The U.S. presidential election and the Bush v. Gore supreme court decision

The 2000 presidential election produced over two dozen different law suits including two separate decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. The purpose of this essay is to examine the most important of these decisions, George W. Bush v. Albert Gore, Jr., highlighting its logic and geographic implications     

The legal (de)construction of geography: race and political community in supreme court redistricting decisions

This article examines the different conceptions of racial identity and ‘geography’ in two landmark Supreme Court decisions, Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Easley v. Cromartie (2001). Both decisions evaluated similar Congressional redistricting plans in North Carolina, but reached opposite conclusions. In Reno, the Court based its reasoning on the ‘objective’, ‘natural’ and ‘rational’ geography of North Carolina. Such geographic relationships create political communities and constrain the way in which state legislatures can draw electoral districts. In contrast, the Easley decision based its reasoning on voting behaviour, and makes an implicit appeal to deliberative democratic principles. From this perspective, political relationships create the geographic relationships defined by Congressional district boundaries. Where the Reno decision treats race as an arbitrary social distinction that the state should not use as the basis of political representation, the Easley opinion argues that the state can consider differences in racial voting behaviour during the redistricting process. More fundamentally, the Easley decision implies that racial identity is formed by deliberative political communities, rather than being an objective, static characteristic. This suggests that disputes over spatial relationships are critical to the construction of hegemonic racial identities, and that space is fundamental to the conception of racial difference.     

May It Please the Court? The Solicitor General's Not‐So‐“Special” Relationship: Archibald Cox and the 1963–1964 Reapportionment Cases

Forty-two years ago, the Warren Court decided the jurisprudential progeny of Baker v. Carr . ¹ Six cases, headed by Reynolds v. Sims , ² continued to remake the legal landscape of legislative apportionment using the "one person, one vote" principle. For President John F. Kennedy's Solicitor General, Archibald Cox, the Reynolds decisions were dangerous. He feared they would precipitate a constitutional crisis that would underscore why Justice Felix Frankfurter, his mentor, had urged his judicial colleagues to avoid entangling their institution in the "political thicket" of legislative apportionment.     

The Judicial Bookshelf

Decisions by the Supreme Court that are accorded "landmark" status are chiefly remembered for their holdings and effects. Such cases are also typically linked to a particular era of judicial history, as Marbury v. Madison ¹ was to the Marshall Court and Jefferson's presidency, as Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer ² was to the Vinson Court and Truman's presidency, and as Miranda v. Arizona ³ was to the Warren Court and the tumultuous 1960s. But probably only serious students of the Court will recall that Marbury was decided in 1803, Youngstown in 1952, and Miranda in 1966. And fewer still will know, without first consulting a reference, that Marbury came down on February 24, the Steel Seizure Case on June 2, and Miranda on June 13. Scholars typically associate decisions with years, not the day of the month.     

High Court Review 2007–08: A Changing Bench,But Business as Usual?

This year's High Court Review analyses the major developments in the Court's composition and jurisprudence for the two-year period from 2007 to 2008, with a primary focus on the Court's role as chief interpreter of the Commonwealth Constitution, the political implications of the Court's vision of the federal compact and its interpretation of the concept of representative democracy in Australia. As an inherently political institution with considerable policy influence, the first part of the Review analyses the changing composition of the bench with reference to two new appointments made in 2008. The second half of the Review turns to developments in the Court's constitutional jurisprudence. The Court's role as an arbiter of federal-State relations is explored through two important section 51 decisions concerning the scope of the Commonwealth government's legislative power: Attorney-General (Vic) v Andrews and Thomas v Mowbray. Finally, the Review analyses the Court's construction of the Constitution as providing for a system of representative government in two cases concerning voting rights: Bennett v The Commonwealth and Roach v Electoral Commissioner.     

Rufus W. Peckham and the Pursuit of Economic Freedom

It is striking that Rufus W. Peckham has received so little scholarly attention and remains without a biography. He was, of course, the author of Lochner v. New York (1905), ¹ one of the most famous and contested decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. Moreover, Peckham wrote important opinions dealing with contractual freedom, anti‐trust law, eminent domain, dormant commerce power, and the Eleventh Amendment. Indeed, Owen M. Fiss maintains that Peckham and David J. Brewer were intellectual leaders of the Fuller Court, “influential within the dominant coalition and the source of the ideas that gave the Court its sweep and direction.” Even when they did not prevail, Fiss observed, Peckham and Brewer “set the terms for the debate.” ²     

Text and Tradition: Justice Scalia’s Consistent Application of His Original Public Meaning Approach to Separation of Powers

