Princeton University Press author David Scheffer (his book All the Missing Souls is forthcoming early next year) will be interviewed in a documentary described as “a searing and personal investigation of one of the 20th century’s most infamous instances of planned mass murder — the Khmer Rouge ‘killing fields’ of Cambodia.”
Scheffer will contribute to the program from his unique perspective as the United States first Ambassador for War Crimes and a figure instrumental in the creation of the war crimes tribunals for Cambodia and elsewhere in the late 90s. PBS has posted a Q&A with Scheffer on their web site to promote the documentary.
We are publishing All the Missing Souls, Amb. Scheffer’s personal history of the war crime tribunals of the 90s and the creation of the International Criminal court. Read more about the book here: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9520.html.
In a statement provided to the New York Times earlier this week, the “family of Sheikh Osama bin Laden” writes:
If OBL has been killed in that operation as President of United States has claimed then we are just in questioning as per media reports that why an unarmed man was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world. If he has been summarily executed then, we question the propriety of such assassination where not only international law has been blatantly violated but USA has set a very different example whereby right to have a fair trial, and presumption of innocence until proven guilty by a court of law has been sacrificed on which western society is built and is standing when a trial of OBL was possible for any wrongdoing as that of Iraqi President Sadam Hussein and Serbian President Slobodan Miloševic’. We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems and crime’s adjudication as Justice must be seen to be done.
Over at CNN.com David Scheffer, former U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues and forthcoming Princeton University Press author, provides insight on the validity of these accusations. His response is too involved for me to easily summarize or even excerpt here, but it is well worth a read.
This week’s book giveaway is The Silicon Jungle by Shumeet Baluja. A timely thriller, The Silicon Jungle raises serious ethical questions about today’s technological innovations and how our most confidential activities and minute details can be routinely pieced together into rich profiles that reveal our habits, goals, and secret desires–all ready to be exploited in ways beyond our wildest imaginations. Set in today’s cutting-edge data mining industry, The Silicon Jungle is a cautionary tale of data mining’s promise and peril, and how others can use our online activities for political and personal gain just as easily as for marketing and humanitarian purposes.
“[F]righteningly convincing. . . . The read is quick, the questions will linger, and the ideas are so intriguing. . . . Baluja simplifies the abstract world of tech-speak for the rest of us while aiming to do for the Internet what Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle did for the meat industry: make readers reconsider its safety. For fans of intelligent thrillers.”–Stephen Morrow, Library Journal
“A cerebral, cautionary tale. Credible and scary.”–Vint Cerf, Google Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist and one of the “Fathers of the Internet”
To be in our weekly book giveaway draws, LIKE US on Facebook. Each Friday we randomly pick the winner who is then notified that she/he has won the book of the week. Thanks to everyone who follows us on Facebook.
Uncivil Disobedience examines the roles violence and terrorism have played in the exercise of democratic ideals in America. Jennet Kirkpatrick explores how crowds, rallying behind the principle of popular sovereignty and desiring to make law conform to justice, can disdain law and engage in violence. She exposes the hazards of democracy that arise when citizens seek to control government directly, and demonstrates the importance of laws and institutions as limitations on the will of the people.
“Jennet Kirkpatrick has done something quite remarkable in this book. She has taken a set of unsavory characters–vigilantes, members of lynch mobs, and far-right militiamen–studied their arguments, and placed them within the tradition of political theory. She demonstrates that understanding is the necessary prelude to criticism. And she adds militant abolitionists to the mix so that we can’t resist the demonstration. The result is a wonderfully illuminating argument.”–Michael Walzer, professor emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study
Anyone who has LIKED us on Facebook by 3:30 p.m. EST this Friday will be included in the draw. Thanks for taking the time to follow us.
How are those New Year’s resolutions coming? If you’re still on track, great, but in addition to all of the unrealistic goals that you’ll probably only keep up for another week or so, why not take the opportunity to resolve to do something entirely within your control this year: to be a less selfish, more conscientious person more of the time, and to encourage the organizations and other groups you’re a part of to do the same?
“You’re leaving a bunch of tools in your toolkit unused,” Stout said, when we reach only for carrots and sticks. “Why should we focus only on material incentives — which by the way can be very expensive — when we have all these ways to encourage people to do a good job, tell the truth, obey the law, work hard and which cost us much less. Economists should be horrified that we’re behaving so inefficiently.”
So, read Stout’s book and then resolve to do some nice–and efficient–things this year. Pay your taxes. Help an old lady across the street. Or just buy a copy Cultivating Conscience for your favorite economist, lawyer, or public official. You don’t have to be a saint, but I think we can all do better than we did in 2010.
