Family values reconsidered: a response

Abstract

It is wonderful to receive so much careful attention. But it’s also frustrating. Each paper poses important questions, and between them they cover a wide range of issues. It is challenging, on such big topics, and in so few words, simultaneously to set the record straight, to identify the various objections posed by our critics, and to respond to them in a way likely to advance our collective understanding of the issues. Still, here goes.     

Migration and justice: a reply to my critics

In this response to six critics, I begin by clarifying the sense in which my approach to the issue of immigration is ‘realistic’. I also explain why a realistic approach must place immigration in a nation-state context, although without treating it as primarily reparative for historic injustice. I suggest that it is implausible to regard global equality of opportunity, as opposed to global sufficiency, as setting limits to national self-determination. I then defend my use of the distinction between refugees and economic migrants to frame the discussion of immigration against the charge that all migrants are potentially vulnerable to the decisions of admitting states, since these may determine the fate of their life-projects. And I also defend the claim that, in the case of refugees, justice requires only that each state should discharge its fair share of the burden of admitting them; doing more than this would require popular consent. Finally, I consider the case of irregular migrants, and explain in what sense they have taken unfair advantage of other potential migrants; I defend offering a conditional amnesty to people in this category.     

From Discourses to Policy: Analyzing the Creation of an Accountability Discourse in Colombia

This article analyses the construction of a public discourse about accountability in Colombia. The article maps the different interpretations that actors make of political ideas related to accountability and their change over a period of 13 years (1991–2014). The article has an interpretive framework and uses content and discourse analysis techniques to identify meanings different actors give to the concept of “accountability” and changes in these meanings. It identifies an academic discourse on accountability, as well as external actors’ discourses that influenced the construction of a public and official discourse in Colombia. It concludes by identifying the effect of this process of building consensus about meaning on the resulting public policy.     

让弱势群体拥有更多的机会——以罗尔斯公平机会原则为视角

美国当代哲学家约翰.罗尔斯在1971年出版的《正义论》中提出了正义的公平机会原则,认为所有人都应该有获得公职和社会职位的平等机会。分析罗尔斯正义论的公平机会原则,从机会平等的视角出发,探讨我国弱势群体"没有机会"的社会原因,提出改变他们"没机会"现状的措施。     

机遇与挑战:西部大开发与行为法学的发展--兼论行为法学的性质

西部大开发行为的新型化、多样化以及法行为在法制系统中的核心作用,赋予了行为法学难得的发展机遇,但中国行为法学面临着来自于自身和外部的双重挑战,迎接并战胜这种挑战,才能使中国行为法学抓住机遇,获得发展.     

紧紧抓住“重要战略机遇期”

综观全局 ,2 1世纪头二十年 ,对我国来说 ,是一个必须紧紧抓住并且可以大有作为的重要战略机遇期。面对机遇 ,关键是要善于抓住机遇。在经济体制改革、政治体制改革和文化建设上 ,都要充分利用这些机遇 ,实现新世纪新阶段的奋斗目标。     

西部经济增长过程中的FDI缺口及其机会损失研究

对西部FDI增长要素效应以及增长函数的研究表明,西部FDI吸收量存在较大缺口,使得西部在经济增长过程中存在较大的增长数量和增长质量的机会损失。     

非公有制经济发展的机遇与挑战——评析“非公经济36条”

2005年2月,国务院出台的"非公经济36条"首次以中央政府文件的形式,提出了促进非公有制经济发展的多项措施.它不仅给非公有制经济带来了机遇,同时也提出了挑战.放宽市场准入是其一大亮点.促进非公有制经济发展,首先要以非公有制经济打破公用事业垄断作为突破口,同时,我国应该完善非公有制经济保护机制,重视其法律体系的构建,并鼓励地方制定具体办法.     

西部大开发与图们江经济带的崛起

西部大开发《政策措施》的颁布和实施,给边疆民族地区带来了历史机遇。图们江经济带要以此为契机,实现跨越式发展。     

Theoretical and Empirical Work on the Relationship Between Unemployment and Crime

Part of the ongoing debate between Cantor and Land and Greenberg centers on differing opinions about the question of interest in Cantor and Land (1985). We begin this article with our opinion that Cantor and Land's theory relates changes in the business cycle to changes in the aggregate rate of crime. We then question whether year-to-year changes adequately reflect changes in the business cycle, which last on average 4 years, and we refer to an article by Cook and Zarkin (1985) which presents an alternative method of measuring business cycle changes. We also discuss how Greenberg's use of cointegration provides an alternative way of addressing the difficult statistical problem of nonstationarity without resorting to first differences. Our final contribution involves noticing that opportunity and motivational theories of crime can be structurally identified by focusing on different types of crime rather than temporal lags. We demonstrate this idea by splitting car theft into joyriding and theft for profit. We show that joyriding appears to be driven by opportunity, while the causal structure of theft for profit is less clear.