Timothy E. Cook: 1954–2006

Abstract

This article describes the organizational and operational aspects of diplomacy's interplay with the news media in Britain. It examines the media's role as a source of information for ministers, officials, and the wider public; the media's effect on official and unofficial thinking; the media's roles in interdepartmental coordination and during international negotiations; and the uses of the media by the government as channels to mold public attitudes at home and abroad. It concludes by considering the implications of advancements in media technology, and greater public interest in international affairs, for media diplomacy.     

Historicising ‘asylum’ and responsibility

Territorial rule ‘begins’ with an assertion of who deserves protection and who does not. The question of responsibility and its limits is integral to the making and maintenance of a nation state. But a modern refugee rights regime externalises the question of asylum. Asylum claims are made by strangers dealt with by bureaucracies. How has this come to pass? How has responsibility become thought in terms of the territorial state and the society and order it begets? In this article, I try to make the case through a historical example that asylum is not external to the constitution of the nation state, rather territorial rule begins by figuring out who to protect and who not to. At the core of these ideas about protection and responsibility is a notion of political subjectivity, which is graduated, hierarchical and centred on the state. The privileging of an ahistorical idea of how political subjectivity has been so limited has contributed to the externalisation of asylum, where the troubling questions of to whom we are responsible and whom not barely figure because asylum claims become the subject of a technicalised procedure. In this article, I focus on the British colonial authority's encounter with native slaves seeking asylum in Perak.     

State sponsored large scale technology transfer projects in a developing country context

Technology transfer can be seen as an effective mechanism to advance the flow of technological development in a developing country’s economy. Though normally small-scale technology transfer projects are initiated and managed by private organizations, the large-scale technology transfer projects in a developing country are sponsored by the state itself, given the complexity level of and resource requirements for such projects. The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss the critical elements of a successful large-scale technology transfer process framework in a developing country context. Four components are highlighted that facilitate a successful large-scale technology transfer process. These are: (i) understanding and selecting technology components; (ii) selecting a technology transfer mode; (iii) negotiating effective process; and (iv) developing capability. Aspects of negotiation and adoption/assimilation capability development are stressed in this paper, which is commonly missed out in conventional technology transfer framework. Accordingly a comprehensive and goal oriented technology transfer framework has been presented in the paper linking all the core elements. A Libyan case study is discussed to illustrate the framework.      

The Mughals, merchants and the European Companies in the 17th century Surat

This paper deals with the port administration of Surat. It looks into the ways in which the port administration dealt with the European Companies and tried to control them. An analysis of the records of the period enables us to see how the European trading Companies responded to the rules and regulations laid by the Mughal authorities. The issues concerning the mint and monetary regulations will also be reviewed. The bullion importation by the Companies and their effort to procure ready money for commercial transactions will be dealt with. What role did the embassies and representations to the Mughal court play in the procurement of trading concessions? Did Indian merchants enjoy immunities from customs and tolls compared to European Companies by the Mughal state? An attempt has been made to answer these questions.     

A View of Public Action as Collective Action: Evidence From an Indian Village

A theory of public action will be a sociological one, for it can explain the activities of different individual stakeholders who are both driven by varied motives and interests and are required to come together for achieving some avowedly public objective. On the basis of a review of scholarly literature and three case studies of public action (based on ethnographic fieldwork) in an Indian village, this study observes that public action is far more complex than celebrated problems of collective action. In public action we want collective action to happen and deliver optimum outputs for target publics. But this should at the same time offer gains, rewards, and outcomes of different kinds to different stakeholders. This discussion aims to outline the scope and possible types of public action. Such a discussion has important implications, for policy as public action should be designed adequately as collective action with differential rewards in place for participants.     

The global governance of water,energy, and food nexus: allocation and access for competing demands

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Globally, 3 billion people are without access to modern fuels or technologies for cooking/heating, 900 million people lack...