Showing papers on "Legislation published in 2003"

A Survey of Blockholders and Corporate Control

Abstract: 1. INTRODUCTION The notion of diffuse stock ownership is well entrenched among economists. It started with Adam Smith's legendary warning in Wealth of Nations about the "negligence and profusion" that will result when those who manage enterprises are "rather of other people's money than of their own." A century and a half later, another lawyer, Adolf Berle, along with a journalist, Gardiner Means, returned to the theme of diffuse stock ownership. Since the dawn of capitalism, Berle and Means reasoned, most production had taken place in relatively small organizations in which the owners were also the managers. Beginning in the nineteenth century with the Industrial Revolution, however, technological change had increased the optimal size of many firms to the point where no individual, family, or group of managers would have sufficient wealth to own a controlling interest. As a result, enterprises faced "the dissolution of the old atom of ownership into its component parts, control and beneficial ownership" (Berle and Means 1932, p. 8). Ultimately, this separation of ownership from control threatens "the very foundation on which the economic order of the past three centuries has rested." The arguments of Berle and Means on the dangers of diffuse stock ownership, written during the depths of the Great Depression, had an immediate and profound impact. (1) Most notably, their arguments helped to shape the federal securities legislation of the 1930s. That legislation was intended to protect diffuse shareholders from professional managers, and it remains the primary federal securities law to this day. The notion of diffuse ownership has also had a profound influence on contemporary economists. This can perhaps best be seen in one of the pivotal papers of the postwar era, Jensen and Meckling's (1976) agency paper. Much of the focus of that paper is on the conflict between diffuse shareholders and professional managers: Since the relationship between the stockholders and manager of a corporation fit the definition of a pure agency relationship, it should be no surprise to discover that the issues associated with the "separation of ownership and control" in the modern diffuse ownership corporation are intimately associated with the general problem of agency. We show ... that an explanation of why and how the agency costs generated by the corporate form are born leads to a theory of the ownership (or capital) structure of the firm. As economists started to employ this agency perspective, it was mainly in the context of diffuse shareholders and professional managers. This, for example, can be seen in the papers in a special issue of the Journal of Financial Economics on the market for corporate control in 1983. Many of these papers have become widely cited. It is illuminating, however, that among the sixteen papers in the special issue, there is little mention of large-percentage shareholders or managerial stock ownership. (2) In the issue's review article (Jensen and Ruback 1983), stock ownership, be it by mangers or by outsiders, was not listed as a direction for future research. After the volume was published, researchers began to discover that some public corporations had large-percentage shareholders, many of whom were top managers or directors. Researchers also discovered that some of these corporations were large and well known. Concentrated stock ownership, it appeared, was not limited to a few anomalous firms. Soon, academics began to study the impact of large-block shareholders. Three empirical papers in the mid-1980s set the tone and the agenda for much of the research into ownership structure that has ensued over the following fifteen years. Demsetz and Lehn (1985) address the question of the types of public corporations that are likely to have high levels of managerial stock ownership. Holderness and Sheehan (1988) address the question of whether major corporate decisions are different when a corporation has a large-percentage shareholder. …

Law, Legislation and Liberty

Abstract: Law, Legislation and Liberty was one of the greatest works in political philosophy of the twentieth century. Its greatness stemmed, however, not from its proposed reorganization of representative democracy—which was highly flawed—but from its conception of the tie between liberty and law, emphasis on and description of spontaneous order, and inspiring ideal of a “universal order of peace.” All of these themes were found in Hayek’s earlier work, but in Law, Legislation and Liberty, they found their greatest expression.

Trafficking, Migration, and the Law Protecting Innocents, Punishing Immigrants

Abstract: The Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act of 2000 has been presented as an important tool in combatingthe exploitation and abuse of undocumented workers, especially those forced into prostitution. Through a close reading of the legislation and the debates surrounding its passage, this article argues that the law makes strategic use of anxieties over sexuality, gender, and immigration to further curtail migration. The law does so through the use of misleading statistics creating a moral panic around “sexual slavery,” through the creation of a gendered distinction between “innocent victims” and “guilty migrants,” and through the demand that aid to victims be tied to their willingness to assist in the prosecution of traffickers. As a result, the legislation is less a departure from, than of a piece with, other recent antisex and antiimmigrant policies.

