bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Just Des(s)erts? The Racial Polarization of Perceptions of Criminal Injustice
Authors: Wortley Scot , Hagan John , Macmillan Ross
Published: June 2006

Sociologists have long been interested in how reactions to deviance influence social order and consensus. However, classic statements on this subject present contrasting hypotheses. This article extends previous work by examining how the extensive media coverage of an interracial homicide influences public attitudes toward the criminal justice system. Initial results indicate that race, education, and police contact directly effect perceptions of criminal injustice. Perceptions of injustice are especially high among well-educated blacks who have had recent contact with the police. Further analysis reveals that the media coverage of the homicide seems temporarily to consolidate public confidence in the police and criminal courts. However, this effect varies by race and education. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings.
Republican Criminology and Victim Advocacy
Authors: Braithwaite John , Pettit Philip
Published: June 2006

Scheingold, Olson, and Pershing (1994) have posed an interesting challenge to the republican perspective on criminal justice, and we attempt to meet that challenge here. But before considering their argument, we find it useful to set out the main elements in the republican position. In doing so, we summarize the approach in Not Just Deserts (Braithwaite & Pettit 1990) and in some followup articles (e.g., Pettit with Braithwaite 1993, 1994); the summary breaks down this approach, very loosely, into three axioms and eight theorems.
Paris Is Closer than Frankfurt: The nth American Exceptionalism
Authors: Casebeer Kenneth
Published: June 2006

James Bohman's review (1994) contributes to an important goal for the American legal academy: bringing to us the recent focus on the role of law in society of Jürgen Habermas and, by extension, contemporary Frankfurt School social theory. These comments attempt to locate Habermas broadly in three discursive contexts. My purpose will be to suggestively examine whether and how the American legal reception of Habermasian ideas has been limited—the implicit rationale being that the reception is overdue. With almost all discussion of Habermas and law taking place in Europe, it seems we must ask, Why is there no [German] social theory in America, or at least in American law? After all, the United States became the home in exile for the Frankfurt survivors, and Habermas has been writing influentially in philosophy and political theory for more than 30 years. Yet, for reasons not altogether different from the revision and partial rejection of the other American exceptionalisms (socialism, labor politics, class formations, etc.), perhaps the question in fact should be more about the particularity of American treatment of the role of law in the reproduction of society than about Habermas and his ideas.
Steinhoff's “Pursuing the Japanese Police”: A Rejoinder
Authors: Bayley David H.
Published: June 2006

Patricia Steinhoff (1993) reviewed five books in her review essay “Pursuing the Japanese Police” but singled out my Forces of Order (Bayley 1991) for extended commentary because it was a “classic” that epitomized the “benign,” “friendly,” and “answers-for-America” (p. 830) school of writing about the Japanese police. Her review of my work, as well as the others, was insightful, knowledgeable, well argued, and fair. Some of her comments were strongly worded, but there's no fun in writing a review essay if you can't get off a few zingers.
How Novice and Experienced Officers Interpret Wife Assaults: Normative and Efficiency Frames
Authors: Stalans Loretta J. , Finn Mary A.
Published: June 2006

Prior research has speculated about, but has not provided systematic empirical data on, how officers use their prior knowledge to interpret wife assault situations and how these interpretations shape their responses. Our findings challenge claims that officers' reluctance to pursue formal arrest stems primarily from their proclivity to blame victims. By manipulating whether or not a wife exhibited abnormal behavior, we show that experienced officers do not focus on whether wives can control their “provoking” actions and are to blame; instead they consider the relative credibility and dangerousness of the husband. Prior experience with handling wife assault situations thus shifts the focus of decisionmaking from normative considerations such as blameworthiness to efficiency considerations such as substantiating claims for successful prosecution. However, both novice and experienced officers base their arrest decisions on prior beliefs about whether wives provoke their husbands when wives have alcohol problems. Our findings indicate that future research can profitably examine how prior knowledge shapes interpretations to gain a better understanding of police decisionmaking.
Alternative Readings: The Status of the Status of Children Act in Antigua and Barbuda
Authors: Lazarus-Black Mindie
Published: June 2006

More than 80% of the people of Antigua and Barbuda are born out of wedlock. In 1986 Antigua's Parliament passed new family laws to enable men to acknowledge legally their illegitimate children, to prevent discrimination against children whose parents have not wed, and to allow acknowledged children to inherit from their fathers' estates. How is the Status of Children Act, the keystone of the new measures, being interpreted and applied by legal professionals? To what degree can legal proclamations and judicial processes alter people's commonsense understanding of family? To what extent do social norms and everyday practices remake the meaning and practice of law? I explore law's role in the construction of personal and group identity and in relation to gender hierarchy. I find that Antigua's new kinship codes are both emblematic of a distinctly postcolonial kinship order and indicative of new tensions between certain powerful institutions—schools and churches—which previously enjoyed ideological support from the state.
Cause Lawyering in Transnational Perspective: National Conflict and Human Rights in Israel/Palestine
Authors: Hajjar Lisa
Published: June 2006

