Family formation and everyday travel in Britain since c.1850

This paper focuses on the extent to which everyday travel behaviour in Britain changes in relation to family responsibilities, and examines how this has altered over the past century and a half. It is argued that prior to the mid-twentieth century changes in the family such as increased child-care responsibilities barely influenced the modes of transport used for everyday travel, but that increasingly in the later twentieth century people adjusted their travel behaviour during the family formation phases of the life cycle. In particular, parents of young children have become more car-dependent and less likely to walk or cycle. Data are drawn from two separate projects, one that collected travel life histories from the past half-century as context for research on cycling in later life, and one that uses personal diaries to reveal everyday mobility strategies of people in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is argued that the observed changes are due not only to increased access to a wide range of different transport forms, especially the motor car, but also to changes in societal perceptions of risk and norms of travel behaviour. In conclusion, it is suggested that more awareness of past travel behaviours could aid the development and implementation of more sustainable transport policies in the UK.     

François Mitterrand’s Visit to Sarajevo, 28 June 1992

At 10:30 in the morning on 28 June 1992, a Dauphin helicopter landed at Sarajevo airport carrying a precious cargo: the French president, François Mitterrand. Since the beginning of the Bosnian War, Bosnian Serb forces had controlled the airport and restricted the delivery of humanitarian aid to the city’s destitute population, which formed an important cornerstone of their siege strategy. In reaching the airport, the president secured its re-opening and, with it, the commencement of one of the longest humanitarian airlifts in history. However, Mitterrand’s visit also had implications and significance beyond the Bosnian capital. The visit secured humanitarian intervention through the United Nations as the international community’s modus operandi for conflict resolution in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Through its permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and enthusiastic engagement with humanitarian intervention, France would shape the intervention in Bosnia-Hercegovina and thus continue to justify its position amongst the world’s Great Powers.     

Dimock's naturalistic ethics

Between 1937 and 1958 Marshall Dimock developed a naturalistic account of the administrative function. This account emphasized an organic and instrumentalist account of ethics which was akin to American pragmatism in its ontological assumptions, vocabulary, and conceptualization. His theory was self-consciously aimed at identifying and responding to the problems of an administrative theory and practice plagued by dichotomies. Through an organizational leadership comprised of a moral elite, Dimock hoped to integrate the processes of administration and value creation.