You can find Lynn Stout’s recent Brookings paper on the power of conscientious behavior here.
Our author and tax expert Michael Graetz appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition earlier today to discuss the hoopla in Congress surrounding the Estate Tax legislation. Graetz, with co-author Ian Shapiro, published a wonderfully-written look at the “Death Tax” in their Princeton book DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth. The politics of the estate tax has once again moved to the forefront of Congress’s agenda. Read the book that explains how we got into the mess Congress now faces.
“When US President Barack Obama visited India in November and complimented its leaders on the growing success and prowess of their economy, a tacit question returned to center stage: Will China grow faster than India indefinitely, or will India shortly overtake it?
In fact, this contest dates back to 1947, when India gained independence and democracy became the country’s defining feature, while China turned to Communism with the success of Mao Zedong after the Long March. Both countries, the “sleeping giants,” were expected to awaken at some point from their slumber. But, since the growth model in vogue at the time laid principal emphasis on capital accumulation, China was widely held to have the advantage, because it could raise its investment rate higher than India, where democracy limited the extent to which the population could be taxed to increase domestic savings.
As it happened, however, both giants slept on – until the 1980’s in China and the early 1990’s in India – mainly because both countries embraced a counter-productive policy framework that crippled the productivity of their investment efforts.”
Jagdish Bhagwati, Professor of Economics and Law at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of Termites in the Trading System: How Preferential Trade Agreements Undermine Free Trade, and two Princeton books: Free Trade Today and The World Trading System at Risk.
[Timur Kuran] now has a new book out — The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East. The book explains a large part of why the Middle East and Turkey fell behind the West and law and economics has a lot to do with it. Various laws in Islamic societies were not conducive to large-scale economic structures, at precisely the time when such structures were becoming profitable and indeed essential as drivers of economic growth. This is not a book of handwaving but rather he nails the detail, whether it is on inheritance law, contracts, forming corporations, or any number of other topics.
Click here to read more, and tell us what you think on the book’s Facebook page!
Congratulations to Margot Canaday, whose book, The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America, has just been declared winner of the 2010 Cromwell Book Prize! This prize, given on the recommendation of the American Society for Legal History and funded by the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, recognizes and promotes new work by graduate students, law students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty not yet tenured, and annually awards $5,000 to the junior scholar best demonstrating excellence in scholarship in the field of American Legal History.
Canaday’s book has been heralded as a “pathbreaking, riveting historical study” by David A. J. Richards of Law and History Review, and “terrific, complex, highly original, revelatory book” by Nancy F. Cott, author of Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (among many other favorable reviews by scholars and critics). In addition to the Cromwell Book Prize, Canaday has been awarded four other prizes for The Straight State, including the Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize from the American Studies Association, and the Organization of American Historians’ Ellis W. Hawley Prize. Great work, Margot!
To see other recent award-winning books from PUP, please click here.
As Princeton’s very own Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1913, “Power consists in one’s capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation.” Our society relies on the principles of cooperative interaction, but what exactly motivates a person to “link his will with the purpose of others,” to work with someone else to achieve a common goal?
Psychology professor and PUP author Tom Tyler attempts to answer this question in his latest book, Why People Cooperate: The Role of Social Motivations. Examining cooperation in work organizations, neighborhoods, and political communities, Tyler challenges the idea that self-interest motivates individuals within groups and instead illustrates that shared attitudes, values, and identities foster cooperative human behaviors. Tyler’s argument suggests that cooperation is socially-motivated, rather than oriented toward obtaining incentives or individual advantage, which carries widespread implications for management of organizations and governance. Tyler specifically addresses the law enforcement perspective in his other PUP book, Why People Obey the Law (2006).
Tom Tyler recently discussed the ideas behind Why People Cooperate, and his plans for future research, in this brief interview with PUP.
How did you arrive at your field of research?
I have been studying compliance with laws for many years. However, over that time legal scholars and social scientists studying the law have increasingly recognized that society benefits from a more active conception of the citizen. We do not want people who simply follow the rules. We want people who work actively with authorities to manage social order in their communities. This increasing focus upon voluntary cooperation makes traditional models of deterrence increasingly inadequate. Instead, we need to develop a more social model of motivation in which the focus is on creating internal attitudes, values and identities that support voluntary behaviors. When people have supportive internal motivations their behavior is motivated by factors within the person and is not linked to incentives and sanctions in the environment. And, as a consequence people infuse their behavior with their own particular competencies and knowledge leading their contributions to be more creative and valuable to the group. This transformation in thinking has not only changed the field of law. Similar changes are occurring in the social sciences more generally. For example, in management there is a focus on voluntary contributions to the workplace (extra-role behavior), while participatory procedures and civic engagement have been increasingly studied in political science and public policy. My goal in Why People Cooperate is to present a conceptual framework within which voluntary cooperation can be profitably studied across these arenas. Drawing from management, law and politics I present a unified model of the motivations underlying such voluntary cooperation.
