Dynamics of Unfree Labour in the Contemporary Global Economy

This short introduction to the symposium sets the context for the collection of articles, locating them in debates about labour conditions in the global economy. It outlines the two central questions which animate the symposium. First, what forms do unfree labour take in the contemporary global economy, and what are the implications for the most vulnerable workers in diverse contexts? Second, which processes, conditions and dynamics generate and facilitate unfree labour, and which theoretical and analytical perspectives do we need in order to understand them? It summarises some of responses to these questions which emerge in the collected articles, and highlights their contributions to the task of advancing fresh ways of thinking about unfree labour.     

Budgetary chaos and evasion: the case of somalia

In 1990 and 1991, several Sub-Saharan African nations (Liberia, Somalia, and Ethiopia) experienced violent disintegration of existing governments. Other nations (Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, and Zaire) continued to show signs of being on the brink of violent upheaval, while Zambia experienced a major democratic shift in its government. The forces of change in Africa seem to be mirroring political change that has and continues to take place in eastern Europe and in the territories of the former Soviet Union. This paper is a case study of national budgetary and financial management during a period of national disintegration. The information comes from observations formed during the final days of the political regime of one of these Sub-Saharan African nations - the Republic of Somalia.

The twenty-one year political regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in Somalia came to an end in January 1991 when rebel forces captured the capital city of Mogadishu, forcing Barre and his remaining followers to flee the capital. In the weeks and months leading up to the end of the regime, the normal functioning of the government had effectively ceased, collapsing under the weight of corrupt practices and substantial inefficiencies resulting from the government policies.

This paper describes some of these practices as they related to the national budgetary and financial management processes. In particular, the existence of chaos and evasion in national budgeting was evident with the existence of repetitive budgeting, lump sum budgeting, escapist budgeting, underfunding, externally driven policy, and information gaps. The analysis conducted suggests the importance of sound budget practices for the stability of a government. The conclusions derived focus on the issue of the role of political instability, attempts to modernize, and general systems organization as they relate to Somalia.     

Teaching Experientially in the Undergraduate Community Psychology Classroom

Experiential learning is a useful teaching tool in the undergraduate community psychology classroom. In addition to improving student outcomes, experiential learning is particularly relevant for community psychology, as it aligns with several core values of the field and can prompt not only student learning, but also civic engagement, social justice, and community betterment. In this article, we provide an overview of the themed issue on “Experiential Teaching Practices in Undergraduate Community Psychology.” The issue contains a variety of experiential teaching examples that fall into three clusters: (a) individual and group service-learning exercises; (b) using community experiences to augment in-class learning outside of a service-learning context; and (c) ways of having students draw on prior out-of-class or in-class community experiences to increase student understanding.     

Local Governance Versus Centralization: Connecticut Wetlands Governance as a Model

Scholars disagree whether local decision making is inherently more democratic and sustainable than centralized governance structures. While some maintain it is, due to the incorporation of local knowledge, citizen decision makers' closeness to the issues, and the benefits of participatory democracy, others find it as susceptible to issues of corruption and poor implementation as any other scale. We argue that with wetlands, a natural resource with critical local benefits, it is imperative to incorporate local governance, using the U.S. state of Connecticut as an example. Despite the American policy of No Net Loss, the local benefits of wetland resources cannot be aggregated on a national scale. Each local ecosystem needs wetland resources to ensure local ecological benefits such as flood control and pollution remission, as well as the substantial economic benefits of recreation. We illustrate the benefits of local control of wetlands with data from the American state of Connecticut, which consistently surpasses the federal wetland goal of No Net Loss due, we argue, to the governance structure of town‐level wetlands commissions. A national policy such as No Net Loss, where wetlands are saved or created in designated areas and destroyed in others, is insufficient when it ignores critical benefits for localities. The Connecticut system using local volunteers and unpaid appointees is a successful method for governing common‐pool wetland systems. In the case of Connecticut, we find that local decision making is not a “trap,” but instead an effective model of sustainable, democratic local governance.     

'A Stranger to its Laws': Sovereign Bodies, Global Sexualities, and Transnational Citizens

This article examines the importance of mobility in the historical and ongoing constitution of lesbian and gay subjectivities. While the state in the past frequently sought to restrict the movement of sexual dissidents across national borders, current developments in an array of jurisdictions suggest a more permissive attitude, particularly in the case of the 'unification' of same-sex couples. These legal and political developments are interrogated with respect to the construction of 'acceptable' homosexualities and, more broadly, in terms of cosmopolitan and communitarian visions of sexual citizenship.     

Human rights fine a small price to pay for large royalty snatch

The failure of the UK government to deal expeditiously withan application to recover copyright royalties to which a formerstate employee turned spy was entitled constituted a violationof the human right to be tried in a reasonable time-frame.     

The MMORPG the merrier

Conducting an online search in late March 2006, an internetuser who keyed in the curious word ‘MMORPG’ wouldhave received more than 22 million hits. This confirms the growingsuspicion that MMORPGs are a phenomenon that is of increasingsocial, cultural, and economic significance and that, therefore,they will soon be creating fresh problems for intellectual propertylaw. MMORPGs (‘massively multiplayer online role-playing     

The spy who came in from the cold

Some words occur to us in pairs, often to the extent that wefind it difficult to hear the one without recalling the other.Thus ‘Romeo’ suggests ‘Juliet’; ‘Anthony’invokes ‘Cleopatra’; ‘Héloïse’follows ‘Abélard’ and so on. Many furtherexamples exist, particularly in the case of lovers. In intellectual property circles the concepts of ‘author’and ‘royalties’ are also closely linked—buttheir relationship is strained. While the author's love forroyalties is sincere and undiminished     

Uncertain Justice for Nuclear Terror: Deterrence of Anonymous Attacks Through Attribution

In light of ongoing work to improve nuclear attribution capabilities, policymakers could be tempted to consider a nuclear terrorism deterrence doctrine relying strongly on the ability of those capabilities to support retaliation against states that supply materials used anonymously in an attack. Although the United States must develop the best possible nuclear attribution capabilities, at the very least to support response actions after an attack, prospects for deterrence are uncertain. To accommodate these uncertainties, as well as the wide range of possible nuclear terrorism scenarios, the United States should adopt a broadly scoped operationally ambiguous declaratory policy in the context of a comprehensive strategic doctrine to prevent nuclear terrorism.     

Race relations in police operations: A legal and ethical perspective for officers

This presentation looks beyond the contemporary controversy over the use of race in drug courier profiling and examines the broad spectrum of rare relations affecting police operations. Racial controversy is not new to law enforcement, nor is it a recent phenomenon in American society. American police do not get enough credit for the enormous amount of positive daily interaction within minority communities. Police are pervasively present within minority communities around the clock successfully solving disputes, responding to calls for service, and addressing community concerns. It is against this backdrop that many in law enforcement are becoming increasingly frustrated by the perception, if not the reality of deteriorating race relations between police and minorities. One thing is certain: police cannot withdraw from racial conflict. Police will continue to operate within minority communities, regardless of the racial composition of either the community or the law enforcement agency. Therefore, officer and supervisory training should not only focus on how to avoid racial conflict, but also on how to ethically and legally perform in an environment where treatment of minorities is critically examined.