Assessing the Domestic Violence Training Needs of Benefits Workers

Domestic violence victims often have economic and employment needs that either directly or indirectly stem from their victimization. In their efforts to seek services, victims may turn to benefits workers who are given the task of providing clients with short-term financial help, job training, access to health care, and assistance in obtaining a job. It is not clear whether benefits workers are adequately prepared to help domestic violence victims. In this study, 189 social services workers from the Commonwealth of Virginia were surveyed to assess the training needs of all social services workers. This article focuses on the specific training needs of benefits workers and draws comparisons between benefits workers’ training needs and other workers’ needs. The findings suggest that benefits workers are perceived as knowing less about domestic violence than other social services workers. Implications are discussed. This research was supported by a contract from the Virginia Institute of Social Services Training Activities     

Between hierarchy and heterarchy: Post-Arab uprisings’ civil–military relations and the Arab state

Every actor who commands coercive resources plays a relevant role in the complex processes of state restructuring following regime change. The role of armies in the 2010–2011 Arab uprisings has been widely explored, but limited attention has been devoted to how different agents with coercive power have been involved in the restructuring of political order. This contribution presents the theoretical framework within which the remaining empirical contributions are situated. The central insight is that better understanding of the emerging political orders requires moving away from binary notions of hierarchy and anarchy as ordering principles and look at how, within heterarchical political orders, coercive agents behave within fluid state–society relations.     

Getting Rid of Dichotomous Sex Estimations: Why Logistic Regression Should be Preferred Over Discriminant Function Analysis

Sex estimation is an important part of creating a biological profile for skeletal remains in forensics. The commonly used methods for developing sex estimation equations are discriminant function analysis (DFA) and logistic regression (LogR). LogR equations provide a probability of the predicted sex, while DFA relies on cutoff points to segregate males and females, resulting in a rigid dichotomization of the sexes. This is problematic because sexual dimorphism exists along a continuum and there can be considerable overlap in trait expression between the sexes. In this study, we used humeral measurements to compare the performance of DFA and LogR and found them to be very similar under multiple conditions. The overall cross-validated (leave-one-out) accuracy of DFA (75.76–95.14%) was slightly higher than LogR (75.76–93.82%) for simple and multiple variable equations, and also performed better under varying sample sizes (94.03% vs. 93.78%). Three of five DFA equations outperformed LogR under the B index, while all five LogR equations outperformed the DFA equations under the Q index. Both methods saw an improvement in overall accuracy (DFA: 86.74–95.79%; LogR: 86.74–95.76%) when individuals with a classification probability lower than 0.80 were excluded. Additionally, we propose a method for calculating additional cutoff points (PMarks) based on posterior probability values. In conclusion, we recommend using LogR over DFA due to the increased flexibility, robusticity, and benefits for future users of the statistical models; however, if DFA is preferred, use of the proposed PMarks facilitates future analysis while avoiding unnecessary dichotomization.     

Vom Rand in die Mitte – „Schamlose Normalisierung“

In this paper, I discuss the swing to the (far-)right in (Austrian) party politics during the election campaign and national election on October 15, 2017. This transformation is caused, I claim, by a process of normalisation, an accommodation to the, sometimes also extreme-right, agenda of formerly right-wing populist parties such as the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). The election campaign of both the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the FPÖ focussed primarily on migration and refugee politics, based on a politics of fear and resentment. After first attempting to define the phenomenon of right-wing populism, I trace how tabooed and extreme right contents slowly became acceptable, as soon as the ÖVP shamelessly integrated some (not all) aspects of the FPÖ’s election program.     

Drones,state terrorism and international law

The conventional wisdom among US foreign policymakers is that drones enable precise strikes, and therefore limit collateral damage. In contrast, critics point out that many civilian casualties have ensued, and they variously cite poor intelligence and imprecision of the strikes as reasons for this. Critics have also raised concerns that the US and its allies are engaging in “lawfare” to legitimise violations of human rights law. As such, some have questioned whether academic engagement with the legal questions surrounding targeted killings amount to collusion with state attempts to legitimise human rights violations. This article will argue that by conceptualising the targeted killings programme as a form of state terrorism, we are better equipped to provide a critical analysis of the drones programme within the context of a long history of violence and terrorism which has underpinned the imperial and neo-imperial projects of the UK and US. The article will then argue that there are important similarities between the targeted killings programme, and previous UK and US counterinsurgency operations, including prior uses of air power, and operations involving the internment of terror suspects, and the targeting of specific individuals for interrogation and torture or disappearance. Common to these programmes is that they are forms of policing aimed at crushing rebellions, stifling disorder and constructing or maintaining particular political economies, through terror. Also common to these programmes are the attempts made either to conceal illicit actions, or in the event they are exposed, to shroud them in a veil of legitimacy. The article concludes by offering some brief reflections on why we should not abandon the quest to resolve the thorny legal questions around the targeted killings programme.     

same-sex weddings,Hindu traditions and modern India

This article examines the phenomenon of same-sex unions, both joint suicides and weddings, mostly among young, low-income, non-English speaking women, that have been reported from many parts of India over the last three decades. Most of the women were Hindus and many of the weddings took place by Hindu rites. None of these women had contact with any LGBT or women's movement or activists before their weddings. Ancient as well as modern texts show that people can and do draw on traditional Hindu ideas about love (as the product of attachments formed in former lives), rebirth (attachments persist from one birth to another) and marriage (which is supposed to outlast one lifetime) to legitimize socially disapproved unions, both cross-sex and same-sex. Right-wing Hindu forces today mistakenly argue that the idea of same-sex love and marriage, and indeed of marriage based on love itself, are Western imports. In fact, same-sex marriages were reported from rural areas and small towns long before the Indian LGBT movement took cognizance of the issue. When families accept them, female couples are generally able to stay together but when families violently oppose them, often with the collusion of local police, couples may be forced to separate or driven to suicide, even though law courts have uniformly upheld the right of consenting adults to live together. Modern Hindu teachers and priests are divided on the question of the validity and desirability of same-sex marriage; a doctrinal debate is now developing.     

Reproduction and Scale: A Response to Skeggs and Wilson

This paper draws on the concepts of reproduction and scale to suggest that Skeggs and Wilson, in their contributions to this issue of Feminist Legal Studies, both identify a future-oriented reworking of historically accumulated value. The spectacular emotional labour of British reality television and the parody of mechanistic labour in Bangkok’s sex shows may be seen as instances in the affective search for future security in transnational markets. Capitalist subjectivities are still being produced through these gendered and sexual activities, but they are being produced with television audiences and sex tourists whose geopolitical baggage becomes part of the show.     

The new enclosures: critical perspectives on corporate land deals

The contributions to this collection use the tools of agrarian political economy to explore the rapid growth and complex dynamics of large-scale land deals in recent years, with a special focus on the implications of big land deals for property and labour regimes, labour processes and structures of accumulation. The first part of this introductory essay examines the implications of this agrarian political economy perspective. First we explore the continuities and contrasts between historical and contemporary land grabs, before examining the core underlying debate around large- versus small-scale farming futures. Next, we unpack the diverse contexts and causes of land grabbing today, highlighting six overlapping mechanisms. The following section turns to assessing the crisis narratives that frame the justifications for land deals, and the flaws in the argument around there being excess, empty or idle land available. Next the paper turns to an examination of the impacts of land deals, and the processes of inclusion and exclusion at play, before looking at patterns of resistance and constructions of alternatives. The final section introduces the papers in the collection.