And the clocks were striking thirteen: The termination of war

Military analysts have focused on the problems of war initiation and conduct while largely ignoring the problem of how to terminate war on acceptable terms. This paper attempts to define the necessary conditions for war termination and proposes a framework for assessing alternative strategies.Deterrence and limited war theories suggest three war termination strategies: (1) attrition of warfighting capabilities; (2) protracted stalemate; and (3) coercive threats of unacceptable damage. A review of recent armed conflicts indicates the limitations on effective pursuit of these strategies and reveals an alternative formulation of the conditions necessary for effective war termination strategies. Based on these notions, current U.S. force posture and force employment doctrines are evaluated in terms of their consistency with war termination requirements. Finally, an agenda of issues related to the development of war termination strategies is proposed.     

Promoting Accountability in Municipalities

Local government financial reporting reforms in Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s were promoted on the basis of usefulness for decision making and for enhanced accountability purposes. Persistent criticisms of these reforms continue to be made, including those made by councillors and other ratepayers who often appear to find such information to be too narrow, too complex and often bewildering. A case is made for rethinking the present mentality, requirements and practices, especially with respect to the contrived recognition of ‘community assets’. Instead, an emphasis is placed on advancing broad‐scope accountability and meaningful financial reporting. To this end, the disclosure of a set of factual, reliable and interpretable indicators is proposed to enable a broader, more functional notion of accountability to be applied in Australian local government within prevailing social and organisational contexts. This contribution seeks to present a series of views, questions and proposals that are strictly concerned with ‘promoting accountability in municipalities’ (PAM).     

Workplace Violence: Examining Interpersonal and Impersonal Violence among Truck Drivers

Employees who work alone are at greater risk of workplace violence. One of the higher‐risk lone worker occupations in North America is truck driving. Drawing on interviews with 158 truck drivers across the United States and Canada, this article examines how truck drivers interpret and experience both interpersonal and impersonal forms of workplace violence. Rather than rely on police enforcement and safety regulations, the truck drivers in this study believed that they were primarily on their own with regard to workplace violence. As a result, truck drivers described how they continually engage in informal personal safety strategies in order to decrease their chances of being victimized. These findings reveal how neoliberal responsibilization approaches to health and safety serve to conceal structural patterns of power and risk by containing individual responsibility for safety at the frontline. Overall, this study points to the need for law and policy to better incorporate the frontline experiences of workers when attempting to decrease the risk of workplace violence.