An Analysis of Human Skeletal Remains with Cerebral Palsy: Associated Skeletal Age Delay and Dental Pathologies*

Abstract: In 2002 the authors were asked to examine the skeletal remains of an individual with a known history of severe cerebral palsy (CP) who was 21–23 years old at death. Skeletal age estimates of 11–15 years and dental age estimates of c. 16 years are younger than the known age of the decedent. Skeletal analysis also identified dental pathologies such as chronic tooth grinding and substantial calculus deposits. Scarce literature exists on forensic human remains cases with CP, and this study contrasts the age discrepancy and other features of this case with typical clinical characteristics of CP. A review of the CP literature suggests that delayed skeletal maturation and dental pathologies such as those observed in this case are indicative of complications related to CP. This article may alert future investigators to some of the osteological signs of CP and the probability that age indicators may be misleading.     

The Lockean Case for Religious Tolerance: The Social Contract and the Irrationality of Persecution

John Locke's non-religious arguments for tolerance are often seen as inadequate. He is criticized for: (1) failing to give reasons in support of a strict separation between the roles of church and state; and (2) wrongly insisting that the coercion of belief is irrational. I argue that once we understand Locke's arguments for tolerance within the context of his social contract framework, his non-sectarian arguments can circumvent such criticisms. Lockean arguments for tolerance are thus stronger than typically supposed.     

UNSC Resolution 1325 national action plans in Liberia and Sierra Leone: An analysis of gendered power relations in hybrid peacebuilding

This paper considers how the use of ‘hybridity’ in the peacebuilding literature overlooks the gendered dimensions of hybrid interactions. It does so by examining the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 national action plans (NAPs) for Liberia and Sierra Leone. By asking the gendered questions of ‘who participates?’ and ‘how do they participate?’ it draws from Mac Ginty’s conception of hybridity and traces the compliance and incentivizing power in hybridized peace, as well as the ability of local actors to resist and provide alternatives. However, Mac Ginty’s model is found to be inadequate because of its inattention to the gendered nature of power. It is found that with a gendered approach to hybridity, it is easier to trace the processes of hybridization of NAPs in post-conflict states where their implementation is limited. In asking the questions of ‘who’ and ‘how’, three conclusions about the gendered nature of hybrid peacebuilding are drawn: international intervention relies upon the ‘feminization’ of local actors; issues framed within the realm of the ‘masculine’ are more likely to get attention; and the Resolution 1325 agenda in post-conflict states can be subverted by framing it as a ‘soft’ issue.     

Transformation in Philippine local government

This research examined the challenges, enablers and outcomes of organisation transformation in Philippine local governments. We combined a multi-case study research design and backward mapping approach in collecting and analysing narratives from 55 leaders in 9 Filipino local government units (LGUs) that have successfully undergone transformation. Results show that the transformations of the LGUs appear to have been catalysed by three interrelated elements: vision, LGU leadership and citizen engagement. The transformation in the local governments concentrated on multiple foci of reform including structure and systems improvement, culture change, human-resource development as well as policy and programme development. This holistic approach enabled the transformation of bureaucratic and unprofessional government service to transparent, professional and efficient public service that engendered pride, transparency and social equity. Implications of the proposed model for transforming LGUs and in developing LGU leaders for good governance are discussed.     

Candidate ideology and electoral success in congressional elections

In examining the factors that contribute to electoral success in congressional elections, legislative scholars often consider the actions of elected representatives; however, other research suggests that one must consider what challengers are (or are not) doing as well. For instance, inexperience and poor funding can significantly inhibit challenger success. We expand this list of potential shortcomings by arguing that ideological congruence with a constituency may be another factor in explaining challenger defeat. Using ideology measures derived from campaign contributions, we find that unsuccessful challengers in the U.S. House are generally more extreme than those who win, but ideological extremity is not a disadvantage to those seeking to represent an extreme constituency. More importantly, our existing political institutions may actually serve to mitigate the already high levels of partisan polarization in Congress.     

