimated many wartime intelligence programs, including medical intelligence. The US intelligence community recognized the utility of medical intelligence as part of the overall strategic scientific and technical intelligence program and sought ways to rebuild the program. During the post-World War II debates over the unification of the military services and the responsibilities of the nascent CIA, the ‘Hawley Board’ was one of several committees which studied the problems facing the medical intelligence program. Although there was broad consensus on the need for better coordination of medical intelligence, the intelligence community ultimately failed to adopt the recommendations of the Hawley Board. The principal reasons behind the failure of the Hawley plan were the re-emergence of prewar interservice rivalries, the dominant role of the Army medical intelligence program, and the lack of a joint military–CIA vision of a centralized medical intelligence service.     

The Carbondale Caper

Abstract

“In July, 1950, Wesley R. Fishel, then an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State College, met Ngo Dinh Diem, a Vietnamese politician out of power, in Tokyo, Japan. The professor and the politician kept up a correspondence and, in early 1951, Fishel had his friend made a consultant to Michigan State's Governmental Research Bureau.” With these words Robert Scigliano and Guy H. Fox begin “Technical Assistance in Vietnam: The Michigan State University Experience”. The authors, whose duties with the Michigan State University Group (MSUG) in Vietnam “spanned all but four of the project's eighty-six months,” describe a university activity, infiltrated by the CIA, which still sends shudders through professors across the country.     

The Korean War: An International History,by William Stueck

Abstract

William Stueck's The Korean War: An International History will be required reading for all scholars of the war for some time to come. Intensively researched, the book is a readable, but detailed account of Korean War diplomacy accompanied by nearly twenty pages of bibliography.     

Theater Missile Defense and Japanese Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

The development of a joint US-Japan theater missile defense system could have significant ramifications beyond the defense of Japan and of American forces in the region. A growing debate within Japan on its international security position, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and questions about the role of the United States in the region conspire to create conditions for significant changes in Japan's conception of its security status and its long‐term political-military calculations. By upgrading Japan's strategic responsibilities, theater missile defense could inadvertently induce a reassessment of many of its national security policies, perhaps even the decision to forego nuclear weapons.     

Toward Olympics 2008: China's development in the reform period

Owen Bennett-Jones presents ‘Newshour’ and ‘The Interview’ for BBC World Service Radio. He has reported from all over the world and was the BBC Correspondent in Islamabad between 1998 and 2001. He is currently preparing a second edition of his book Pakistan: Eye of the Storm.