Ideas, Artifacts, and Facilities: Information as a Common-Pool Resource

Abstract: I INTRODUCTION There is an increasing concern about the implications of recent and impending legislation on the future of academic research, open science, traditional knowledge, and the intellectual public domain. The Duke Law School Conference on the Public Domain brought together, for the first time, an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars studying the increasing enclosure (1) of the global information commons. In the past five years, law review articles have described an information arms race from various perspectives, with multiple sides battling for larger shares of the global knowledge pool. (2) Information that used to be "free" is now increasingly being privatized, monitored, encrypted, and restricted. The enclosure is caused by the conflicts and contradictions between intellectual property laws and the expanded capacities of new technologies.(3) It leads to speculation that the records of scholarly communication, the foundations of an informed, democratic society, may be at risk. This "intellectual land-grab"(4) is an outcome of new technologies and global markets. Distributed digital technologies have the dual capacity to increase access to information while in some instances restricting such access. These technologies have generated greater access to important information about history, science, art, literature, and current events, while at the same time enabling profit-oriented firms to extract value from resources previously held in common and to establish property rights.(5) Multiple forces are vying for capture and restriction of traditionally available knowledge: corporations versus indigenous peoples, such as Monsanto owning the patent on the genetic structure of the neem; federal and state governments versus citizens regarding balancing encryption and digital surveillance with individual privacy; universities versus professors as to whether institutions or individuals will own intellectual property; and publishers versus libraries in the ephemeralization of library collection s through licensing, bundling, and withdrawal of information. This competition for ownership of previously shared resources is not unique to the public domain of knowledge. Given the opening of vast markets for commodities of all kinds, many natural as well as human-made resources are under pressure. The world's fisheries, for instance, are fighting depletion because of the capture capabilities of larger trawlers, wider and finer nets, and larger fleets. Local control of forests throughout the world is being increasingly encroached upon by state and private interests, resulting in alarming rates of deforestation. Resultant forest burning is not only rapidly reducing primary growth forests but is also contributing to the degradation of the global atmosphere as well.(6) Commodification and privatization of natural resources is a trend with virtually all types of resources. And radical changes in the structure and process of all natural and human-constructed resources can occur through the development of new technologies. (7) The problems are complex, multilayered, and of crucial importance. To direct attention to this evolving situation, James Boyle has called for the recreation of the public domain, drawing from the intellectual construct of the environment. "Like the environment," he writes, "the public domain must be invented before it can be saved." (8) A greater depth of understanding of the public domain requires the concept to be more deeply analyzed and clarified. It is a logical step, therefore, to draw from the fruitful research and analytical methods applied to the study of common-pool resources ("CPRs") and natural resource management. The goal of this article is to summarize the lessons learned from a large body of international, interdisciplinary research on common-pool resources in the past twenty-five years and consider its usefulness in the analysis of scholarly information as a resource. …

No Child Left Behind?: The Politics and Practice of School Accountability

Abstract: The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act is the most important legislation in American education since the 1960s The law requires states to put into place a set of standards together with a comprehensive testing plan designed to ensure these standards are met Students at schools that fail to meet those standards may leave for other schools, and schools not progressing adequately become subject to reorganization The significance of the law lies less with federal dollar contributions than with the direction it gives to federal, state, and local school spending It helps codify the movement toward common standards and school accountability Yet NCLB will not transform American schools overnight The first scholarly assessment of the new legislation, No Child Left Behind? breaks new ground in the ongoing debate over accountability Contributors examine the law's origins, the political and social forces that gave it shape, the potential issues that will surface with its implementation, and finally, the law's likely consequences for American education

The constitution of a European immigration policy domain: a political sociology approach

Abstract: At the 1999 Tampere summit, EU member states committed themselves to developing a comprehensive immigration and asylum policy. Although directives harmonizing border controls or anti-discrimination instruments have been adopted, it remains an incomplete and complex European policy area. This article seeks to explain the timing, form and content of this new domain. It combines the insights of March and Olsen's "garbage can' model with a sociological approach that emphasizes power competition among actors in the same field. Diverse actors have seized upon EU opportunities. Law and order officials in charge of migration control seeking to gain autonomy in intergovernmental settings linked their action to the single market and transnational crime. NGOs providing expertise to Commission units seeking competence in non-economic areas jumped on the "social exclusion' bandwagon by proposing anti-discrimination legislation. These developments - superimposed on policies regarding free movement of workers and servic...

Electoral Connections: The Effects of the Personal Vote on Political Patronage, Bureaucracy and Legislation in Postwar Italy

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between the legislature and the public administration in postwar Italy (understood as the period from about 1948 through 1994). Italian public administration is normally characterized as badly designed and inefficient, and government performance is usually classed as poor. I argue by contrast that bureaucratic inefficiency, excessive legislation and widespread bureaucratic corruption were features of Italian public administration that were deliberately designed by legislators and intended to enhance the re-election prospects for incumbents by providing them with opportunities for extensive constituency service. The underlying incentives stemmed from the candidates’ search for the personal vote, essential for retaining public office. Differences in the laws regulating the financing of political campaigns explain why excessive bureaucratization in the Italian context also resulted in extensive political corruption. ‘For a country as prosperous as Italy,’ reports a standard textbook on postwar Italian politics, ‘the resulting quality of public services – education, health, social security, justice, transport – is exceptionally low’. 1 Not surprisingly, public dissatisfaction with the national bureaucracy and with political performance more generally has traditionally run high in Italy, much higher than in other West European countries. 2 Why has postwar Italian public administration and government performed so badly? This article argues that Italian public administration performed comparatively poorly during the postwar era as a result of the deliberate behaviour of parliamentary officials, who were concerned to enhance their own re-election prospects. ‘Bad government’ provided reasons for members of parliament to offer voters compensatory constituency services. It also enhanced the partisan political loyalty of civil servants, who were typically appointed on a patronage basis, by providing them with extensive opportunities to engage in bureaucratic corruption. While the overall system that emerged was not itself planned, the interactions and behaviours that underpinned it were strategic and self-serving. This interpretation is an application and extension of a model of bad government originally elaborated with the United States in mind. 3 It stands in stark contrast to at least two other interpretations of government performance that have been forwarded specifically to understand the Italian case and that rest on more general theoretical foundations:

