‘Let's Win this Game Together’: Children's Rights Violations,Macro‐Securitisation and the Transformative Potential of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil

Sport's transformative potential is known to support marginalised children, to deal with traumatic experiences and instil positive values; yet hosting mega sporting events (MSEs) can have negative impacts. Drawing on participatory research with favela‐based children during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this article argues that MSEs bring a macro‐securitisation of urban life, which causes considerable harm. This paper also suggests that the inclusion of children's voices in advocacy debates can challenge top‐down securitisation and might allow MSEs to foster further positive social transformation. Therefore, juxtaposed with causing harm, macro‐securitisations can open opportunities for children to take action and have their voices heard.     

Emerging Liabilities from Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products

There is growing awareness and concern regarding the presence of chemical constituents of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (“PPCPs”) in the environment. A recent USGS study indicated that PPCPs are present at low levels in surface water throughout the U.S. Concern is based in part on the fact that certain PPCPs: (1) are designed to have biological effects (particularly pharmaceuticals), (2) are persistent in or continually added to the environment, (3) have negative environmental effects (specifically on aquatic life) even at low levels, and (4) potentially have cumulative and synergistic effects when combined with other PPCPs. The primary route of PPCPs into the environment is sewage discharges, septic systems, and large stock yards and feedlots where the unmetabolized PPCPs are excreted by humans and animals and end up in surface water and ground-water. Given these circumstances, manufacturers of PPCPs may face a risk of increased regulation and possibly litigation similar to that faced by oxygenate manufacturers and petroleum refiners over the use of Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (“MTBE”). Companies can take steps now and in the future that may minimize the impact of these risks.     

A LOG‐MULTIPLICATIVE ASSOCIATION MODEL FOR ALLOCATING HOMICIDES WITH UNKNOWN VICTIM‐OFFENDER RELATIONSHIPS*

This research note critically evaluates conventional methods for allocating homicides with an unknown victim/offender relationship to meaningful categories, and it proposes an alternative approach. We argue that conventional methods are based on a problematic assumption, namely, that the missing data mechanism is “ignorable.” As an alternative to these methods, we propose an imputation algorithm derived from a log‐multiplicative model that does not require this assumption. We apply this technique to estimate levels of homicides disaggregated by victim/offender relationship using the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) data for 1996 and 1997, and we compare the resulting estimates with those obtained from the application of conventional procedures. Our results yield a larger proportion of stranger homicides than are obtained from the conventional methods.     

Stand Up and Be Counted

IF business reputations arebuilt on the marketplace's per-ceptions, China is becoming alot more sophisticated a placeto do business. Eighty percentof respondents in a study of 140 Chi-nese opinion leaders feel that foreignmultinational corporations (MNCs)operating in China are now being heldto a higher standard of performancecompared to Chinese firms. Fifty-sixpercent of respondents feel that stan-dards demanded of foreign-owneddmultinationals have increased duringthe past year, and 95 perc…     

Institutional Arrangements and the Dynamics of Agenda Formation in the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals

The manner in which agenda change occurs demonstrates how institutional arrangements influence agenda priorities in the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals. A neo-institutional theoretic perspective is employed to examine the dynamics of agenda formation in these courts. The article finds that the Supreme Court's agenda choices influence the decisions of litigants, interest groups, and lawyers to appeal certain cases to the Courts of Appeals. While the Supreme Court's agenda primarily is influenced by internal factors, it is constrained by agenda changes in the appeals courts. Critically, it is shown that these federal appellate courts exist within an endogenous system with respect to agenda formation, as both courts respond to agenda changes made in the other over time.     

THE PRIVATIZATION OF VIOLENCE*

Norbert Elias's (1939) work on “the civilizing process” highlighted the long‐term decline in violence within Western societies. A substantial amount of more recent anthropological and historical evidence suggests that violence has evolved not just quantitatively but qualitatively as well. In particular, the social characteristics of the parties to violence have changed over time. Drawing on Donald Black's (1976, 1993a) theoretical ideas on conflict management, the present paper proposes that as intimate social ties weakened and the state strengthened, collective and nonintimate forms of (nonpolitical) violence declined significantly. Consequently, violence increasingly became less public, more private. Pockets of residual public violence can, however, still be found within modern state societies. Privatization varies, then, across time and social space.     

THE MWANZA TRIAL AS A SEARCH FOR A USABLE MALAWIAN POLITICAL PAST

The main thesis of this papier is that nations need memoriesand that there is in many contemporary African states a needto create a memory of the period between independence and thereintroduction of multipartyism. That process often takes theform of inquests into human rights abuses which can result intrials. The trial in Malawi of six people—including theformer president Kamuzu Banda and his most loyal follower J.Z.U.Tembo—on the accusation of conspiring to murder four politiciansin 1983 and to destroy relevant evidence is an example. Thisarticle discusses how the reactions of the present ruling party(UDF) and government and the previous ruling party (MCP) andtheir leadership to this trial differ. The trial is seen asa struggle about the interpretation of the past which is putin the context of the actual events in 1983 as these came outin the trial. The fundamental question which arose is whetherresponsibility for whatever happened in Malawi in that periodcan squarely be put in the hands of a trimuvirate which wasin total control of what happened or whether decision making—includingthose concerning human rights abuses—was much more diffusedthroughout society. The first version of events lacks evidenceto substantiate it. The result of the trial was therefore anacquittal which was held up in an appeal by the state. The secondversion portrays Kamuzu Banda as a leader who could be deceivedby his environment, which is at variance with the way many Malawians,not exclusively MCP supporters, saw his role.     

Getting a Lift

THE balding man on the bike was in for Viagra. The visiting foreign couple wanted skimpy underwear. A young Jiangsu-native accoun- tant wanted fruity condoms. The orders were all in a day's work at the G Spot, a cramped but colorful shop on busy Dongdaqiao Road in Beijing's Chao- yang District. Run by the affable Emily Meng, the shop sells lingerie and some relatively tame bondage items as well as a range of potions and Viagra tablets. Many of her wares are imported, says Meng, some of …