De-Europeanization by Default? Germany's EU Policy in Defense and Asylum

Since the end of the Cold War and unification, Germany's policy toward and within the European Union (EU) has undergone significant changes. Once a model "Europeanist," Germany has become increasingly reluctant to support the progressive implementation of key projects of European integration. Neither an instance of a planned strategic change nor a result of an inevitable adaptation to structural shifts at the systemic level, these changes in German foreign policy, incremental yet significant as they are, evade both deterministic and voluntaristic accounts of foreign policy change. Integrating insights from foreign policy analysis, integration theory, and social theory, the article develops an innovative framework for analysis that is applied to Germany's European asylum and refugee policy as well as its security and defense policy. The origins of both policy fields at the European level can be traced back to initiatives that were supported by or even originated in Germany. However, as the 1990s progressed Germany increasingly obstructed further institutionalization. While in the field of asylum and refugee policy the Amsterdam summit marks a clear turning point in Germany's position, the transformation of German policies on European security and defense proceeded rather as an incremental decrease in material support, aggravating substantive progress in the policy field more broadly. An unanticipated consequence of earlier initiatives, in both cases Germany has found it increasingly difficult to live up to the expectations it has helped to raise.     

Do multilingual androids dream of a better life in Australia? Effectiveness of information technology for government translation to support refugees and migrants in Australia

Without high‐quality translation of online information about government support and services, refugees and migrants from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in Australia experience a major barrier to improved health, employment, education and social outcomes. Recent advances in the ability of Google Translate, Skype Translator and other forms of machine translation that use artificial intelligence can help translate government information to better support refugees and migrants but they bring the risk of ineffective communication, and exclusion from services that could positively impact on settlement experiences and daily life. Evidence suggests that government agencies are likely to be using human translators for most translation work, but the degree to which any form of information technology is used, how it may be best applied and the associated effects are not known. This study systematically reviewed the peer‐reviewed and grey literature to determine effective ways of using information technology for translating government information to refugees and migrants from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in Australia. Included studies were analysed to identify techniques and other characteristics of translation, information technology and language support more broadly, and outcomes on education, health, social and other refugee and migrant experiences relating to translated information. Our review found a small evidence base featuring studies with strong evaluation demonstrating effective forms of ‘language support’ for refugees and migrants from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in Australia in a broad sense. However, there is a major gap in knowledge that is contributing to barriers in the use of online government information in Australia. In particular, there is an absence of evidence demonstrating what is effective in the use of machine translation with artificial intelligence, websites and other kinds of information technology for translating government information with refugees and migrants from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The oversight risks further excluding already marginalised groups from services and support. This paper makes a number of suggestions practitioners can take to address the issue and guidelines for future research.     

Correction to: Traditional Versus Internet Media in a Restricted Information Environment: How Trust in the Medium Matters

Political Behavior - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The gender dummy variable was mistakenly coded in reverse order. The interpretation treated it as (0 =...     

ICT,trade openness and economic growth in Tunisia: what is going wrong?

Economic Change and Restructuring - In the age of digital globalization, information and communication technologies (ICT) and international trade seem to have become the engines of economic growth....     

Agricultural growth and the structure of ‘casual’ labour‐hiring in rural West Bengal

There are two main arguments in this article. First, if wages and employment are to be used as indicators of changing levels of rural poverty they need to be complemented by micro and meso level studies of how increases or declines in wages and employment are distributed among individuals and households. Secondly, if the nature of the relationship between employer and labourer is to be understood, aggregates such as ‘casual’ labour need to be unravelled. Evidence from a study of two small localities in rural West Bengal between 1991 and 1993 suggests that the poorest workers receive the lowest remuneration across a range of informal contracts, including daily time‐rate, piece rate, seasonal beck‐and‐call and migrant labour arrangements. Levels of remuneration are also determined by locally specific ideologies of gender and social rank and by party politics.     

The Common Law Clean Up of the ‘Workshop of the World’: More Realism About Nuisance Law's Historic Environmental Achievements

This article examines the environmental benefits arising from compliance with common law nuisance injunctions during the British industrial revolution. It argues, based on the outcomes of industrial nuisance actions involving allegations of serious air and river pollution, that many millions of pounds were invested by corporate polluters in designing and implementing clean technologies within the framework of the common law. Nuisance law was not an unqualified success in the field of environmental protection at this time, but overall the findings contribute to the on‐going critique of the nuisance law histories of Brenner and McLaren, which argue that various limitations of the common law are at the root of modern environmental problems. The discovery of historic practical measures of environmental protection through common law enforcement raises important conceptual, policy, and legal questions for today, and disciplinary questions regarding the rigour of realist legal scholarship concerning the historic performance of the law.     

合作司法:司法公信力的社会治理谱系——基于福柯权力谱系学的展开

司法公信力是司法的生命力所在,也是全面深化改革在司法领域中的着力点。构筑司法公信力需要从社会治理高度对司法运作机制以重新审视。合作司法是社会治理谱系下从管理向治理转变在司法中的体现。降低司法成本和实践司法公正是合作司法实践路径中的两个向度,统筹两者是合作司法之于司法公信力的意蕴所在。