Toward a Theory of Law in Society

Abstract

Interest group conflict, power, and values have been prominent in recent attempts to analyze law as social control. The role of fact beliefs in creating, interpreting and administering legal norms has been relatively neglected, especially in the few efforts toward theories of law in society. Both fact beliefs and value beliefs are here related to legal norms, and also to group interests, power and conflict. Law is conceived of as the formal social control of the political state, a definition that does not at all require acceptance of Austin's view of law as commands of the sovereign. The forced choice between power elite and structural-functional theories is avoided, since law operates in a wide variety of power situations. The subjective meanings of interest group actions directed toward legal norms are seen as consisting of value and fact beliefs, an approach of particular promise in analyzing law and social change.     

RESEARCH NOTE Some evidence against the assumption that approval of family planning is associated with frequency of spouses' discussion of the subject

Much previous work on the relationship between respondent's reported frequency of discussion with spouse about family planning and correctness of reporting spouse's approval of family planning has led to the conclusion that discussion promotes approval. In this paper, data from the 1998 Kenya Demographic and Health Surveys are used to show that a focus on the relationship between frequency of discussion and correctness of reporting partner's disapproval of family planning leads to sceptical conclusions about the effects of discussion in improving knowledge of partner's attitude or in promoting approval.     

Asymptotic distribution of regression type estimators of parameters of stable laws

Asymptotic distributions of regression-type estimators for the parameters of stable distributions am obtained. The asymptotic normalized standard deviations of the estimators are computed for various values of the parameters and various choices of the number of points used in getting the regression estimates.     

Export agriculture is feeding malaria: a cross-national examination of the environmental and social causes of malaria prevalence

Malaria rates remain high across many less-developed regions, including Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Latin America. Although case studies find elevated malaria rates in locales with increased levels of environmental degradation, the current body of comparative environmental research lacks investigation of infectious disease trends. This study draws upon world-system theorizing to consider agricultural export flows and resulting alterations to the natural environment in poor nations as key causes of malaria prevalence. Additionally, relationships among world-system position, economic development, and socio-health characteristics are examined alongside the environmental predictors using structural equation modeling for data on 99 less-developed nations. The findings emphasize that deforestation and biodiversity loss associated with primary sector export flows are key drivers of malaria rates, alongside notable influences of basic health and social services. The results suggest that environmental and social conditions greatly shape malaria transmission in poor societies.     

The Satisfaction with Sex Life Across the Adult Life Span

Three separate issues concerning the relation between age and satisfaction with sex life are addressed in this article. The first issue was concerned with the age generalizability of the factor structure produced by responses to the Satisfaction with Sex Life Scale (SWSLS). The second issue was to examine whether there were differences in the satisfaction with sex life according to certain background characteristics, namely age. Finally, the relationship between scores on the SWSLS with those on other relational constructs was explored. Data collection involved completion of a questionnaire. The sample consisted of 1,144 participants. The mean ages of the sample were 38.99 years in (SD = 16.91); ages ranged from 20 to 80. The data indicated that the factor structure of responses to the SWSLS were highly similar through adult life. Religious involvement, marital status, and love status influenced satisfaction with sex life. Expected correlations with measures of other relationship constructs were found. The strongest predictor of satisfaction with sex live across the adult life span was love satisfaction. Suggestions concerning the use of the SWSLS for research and clinical purposes are offered.     

Objectivism and Bias on the Study of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

The author responds to reviews of his book, Planting Hatred, Sowing Pain: The Psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Reviewers argue that you cannot understand the psychology of this conflict from an objective perspective, without taking issues such as historical context and social justice in consideration. The author argues that this detachment is necessary in order to find a solution, since we need to move beyond an orientation to the past that amounts to a culpability paradigm, and into an orientation to the future and a resolution paradigm. Only after you achieve peace and build mutual trust, could the parties be ready to do soul searching and take responsibility for their past actions.     

Another look at fertility and social mobility

This is a response to Basil Zimmer's contention that the classical hypothesis connecting social mobility with fertility was rejected in the Princeton Fertility Study because of a faulty mode of analysis. Arguing from the findings of a strong association in a sample of Aberdeen women, Zimmer asserts that if social origin and destination were taken into account, the same relationship would have emerged in the U.S. data. The evidence from the Princeton Study is reviewed and new evidence presented which confirms the original findings of no relationship.     

Immigrant fertility patterns and differentials in Australia, 1971–1976

In this paper the fertility patterns and differentials among various immigrant groups in Australia are examined. Official vital statistics for the period 1971–76 are used.

Fertility ratios standardized by age and marital status suggest that the overall fertility of foreign-born women was higher in both 1971 and 1976; however, some evidence -of convergence towards an ‘Australian’ norm was found.

Four distinct patterns of fertility were noted. In two of them, Arab and South European, marital fertility was substantially higher but non-marital fertility quite low. The North-West European pattern was closest to that of the native-born; however, in the East European pattern fertility was lowest. Component analysis showed that most of the differences between the total fertility rate of Australians and those of the other groups reflect the significantly higher marital fertility rates and proportions married among the foreign-born groups.     

THE EFFECTS OF UNCERTAINTY ON THE LEVERAGE OF NONFINANCIAL FIRMS

This paper investigates the link between the optimal level of nonfinancial firms' short-term leverage and macroeconomic and idiosyncratic sources of uncertainty. We develop a structural model of a firm's value maximization problem that predicts a negative relationship between uncertainty and optimal levels of borrowing. This proposition is tested using a panel of nonfinancial U.S. firms drawn from the COMPUSTAT quarterly database covering the period 1993–2003. The estimates confirm that as either form of uncertainty increases, firms decrease their levels of short-term leverage. This effect is stronger for macroeconomic uncertainty than for idiosyncratic uncertainty. ( JEL C23, D8, D92, G32)