In this article, I argue that Scalia consistently and objectively applied his original public meaning approach to preserve separation of powers, ruling both for and against the legislative, executive, and judicial branches when the text and traditional understanding of the Constitution required it. I focus, in particular, on his opinions in Morrison v. Olson (1988), Printz v. United States (1997), Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992), and Plaut v. Spendthrift Farms (1995), in which he defended executive power and judicial power from congressional encroachments; NLRB v. Noel Canning (2014) and Zivotofsky v. Kerry (2015), in which he defended congressional power from executive overreach; Young v. United States ex rel. Vuitton (1987) and Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation (2007), in which he sought to rein in judicial power; and in Talk America v. Bell Telephone Company (2011) and Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association (2015), in which he sought to reassert judicial power that the Supreme Court in general and he in particular had previously relinquished.     

Outbidding to Radical Nationalists: Minority Policy in Estonia, 1988–1993

Abstract. Given the pressure exerted by Russia and the international alter focused on Estonia as a result, why did Estonia opt to deny citizenship to the maji of its Russian-speaking population and to disenfranchise them at a time v decisions about the basic structure of the state were being made? Com explanations for radical policy towards other ethnic groups focus on histo animosity or changes in demographics. However, I argue that these explanations insufficient to explain the changes in Estonian policy over time. Instead I focus 01 political process, dividing the Estonian drive for independence into three stags discuss the increasing relaxation of the political constraints on outbidding to rai nationalists. The conclusion examines the impact of Estonia's policies on et relations and discusses the implications for domestic and international policy.     

Ethnohistorical geography and aboriginal rights litigation in Canada: memoir of an expert witness

Since the early 1950s, evidence from ethnohistorical geography has played an important role in aboriginal rights claims and litigation in North America. I became involved in Canadian aboriginal and treaty rights litigation over 35 years ago. My participation has included several landmark cases: Regina v. Horseman (treaty rights), Delgamuukw v. Regina (Comprehensive title claim), and Regina v. Powley (Métis rights). Most of the evidence that I have presented over the years has dealt with various aspects of the changing spatial economies of First Nations and Métis communities from Ontario to British Columbia. The Hudson's Bay Company's vast archive has been the primary source for this data.     

模拟古代丝织品上天然染料剥色研究

剥色是古代纺织品染料分析的第一步。如何选择合适的剥色方法和试剂是做好染料分析研究的基础。为此,本研究在已有研究的基础上,以模拟古代染色样品及其老化样品为对象,对染料剥色方法和试剂进行了实验研究。本研究采用古代常用的九种植物染料苏木、茜草、紫草、栀子、槐花、姜黄、黄柏、五倍子/栗壳靛蓝对现代丝绸用古代方法模拟染色。选取DMF、乙酸、甲醇、乙醇、丙酮、乙酸乙酯、石油醚、2%碳酸氢钠（pH=10）、盐酸/甲醇/水(2:1:1) （括号中为体积比,下同）、3M盐酸/甲醇 (1:1) 和10%硫酸/乙酸乙酯（1:1）等溶剂对各种染色丝绸进行剥色实验。此外,对染色后的丝绸进行老化,并将其与未老化的样品做剥色对比研究。结果表明,盐酸/甲醇/水、DMF、乙酸的剥色效果好,但盐酸/甲醇/水体系丝纤维水解严重。苏木、茜草、紫草、栀子、姜黄、黄柏染色丝绸用甲醇/水、10%硫酸/乙酸乙酯、2%碳酸氢钠剥色均有一定效果,姜黄和黄柏染色丝绸也可以用乙醇和水剥色。媒染染色丝绸用EDTA/DMF的无损方法剥色效果好。五倍子和栗壳丝绸用水或70%乙醇剥色效果好,靛蓝丝绸用吡啶、吡啶/水、DMF、乙酸剥色效果好。热老化丝绸上色素发生了一定程度的氧化和交联作用,剥色效果不如未老化的纤维。如果剥色试剂不符合后续分析的要求可以用蒸干重新溶解或者萃取的方法。     

Housing in the face of crisis: The influence of Israel's 2011 protest on housing policy

