AGE,GENDER, AND THE CRIME OF CRIMES: TOWARD A LIFE‐COURSE THEORY OF GENOCIDE PARTICIPATION*

This article asks whether genocide follows the age and gender distributions common to other crime. We develop and test a life‐course model of genocide participation to address this question using a new dataset of 1,068,192 cases tried in Rwanda's gacaca courts. Three types of prosecutions are considered: 1) inciting, organizing, or supervising violence; 2) killings and other physical assaults; and 3) offenses against property. By relying on systematic graphic comparisons, we find that the peak age of those tried in the gacaca courts was 34 years at the time of the genocide, which is older than the peak age for most other types of crime. We likewise find that women were more likely to participate in crimes against property and comparatively unlikely to commit genocidal murder. Symbolic–interactionist explanations of crime suggest people desist from crime as a result of shared understandings of the expectations of adulthood. We argue that this process may be turned on its head during genocide as participants may believe they are defending their communities against a perceived threat. Thus, in contrast to other criminological theories suggesting that people must desist from crime to be accorded adult status, some adults may participate in genocide to fulfill their duties as adult men.     

Relatively Permanent Pigmented or Vascular Skin Marks for Identification: A Pilot Reliability Study

In child sexual exploitation offenses, the collected evidence images often show the skin of nonfacial body parts of the criminals and victims. For identification in this scenario, “relatively permanent pigmented or vascular skin marks,” abbreviated as RPPVSM, were recently introduced as the basis for a novel biometric trait. This pilot study evaluated the interexaminer variability of RPPVSM identification. Four dermatology physicians were recruited to examine RPPVSM from 75 skin images collected from a total of 51 Caucasian and Asian subjects. The images were separated into 50 reference (“suspect”) images and 25 evaluation (“evidence”) images. The examiners were asked to perform identification by annotating RPPVSM in each of the 25 evaluation images and matching them with the reference images. The rate of misidentification was 0% while the mean rate at which examiners failed to find a match was 6%, indicating the potential of dermatology physicians performing the role of RPPVSM examiners.     

Nine-locus Y-chromosome STR profiling of Caucasian and Xhosa populations from Cape Town, South Africa

Y-chromosome STR markers are not widely used in forensic case work in South Africa. To begin assessing the forensic value of these markers in South Africa, samples were collected from 100 English-speaking Caucasian males and 99 Xhosa males, living in the Cape Town metropolitan area. Allele and haplotype frequencies were determined for nine Y-chromosome STR loci (DYS19, DYS389-I, DYS389-II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, and the duplicated locus DYS385). Unique haplotypes were obtained for 47 Xhosa males and 66 Caucasians.     

Examining the Canadian Government's Resistance to Including Socioeconomic Concerns in Genetically Modified Seeds Regulation: A Policy Transfer and Multilevel Approach

In 2011, Canadian Members of Parliament refused to transfer a regulatory initiative taken from Argentina that would have required an analysis of potential harm to export markets before authorizing the sale of any new genetically modified seed. This was the purpose of Bill C‐474, which was defeated in the House of Commons. After exploring Argentina's regulatory framework as a source of transfer, this paper combines a multilevel analysis with a typology of policy transfer mechanisms in order to address the complexities underlying this unsuccessful attempt. We explore how the mechanisms of competition and coercion might have impeded the transfer of such an initiative at the international and the macro‐state levels. Moreover, while a policy transfer network in support of the bill called on previous experiences with genetically modified seeds, their efforts appear to have been outweighed by another network using arguments based on the mechanisms of competition, coercion, and mimicry.     

Public Support for Climate Change Policy: Consistency in the Influence of Values and Attitudes Over Time and Across Specific Policy Alternatives

This study examines the factors that explain public preferences for a set of climate change policy alternatives. While scholarly work indicates a relationship between attitudes and values on views toward specific issues, the literature often examines general support for issues rather than specific policy proposals. Consequently, it is unclear the extent to which these attitudes and values affect specific policy considerations. This project examines public support for five climate change policy options in two national surveys taken three years apart. The empirical analysis reveals that time is a factor and that those who are liberal, have strong ecological values, report greater concern for climate change, and trust experts are consistently more supportive of the climate policy options considered here. The results shed new light on the nuanced views of the American public toward climate change.     