Are sex offenders dangerous

Abstract: Research Summary: Current legislation mandating DNA collection, civil commitment, registration, and community notification of sex offenders is predicated on the assumption that sex offenders are simply more dangerous than other types of offenders in that they inevitably re-offend. Moreover, many states are moving to expand sex offender legislation to include non-sexual offenders on the assumption that some offense types, such as burglary and robbery, serve as “gateway” offenses to sex crimes. The purpose of this research is to highlight two of the common perceptions underlying sex offender laws, and the extension thereof, and examine them in light of current empirical evidence. We employ analysis of variance techniques on Illinois arrest data from 1990 to 1997 to examine the degree to which sex offenders have higher proportions of repeat offending than other criminal categories and if some offense types serve as “gateway” or predicate offenses to sex crimes. Policy Implications: Our results suggest that the extension of sex offender laws to non-sexual offenders will likely have little effect on sexual victimization rates. More importantly, our results illustrate that policies can be founded on misconceptions, and these misconceptions not only have financial consequences, but also can affect the likelihood that the policies enacted will achieve their goals. If nothing else, this research suggests that policy makers need to become better informed on the issues they subject to far-reaching and costly legislation.

Forensic Linguistics: An Introduction to Language in the Justice System

Abstract: Series Editor's Preface. Examples and Conventions. 1. Introduction: The Law And Language. 2. Literacy And The Law. 3. The Pursuit Of Precision. 4. Interaction And Power. 5. Telling The Story. 6. Communication Issues In The Legal System. 7. Language And Disadvantage Before The Law. 8. Bridging The Gap. 9. Law On Language. 10. Linguistic Evidence. References. Index of Legal Cases and Legislation. Index.

Contestation and Change in National Policy on “Scientifically Based” Education Research:

Abstract: In this article, we examine the definitions of “scientifically based research” in education that have appeared in recent national legislation and policy. These definitions, now written into law in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, and the focus of the National Research Council’s 2002 publication, Scientific Research in Education, are being used to affect decisions about the future of education programs and the direction of education research. Perhaps because of the high stakes involved, there has been some tendency to lump together the definitions emanating from Washington sources. From our perspective as participants in some of this activity, we argue that there are important differences among these definitions and their purposes. Furthermore, we suggest that the various definitions, together with public input about them, can provide leverage for altering the meanings of scientifically based research and education research that are being operationalized i...

Patterns of Exclusion: Sanitizing Space, Criminalizing Homelessness

Abstract: IN RECENT YEARS, A PATTERN HAS EMERGED, A SEEMINGLY SELF-EVIDENT TREND toward restricting, regulating, and removing from public view persons commonly referred to categorically as "the homeless." I first encountered these processes in a variety of scholarly and journalistic sources and, most acutely, in my then place of residence, Tempe, Arizona, a southwestern "college town" of just under 200,000 that is often seen as the social and recreational center of the Phoenix metropolitan area. While exploring these questions theoretically and pragmatically, I discovered that rather than an "emerging" trend, patterns of spatial exclusion and marginalization of the impoverished that have existed throughout modern history have reemerged. As such, this study attempts to locate contemporary manifestations of these patterns in their historical contexts, comprising a theoretical overview of anti-homeless legislation and regimes of spatial control. Moreover, these inquiries are grounded in events and activities observed in practice, drawing upon various media publications, government and corporate documents, participant observations of homeless communities, and open-ended interviews with street people in Tempe (approximately 75, conducted over a three-year period from 1998 to 2001). In the end, both my theoretical exposition and grounded case study conclude that homeless street people have been frequent subjects of demonization and criminalization, and that contemporary trends reflect even further "advancements" in patterns of regulatory fervor and casual brutality. Accordingly, this study aims to illuminate these trends, to raise awareness about and encourage activism around the implications for the homeless and the public spaces they often occupy, and to make "legible" the violence that pervades such social policies. What is it about the homeless that inspires such overt antipathy from mainstream society? What is so special about their particular variety of deviance that elicits such a vehement and violent response to their presence? After all, "the homeless" as a class lack almost all indicia of societal power, posing no viable political, economic, or military threat to the dominant culture. Of course, as studies of deviance have continually borne out, a society's response to "deviant" elements is rarely linked in a direct way to any actual or credible threat. The threat is more one of perception than reality, more of a societal preemptive strike against an as-yet-unborn threat that often originates within the dominant culture itself, but finds concrete expression in some abject, powerless element of society. As such, depictions of "deviant subcultures" in the mainstream media are likely to feed into stereotypes of danger, disorder, disease, and criminality, helping to construct "the other" as inferior, inhuman, unsympathetic, deserving of their fate, and perhaps even requiring punitive measures. That all of this arises more from perception than fact testifies to the power of human emotions and collective consciousness, as well as to their horror. It is, after all, a short journey from diversity to deviance, from deification to demonization, and from sanctification to criminalization. Demonization and Disease As Henry Miller (1991) has observed, there have been times in history in which the image of the homeless beggar was one of sacrificial piety and mendicant holiness. Nevertheless, such characterizations have been the exception, and, at least since the enclosure of the common lands in 16th-century England, almost nonexistent. Once domains of private property began to dominate the cultural and physical landscape, "vagrancy began to be seen as a threat to the order of things"; later, as urban centers began to develop and market economies took hold, "vagrancy was to be perceived as a threat to capitalism" (Ibid.: 9). This was particularly true in the developing United States, where a version of the Protestant Work Ethic is intimately connected to the national mythos of equal opportunity and free-market meritocracy (cf. …

