Resource Wars

One of the most interesting questions raised in Cecile Fabre’s Cosmopolitan War concerns war for the sake of resources. Fabre argues that it is sometimes permissible to go to war for the sake of resources that the poor are entitled to. I agree with this, but I think it is true only in very restricted circumstances. I consider a number of arguments in favour of resource wars, showing many of them to fail. The most promising argument, I suggest, is that those who possess resources that have unjustly been secured are complicit in posing future threats by contributing to a market for unjustly secured resources. Whilst this argument has some promise, even it, I suggest, is in no way decisive.     

“And Poland is filed away with Samothrace”: Australian Responses to Poland's June 1956 Crisis

The suppression of Poznan June 1956 workers’ rebellion (Poznanski Czerwiec) by Polish authorities prompted immediate Australia‐wide demonstrations and protests by Polish émigrés who were supported by friends and allies in the Catholic Church and the Australian anti‐communist movement. Nation‐wide demonstrations in Australia and subsequent approaches by émigré Poles and supporters required a disinterested Australian government to develop a position on Poznan June events. Pressure on the Australian government for a response, potentially disruptive to its foreign policies, was applied only by elements within the Australian political scene that posed little threat to its future. Poznan June ‘56's effect on Australia takes place within the particular nature of Australian domestic politics where the June events were used to fan the flames of bitter rivalry within the labour movement by a strident anti‐communist faction seeking to restructure the Australian Labor Party in a manner consistent with its ideological predilections. In taking up the anti‐communist cause of the Polish émigrés, the Australian anti‐communist leadership claimed a moral high‐ground, but lacked sufficient commitment to use their considerable parliamentary advantage to pressure the Australian government to adopt a more muscular position towards Poland's government.     

The gendered construction of expert discourse: An analysis of psychiatric evaluations in criminal court

According to critical literature, psychiatrization is a central feature of gendered social control. It operates in a twofold process: by orienting women to medical institutions rather than the penal system, and, for those women who do enter the criminal justice system, by favoring an interpretation of their behavior in terms of mental health problems. However, the production of gendered social control cannot be reduced to institutional decision-making; it also leaves its traces in various discursive forms. One such form is forensic psychiatrists' discourse on the offenders they evaluate. Our study analyzes these forensic reports as units of a computerized database. Our goal is to gain insight into the text by means of systematic quantitative and qualitative procedures. Even though the expert discourse is shaped by specifications requested by the court, the discourse examined here constructs two very distinct identities that do not correspond to stereotyped conceptions about femininity and masculinity.     

Impact of COVID-19 on Bangladesh's agriculture sector and the ways forward to recovery: An overview

The COVID-19 outbreak has left an indelible effect on Bangladesh's agriculture sector, like that of most developing countries. Considering that agriculture is the cornerstone of Bangladesh's economy, we made an effort to compile a detailed scenario of COVID-19's effect on it through a relevant literature review. Since no significant studies outlined a complete picture of the pandemic's impact on agriculture, our study ventured to reveal the circumstances of each sub-sector of agriculture. During the early phases of the pandemic, farmers engaged in agriculture production got poor prices, with the majority of them incurring losses. Labor shortages and input scarcity were the most prevailing hindrances across all the sub-sectors. The export volume seemed to shrink hugely, hurting the country's GDP. The supply chain for agricultural commodities was disrupted as a result of the lockdown and mobility restrictions, which resulted in the elimination of the majority of intermediaries. Unprecedented challenges occurred in the input and output markets, as well as in the agro-industries, exacerbating the situation. However, while the vegetables and poultry sub-sectors recovered utterly and the dairy sub-sector somehow managed to stabilize, other sub-sectors are still grieving. This study highlighted some policies that can mitigate the miseries of the agriculture sector and overcome further potential threats in Bangladesh and other agriculture-led developing countries.     

The role of environmental factors in the causation of sudden death in infants: two cases of sudden unexpected death in two unrelated infants who were cared for by the same babysitter

We report two cases of sudden unexpected death in two unrelated African American female infants, 2 months and 4 months old. Both infants were attended to by the same babysitter in the same apartment and died 39 days apart in the same bed and in the same bedroom. The autopsy of the first infant revealed sudden unexplained death in an infant. Toxicologic analysis for carbon monoxide (CO) was not performed because it was not suspected. When the second infant died, investigation into the ambient air quality within the apartment revealed high levels of CO emanating from a poorly ventilated and defective hot water heater, which was located across a hallway from the bedroom where the two babies died. CO saturation levels in the postmortem blood samples of the two babies were elevated and were similar (13% and 14%). Nicotine and cotinine were not detected in the blood sample of the two infants. Cherry-red livor mortis was absent. Acute CO intoxication was determined to be the underlying cause of these two unexpected deaths. These two cases underscore the need to integrate ambient air analysis and postmortem CO analysis as routine components of the comprehensive death investigation of infants who die suddenly and unexpectedly.     

The Moral Distinction Between Combatants and Noncombatants: Vulnerable and Defenceless

In Sparing Civilians, Seth Lazar claims that in war, with rare exceptions, killing noncombatants is worse than killing combatants. This paper raises some doubts about whether this is an important principle – at least, once we understand Lazar’s clarifications. It also suggests that however it is clarified, it seems false. And it suggests a related principle that more plausible. This related principle applies only to those with just aims, and it applies only to intentional killing rather than to all forms of killing.     

Policy Alienation of Public Professionals: A Comparative Case Study of Insurance Physicians and Secondary School Teachers

Currently, there is an intense debate on the pressures facing public professionals in service delivery. Several studies show increasing discontent among professionals toward policies they have to implement. In this article, we aim to contribute to this topic by analyzing this discontent of public professionals in terms of “policy alienation.” The policy alienation concept is used to frame the experiences of professionals in a coherent theoretical framework. We have used a qualitative comparative case study of Dutch insurance physicians and secondary school teachers to study the factors that influence the degree of policy alienation across different domains. Our article shows that facets of New Public Management are important in explaining the pressures on public professionals implementing public policies. However, others factors are also prominent, and the degree of the implementers' professionalism seems especially important. These insights help in understanding why public professionals embrace or resist the implementation of public policies.     

Personal,background and treatment characteristics associated with offending after residential treatment: A 13-year follow up in adolescent males

Abstract

We report on delinquency for 270 males after residential treatment in a juvenile justice institution in the Netherlands. We describe personality characteristics, relations with peers, school and family, as well as treatment characteristics. Next, we describe post-release offending based on reconviction data, and relate this to background characteristics, differentiating between serious and violent offending. In doing so, we distinguish between incidental offenders, chronic offenders and desisters.