Housing chronically homeless women: “Inside” a safe haven

Abstract

This case study of an innovative pilot project for chronically homeless, mentally ill women in Toronto exposes assumptions that professionals embarking on initiatives to house chronically homeless women may bring to the design of such facilities. The value of in‐depth ethnographic research in charting the effectiveness of initiatives to alleviate chronic homelessness for women and in understanding the barriers that hinder the development of effective programs is highlighted.

This article challenges conventional static understandings of the concepts of “private” and “public” and explores issues related to spatial privacy and communality, sense of ownership, ideas about the safe haven being both a home and a hostel, planning for flexibility, accountability to public flinders, and accommodation of individual needs.     

Comment on Chester Hartman's “The case for a right to housing”: The right to “poverty with a roof"—a response to hartman

Abstract

While the goal of establishing a right to decent, affordable housing is noble, a right to housing alone ignores the variety of underlying processes that concentrate certain types of households in conditions of poverty. A right that simply makes surviving poverty marginally more bearable is a troubling notion. That approach to problem solving addresses the symptom and not the cause. Rather, government should focus on enforcing existing individual rights and creating opportunities where possible and feasible so as to aid every American to achieve his or her full productive potential as a human being.     

The problem with the “portfolio approach” in American energy policy

One predominant theme in American energy and electricity policy is the idea of a “portfolio approach,” or that society must embrace an assortment of different energy technologies simultaneously. This article argues that such a strategy, in practice, is (a) biased, since fossil fuel and nuclear technologies have been heavily favored; (b) opaque, obscuring the different full social costs of energy systems; (c) inequitable, promoting technologies that contribute to climate change; and (d) unsophisticated, ignoring important qualitative differences among technologies. The article estimates the full social costs of electricity generation, concluding that the five cheapest forms of electricity generation are all renewable resources; that intermittency is not a reason to reject renewable energy technologies; that nuclear power has significant technical and environmental problems, especially from a greenhouse gas emissions and climate change perspective; and that “clean coal” and carbon capture and sequestration technologies face significant challenges to deployment.     

Egalitarianism and the democratic deconsolidation: Is democracy compatible with socialism?

Public Choice - The unprecedented reduction in popular support for democracy represents a risk of democratic deconsolidation. The new situation echoes old debates on the compatibility of democracy...     

Police Bribery: Is Corruption Fostering Dissatisfaction with the Political System?

The increasing salience of security concerns after democratization processes in the developing world has put scholars to explore the effects of police corruption as a key issue impeding the consolidation of the rule of law. Using data taken from surveys conducted in Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, this article contributes to such literature by questioning whether cases of police corruption have an effect on the trust in the political system. The research finds that citizens can support the democratic order even if they have experienced bribery. The article unveils, however, that another type of police corruption—police protecting criminals—is a robust and statistically significant theory of variance in the confidence in the political system.     

Educating a New Generation: The Model of the “Genocide and Human Rights University Program”

This paper examines the design and teaching of "Genocide and Human Rights," an innovative, higher education course introduced in 2002 to provide training for a new generation of scholars and teachers. The course was developed and funded by a small non-profit organization, the Zoryan Institute, in Toronto, Canada. One purpose of the course is to teach about the Armenian genocide within a comparative genocide and human rights framework. Another goal is to fill a gap in the curriculum in response to increased student interest and research in genocide and human rights. The course serves as a valuable pedagogical model including its comparative framework, teaching by invited specialists, adjusting the curriculum to reflect student interest and new scholarship, and setting up and maintaining formal and informal scholarly networks. Features of critical pedagogy include classroom dialogue and critique and respect for differences in background and opinion. For example, interactions between students of Turkish and Armenian background provide an opportunity to explore issues of stereotypes, memory, denial and reconciliation. The course provides training for a new generation in research, publications, teaching and advocacy in fields related to genocide and human rights.     

The OECD and “The Rest”: Analyzing the Limits of Policy Transfer

Abstract

Prompted by the rise of the emerging economies and the growing importance of the G20, the OECD has formally announced its intention of establishing itself as a key actor in global policy coordination. As part of this ambition, it has embarked on cultivating closer relations with five G20 countries it designated as key partners through the so-called “Enhanced Engagement” programme: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa. This article mobilizes concepts from the policy transfer literature to explain why the OECD’s attempts to increasingly involve all five countries in its policy have fallen short of its original ambitions, and also why the transfer of its policy work has been uneven across policy and country issue.     

Operation ‘Piet’: The Joseph Sidney Petersen Jr. Spy Case,a Dutch ‘Mole’ Inside the National Security Agency

In 1986 it was discovered that Jonathan Jay Pollard, an employee of US Naval Intelligence, had worked as a spy for Israel. Until then the case of Joseph Sidney Petersen was the most important example of espionage against an US intelligence service by an ally. Petersen, who worked for the National Security Agency, was arrested in October 1954 and charged with obtaining top secret documents to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation. According to the International Herald Tribune this represented a case with worldwide implications. During the subsequent trial it emerged that Petersen had forwarded these top secret codeword documents to the Netherlands. For the first time an attempt will be made here to fully reconstruct the Petersen affair based on declassified American and Dutch archival holdings. Special attention will be paid to when Petersen was recruited and by whom, how long his spying lasted, what intelligence he delivered to the Dutch, what led to his arrest and trial and what the impact that had on American–Dutch relations. This article will close with some still remaining and unanswered questions.     

