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The death penalty has existed in a state of steady decline for the last two decades, during which state legislatures have been at the center of abolition efforts. Successful abolition is, however, very rare in contrast to how often death penalty repeal bills are introduced across state legislatures, year after year. Indeed, abolition is not a sudden event, but may be many years in the making. Research on the early phases of this process, where the groundwork for enacted legislation is laid, is nevertheless limited. This chapter explores patterns of death penalty bill introductions across all active death penalty states from 1999 to 2018, providing not only an overview of legislative activity at state level but also an analysis of potential factors fueling the activity. It argues that individual legislators play a significant role in the current trend of increased legislative support for a restricted, if not entirely abolished, death penalty, evident both in terms of persistency over time and cooperation across party lines. It also problematizes partisan aspects of legislative activity in the context of legislation on capital punishment.

Prejudice against Jews was part of the landscape in the Union of South Africa long before Nazism made inroads into the country during the 1930s, at which stage Jews constituted approximately 4.6% of the country’s white (or European) population. Aggressive Afrikaner nationalism was marked by fervent attempts to proscribe Jewish immigration. By 1939, Jewish immigration was included as an official plank in the political platform of the opposition Purified National Party led by Dr D.F. Malan, along with a ban on party membership for Jews residents in the Transvaal province. Racial discrimination, in a country with diversified ethnic elements and intense political complexities, was synonymous with life in the Union long before the Apartheid system, with its official policy of enforced legal, political and economic segregation, became law in May 1948 under Dr Malan’s prime ministership. Although the Jews, while maintaining their own subcultural identity, were classified within South Africa’s racial hierarchy as part of the privileged white minority, the emergence of recurrent anti-Jewish stereotypes and themes became manifest in a country permeated by the ideology of race and white superiority. This was exacerbated by the growth of a powerful Afrikaner nationalist movement, underpinned by conservative Calvinist theology. This chapter focusses on measures taken in South Africa by organisational structures within the political sphere to restrict Jewish immigration between 1930 and 1939 and to do so on ethnic grounds. These measures were underscored by radical Afrikaner nationalism, which flew in the face of the principles of ethics and moral judgement.

The rise in hostile corporate takeover attempts during the 1980s motivated many states to pass antitakeover legislation, often after lobbying by the management of affected firms. Empirical attempts to assess the impact of such statutes on firm value have yielded mixed results finding either no effect or a significant negative effect. We hypothesize that, while there may be a negative market reaction associated with state antitakeover legislation, the effect is temporary. In empirically examining the effects from the actions of nineteen states, we find that any negative market reactions tend to be followed by roughly equal positive counter‐reactions, suggesting a market overreaction.

Academic entrepreneurship (defined in this case as the involvement of university faculty and researchers in commercial development of their inventions) has been a unique characteristic of the U.S. higher education system for most of the past 100 years. This long history of interaction, as well as academic patenting and licensing, contributed to the formation of the political coalitions that led to the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. This paper reviews the evidence on university–industry interactions and technology transfer, focusing in particular on the role of the Bayh-Dole Act in (allegedly) transforming this relationship. I also examine recent research that considers the Act's effects on the formation of new, knowledge-based firms that seek to exploit university inventions. This research is in its infancy, and much remains to be done if we are to better understand the relationships among high-technology entrepreneurship, the foundation of new firms, and the patenting and licensing activities of U.S. universities before and after 1980.

Much has been made of economizing. Yet, social scientists have paid little attention to the moment of economic failure, the moments that precede it, and the calculative infrastructures and related processes through which both failing and failure are made operable. This chapter examines the shift from the economizing of the market economy, which took place across much of the nineteenth century, to the economizing and marketizing of the social sphere, which is still ongoing. The authors consider a specific case of the economizing of failure, namely the repeated attempts over more than a decade to create a failure regime for National Health Service (NHS) hospitals. These attempts commenced with the Health and Social Care Act 2003, which drew explicitly on the Insolvency Act 1986. This promised a “failure regime” for NHS Foundation Trusts modeled on the corporate sector. Shortly after the financial crash, and in the middle of one of the biggest scandals to face NHS hospitals, these proposals were abandoned in favor of a regime based initially on the notion of “de-authorization.” The notion of de-authorization was then itself abandoned, in favor of the notion of “unsustainable provider,” most recently also called the Trust Special Administrators regime. The authors suggest that these repeated attempts to devise a failure regime for NHS hospitals have lessons that go beyond the domain of health care, and that they highlight important issues concerning the role that “exit” models and associated calculative infrastructures may play in the economizing and regulating of public services and the social sphere more broadly.