State laws and policies to address bullying in schools

Abstract: . This article focuses on the recent flurry of legislation in states to address bullying among school children. The primary purpose is to describe, compare, and contrast current state laws about bullying. Specifically, a description is provided of legislators' definitions of bullying and legislative findings about the nature and seriousness of bullying. Next, an analysis is conducted of the stated purposes of these laws and their likely consequences. Following is a brief review of several states' efforts to develop model policies about bullying. Finally, recommendations are made about actions that legislators and other policy makers can take to best support educators in the development of effective bullying prevention policies and programs. ********** Historically, bullying among school children has not been a topic of significant public concern. Indeed, many adults have viewed the experience of being bullied as a rite of passage for children and youth. In recent years, however, attention to bullying among children has increased dramatically among school personnel, members of the general public, and policy makers. The attention is well deserved. Recent research indicates that bullying is quite prevalent among American school children, directly involving approximately 30% of school children within a school semester (17% as victims of bullying and 19% as perpetrators; Nansel et al., 2001; see also Melton et al., 1998). Moreover, research confirms that bullying among children poses serious risks for victims and bullies (Limber, 2002; Nansel et al., 2001; Nansel, Overpeck, Haynie, Ruan, & Scheidt, 2003) and may seriously affect the climate of schools (Limber, 2002). The rising recognition of bullying as a serious problem has caused many to rethink how school policies directed at increasing safety and reducing violence may be modified or expanded to address bullying. Specifically, many state legislatures now are interested in passing laws that influence the development of school-based violence prevention policies that are inclusive of bullying. In turn, school administrators and staff are interested in learning how existing policies may be modified to address bullying more directly and in discovering how bullying prevention principles and programs might best be implemented in school settings. This interest has resulted in a significant amount of legislative, policy, and programmatic activity in recent years related to bullying. Although schools are governed by a complicated set of interrelated federal and state laws, the majority of policies and practices regarding school disciplinary practices are crafted at the state and local levels. Specifically, policies regarding discipline, suspension, and expulsion most often are determined by a combination of state legislative policy and local school district policy. Consequently, thus far, state laws have been the primary legislative vehicle for announcing new initiatives designed to reduce bullying behavior. Because state laws have a greater potential to influence the policies and practices of local school districts and individual schools related to bullying, they are the emphasis for this article. Even though state laws dominate the legal landscape, federal laws and policies do provide incentives for school districts to address student safety. Indeed, through major activities such as the "No Child Left Behind" initiative, the federal government often provides funding for research and demonstration programs that address school violence. Moreover, a public awareness campaign entitled, "Take a Stand. Lend a Hand. Stop Bullying Now" that specifically addresses bullying (Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services) is currently being launched. This article will focus on the recent flurry of legislation in states to address bullying among school children--describing, comparing, and contrasting current state laws about bullying. …

