Regulating government (’s share): the fifty-percent rule of the federal constitutional court in Germany

Some numbers in the political sphere seem to be chosen rather arbitrarily. One example might be the rule set out by the Second Senate of the German Federal Constitutional Court in 1995 that the overall tax load on assets must be limited to 50% of the yield on those assets. This rule was understood by many as a general principle for taxation. The article first sketches the socio-political climate under which the rule originated: a rise of neo-liberal thought met with the inability of the political institutions to reform the German welfare state with its ever-growing expenses. The Constitutional Court’s intervention is interpreted as a reaction to this stagnation in politics. An analysis from the perspective of Constitutional Law, however, reveals that the 50% rule cannot be convincingly based on the German Basic Law, and instead must be seen as a political move of the Court. But this move did not follow an economic rationality, either; for an optimal government’s share can only be determined in relation to the economic performance of a country and not by fixing it generally at a maximum of 50% of GDP. The demise of the 50% rule already began four years later. In 2006, finally, the Senate moved away from the individual rights-based approach of 1995 to a more general assessment, taking also into account an increasingly globalized tax competition. The reason for this clear-cut change in the Court’s jurisprudence can be found in a change of the socio-political and institutional parameters, thus witnessing to the effect of the political climate on court decisions. The analysis also shows that the rule was created and abandoned only on the basis of an “introverted” legal discussion, economic arguments hardly playing any role in the process. The new line of the Senate, however, might guarantee for a better integration of economic science into tax policy by exchanging fixed limits for a “discursive” model, demanding from the tax legislator better reasons for higher taxes.     

Detecting deception in suspects: verbal cues as a function of interview strategy

Research on deception has consistently shown that people are poor at detecting deception, partly due to lack of consistent cues to deception. This research focuses on eliciting verbal cues to deception when questioning suspects who deny crime and how such cues differ due to type of questioning. An experiment examined verbal differences between innocent and guilty mock suspects (N=96) as a function of veracity and interview style (Free recall, Probes, or Free recall plus Probes). Guilty (vs innocent) suspects omitted more crime-relevant information and their statements were more likely to contradict the evidence, showing that statement–evidence inconsistency was a cue to deception. This cue to deception was more pronounced when the interview contained probes. Lie-catchers (N=192) obtained an accuracy rate higher than chance (61.5%) for detecting deceptive denials. Implications for further research on verbal cues to deception are discussed.     

Beyond the fallacy of coup-ism: conceptualizing civilian control of the military in emerging democracies

It is consensus in the democratization literature that civilian control of the military is a necessary ingredient for democracy and democratic consolidation. However, there is considerable disagreement on what civilian control of the military exactly entails and there is a lack of solid theoretical arguments for how weak or absent civilian control affects democratic governance. Furthermore, a considerable portion of the research literature is captured by the fallacy of coup-ism, ignoring the many other forms in which military officers can constrain the authority of democratically elected political leaders to make political decisions and get them implemented. This article addresses these lacunae by providing a new conceptual framework for the analysis of civil–military relations in emerging democracies. From democracy theory it derives a definition of civilian control as a certain distribution of decision-making power between civilian leaders and military officers. Based on this definition, the authors develop a five-dimensional concept of civilian control, discuss the effects of weakly institutionalized civilian control on the quality of democracy and address the chances for democratic consolidation.     

History lessons for today's housing policy: the politics of low-income housing

History offers valuable lessons to housing policymakers. For those who would devise new low-income housing programs during today's trying economic circumstances, it is helpful to study the strategies that succeeded in achieving low-income housing programs in past difficult times. This article, History Lessons for Today's Housing Policy, examines the political processes that led to the adoption of new low-income housing policies during four political crises. The four crises were the Great Depression of the 1930s, the post-World War II housing shortage, the urban crisis of the 1960s, and the policy crisis of the 1970s. Among other history lessons, the article reveals that well-organized political support, especially from large institutions, is crucial to achieving distinctly different new programs; that decentralized programs are more politically resilient than centralized programs; that programs that appeal to the nation's broad middle-class are most popular; and that policy research is valuable but that politics trumps research.     

