Hyper‐Securitization,Everyday Security Practice and Technification: Cyber‐Security Logics in Switzerland

This contribution to the SPSR debate about technology and security in Switzerland looks at how and by whom cyber‐security is constructed in Swiss security politics. Using three securitization logics as developed by reflexive Security Studies – hyper‐securitization, everyday security practices, and technification – it illustrates how Swiss actors have sorted out roles and responsibilities over the years. The article suggests that all three logics are present in the political process, but that ‘technification’ – a way to construct the issue as reliant upon technical knowledge and the supposition that this serves a political and normatively neutral agenda – is currently the dominant one. For democratic politics, technification is a big challenge. Assigning an issue to the technical realm has a depoliticizing influence and makes contestation from those with less technical expertise very hard.     

The Transitional Justice Gap: Exploring ‘Everyday’ Gendered Harms and Customary Justice in South Kivu,DR Congo

Feminist transitional justice (TJ) has greatly contributed to the study of justice in the ruins of war, notably around prosecuting wartime rape. At the same time, scholars have observed limitations to this research agenda such as externally-driven definitions gendered harms and how to address them. This paper explores two novel areas for feminist TJ research: ‘everyday gendered harms’ and customary justice. Based on a three month field study of baraza, a customary justice mechanism in parts of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, I explore three cases of ‘everyday’ harms against women: domestic violence, polygynous relationships and witchcraft. Through a substantive examination of these baraza cases, I highlight how studying the contextualised functioning of customary justice mechanisms provides new insights into different areas of feminist TJ scholarship, including women’s participation in the transition, justice for harms against women, and advancing gender equality. Additionally, this paper adds to the broader TJ literature by engaging with local TJ needs as they pertain to people’s everyday life in transition.     

Associations Between Trauma Type,Timing, and Accumulation on Current Coping Behaviors in Adolescents: Results from a Large,Population-based Sample

The development of adolescents’ coping in response to stress is critical for adaptive functioning; these coping strategies may be shaped by numerous environmental factors during childhood, including experiences such as exposure to trauma. Childhood trauma has been shown to undermine contemporaneous coping, but how does a history of exposure to trauma and the characteristics of that trauma (type, timing, and accumulation) relate to current coping among adolescents? We addressed this question using a nationally-representative sample of 9427 adolescents (ages 13–18; 48.9% female; 66% White). Adolescents reported on their lifetime exposure to 18 different traumas, including witnessing or experiencing interpersonal violence, accidents, disasters, and violent or accidental loss of loved ones, as well as their current use of coping behaviors when under stress (problem-focused, positive emotion-focused, and negative emotion-focused coping strategies). The study’s results highlight that exposure to nearly all forms of trauma was unrelated to problem-focused and positive emotion-focused coping behaviors, but strongly associated with increased negative emotion-focused coping. Use of each coping style did not vary with age at first exposure to trauma, but increased with the number of lifetime traumatic events experienced. The findings suggest that the extent of prior exposure to trauma, including variations across type and timing, may be related to a particular form of coping that has been linked to increased risk for mental health problems. Study results highlight coping strategies as a potential target for prevention and treatment efforts, and indicate a need to better understand the malleability and trajectory of coping responses to stress for promoting healthy youth development.     

IT and Law,and Law Schools

If 'computing and law' as a discipline is to push forward and develop, it will do so best within the context of the law school rather than as a joint enterprise between law and other disciplines. It is in the law school that the understanding of the nature of law is at its height. Yet there are problems here-law schools have a strained relationship with technology and their concept of the breadth of 'legal scholarship' can be limited by conventional (or ideologically-biased) views of law and an undergraduate-oriented view of the law school's purpose. There are also problems arising from the nature of communications between lawyers and computer scientists. In this article, I highlight these problems and also argue for a more developed and extended view of legal scholarship which will be able to incorporate study and research of the impact of the computer upon legal society as well as the legal control of the unwanted elements arising from these new technologies. Most writings on IT and the law school concentrate upon its use as an educational tool. My interest here is not so much in this side of things, but in the research culture of the law school. Whilst there is sometimes a view that the linkage of law school and IT is purely related to the use of technology in legal education, the remit is wider and includes the understanding of the link between substantive law and the context of the new computerized world and also the impact of the computer in the practice of law. This latter aspect is becoming increasingly important with the Woolf reforms and computerization of the procedural elements of law, but also in substantive law: for example, administrative systems are becoming more and more mediated by technology, and administrative law must be reviewed and re-worked in this context.     

