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The Texture of Custom

Ekkehart Schlicht

in On Custom in the Economy

Reviews the thesis outlined in the book. Concept formation and learning are tied up with clarity requirements. Clarification shapes preferences and underlies the behavioural, motivational, and ... More

Reviews the thesis outlined in the book. Concept formation and learning are tied up with clarity requirements. Clarification shapes preferences and underlies the behavioural, motivational, and cognitive tendencies that give rise to property, the law, and the firm as a social institution and account for the way in which the division of labour is organized in society. There is a pervasive mutual interdependency between many features of society that is brought by the tendency towards clarity that underlies the formation and motivational force of custom.Less

Fuzziness

Ekkehart Schlicht

in On Custom in the Economy

A custom establishes a certain regularity, but this regularity is typically not clearly defined. The scope, where the custom applies, has fuzzy boundaries, and even the content of a custom is ... More

A custom establishes a certain regularity, but this regularity is typically not clearly defined. The scope, where the custom applies, has fuzzy boundaries, and even the content of a custom is typically vaguely defined.Less

Preferential trade arrangements production, and trade with differentiated intermediates †

Olivier Cadot, Antoni Estevadeordal, Akiko Suwa-Eisenmann, and Thierry Verdier

in The Origin of Goods: Rules of Origin in Regional Trade Agreements

This chapter focuses on the difference between free trade agreements with rules of origin and customs unions. The first part develops a model to assess the trade and production in intermediate and ... More

This chapter focuses on the difference between free trade agreements with rules of origin and customs unions. The first part develops a model to assess the trade and production in intermediate and final goods under these two forms of preferential trading arrangements. The second part performs a cross-sectional econometric analysis of bilateral trade in finished motor vehicles and parts in the OECD area. The findings suggest that ROO can be an effective barrier against third-party suppliers of intermediate goods, and that the ‘border effect’ on trade is mitigated within customs unions.Less

Baptism

Andrew R. Holmes

in The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 1770-1840

This chapter explores the official and popular understandings of baptism and its importance to the life of communities, whether in terms of the church or local society.

Marriage and Sexual Relationships

Andrew R. Holmes

in The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 1770-1840

This chapter outlines official marriage practices and attitudes, with particular reference to the established church, before examining the communal aspect of marriage and sexual relations within the ... More

This chapter outlines official marriage practices and attitudes, with particular reference to the established church, before examining the communal aspect of marriage and sexual relations within the context of church discipline and local community life.Less

Cruelty and Conflict in Multiethnic Politics

Jacob T. Levy

in The Multiculturalism of Fear

Describes four characteristic dangers arising from cultural pluralism, dangers with which a multiculturalism of fear must concern itself: forcible inclusion of an ethnic minority that wishes to ... More

Describes four characteristic dangers arising from cultural pluralism, dangers with which a multiculturalism of fear must concern itself: forcible inclusion of an ethnic minority that wishes to retain its own identity; forcible exclusion from citizenship and the protection of the state of small and stigmatized minorities; internal cruelty, arising from attempts by communal leaders to prevent members from assimilating to or hybridizing with a neighbouring culture; and the outcast status of those who leave their ancestral ethnic communities. Forced inclusion and forced exclusion are analysed as the two sides of an impulse towards nation‐state homogeneity. Internal cruelty, particularly against girls and women, often increases in reaction against assimilationist pressures from outside. State regulation of internal cruelty is legitimate and justified, but must be carefully done. Prohibited‐but‐still‐practised customs may be the most dangerous for group members, leaving selective acceptance and recognition as often preferable to outright bans.Less

Practitioner Perspectives

Emilie M. Hafner-Burton

in Making Human Rights a Reality

This chapter considers the experiences of practitioners who work inside and around the international human rights legal system. Those insider views—many of them from lawyers who have one foot in ... More

This chapter considers the experiences of practitioners who work inside and around the international human rights legal system. Those insider views—many of them from lawyers who have one foot in academia and another in the practical efforts of nongovernmental organizations and international legal bodies—point to many similar findings. They see a system in which legal obligations and membership have expanded much faster than the capacity to yield practical improvements in human rights. According to many of these practitioners, the legal system has been extremely successful at declaring universal values, yet has fallen quite short in practical implementation. The chapter discusses some good news regarding the impact of international treaties and legal customs on constitutions, national law, and domestic politics, as well as some barriers to a more effective human rights legal system; for example, insider politics and underused or ineffective complaints mechanisms.Less

 Customary International Law

Andrew T Guzman

in How International Law Works: A Rational Choice Theory

This chapter applies the theory of international law (developed earlier in the book) to customary international law. The way in which reputation, retaliation, and reciprocity support a body of less ... More

This chapter applies the theory of international law (developed earlier in the book) to customary international law. The way in which reputation, retaliation, and reciprocity support a body of less formalized legal rules, that operate more forcefully than mere norms, is explained. The chapter reconsiders traditional views of custom and in particular the requirements of opinio juris and general practice, explaining why a better definition of custom would demand on the former.Less

