Class war-on-terror: counterterrorism,accumulation, crisis

This article discusses US counterterrorism from a class perspective. It sees counterterrorism as a state policy with differential effects on different social classes. In doing so, the article starts to address a lacuna in critical studies of counterterrorism, which tend to be rather structural and formal, thus ignoring the pertinence of counterterrorism to the field of social dynamics. To partly rectify this blind spot by addressing some class implications of counterterrorism, the article examines the effects of counterterrorism policy on capital accumulation and its social conditions. It notes that counterterrorism has different implications along class-lines: for dominant capital, it signifies appropriation of public money and direct participation in political decisions; for everyone else, it means material dispossession and political exclusion. Given that counterterrorism was developed between two crises of neoliberalism, the article distinguishes between economic crises, which tend to benefit capitalism, and political crises, which can be destructive, and suggests that counterterrorism is partly a restructuring of the neoliberal state so that it can manage recurring economic crises, while preventing their evolution into political ones.     

Conclusion: agency,context and emergent post-uprising regimes

This conclusion summarizes the evidence explaining the divergent trajectories taken by post Arab uprising states in terms of multiple variables, each illustrated by an iconic case, namely: State Failure and Competitive governance (Syria), Regime Restoration and Hybrid Governance (Egypt) and Polyarchic Governance (Tunisia). Factors include the starting point: levels of opposition mobilization and regimes' resilience – a function of their patrimonial-bureaucratic balance; whether or not a transition coalition forms is crucial for democratization prospects. Context also matters for democratization, particularly political economic factors, such as a balance of class power and a productive economy; political culture (level of societal identity cleavages) and a minimum of international intervention. Finally, the balance of agency between democracy movements, Islamists, the military and workers shapes democratization prospects.     

TESTING FOR TEMPORALLY DIFFERENTIATED RELATIONSHIPS AMONG POTENTIALLY CRIMINOGENIC PLACES AND CENSUS BLOCK STREET ROBBERY COUNTS

This study examined street robbery patterns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from the years 2009 to 2011 to determine whether the effects of potentially criminogenic places are different across different periods of the day. Census block (N = 13,164) street robbery counts across four periods (6:45 a.m . to 9:59 a.m., 10:00 a.m . to 4:29 p.m ., 4:30 p.m . to 9:14 p.m ., and 9:15 p.m. to 6:44 a.m. ) were modeled with 12 different potentially criminogenic places, 3 measures of illicit markets, 4 compositional control variables, and spatially lagged versions of the 12 potentially criminogenic places and population using simultaneously estimated negative binomial regression models. Differences in the magnitudes of the parameter estimates across the time periods were assessed with Wald tests. Overall, the patterns across the four models were mostly consistent with the effects hypothesized based on the study's crime pattern theory and time‐geography theoretical frame; yet differences in the magnitudes of the coefficients were less pronounced than hypothesized. Overall, the results provide moderate support for the crime pattern theory and time‐geography explanation of spatial‐temporal robbery patterns; however, numerous points are raised for future crime and place research.     

GENERAL ASSESSMENTS AND THRESHOLDS FOR CHRONIC OFFENDING: AN ENRICHED PARADIGM FOR EXPLAINING CRIME

General assessments refer to individuals’ overall judgment of their standing on broad dimensions that have special relevance for the explanation of crime, such as their overall bond to society or their prospects for success. These assessments are partly a function of the independent variables that are commonly considered in contemporary crime theories and quantitative research. But these standard etiological variables are far from fully determinative of general assessments because individuals differ in how they interpret, weigh, and combine their standing along these variables. The social–psychological factors that affect the subjective judgments underlying general assessments have yet to be theorized in any comprehensive, systematic manner. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that the incorporation of general assessments in models of offending will greatly enhance their explanatory power because these assessments are the most proximate, comprehensive, and personally relevant causes of crime. Moreover, we anticipate that once these assessments reach certain threshold levels, such as the view that bonds to society are severed irreparably or success is beyond reach, they result in a nonlinear jump in the frequency, seriousness, and duration of offending (i.e., chronic offending). A consideration of general assessments and their associated thresholds should therefore substantially improve efforts to explain crime.     

POLICE RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: SITUATIONS INVOLVING VETERANS EXHIBITING SIGNS OF MENTAL ILLNESS*

Drawing on attribution theory, research on police discretion, and public attitudes toward mental illness, we examine attributional processes in police decision making in response to domestic violence situations involving veterans and nonveterans with signs of mental illness. Using data from experimental vignettes varying veteran status, victim injury, and suspect compliance administered to a sample of 309 police officers, the results indicate that 1) veterans are perceived as less responsible for troublesome behavior but more dangerous than nonveterans, 2) suspects’ veteran status has a significant effect on officers’ preference for mental health treatment versus arrest, and 3) part of the effect of veteran status on officer response is mediated by internal and external attributions for problematic behavior and by perceptions of dangerousness. The study empirically demonstrates countervailing processes in police decision making—recognition of the causes for troublesome behavior and the need for mental health treatment on the one hand and concern for community safety and enforcing the law on the other.     