A Second Scottish Independence Referendum: Should the Diaspora get a Vote?

The 2014 Scottish independence referendum settled little in terms of Scotland's constitutional future. The after-effects of what was the largest exercise in democracy in Scottish history certainly increased Scotland's devolved authority but, following withdrawal from the EU and with continuing differences and disagreements between the Westminster and Scottish governments, there have been increasing demands for a second referendum. One aspect of these conversations has been about the voting rights of Scots living outside Scotland, whose relationship with the nation would certainly be impacted by any successful vote for Scottish independence. And yet, they have had no voice in that decision and despite calls for their inclusion in any future vote, such inclusion remains unlikely. This article examines the reasons why such inclusion would be challenging and then considers what the Scottish diaspora think about Scottish independence and voting rights, by considering qualitative responses to a survey of members of the Scottish diaspora.     

Demanding Service or Servicing Demand? Charities,Regulation and the Policy Process

Charities in the Victorian era were characterised by the notions of service and pressure, acting as a shield and a sword for social change. Charities continue to pursue such policies, but do so at the behest of state agendas on public service provision and civic engagement. This article examines the regulatory and policy challenges of the service and pressure dynamic, focusing upon the provision of public services by charities, considering the decision of the Charity Commission in the cases of Trafford and Wigan , and the hurdles faced by charities wishing to pursue a political agenda alongside the state's concern with protecting against terrorism. The article concludes by considering the arbitrary choice made within the regulatory framework between acceptable and unacceptable political conduct and the focus upon good governance in charities and the issues which arise under section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998.     

The quest for accountability in Newfoundland and Labrador

Abstract: This article examines the meaning of accountability in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador from both a substantive and a procedural perspective; the three distinct eras in the province's political administration history; the stages in the statutory evolution of the comptroller and auditor function; the province's experience in the Confederation era with the concept of democratic accountability; and the prospects for the future of accountability. The author reveals that the auditor's department or office went for most of a century with little in the way of institutional independence. Government has been hostile to both the extension of the accoutrements of legislative accountability in general and to the notion of increasing the powers of the auditor. What limited independence was mustered and the few challenges raised towards the government of the day were as a result of the professional ethics of Newfoundland auditors, the aid of other federal and provincial auditors, and the spirit of the age. Even in the modem day, Newfoundland has plenty more leeway for reform. The article presents four scenarios of alternative futures for accountability and the auditor general function in the province. One features no change, and the other three contemplate the victories of the independence lobby, the managerialist lobby, and the democratic lobby. Sommaire: Cet article examine la signification de l'imputabilité du gouvernement dc Terre‐Neuve et du Labrador simultanément selon une perspective de fond et une perspective procédurale, les trois périodes distinctes de l'histoire de l'administration politique de cette province, les étapes de l'évolution statutaire de la fonction de contrôleur et de vérificateur l'expérience de la province à 1'époque de la Confédération en ce qui conceme le concept d'imputabilité démocratique et les perspectives d'avenir de l'imputabilité. Les auteurs relèvent que le service ou le Bureau du Vérificateur a pendant près d'un siècle très peu connu d'indépendance institutionnelle. Le gouvemement a été hostile à l'extension de l'imputabilité législative en général, tout autant qu'à accroître les pouvoirs du Vérificateur. L'indépendance limitée et les rares défis soumis au gouvernement du jour ont résulté de l'éthique professionnelle des vérificateurs de Terre‐Neuve, de l'assistance d'autres vérificateurs fédéraux et provinciaux et de l'esprit de l'époque. Même en ces temps modernes, Terre‐Neuve a beaucoup plus de marge de manaeuvre pour entreprendre des réformes. L'article présente quatre scénarios d'altematives en ce qui concerne l'imputabilité et la fonction générale de Vérificateur dam la province. L'un ne prévoit aucun changernent et les trois autres entrevoient les victoires du lobby de l'indépendance, du lobby gestionnariste et du lobby démocratique.     

Lottizzazione Russian Style: Russia's Two-tier Media System

The restructuring of the Russian mass media has created a two-tier media system, where some outlets, notably national television, are very tightly controlled, while others, including the internet, are allowed a substantial degree of freedom. The allocation of media outlets to one or other tier is carried out according to procedures that can be compared to the Italian lottizzazione, a method used to allocate political control within the state broadcaster RAI. Recent changes in media usage are now threatening the equilibrium of the system, thus posing a challenge to those responsible for its administration.