Bayh-Dole Reform and the Progress of Biomedicine

Abstract: I INTRODUCTION Advances in fundamental biomedical research play an important and growing role in the development of new therapeutic and diagnostic products. Although the development of pharmaceutical end products has long been a proprietary enterprise, (1) biomedical research comes from a very different tradition of open science. Within this tradition, longstanding norms call for relatively unfettered access to fundamental knowledge developed by prior researchers. (2) The tradition of open science has eroded considerably over the past quarter century as proprietary claims have reached farther upstream from end products to cover fundamental discoveries that provide the knowledge base for future product development. One important reason for this change has been a narrowing of the conceptual gap between fundamental research and commercial application. Once largely a matter of serendipity or trial-and-error, drug discovery is now critically dependent on basic knowledge of genes, proteins, and associated biochemical pathways. The foreseeable practical payoffs of this fundamental research make it easier to obtain patents for discoveries that, in an earlier era, would have seemed too far removed from useful applications for patent protection. As these early-stage advances in human understanding have become patentable, new firms have emerged, raising capital to develop and market proprietary research that lies somewhere between traditional academic research and end-product drug development. This upstream shift in patenting activity has met little resistance from the courts. In 1980, the Supreme Court held that genetically engineered microorganisms were eligible for patent protection, construing the language of the patent statute as permitting patents for "anything under the sun that is made by man." (3) Shortly thereafter, Congress created a specialized court to hear appeals in patent matters, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ("Federal Circuit"). (4) The Federal Circuit has further extended the Supreme Court's expansive approach to patent eligibility (5) while relaxing the stringency of standards for patent protection, such as utility (6) and non-obviousness, (7) that might otherwise have prevented the patenting of incremental advances in upstream biomedical research. The Federal Circuit's generally supportive attitude towards patents has encouraged imaginative claiming strategies and unprecedented levels of patenting activity. These changes in the economic structure of research and in the case law have been important factors in promoting intellectual property claims in fundamental research discoveries. Perhaps an even more significant factor, however, has been the explicit U.S. policy of allowing grantees to seek patent rights in government-sponsored research results. This policy, which was codified beginning in 1980 with passage of the Bayh-Dole Act, (8) and the Stevenson-Wydler Act, (9) has turned universities into major players in the biopharmaceutical patenting arena. The goal of these legislative initiatives was to promote widespread utilization of federally-sponsored inventions. The sponsors of the legislation believed that grantee ownership of patent rights, which would permit grantees to convey exclusive licenses to their inventions to private firms, was necessary to motivate private investors to pick up where government sponsors left off and transform new discoveries into commercial products. (10) But the legislation draws no distinction between downstream inventions that lead directly to commercial products and fundamental research discoveries that broadly enable further scientific investigation. Universities have taken the opportunity to file patent applications on basic research discoveries, such as new DNA sequences, protein structures, and disease pathways, that are primarily valuable as inputs into further research, thereby accelerating the encroachment of the patent system into what was formerly the domain of open science. …

The EU Water Framework Directive: part 1. European policy‐making and the changing topography of lobbying

Abstract: This paper is a history of the making of the European Union's Water Framework Directive (WFD). It will be followed by a second paper, which analyses the relationship between the innovations of the WFD and a range of different interest groups. This directive is of particular interest to commentators on EU policy-making because it was created through the co-decision process, in which the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament have joint influence over the final text. Following substantive differences in position between the two bodies the WFD was finalized through a conciliation process in June 2000. This change in the practice of European decision-making has allowed non-governmental organizations new opportunities to participate in water policy-making and to have a greater influence on EU directives. It is argued that the environmental lobby has adapted swiftly to these changes and used them to considerable advantage in pursuit of its own goals. The passage of the legislation between 1998 and 2000 is described, paying careful attention to who participated in the process of amending the draft directive and what major amendments were made. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Tobacco control in India

Abstract: Legislation to control tobacco use in developing countries has lagged behind the dramatic rise in tobacco consumption. India, the third largest grower of tobacco in the world, amassed 1.7 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in 1990 due to disease and injury attributable to tobacco use in a population where 65% of the men and 38% of the women consume tobacco. India's anti-tobacco legislation, first passed at the national level in 1975, was largely limited to health warnings and proved to be insufficient. In the last decade state legislation has increasingly been used but has lacked uniformity and the multipronged strategies necessary to control demand. A new piece of national legislation, proposed in 2001, represents an advance. It includes the following key demand reduction measures: outlawing smoking in public places; forbidding sale of tobacco to minors; requiring more prominent health warning labels; and banning advertising at sports and cultural events. Despite these measures, the new legislation will not be enough to control the demand for tobacco products in India. The Indian Government must also introduce policies to raise taxes, control smuggling, close advertising loopholes, and create adequate provisions for the enforcement of tobacco control laws.

Resolution of futility by due process: early experience with the Texas Advance Directives Act

Abstract: Every U.S. state has developed legal rules to address end-of-life decision making. No law to date has effectively dealt with medical futility--an issue that has engendered significant debate in the medical and legal literature, many court cases, and a formal opinion from the American Medical Association's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. In 1999, Texas was the first state to adopt a law regulating end-of-life decisions, providing a legislatively sanctioned, extrajudicial, due process mechanism for resolving medical futility disputes and other end-of-life ethical disagreements. After 2 years of practical experience with this law, data collected at a large tertiary care teaching hospital strongly suggest that the law represents a first step toward practical resolution of this controversial area of modern health care. As such, the law may be of interest to practitioners, patients, and legislators elsewhere.