There is an interest among scholars working on cause lawyering to “globalize” the subject by studying professional and political networks that span national boundaries. The globalizing scope of human rights provides a particularly relevant perspective, complementing the more narrowly attenuated focus on the roles and activities of cause lawyers. The subjects of this article are Israeli and Palestinian cause lawyers who have worked in the Israeli military court system in the Occupied Territories. This study adopts a transnational perspective both because the context itself (Israel/Palestine) is composed of relations that span national boundaries (statal and ethnonational) and because it befits a consideration of the international networks of human rights. Following an introductory discussion of transnationalism and a brief background on Israel/Palestine and the military courts, I turn to three aspects of cause lawyering: the political motivations inspiring lawyers to engage in such work; a comparative assessment of the legal and extralegal strategies pursued by lawyers; and the influence of human rights on the politics of lawyering in this context.
Law and Imperialism: Egypt in Comparative Perspective
Authors: Brown Nathan J.
Published: June 2006

Despite the great varieties of imperial relationships, most scholarship has focused on law as an instrument of imperial domination. This article invites greater attention to the motives and actions of the subject population. In the Middle East, the pattern of legal change suggests that imperial control affected the outcome of elite efforts but did not supplant them. In Egypt, legal reform was largely the fruit of efforts undertaken by a centralizing elite that sought to circumscribe foreign influence even when it collaborated with it. This elite used law to preempt imperial penetration and strengthen the administrative capacity of the Egyptian state. The Egyptian population subject to the new legal system shaped its development still further.
Law, Gender, and the Family in the Philippines
Authors: Feliciano Myrna S.
Published: June 2006

The author traces the changing social and legal status of the Filipina by examining the shifting Filipino colonial and legal heritage from the immigration of Muslim Malays in the 14th century to the present. She argues that women enjoyed high social standing in what is now the Philippine Republic until colonization by Spain in the 17th century, when Spanish customs, religion, and law imposed many restraints on women. Only with the establishment of the Philippine Republic in 1946 were efforts begun to reverse these restrictive policies. The author focuses particularly on the 1986 Constitution and the changes in the Family Code that have enhanced the legal equality of women within the family. She also calls for continued political work to assure the implementation of existing law and further legal changes that will benefit women.
The Contest over “Employer” Status in the Postwar United States: The Case of Temporary Help Firms
Authors: Gonos George
Published: June 2006

This study examines the sociolegal underpinnings of the “temporary help” relationship as one kind of contingent work arrangement and explores how it became institutionalized in the post-World War II United States. While the American literature on contingent work suggests its tremendous growth has been merely a result of changing “human resource” strategies on the part of business managers, the focus here is on the specific role played by courts, state legislatures, and government administrative bodies in ratifying the temporary help arrangement as legal and legitimate. The article details the obscure history of the campaign waged by temporary help firms to win their claim as the legal employers of workers they send out to client firms, a central premise of the arrangement. It shows that statutory and policy changes supporting the increased use of “temporary work” were in place by the early 1970s, in time for its expanded use to play a key role in the restructuring of U.S. employment relations since that time.
Morality in Law Enforcement: Chasing “Bad Guys” with the Los Angeles Police Department
Authors: Herbert Steve
Published: June 2006

Police officers regularly construct their work in terms of a morality that is so pronounced that it must arise from unique aspects of their role in society. I draw on fieldwork conducted in a patrol division of the Los Angeles Police Department to develop an explanation for the prevalence of police morality. Three components of the police function create potent dilemmas that their morality helps ameliorate: the contradiction between the police's ostensible aim to prevent crime and their inability to do so; the imperative that they run roughshod over the ambiguity inherent in most situations they handle; and the fact that they invariably act against at least one citizen's interest, often with recourse to a coercive force that can maim or kill. Reliance on moralistic understandings for the police's mission provides a salve for these difficulties; however, it can also work to harm police-community relations. Paradoxically, the police's reliance on morality can encourage or condone overly aggressive actions that are, in fact, contradictory to the virtuous self-definition officers often construct.
Corporate Crime through Citizens' Eyes: Stratification and Responsibility in the United States, Russia, and Japan
Authors: Hamilton V. Lee , Sanders Joseph
Published: June 2006

