Will Black Lives Matter to the Police? African Americans’ Concerns about Trump’s Presidency

ABSTRACT

Based on a 2017 national survey of 1,000 Black Americans, perceptions regarding the implications of Donald Trump’s election as President on race relations, police-minority relations, and police treatment of Black citizens in the United States were examined. Findings suggest the existence of a “Trump Effect.” With minor variation across demographic groups, the survey respondents expressed overall negative perceptions concerning the effects of President Trump’s election. In particular, they expressed the belief that his presidency shows that the United States is a racist society, will strain police-minority relationships, and will create a climate in which African Americans are more likely to be arrested or subjected to police violence. At issue is not just African Americans’ distrust of President Trump but, importantly, whether his emphasis on “law and order” and dismissal of minority-group concerns attenuates the legitimacy of law enforcement in the eyes of African Americans.     

Advocating for the Right: Alliance Defending Freedom and the Rhetoric of Christian Persecution

In this article I trace the legal and cultural advocacy work of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the single largest Christian conservative legal organisation operating in the US today. I begin by locating ADF strategy within the longer history of Christian persecution rhetoric articulated by the Moral Majority during the 1970s and 1980s. I then analyse both legal and cultural outputs of the organisation in two key cases: the so-called bathroom bills limiting transgender access to public facilities in several states, and the service denial of florist Barronelle Stutzman. I argue that by emphasising the perceived vulnerability of white cisgender women and girls in these cases, ADF litigators and cultural producers advance a narrow conception of religious freedom rights located in the specific cultural politics of neoliberal, white evangelicalism. As a result, while these cases have been legislative and policy failures for ADF they nevertheless provide useful insight into the rhetorical project of Christian persecution.

     

The Supreme Court on Compensation for Miscarriages of Justice: Is it better that ten innocents are denied compensation than one guilty person receives it?

The Supreme Court determined that a ‘fresh approach’ was needed in an attempt to bring some clarity to the issue of the eligibility for compensation of those who have had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal. The definition that the majority agreed upon was that ‘a new fact will show that a miscarriage of justice has occurred when it so undermines the evidence against the defendant that no conviction could possibly be based upon it’. This article argues that the judgment suffers from a failure to consider the purpose of the legislation; that it is unclear whether the test is normative or historical and that this presents a particular problem in cases relating to the Northern Ireland conflict. The Court focuses on the guilt of the appellant and excludes from its consideration any notion of culpability by the state, which is a cause for concern.     

De-naturalizing ecological disaster: colonialism,racism and the global Dust Bowl of the 1930s

This paper reinterprets the Dust Bowl on the US Southern Plains as one dramatic regional manifestation of a global socio-ecological crisis generated by the realities of settler colonialism and imperialism. In so doing, it seeks to deepen historical-theoretical understandings of the racialized division of nature and humanity making possible the global problem of soil erosion by the 1930s and forming the heart of the ecological rift of capitalism. The framework developed here challenges prevalent conceptions of the Dust Bowl, in which colonial and racial-domination aspects of the crisis are invisible, and affirms the necessity of deeper conceptions of environmental (in)justice.     

Moving beyond the paradox of macroeconomic stability in Uganda?

This article explores macroeconomic policies in Uganda in the wake of the global financial crisis and following the publication of the 2010 National Development Plan. Despite apparent changes in rhetoric regarding macroeconomic policies by the Ugandan authorities, the paper demonstrates how the commitment to conservative monetary and fiscal policies prevails. The article analyses how the persistently conservative macroeconomic policy stance has exacerbated the lack of economic transformation in the Ugandan economy. The resultant outcome has been a failure to absorb the fast-growing Ugandan labour force into productive and gainful employment. The case is therefore made for an alternative macroeconomic framework that puts public investment at its centre and which complements macroeconomic policies with suitable sector-specific and industrial policies.     

Familiarity breeds contempt? Knowledge and understanding of democracy,support for democratization,and global city residence in Russia

Using Russian survey data from 2011 to 2012, this article examines public understanding of and support for democratization in a semi-authoritarian context. When knowledge of democracy is weak, and conceptual understanding of democracy is mixed—as in Russia—traditional measures of democratic support inadequately capture demand for democratization; that is, for more democracy than currently perceived. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Russians who adhere to “textbook” political definitions of democracy are more, not less, likely to advocate democratization. Residence in global cities increases support for democracy and democratization, while education fosters the latter but not the former. Other traditional indicators of middle-class status, such as income and urbanization, lack consistent effects. Based on these results we re-evaluate the mechanism linking modernization and support for democracy in developing, non-democratic societies. Rather than exert social-psychological or normative effects, modernization works primarily by raising exposure to global political discourses that define and promote democratic government.     

Rejecting “rights-based approaches” to development: Alternative engagements with human rights

Following the growth of “rights-based approaches,” an increasing trend within recent research has been to establish the diverse opportunities, challenges, and potential pitfalls such approaches offer development NGOs. Although these areas remain important to current policy and practice, they equally stifle further research that is required concerning alternative engagements with human rights. This article argues that closer attention must be directed towards understanding how and why numerous development NGOs have rejected such approaches, whilst also embedding a strong and strategic use of “rights talk” within everyday campaign practice. This article draws upon recent qualitative research into practitioner responses to “rights-based” and wider human rights practice and, in so doing, enlists an in-depth analysis of two distinct subcategories of development NGOs — “faith-based” and “political.” The article proposes two current “perspectives” on human rights practice and a new and alternative engagement with a discourse of rights.