Setting the Governmental Agenda for State Decentralization of Higher Education

Abstract: Background and Problem Stephen K. Bailey once characterized the American campus-state relationship as embodying a "persistent human paradox-the simultaneous need for structure and for anti-structure, for dependence and for autonomy, for involvement and for privacy" (1975, p.1). Because neither complete accountability of the campus to the state, nor absolute autonomy of the campus from the state is feasible, the crucial question confronting policymakers is where the line between campus and state should be drawn. The inevitable tension between these dual demands for freedom and control has vexed state policymakers for higher education throughout U.S. history, especially in the last half of the twentieth century. Prior to the Second World War, most states exercised relatively little formal regulatory control of higher education. However, during the dynamic postwar growth era of the 1950s and 1960s, the balance of authority dramatically shifted from campuses to state governments. The rapid expansion of state control was the result of a convergence of social and political forces both internal and external to higher education, including a historic surge in college enrollments, increasing sprawl in state systems of higher education, trenchant interinstitutional rivalries, and the growing regulatory capability of state governments. Although the centralization movement met with intense criticism from numerous national study commissions (Carnegie Commission, 1973; Carnegie Foundation, 1976, 1982), by the mid-1970s the pendulum had decidedly swung toward greater governmental control. The authors of one such national commission lamented: "Guerilla warfare now goes on all across the nation over what belongs to the institution and what belongs to the state. Independence erodes yearly in the face of the greater forces in the hands of the state, and frustration on both sides grows daily" (Carnegie Foundation, 1976, p. 18). Glenny and Bowen (1977) astutely observed that state intervention into higher education has taken place in "almost infinite ways." Yet, the institutionalized control of public campuses was achieved mainly through the creation and subsequent strengthening of statewide coordinating boards (1) and consolidated governing boards. Through the mechanism of coordination, states superimposed upon campus governance structures a new entity whose responsibility was to make central academic and fiscal recommendations or decisions for an entire state. In consolidated governing boards, states achieved a highly centralized form of campus governance, whereby a single board was empowered to make all day-to-day management decisions for institutions within a particular system or state (McGuinness, 1998). The proliferation of these agents of centralized control was rapid; in 1950, state coordinating and governing boards existed in just 17 of 48 states, but by 1974 only three of 50 states were without them (Berdahl, 1971, 1975). In contrast with the universal trend toward centralized control of higher education in earlier decades, the 1980s and 1990s witnessed a diverse array of higher education "reorganization" and "restructuring" initiatives in the states (McGuinness, 1998; MacTaggart, 1996). One important development that arose during this turbulent period in state coordination and governance of higher education was a countertrend toward decentralization (2) of decision authority from the state to more local levels of campus control (MacTaggart, 1998; Marcus, 1997; McLendon, forthcoming). Marcus (1997) documented as many governance decentralization proposals (eleven) in the states between 1989 and 1994 as there were proposals to centralize higher education governance at the state level. In fact, from 1981-2000, at least 16 states enacted legislation decentralizing authority from the state to the campus level (McLendon, forthcoming). Although the precise dimensions of the decentralization countertrend prove challenging to limn, four primary forms may be delineated. …

Defining the Boundaries of Child Neglect When Does Domestic Violence Equate With Parental Failure to Protect

Abstract: Child maltreatment does not exist in isolation from other forms of family violence. Notably, research supports the connection between wife abuse and child maltreatment, and research on the possible consequences to children exposed to domestic violence has influenced a redefinition of child maltreatment legislation and policy. Recently, some states have considered and passed legislation making witnessing of domestic violence, per se, a form of criminal child abuse. This article explores conceptual discontinuities in official definitions of child maltreatment in relation to domestic violence failure to protect matters by drawing on data from legislative reviews, child protective services, and individual-level definitions. Implications for policy, practice, and research are addressed.

Welfare reform and the subject of the working mother: “Get a job, a better job, then a career”

Abstract: Until 1996, poor single mothers in the United States could claim welfare benefits for themselves and their children under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program if they had no other source of income. With the 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), paid work and work-related activities became a mandatory condition for receiving aid. At the same time, the law promotes marriage as a route out of poverty. Using a feminist reinterpretation of Althusser’s concept of interpellation, I turn to Job Clubs, mandatory week-long workshops that teach job search skills, to analyze the citizen-subject generated by front-line representatives of the state in the context of this new legislation. Based on participant-observation, I conclude that while PRWORA ostensibly promotes both marriage and paid employment, Job Club trainers enforced a masculine worker-citizen subject through the deployment of three discursive strategies. These discursive strategies 1) promoted paid work over welfare-receipt as both a pragmatic and moral choice, 2) posited an individual-psychological account of women’s welfare receipt, and 3) portrayed parenting skills as marketable skills. In the conclusion, I speculate that current welfare reform efforts require the generation of a self-reproducing worker-citizen and that workshops like Job Club become a site in which the existence of this autonomous citizen is affirmed.

Domestic violence legislation: exploring its impact on the likelihood of domestic violence, police involvement, and arrest

Abstract: Research Summary: This research uses data from the National Crime Victimization Survey to test whether legislation affects domestic violence, police involvement, and arrest. Findings suggest that most laws do reduce the chances of family or intimate violence. Fewer appear to influence police involvement, and none relate to more arrest. This suggests that laws may deter would-be offenders from harming family and partners. Policy Implications: The findings suggest that states should continue to aggressively pursue domestic violence offenders. However, local officials should recognize that mandatory arrest laws could reduce the number of cases that enter the system. Further, more protection should go toward victims when the state awards them custody of the children.

