The Krishna Baradwaj and Eric Wolf Prize 2011–2012

The political geography of environmental governance can overlap and converge with uneven agrarian change in forest frontiers subject to violent enclosures. When the governance of conservation territories converges with and reinforces enclosures, spaces can be controlled with authority and violence that places livelihoods at greater risk in the context of uneven agrarian political economies – the outcomes of which reflect ‘violent enclosures’. This paper examines how indigenous resource users negotiate the discursive and material impact of environmental governance converging with militarized-insurgent spaces as overlapping enclosures in a protected area on Palawan Island, the Philippines. Drawing on local experiences, we examine how the livelihood vulnerability arising in the local political economy is exacerbated by access and use constraints from the overlapping enclosures of environmental and military governance in the buffer zone of Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. We argue that the seemingly less governable forest frontiers of protected areas are often the poorest, highly politicized and contested spaces of political and ecological refuge. Here, scarce forest resources are managed closely, and recalcitrant groups seek refuge as military powers frame, conflate and manage local behaviour as criminal and dangerous, merging conservation and military interventions as coercive governance. We conclude that only by critically engaging how governance processes and enclosures converge to yield structural and discursive violence – and by making this apparent to policy makers – will indigenous peoples successfully negotiate the double bind of violent enclosures in frontiers.     

Between haiderisation and modernisation: The German free democrats since party unification

This article examines the development of the German Free Democrats (FDP) since party unification in 1990. Two‐fifths of the FDP's membership now come from the new Lander which adds considerably to the party's internal volatility while it is faced with a dual policy and functional crisis. The current internal debate indicates the extent of the resulting disorientation and illustrates the post‐unification search for a new identity. There now appear to be three principal options for the FDP's future development: firstly, the ‘West German option’, that is the retention of the internal status quo ante; secondly, a radical Haider‐style transformation or the ‘Austrian option'; and thirdly, the ‘modernisation option’, which sees party unification as an opportunity for positive change which could make the Liberals the first truly all‐German party.     

Stable isotope profiling of burnt wooden safety matches

Arson is a significant problem around the world, and is a crime which results in a low number of convictions. The scene of an arson can be varied, commercial, residential or national park, and recently cases have been identified which were initiated by a lit match. Matches can be recovered from a scene, usually in a burnt condition. The benefit of analysing unburnt matches has been researched previously [1,2]. In most cases, burnt matches are recovered from scenes, and therefore the research was extended to investigate the potential of using IRMS to analyse burnt matches. This includes samples which have been exposed to petrol, and various fire extinguishing chemicals.Matches were sectioned to reveal central unburnt portions of wood and analysed by isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS). The stable isotope profile (SIP) of the wooden matchstick samples was unaffected by the presence of both petrol and a variety of fire extinguisher chemicals. Any changes seen could be attributed to the natural variability of isotopic composition encountered in a natural material such as wood. These findings were confirmed by the isotope analysis of 19 matchstick samples placed in mock fire training scenarios. The data was examined using a paired t-test and Hotellings T² test for a single sample.     

Mathias Kifmann on “health insurance in a democracy: Why is it public and why are premiums income related?”

Many democracies have public health insurance systems that are tax-financed or in which contributions are linked to income. In a recent issue of this journal, Mathias Kifmann provides a model designed to explain this intriguing observation. This comment argues that the suggested explanation is not really convincing.     

The changing ‘logics’ of capitalist competition

This article criticizes contemporary attempts within the Marxist tradition to understand the current juncture of international relations in terms of either a return to classical Marxist theories of inter-imperial rivalry or ultra-imperialism. It argues instead to put the debate on a new theoretical footing that is able to capture the rich diversity of international relations and permutations of territorial orders within the entire history of capitalism since its inception in 17^th-century England. It argues specifically that the system of multiple states and capitalism, rather than being causally co-emergent and co-constitutive, have historically different origins. Since the latter emerged within the former, their interrelation is not structurally determined by any ‘logic of capital’ per se or by a ‘logic of anarchy’ (or by their intersection). Rather, profound variations in capitalist international orders result from the contested construction of diverse projects of territorialization by historically situated capitalist classes and states. They are neither subject to an evolutionary long-term logic of globalization and global state-formation, nor to a recurring logic of inter-imperial rivalry, but far exceed the limits of these narrow options.     

More of the Same? A Dual Case Study Approach to Examining Change Momentum in the Public Sector

Despite the significant amount of change experienced by the public sector, there has been relatively limited empirical examination of how change agendas affect public sector employees in Australia. This article presents a comparative analysis of two Australian public sector organisations that implemented the same positive work change agenda, but experienced very different outcomes. Using a critical realist approach, we draw on a mix of qualitative techniques to suggest that textbook notions of ‘successful change’, which are often derived from large private sector expectations, may fail to capture the complex nature of how public sector change initiatives may unfold. In particular, we demonstrate how political, temporal, contextual, and process factors interact to shift change momentum. Illustrative examples are provided throughout and the findings are discussed in terms of their implications for theory building, for change facilitation, and for future research.