Income

P. R. Cavill

in The English Parliaments of Henry VII 1485-1504

Chapter 2 examines parliament in the context of crown finances. It distinguishes between the crown's ordinary income and its extraordinary income, granted by a parliament for a particular purpose. It ... More

Chapter 2 examines parliament in the context of crown finances. It distinguishes between the crown's ordinary income and its extraordinary income, granted by a parliament for a particular purpose. It discusses crown lands first in the light of acts of resumption. It considers customs levies authorized in Henry's first parliament, are discussed. Efforts to improve income from this source by raising customs rates and reducing customs evasion. Extraordinary grants of taxation, made in later parliaments, are then discussed. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of the lay subsidy through the crown's attempts to revise the terms of fifteenths and tenths. The opposition these reforms provoked in parliament is examined.Less

Macaulay’s (Cyber) Children

Shehzad Nadeem

in Dead Ringers: How Outsourcing Is Changing the Way Indians Understand Themselves

This chapter examines how globalization affects the identities and aspirations of outsourcing workers, managers, and employers. It first considers the rise of a “new middle class” in India and ... More

This chapter examines how globalization affects the identities and aspirations of outsourcing workers, managers, and employers. It first considers the rise of a “new middle class” in India and whether middle-class Indians can be meaningfully described as today's “mimic men” (and women) before discussing the ways that companies shape the identities and behavior of the employees within the workplace. It shows that Indian workers find the adoption of foreign accents, identities, and timings both exciting and disorienting. They increasingly identify with lifestyles and customs that are global in reach. Executives and managers, too, use their close engagement with the West to define themselves as something other than the “traditional” Indian. The chapter argues that globalization gives rise to an Indian morality play where the pleasure principle clashes with the demands of custom and obligation, where an uneasy relationship between kama (pleasure) and dharma (duty) is established.Less

Sources of Law

William Cornish, Michael Lobban, and Keith Smith

in The Oxford History of the Laws of England: Volume XI: 1820–1914 English Legal System

This chapter concentrates on the sources of English law that were treated within the system as rules of recognition; as authority, in other words, for what the law was, rather than as mere ... More

This chapter concentrates on the sources of English law that were treated within the system as rules of recognition; as authority, in other words, for what the law was, rather than as mere descriptions of propositions that courts would apply as law. In formal terms, legislation and judicial precedent were the two sources that predominated, as they had for centuries. Some legal writings, together with established customs and similar practices, might also rate on occasion; but if they were admitted at all as sources, they tended to be treated as secondary.Less

Highland Men and Indian Families

Colin G. Calloway

in White People, Indians, and Highlanders: Tribal People and Colonial Encounters in Scotland and America

Highland fur traders regularly slept with and frequently married Indian women. In the Canadian fur trade it was regarded as the “custom of the country.” Scots‐Indian children often functioned as ... More

Highland fur traders regularly slept with and frequently married Indian women. In the Canadian fur trade it was regarded as the “custom of the country.” Scots‐Indian children often functioned as influential intermediaries and in some areas new communities sprang up where Scots, Indians, and Scots‐Indians coexisted and mingled freely. Traders often abandoned their Native‐born wives and children when they left Indian country, or in some cases when they brought white wives to live with them, but others formed life‐long relationships. Changing attitudes in the 19th century marginalized Native wives and divided Scots‐Indian communities along racial lines.Less

Holiday Custom and Entertainment

C. L. Barber

in Shakespeare's Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom

During Shakespeare's lifetime, England became conscious of holiday custom as it had not been before, in the very period when in many areas the keeping of holidays was on the decline. Shakespeare, ... More

During Shakespeare's lifetime, England became conscious of holiday custom as it had not been before, in the very period when in many areas the keeping of holidays was on the decline. Shakespeare, coming to London from a rich market town, growing up in the relatively unselfconscious 1570s and 1580s and writing his festive plays in the decade of the 1590s, when most of the major elements in English society enjoyed a moment of reconcilement, was perfectly situated to express both a countryman's participation in holiday and a city man's consciousness of it. This chapter considers two principal forms of festivity, the May games and the Lord of Misrule, noticing particularly how what is done by the group of celebrants involves the composition of experience in ways which literature and drama could take over.Less

Epigraphy and Demography: Birth, Marriage, Family, and Death

Walter Scheidel

in Epigraphy and the Historical Sciences

This chapter uses evidence from all over the Graeco-Roman world. It shows that inscriptions are second only to papyri in providing the quantitative evidence without which the study of populations is ... More

This chapter uses evidence from all over the Graeco-Roman world. It shows that inscriptions are second only to papyri in providing the quantitative evidence without which the study of populations is futile, but require much care in interpretation because of cultural conventions. The chapter follows the life-cycle by reviewing the evidence for (1) fertility rates, especially seasonal; (2) the parameters of marriage customs, with notable variation between Christian and non-Christian documentation; (3) regional variations in family relationships, where (contrary to some recent theories) links within the nuclear family overwhelmingly predominate; (4) population size (where inscriptions offer little) and structures (where the gross under-representation of females reflect cultural convention, not demographic reality); and (5) mortality, especially its seasonal distribution.Less