A Fresh Look at Stock Market Short‐termism

In this article, we develop a novel understanding of stock market short‐termism as a social phenomenon. Contrary to formerly popular academic belief, short‐termism is a problem that is highly unlikely to be structurally self‐correcting. An important driver of short‐termism typically elided within standard legal‐academic analyses is the informational centricity of modern stock markets, and resulting pressure on corporate managers to generate fresh ‘news’ indicative of perceived business ‘progress’. We highlight the growing enthusiasm of policy‐makers for a discriminatory ‘two‐tiered’ approach to public company investor relations. Accordingly, long‐term and committed investors are expected to be brought into the company's governance ‘inner circle’, while other investors are implicitly relegated to lowertier ‘outsider’ status. We argue that this supports a discriminatory approach to the allocation of voting entitlements in newly listing companies, enabling committed investors to develop cooperative and sustained governance relations with management unencumbered by ‘outside’ stock market pressures for short‐term financial‐performance outcomes.     

Watering Down the Court of Justice? The Dynamics between Network Implementation and Article 258 TFEU Litigation

With the establishment of an administrative network to manage implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), a more consensual approach to judicial enforcement seemed like a natural next step. This anticipation was partially derived from the experimentalist nature of the WFD, requiring concerted action in the specification and application of its open‐ended and broad provisions. This article assesses how important changes in WFD implementation practices shape the role played by the Court of Justice with respect to Article 258 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The examination of the WFD litigation reveals interesting tensions. Network‐based implementation practices keep Member States accountable for the progress of implementation and make a subsequent legal action swifter. At the same time, implementation practices remove from courts those issues that may be better solved by network participants. The results show how the function and exercise of judicial enforcement is influenced by the ways in which legislation is implemented.     

Professionals' Contribution to the Legislative Process: Between Self,Client, and the Public

How may professionals be made to contribute to legislative processes so that their expertise redounds to the public interest, despite the legislative product being likely to have a negative impact on their clients' wealth? Drawing on a case study of the legislative process that gave birth to Israel's recent (2002–2008) trusts taxation regime, based on five years of participant observation among the trust professional community, I find that to obtain the benefit of private‐sector professionals' expertise under such circumstances, government should have legislation drafted in a dispassionate, exclusive environment of experts rather than in the political arena; it should build professionals' trust in government by adopting an explicitly collegial approach; it should focus reform efforts on elements of the existing law so clearly inequitable as to make a refusal to contribute difficult to justify; and take care that the new regime creates a compliance practice lucrative enough to compensate for any loss to professionals consequent on its enactment. Once professionals' interests are suitably safeguarded, their loyalty to clients appears surprisingly brittle and government can successfully combine with them in the public interest.     

Environmental management by law in China: The Guangzhou experience∗

Taking enviornmental management in Guangzhou as an example, this article explores the theory and practice of Communist China's idea of “environmental management by law.” Based on the Guangzhou experience, it argues that environmental management by law in China is mainly an administrative system of environmental management which takes law strictly as a tool for efficient and effective environmental protection. This system is operated on the principle of ‘rule by law’, and is the antithesis of the Maoist practice of “rule by person.” Contrary to its Western counterpart, China's environmental management system is built on a state‐centered conception of administrative law instead of a ‘right‐centered’ one which is the core of the ‘rule of law’ tradition.     

Mobilizing Interests: Group Participation and Competition in Direct Democracy Elections

We examine group mobilization in direct democracy elections by assessing the conditions under which interests will actively support or oppose ballot measures. Motivating our analysis is that the decision to mobilize is driven by the costs and benefits of group participation, a calculus shaped by issue characteristics, state political institutions, and the electoral context. Using data from initiative and referendum measures appearing on statewide ballots from 2003 to 2008, we find that ballot measures involving social and tax issues are likely to produce competition among groups and increase the overall number of groups involved. In addition, we find that group competition and levels of mobilization increased in response to how difficult it would be for the legislature to undo the change brought about from passage of a ballot measure. Lastly, group competition and levels of mobilization increased for ballot measures appearing in nonpresidential election years and for ballot measures featuring a close election. Taken together, our results suggest that groups engage strategically in direct democracy elections to pursue a mix of policy and political goals.