Reviews

Opening Rounds: Lessons of Military History, 1918–1988, by Anthony Farrar‐Hockley. Andre Deutsch, London, 1988. xiii+188 pp. £12.95. ISBN 0–233–98009–1.

The Blunted Sword: The Erosion of Military Power in Modern World Politics, by Evan Luard. I. B. Tauris, London, 1988. v+196 pp. £16.95. ISBN 1–85043–068–3.

Total War: The Causes and Courses of the Second World War (Revised second edition), edited by Peter Calvocoressi, Guy Wint and John Pritchard. Viking, London, 1989. xxviii+1,315 pp., illus., maps. £25. ISBN 0–670–80311–1.

Codebreaker in the Far East, by Alan Stripp. Frank Cass, London, 1989. xiv+204 pp., illus. £18. ISBN 0–7146–3363–1.

The Pacific: Peace, Security and the Nuclear Issue, edited by Ranginui Walker and William Sutherland. Zed Books, New Jersey; UN University, Tokyo; 1988. xiii+243 pp. £8.95 paperback. ISBN 0–86232–815–2.

China eyes Japan, by Allen S. Whiting. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1989. xi+228 pp. $29.95. ISBN 0–520–06511–5.

Single Sparks: China's Rural Revolutions, edited by Kathleen Hartford and Steven M. Goldstein. M. E. Sharpe, New York, 1989. xi+216 pp. $35.00. ISBN 0–87332–427–7.

China's Regional Development, edited by David S. G. Goodman, (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) Routledge, London and New York, 1989. xvi+204 pp. £32.50 hardback. ISBN 0–415–03510–4.

China's Science Policy in the 80s, (Studies on East Asia), by Tony Saich. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1988. iv+188 pp. £29.95. ISBN 0–7190–2986–4.

The Chinese Communist Party's Nomenklatura System, edited by John P. Burns. M. E. Sharpe Inc., New York and London, 1989. xlii+166 pp. $39.95. ISBN 0–87332–543–5.

The Thought of Mao Tse‐tung, by Stuart Schram. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989. x+242 pp. £27.50 hardback, £8.95 paperback. ISBN 0–521–32549–8 and 0–521–31062–8.

The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao: From the Hundred Flowers to the Great Leap Forward (Harvard Contemporary China Series: 6), edited by Roderick MacFarquhar, Timothy Cheek and Eugene Wu. The Council on East Asian Studies/Harvard University, Harvard, 1989. xxiii+561 pp. £11.95 paperback. ISBN 0–67 4–7967 3‐X.

Marxism and the Chinese Experience: Issues in Contemporary Chinese Socialism, edited by Arif Dirlik and Maurice Meisner. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk NY and London, 1989. xii+384 pp. $45.00. hardback, $17.95 paperback. ISBN 0–87332–515‐X and 0–87332–546‐X.

The Asiatic Mode of Production in China, edited by Timothy Brook. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk NY and London, 1989. xi+204 pp. $39.95. ISBN 0–87332–542–7.

The New China: Comparative Economic Development in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hongkong, by Alvin Rabushka. Westview Press, Boulder and London, 1987. xii+254 pp. £28. ISBN 0–8133–0519–5.

Golden Inches: The China Memoir of Grace Service, edited by John S. Service. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1979. xxvi+346 pp. $19.95. ISBN 0–520–06656–1.

Information China: The Comprehensive and Authoritative Reference Source of New China, (3 volumes), organized by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, compiled and translated by the China Social Sciences Publishing House. Edited for Pergamon Press by C. V. James. (Oxford, New York, Beijing, Frankfurt, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto: Pergamon Press, 1989). 1,621 pp., 1,250 photographs, line drawings and tables; 52 full colour plates; 23 maps. £450. ($795.00). ISBN 0–08–034764–9.

New China's Population, by China's Financial and Economic Publishing House. (New York and London: Macmillan, 1988). xxiv+232pp., tables, charts. £64. ISBN 0–02–905471–0.