Young men’s friendships: inclusive masculinities in a post-university setting

When Eric Anderson published inclusive masculinity theory (IMT), it was largely situated in relationships he observed with first-year undergraduate students. Here, he noticed a striking difference in behaviours and attitudes between the adolescent heterosexual men in the United States, compared to those in the UK. Since IMT’s inception, there has been a great deal of further enquiry into the social lives of young heterosexual men in both of these nations. What is undertheorized, however, is whether the intense emotional and physical tactility of homosocial relationships described in this literature will occur with current and future generations. Nor do we know if men described as exhibiting inclusive masculinities at university continue to do so – and to what degree – as they enter the workplace and develop family ties. This research utilizes 10 semi-structured interviews with the same participants from Anderson’s initial studies, showing that they continue to strive for the same emotional intimacy with male friends that they achieved during their time at university. Half also carried this behaviour into the friendships developed with other men since graduating from university. Thus, this research contributes to IMT as it offers preliminary analysis into the friendships of inclusive men, after their time at university.     

Walking,talking, remembering: an Afro-Swedish critique of being-in-the-world

This article examines the existential grounds and experiential limits of an embodied and intersubjective being-in-the-world, in walking dialogue with the remembrances of Afro-Swedish subjects. To walk, wander, and roam in Sweden, particularly through the abundant green spaces that intrude upon and surround nearly every town and city, is a socially constitutive practice of everyday life. It is a sign of personal vitality, healthfulness, and a kind of being-with others predicated on a regular, vigorous, and widespread being-toward nature. Yet, for many Swedes of African descent (as for non-white Swedes more generally), such an imagined community of salubrious walkers is largely just that, a socially constructed fiction that perforce excludes them; an abstraction of urban planning that encumbers their movements, creating anomalous spaces of stasis and immobility; a caesura in the biopolitical field that indexes their black lives as matter out of place, beyond both culture and nature.     

Introduction: New directions in agrarian political economy

For four decades, The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS) has served as a principal arena for the formation and dissemination of cutting-edge research and theory. It is globally renowned as a key site for documenting and analyzing variegated trajectories of agrarian change across space and time. Over the years, authors have taken new angles as they reinvigorated classic questions and debates about agrarian transition, resource access and rural livelihoods. This introductory essay highlights the four classic themes represented in Volume 1 of the JPS anniversary collection: land and resource dispossession, the financialization of food and agriculture, vulnerability and marginalization, and the blurring of the rural-urban relations through hybrid livelihoods. Contributors show both how new iterations of long-evident processes continue to catch peasants and smallholders in the crosshairs of crises and how many manage to face these challenges, developing new sources and sites of livelihood production.     

Reconstructing Citizens as Consumers: Implications for New Modes of Governance

This article examines the relationship between government and the public within a producer–consumer market exchange. Four conceptual problems are identified in relation to the application of market models to the relationship between government and citizen. These types of models fail to account for the essentially political engagement between government and citizens, the collective responsibilities of government, the absence of markets in many areas of government service delivery and the complexity of relations between government and citizens.     

Revisiting the legal standards that govern requests to sterilize profoundly incompetent children: in light of the "Ashley Treatment," is a new standard appropriate?

This Note discusses the recent controversy surrounding a six-year-old girl named Ashley, whose parents chose to purposefully stunt her growth and remove her reproductive organs for nonmedical reasons. A federal investigation determined that Ashley's rights had been violated because doctors performed the procedure, now referred to as the "Ashley Treatment," without first obtaining a court order. However, the investigation did not make any conclusions regarding whether the "Ashley Treatment" could present a legally permissible treatment option in the future. After discussing the constitutional rights that the "Ashley Treatment" implicates and the current legal standards in place, this Note examines how courts have applied these legal standards to cases involving extreme requests. Drawing upon legal commentators, this Note concludes that a court could approve a request for the "Ashley Treatment" in appropriate and limited cases where the parents have presented clear and convincing evidence before a court that the benefits that the "Ashley Treatment" would provide to the child and her family outweigh the risks associated with the procedure. This Note argues that those benefits may include extrinsic considerations, but courts should remain cautious when considering such evidence and be sure that the evidence as a whole supports their conclusions.