Examining context-specific perceptions of risk: exploring the utility of “human-in-the-loop” simulation models for criminology

Objectives  

To utilize a “human-in-the-loop” simulation methodology to examine the impact of high-risk environmental contexts on perceptions of victimization risk.     

Social Network Analysis to evaluate organisational networks on sexual health and rights

There are many challenges in evaluating international networks. The use of conventional tools can be difficult and often provides less than useful information. Social Network Analysis offers benefits for network evaluators by allowing for documentation and analysis of inter-relationships between individuals and organisations. This paper describes the use of this approach in the evaluation of a major international project entitled the Global Dialogues on Sexual Health and Well-being. It highlights the value of maps in enabling clear visual representations of networks, the identification of areas needing greater focus and the basis on which networks are constructed.

Analyse des réseaux sociaux pour évaluer les réseaux organisationnels sur les droits et la santé génésiques

L’évaluation des réseaux internationaux présente de nombreux défis. L'utilisation d'outils conventionnels peut être difficile et fournit souvent des informations qui ne sont pas des plus utiles. L'analyse des réseaux sociaux comporte des avantages pour les évaluateurs des réseaux, car elle permet la documentation et l'analyse des corrélations entre individus et organisations. Cet article décrit l'utilisation de cette approche dans l’évaluation d'un important projet international intitulé Global Dialogues on Sexual Health and Wellbeing (Dialogues mondiaux sur la santé et le bien-être génésiques). Il met en relief la valeur des cartes pour permettre des représentations visuelles claires des réseaux, l'identification de zones nécessitant un axe central plus marqué et la base sur laquelle les réseaux sont construits.

Análise de Rede Social para avaliar redes organizacionais sobre saúde sexual e direitos

Existem muitos desafios para se avaliar as redes internacionais. O uso de ferramentas convencionais pode ser dificil e frequentemente oferece informações que não são úteis. A Análise de Rede Social oferece benefícios para avaliadores de rede ao considerar a documentação e análise das inter-relações entre indivíduos e organizações. Este artigo descreve o uso desta abordagem na avaliação de um grande projeto internacional chamado Diálogos Globais sobre Saúde Sexual e Bem-Estar. Ele destaca o valor de mapas para permitir representações visuais claras de redes, a identificação de áreas que estejam precisando de um maior enfoque e a base sobre a qual as redes são construídas.

El Análisis de Redes Sociales para evaluar redes de organizaciones que trabajan en salud y derechos sexuales

A la hora de evaluar las redes internacionales surgen muchos retos. Los métodos tradicionales pueden presentar dificultades y a menudo proporcionan información poco útil. El Análisis de Redes Sociales presenta ventajas para los evaluadores de redes ya que ofrece la posibilidad de documentar y analizar relaciones entre individuos y organizaciones. El presente ensayo examina cómo se utilizó este método para evaluar un importante proyecto internacional llamado “Diálogos globales sobre salud sexual y bienestar”. También ilustra cómo los mapas son valiosos porque muestran una clara representación visual de las redes, revelan las áreas que necesitan mayor atención y señalan las bases sobre las que se construyen las redes.     

Community Awareness of Patron Banning in Australia: a Brief Report

Patron banning involves banning individuals who engage in problematic behaviour in night time entertainment precincts from certain areas. Patron banning is used in most jurisdictions within Australia despite a lack of evidence regarding its effectiveness. To have an impact, patron banning should act as a deterrent for problematic behaviour at a range of licenced premises (individual and general deterrence), as well as constituting as an immediate punishment which prevents future problem behaviours at the establishment(s) from which an individual has been banned (incapacitation). However, for deterrence to occur, the general public must be aware of the existence and basic functions of patron banning. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the level of public awareness of patron banning and its use. One hundred seventy-two participants anonymously completed an online questionnaire, comprising two sections: (1) demographic information and (2) participant’s awareness, understanding, and previous experience with patron banning. The majority of participants indicated being aware of patron banning, but most did not know any details about it. The results of this study indicate that while individuals are aware that banning powers exist, they are less aware of how these powers are used in practice. In this way, patron banning fails to fulfil the requirements of a general deterrent. Given its expanding use, further research is needed to determine if patron banning does affect the behaviour of those receiving bans and of the community more generally.     

Leadership in collaborative policy-making: An analysis of agency roles in regulatory negotiations

Regulatory negotiation is a process by which representatives of affected interests, along with the regulatory agency, attempt to negotiate a consensus agreement on the content of a regulation. This study represents an empirical effort to begin to identify and sort out the roles that an agency plays in a collaborative policy-making process such as regulatory negotiation. Three regulatory negotiation cases were examined to determine the perceived roles of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials and other participants, and the study suggests a number of findings. First, that EPA fulfills a number of different roles (Expert, Analyst, Stakeholder, Facilitator and Leader) in a negotiation process; second, that EPA is expected to be an active participant in the negotiations, not simply an overseer or facilitator of interests; and finally, EPA interprets its primary role much more narrowly – as that of an expert – than do other participants. Non-agency participants view EPA's primary role as a leader, which combines technical and substantive components as well as process components. Where previously and in the theoretical literature, agencies exercise leadership through statutory authority or technical expertise, this study suggests that there are additional dimensions to that leadership role. In a collaborative process such as regulatory negotiation, the agency finds itself in a realm that demands that they effectively merge the roles of expert, analyst, and stakeholder into a more complex leadership role than has been suggested in the past.     

