This is What a Police State Looks Like: Sousveillance, Direct Action and the Anti-corporate Globalization Movement

Activists across the globe have increasingly incorporated digital communication technologies into their repertoire of direct action tactics to challenge state and corporate power. Examining the anti-corporate globalization protests at the September 2009 Group of Twenty (G-20) meetings in Pittsburgh, this paper explores how activists used sousveillance and counter-surveillance as direct action tactics to make excessive force by police more visible to the public. Collaborative endeavors such as the G-20 Resistance Project, the Tin Can Comms Collective and independent media centers provided activists with the necessary tactical and strategic communication networks to coordinate direct actions during the G-20 protests. Through the use of surveillance technologies widely available to the public such as video cameras, cell phones and the internet, activists created an environment of permanent visibility in which the behaviors of police were subjected to public scrutiny. The images captured by anti-globalization activists raises a salient question: Is this what a police state looks like?     

University student beliefs about sexual violence in prison: rape myth acceptance,punitiveness, and empathy

Abstract

The public desires more punitive sentencing for sex offenders; however, treatment has been shown to be most effective in increasing public safety. It has been suggested that public education about the benefits of sex offender treatment could influence public policy. The purpose of this study was to determine if a brief psychoeducational intervention could influence individuals’ attitudes towards the treatment of sex offenders. Overall, findings showed that a psychoeducational intervention can affect subsequent attitudes; furthermore, the nature of the intervention will be significant in determining the level of attitude change.     

Framing the Ghanaian LGBT rights debate: competing decolonisation and human rights frames

This paper investigates how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movements in Ghana, both anti and pro, framed the debate that captured media attention in 2006 and 2011. Decolonisation and human rights frames were appropriated, challenged, and dominated by opponents of LGBT rights, making it difficult for LGBT activists to use them. The opponents' corruption frame overpowered the LGBT activists' preservation frame. When LGBT activists used a human rights frame (comparing sexual minorities to racial minorities and to persons with disabilities), the countermovement appropriated it in a way that excluded same-sex relations by comparing sexual minorities to “deviants”, persons with mental illnesses, and animals. The interaction between the decolonisation and human rights frames was also problematic: the corruption frame not only rendered the LGBT activists' preservation frame nearly useless, but it also made their use of the human rights frame appear to be cultural imperialism and problematised the help they received from international LGBT organisations.     

Of texts and practices: Empowerment and organisational cultures in world bank-funded rural development programmes

The World Bank's recent concern for ‘empowerment’ grows out of longer standing discussions of participation, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society. While commitments to empowerment enter World Bank texts with relative ease, their practice within Bank-funded projects is far more contingent, and the meanings they assume become much more diverse. This paper considers the relationship between such texts and the development practices which emerge, using an analysis of the ‘organisational cultures’ of the Bank and the many organisations on which it depends in the implementation of its rural development programmes. The paper presents a framework for analysing these organisational cultures in terms of (a) the broader contexts in which organisations and their staff are embedded; (b) the everyday practices within organisations; (c) the power relations within and among organisations; and (d) the meanings that come to dominate organisational practice. A case study of a development programme in Bangladesh is used to illustrate the ways in which cultural interactions between a variety of organisations – the World Bank, government agencies, NGOs, organisations of the poor, social enterprises – mediate the ways in which textual commitments to empowerment are translated into a range of diverse practices.     

Challenging The Mandate Of Heaven: Popular Protest in Modern China

Arguing that popular protest has played an unusual role in bestowing political legitimacy in China, this article traces continuities in state responses to protest movements from imperial days to the present. The author compares the government's recent handling of three different types of protest: economically motivated actions by hard-pressed workers and farmers, nationalistically inspired demonstrations by patriotic students, and (at greater length) religiously rooted resistance by zealous believers. The central authorities' tolerance toward localized strikes and tax riots, and their overt encouragement of protests against the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, contrasts sharply with the harsh and unrelenting campaign of repression that has been directed against Falun Gong adherents. Explanations for these variant state responses are sought in historically grounded assessments of the political implications of different types of popular protest.     

Creating Direct Incentives for Wildlife Conservation in Community-Based Natural Resource Management Programmes in Botswana

Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programmes in Botswana were intended to create a wildlife conservation incentive by providing rural communities with tourism rights to wildlife—with limited effect. The 2007 CBNRM policy, increasing central control of CBNRM, is likely to further undermine communities' incentive to conserve wildlife. A complementary conservation corps is needed to create direct incentives to conserve wildlife and to reduce human-wildlife conflict. Responses to contingent behaviour questions indicate broad community support for such a programme and the availability of a suitable labour force willing to work at costs that can be financed from existing CBNRM revenues.     

Public Perceptions of Privatization in Ethiopia: A Case for Public Good or Private Gain?

Ethiopia is one of the many countries in sub-Saharan Africa attempting to privatize various state-owned enterprises since 1994. This study examined public perceptions about Ethiopia's privatization policy and procedures. Results support the concerns over the public's inability to know about, be involved in and comment upon public policies affecting Ethiopia's future. Findings also support the literature that a privatization policy is effective only when institutional and technical capacities for proper implementation are in place. Further, findings raise questions about the efficacy of privatization in a national context where interests may be misrepresented.     

Multichannel Delivery of Public Services: A New and Complex Management Challenge

A strategic challenge facing all governments today is how to deliver services effectively and efficiently. At one time, they thought that they could meet this challenge by exploiting technology and going the E-government route with the promise of single-window, integrated, intelligent service delivery. Very quickly, however, they had to accept the fact that they would have to overcome a multitude of obstacles and that individual and corporate clients often preferred to receive service in traditional ways.

As a result, the delivery of public services is becoming increasingly multichannel: over the counter, by mail and telephone, over the Internet, via text and television, etc. There is therefore a need to identify some kind of model for managing this highly complex new phenomenon effectively and efficiently. By conducting research in the field with the help of case studies and international benchmarking, it was possible to identify the main variables in the degree of effectiveness and efficiency of multichannel public service delivery and develop the outline of a model representing the underlying factors.     

A Qualitative Study of Undergraduates’ Conceptualizations of Mental Illness

This qualitative study examined three stigma reduction interventions against mental illness stigma: education, video, and contact. Undergraduates (N = 69) in three introductory psychology classes from a small, Catholic, liberal arts university in the northeast United States participated. Responses to two open-ended questions revealed common negative and stereotypical themes associated with mental illness. The benefits of supplementing traditional social distance measures with a qualitative approach, as well as the importance of considering a social developmental approach to stigma education are discussed.     

Do Perceptions of Ballot Secrecy Influence Turnout? Results from a Field Experiment

Although the secret ballot has been secured as a legal matter in the United States, formal secrecy protections are not equivalent to convincing citizens that they may vote privately and without fear of reprisal. We present survey evidence that those who have not previously voted are particularly likely to voice doubts about the secrecy of the voting process. We then report results from a field experiment where we mailed information about protections of ballot secrecy to registered voters prior to the 2010 general election. Consistent with our survey data, we find that these letters increased turnout for registered citizens without records of previous turnout, but they did not appear to influence the behavior of citizens who had previously voted. The increase in turnout of more than three percentage points (20%) for those without previous records of voting is notably larger than the effect of a standard get‐out‐the‐vote mailing for this group. Overall, these results suggest that although the secret ballot is a long‐standing institution in the United States, beliefs about this institution may not match the legal reality.