Breaking the Convention: Researching the “Illegal” Migration of Refugees to Europe

Abstract: The study of refugees by geographers and other social scientists is, almost by definition, framed around a series of legal categories, which provide us with more or less neat categories of types of involuntary migrants. Yet the process of migration emerges in relation to legal categories and is not simply dictated by them. Thus, as legislation on migration in general and the interpretation of the 1951 Geneva Convention in particular have become more restrictive, patterns of migration have increasingly emerged that manipulate, circumvent or simply break existing legislation.

Securing Land Rights in Africa

Abstract: This collection of research papers from across the African continent illustrates the complex and ever-changing rules of the land tenure game, and how government legislation and reform (formalization) interact with local innovations (informalization) to form land tenure systems.

The Relationship Between Independence and Judicial Review in Post‐Communist Courts

Abstract: Following the collapse of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, constitutional designers codified rules establishing independent judiciaries. To what degree do these constitutional and statutory guarantees of independence reflect the actual behavior of courts? Our analysis demonstrates that official judicial power does not predict expressions of judicial review—overturning legislation in whole or in part. Rather, exogenous factors, including economic conditions, executive power, identity of the litigants and legal issues, influence the likelihood that courts will nullify laws. Our findings should caution both scholars and institutional designers. Both formal and informal factors create the parameters in which courts operate. Although courts have become more powerful institutions in the post-communist era, they face a diverse set of constraints on independent action.

Assessing Anti-ageism Routes to Older Worker Re-engagement

Abstract: Measures that challenge ageism in employment are among the most prominent policy approaches towards reversing the dramatic decline over the last two decades in the labour market participation of older workers in developed economies. In Britain, such measures have evolved through three related phases: the `business case' approach; equality routes, incorporating equal opportunities and diversity policies; and progress towards anti-age discrimination legislation. Discriminatory attitudes displayed by employers have been overemphasized in explaining early exit from the labour market. Paradoxically, targeting such prejudice and ignorance through the business case approach has narrowed the scope for challenging more covert forms of ageism in employment. Nor is age easily incorporated into equal opportunities and diversity agendas in effective ways. Moreover, legislation will need to depart significantly from the principles underlying voluntary approaches if it is to be successful. The ambiguity and fluidity of ...

Data-Driven Decision Making: The Engine of Accountability

Abstract: Accountability is an exercise in hope. When we raise academic standards, children raise their academic sights. When children are regularly tested, teachers know where and how to improve. When scores are known to parents, parents are empowered to push for change. When accountability for our schools is real, the results for our children are real. --U.S. President George W. Bush (US Department of Education, 2002a) This quote from President Bush about "No Child Left Behind" legislation sums up the national mood and the trend toward increased accountability. It was taken from a web-based presentation generated by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education Student Achievement and School Accountability Programs (SASA). This new national office promotes accountability for improving student achievement by ensuring that States implement rigorous systems of standards, assessments, and accountability that motivate educators to assume responsibility for getting each and every student to achieve at high levels. As well, the Office builds the fiscal, pedagogical, and technical capacity of States, school districts, and schools to get all students (especially those most in need) to meet their State's high academic standards." (U.S. Department of Education, 2002b) Accountability has resulted from the lack of satisfactory achievement overall and in particular the "achievement gap." This gap between minority and majority students is demonstrated in differential graduation rates from high schools and colleges as well as poor performance in reading and math that make high school graduation and college entrance and completion more challenging (see for examples, numerous census bureau reports on education, U.S. Census Bureau, 2002; U.S. Census Bureau, 2003). The President's quote and mission of the SASA makes clear the intent to use data and assessment to drive school improvement and to motivate educators to deliver student achievement at increasing levels. While counselors are not specifically mentioned, accountability and data-driven decisions are the nexus of much that is happening in school counseling and directing the role of counselors in school reform. THE FORCES CONVERGING TO SCHOOL COUNSELOR ACCOUNTABILITY While accountability is not a new concept, it has moved from a focus on teaching (inputs) to a focus on learning (outcomes). It implies evaluation of program and individual implementation of performance (Frymier, 1996). It is the "show me" attitude that is used to answer the questions that concern what difference individuals or their programs have made to students, families, teachers, schools, and districts. Within the Profession: Many forces have been concurrently converging from within the counseling profession, within educational practice, and from external sources in government over the past 10 or so years that have brought us to the necessity of incorporating accountability into school counseling practice. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) Standards. The Standards developed and promoted during the 1990s to provide clear direction concerning the school counselor's role and a method to assist in the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of a comprehensive, developmental school counseling program (Campbell & Dahir 1997). These focus on nine National Standards in the three critical curriculum areas of academic, personal/social and career development. These are being adopted or adapted by states and localities across the nation. ASCA National Model for School Counseling Programs. Naturally following the dissemination of the national Standards is a model that sets the stage for accountability and moves the standards towards implementation by providing school counselors with a process to develop district and school-based school counseling programs that maximize the achievement of all students while recognizing the importance of integrating with individual district and school needs and existing programs. …