Do social protests affect government housing-related decisions? If so, in what way? To answer this question this study examines the influence of Israel's 2011 social protest on the government's housing policy, using an empirical cumulative-aggregative analysis of housing-related decisions over the past two decades. The empirical analysis is based on two generic classifications of government interventions commonly used in housing literature: first, decisions aimed at increasing the housing stock (supply-side), as opposed to policies aimed at augmenting consumers' financial capacity to obtain adequate housing (demand-side); and second, decisions that encourage homeownership as opposed to those that promote rental housing. The research findings show that the 2011 social protest definitely affected Israel's housing policy, because it prompted the government to engage in housing. However, the interventions introduced focused largely on increasing the inventory of housing units (supply-side) for homeownership and benefited mainly members of the middle class who qualify for mortgages and investors. Thus, despite the increase in government involvement in the post-protest period, Israel's housing policy has remained neoliberal, though in an advanced form of neoliberalism that combines market-oriented policies with centralized tendencies, which we call “centralized neoliberalism.” The study discusses the findings and their implications for various population groups. Given the current global affordable-housing crisis, the findings are relevant to many countries whose existing neoliberal housing policy is failing to address housing-market problems and challenges.     

China's and India's perspectives on military intervention: why Africa but not Syria?

This article addresses the puzzle for students of international relations as to why China and India, two major re-emerging powers in Asia, do not always baulk at military intervention invoked by Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, while they rhetorically harbour strong reservations about it. The recent cases of Côte d'Ivoire (2011), Libya (2011), Syria (since 2011) and Mali (since 2012) show that both China and India acquiesced in external military intervention in these African countries plunged into brutal civil wars, with only intervention in Syria being rebuffed. By studying how they voted in the United Nations Security Council in 2011–12 and their discourses on intervention, including humanitarian intervention, this article examines why their decisions about intervention in Africa diverged from their decisions regarding intervention in Syria. The authors put forward the thesis that their behaviour can be explained by an interplay between norms and interests, in which they express a common anti-US liberal imperialist stance, shaped by a ‘collective historical trauma' and ‘post-imperial ideology', and demonstrate concerns for state failure and preferences for regional initiatives and political mediation to resolve civil wars.     

Constructing Water Shortages on a Huge River: The Case of Shanghai

Shanghai is located on the world's third largest river (by volume). Yet it faces the risk of shortages of drinking water. Many decisions and environmental characteristics have contributed to this threat. First, Shanghai has become dependent on water brought into the municipality by rivers. Second, it has become increasingly reliant on water from the Changjiang (Yangzi River), principally in order to control the levels of pollution in the water that enters its treatment plants. Third, for reasons associated with inter‐provincial administrative arrangements, the city's water intakes are located within the municipality, within the estuary zone and subject to tidal intrusions of salt water. Fourth, at high tide and when the Changjiang's discharge is low, salt intrudes far into the estuary, beyond the current water intakes. If sea levels rise, these intrusions will become more pronounced. Fifth, large‐scale central government infrastructure projects (such as dams and the South‐North Transfer) are altering the hydrological characteristics of the river. Such projects raise the probability of salt water intrusions into the water intake zone. The Shanghai and central governments have thus made a series of decisions that, taken together, have led the municipality to rely on a source of drinking water that is increasingly unreliable and subject to the risk of shortages due to salt water intrusions. Why these decisions have been made – independently – is an important problem for those who would understand the provision of water for cities and the practical efficacy of Chinese governance systems.     

五代时期的扬州城考

英藏敦煌文献S.529(V)号《诸山圣迹志》(又名《失名行记》)记载了五代时期的扬州城周里数,为研究五代时期的扬州城提供了极其珍贵的第一手资料。本文以敦煌文献S.529(V)号的记载为依据,利用古籍记载和考古资料,论证了五代时期扬州城存在的事实,同时利用该文献对扬州城的规模和城门数进行了探讨。     

Opportunistic versus target mode: Prey choice changes in central-western Korean prehistory

Human decision-making processes are usually hierarchical in that higher-level decisions impose constraints on lower-level decisions. As a result, prey choices during individual foraging trips are governed to a large degree by higher-level decisions regarding how to supply resources to satisfy demands, with higher-level decisions typically made prior to foraging trips. Resource selectivity and search bias sometimes take place in this context. By dividing resource procurement modes into opportunistic and target, I discuss how choice of mode on the basis of an overall economic plan affects prey choice during foraging trips and faunal assemblage composition resulting from those trips. An analysis of taxonomic diversity in shellmidden assemblages from the central-western Korean Late Chulmun Period (3500–1300 BC) and Middle and Late Mumun Period (700–100 BC) shows that Late Chulmun people adopted a target mode, while Middle/Late Mumun people adopted an opportunistic mode in their exploitation of marine resources. A decrease in the importance of marine resource in Middle/Late Mumun produced a change in taxonomic diversity by increasing the opportunistic cost of marine resource exploitation.     