A citizen's judgment of wrongdoing in an organizational setting may depend oncharacteristics of the citizen, of the accused, or both.In 1993, random sample surveys exploring judgment of corporate wrongdoing were carried out in Washington, DC (N= 602), Tokyo, Japan (N= 600), and Moscow, Russia (N= 597). Respondents heard hypothetical vignettes about wrongdoing in organizations and were asked to judge the actor's responsibility and related issues; they also provided demographic information and recounted their attitudes toward corporations. Education was more powerfully related than social class to responsibility judgments. In the United States, education's effects on responsibility were indirect, operating through attitudes toward obedience and toward corporate accountability. Russian and Japanese results were unmediated by attitudes. It appears that responsibility is primarily a function of sociolegal factors (such as aspects of the case) and secondarily a function of social characteristics and the sense of similarity or difference they engender. The article concludes by discussing general issues in accountability within corporate settings across cultures.
Gender and Workplace Dispute Resolution: A Conceptual and Theoretical Model
Authors: Gwartney-Gibbs Patricia A. , Lach Denise H.
Published: June 2006

This essay introduces a conceptual and theoretical model for understanding how dispute resolution in the workplace contributes to gender differences in employment. We conceptualize workplace disputes as having three components: origins, processes, and outcomes. We synthesize theory and existing empirical findings in several disciplines to examine how these three components are patterned by gender roles, sex segregation in jobs, and institutionalized work structures. The essay illuminates workplace dispute resolution generally, demonstrates linkages to other aspects of gender inequality in employment, and provides a model for further research and policymaking.
Building a Scientific Comparative Judicial Politics and Arousing the Dragons of Antiscientism
Authors: Tate C. Neal , Haynie Stacia L.
Published: June 2006

Following both Pritchett and Gibson, we thought we were, in “Authoritarianism and the Functions of Courts” (Tate & Haynie 1993), extolling the virtues of an infrequently grown, but potentially beautiful or even useful, floral species: falsifiable, reproducible research on the role of courts outside the United States of America. Indeed, because our bloom grew outside the well-cultivated plots of the industrialized democracies, we thought it might be of still greater interest to the horticultural community of sociolegal studies. Thus we urged the members of that community to try their own hands at growing this rare blossom.
The Structural Context of Novel Rights Claims: Southern Civil Rights Organizing, 1961-1966
Authors: Polletta Francesca
Published: June 2006

Theorists of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) have argued that the abstract, individualistic, and state-dependent character of rights makes them of dubious value for groups fighting for social change. Southern civil rights organizers in the early 1960s engaged in the kind of power-oriented strategy that CLS writers advocate in lieu of a rights-oriented one. However, the rights claims they made inside and outside courtrooms were essential to their political organizing efforts. Far from narrowing collective aspirations to the limits of the law, activists' extension of rights claims to the “unqualified” legitimated assaults on economic inequality, governmental decisionmaking in poverty programs, and the Vietnam War. What made possible this novel formulation was not only the multivalent character of rights but also key features of the social, political, and organizational contexts within which rights were advanced.
Exploring the Costs of Administrative Legalization: City Expenditures on Legal Services, 1960-1995
Authors: Epp Charles R.
Published: June 2006

The institutional environment in both the private and public sector, according to a wide range of observers, is increasingly “legalized”: decisionmaking processes and substantive policies are increasingly subject to legal rules and procedural requirements that are enforceable in court. Although there is little dispute that legal liability has expanded in this way, there is great dispute about the effect of these changes, particularly their costs, on public organizations in practice. Some observers argue that legalization has imposed heavy costs, especially financial costs, on organizations; others, for a variety of reasons, argue that these costs are likely to be exaggerated. In this article I suggest that organizational expenditures on legal services are likely to be a valid indicator of certain important elements of the costs of administrative legalization. I present the results of a study of the legal services expenditures of 13 major U.S. cities over a 35-year period. The results indicate that legal services expenditures indeed have increased in many cities, although not as much as some commentators have speculated. Furthermore, there are significant variations in expenditure patterns among the cities, and a number experienced no long-term growth trend in legal services expenditures.
Newspaper Coverage of Automotive Product Liability Verdicts
Authors: Garber Steven , Bower Anthony G.
Published: June 2006

Media coverage of litigation may affect perceptions and thereby behavior of litigants, judges, juries, legislators and business decisionmakers. Their behavior influences various legal, social, political and economic outcomes. For product liability verdicts during 1983 to 1996 involving automobile manufacturers, we examine the amount of coverage in several dozen newspapers. We find almost no articles reporting on any of 259 verdicts for the defendant. Econometric analysis focuses on determinants of the amount of coverage of 92 verdicts for plaintiffs, 16 of which include punitive damages. Key determinants include the award amount, the nature of injuries, the vehicle's recall history, and especially the existence of a punitive component of damages regardless of its size.
Conquest by Contract: Wealth Transfer and Land Market Structure in Colonial New Zealand
Authors: Banner Stuart
Published: June 2006