China: Facts and Figures Annual, Volume 12, 1989, edited by Charles E. Greer (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1989). xxiii+510 pp. $91.00. ISBN0–87569–112–9.

The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 5: The Nineteenth Century, edited by Marius B. Jansen. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1989. xiv+828 pp. £60, $89.50. ISBN 0–521–22356–3.

The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 6: The Twentieth Century, edited by Peter Duus. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1988. xx+866 pp. £60, $89.50. ISBN 0–521–22357–1.

Children of the Sun: The Japanese and the Outside World, by Michio Kitahara. Paul Norbury Publications, Sandgate, Folkestone, Kent, 1989. 160 pp. £12.95. ISBN 0–904404–68–4.

The Sun also Sets: Why Japan will not be Number One, by Bill Emmott. Simon and Schuster, London, 1989. xii+275 pp. £14.95. ISBN 0–671–69696–3.

Japan: The Blighted Blossom, by Roy Thomas. I. B. Tauris, London, 1989. xii+299 pp. £16.95. ISBN 1–85043–125–6.

A History of Japanese Economic Thought, by Tessa Morris‐Suzuki. Routledge, London and New York; with the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, Oxford, 1989. vii+213 pp. £30. ISBN 0–415–01264–3.

The Japanese Business Community and the National Trade Policy, 1920–1942, by William Miles Fletcher III. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1989. x+226 pp. £34.95 ($37.45). ISBN 0–8078–1847‐X.

Management and Higher Education Since 1940: The influence of America and Japan on West Germany, Great Britain, and France, by Robert R. Locke. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989. xiii+328 pp. £30. ISBN 0–521–34102–7.

Democracy in Japan (Pitt Series in Policy and Institutional Studies), edited by Takeshi Ishida and Ellis S. Krauss. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1989. x+354 pp. $39.95 hardback, $14.95 paperback. ISBN 0–8229–3608–9 and 0–8229–5414–1.

A History of Singapore, 1819–1988 (Second Edition), by C. M. Turnbull. Oxford University Press, Singapore, Oxford and New York, 1989. xiv+388 pp. 16 plates, 8 maps. £30. ISBN 0–19–588911–8.

Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization, by Alice H. Amsden. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1989. xvi+379 pp. £25. ISBN 0–19–505852–6.

Korea: A Religious History, by James Huntley Grayson. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989. xii+319 pp. £37.50. ISBN 0–19–826186–1.

Authoritarianism and Opposition in South Korea, by Hak‐Kyu Sohn. Routledge, London and New York, 1989. xii+287 pp. £35. ISBN 0–415–03550–3.

Australian Public Policy and Economic Vulnerability: A Comparative and Historical Perspective, by Francis Castles. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988. xii+184 pp. £12.95 paperback. ISBN 0–04–324021–6.

The Politics of Development in Australia, edited by Brian Head. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1989. xv+274 pp. £11.95 paperback. ISBN 0–04–861880–2.

The Great Betrayal: Britain, Australia and the Onset of the Pacific War 1939–42, by David Day. Angus and Robertson, Sydney and London, 1988. x+388 pp. Illus. £14.95, AS39.95. ISBN 0–207–15328–0.

India and South East Asia: Indian Perceptions and Policies, by Mohammed Ayoob. Routledge, London, 1989. xi+105 pp. £25. ISBN 0–415–03894–4.

Southeast Asia: An Illustrated Introductory History (Expanded Edition) by Milton Osborne. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, Wellington, London and Boston, 1989. viii+263 pp., illus., maps. £11.95 paperback. ISBN 0–04–352238–6.

Crisis and Response: The Challenge to South‐South Economic Cooperation, edited by Noordin Sopiee, B. A. Hamzah and Leong Choon Heng. Kegan Paul International, London, 1989. xxvii+450 pp. £45. ISBN 0–7103–0370‐X.

Women's Asia, by Yayori Matsui. Zed Books Ltd., London and New Jersey, 1989. viii+172 pp. £26.95 ($49.95) hardback, £7.95 ($12.50) paperback. ISBN 0–86232–826–8 and 0–86232–827–6.