Post‐War Reconstruction and the New World Order: The Origins Of Gough Whitlam's Democratic Citizen*

Gough Whitlam's father was one of Australia's most significant public servants. Deputy Crown Solicitor and Crown Solicitor at a time of great constitutional and international change, Frederick Whitlam maintained an unusually advanced perspective on the use of international instruments to protect rights and to expand powers of nationhood. Gough Whitlam's war‐time experiences in the Air Force, in particular during the referendum campaign to expand Commonwealth Powers to aid post‐war reconstruction, cemented these aspects as central to his developing notions of democratic citizenship. In his 1973 Sir Robert Garran Memorial lecture, fourteen years after his father had delivered the inaugural oration, Gough Whitlam acknowledged the influence of his father as a “great public servant” committed to public service and the developing institutions of internationalism: “I am Australia's first Prime Minister with that particular background”. This paper explores “that particular background”. I have never wavered from my fundamental belief that until the national government became involved in great matters like schools and cities, this nation would never fulfil its real capabilities. ¹ 1 E.G. Whitlam, Sir Robert Garran Memorial Oration, “Australian Public Administration under a Labor Government”, Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration, 12 November 1973, < http://www.whitlam.org/collection/1973/ > accessed 31 October 2006.
     

Poor Maternity: Clare of Assisi's letters to Agnes of Prague

During the first half of the thirteenth century, Clare of Assisi and Agnes of Prague sustained a long epistolary relationship. Clare's part of the correspondence is extant, and reveals much about the intersection of the language of gendered piety and political ambition in this period. This article seeks, in particular, to place Clare's use of maternal imagery within the context of her attempts to build patronage networks in order to support her ambitions to secure the ‘Privilege of Poverty’ for herself and her sisters, the right to live without landed endowments and claustration.     

Women,Law and John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill's intellectual reputation is unarguable; his liberal credentials seemingly impeccable. Moreover there seems to be a Mill for everyone; liberal, radical, feminist. The precise nature of the feminist Mill has however remained a matter of considerable debate. The purpose of this article is less to engage this speculation, but rather to invite closer consideration of what Mill actually said and wrote about women and the law in nineteenth-century England. For Mill, the law was both an instrument of women's subjection and a prospective means of liberation.     

food

The shift to companionate marriage in South Asia and elsewhere is widely read as a move from ‘tradition’ to ‘modernity’ resulting in an expansion of individual agency, especially for women. This paper critically examines the narratives of urban middle-class women in Sri Lanka spanning three generations to illustrate that rather than indicating a radical shift in the way they negotiated between individual desires and social norms, the emphasis on ‘choice’ signals a shift in the narrative devices used in the presentation of the ‘self’. The paper illustrates how young women’s narratives about marriage appear to suggest ‘modernity’ as inevitable—that its processes are reconstituting the person who, less constrained by ‘tradition’ and collective expectations, is now experiencing greater freedom in the domain of marriage. However, it also shows how urban middle-class families in Sri Lanka have collectively invested in the narrative of choice through which ‘a choosing person’ is consciously created as a mark of the family’s modernity and progress. Rather than signalling freedom, these narratives about choice reveal how women are often burdened with the risks and responsibility of agency. The paper illustrates that the ‘choosing person’ is produced through narratives that emphasise agency as a responsibility that must be exercised with caution because women are expected by and obligated to their families to make the ‘right’ choices. Hence, a closer look at the individualised ‘choosing person’ reveals a less unitary, relational self with permeable boundaries embedded within and accountable to family and kinship.     

Theory vs reality: partisanship and Northern Ireland's Public Accounts Committee 2011–2016

Public accounts committees (PACs) are tasked with scrutinising executive use of public money, undertaking inquiries with the support of the legislative auditor. Through several means, an expectation is placed on members to be politically neutral in undertaking committee work. However, in the context of Northern Ireland, where consociationalism entrenches binary ethno-national identities throughout the political institutions, it would be expected that party-political interests would prevail and fracture the committee. This paper analyses Northern Ireland's PAC from three perspectives alongside qualitative data from interviews with committee members: theory, party-partisanship and changes in the committee's working relationship with the legislative auditor. It is argued that over the 2011–2016 mandate, this PAC coalesced and functioned well as a unit despite expectation to the contrary, and that the changing dynamics of its working relationship with the Northern Ireland Audit Office over this time are testament to its development in this way.     

The Stop Climate Chaos Coalition: climate change as a development issue

After the Working Group on Climate Change and Development recognised the challenge that climate change poses to development, a number of environmental and aid, trade and development organisations formed a new politically active coalition, Stop Climate Chaos (SCC), to demand that stronger climate laws be adopted in the UK. The coalition now frames the issue of climate change as a ‘global climate justice’ one, emphasising the severity of the issue for people in poor countries, who will suffer the worst consequences, but have contributed least to it. The extent to which SCC member organisations address climate change as a global justice issue is explored through a content analysis of their websites, and a survey of participants in the SCC I-Count march, London, 3 November 2006. There is certainly evidence that environmental organisations are ‘facing South’, just as aid, trade and development organisations are ‘turning green’.