Postrecession Drivers of Preferences for Homeownership

The analysis presented in this article finds little evidence to suggest that individuals' preferences for owning versus renting a home have been affected by their exposure to recent house price declines and loan delinquency rates, or by knowing others in their neighborhood who have defaulted on their mortgages. Instead, this analysis finds individual characteristics, particularly current housing tenure, to be the strongest predictors of postrecession demand for homeownership.     

Under Construction: ESDP and the ‘Fight Against Organized Crime’

Abstract

This essay discusses the phenomenon of ‘organized crime’ as a matter for EU foreign and security policy. Primarily aimed at searching for conceptual guidance, it draws on literature on criminology and policing, presenting two different theoretical perspectives for analyzing the phenomenon of ‘organized-crime fighting’, a utilitarian and a critical one. Against this backdrop, the essay discusses how ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) has developed and engaged the issue of organized crime. Specifically, it outlines the character of ESDP as a mechanism for ‘civilian crisis management’ and illustrates its ‘working’ through the case of the EU's police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUPM) by placing it in the two different theoretical frames. Deciding in favour of a social constructivist approach, the essay concludes by suggesting that a successful strategy must focus on the dissemination of the EU's understanding of ‘organized crime’ abroad.     

略论未成年人犯罪案件诉讼程序

新《刑事诉讼法》增设“未成年人刑事案件诉讼程序”专章,对我国未成年人刑事司法制度改革具有重大的里程碑意义,彰显了国家对未成年人犯罪问题的重视以及对未成年犯罪人进行教育、感化、挽救和改造的方针。然而在立法理念尚须进一步推敲与配套制度缺失等诸多司法环境限制因素的影响下,新刑诉中与未成年人刑事案件诉讼程序的相关规定仍有未尽之处。未成年人刑事案件诉讼程序立法原则为“教育为主、惩罚为辅”,立法体例相对集中,具有“社会调查”、“附条件不起诉”以及“犯罪记录封存”三大创新性制度。     

心理学视角下未成年犯审前社会调查制度

未成年犯刑事案件审前社会调查制度具有较强的刑事司法依据,同样,作为犯罪的特殊群体,未成年人也是心理学的重点研究对象,具有显著的心理特殊性。文章从心理学的视角分析了实施该制度的依据,在概括了我国当前实施该制度总体状况及存在问题的基础上,提出了完善该制度的可操作性建议。     

Representative Bureaucracy: Examining the Effects of Female Teachers on Girls’ Education in Ghana

Scholars have examined representative bureaucracy as a viable means to make the bureaucracy more responsive to citizens in a democratic society. The theory argues that a diverse public service that mirrors the social demographics of its population in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity (passive representation) is more likely to be responsive to the needs of all citizens (active representation). Although a substantial body of empirical research exists, a comparative understanding of the theory is lacking in Africa. This study expands the empirical research on the theory to Ghana. It investigates whether passive representation of female teachers makes the education bureaucracy more responsive to girls. The analysis of a nationally representative data set on senior high schools (SHS) within the 216 districts of Ghana revealed that increasing the presence of female teachers is positively associated with the performance of girls on math and science exit exams.     

What Is Cyberterrorism? Findings From a Survey of Researchers

This article reports on a recent survey designed to capture understandings of cyberterrorism across the global research community. Specifically, it explores competing views, and the importance thereof, amongst 118 respondents on three definitional issues: (a) the need for a specific definition of cyberterrorism for either policymakers or researchers; (b) the core characteristics or constituent parts of this concept; and (c) the value of applying the term “cyberterrorism” to a range of actual or potential scenarios. The article concludes by arguing that while a majority of researchers believe a specific definition of cyberterrorism is necessary for academics and policymakers, disagreement around what this might look like has additional potential to stimulate a rethinking of terrorism more widely.     

论刑事被害人的过错——以聚众斗殴罪为视角

在侵犯人身权利的案件中,犯罪的发生一般是源于犯罪人和被害人相互作用的结果,但我国刑法以犯罪人为中心,被害人过错在定罪量刑的过程中常常被忽视。对于以犯罪人和国家的二元结构模式,不利于犯罪人权利的保障。因此,司法机关在处理聚众斗殴的案件中很少考虑被害人是否有诱发和促进犯罪的发生。在聚众斗殴过案件中,一旦出出现有刑事被害人死亡的情形,司法机关通常按照刑法292条中的规定,以刑法232条故意杀人罪对犯罪行为人进行定罪量刑。鉴此,有必要将被害人的过错纳入聚众斗殴罪之定罪量刑中,按照主客观相一致的原则对犯罪行为人进行归罪惩处。     

Changing Municipalities in the Information age

Abstract

Political leadership at the local level has attracted growing attention in recent years in parallel with reforms of local government and of the municipal administration, as well as the debate on a shift from government to governance. Considering the power triangle of (i) the mayor, (ii) the municipal administration (executive officers) and (iii) the council, it is surprising that the latter has gained little interest so far. This article analyses how the roles of local councils as representative bodies are assessed by mayors from seventeen European countries and how differences in the perception of councils can be explained. Can differences be explained by institutional settings, the notion of the mayor towards the role of political parties or by the kind of interaction between the mayor and the council – or are specific local conditions and idiosyncratic personal factors crucial?     

A Review Of: “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism”

The growth and dispersion of America’s immigrant population exposes increasing numbers of non-Hispanic Whites to Spanish. Yet the political impacts of that exposure depend on whether Democrats and Republicans respond in similar ways. To address that question, this article first presents survey experiments showing that exposure to Spanish increases restrictive immigration attitudes only among Republicans. To confirm the external validity of that result, the article then presents an analysis of California’s Proposition 227 indicating that support for ending bilingual education was higher in heavily White, Republican block groups with Spanish-language ballots. No such pattern appears in Democratic block groups. Together, these findings demonstrate that Spanish is a politicized symbol, provoking different responses among Whites depending on their partisanship. To the extent that other immigration-related cues produce similar effects, the salience of immigration seems likely to reinforce existing partisan divisions rather than undermining them.