Book reviews

Gilles Deleuze and the Question of Philosophy PHILIP GOODCHILD London: Associated University Presses, 1996

Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis: The Sociopoetics of Modernism EUGENE HOLLAND Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993

Australian Television and International Mediascapes STUART CUNNINGHAM & ELIZABETH JACKA Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Sociolingwistics and Language History: Studies based on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence TERTTU NEVALAINEN & HELENA RAUMOLIN‐BRUNBERG (Eds) Language and Computers: Studies in Practical Linguistics No 15, Amsterdam/Atlanta., GA: Rodopi, 1996

Fear of the Dark. ‘Race’, Gender and Sexuality in the Cinema LOLA YOUNG London and New York: Routledge, 1996

Deleuze: A Critical Reader PAUL PATTON (Ed.) Oxford: Blackwell, 1996

A Guattari Reader GARY GENOSKO (Ed.) Oxford: Blackwell, 1996

Counterworks. Managing the Diversity of Knowledge R. FARDON (Ed.) London: Routledge, 1995     

Suicide Bombing as a Strategic Weapon: An Empirical Investigation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad

Using twice-yearly data from 1991 to 2003, we analyze the incidents of suicide attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad within Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Given the exploratory nature of the question, we have first estimated the relevant coefficients by using a Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Ratio and then checked their robustness by reestimating the model with the help of a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) as an interrelated system. The results indicate that the two groups deliberately use suicide bombings as strategic weapons within the larger Israeli-Palestinian political milieu. With the Western world locked in an armed struggle with the militant extremists of Islam based on millenarian ideologies, this study emphasizes the need to develop appropriate analytical capabilities to distinguish among terrorist groups and their motivations, ideologies, and tactics.     

Cytochrome b based genetic differentiation of Indian wild pig (Sus scrofa cristatus) and domestic pig (Sus scrofa domestica) and its use in wildlife forensics

The Indian wild pig (Sus scrofa cristatus) is a protected species and listed in the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The wild pig is often hunted illegally and sold in market as meat warranting punishment under law. To avoid confusion in identification of these two subspecies during wildlife forensic examinations, we describe genetic differentiation of Indian wild and domestic pigs using a molecular technique. Analysis of sequence generated from the partial fragment (421 bp) of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome b (Cyt b) gene exhibited unambiguous (> 3%) genetic variation between Indian wild and domestic pigs. We observed nine forensically informative nucleotide sequence (FINS) variations between Indian wild and domestic pigs. The overall genetic variation described in this study is helpful in forensic identification of the biological samples of wild and domestic pigs. It also helped in differentiating the Indian wild pig from other wild pig races. This study indicates that domestic pigs in India are not descendent of the Indian wild pig, however; they are closer to the other wild pig races found in Asia and Europe.     

Wise mind—risky mind: A reconceptualisation of dialectical behaviour therapy concepts and its application to sexual offender treatment

Abstract

This paper aims to introduce a reconceptualisation of dialectic behaviour therapy (DBT), “wise mind–risky mind”, and its application to sexual offender treatment. This reconceptualisation holds some promise in addressing issues around general, affective, cognitive and sexual dysregulation, and may provide an alternative way of thinking about sexual offender treatment. The wise mind–risky mind dialectical construct helps clients and therapists utilise a common language that captures and validates the experiential difficulties that clients go through in effectively managing their risk for sexual offending. The incorporation of DBT principles in standard sexual offender treatment programmes can assist clients in effectively managing problems with dysregulation in various domains. It can also afford a more integrated treatment framework when working with sexual offending dynamics. The authors discuss this new construct and its possible applications within the broader forensic mental health field.     

Fertility and the household's economic status: A natural experiment using Indian micro data

We model fertility as endogenous to the family's economic status because poor households choose to have large families in the absence of adequate social insurance. Because of a strong son preference in India, having two girls first can proxy an exogenous increase in fertility, and is therefore a good instrument for fertility in determining poverty of rural households. The 1993–1994 Indian Quinquennial Survey data shows that even though poverty rates are comparable, 74 per cent of two-girl families have a third child compared to 63 per cent of other families. Fertility significantly positively affects poverty when treated as exogenous, but vanishes once endogenised. These results are robust to omitting states with skewed sex ratios and to proxying economic status by expenditures.     

Global Sustainable Development Governance: Institutional Challenges from a Theoretical Perspective

This paper submits that efforts to achieve sustainable development at global level call for, inter alia, institutional reform. It argues that there is no optimal institutional design, and that different schools of thought have different perspectives of the future. It briefly presents the history of institutional evolution in the area of sustainable development up to the latest developments in the context of the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development. This history sets the context for the rest of the discussions. It then presents a taxonomy of the various options suggested in the literature for improving the institutional structure of the United Nations in order to achieve sustainable development. This paper critically examines the feasibility of these options from the perspective of the different schools of thought in international relations theory. It argues that from the point of view of idealistic supranationalists, a hierarchic supranational environment and/or development organisation should be established to integrate and coordinate activities in the UN in order to promote sustainable development governance. It argues that from a realist/neo-realist and neo-liberal institutionalist approach, coordination, whether hierarchical or horizontal, is doomed to failure. From a historical materialist approach all efforts at institutional design are likely to lead to asymmetrical results reflecting global power relations. This paper concludes with a speculative argument that institutional design is not a question of the best architectural option, but calls for multiple pathways including strengthening of individual organisations, promoting the progressive development of the law of sustainable development, developing a high level advisory body to advise the Secretary General, promoting the concept of the decentralised network organisation and possibly finding ways to cluster regimes. The effectiveness of these multiple efforts are dependent on the support of civil society. In order for sustainable development to take the key concerns of developing countries into account, it is necessary that institutions are able to represent the variety of views of their members and that countries develop good policies domestically.