Grave Marking and Wailing: Ritual Responses to the Babylonian Crisis in Jeremiah’s Poetry (Jer 31, 21)

This article explores Jer 31,15-22, which recapitulates the history of the Babylonian crisis from invasion to exile to manumission. Against traditional “triumphalistic” approaches to this poem that view the restored Israel in its repatriation as a victorious warrior (vv. 21-22), this article argues for a ritual reading of the text. It demonstrates that the need for a ritual response to the Babylonian crisis was so strong that Jeremiah prescribes mourning rites to Judah not only at the time of its demise (v. 15) but also at the time of its manumission from captivity (v. 21). Since the use of laments and other mourning rites in the restoration of “collapse societies” was well attested in the ANE, their appearance in the Book of Consolation as part of the poetic vision of Judah’s reconstitution can also be construed as a socio-religious necessity.     

Destination Choice of Athenians: An Application of Geographically Weighted Versions of Standard and Zero Inflated Poisson Spatial Interaction Models

The main aim of this article is to combine recent developments in spatial interaction modeling to better model and explain spatial decisions. The empirical study refers to migration decisions made by internal migrants from Athens, Greece. To achieve this, geographically weighted versions of standard and zero inflated Poisson (ZIP) spatial interaction models are defined and fit. In the absence of empirical studies for the effect of potential determinants on internal migration decisions in Greece and the presence of an excessive number of zero migration flows among municipalities in Greece, this article provides empirical evidence for the power of the proposed Geographically Weighted ZIP regression method to better explain destination choices of Athenian internal migrants. We also discuss statistical inference issues in relation to the application of the proposed regression techniques.     

Competitive Pressures and the Emergence of Mothers' Aid Programs in the United States

Do states compete in providing (or not providing) welfare services? Do competitive pressures shape state welfare program adoption? Even though interstate competition is viewed by some to be a ubiquitous feature of the American federal system and welfare state, there is mixed evidence as to whether such pressures have influenced cash assistance policy in the United States. Although evidence exists of competitive pressures in contemporary welfare program decisions, such pressures have not been found in examinations of early state welfare programs. To reconcile this seeming contradiction, I examine the impact of neighboring state behavior on the emergence of state Mothers’ Aid cash assistance programs during the early part of the twentieth century. Linking theory of intergovernmental competition to program diffusion, I argue that competitive pressures may play a greater role as programs evolve past the circumstances of initial adoption to decisions about program maintenance. Contrary to previous research, I find that state decisions regarding Mothers’ Aid were responsive to similar decisions in neighboring states. Further, there is evidence that women's political organizations were important to Mothers’ Aid adoption but not to how states subsequently structured those programs.     

Metropolitan fiscal structure and migration

This abstract examines the degree to which individuals vote with their feet when considering metropolitan fiscal structure. Local (and state) fiscal policies are considered in detail by investigating migration impacts of expenditures and revenues, as well as by examining effects of distribution of expenditures by type and revenues by source. These impacts are considered across 3 dimensions of the migration decision: the decision of a metropolitan resident to move (relocate), the decision to depart the metropolitan area, and the decision to enter such an area. Empirical results indicate that fiscal structure plays an important role within these decisions, and particularly that to depart the metropolitan area.     

The Role of Bubo virginianus magellanicus as Rodent Bone Accumulator in Archaeological Sites: A Case Study for the Atuel River (Mendoza,Argentina)

Micromammalian bone assemblages from modern pellets of the strigiform Bubo virginianus magellanicus, from the upper Atuel River (southern Mendoza, Argentina), were taphonomically analysed. The results allow us to place B. v. magellanicus in the category of intermediate modification (Category 2). This sample has also been compared with results from other members of this genus, in order to classify B. v. magellanicus as a taphonomic agent. The participation of the Bubo species in archaeological accumulations has been documented, but in Argentina, the role of B. v. magellanicus has been reported up to the present. It is partly because of the sequence of one archaeological site in the south of Mendoza Province called Laguna El Sosneado‐3 (LS‐3). However, considering the absence of a current taphonomic model of this owl, this participation was mentioned as a hypothesis. In the current investigation, archaeological and modern samples have been compared. The results indicate that the skeletal element assemblages recovered from LS‐3 were accumulated by strigiform birds. Taphonomical evidence of light modifications on units I and IV indicates that Tyto alba (Category 1) was probably the main species involved in these units, whereas the taphonomical evidence on skeletal element assemblages recovered from units II and III suggests the action of a strigiform with a major category of modification such as B. v. magellanicus. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.