What happens when the occupiers abandon the city but the forces of liberation fail to show up? What should we do when the rebels lose the people in a thicket of doctrine and become terrorists, but the empire can't imagine how to strike back except with more terror directed at the same people?

Since the 1940s Takeyoshi Kawashima has been Japan's most distinguished legal sociologist. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that commenting on Kawashima's contributions to the sociology of law is almost equivalent to commenting on the sociology of law in Japan itself (1982–1986). International readers have not fully appreciated his work for two reasons. First, few of his writings are in English and those pieces that are translated do not encompass his major contributions. Second, there are relatively few works published in English on the sociology of law in Japan. Those studies that have appeared stress the uniqueness of Japanese legal culture. As a result, international readers have come to consider Kawashima's scholarship (while brilliant) irrelevant to theory building in the sociology of law.

Estimates of the impact of personal health care services on the health levels of definite populations range widely. Whatever the figure derived, it is often surprising to discover what little effect such services have on the conditions of health. Rene Dubos offers no numerical estimate but phrases the point in this way:

Political science has generally been divided into the fields of political theory, comparative government, international relations, public administration, policy formation, state and local government, and public law. The public law or legal process field has also been called the law and politics field to emphasize that it is the study within political science of the judicial process, constitutional law, and related subjects. Law and politics research has changed greatly since 1955 in both methodology and substance. It is the purpose of the articles in this symposium to illustrate some of the more recent trends in law and politics research, particularly trends of interest to law professors, sociologists, and others in the broader area of law and society research.

The law, especially Anglo-American law, gives as a rule wide latitude to the determination of the sentence that follows the conviction of a defendant. The law may set the minimum or maximum sentence for the particular crime, it may set the range, or it may allow different types of sentences (fine, prison, etc.); at the very least, it provides a choice between two alternatives, for instance, after conviction of a capital crime, it now allows in most states a finding of death or life in prison.

As a rule it is the judge who determines the sentence, but in capital cases, and in some states in other cases, it is the jury. In one state, California, it is the prison authority to whom the sentencing decision falls, the judge merely pronounces sentence in terms of the range set by the penal code. But wherever the discretionary power lies, discretion is almost unlimited. Very seldom will an appellate court impinge on this discretion and change the sentence.

Laura Gómez's meditation on race invites us to think again about where we have been and where we are headed—as a professional association, as an intellectual community, and as individual scholars. Reading these pages brings back the exhilaration of the event: the sense of hearing said something that needed saying, that was possible to say without misunderstanding. The implicit “now” in that understanding reminds us how short the history of that possibility is. The personal and analytical generosity of President Gómez's address is integral to the force of its rendering visible a constitutive “we”—inclusive and yet still partially concealed to itself by virtue of the unintended consequences of standard disciplinary practices.

On January 19, 1971, President Nixon, catching most White House observers by surprise, issued a terse, 275-word statement halting further construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal. This was imperative, the President declared, “to prevent potentially serious environmental damages” and was done at the urging of the new Council on Environmental Quality; the Council v/arned that the project “could endanger the unique wildlife of the area and destroy this region of unusual and unique natural beauty.” Thus was the nation notified that the canal, weighed by the President against the newly minted values expressed in the National Environmental Policy Act, had been judged a $50 million mistake.

This paper presents a discussion of the revitalization processes of the peace pact system of intervillage relations among the Kalinga mountaineers of northern Luzon by means of celebrations given by the system's key personnel, the peace pact holders. Revitalization here refers on the one hand to the ways in which these celebrations regenerate support for the peace pact system, reinforce obedience to peace pact law, and strengthen the obligations of the people to the personnel of the system. On the other hand, revitalization refers to the reaffirmation and reformulation of peace pact law, which ensures the continuing effectiveness, validity, and relevance of the peace pact system to the changing world of the Kalinga. The revitalization processes inherent in peace pact celebrations have not been studied by earlier students of the Kalinga, yet close observation reveals this built-in revitalization to be a basic feature in the operation of the system.

One welcome by-product of a major comparative study of recent state constitutional conventions has been a series of interviews with the judges who served as convention delegates. They are particularly interesting, not only because of the paucity of interviews with sitting judges, but because they permit us to directly compare the attitudes of judges with those of other political elites. To date, this has not been possible.

This paper applies the methodology of economics to the analysis of resource allocation by households with actual or potential disputes. A model of household production of “legal welfare” is constructed. Household time and money investment decisions over time are analyzed within the household production framework. Finally, a simplified set of functions for measuring household demand for dispute resolution goods and services is presented and discussed.

The “marihuana problem” has rapidly degenerated into the “marihuana muddle.” As the use of marihuana increases, and as this use expands into the middle and upper classes, officials are increasingly confronted with questions concerning the effects and dangers of marihuana. Unfortunately, the answers that can be given are limited. We really do not know very much about marihuana. Perhaps the most decisive point that can be made is that the possession and sale of marihuana are against the law.