Geographic Representation in Party‐Dominated Legislatures: A Quantitative Text Analysis of Parliamentary Questions in the German Bundestag

Political representation in European democracies is widely considered partisan and collectivist. This article, however, stresses that there is more to the representative process in European democracies than just its textbook version. It emphasizes the role of geographic representation as a complementary strategy in party‐dominated legislatures that is characterized by two distinct features. First, legislators employ distinct opportunities to participate in legislative contexts to signal attention to geographic constituents without disrupting party unity. Second, these activities are motivated by individual‐ and district‐level characteristics that supplement electoral‐system‐level sources of geographic representation. We empirically test and corroborate this argument for the German case on the basis of a content analysis of parliamentary questions in the 17th German Bundestag (2009–13). In this analysis, we show that higher levels of localness among legislators and higher levels of electoral volatility in districts result in increased geographic representation.     

Autonomous weapon system: Law of armed conflict (LOAC) and other legal challenges

The legality of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) under international law is a swiftly growing issue of importance as technology advances and machines acquire the capacity to operate without human control. This paper argues that the existing laws are ineffective and that a different set of laws are needed. This paper examines several issues that are critical for the development and use of AWS in warfare. It argues that a preemptive ban on AWS is irrelevant at this point and urges the appropriate authorities to develop a modern legal framework that is tailored to embrace these state-of-the-art weapons as the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) develops. First, this paper explores the myriad of laws designed to govern the potential future development and deployment of artificial intelligence and AWS in the context of International Humanitarian Law or LAOC. Second, the paper argues that it will be challenging for AWS to fulfill the requirements laid out under the International Committee of the Red Cross and LOAC for the rules of humanity, military necessity, distinction, proportionality and precaution, especially as it is related to noncombatants. Third, the paper discusses command responsibility and argues that states should establish accountability for wrongful acts committed by the AWS. Finally, this paper contends that there is an urgent need for a new legal framework to regulate these AWS and presents different solutions for the legal framework of AWS.     

论我国现有化学品环境管理立法

化学品是现代文明社会重要的物质基础,被广泛应用于各个领域.全球化学品产量从1930年的100万吨发展到今天的4亿吨.作为化学品生产和使用的大国,我国市场上流通的化学品数以万计,但是针对现有化学品的环境管理尚处于落后阶段.本文针对我国化学品生产使用与立法管理相脱节的情况,分析了我国现有化学品环境管理立法的必要性和可行性,提出了立法的指导思想和框架,并给出了具体的制度设计,以期使我国现有化学品环境管理尽早实现有法可依,从而达到保护公民身体健康和促进环境无毒的目的.     

INFORMED CHOICE AND EMERGENT SYSTEMS AT THE GROWTH EDGE OF COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE

Integrated interdisciplinary team practice evolves over time as collaborative lawyers encounter the limitations of their own skill‐set in helping clients to reach consensual resolution outside the courts. Team collaboration represents the evolutionary growth edge of the collaborative practice movement. Working in teams with financial neutrals and mental health professionals who act as coaches and child specialists, collaborative lawyers become engaged in an emergent learning system called into being to assist each couple through their divorce. All professionals working on a collaborative team case participate in the process from the beginning and share responsibility for helping the clients achieve the values‐based goals identified by them early in the process. This shared professional engagement in the divorce conflict resolution process gives rise to a need for agreed roadmaps and protocols, sophisticated planning and debriefing sessions, case conferencing, and careful attention to the quality of communications at the negotiating table. None of this can happen at a “best practices” level without mutual trust between and among the professionals and a culture of transparency and accountability. These characteristics emerge over time as a natural outgrowth of working in teams.     

比较法视野下的《合同法司法解释（二）》悬赏广告规定之质疑

悬赏广告自古有之,今日犹然,且日益普遍。关于悬赏广告法律性质之争论,也从未止息。《最高人民法院关于适用〈中华人民共和国合同法〉若干问题的解释（二）》第3条虽对悬赏广告作出了规定,但较为原则且并未明确悬赏广告的法律性质。笔者认为,对悬赏广告法律性质之确定,应借鉴德国等大陆法系诸多国家之立法例,采单独行为说为宜。     

彩票中奖者个人信息公开可能性之实证分析

对法律问题的探讨应当首先在两个前提下进行：第一,在现行法律框架之内;第二,把现有法律规定看作是一个富有弹性的完整体系,以尽力去挖掘其潜力。以彩票中奖者个人信息为例,《彩票条例》要求彩票发行者、彩票销售者等对此予以保密;但当这一信息进入行政机关转化为政府信息之后,依《政府信息公开条例》就有了公开的条件和途径。两部法律可以相互调适,共同应对社会需求。     

Probabilistic expert systems for handling artifacts in complex DNA mixtures

This paper presents a coherent probabilistic framework for taking account of allelic dropout, stutter bands and silent alleles when interpreting STR DNA profiles from a mixture sample using peak size information arising from a PCR analysis. This information can be exploited for evaluating the evidential strength for a hypothesis that DNA from a particular person is present in the mixture. It extends an earlier Bayesian network approach that ignored such artifacts. We illustrate the use of the extended network on a published casework example.     

The continued salience of religious voting in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain

Conventional wisdom on party systems in advanced industrial democracies holds that modern electorates are dealigned and that social cleavages no longer structure party politics. Recent work on class cleavages has challenged this stylized fact. The analysis performed here extends this criticism to the religious-secular cleavage. Using path analysis and comparing the current electorates of the United States, Germany, and Great Britain with the early 1960s, this paper demonstrates that the religious-secular cleavage remains or has become a significant predictor of conservative vote choice. While the effects of the religious-secular cleavage on vote choice have become largely indirect, the total of the direct and indirect effects is substantial and equivalent to the effects of class and status.     

Advising Ministers – The Special Problem of Defence

Successive Australian Defence Ministers have been frustrated and occasionally embarrassed by the quality of advice and information provided to them by the Defence organisation. Decades of reviews and reorganisations have failed to find solutions to the special difficulties that Defence faces in providing accurate, timely information and advice to ministers across the broad spectrum of their responsibilities. This article argues that there are multiple explanations for the concerns that are frequently expressed about its policy advisory capacity – most of which are inherent to Defence organisations around the world. While the Defence culture of secrecy is partly responsible, other factors such as the scale of Defence's operations, the multiple cultures that exist within it (military, civilian, and intelligence) that make coherence harder than in more homogenous departments, the long‐time horizons of defence planning as well as the high costs of procurement, must also be considered. The erosion of trust between the organisation and minister has been exacerbated by the intense scrutiny of the media that overburdens ministers and adds another layer of complexity to their role. As history shows, there are push and pull factors that continue to embroil ministers in the minutiae of defence difficulties, while the complexity and scale of operations will undoubtedly continue to impact on the timeliness of advice.     

Coalition formation and polarisation

Party ideology plays an important role in determining which government coalitions form. Research on coalition formation tends to focus on the ideological distance between coalition parties. However, the distribution of preferences within the coalition, and the legislature, also has implications for which government coalition forms – that is, a party's willingness to join a coalition depends not only on its prospective coalition partners, but also on the alternative coalitions it could form. Several hypotheses about the effects of legislative polarisation are offered and tested using data on coalition formation in 17 parliamentary democracies in the postwar period. This article also demonstrates how the traditional measure of ideological divisions within coalitions fails to capture certain aspects of ideological heterogeneity within the cabinet (and the opposition) and how Esteban and Ray's polarisation index helps in addressing these deficiencies.