Max Weber on the Labour Contract: Between Realism and Formal Legal Thought

Although Max Weber's review essay of the first part of Philipp Lotmar's The Labour Contract may appear peripheral to his overall contribution to legal sociology, it contains important insights on the relationship of law to economics, the utility of sociological empirical research for jurisprudence, the epistemological gap between 'legal dogmatics' and the sociology of law, and the fundamental distinction between state and non-state law in properly understanding the developmental logic of labour law.
In the review, far from appearing as a rigid partisan of positivistic legal formalism, Weber admits of a kind of 'legal pluralism' as a necessary path to the sociology of law, and allows some measure of realism, when celebrating Lotmar's analysis of the social facts of law as a precondition for proper juristic treatment of the labour contract. Nevertheless, Weber remained distrustful of legal realism which, for him, was founded on an epistemological confusion between 'is' and 'ought'.     

The Associations between Substance Use,Sexual Behavior,Deviant Behaviors and Adolescents’ Engagement in Sexting: Does Relationship Context Matter?

While prior research has identified multiple associations between engagement in sexting and risky behaviors, most existing studies do not take into account the contexts in which sexting occurs. The present study extends prior research by examining whether the associations between adolescents’ sexting behavior and engagement in substance use, sexual behaviors, and deviant behaviors differ depending on the relational context (within or outside of a romantic relationship) in which young people engage in sexting. Results from a survey of 1187 secondary school students (61.3% girls, n?=?728) between 16 and 22 years old (M?=?17.82 years; SD?=?0.88) revealed that sexting with a romantic partner is not a significant marker of engagement in risk behaviors. However, single youth who engage in sexting outside of a romantic relationship are more likely to report substance use, relative to their non-sexting counterparts. These findings underscore the need to use more nuanced measures to investigate sexting and for sexual education initiatives to integrate messages about substance use.     

The Effect of Lower Transaction Costs on Social Security Disability Insurance Application Rates and Participation

Transaction costs pose significant barriers to participation in public programs. We analyze how Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application behavior was affected by iClaim, a 2009 innovation that streamlined the online application process. We use a difference‐in‐differences design to compare application rates before and after 2009 across counties with varying degrees of access to high‐speed internet. We estimate that counties with internet connectivity one standard‐deviation above the mean experienced a 1.6 percent increase in SSDI applications, and a 2.8 percent increase in appeals after the reform. We estimate that the increase in applications due to iClaim can explain 15 percent of the overall increase in applications between 2008 and 2011. Higher exposure to the online application led to a slightly larger increase in SSDI awards, meaning there was a small but significant increase in the overall award rate. Application rates increased the most in rural areas, while appeals and awards had more significant increases in urban areas. These results suggest that the online application reduced transaction costs to applicants, and the lower costs improved the overall targeting efficiency of the application process.     

Death by a Thousand Grants? The Challenge of Grant Funding Reliance for Local Government Councils in the Northern Territory of Australia

In July 2008, the local government sector in the Northern Territory of Australia underwent wide-sweeping reforms whereby 53 councils, most of which were located in remote Indigenous communities, were amalgamated into eight regional shires. The dominant justifications for these reforms focused on internal ‘deficit’ views about the community council sector, including lack of competent and ethical staff, managerial workforce instability, inefficient use of resources, and poor oversight as the primary causes of chronic underperformance and dysfunction. This paper identifies and discusses the under-scrutinised role of grants revenue dependency and volatility in the demise of remote small councils in the Northern Territory. We analyse financial data to demonstrate the extreme volatility in year-on-year grants funding. With their high dependency on grants revenue, such volatility and unpredictability resulted in councils being hamstrung in their ability to strategically plan and ensure stability in service delivery, infrastructure management and employment provision. We argue that these fiscal dynamics, fuelled by hierarchical intergovernmental relations, contributed significantly to dysfunction in the sector, as well as mutually reinforcing pre-existing structural and endogenous weaknesses. This argument runs against the common conceptualisation of the sector as requiring of externally imposed structural reform. We conclude by suggesting that there are factors additional to scale that need to be incorporated into analysis of the effects of amalgamation policies on remote councils.     