The İsmailağa community and its relationship with the AK party

This article aims to demonstrate the importance of the relationship between the Naqshbandi Ismaila?a community and the AK Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, “Justice and Development Party”) government. As one of the most widespread Sufi brotherhoods in the world, the strength of the Naqshbandiyya lies in its characteristic combination of strict adherence to religious law and active involvement in social and political affairs. The ?smaila?a community, one of five main Naqshbandi communities in Turkey, is highly conservative and traditional, historically dominated by elders who have remained aloof from any power struggles within the Turkish government. While the AK Party has developed ties with religious orders in recent years, including the Ismaila?a, some voices within the Ismaila?a community have become critical of this relationship, leading to a rift within the community. In addition, since 2013, and especially after the attempted coup of July 2016, the AK Party has lost the support of its old ally, the Fethullah Gülen movement. This article examines the relationship between the AK Party and religious movements in Turkey as reflected via its relationship with Ismaila?a, and assesses whether the Fethullah Gülen movement can be replaced as a party ally by the Ismaila?a community.     

The Review of the APS: Is gender really on anyone's agenda?

As recently as 2016, the Australian Government stated its commitment to increasing gender equality in the Australian Public Service (APS) workforce. In May 2018, the Prime Minister announced a broad‐ranging Review of the APS, but gender equality was not mentioned in the Review Terms of Reference. An interim Review report was released in March 2019, which was also largely silent on gender issues. We examine the submissions to the Review to assess whether, and how, organisations have considered gender equality. We found an almost universal gender blindness in submissions and conclude that this may have contributed to the Review panel ignoring gender equality issues in their interim report. We further conclude that without a focus on gender equality within the Review and ensuing reforms, the APS gender equality strategy is rendered merely symbolic. We recommend the Review implement gender mainstreaming to ensure gender equality can progress in the APS.     

Is there Something Wrong with Intelligence in France? The Birth of the Modern Secret State

The lack of academic interest in intelligence in France partly explains the prevalence of many preconceived ideas about French Intelligence. This article deals with the slow building of France's intelligence machinery in the nineteenth century, as part of a study of the modern French State. At this time, intelligence practices were transformed by the appearance of several intelligence bureaucracies. Studying three dimensions of the development – informal practices, formal organizations and statutory rules – the article demonstrates the closeness of intelligence to politics. Doing so it suggests that intelligence needs to be considered not only as an instrument of policy-making but as an actor at the centre of the modern French state, a part of its very essence.     

The Two Republicae of the Roman Stoics: Can a Cosmopolite be a Patriot?

This paper is a response to recent attempts by liberal theorists to reconcile universalist sentiments with forms of particularism. It seeks to explore a number of ethical issues related to nationalism, patriotism and loyalty. As the first systematic expositors of cosmopolitanism, the Stoics are called on to address the question: can patriotism be defended ethically by moral universalists? The Roman Stoic attitude to war and imperial conquest is examined because war and its attendant conflicts of interest expose the tension between particular and universal loyalties and pose the greatest challenge to cosmopolitan principles. It is concluded that the task which 'liberal nationalists' have set themselves is a daunting one because, unlike the Stoics, they cannot rely legitimately upon imperialism and the belief in a universal God in order to smooth over differences and conflicting loyalties. In effect, then, this illumination of the origins of Enlightenment universalism problematises further, rather than resolves, issues of conflicting loyalties.     

“The Empire Strikes Back”: The US Assault on the International Human Rights Regime

We argue that the post-9/11 environment has amounted to a substantive change in the longstanding United States relationship with the international human rights regime. We identify three distinct phases of that relationship, noting that in the most recent phase, since 9/11, the US has moved from passive support of the international human rights regime to a direct attack of that regime. Realist and liberal regime theories suggest that the human rights regime is relatively weak, and is unlikely to withstand such an attack. We find that the regime has not only continued to persist, but has flourished even as US support has faltered. The human rights regime is surprisingly strong. We argue it is the ideological nature of the regime that explains its resilience, which suggests that constructivist theory is necessary to fully understand the human rights regime.

The 2015 Spanish election: the times they are a’ changing

The Spanish legislative election of 2015 speaks of change. This is the end of the traditional two-party system and the beginning of a new political era marked by institutional renewal. The Socialist Party and the Partido Popular have both lost significant parliamentary force, whereas two new parties (Podemos, and Ciudadanos) are now crucial to ensure stable government majorities. This new parliamentary scenario seems to better mirror the political pluralism of a changing society which has already demonstrated for change in striking events such as the 15-M Movement. However, political parties are far from showing conciliatory aspirations, possibly because a new election is suddenly a realistic option. This report outlines the political context of the election, indicates the main topics during the campaign and discusses the results.     

The Populist Marketplace: Unpacking the Role of “Thin” and “Thick” Ideology

Political Behavior - A growing body of work adopts a “thin” ideology conception of populism, which attributes populist parties’ electoral success to anti-elite and people-centric...