The Rise and Fall of Capital: Corporate Malaysia in Historical Perspective

This article argues that better informed insights into the benefits and repercussions of the form of development of East Asian economies could be obtained when the theoretical perspectives from two different bodies of literature are employed collectively. If the concepts from the discipline of political economy – specifically the body of literature dealing with the developmental state now commonly deployed in analyses of East Asian economies – are used in combination with concepts from the literature on business history based on the work of Alfred Chandler, the reasons for the rise and fall of major enterprises in East Asia can be better understood. A case study of enterprise and economic development in Malaysia is presented to substantiate this argument.     

Advocates,experts, and suspects: three images of lawyers in Chinese media reports

Research on the public image of lawyers often focuses on lawyers’ role as advocates and neglects other representations. Based on the content analysis of 669 media reports of Chinese criminal cases between 1979 and 2009, this article provides a typology of lawyers’ media images: as advocates, as experts and as suspects. Even when lawyers are characterized as defenders of suspects, media depictions of their roles are vacuous and lawyers may be considered unnecessary and dispensable. Furthermore, the characterization of lawyers in the case stories has a binary quality that is contingent upon the media's substantive judgment of case outcomes. With findings from the Chinese case, the article calls for more attention to lawyers’ images in the media, both in China and in comparative research on the legal profession.     

The Justice Development Commission: overcoming bureaucratic resistance to innovative policy-making

Abstract. The relationship between particular bureaucratic structures and the provision of innovative public programmes is clearly of some importance. In British Columbia a variety of changes in the administration of justice for the province have been promoted by a special organization in the Attorney General's Department, the Justice Development Commission. This paper examines the work of that Commission and analyses the programmatic and structural consequences of its creation. It concludes that the model of the relationship between the special organization and the ongoing bureaucracy suggested by Downs in Inside Bureaucracy provides the most likely explanation for the actions of the Justice Development Commission. Sommaire. Les rapports entre des structures bureaucratiques existantes et l'établissement des programmes nouveaux ont, de toute évidence, une certaine importance. En Colombie Britannique, la Justice Development Commission, rattaché au ministère du Procureur général a provoqué un ensemble de changements dans l'administration de la justice, à l'échelle de la province. L'auteur de cet exposéétudie les travaux de la Commission et analyse les conséquences de sa création, du point de vue des programmes et des structures. Il conclut que le scénario des rapports entre cette commission et la bureaucratic, proposé par Downs dans Inside Bureaucracy, constitue l'explication la plus vraisemblable des mesures adoptees par la Justice Development Commission.     

Contractual Discretion and Administrative Discretion: A Unified Analysis

While judicial control of discretionary power is at the centre of administrative law, it is a topic which has received little attention in contract. By tracing the development of the relevant case law in administrative law judicial review and in contract, the paper seeks to show how review in both contexts has converged upon a single core technique of control through decisional standards. The paper further argues that the consequent identity of method in public and private law review of discretion does not in itself weaken basic public/private law distinctions. While the territories of legislation and contract may overlap, they present basic differences as contexts for the exercise of judicial control of discretion, and these differences of context may weigh more heavily than identity of approach in determining the outcomes of litigation. ¹     

Professional Projects of Elite Chicago Lawyers, 1950–1974

This article reports results of an inquiry into the composition and policies of the leaders of the Chicago Bar Association. The leadership cadre was partitioned into three status groups on the basis of background characteristics and law school attended. Outside educational elites, dominating the board during the early 1950s, pursued policies that defended prestigious areas of legal work from other encroaching professionals and sought to constrain the plaintiff side of the personal injury bar. Local ethnic elites obtained a share of the leadership during the mid-1960s and transformed the judicial politics of the CBA to conform to local Democratic party objectives. At the center of the leadership cadre was a group of local aristocrats, well connected to major corporate and civic organizations, whose participation in the leadership roles fluctuated less dramatically than that of the other groups. A review of policies suggests that the local aristocrats were responsible to some extent for integrating the various specialized projects pursued by disparate segments of the Chicago bar. Detailed examination of the composition and policies of this local bar leads to the conclusion that associations of the legal profession are capable of accommodating diverse interests to an extent not previously measured or assessed.