Making the State Responsible: Intersex Embodiment,Medical Jurisdiction,and State Responsibility

Through consideration of new developments in the United Kingdom's intersex policy, this article traces the ways in which responsibility is produced, naturalized, and avoided by individuals, institutions, and the state. Jurisdiction is identified as a barrier to the attribution of responsibility that must be overcome to achieve progress in relation to the needs of intersex people. By bringing together jurisdictional analysis and vulnerability theory, this article demonstrates how the state has traditionally abrogated responsibility by compartmentalizing specific practices as governed by medical authority. It highlights that such accounts mask the role of the state in the creation of jurisdiction and the ways in which governance is conducted. Challenging these boundaries allows vulnerability theorists to move the state towards greater levels of responsibility. By combining these theoretical tools, the article enhances the practical utility of vulnerability theory and advances an important agenda for intersex people.     

CHINA'S PENSION CRISIS: SYSTEM REFORMS START WITH RELAXATION OF ONE-CHILD POLICY

China's one-child policy ("OCP") exacerbates the existing weaknesses within the country's pension system.1 This strict family planning measure is the root cause of sub-replacement fertility and rising dependency ratios within the country.Consequently,the one-child policy should not coexist with the nation's currently under-funded retirement security program.In order to avert an impending financial and social crisis,the Chinese government should immediately confront the issue of pension reform.However,designs to improve the retirement security framework cannot be successfully instituted unless,as an initial step,the one-child policy is relaxed.The focal point of this paper delves into the impracticality of the one-child policy in relation to China's pension reform efforts.     

Rent seeking at 52: an introduction to a special issue of public choice

Public Choice - Regulation of health and safety has placed an unacknowledged burden on low-income households and workers. Billions of dollars are spent every year on regulations that seek to reduce...     

Raising the tone? The impact of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ campaigning on voting in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election

Most survey-based research on campaign effects in British elections has focussed on exposure to the campaign. Far less attention has been given to how the campaign is perceived, although American research on the effects of negative campaigning suggests that this is a potentially important area. The article investigates the extent to which vote choices in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election were affected by perceptions of the parties’ campaigns as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’. Partisanship and increased exposure to a party’s campaign increased individuals’ chances of rating a campaign positively. Other things being equal, however, campaigns which come to be seen in a negative light backfire on the party responsible, reducing the propensity of people to vote for it.     

Vigilante justice in post-communist Europe

Five cases in which the names of former secret informers who supplied information to the communist secret political police were unofficially disclosed are discussed in terms of the motivations of their authors, their timing relative to 1989 and their countries’ lustration and file access legislation, and the information they make available to the general public. After contrasting them with civil society efforts to promote transitional justice and unofficial truth projects, it becomes evident that these unofficial disclosures were animated by revenge as much as the quest for unveiling the truth about communist repression.