A CHAMPION OF GLOBALIZATION

<正>Xi Jinping emphasizes China's global leadership at the Beijing forum By Jon TaylorPresident Xi Jinping's keynote address to the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation laid out a bold vision for a new era of international cooperation by positioning China as a champion of a more inclusive and balanced form of globalization.     

Worlds Apart

正As the G7 falters,the SCO Qingdao Summit offers a new model of regional cooperation On June 9 and 10,the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit was held in Qingdao in east China’s Shandong Province.The leaders of the participating countries released a series of documents codifying     

Reviews and notes

Visions of Emancipation: The Italian Workers’ Movement since 1945, by Joanne Barkan. New York: Praeger, 1984.

Socialism in History: Political Essays of Henry Pachter, edited by Stephen Eric Bronner (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).

The Anatomy of Job Loss: The How, Why and Where of Employment Decline. Doreen Massey and Richard Meegan. (N.Y.: Methuen, 1982. Pp. viii + 258.)

Shutdown at Youngstown: Public Policy for Mass Unemployment. Terry F. Buss and F. Stevens Redburn. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983. Pp. xv + 219.)

The Fight Against Shutdowns: Youngstown's Steel Mill Closing. Staughton Lynd. (San Pedro: Singlejack Books, 1982. Pp. xx + 244.)

Critical Studies in Organization and Bureaucracy. Frank Fischer and Carmen Sirianni, eds. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984.

The Politics of Terrorism. Michael Stohl, ed. 2nd ed., rev. and expanded. New York and Basel: Marcel Dekker, 1983. 473 pp.

The State as Terrorist: The Dynamics of Governmental Violence and Repression. Michael Stohl and George Lopez, eds. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984. 202 pp.     

Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory: A New Synthesis

ABSTRACT

Critical Theory and contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives share many compatibilities in offering a constructive critique of society. Psychoanalysis teaches us that whatever values and ideals societies adopt, they are always mediated through unconscious psychic processes that condition the collective in both positive and negative ways, and in terms of relations of recognition and patterns of social justice. Contemporary critical theory may benefit from engaging post-classical and current trends in psychoanalytic thought that have direct bearing on the ways we conceive of and observe how individuals operate within social collectives. In particular, Axel Honneth relies on psychoanalytic sources that are dated. Critical theory would profit from engaging post-object relations schools such as self psychology, analytical psychology, psychoanalytic intersubjectivity theory, relationality, and contemporary attachment theory that are more nuanced yet can supplement Winnicottian perspectives. Implications for contemporary theory need to reflect upon how the psychosocial matrix of self and society both facilitate and hinder optimal social arrangements and fabrics of justice as it takes up the question of normativity. It is within this context that I hope to introduce contemporary psychoanalytic paradigms that move beyond classical models yet complement redirecting shifts in emphasis both psychoanalysis and Critical Theory attempt to accomplish. I suggest that an applied psychoanalytic explication on social phenomenology can expand the interpretive depth and breadth of human relations and open up a permissible space for interdisciplinary discourse. Here new vistas emerge for a proposed synthesis between the two schools of thought.     

Book reviews

This article addresses the concern that democratization may contribute to the reproduction of neo-patrimonialism, rather than to counteract it. The article reports the result of a survey among members of parliament in Ghana regarding their election campaigns. Total spending, sources of funds, and their usage are analysed in the context of the consolidation of liberal democracy. The survey results are supplemented with data collected in 34 interviews with MPs. The data show that MPs are involved in patron-client relationships to a significant degree to reproduce their political power. Furthermore, the prevalence of patronage politics among MPs in Ghana has increased throughout the period of democratic rule. This persistent pattern of patronage politics threatens the very heart of democratic consolidation. Vertical accountability and legitimacy is threatened by alternative pacts of loyalty, expectations of corruption, and tendencies to delegative mandates. Horizontal accountability risks pervasion by 'big man' interventions, and by insufficient allocation of time to monitoring the government and legislative activities.     

Reform from within: the Grendon example

In Salduz v Turkey (27 November 2008, No. 36391/02), the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) stated:

...in order for the right to a fair trial to remain sufficiently ‘practical and effective’… Article 6 § 1 requires that, as a rule, access to a lawyer should be provided as from the first interrogation of a suspect by the police, unless it is demonstrated in the light of the particular circumstances of each case that there are compelling reasons to restrict this right…The rights of the defence will in principle be irretrievably prejudiced when incriminating statements made during police interrogation without access to a lawyer are used for a conviction.     

False confessions: The relative importance of psychological,criminological and substance abuse variables

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the relative importance of psychological, criminological, and substance abuse variables in differentiating between alleged false confessors and other prison inmates. The participants were 509 inmates newly admitted to all Icelandic prisons over a four-year period. Sixty-two (12%) of the inmates claimed to have made a false confession to the police sometime in the past. A discriminant function analysis was used to identify the variables that best discriminated between the alleged false confessors and the other prison inmates. Out of 17 psychological variables and 16 criminological and substance abuse variables, two variables (number of previous imprisonments and the score on the Gough Socialisation Scale) correctly classified 93% of the non-false confessors and 32.3% of the alleged false confessors, with a total classification rate of 82.7%. The findings suggest that among Icelandic prison inmates, antisocial personality characteristics and the extent and severity of criminal behaviour, as judged by number of previous imprisonments, are the best predictors of offenders claiming to have made a false confession to the police. The implication is that among some prison inmates, making a false confession is a part of their criminal life style.     

Why negotiate a legally binding mercury convention?

The purpose of this paper is to explain how and why consensus was reached on a legally binding approach given the opposition of powerful actors. Why did the United States and key emerging economies change their positions? We apply tools from the regime formation literature—classical perspectives on power, interests and knowledge—and the use of different leadership tools to shed light on the issue. Knowledge-based intellectual leadership was exercised by the UNEP Secretariat, providing new information on the seriousness and scope of the problem. Power-based leadership through unilateral action was provided by the United States. When the United States changed position after change in domestic leadership, political costs increased for other opponents. Finally, interest-based instrumental leadership was provided by many proponents, with UNEP and among others the EU in the lead. Still, conflicts remain on control measures and the form of financial mechanism.