What is the most surprising finding in your research?
In my experience most people think that human behavior is motivated by material gains and losses. This is certainly a message that is widely articulated by both scholars and policy makers. So I think the most surprising message of the studies I review is that material gains and losses are not the primary aspect of people’s connection to groups, organizations and societies that shapes their willingness to cooperate. Instead, it is people’ social connections to others – their attitudes, values and identity – that is motivating. These social dispositions, in turn, are shaped by the policies and practices that people experience within the group. If people believe that the group and its authorities and institutions are exercising authority fairly (procedural justice) and are motivated to do what is best for all of the people in the group (motive-based trust) they develop favorable dispositions toward the group and are more likely to engage in cooperative behavior. The centrality of social motivations is often surprising to people who believe that people’s connections to others are rooted in a more instrumental framework of incentives and sanctions.
Where do you see your work leading you in the future?
In Why People Cooperate I present a general framework for understanding voluntary cooperation. However, there are many issues within this overall model that need to be better understood. One is when different socially-based dispositions are important. In the book I distinguish among attitudes, values and identity and show that these motivations are important as a group. However, future studies need to develop a more contextual model indicating the strengths and weaknesses of each type of social motivation under different circumstances. Similarly, this analysis treats procedural justice and motive-based trust as parallel aspects of policies and practices. However, it is likely that each is important under particular circumstances. Again, further studies need to specify their relationship more clearly. Further, we need to develop better models which specify the antecedents of procedural justice and motive-based trust. The best available model, the relational model of procedural justice, does a good job of explaining both procedural justice and motive-based trust, but does not adequately identify elements that are unique to each. As a consequence it is difficult to design strategies focused upon building one or the other. Instead the general strategy employed in current research is to engage in a broadly based effort to strengthen both. Yet, procedural justice and motive-based trust are found to distinctly contribute to defining social dispositions, suggesting that each has unique antecedents. These various suggestions accept the basic premise that social motivations are central to voluntary cooperation and elaborate the dynamics of a social motivation based model.
Even lawyers who obey the law often seem to act unethically–interfering with the discovery of truth, subverting justice, and inflicting harm on innocent people. Standard arguments within legal ethics attempt to show why it is permissible to do something as a lawyer that it would be wrong to do as an ordinary person. But in the view of most critics these arguments fail to turn wrongs into rights. Even many lawyers think legal ethics is flawed because it does not accurately describe the considerable moral value of their work. In Lawyers and Fidelity to Law, Bradley Wendel introduces a new conception of legal ethics that addresses the concerns of lawyers and their critics alike.
W. Bradley Wendel is professor of law at Cornell Law School.
Featuring commentary and interviews from Princeton University Press authors, the PUP Blog is a highly respected, timely and indispensable source for learning, understanding and reflection.
How are those New Year’s resolutions coming? If you’re still on track, great, but in addition to all of the unrealistic goals that you’ll probably only keep up for another week or so, why not take the opportunity to resolve to do something entirely within your control this year: to be a less selfish, more conscientious person more of the time, and to encourage the organizations and other groups you’re a part of to do the same?
Our author and tax expert Michael Graetz appeared on 
Congratulations to Margot Canaday, whose book, 
ve at your field of research?
cooperation. However, there are many issues within this overall model that need to be better understood. One is when different socially-based dispositions are important. In the book I distinguish among attitudes, values and identity and show that these motivations are important as a group. However, future studies need to develop a more contextual model indicating the strengths and weaknesses of each type of social motivation under different circumstances. Similarly, this analysis treats procedural justice and motive-based trust as parallel aspects of policies and practices. However, it is likely that each is important under particular circumstances. Again, further studies need to specify their relationship more clearly. Further, we need to develop better models which specify the antecedents of procedural justice and motive-based trust. The best available model, the relational model of procedural justice, does a good job of explaining both procedural justice and motive-based trust, but does not adequately identify elements that are unique to each. As a consequence it is difficult to design strategies focused upon building one or the other. Instead the general strategy employed in current research is to engage in a broadly based effort to strengthen both. Yet, procedural justice and motive-based trust are found to distinctly contribute to defining social dispositions, suggesting that each has unique antecedents. These various suggestions accept the basic premise that social motivations are central to voluntary cooperation and elaborate the dynamics of a social motivation based model.
