How European Union Membership Can Undermine the Rule of Law in Emerging Democracies

The European Union views the spread of economic prosperity and rule of law to countries emerging from dictatorship as among its primary goals when considering countries as candidates for membership. Existing literature often suggests that EU membership confers significant benefits on the accession countries, and these countries are willing to undergo costly and difficult reforms to reap these benefits. Through strict membership conditions, member states force accession countries to commit to democracy. Drawing on theoretical work in the fields of law, politics, and economics, this article reassesses the conventional wisdom. It argues that, under certain conditions, the reforms required of would-be members could have the perverse effect of undermining the establishment of legitimate law in transitional democracies. Using an agent-based model, the article elucidates a theory in which placing laws on the books around which no societal consensus exists can create perverse incentives for citizens and government officials and may lead to an erosion of the rule of law

A Culturally Nuanced Test of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s ‘‘General Theory’’: Dimensionality and Generalizability in Japan and the United States

The current research addresses two specific issues that direct attention to the relatively neglected topic of the cross-cultural applicability of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s ‘‘general theory’’ that has been developed in and tested primarily in the United States. With theoretical and empirical guidance from the literature on dimensionality of low self-control, we first predict that the six elements identified in the theory form a multidimensional latent construct in two diverse societies—Japan and the United States. Drawing on the literature concerning cultural variability in individualism, and inconsistent with self-control theory, the authors then expect that although low self-control leads to deviance in both societies, the causal relationship is stronger among Americans than among Japanese. Analysis of identical survey data collected simultaneously from college students in Japan and the United States provides somewhat mixed support for our expectations and the findings appear largely consistent with predictions by self-control theory.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Social environmental impacts on survey cooperation

Social environmental influences on survey cooperation are explored using data from six national household surveys in the United States matched to 1990 decennial census data. Consistent with the past literature on prosocial behavior, cooperation rates in these six surveys are found to be lower in urban, densely populated, high crime rate areas. Measures of social cohesion show no evidence of influencing cooperation. The influence of the environmental variables is then observed after introducing statistical controls for household structure, race, age of household members, presence of children, and socioeconomic attributes of households. Over half of the measured influence of the environmental variables is explained by these household-level attributes. These findings have practical import for survey administrators and are informative for the construction of a theory of survey participation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43559/1/11135_2004_Article_BF00153986.pd

Expected utility, self-control, morality, and criminal probability

With data from random sample household surveys conducted simultaneously in major cities in Greece and in Russia, we evaluate the import of individuals' morality relative to expected utility and self-control in predicting criminal probability. In addition, we examine potential interactions among the three variables in predicting criminal propensity and compare their relative effects across the two samples. The results suggest that all three factors are important and mostly independent influences in explaining criminal probability. However, the estimated effects of morality are substantially stronger than those of either expected utility or self-control, and all three of these explanatory variables appear to be somewhat sensitive to cultural contexts. Overall, our findings confirm that morality plays a comparatively larger part in explaining conformity than is generally recognized by major contemporary theories, although the data cannot show whether morality is an element in rational decision making or represents a contrary "non-rational" element in accounting for human conduct. © 2010

The correlates of crime and deviance: Additional evidence

Comparable survey data collected simultaneously in major cities in Greece, Russia, and Ukraine indicate that the usual correlates of self-reported criminal/deviant behavior derived from research in well-studied, mostly Western societies, do not necessarily hold cross-nationally. The data confirm only two of six potential correlates of self-reported criminal/deviant behavior-age and deviant peer association. Two widely assumed correlates of criminal propensity-gender and marital status-prove to be somewhat unreliable and sensitive to these cultural contexts. Religiosity is generally negatively linked to crime/deviance in bivariate but not multivariate analyses. In bivariate analysis socioeconomic status (SES) proves to be highly sensitive to the investigated cultural contexts whereas in multivariate analysis SES is not significantly related in any consistent fashion to criminality in any of the three countries. These results show the value of cross-cultural research and suggest that effective explanation of criminal and deviant behavior may require more attention to cultural variations. © 2010 The Author(s)