Anxiety overflow: Implications of the IVF surrogacy case and the ethical and moral limits of reproductive technologies in Britain

The findings of research into a self-help organisation for surrogacy are discussed. Initial theoretical framework of “medicalisation” changed when no evidence to support cooptation was found. Research into the patterns of development of commercial surrogacy revealed expansion in the 1980s, followed by contraction in the 1990s revealing a lack of consensus within patriarchy regarding its implementation. My explanation for this trend and central thesis is, “anxiety overflow.” Recent trends in the National Health Service (NHS) and decisions by the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority are considered, and I suggest that, ethically, morally, and pragmatically, a ceiling has been reached regarding the social acceptability of some contentious technologies. The implications of these findings are used as a backdrop to discuss fears held by some feminists regarding the escalation of techniques used in assisted reproduction.     

Institutional sustainability as learning

How organisations and associations can work together over time to develop new norms and practices which enhance the sustainability of development initiatives is an on-going problem. This article looks at how processes of negotiating shared agendas over the meanings of sustainability, exploring assumptions behind proposed actions, establishing means of accountability, and setting up mechanisms for investigating cause and effect in the processes and outcomes of development programmes can be a source of action-learning. It is argued that such processes of action-learning can help lead to institutional sustainability.     

Is There a Local Dimension to Modern Election Campaigns? Party Activists’ Perceptions of the Media and Electoral Coverage of Canadian Constituency Politics

Modern election campaign studies focus on national dimensions at the expense of attending to local campaigns in legislative elections. This is also true of analyses of media coverage and impact of election campaigns. This paper examines the local dimension of media and election campaigns across a wide range of diverse constituency contexts in Canada in order to identify the political, socioeconomic, and geographic determinants of constituency party associations ability to attract local media attention during an election campaign. We also examine the role of these features of the constituency settings and explain variations in satisfaction with the medias coverage of the local campaign.     

Business offenders in the criminal justice process

How are various types of business offenders treated by criminal justice institutions? Focusing on a range of “crimes against consumers” under Food, Trading Standards, and Weights and Measures laws, this article concludes that a variety of interrelated factors affect agencies' enforcement tactics and the disposition of cases. The nature of the offences involved, the form of law involved and its pattern of enforcement, and the identities and types of offenders all affect the course and outcome of the process. Few neat generalizations can be made about such factors, and simple allegations of agency bias are difficult to sustain. Significant “structural advantages” do, however, work to the benefit of some classes of offenders, such as large and established businesses, and these advantages are compounded as cases move from stage to stage. There are no simple remedies available for such contrasts in treatment, but the analysis does point to the need to consider basic concepts of crime and law enforcement within their ideological contexts.