New Frontiers,Old Problems: The War on Terror and the Notion of Anticipating the Enemy

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Explaining municipal governance in Kosovo: local agency,credibility and party patronage

ABSTRACT

What can explain the varied effectiveness of internationally led attempts at statebuilding? This article seeks to answer this question by comparing the contrasting trajectories of governance in two municipalities in Kosovo: Hani i Elezit/Elez Han and Kamenica. In Hani i Elezit, evidence suggests that effective and accountable governance is embedded. However, in Kamenica informal and clientelist practices persist and residents are less satisfied with the municipality’s performance. As the nature and extent of internationally led statebuilding has been similar in both municipalities, explaining variation requires an analytical shift to how local leadership interacts with, receives and ultimately shapes statebuilding processes. The data are based on fieldwork from 2012 to 2015. The article focuses on two critical dimensions of statebuilding: capacity building and social accountability. It argues that the impact of externally led statebuilding strategies depends on the orientation of the political leadership of the municipalities. The article identifies features of the political environment, namely credibility and the organization of political parties, which constrain the kind of public-oriented leadership necessary for effective and accountable governance.     

Offenders' choice of target: Findings from victim surveys

This paper argues that victimological research on risks can contribute to the study of offender decision-making. It examines some of the problems in conventional approaches to the topic and discusses strengths and weaknesses of surveys of victimization as an additional source of information. It presents and discusses a conceptual framework for examining target selection, the key elements of which are proximity, yield, and accessibility. It presents a worked example in the shape of findings on burglary from the British Crime Survey.     

The ‘histories’ of economic discourse

Baudrillard's work has been presented as the essential postmodernist contribution to social theory. Yet doubts have been expressed as to the accuracy and the meaning of this claim. Here a number of leading presentations are reviewed against the claims and denials found in the work of Baudrillard himself: his opposition to postmodernism and his refusal to be labelled postmodernist. The ironies of this position are discussed with respect to Marxist and feminist readings in light of the possibility that it may be these appropriations themselves which are postmodern.

Baudrillard ‘was perhaps the first to organize a postmodern social theory’. (Kellner 1988: 242)

Baudrillard speaks from the dark side of postmodernity. A. Kroker 1988: 171

So far Baudrillard has resisted spelling out a theory of postmodernity. Kellner 1989: 121

I have nothing to do with postmodernism. Baudrillard     

Unresolved Comte

This article examines the recent biography of Auguste Comte by Mary Pickering. It suggests that the new biography provides much useful new information on Comte's life and work,but argues that Comte's theoretical sociology has not been well served.Unnecessary complicationshave been introduced in the interpretation of Comte's personal life which make it essential to examine ways of reading the new biography.