Much of the British empire was acquired by purchase rather than conquest, but indigenous peoples usually acquired little wealth despite extensive land sales. Explanations of where the money went tend to blame either the imprudence of indigenous sellers or the duplicity of British buyers. This article suggests that a focus solely on the conduct of the individuals operating within the land market rests on a poor theoretical understanding of the relationship between law and markets, an understanding that blinds historians to the allocative effects of markets' constitutive rules. Using New Zealand as an example, the article shows how the British modified the structure of the land market over the 19th century, sometimes intentionally and sometimes inadvertently, to transfer wealth from the Maori to themselves.
Consensus and Suspicion: Judicial Reasoning and Social Change in an Indonesian Society 1960-1994
Authors: Bowen John R.
Published: June 2006

I draw on the archives from two Indonesian courts to analyze how judges have reached decisions in the face of conflicting legal norms. Judges in the town of Takèngën, in the highlands of Aceh province, hear claims based on Islam and on local social norms (adat). Between 1960 and the mid-1990s, they changed the way they resolved disputes over inheritance cases, from accepting village settlements as valid, to rejecting those settlements as either contrary to Islam or as coercive. I examine the justifications offered in the earlier and the later periods for these decisions. I find that in both periods judges employed creative legal devices to resolve or bridge differences between Islam and adat, and that they consistently referred to broader cultural values of agreement and fairness. I suggest that the change in their decisions was due to the combination of political centralization, increased legitimacy of the Islamic court, and judges' perceptions of a more individualized society.
Officers' Rights: Toward a Unified Field Theory of American Constitutional Development
Authors: Orren Karen
Published: June 2006

The changing rights of legally designated officers provides a comprehensive framework for following American constitutional development over time, in both public and private settings. Rights are defined as judicially enforceable claims on the person or actions of another; development, as enduring change in constitutional provision, structure, and doctrine. It is proposed that constitutional development as a historical process has consisted of a shift in the balance between the rights of officers and the rights of citizens. The framework is demonstrated empirically in connection with the Bill of Rights, federalism, and the separation of powers. Officers' rights is recommended as a method for studying constitutions comparatively and for linking constitutional development to other political events and phenomena like social movements and parties.
Race, Colonialism, and Criminal Law: Mexicans and the American Criminal Justice System in Territorial New Mexico
Authors: Gómez Laura E.
Published: June 2006

A striking feature of the historical American criminal justice system has been the exclusion of racial minorities from decision-making positions, such as juror. In this study of criminal justice in a New Mexico county in the late 19th century, however, Mexicans are the vast majority of petit jurors, and frequently they decide the fates of European-American defendants. A regime of racial power-sharing between Mexicans and European-Americans characterized the administration of the criminal justice system. Racial power-sharing served the ends of American colonizers in legitimizing their governance after an initial violent occupation. Perhaps more surprisingly, it also served the ends of both elites and middle status Mexicans, at least some of the time. Criminal law—and, particularly, the jury as an institution—served both the colonizers and the colonized in this context.
Telling Tales in School: Youth Culture and Conflict Narratives
Authors: Morrill Calvin , Adelman Madelaine , Bejarano Cindy , Yalda Christine , Musheno Michael
Published: June 2006

This study departs from mainstream criminology to approach youth conflict and violence from a youth-centered perspective drawn from cultural studies of young people and sociolegal research. To access youth orientations, we analyze experiential stories of peer conflict written by students at a multiethnic, low-income high school situated in an urban core of the western United States. We argue that youth narratives of conflict offer glimpses into how young people make sense of conflict in their everyday lives, as well as insights as to how the images and decisional bases embedded in their storytelling connect to adult-centered discourses found in popular media and formal education. Our analyses identify a range of story types (“tales”), each marked by a different narrative style, that students fashion as they write about peer conflict: “action tales,” “moral tales,” “expressive tales,” and “rational tales.” In our study, students wrote a majority of stories in the action-tale narrative style. We propose three alternative explanations for this pattern using class code, moral development, and institutional resistance perspectives. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and policy implications of our work and raise questions for future research.
Judicial Rhetoric, Government Lawyers, and Human Rights: The Case of the Israeli High Court of Justice during the Intifada
Authors: Dotan Yoav
Published: June 2006

Many studies suggest that courts fail to protect individual rights since they support and uphold state repressive practices during periods of emergency or confrontation. Previous studies focused on judicial policies as reflected injudicial declarations and decisions that were fully disposed by judges and officially published. I argue that the study of out-of-court settlements and the comparison between the outcomes of settlements and the judicial rhetoric are key to understanding the behavior of courts in times of national crisis. At such times, courts may hesitate to openly confront the government on the issue of minority rights, but they may strive to protect minorities by exerting pressure on the governmental legal apparatus and by effecting out-of-court settlements more favorable to minorities than official decisions. Thus, courts influence social practices while avoiding government or public opinion counterreactions that would impair their institutional autonomy. This argument is demonstrated in a case study of the Israeli High Court of Justice during the Palestinian Intifada.
The Dialogics of Legal Meaning: Spectacular Trials, the Unwritten Law, and Narratives of Criminal Responsibility
Authors: Umphrey Martha Merrill
Published: June 2006

Drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the dialogic, this essay explores the production of legal meanings about criminal responsibility in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In particular, it examines the honor-based defense of the “unwritten law” as it was articulated in relation to the formal law of provocation in the 19th century, and in the 1906 trial of Harry K. Thaw for the murder of Stanford White. Meanings about criminal responsibility emerge, I argue, from a process of discursive conflict and negotiation between the domains of legal consciousness and formal law. At trial, competing narratives of indictment and exoneration literally enact that dynamic process, so that trials may be said to be the materialization of the dialogic production of “law” in its broadest sense.
Blue Jeans, Rape, and the “De-Constitutive” Power of Law
Authors: Calavita Kitty
Published: June 2006

Italy's Supreme Court recently overturned a rape conviction on the grounds that the woman was wearing blue jeans at the time. The Court reasoned that blue jeans cannot be removed “without the active cooperation of the person who is wearing them,” and therefore sexual intercourse must have been consensual. The decision was met with outrage by media commentators, political leaders, and ordinary Italians in a range of civic organizations. I argue here that this case and others like it are conspicuously inconsistent with a constitutive perspective that sees law and everyday normative orders as mutually embedded, or at least reciprocally reinforcing, and that focuses on law's hegemonic potential. In this revisiting of the constitutive approach, I propose that the concept of legal hegemony be elaborated to include the counterintuitive possibility that law can sabotage the very ideologies it invokes. For when an authoritative source such as law is so out of step with the evolving normative order, the shocking discrepancy exposes not only the fallibility of law but also the foolishness of the outdated moral vision it is caught endorsing. Finally, I suggest that it may be during “unsettled cultural periods” (Swidler 1986) that such “de-constitutive” moments are most likely.
“Haves” Versus “Have Nots” in State Supreme Courts: Allocating Docket Space and Wins in Power Asymmetric Cases
Authors: Brace Paul , Gann Hall Melinda
Published: June 2006

This article evaluates two basic issues about dockets and case outcomes in American appellate courts. First, what determines the extent to which a court devotes its docket to civil cases involving asymmetrical power relationships between litigants? Second, in civil cases in which the “have-nots” are pitted against the “haves,” which forces determine the extent to which courts favor the less privileged? To answer these questions, we identify power asymmetric civil cases and the size of each court's docket by examining all 6,750 cases decided in state supreme courts in 1996. Results reveal that contextual factors are formidable in shaping both agenda space and win rates in civil disputes involving conflicts between advantaged and disadvantaged litigants. Institutional features of supreme courts and state court systems, the supply of legal resources, and public preferences all emerge as critical influences on the willingness of the states' highest courts to decide have/have not conflicts and on the ultimate disposition of these cases. In sum, a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which courts treat cases involving the disadvantaged and, more broadly, function as agents of redistributive change cannot be achieved without focusing beyond the ideological preferences of judges and the skill of the litigants.
The Impact of Legal Counsel on Outcomes for Poor Tenants in New York City's Housing Court: Results of a Randomized Experiment
Authors: Seron Carroll , Van Ryzin Gregg , Frankel Martin
Published: June 2006

This article presents results of the first randomized experimental evaluation of a legal assistance program for low-income tenants in New York City's Housing Court. The results demonstrate that the provision of legal counsel produces large differences in outcomes for low-income tenants in housing court, independent of the merits of the case. For example, only 22% of represented tenants had final judgments against them, compared with 51% of tenants without legal representation. Similarly large advantages for tenants with an attorney also were found in eviction orders and stipulations requiring the landlord to provide rent abatements or repairs. In addition, the results suggest that a program of legal assistance for low-income tenants would not increase significantly the number of appearances in court, although it would increase the number of days to final judgment. The program may enhance the efficiency of adjudication by reducing the number of motions filed, particularly post-judgment motions. Limitations and policy implications of the study are discussed.
Judging Judicial Discretion: Legal Factors and Racial Discrimination in Sentencing
Authors: Bushway Shawn D. , Morrison Piehl Anne
Published: June 2006

Variation in sentencing outcomes represents the actions of a number of members of the criminal justice system. To isolate the part of the variation that is due to the discretion of the judge (or other sentencing agent, such as a prosecutor), one can model the sentencing guidelines themselves. Such a model captures any non-linearity in the sentencing grid. In practice, modeling the guidelines rather than legal factor scores (as is common in the literature) means that more of the variation that race and legal factors share in common will be attributed to the racial status of the offender. Using data from Maryland, we find that African Americans have 20% longer sentences than whites, on average, holding constant age, gender, and recommended sentence length from the guidelines. We find more judicial discretion and greater racial disparity than is generally found in the literature. Moreover, when we begin to try to explain this discretion, we find that judges tended to give longer sentences (relative to those recommended by the guidelines) to people in the part of the guidelines grid with longer recommended sentences (who are disproportionately African American) than they gave to people in the part of the grid with lower recommended sentences.
Rational Choice, Situated Action, and the Social Control of Organizations
Authors: Vaughan Diane
Published: June 2006