刑法教义学研究的中国主体性

刑法教义学既包括教义学方法,也包括教义学知识;教义学方法是无国界的,但教义学知识是对一国现行有效的法律所作的解释,因而是有国界的。德日刑法关于共同犯罪的规定表明,共犯的定罪与量刑均取决于正犯,因而决定了其共犯理论必须采取实质客观说以区分正犯与共犯;而中国刑法关于共同犯罪的规定表明,共同犯罪的定罪与量刑是截然可分的不同层次,因而在正犯与共犯的区分上采取形式客观说就足以解决问题。中国刑法和德日刑法对侵占罪规定的成立要件并不相同,"拒不退还"、"拒不交出"在中国的侵占罪中是一种客观处罚条件,是独立的行为要件,因而不能将其融入"非法占为已有"的含义之中。中国的刑法教义学研究必须清醒地认识到,要以中国刑法的规定为研究的逻辑起点并受其严格约束;要真正构建中国的刑法教义学,必须唤起研究者的主体意识。     

中国特色社会主义人权理论体系论纲

随着改革开放的深入,中国的人权事业取得了巨大的进展,人权的理论研究逐渐成熟,梳理、提炼中国特色社会主义人权理论体系已为可能。中国特色社会主义人权理论体系的基础性要素,包括人权的概念、属性、类别、实现机制和社会条件等。中国特色社会主义人权理论,既承认人权是人类的共同理想和价值准则,是人之为人不可剥夺的权利,尊重和保障人权是每个主权国家的义务,需要通过国内的立法、行政和司法机制予以落实,需要加强人权国际合作以促进其实现,也承认人权发展的阶段性和历史文化传统对人权实现方式的影响,反对人权国际合作中的霸权主义倾向。     

The Politics of Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction is a central concept in the framing of the legal world but it has received short shrift in mainstream legal theory. This article examines the prevailing conceptual forms of jurisdiction in order to retrieve space for the political. The study of jurisdiction is also the study of the political community that it invokes and authorises. The first part of the article examines the three forms that jurisdiction takes in contemporary scholarship (territory, community, governance) to show that each form overlooks some implication of the political community that is tethered to jurisdiction. The second part of the article flips the inquiry to demonstrate the oversight of jurisdiction in theories of sovereign exception. The emergent understanding of jurisdiction as political provides an anchor for the study of jurisdiction going forward and highlights the potential role for jurisdictional arrangements in contemporary public law and constitutional law settings.     

亨利·列斐伏尔的社会空间理论

社会空间是一种社会性的产品,空间产品相对过剩会产生经济危机。空间实践、空间表述、表述空间构成社会空间的三元辩证组合或者三元辩证法,第三项不是前两项的简单叠加,而是对它们所假定的完整性进行拆解和重构之后,形成的一种开放的选择项。社会空间包含着复杂的符号体系,空间三元组合类似于符号学的能指、所指、意指三项组合。身体是社会空间的生产主体,社会空间的生产从身体开始,处于异化状态的身体受权力、符号、知识三位一体控制。只有生产出社会主义差异空间,身体才能获得完全解放。当前全球经济危机的实质是城市化危机,中国正处于城市化危机的起始阶段。     

行为无价值论与积极一般预防

犯罪是和刑罚相对应的概念,合理的违法性论必定与能够充分发挥其效果的刑罚论相联系;离开对刑罚相关问题的认识,不可能清晰地揭示犯罪的本质。特殊预防和由费尔巴哈所首倡的消极一般预防都存在明显缺陷。积极一般预防论的主旨是通过指导公众的行为,确立公众对于规范的认同、尊重进而预防犯罪。行为无价值二元论认为犯罪的本质是违反行为规范进而造成法益侵害,刑法的目的就是维护社会基本行为准则的存在并最终保护法益,相应地,对刑罚的目的就不应当定位于通过威慑来阻止现实或者潜在的犯罪人和社会一般人今后不犯罪,而是要凸显规范的意义,引导公众按照行为规范行事,因而主张积极的、规范的一般预防,使犯罪论和刑罚论浑然一体、前后照应。肯定积极的一般预防论有助于准确认定中止犯、过失犯;同时,不会造成重刑化,不会无端限制个人行动自由。