Non-Muslims in the Qanun Jinayat and the Choice of Law in Sharia Courts in Aceh

The Aceh Jinayat Qanun, which is often considered violating Human Rights, has become the choice of the non-Muslim minorities as their rational choice. This study aims to analyze non-Muslims’ choice of The Aceh Jinayat Qanun implemented by the Sharia Court in Aceh and its underlying motives. This study relies on field research involving observations, in-depth interviews with Sharia Court judges, Head of the Islamic Sharia Service, Acehnese clerical figures, and Non-Muslims involved in criminal cases handled by the Sharia Courts. This study also analyzes Sharia Court decisions on criminal cases involving non-Muslims and various related documents issued by the Sharia Courts, police, and prosecutors. The study was undertaken between July 2017 and March 2020. The study shows that the Acehnese non-Muslims do not select The Aceh Jinayat Qanun because of its religious values but based on practicality, efficiency, and socio-cultural consideration. The Sharia-based sentences, which have often been conceived as inhuman and violate fundamental human rights, are chosen and become the rational choice for non-Muslims in solving their legal issues. This paper concludes that the implementation of the Sharia on non-Muslim has not always been negative. This paper demonstrates non-Muslims’ interest to choose Sharia-based criminal justice or The Aceh Jinayat Qanun over the Criminal Code. This can be seen as their rational choice over a more efficient, low-cost, effective, and fast legal process offered by The Aceh Jinayat Qanun sentencing system.

Advance rent mobilisation strategies of graduate renters in Ghana: a submarket of the private rental housing market

The practice of advance rent, where landlords ask renters to pay a lump-sum rent covering 2 or more years, is gaining scholarly and political attention in Africa. Nevertheless, there is limited empirical research investigating how renters mobilize funds to meet this financial commitment. Existing literature suggests that renters, irrespective of their educational level, face difficulties in paying advance rent, hence compelling them to rely mainly on their bonding (family and friends) and bridging (employers and financial institutions) social capital to pay advance rent. Drawing on rational choice and social capital theories coupled with data from a novel (graduate) sub-market of Ghana’s rental housing market, this article finds that personal savings remain the most rational current and future source of funding options graduate renters draw upon to pay advance rent, albeit some still drawing on their social capital. The findings demonstrate that graduate renters do not use bonding social capital in their future mobilization strategies after they have drawn on the same in previous years, although they continue to rely on their bridging social capital and other strategies to mobilize funds for advance rent. The study suggests the need to rethink rational choice and social capital theories to incorporate inter-temporal dynamics among different social groups and to traverse the current binary conception of the rental housing market in Ghana to consider different sub-markets and how they respond to existing challenges in the housing sector.

Institutionalising city networking: Discursive and rational choice institutional perspectives on membership of transnational municipal networks

This article analyses participants’ reasoning for their city’s membership in transnational municipal networks and the extent to which this changes over time. Theoretically, we build on new-institutional theory and conclude that although parts of the members’ reasoning have rational components, a discursive institutional perspective improves the understanding of cities’ membership of transnational municipal networks. This perspective uncovers how important aspects of transnational municipal network participation are motivated by a different logic than that of measurable output. Cities use transnational municipal networks as sources of internal and external legitimacy, to legitimatise their position in domestic politics and their international position among other ‘global’ cities.

Torture and the Norm against It

Why has torture persisted into the twenty-first century despite long-standing normative and legal prohibitions? Especially strange is torture’s occurrence at the hands of liberal democracies, which are supposed to uphold human rights. Perhaps we should not be surprised by democratic hypocrisy in war—realists and rational choice theorists expect all states to violate norms if doing so holds instrumental promise. Yet torture is likely to yield inaccurate intelligence, harm valuable detainees’ memories, stress interrogators, invite retaliation, and encourage the enemy to fight on rather than surrender. In short, torture is both ethically and efficaciously questionable—and its recurrence is puzzling.

Liberal-Democratic Torture

This chapter gives a primer on liberal-democratic torture. A brief summary of the historical record shows that liberal democracies have repeatedly engaged in “stealth” coercive interrogation, which the chapter argues usually qualifies as torture by the UN Convention against Torture’s standard definition. What can explain the pattern of recurrence that emerges? Previous work is a useful starting point but leaves important questions unanswered. Lack of monitoring can invite norm violations, but torture is not always hidden. Racism and anger make states and individuals more likely to torture, but they do not tell us why torture often occurs in conjunction with demands for intelligence. Realist and rational choice arguments help to explain the frequent connection between torture and intelligence needs, but they fail to address critical lurking puzzles: Why do people believe torture works? And how do torturers justify these norm-breaking deeds to themselves and others?

Behavioral Contract Law

This article explores some behavioral findings that are relevant to three areas of contract: formation, performance, and remedies. I compare the rational choice theory analysis of various aspects of contract law with how behavioral findings lead to a change in our understanding of that area of law. A penultimate section considers several criticisms of behavioral economics. A concluding section calls for altering some settled understandings of contract law to accommodate behavioral results and for further research about some still uncertain aspects of contracting.

John Maynard Keynes Between Old and New Institutionalism

The article considers the possible compatibility (in epistemological and ontological terms) of the conceptions of convention and institutions in the thought of John Maynard Keynes, Thorstein Veblen and Douglass North. We argue, first, that while Veblen suggests an approach to institutions based on instincts, North sustains an approach to institutions based on rational choice, which implies distinct conceptions about institutions and the social world. We then present Keynes's ontological commitments and the epistemological implications of his ontology. We conclude that there is a background ontological compatibility between Keynes and the late North in that both accept that the socioeconomic world is fundamentally uncertain and non-ergodic; also that Keynes is epistemologically closer to North than Veblen in studying the economy as a market system embedded in social institutions; and finally that Keynes's treatment of individual action is closer to Veblen’s than North’s, in that both Keynes and Veblen see human action as based on instincts and not only on rationality.

Factors Affecting Tourism Destination: A Case Study in Ha Tien City, Vietnam

On the basis of theories of tourism, services, rational choice theory and previous empirical studies, the study proposes a research framework including 6 factors affecting tourists’ decisions when choosing Ha Tien as a destination to visit. The research sample was carried out by surveying by questionnaire with 100 tourists who visited Ha Tien City. Evaluation of the reliability of the scales shows that the destination information factor has not yet ensured the reliability of the scale. Regression analysis shows that there are 3 out of 6 independent factors that most influence tourists’ decision to choose when choosing Ha Tien as a tourist destination. In which, environmental and landscape factors have the most influence on tourists’ decision to choose Ha Tien as a destination. As a result, the article proposes some solutions to contribute to attracting more and more tourists to Ha Tien City.