The legal and administrative apparatus responsible for the social control of organizations relies extensively on the deterrent effects of punishment. This strategy presumes a rational choice model of organizational misconduct that decontextualizes decisionmaking, emphasizing consequences while ignoring how preferences are formed. I raise three challenges to the rational choice/deterrence model of social control: (1) research and theory on decisionmaking, (2) a sociological paradigm that situates individual action in a structure/culture/agency nexus that influences interpretation, meaning, and action at the local level, and (3) an analysis of the Challenger launch decision at NASA as situated action, showing how structure, culture, and history shaped preferences and choice. These challenges suggest a need to reorient regulatory activity toward the social context of decisionmaking. I conclude with a research agenda to explore the relationship between situated action, preference formation, and rational choice.
Cows in the Corn, Pigs in the Garden, and “the Problem of Social Costs”: “High” and “Low” Legal Cultures of the British Diaspora Lands in the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries
Authors: Karsten Peter
Published: June 2006

Economist Ronald Coase's famous theorem regarding the ways that neighboring property owners bargain “around” law and government has been refined by Robert Ellickson, who studied the ways ranchers and their ranchette neighbors resolve problems of fencing and animal trespass. Both Coase and Ellickson rely on rational actor models of Economic Man in predicting and explaining human behavior and dispute resolution. Both offer animal trespasses as the prime illustrations. Both models are flawed.

Ellickson asked what might one learn by mining historical sources to reconstruct “bargaining” between ranchers and farmers, but he found the task daunting.

In the course of research into the “high” (formal) legal cultures and the “low” (informal) legal cultures in the lands of the British diaspora, 1630–1910, I gathered information on just such interactions (over fencing and animal trespass), and in this article I put Coase's and Ellickson's models to the test of the historian's laboratory. While Ellickson's model has significant power in predicting the behavior of mature British settlements where the neighbors were of the same core culture, it is not as effective in predicting dispute resolutions in frontier conditions and is of little use in predicting the interactions of Puritans and Algonquins, Pakehas and Maoris.
Voice and Context in Simulated Everyday Legal Discourse: The Influence of Sex Differences and Social Ties
Authors: Morrill Calvin , Johnson Michelle , Harrison Tyler
Published: June 2006

Everyday legal discourse refers to the spoken language with which ordinary people constitute the law-in-action. In this article, we experimentally investigate the social distribution of rule- and relationally-oriented discourse found by ethnographers in small-claims court settings. We examine the influences of sex differences and social ties between disputants on these types of discourse in a mock small-claims setting using a quantitative content coding scheme. We do not find empirical support for sex differences in the production of simulated everyday legal discourse. The relational context of a dispute (operationalized as the strength of social ties between disputants) has significant effects on the distribution of rule- and relationally-oriented discourse, so that disputants in relationally-close contexts produce more relationally-oriented discourse and those in relationally-distant contexts produce more rule-oriented discourses than those in relationally-close contexts. With these findings as a backdrop, we discuss (1) the contextual nature of sex differences in everyday legal discourse; (2) discourse “switching” and emotional investment in personal relationships, and (3) applications for our coding scheme to studies of disputing frames.
Effect of prenatal exposure to bisphenol A on the serum testosterone concentration of rats at birth
Authors: Tanaka M , Nakaya S , Katayama M , Leffers H , Nozawa S , Nakazawa R , Iwamoto T , Kobayashi S
Published: June 2006

In the rat, testosterone (T) in the neonatal period plays an important role in sexual differentiation and there is a serum T surge in male rats 2 hours after birth. Pregnant female rats were exposed to various doses of bisphenol A (BPA) from gestational day 1 (GD1) through 2 hours after parturition. About half of the BPA-exposed and control dams were subjected to cesarean section on GD22. The male fetuses on GD22 were immediately sacrificed and blood was collected. The other half of the BPA-treated and control dams delivered at GD23 (parturition day). The male pups were sacrificed 2 hours after birth. Serum T concentration was determined by radioimmunoassay (RIA). The BPA concentration in the fetal serum on GD22 increased inversely to the T levels in the serum. The T concentration in the pups' serum 2 hours after birth decreased inversely to the BPA concentration in the serum. However, there were no differences in the serum T concentration among the various doses of BPA. These results suggest that exposure to BPA in utero inhibits the T surge in the neonatal period and we speculate that exposure to BPA in utero disrupts the endocrine environment in the neonatal male.
Mercury in traditional Tibetan medicine-panacea or problem?
Authors: Sallon S , Namdul T , Dolma S , Dorjee P , Dolma D , Sadutshang T , Ever-Hadani P , Bdolah-Abram T , Apter S , Almog S , Roberts S
Published: June 2006

