The Language of Hysteria: A Misappropriation of the Master Narratives

Bronfen discusses the language of hysteria in conjunction with recent discussions of ethics, notably in the sense that the hysteric gesture of misappropriating a grand narrative such as humanism confronts the manner in which discussions of gender might traverse alterity without effacing or occluding it.     

Balancing Regionalism and Localism: How Institutions and Incentives Shape American Transportation Policy

Public policy decisions are increasingly made by regional governance efforts that involve diverse decision makers from multiple government units within a geographic region. These decision-making bodies face competing pressures to represent regional and local interests. We study how decision makers balance preferences for regionalism and localism within metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), the policymaking entities that are responsible for implementing U.S. federal surface transportation policy at the regional level. Our model of regional governance relates variation in regional policy outcomes to the incentives of MPO decision makers and the institutional environments in which they interact. Analyzing data from a sample of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, we find that MPOs dominated by elected officials produce more locally focused policies, holding other factors constant, while MPOs dominated by nonelected public managers produce more regionally oriented policies. Contextual factors, as well as the regional governance institutions themselves, further shape the balance between regionalism and localism.     

Meeting the Challenges of Policy‐Relevant Science: Bridging Theory and Practice

Ongoing public debate about the role of science in policy making signifies the importance of advancing theory and practice in the field. Indeed, assumptions about the science–policy nexus hold direct implications for how this interface is managed. A useful lens on contemporary themes is offered by the experience of a federal environmental science program that launched an ambitious effort to enhance capacity for policy relevance while protecting a commitment to sound, impartial scientific inquiry. This was achieved by developing an explicit conceptual model and implementing corresponding strategies that addressed critical gaps in capacity for policy‐relevant research, analysis, and communication while supporting existing capacities. This article describes and evaluates the capacity‐building effort from the dual perspectives of deepening an understanding of successful practice in the field and advancing a conceptual understanding of the science–policy nexus. It illustrates the challenges facing practitioners and the need for greater interaction between theory and practice.     

Sovereignty in the Balance: Claims and Bargains at the UN Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights, and Women

States vary the content and subject matter of their claims to sovereignty. In an analysis of when states invoked sovereignty at recent UN World Conferences on the environment (1992), human rights (1993), and women (1995), the authors revise and extend Litfin's (1997) notion of bargains among components of sovereignty. At the conferences, states invoked sovereignty in debates over cultural and religious values, economics, and increased international accountability. The authors interpret the debates based on how four elements of sovereignty—autonomy, control, and legitimacy in the eyes of other states and nonstate actors—are traded by states through implicit or explicit bargaining. They identify patterns that vary by issue area. The authors argue that nongovernmental organizations as well as other states may legitimate or delegitimate states' sovereign claims. They find that countries of the global South made more sovereignty claims of all kinds than Northern states. And, sovereignty bargains may be struck more easily over power and economics than social values.     

Urteil ohne Klage – eine Anomalie des Gesetzes?

Im Zuge der überarbeitung der Bestimmungen über die Zwangsversteigerung von Liegenschaften durch die EO-Nov 2000 wurden auch die Bestimmungen über die Versteigerung einer gemeinschaftlichen Liegenschaft in den §§ 352 bis 352c EO neu gestaltet. Die Neuregelung der Verteilung des Meistbots gem § 352c EO wirft allerdings eine Reihe von Fragen auf. Der folgende Beitrag skizziert den Ablauf des Verteilungsverfahrens, beleuchtet den Gegenstand und das Ziel des Verteilungsverfahrens sowie die Frage des Kostenersatzes.     

Women's empowerment revisited: a case study from Bangladesh

This article explores the changing dimensions of women's empowerment over time in three Bangladesh villages where one of the authors has been conducting research since 1991. The article discusses theoretical issues related to the measurement of women's empowerment, and describes findings from a recent study in the villages exploring the current salience of indicators developed for a 1992 survey. In the article we discuss the types of social, economic, and political change that affect the measurement of women's empowerment; propose and explain a new set of indicators for the rural Bangladesh setting; and discuss implications for measuring women's empowerment in other settings.     

Negotiating Verification: International Diplomacy and the Evolution of Nuclear Safeguards, 1945–1972

Nuclear safeguards have been an essential part of the global order since the beginnings of the nuclear age. The International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], an international bureaucracy that is supposed to be a non-political, technical institution administers this global nuclear safeguards regime. Even though safeguards have always been controversial, they have turned out to be the most enduring item in the international community’s toolbox to prevent or slow down the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states. This analysis shows that nuclear safeguards, whilst they survived the fall of the Iron Curtain, were a genuine invention of the Cold War. At the beginning of the nuclear age, there was an overall understanding that safeguards were not strong enough to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons. It was only over the course of the late 1950s and 1960s that safeguards moved from the margins to the centre of diplomatic negotiations about global nuclear order. Newly declassified records from the IAEA Archives in Vienna offer insights into the evolution of early nuclear safeguards and suggest that negotiation patterns, proceedings, and settings affected the outcome of this nuclear diplomacy.     

Claiming rights in exile: women’s insurgent citizenship practices in the Thai-Myanmar borderlands

ABSTRACT

This paper examines insurgent citizenship practices employed by activists in the exiled Burmese women’s movement from the 1990s and onwards. Consisting of political exiles, refugees and ethnic insurgents, this movement has successfully used the transnational, transitory space of the borderlands to constitute its participants as political subjects with legitimate claims to rights, citizenship and leadership. Drawing on interviews, this analysis interrogates women’s activism through the lens of insurgent citizenship practices. Thus, how have Burmese women’s activists claimed rights and lived citizenship in exile? Three main strategies are examined: firstly, women activists have positioned themselves as political actors and authorities through involvement in governance and humanitarian aid delivery in refugee camps. Secondly, they have claimed rights and political subjectivity through engagement with international norms, networks and arenas. Thirdly, they have claimed citizenship and political influence in oppositional nation-making projects through engaging with and negotiating ethno-nationalist armed struggles. The analysis highlights the multifaceted nature of women’s insurgent citizenship practices, showing how they navigate multiple marginalized subject positions, direct their rights claims towards multiple governing authorities, and enact multiple political communities.