The nexus between vulnerabilities and violence in the Caribbean*

Abstract

This article analyses the nexus between the Caribbean’s manifold vulnerabilities and the direct and structural violence evident throughout the region’s history. It argues that Caribbean states are threatened not only by direct violence but also by the structural violence permeating in impoverished and marginalised sectors of the state–society complex. Both forms of violence are attributable to the historical legacy of colonisation, to US paternalism and hegemonic dominance in the post-colonial era, and to the persistence of the coloniality of power, even after Caribbean states won their independence from European imperial powers. Today, the region is, per capita, one of the most violent areas on the globe. Evidence of concatenated violence is growing across this region, demonstrating the difficulty small underdeveloped states have in addressing threats to their security, independence, economic viability, and continued existence in the intermestic environment within which they operate.     

Global Health Diplomacy as a Tool of Peace

There is no question that peace and health are inextricably linked. War affects human health through the direct violence of military arms and through the structural violence that leads to major interruptions of the socio-economic systems people use to address their health needs. Those disruptions are compounded by natural disasters and manifold vulnerabilities that force countries to divert economic resources from health services. Clearly war and violence are a public health concern. We argue here that not only can health be a bridge to peace, but as well, what the world is witnessing now is the emergence and growth of health diplomacy which can potentially become a robust medium for strengthening that nexus between health and peace.     

Postmodern Professions? The Fragmentation of Legal Education and the Legal Profession

This article considers the institutional dimensions of professionalism and the legal profession's struggle with the challenges of post-modernity. An aspect of this is the Law Society's Training Framework Review (TFR) which promises changes to solicitors' education from 'cradle to grave'. The first part of the article analyses the structure and drivers of the TFR, their origins, and how they will be articulated. Secondly, the TFR is considered in the context of the political economy of higher education and its role in the new capitalism. Finally, we examine the potential effects of the TFR for the legal profession in the context of increasing practice segmentation and the threat of deprofessionalization, and also for the Law Society itself, whether it can retain a key role in the life course of the legal profession.     

Social Context and Campaign Volatility in New Democracies: Networks and Neighborhoods in Brazil's 2002 Elections

In new democracies party systems are often young, so partisan cues and roots in the electorate tend to be weak. The results, in many instances, include volatile campaigns with comparatively high degrees of short-term preference change among voters. We explore the mechanisms of voter volatility and, more broadly, the ways in which citizens learn about issues and candidates in weak-party systems. We claim that citizens in such settings rely heavily upon persuasive information gathered from their immediate social contexts. Utilizing a unique panel survey implemented during Brazil's historic 2002 presidential election, we demonstrate the importance of political discussion within social networks and neighborhood context for explaining preference change during election campaigns. We also demonstrate the concrete political consequences of social context by showing how candidate momentum runs can be driven by waves of discussion.     

Psychopathy among condemned capital murderers

Psychopathy is an important forensic mental health construct. Despite this importance, the research base of psychopathy among individuals convicted of capital murder is limited. Archival data were collected from a sample of 636 persons convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in the State of California. Psychopathy was assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R) instrument. Data on criminal careers and other behavioral disorders were also extracted. The sample mean PCL-R total score was 23.31 (SD = 9.92) and one-third of individuals in this sample were considered clinically psychopathic with PCL-R total scores of 30 or greater. Factor analytic examination yielded support for four facets: affective, interpersonal, lifestyle, and antisocial. Criterion validity findings revealed positive correlations of psychopathy scores with Antisocial Personality Disorder (ρ = 0.72), Conduct Disorder (ρ = 0.46), sexual sadism (ρ = 0.24), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ρ = 0.20), ADHD (ρ = 0.15), arrest charges (r = 0.56), prison sentences (r = 0.53), and age of arrest onset (r = −0.57). Individuals convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death reflect heterogeneity in psychopathy with some individuals exhibiting pronounced psychopathic features.     

Reputation management as an interplay of structure and agency: A strategic-relational approach

Reputation scholars in the field of regulation tend to focus on the strategic nature—or: “agency”—of reputation management. We know fairly little about the precise nature of the dynamics and conflicts between structural and agential factors that are experienced by regulators in practice, and how these dynamics impact reputation management and its outcomes. This study addresses these questions, using conceptual language from the strategic-relational approach to study the reputation management of the Belgian financial regulator during an event of high reputational salience: the global financial crisis. The results present an image of a regulator as a strategic actor who—either consciously or more intuitively—calculated its possible moves in light of a strategically selective context (which, in turn, was constantly evolving as a result of strategic actions). This contributes to a more complex and behaviorally realistic understanding of regulatory reputation management.     

Vacant But Not for Sale

Housing market speculation in previous years has resulted in anempty apartmentphenomenonhouses and apartments are purchased as investments but left unoccupied.Various Chinese media outlets reported that about 64.5 million urban electricity meters read zero in the first six months of this year in empty apartments across the country.     

The World Bank,neo-liberalism,and power: Discourse analysis and implications for campaigners

This article examines why the World Bank adopted neo-liberal economic policies. It argues that neo-liberal discourse favoured the interests of key Northern actors, and, more surprisingly, that it also allowed many Southern state actors to maintain or extend their political power. This is because World Bank discourse offers little or no political analysis of the state, instead focusing on 'technical' issues of economic adjustment. While there may now be a certain shift in World Bank discourse towards somewhat greater acceptance of a role for the state, there is still a widespread absence of political analysis, which means that dominant power relations will still not be fundamentally acknowledged or challenged.