Symptoms of mercury toxicity, biochemical changes, and blood/urine mercury levels were evaluated in a small group of patients. Six patients attending Delek Hospital, Dharamsala, India, taking mercury-containing traditional Tibetan medicine (TTM) (Group I), were compared with three patients taking non-mercury containing TTM (Group II) and healthy volunteers (Group III). Quantitative estimation of mercury ingestion based on chemical analysis was compared with US regulatory standards. Results: Group I were significantly older (mean 55 years9 / SE 6.4) range 26-69 years, than Group II (26.7 years±SE 5) range 17-34 years and Group III (32.5 years±SE 0.5) range 33-34 years (P=0.05). Group I took TTM on average for 51 months and had a mean of 2.5 non-specific, mercury-related symptoms. Group I had higher mean diastolic pressures (85 mmHg) than Group II (73 mmHg) (P=0.06) and more loose teeth. Mean daily mercury intake for Group I was 674 mg, estimated as 10 mg/kg per day. (Established reference dose for chronic oral exposure: 0.3 mg/kg per day.) Blood mercury levels were non-detectable, but mean urinary mercury levels for Group I were 67 mg/L (EPA levels < 20 mg/L). Renal and liver function tests were not significantly different between groups and within normal clinical range. Conclusions: Prolonged ingestion of mercury containing TTM is associated with absent blood levels, but relatively high urinary levels. Further studies are needed to evaluate toxicity and therapeutic potential.
The local lymph node assay in practice: a current regulatory perspective
Authors: Cockshott A , Evans P , Ryan C A , Gerberick G F , Betts C J , Dearman R J , Kimber I , Basketter D A
Published: June 2006

Following the formal acceptance of the local lymph node assay (LLNA) as an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) guideline in April 2002, the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) informed notifiers that this was now the method of choice for the assessment of skin sensitization potential under the EU notification scheme for new industrial chemicals (NONS). This paper summarizes the experience of the HSE for the 2-year period immediately following the issuing of this statement, during which 48 LLNA study reports were assessed for notification purposes. The issues discussed here include adherence to the OECD guideline, interpretation of results, and classification outcomes. Generally, notifying laboratories followed the OECD guideline successfully, with regard to the sex/ strain/numbers of mice used, the precise process used for measurement of cell proliferation, and the use of recommended vehicles and positive controls. Initially, use of the individual animal approach (measuring the cell proliferation in each animal rather than for a pooled dose group) highlighted problems caused by technical inexperience, but these were overcome by practice. Toxicity or irritation were found to be minor factors in dose selection; more important was the choice of vehicle to correctly maximize the test substance concentration, while maintaining appropriate application properties. Contrary to concerns that the LLNA would prove to be less sensitive or more sensitive than the traditionally used Guinea Pig Maximization Test (GPMT), the proportion of new substances classified as skin sensitizers was within the range observed in previous years. Although the sample size is relatively small, the experience of the HSE indicates that the LLNA is satisfactory for routine regulatory use.
The origin of hormesis: historical background and driving forces
Authors: Henschler D
Published: June 2006

Copious historical reviews of Calabrese and Baldwin (Hum Exp Toxicol 2000; 19: 2-31; 32-40) attribute the description of the reversal of cellular activities from stimulation at low doses to inhibition at high doses by Schulz (Pflü g Arch 1988; 42: 517-41) as the prioritizing contribution to the phenomenon which was later called hormesis. However, an extended search of the older literature uncovers Virchow (Virch Arch 1854; 6: 133-34) as the first descriptor, three and a half decades in advance of Schulz. Virchow observed an increase of the beating activity of the ciliae of tracheal epithelia of postmortem mucosa by sodium and potassium hydroxide at low concentrations, and a concentration-dependent decrease to arrest at higher concentrations. This observation constituted a cornerstone in Virchow's ‘cellular pathology’, which was based on the theory of cellular ‘irritation and irritability’. Schulz's experiment was essentially triggered by the psychiatrist Rudolf Arndt, an ardent protagonist of homeopathy. Schulz's pre-occupation with homeopathic principles, which dominates his scientific oeuvre over his lifetime, may be seen as one of the reasons for the marginalization of hormesis (Hum Exp Toxicol 2000; 19: 32-40) in pharmacology and toxicology.
Comparing the predictive values of diagnostic tests: sample size and analysis for paired study designs
Authors: Moskowitz Chaya S , Pepe Margaret S
Published: June 2006

Background Although statistical methodology is well developed for comparing diagnostic tests in terms of their sensitivities and specificities, comparative inference about predictive values is not.

Purpose In this paper we consider the design and analysis of studies comparing the positive and negative predictive values of two diagnostic tests that are measured on all subjects.