Contextualised Capital: Policy Reforms and Inward Flows in Germany

Policy-makers in Germany have implemented, from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s, an impressive set of reforms designed to provide greater legal protection to minority shareholders. These reforms are linked with circumscribed changes: medium and long-term UK/US-based institutional investors have become major shareholders of large German firms; the incursions of short-term institutional investors, in contrast, have been more limited. This outcome highlights the interaction between firm-level institutional arrangements of German companies and the characteristics of different categories of shareholder value oriented funds. Institutional arrangements act as constraints that reduce the range of the strategic options of German firms. However, institutions are not specific enough to translate into predictions about the investment behaviour of different categories of investors who are themselves governed by internally defined rules that affect how they operate within an institutional framework.     

In Vivo Facial Tissue Depth for Canadian Aboriginal Children: A Case Study from Nova Scotia,Canada

This study examines facial tissue depth in Canadian Aboriginal children. Using ultrasound, measurements were taken at 19 points on the faces of 392 individuals aged 3–18 years old. The relationships between tissue thickness, age, and sex were investigated. A positive linear trend may exist between tissue thickness and age for Aboriginal females and males at multiple points. No points show significant differences in facial tissue depth between males and females aged 3–8 years old; seven points show significant differences in facial tissue depth between males and females aged 9–13 years old; and five points show significant differences in facial tissue depth between males and females aged 14–18 years old. Comparisons were made with White Americans and African Nova Scotians. These data can assist in 3‐D facial reconstructions and aid in establishing an individual's identity. Previously, no data existed for facial tissue thickness in Canadian Aboriginal populations.     

A Fatality Following Ingestion of the Designer Drug Meta‐Chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) in an Asthmatic—HPLC‐MS/MS Detection in Biofluids and Hair

A 20‐year‐old man, a cocaine addict and regular ecstasy user, with a medical history of allergic asthma died after ingesting half a tablet earlier the same day. The white tablet, stamped with a “smiling sun” logo looked very much like an ecstasy tablet and was sold as such. He experienced a severe asthma attack just after ingesting the half tablet and it evolved over the next few hours into fatal cardiorespiratory arrest. Biological samples, taken after embalming, were analyzed by high‐performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC‐MS/MS). Analysis revealed meta‐chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) in concentrations of 45.8 mg in a similar tablet obtained later from the drug dealer, 5.1 ng/mL in the bile, 0.3 ng/g in the liver, 15.0 ng/mL in the urine, and its absence in a hair sample (<0.02 ng/mg), which indicated he was not a regular user (whereas strong concentrations of MDMA and cocaine were found in the hair). Interrogated by the police after his arrest, the dealer said that he had sold the victim and for the very first time two tablets with the same “smiling sun” logo. The tablet used for analysis was from the same brand as the one ingested by the victim. The autopsy excluded other causes of death, while the histological analyses showed a large number of polynuclear eosinophils in the bronchial walls, confirming the asthmatic pathology. None of the other organs examined (larynx, liver, heart, adrenal glands, and kidneys) showed any distinctive signs, and in particular no inflammatory infiltrate. The death was the result of an asthma attack in an asthmatic person, violently decompensated following ingestion of approximately 20 mg of mCPP.     

Human Rights Prosecutions and the Participation Rights of Victims in Latin America

Since the 1980s, there has been a significant rise in domestic and international efforts to enforce individual criminal accountability for human rights violations through trials, but we still lack complete explanations for the emergence of this trend and the variation observed in the use of human rights prosecutions in the world. In this article, we examine the role that procedural law has had in allowing societal actors to influence in this rising trend for individual criminal accountability. We do this by focusing on participation rights granted to victims, such as private prosecution in criminal cases. Based on an exploration of an original database on human rights prosecutions in Latin America and fieldwork research in three countries, we argue that private prosecution is the key causal mechanism that allows societal actors to fight in domestic courts for individual criminal accountability for human rights violations.     

Atropine Eye Drops: An Unusual Homicidal Poisoning

In March 2009, the body of a 51‐year‐old man was found in the boot of his car. The body had been frozen before being dismembered at the abdomen. The autopsy failed to determine the cause of death. Systematic toxicological analyses of the victim's peripheral blood and urine showed the presence of atropine, a powerful anticholinergic. Atropine was therefore specifically detected and quantified throughout the victim's biologic samples by HPLC‐MS² in the biologic fluids and UHPLC‐MS² in the hair. The atropine concentrations were 887 ng/mL in the cardiac blood, 489 ng/mL in the peripheral blood, 6693 ng/mL in the gastric contents (1.1 μg), 6753 ng/mL in the urine, and 2290 pg/mg in the hair. The blood concentrations measured in the decedent were consistent with an overdose of atropine, which was determined as the cause of death. The manner of death was a homicide with criminal intent.