Connecting models of the individual and policy change processes: a research agenda

Policy Sciences - This article proposes that closer attention to models of the individual provides substantial theoretical and empirical leverage to policy studies scholars. Capturing the nuances...     

Human Values and Sophistication Interaction Theory

Political Behavior - Political sophistication systematically affects the structure, crystallization, and use of political values, but it remains unclear if sophistication manifests similar effects...     

Harm,Consent and the Limits of Privacy

Within the context of U.K. law, the right to respect for private life, articulated in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and acknowledged more opaquely in domestic legislation and case law, is one whose scope is unclear. Nowhere is this brought into sharper relief than in cases where conduct which manifests a person’s sexual identity, or concerns her intimate relations with others, is prima facie criminal. In this essay I attempt, through a discussion of cases in which injury is caused in the context of relationships experienced inter-subjectively as private, to explore the contexts in which the law is prepared to legitimate that inter-subjective experience, and where it is not. Using cases in which injury has been caused purposively (in S/M sex), and incidentally (through the reckless transmission of HIV during sexual intercourse), the essay argues that the law is prepared to respect the right to respect for private life only in so far as the private life concerned is one which reinforces traditional gender roles and relationship types; in short, a life that one would be prepared to live publicly.     

Containing Conflict or Instigating Unrest? A Test of the Effects of State Infrastructural Power on Civil Violence

Several scholars argue that state infrastructural power affects the likelihood of civil violence yet make competing claims. Some propose that states with high levels of infrastructural power instigate violence by reducing local autonomy, while others suggest infrastructural power endows states with the capacity to contain civil violence. We test these claims using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Through a pooled time-series analysis of 32 former British colonies, we find that infrastructural power is not significantly related to civil violence, suggesting either that infrastructural power has no effect or no net effect. Then, through case studies of Burma and Botswana, we investigate the impact of infrastructural power on civil violence, focusing on mechanisms and causal conditions. The case studies provide evidence that infrastructural power produces competing mechanisms that negate any net effect and that different conditions and policies affect whether a state’s level of infrastructural power contains conflict or instigates unrest.     

Achieving behaviour change: Three generations of HIV/AIDS programming and jargon in Thailand

NGOs have played an important role worldwide in the fight to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS through achieving behaviour change. NGOs have often been at the forefront of innovative changes, influencing government and international programming activities. This paper identifies and analyses the evolution of the HIV/AIDS programmes of one NGO in Thailand over a period of ten years. Three generations of programming are identified both through distinct approaches to this area of work and through the changing jargon used to describe the people the programmes are aimed at.     

Work-Product Protection and Experts' Documents: The Ninth Circuit Strengthens the “Because of” Standard and Extends Protection to Dual Purpose Documents

Since the Supreme Court applied the work-product privilege to documents created by an attorney's representatives, so long as the documents were created in anticipation of litigation, the lower courts have attempted to interpret this application. The various circuit courts have addressed this issue as it relates to documents serving both litigation and nonlitigation purposes. Most recently, in November 2003 the Ninth Circuit joined the First, Second, Third, Seventh, Eighth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits when it adopted the rule that an expert's documents may be protected when they are prepared “because of the prospect of litigation.” In contrast, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Circuits, Tenth and D.C. District Courts have constructed a stricter interpretation. Further, the Ninth Circuit's recent holding in United States v. Torf (In re: Grand Jury Subpoena) 350 F. 3d 1010 (9th Cir. 2003) sheds some more light on the scope of the work-product protection as it applies to environmental consultant's documents created in anticipation.     

The Challenge of Funding Consensus-Building Processes

Negotiation Journal -