Methods We focus on comparing tests using the relative positive and negative predictive values. We discuss directly estimating these quantities from the data and derive analytic variance expressions. Sample size formulas for study design ensue. Results We analyze data on patients with cystic fibrosis to illustrate the methodology. This approach is compared and contrasted with an existing regression framework that can also be used for similar analysis purposes and yields similar results. Conclusions We have developed a new approach for comparing the predictive values of two tests that gives rise to sample size formulas for study design.
Guidelines for data and safety monitoring for clinical trials not requiring traditional data monitoring committees
Authors:   SCT Working Group on Data Monitoring, Dixon Dennis O , Freedman Ralph S , Herson Jay , Hughes Michael , Kim KyungMann , Silverman Michael H , Tangen Catherine M
Published: June 2006

This is a commissioned report by a writing committee formed by the Society for Clinical Trials. The committee was formed with the objectives of 1) reviewing data monitoring guidelines for confirmatory (phase III) trials published by the National Institutes of Health, US Food and Drug Administration, Veterans Administration, and the International Conference on Harmonisation and 2) proposing corresponding guidelines for exploratory clinical trials (ie, most phase I and phase II trials and others not requiring a fully independent data monitoring committee). These trials typically involve fewer subjects and are of shorter duration than phase III trials. Nevertheless there are safety concerns, especially because these are often the first human trials for a new intervention. Recommendations are given for appropriate elements of a data monitoring plan, decision criteria for institution of a data monitoring committee (DMC), and critical elements for a DMC to consider in exploratory trials. Review and approval of data monitoring plans are suggested to fall under Institutional Review Board purview. Forming a committee with all the characteristics of a traditional phase III trial monitoring committee may be warranted for a small fraction of exploratory trials. Such a panel could consist of both trial investigators and outside members. The paper concludes with examples of data and safety monitoring practice from the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center and the AIDS Clinical Trials Groups.
TREAD: TReatment with Exercise Augmentation for Depression: study rationale and design
Authors: Trivedi Madhukar H , Greer Tracy L , Grannemann Bruce D , Church Timothy S , Galper Daniel I , Sunderajan Prabha , Wisniewski Stephen R , Chambliss Heather O , Jordan Alexander N , Finley Carrie , Carmody Thomas J
Published: June 2006

Background Despite recent advancements in the pharmacological treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), over half of patients who receive treatment with antidepressant medication do not achieve full remission of symptoms. There is evidence that exercise can reduce depressive symptomatology when used as a treatment for MDD. However, no randomized controlled trials have evaluated exercise as an augmentation strategy for patients with carefully diagnosed MDD who remain symptomatic following an adequate acute phase trial of antidepressant therapy.

Purpose TReatment with Exercise Augmentation for Depression (TREAD) is an NIMH-funded, randomized, controlled trial designed to assess the relative efficacy of two doses of aerobic exercise to augment selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment of MDD.

Methods The TREAD study includes 12 weeks of acute phase treatment with a 12-week post-treatment follow-up. In addition to looking at change in depressive symptoms as a primary outcome, it also includes comprehensive assessment of psychosocial function and treatment adherence.

Results This paper reviews the rationale and design of TREAD and illustrates how we address several key issues in contemporary patient-oriented research on MDD: 1) the use of augmentation strategies in the treatment of depressive disorders in general, 2) the use of non-pharmacological strategies in the treatment of depressive disorders, 3) the considerations of designing a well-controlled trial using two active treatment groups, and 4) the implementation of an adherence program for the use of exercise as a treatment strategy.

Conclusions The TREAD study is uniquely designed to overcome sources of potential bias and threats to internal and external validity that have limited prior research on the mental health effects of exercise. The study is facilitated by the development of a multidisciplinary research team that includes experts in both depression treatment and exercise physiology, as well as other related fields.
Choices in health care: the European experience
Authors: Thomson Sarah , Dixon Anna
Published: June 2006

This paper examines some policies to increase or restrict consumer choice in western European health systems as regards four decisions: choice between public and private insurance; choice of public insurance fund; choice of first contact care provider and choice of hospital. Choice between public and private insurance is limited and arose for historical reasons in Germany. Owing to significant constraints, few people choose the private option. Choice of public insurance fund tends to be exercised by younger and healthier people, the decision to change fund is mainly associated with price and, despite complex risk adjustment mechanisms, it has led to risk selection by funds. Choice of first contact care provider is widespread in Europe. In countries where choice has traditionally been restricted, reforms aim to make services more accessible and convenient to patients. Reforms to restrict direct access to specialists aim to reduce unnecessary and inappropriate care but have been unpopular with the public and professionals. Patients' take up of choice of hospital has been surprisingly low, given their stated willingness to travel. Only where choice is actively supported in the context of long waiting times is take up higher. The objectives, implementation and impact of policies about choice have varied across western Europe. Culture and embedded norms may be significant in determining the extent to which patients exercise choice.