Technology push, legislation pull? E-government in the European Union

Abstract: E-government is new on the European agenda. Member states have announced plans to a more open, accessible and transparent administration by using the latest in information technology. Yet, the current situation is far from that. Hardly coordinated projects and the notorious individualism of the member states probably describe the state of affairs best. The paper assesses the status quo of e-government in the European Union and explains the current problems by missing coordination in legislature.

Labor Turnover and Labor Legislation in Brazil

Abstract: One of the main characteristics of the Brazilian labor market is its impressively high job and worker turnover rates. Although labor legislation in Brazil is very restrictive, dismissal costs are not high when compared with other Latin American countries. Moreover, many authors argue that the design of some job security programs creates perverse incentives that generate labor turnover. The objective of this paper is twofold. First, we describe Brazilian labor legislation, with emphasis on job security provisions and their incentives on workers reallocation. Then, after reviewing the most recent evidence on labor turnover in Brazil, we investigate the effects of changes in job termination costs implemented in the 1988 Constitution and in a Labor Law of September 2001 on employment duration. Both legislation changes increased firing costs and should have, therefore, reduced turnover for formal workers affected by them. A simple differences-in-differences methodology is applied to monthly individual data from Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego (PME, IBGE), which has information on previous employment spells for those currently unemployed. The results establish that both changes reduced turnover for formal workers affected by the legislation. A significant increase in average employment duration of affected workers relative to not affected workers was observed after both legislation changes. We also provided evidence that the 1988 Constitutional change reduced the probability of fake layoffs, although there are still a high number of such agreements being made between workers and their employers.

Overrepresentation of Minority Students in Special Education

Abstract: Introduction and Statement of the Problem It is impossible to overstate the importance of the overrepresentation of minority students in special education programs. The issue is of critical importance and is very complex. If education for children with disabilities were easily understood, special education would be locally funded, because special education programs are so very valuable to the community. Unfortunately this is not the case. Because of federal involvement and the provision of a free, appropriate, public education, persons with cerebral palsy, persons who are deaf or blind, persons with autism, and other individuals with significant disabilities are integral, highly productive members of our national community. These folks did not live in institutions. They lived with their parents and rode the same bus to school that all their friends rode. They were part of school plays and attended birthday parties and baseball games. They received diplomas at graduation. They went to college, and to graduate school, and to supported, competitive employment. Some of them have been our finest public servants, directing important federal agencies, enacting and implementing legislation such as IDEA and the ADA (Lipsky, D.K. & Gartner, A., 1997). The "picture" of special education programs is not a positive one for all participants. The outcomes which are most positive are those for individuals with significant disabilities--those students who were previously unable to attend school or hold jobs. The most "negative" comments relate to students with mild disabilities such as mild mental retardation, learning disabilities, and behavior disorders (Affleck, J.Q., Edgar, E., Levine, P., & Korteromg, L., 1999; Maynard, J., Tyler, J.L., Arnold, M., 1999; Artiles, A.J., Trent, S.C., Kuan, L.A., 1994). These high incidence disabilities have "emerged" with the passage of the special education laws, and students who are given these labels often have unsatisfactory outcomes--perhaps a label which they, and their parents feel they do not "deserve" ("I may be dumb, but I'm NOT retarded"). Parents and grandparents who were educated in segregated schools are not supportive of any label which implies that their children are deviant from the norm. Parents who did not have good experiences in the public schools are not willing participants in public education processes, and are suspicious of school based activities in which they do not participate. (Turnbull, R. & Turnbull, A., 1997) Wonderful athletes have graduated from high school without learning to read, because they were "placed" in special education, had poor instruction and suffered from low expectations. These students provide a very different side of the special education picture. They have not had positive outcomes, and they are overwhelmingly from ethnic groups other than those from Western Europe (Affleck, J.Q., Edgar, E., Levine, P., & Kortering, L., 1999: U.S. Department of Education, 1996; 2000). The notion that any one race is less able to learn than another is anathema to our national conscience. Despite our best efforts, the problem persists and is documented in the Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1990, and in biannual reports from the U.S. Office of Civil Rights. The issue of the disproportionate representation of minority groups in special education was discussed in the professional literature as early as 1968. Following the passage of P.L. 94-142, in 1975, both the profession and the Court System attempted to address the issue of the overrepresentation of minority groups in special education. Reports from the U.S. Office of Civil Rights, and Office of Special Education Programs have continued to document the problem. As recently as October of 2001, the Secretary of Education, Dr. Robert Paige, expressed his concern about the issue of disproportional representation of minority groups in Special Education programs in testimony to Congress. …