Did agrarian capitalism exist?

Lack of clarity about key concepts of Marxian political economy and a penchant to apply such concepts too directly to history seriously weakens Brenner's analysis of ‘agrarian capitalism’. It is argued that even as late as 1700 English agriculture is not capitalist to any appreciable extent, when one considers that the corn‐modification of labour power is crucial to considering agriculture to be capitalist, and when one closely examines the actual degree to which labour power is commodified. Further it is argued that English agriculture only becomes substantially capitalist in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.     

Klagebefugnis aus dem allgemeinen Willkürverbot bei einem Verstoß gegen die Staatszielbestimmung Umweltschutz

Zusammenfassung Nach einer Entscheidung des Bayerischen Verfassungsgerichtshofs kann ein Bauleitplan wegen Versto? gegen das Willkürverbot aus Gründen des Umweltschutzes nichtig sein. Diese auf eine Popularklage ergangene Entscheidung er?ffnet die Frage, ob der Verfassungsgrundsatz des Willkürverbots auch im Rahmen von Verwaltungsakten herangezogen werden kann. Der Beitrag bejaht diese M?glichkeit.     

Graffiti vandalism: Frequency and context differences between the sexes

This paper explores a popular yet highly destructive form of property crime — graffiti vandalism. The localities of such destruction selected for study were male and female restrooms. Three hundred and ninety-two cases were collected and analyzed. Prior research theorized the existence of a significant difference in the amount of graffiti produced between the sexes. (It was believed that males produce more graffiti than females). Analysis, however, revealed equal production of graffiti by males and females.Content differences between the sexes were hypothesized. The content categories included homosexual, heterosexual, nonsexual (humorous and political statements) and racial graffiti. The findings as they relate to content differences between the sexes are presented and discussed relative to sex-role socialization theory.     

Bureaucrats’ corruption and competition in public administration

Competition in public administration is often advocated as a solution to bureaucrats’ corruption. However, there are no well developed analyses of how competition could succeed and the issue of its detailed design has not been carefully addressed so far. In this paper, we put forward a series of models that help understand what competition in public administration can actually accomplish. We distinguish two different shapes that corruption may take: bribery and extortion, and we demonstrate, under the usual assumption of asymmetric information as to the honesty of the bureaucrats, that while competition is effective in fighting extortion it exacerbates bribery. Given that corruption normally manifests itself simultaneously under the two different shapes, an anti-corruption policy based upon competition is bound to face a serious trade-off: trying to curb one of them through competition implies making the other worse. This result holds, with some differences, under exogenous and endogenous bureaucrats’ “honesty”. The dual aspect of corruption is probably one of the most serious—and so far largely neglected—obstacles to any effective anti-corruption policy.     

Entrapped on the Web? Applying the Entrapment Defense to Cases Involving Online Sting Operations

Many law enforcement agencies are currently responding to the problem of online crime by establishing proactive investigative units that track criminals on the Internet. Not only do these specialized teams face problems in the area of emerging technology, they are also faced with handling emerging legal issues. The current research examined the issue of the entrapment defense, and how previously established physical realm doctrine could be applied to the investigation of online crimes such as child pornography. Relying on previous case law it would appear that entrapment claims related to online sting operations involve consideration of: a) did the law enforcement officer continuously contact the suspect with the intention of trying to convince the individual to engage in a particular type of behavior, b) how long was the relationship between the undercover officer and the suspect, and c) how much, if any, reluctance to commit the criminal act did the suspect provide evidence of?