The foundations of electoral corruption in Japan

This article describes the sources of electoral corruption in postwar Japan, in particular the relationship between demand for political funds by politicians and its supply by corporate donors. The weakness of legal and political sanctions, it is argued, allows this relationship to continue. The article concludes by examining the possibilities and limitations of recent efforts to curb electoral corruption.     

Ethics and legal education

ABSTRACT

This article explores how theatre, particularly forum theatre, may be used as a means of testing new legislation. This article documents a workshop involving a theatricalised bilingual Tribunal and uses this as a case study of how theatre may be used to explore the implications of new legislation in order to gain an understanding of its potential problems and weaknesses. The article concludes by exploring other ways in which theatre may be used to explore new legislation.     

Capture Theory and the Public Interest: Balancing Competing Values to Ensure Regulatory Effectiveness

Problems arise when a regulatory agency acts in the interests of the industry it is charged with regulating, rather than in the public interest. When a governmental agency established to regulate an industry for the benefit of society acts instead for the interests of the industry it is regulating, it has been “captured” by the industry. This article examines the level of input received from the regulated community and the tendency of regulatory agency capture. Here, the proposed zone of effectiveness suggests a balance between the two scopes by incorporating a stronger focus on public interest.     

Designing,Implementing, and Evaluating a Media Campaign Illustrating the Bystander Role

SUMMARY

The present article discusses convents as homes. Resulting from the study of a Gregorian source presently housed at DePaul University's Richardson library, this article probes the complexities and restrictions of convent life in 17th century Spain. The Sanctoral de Visperas (1653) functions as a backdrop for a consideration of how singing chant and attendant rituals enriched the lives of nuns. Also included are references to nuns from this period who were outstanding musicians and poets and whose works have recently received enthusiastic attention.     

Translating sexual assault prevention from a college campus to a United States military installation: piloting the know-your-power bystander social marketing campaign

One population that shares both similar and different characteristics with traditional college-age students is the U.S. Military. Similarities include a high concentration of 18- to 26-year-olds dealing with new found independence, peer pressure, and the presence of social norms that support violence and hypermasculinity. Sexual violence is a major public health problem in the United States, and because of the similarities in the age group of college and military populations, the problems regarding sexual violence in both constituencies have been well-documented. In the current pilot study we seek to add to both current knowledge about and promising practices of translating prevention strategies from one target audience to another. We describe how we translated, administered, and evaluated a bystander intervention social marketing campaign focused on sexual assault prevention that had been found to significantly affect attitude change on a college campus for a U.S. Army installation in Europe. In addition to demonstrating the process of translating prevention strategies across target audiences, findings from this pilot study contribute to the evaluation data on the effectiveness of sexual violence prevention strategies implemented with members of the U.S. Military. From our analysis, we see that research participants indicate that the degree to which the images resonate with them and the familiarity of the context (i.e., social self-identification) significantly effect the participants' personal responsibility for reducing sexual assault, confidence in acting as a bystander, and reported engagement as a bystander.     

Electoral contexts that impede voter coordination

An electorate can effectively coordinate on the viable parties in its district, or a relatively large proportion of its voters may “waste” their votes on parties that fail to obtain office. Avoiding wasted votes can be more or less difficult depending on several characteristics of the electoral context. Unfortunately, many of the features of electoral contexts hypothesized to cause vote wastage have been tested piecemeal on only a handful of (non-random) cases and/or with data inappropriately aggregated to the national, rather than the district, level. Based on results from 2007 districts in 183 lower chamber elections across 21 countries, we find evidence that new electoral rules, the entry of new parties, past electoral volatility, and high district magnitudes are all likely to make coordination a challenge, with entry by new parties having the largest, most consistent effect.