Compares and contrasts the contractual role of bills of lading in the context of Greek, US and English law. Discusses the legal status and contractual roles of these lading bills in the context of the legislative provisions and associated case law in each of the three countries. Concludes that the role of these bills is unsettled and there is no uniform perception. Recommends measures involving amendments to English legislation, to consolidate the regulation of international trade.

Britain's merchant navy dominated the international maritime trade in the 19th century. The strong ship owners' lobby imposed on the shippers the only choice to contract either under bills of lading drafted almost totally on the ship owners' terms or not to contract. The conflict between Britain and its rival the American merchant navy precipitated a movement for the use of model contracts of shipment (carriage) and towards standardisation of the liability of International liner carriers by legislative intervention. The bill of lading through its use in international trade gained the characteristic of being the document which incorporates the contractual terms. So, the orally agreed contract of carriage gave way to the contract of carriage in the form of a bill of lading.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Irish Government mobilised accounting concepts to assist in implementing domestic water billing. While such is commonplace in other jurisdictions and is generally accepted as necessary to sustain a water supply, previous attempts were unsuccessful and a political hot potato.

The authors use an actor-network theory inspired approach. Specifically, the concepts of calculative spaces and their “otherness” to non-calculative spaces are used to analyse how accounting concepts were mobilised and the effects they had in the introduction of domestic water billing. The authors utilise publically available documents such as legislation, programmes for government, regulator publications, media reports and parliamentary records in the analysis over the period from 1983 to late 2014.

The analysis highlights how the implementation of domestic water billing involved the assembling of many divergent actors including the mobilisation of accounting concepts. Specifically the concept of “cost” became a contested entity. The government mobilised it in a conventional way to represent the resourcing of the water supply. Countering this, domestic water users associated “cost” with a direct impact on their own resources and lives. Thus, an entity usually associated with the economic realm was embroiled in political processes, with much of what they were supposed to represent becoming invisible. Thus the authors observed accounting concepts being mobilised to support the gaining of a specific political ends, the implementation of domestic billing, rather than as part of the means to implement a sustainable water supply within Ireland.

This research has some limitations, one being the authors draw on secondary data. However, the research does provide a detailed base from which to continue to study a new water utility over time.

This study demonstrates the complications that can occur when accounting concepts are associated with gaining of a political ends rather than as a means in the process of trying to achieve a sustainable water supply. Further, the process saw the creation of a new utility, which is a rare occurrence in the developed world, and a water utility even more so; this study demonstrates the role accounting concepts can have in this creation.

The legal ramifications of the bill of lading continued to develop in the nineteenth century in the American Law. The bill of lading and the implications of its issue began to be reported in many cases as early as the beginning of the 19th century. The leading cases of Delaware and Pollard v Vinton before the supreme court of the United States illustrate the position occupied by the bill of lading from its first steps in the world trade under the interpretation given by the American courts.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of paper bills and statements in online and mobile banking and how they may serve to support trust along with mitigating distrust for consumers when dealing with banks and billing firms.

A two-phase study with 208 Canadian online bill payers. Phase 1 verified the comprehension of the measurement items being tested. In Phase 2, exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the factor structure. Regression analysis was used to identify the relationship of the factors with the intention to continuing receiving paper bills.

Four factors for trust and distrust were identified in this study of which two (structural assurance and counted on to help) plus subjective norm predict the intention to continue receiving paper bills.

Trust and distrust are shown to co-exist in this study. Consumers feel vulnerable to the risks inherent in online financial interactions, but signal their willingness to trust by adopting online and mobile banking. Consumers mitigate the distrust they have in banks and billing firms by continuing to receive paper bills and statements. This study is limited to paper bills and statements. The role of other paper documents in customer relationship management is worthy of further exploration.

This research investigates the role of financial documents in the consumer-firm relationship. This study suggests that paper bills are a communication method that supports consumers’ trust in the banks and billing firms and their adoption of online and mobile banking. Banks and billing firms’ continued emphasis on consumers’ giving up paper bills while insisting on original paper documentation in problem resolution situations, sends mixed messages to consumers, which heightens their distrust in these firms.

This is the first study to suggest that paper bills and statements have a role in influencing trust or distrust of banks and billing firms.