Access to information law and the stalled ‘winds of change’ in Zambia

Zambia, like a few other African countries, has been grappling with the adoption of the Access to Information (ATI) law over the past 25 years. This article argues that the Zambian approach towards easing access to public information has been faulty, because it is narrowly focused and this has resulted in the process stalling. The argument is made here, that the ATI law is part of a global social movement towards greater transparency. Furthermore, the article focuses on Zambia's approach to the law (whose push is dominated by executive control) and how that approach has impacted on good governance. The article also discusses how some countries have dealt with similar laws, before concluding that unless Zambia's move towards this law is broadened, whatever may be enacted in the future could be faulty.     

From kanun-ı kadim (ancient law) to umumun kuvveti (force of people): historical context of the Ottoman constitutionalism

This paper attempts to examine the prevailing scholarly view on the Young Ottoman and the Young Turk movements, which postulates that the concept of constitutionalism was solely and directly based on the western model, imported by the constitutionalist movements to the Ottoman Empire. As a child of the ‘modernization theory’, this approach mostly concentrates on European impact in an isolated manner, thus overlooking not only the manifold sources of the Ottoman constitutionalism, but also the means of legitimation that the Young Ottomans and the Young Turks cultivated. In view of this, I seek to shed light on the historical context of the Ottoman constitutionalism, by pointing out how the Young Ottomans and the Young Turks perceived the power struggles in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and built continuity between themselves and the political position that aimed to restrict the royal prerogative before the nineteenth century.     

INCARCERATION AND POPULATION HEALTH IN WEALTHY DEMOCRACIES*

Everywhere you look, incarceration seems to be doing harm. Research has implicated incarceration not only in worse outcomes for individuals, their families, and their communities but also in growing inequality. Yet incarceration may not always harm society—even if it does harm those who experience it. To consider this possibility, I build an argument demonstrating how the macro‐level consequences of incarceration may be distinctively harmful in the United States, focusing on the incarceration–health relationship as one indicator of a broader phenomenon. I then test my hypothesis by using an unbalanced panel data set including 21 developed democracies (N = 414) and a series of ordinary least‐squares models predicting three measures of population health as a function of incarceration. Models including only a main effect of incarceration demonstrate an inverse association between changes in incarceration and changes in population health. Models including an incarceration by U.S. interaction, however, indicate that the population health consequences of changes in incarceration are far worse in the United States than elsewhere. Taken together, the results indicate that the United States is exceptional for both its rate of incarceration and its effects of incarceration, although it is unclear what drives this exceptionalism in effects.     

Reflecting on Brexit: migration myths and what comes next for EU migrants in the UK?

This article considers the potential impact of Brexit on the family and welfare entitlement of EU migrants living in the UK and of UK migrants living in other EU Member States. Whilst the vast majority of those campaigning for the UK to leave the EU (publicly at least) argued in favour of those already present in the UK at the time of the referendum having their status protected, the government has been considerably less vocal in its support for this outcome. As such, EU migrants living in the UK presently face considerable uncertainty as to their own and their families’ future legal status and entitlement to welfare rights. The article will expose some of the evidential and legal gaps in the assertions made about EU migrants’ socio economic entitlement with a view to providing a more informed, legally accurate appraisal of how the Brexit negotiations could unfold.     

The Adoption and Safe Families Act: Proposing a “Best Efforts” Standard to Eliminate the Ultimate Obstacle for Family Reunification

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) was enacted in an attempt to expedite the child's permanency plan by pushing for adoption of children in foster care. The ASFA requires the U.S. Department of Health to make reasonable efforts to reunify and preserve existing families while rewarding the states for increased adoption of foster care children. The ASFA was enacted to ensure the best interests of the child are to remain paramount, but in practice, the ASFA is furthering the best interests of the state. This Note proposes amendment of the ASFA to increase the obligation of the Department of Social Services (DSS) to make its best efforts to preserve and reunify the existing family unit, while also imposing a penalty if the DSS fails to do so.     

UK Euroscepticism and the Brexit Referendum

This article shows that key to understanding the referendum outcome are factors such as a profoundly eurosceptic public, high levels of citizen uncertainty, divided mainstream political parties on the EU and lack of unity within the ‘Leave’ campaign. The Brexit referendum is more than just about domestic issues and government approval. Utilitarian concerns related to economic evaluations of EU integration coupled with support of or opposition to EU freedom of movement are very likely to influence vote choice. Those campaigns that focus on rational utilitarian arguments about the costs and benefits related to EU membership as a whole but also to EU freedom of movement are expected to swing voters.     

建国初期与婚姻家庭相关的妇女死亡问题探析

建国初期《婚姻法》颁布后,广大妇女婚姻自主的正义要求遭到了封建婚姻家庭制度的顽强抵抗,致使数万名妇女因而自杀或被杀。贯彻《婚姻法》运动的普遍开展,不仅制止了广大妇女因自杀或被杀而导致的死亡问题,而且形成了男女平等、民主和睦的良好社会风气,为未来新型的社会主义婚姻家庭制度的建立奠定了基础。     

少数民族流动人口犯罪问题透析

我国经济的快速发展,使得各民族不断打破封闭,由相对闭塞到逐渐交流,由彼此隔离到密切联系,各民族人口空前流动,民族散居化越来越广泛。我国城市化进程的加快,促进了少数民族人口流动更加频繁,城市居民的多民族化现象日趋明显,同时加快了个人之间关系的隔离化、冷淡化,这些因素都为犯罪的生根发芽提供了便利的土壤。     

论战后台湾街头运动的演化及成因

作为众多个体因共同或相似的利益诉求而采取的体制外聚合抗争与集体施压,街头运动在战后台湾经岛内外经济与社会环境变迁,以及对立面意识博弈等因素的交互作用,大致经历了从“2·28”后的沉寂到1970年代初重新萌动并迅速勃兴,至世纪之交趋于成熟等三个阶段的渐进转型,突出反映为参与主体多元化、运动策划组织化、抗争对象分散化、诉求主题民生化和手段方式理性化等发展趋势。