A New History of Colonial Lawyering: Likhovski and Legal Identities in the British Empire

The history of the legal profession has been dominated by Richard Abel's monopolization thesis, and by Terence C. Halliday and Lucien Karpik's political model of lawyers as maintainers of liberal polities. By contrast, Assaf Likhovski's legal history of mandate Palestine treats lawyers and judges as cultural intermediaries who shaped the legal identity of Jewish and Arab communities. This article situates Likhovski's book within a growing body of scholarship on non-European lawyering in the British Empire. It links Likhovski's case studies to legal figures from colonial India, West Africa, and Malaya, all of whom acted as cultural translators and ethnographic intermediaries in the formation of colonial identities.     

All for brownie points!: reappraising the new commercial media and media–terrorism nexus in the context of the Mumbai attacks of 26/11

The emergence of a global new media model aided by the technological revolution of the twenty-first century, economic globalization and political neo-liberalism, has transformed the traditional old model of media as a democratic pillar of public service into a new profit-oriented model of media as a corporate business enterprise primarily dependent on advertisement revenues. This change in the media ownership has had significant negative implications for media coverage and content. In this changed scenario of eclipse of investigative and critical journalism and triumph of infotainment journalism, this new corporate media, especially in the post-9/11 era, has nonetheless made itself particularly vulnerable to the terrorist manipulation of mass media as an advertisement agent for terror. Through the specific case study of the media coverage of Mumbai terror attacks on November 26, 2008, this study attempts to reveal how the commercial agenda of the new media ends up furthering the terrorist agenda, albeit in immediate short run, of inculcating mass hysteria, irrational mob fury directed against the state thereby eroding, however temporarily, popular sovereignty of the state.     

Crisis,violence and political succession in Africa

This article examines African leadership succession and the effect of crises on the orderliness of succession. The data set consists of 102 successions from 1963-1988, using the African Contemporary Record as our major source. We divide 102 successions into those which are 'regulated,' or rule-directed, and those which are not. We find that about a third of all successions were regulated, and that the presence of a political crisis is the critical obstacle to a regulated succession, more important than either economic or cultural crises. We also find that economic performance is a significant long-term factor in a country's succession record.     

South Africa’s peacebuilding in the DRC: Convergence and dissonance with the liberal model

The task of transforming countries affected by conflict towards sustainable peace has been a persistent problem. In response to growing intra-state conflict in the post-Cold War era, it has become the norm to prescribe a cocktail of liberal democracy and free-market economics as a universal formula for building peaceful societies. South Africa, since its post-democratic emergence into global affairs, has also been active in promoting peace in Africa along similar lines. This article embarks on an exploratory qualitative analysis of South Africa’s peacebuilding engagements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It aims to contribute a better understanding of South Africa’s peacebuilding engagements by utilising the DRC case study to point out areas of convergence and dissonance with the dominant liberal model of peacebuilding. The article finds that, although peppered with successes and failures, South Africa does approach peacebuilding in a unique manner. It also calls for a revision of South Africa’s approach, given the varying levels of success in the DRC.     

Economic statecraft in South Africa's regional diplomacy

This paper considers the extent to which South Africa utilises positive economic statecraft to promote human rights in the region – that is, the degree to which it mobilises its economic engagement to affect a desirable political outcome in its foreign engagements in Southern Africa. The country's reaction to crises in Zimbabwe and Swaziland over the past 20 years is a strong indicator of the limits of South Africa's statecraft in this regard. These engagements highlight the inevitable clash between the country's principled preference for ‘non-interference’ in the affairs of sovereign states and its constitutional mandate to respect and promote human rights. Despite eschewing the role of ‘regional hegemon’, there is an expectation that South Africa will play an integral role in securing regional stability. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that the country chooses to approach resolving regional challenges with a co-ordinated political and economic approach. This paper argues that, to be more effective in spreading a progressive regional agenda that encourages democracy, governance and human rights, South Africa needs to incorporate a stronger element of positive economic statecraft in its foreign policy implementation.     

More Can Be Less: Hyper Plurality of Candidates,the Rationality of Electoral Choice,and Need for Electoral Reform in India

A large number of candidates has become a regular feature of Indian elections. Given the regulatory concerns the problem has evoked, this article reviews the process of candidate entry in select developed countries. The review reveals the presence of diverse approaches, ruling out the necessity for extreme options like debarring fringe candidates—a course suggested by several Indian expert groups. Among various policy options, India had largely relied on electoral deposit. Our results suggest that an increase in deposits had a significant negative impact on candidate entry in India. However, for an effective deterrence, India needs to continue to keep deposits at a very high level compared to the current international benchmark, discriminating political participation of genuinely underprivileged groups. In contrast, the current level of signature requirements, a relatively unused policy tool in India, was found to be too low and could be easily increased further in order to be effective. We argue that given the high variation and lack of stability in candidate structure across regions and over time, a local approach on signature requirements—as in the U.S. —could be an effective deterrent in India. Accordingly, we suggest that the Election Commission of India should not only have the power to determine the deposit before each election; it should also have the power to change the minimum signature requirement across constituencies (subject to some standard checks and balances).     

An epidemic of illicit fentanyl deaths in Cook County, Illinois: September 2005 through April 2007

Between September 2005 and April 2007, 350 fentanyl intoxication deaths were investigated and certified by the Cook County Medical Examiners Office. Investigations revealed that the majority of these fatalities were by intravenous injection of a white powder followed by a rapid collapse. The fentanyl was clandestinely produced in a lab in Toluca, Mexico and sold by the Mickey Cobra street gang. The term "Drop Dead" was coined for this "tainted heroin." Postmortem samples were screened by ELISA and confirmed by standard GC-MS methods. Fentanyl fatalities peaked at 47 per month in May and June 2006. Fifty-two percent were single fentanyl intoxications, with the remainder accompanied by either cocaine, morphine from heroin, or alcohol. This epidemic stressed the limited resources of the toxicology laboratory and autopsy service of the Medical Examiners Office. The clandestine lab was terminated, distributing gang members and leaders arrested, and the epidemic ceased in April 2007.