Forced Migration Studies: Could We Agree Just to 'Date'?

This essay questions the soundness of a scholarly shift awayfrom ‘refugee studies’ in favour of ‘forcedmigration studies’. It contends, first, that subsumingrefugee studies into the broader framework of forced migrationstudies may result in a failure to take account of the specificityof the refugee's circumstances which are defined not just bymovement to avoid the risk of harm, but by underlying socialdisfranchisement coupled with the unqualified ability of theinternational community to respond to their needs. Second, itargues that forced ‘migration’ (rather than, forexample, forced ‘migrant’) studies encourages afocus on a phenomenon rather than on the personal predicaments,needs, challenges, and rights of refugees themselves. It maythus contribute to a lack of criticality in relation to policieswhich subordinate refugee autonomy to the pursuit of more systemicconcerns. The first concern is illustrated by reference to theemergence of the ‘internally displaced persons’category, the second by reference to the determination to findand mandate ‘durable solutions’ to forced migration,including to the movement of refugees.     

新疆的痛与美——一个美国人的旅行日记

新疆朋友的心态让我想起美国人对9·11的反应,也就是一种心理转折,尽管看起来正常,但事实上一切都改变了。9·11后,每次遇到另一个美国人我们都会分享当天的经验,我们当然会谈到恐怖主义,最初从憎恨的感觉说起,几个星期和几个月以后从永不褪色的不安全感说起。我们感到愤慨时,这个恶劣的行为一方面非常简单,一方面又难以理解。     

Evidence‐based policy development for cannabis? Insights on preventing use by youth

This article challenges the assumptions underlying the shared federal, provincial, and territorial goals of reducing criminal involvement in the drug trade and preventing substance use by youth. These official government objectives, it is argued, reflect a harmful tendency that continues the tradition of neglecting decades of sociological research on the efficiency of informal sources of control. Rather than continue to prioritize prevention, consistent evidence‐based policy development for cannabis requires articulation of more informed and realistic goals of harm reduction. New educational initiatives need to build on informal controls that more effectively regulate responsible substance use behaviour.     

Buffalo tales: interest group policy stories in Greater Yellowstone

Wicked policy problems—those that resist resolution and continuously cycle through different administrative jurisdictions—are time-consuming for the practitioner and expensive. In these wicked policy environs, interest group narratives contribute to this intractability through the continued construction of a policy loser’s tale. Central to our study is the analysis of group maturation with that of policy narrative elements. We explore whether there is a relationship between lobby tactics, financial resources, and professionalization of authorship of narratives and policy narrative elements. We content analyze the policy stories of the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) over a 10-year period (1999–2008), using the Yellowstone National Park bison and brucellosis controversy as case material and track how this new interest group’s fundamental policy story has changed over the course of its lifespan. As demonstrated through their choice of lobby tactics, the group does evolve from an unconventional to a conventional interest group, with two out of three of their constructed policy beliefs remaining unchanged and their political tactics consistently focusing on spinning the loser’s tale aimed at expanding the policy arena. Suggestions on the importance of this work to scientists, administrators, and academics are included.     

Conduit or contributor? The role of media in policy change theory

The policy change literature is contradictory about the role the media plays in policy change: a conduit for policy participants, with media accounts transmitting multiple policy beliefs of those involved in policy debates or a contributor in the policy process, with media accounts supplying consistent policy beliefs with congruent narrative framing strategies to construct a policy story. The purpose of this study is to empirically test whether the role of the media is that of a conduit or contributor in the policy change process. This study tests whether there are differences in policy beliefs and narrative framing strategies between local and national print media coverage of two contentious policy issues in the Greater Yellowstone Area between 1986 and 2006, that of snowmobile access and wolf reintroduction. In the Greater Yellowstone Area policy arena, local media accounts are believed to be aligned with the Old West Advocacy Coalition, whereas the national media accounts are thought to be part of the New West Advocacy Coalition. With a methodology informed by narrative policy analysis, one hundred seventy five local and national print newspaper accounts were content analyzed to determine whether these media accounts were policy narratives, with embedded policy beliefs and narrative framing strategies. The results indicate that there are statistical differences between local and national media coverage for five of the seven hypotheses. Media accounts are generally policy stories, suggesting that the media’s role is more of a contributor than a conduit in the policy change process.