Urbanization in Asia: Spatial Dimensions and Policy Issues, edited by Frank J. Costa, Ashok K. Dutt, Laurence J. C. Ma, and Allen Noble. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1989. ix+412 pp. $44.00. ISBN 0–8248–1151–8.

The Far East and Australasia 1990 (updated and revised edition), (London: Europa Publications, 1990), xxi+1,054 pp., maps. £105.00. ISBN 0–946653–53–4.     

A novel method for the analysis of discharged smokeless powder residues

A novel method for the estimation of intermediate-long firing distance range is proposed. The method is based on the characterization and chemical analysis of the smokeless powder particles on the target. An adhesive lifter is applied to collect the suspected gunshot residues (GSRs) from the surface of an object, and a Modified Griess Test (MGT) is carried out after alkaline hydrolysis on the adhesive lifter. Visualized particles are removed from the adhesive lifter under a microscope. Two systems are used for the analysis of organic discharge residues from the smokeless powder: (1) gas chromatography/thermal energy analysis (GC/TEA) for the analysis of nitroglycerine (NG) and 2,4-dinitrotoluene (2,4-DNT), (2) gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) for the identification of organic components such as DNT, NG, and some stabilizers. By using this procedure and confirming that the suspected particles are indeed GSR, one can estimate the intermediate-long firing distance of c. 0.75-3 m in the presence of very few particles and provide information for the classification of ammunition type in casework.     

Accidental boric acid poisoning following the ingestion of household pesticide

Borate-containing compounds were formerly used as topical antiseptics and were components of many medicinal preparations including skin powders and ointments used for the treatment of burns and diaper rash. These compounds were also used as irrigants for body cavities, including the pleural, vaginal, and rectal cavities. These applications were subsequently discontinued by the medical community when the toxicity and potential lethality of borates were recognized. Although documented cases of borate poisoning are now rare, the chemical is still an active component commonly used in high concentrations in household disinfectants/cleaners, pesticides, and wood preservatives. While the majority of documented borate-related deaths have occurred in infants, the toddler population is currently at risk due to possible exposure to these household products. We present the case of an 18-month-old child who died following the accidental ingestion of a boric acid-containing, commercially available roach pesticide product.     

Regulating the retirement age—Lessons from Nordic pension policy approaches

The likelihood that longevity will continue to increase has generated a search for regulation that make people work longer as they live longer, and thus not just containing pension expenditure but also enlarging labor supply, economic growth, and tax revenue. In public pension policy, Nordic countries have led the world with three types of approaches aimed at making people retire later. The first came when Sweden, followed by Finland and Norway, installed life expectancy coefficients in benefit calculation formulas. The second followed as Finland introduced age-related accrual rates and the third when Denmark indexed the pensionable age to developments in life expectancy. Since economic incentive-based regulations failed to raise exit ages sufficiently, Finland and Sweden subsequently linked pensionable ages to life expectancy like Denmark. While this policy brings out inequalities in health and workability, the fact that countries found it necessary to index the pensionable age to longevity instead of just relying on economic incentives in regulating retirement behavior may hold lessons for other countries.     

Family Psychopathology and Perceived Stress of Both Domestic Violence and Negative Life Events as Predictors of Women’s Mental Health Symptoms

Using a diathesis–stress model, this study examined the development of depressive and anxiety symptoms in women who experience stressors of domestic violence (DV) and/or negative life events (NLEs) over the course of three years. Family history of affective mental health problems represented the diathesis. Using a person-oriented approach, 182 women were grouped into 6 risk profiles based on varying levels of DV and NLEs. Results showed that family history of psychopathology increased vulnerability to mental health disorders; however, the best predictor of symptoms was the presence of either stressor at any time. A quadratic relationship between the risk pattern and mental health symptoms indicated that fluctuations in depression were related to the pattern of stress experienced. Results support the diathesis–stress model for occurrence of depressive but not anxiety symptoms in women with DV and/or NLEs.