Genetic citizenship: DNA testing and the Israeli Law of Return

The Israeli State recently announced that it may begin to use genetic tests to determine whether potential immigrants are Jewish or not. This development would demand a rethinking of Israeli law on the issue of the definition of Jewishness. In this article, we discuss the historical and legal context of secular and religious definitions of Jewishness and rights to immigration in the State of Israel. We give a brief overview of different ways in which genes have been regarded as Jewish, and we discuss the relationship between this new use of genetics and the society with which it is co-produced. In conclusion, we raise several questions about future potential impacts of Jewish genetics on Israeli law and society.     

Between collective action and a fragmented political economy: the G20 and the return of protectionist impulses

Not unlike the 1930s, the current state of global economic governance is marked by a vacuum of leadership as neither traditional leading states nor emerging economic actors have proven able or willing to coordinate collective action. This interregnum has allowed space for the G20 to emerge as a calibrating force for the maintenance of a liberal economic order. Protectionist impulses, however, are increasingly emerging victorious as unemployment and domestic interests drive political action. The stabilizing presence of the G20 is thus tested in an environment privileging divisive domestic-oriented forces allowed greater space under conditions in a fragmented post-hegemonic global economy. These spaces for domestic concern, and the receptiveness of policy leaders to them, represent a return to the promise of embedded liberalism and away from the era of hyper-liberalization that has marked the past several decades of broadly measured economic growth.     

Global journalism studies: Beyond panoramas

Abstract

This article examines the challenges that the accelerated globalisation of the media industry pose to journalism education and research, with a particular focus on journalism studies in the global South. Through references to key features of recent debates in the field of journalism studies, the article argues for the adoption of a critical perspective on global journalism studies in research and teaching, the integration of that perspective across journalism curricula and research agenda, and a reflexive and inclusive view of the relationship between global journalism and new media technologies.     

The Approved Narrative of the Srebrenica Massacre

The Srebrenica massacre has taken on both symbolic and mythical properties, all in the service of political agendas. The symbol is of Serb evil, manifested in an alleged cold-blooded and unprovoked massacre of innocents reminiscent of Nazi behavior during World War II. The myth is that 8000 Bosnian Muslim “men and boys” were executed in the vicinity of Srebrenica in July 1995, and that any executions there were unprovoked and carried out in accord with a genocidal plan. Both facts and language have had to be aggressively massaged to support these claims. The political agendas served by the massacre claims were those of the Bosnian Muslims, striving to get NATO to enter the Bosnian struggle more actively, the Croats, who needed a demonization of Serbs to carry out their own ethnic cleansing plans (most notably, removing 250,000 Serbs from Croatian Krajina in the very next month, August 1995), and the Clinton administration, under attack for a failure to intervene more actively on behalf of the Croats and Muslims and searching for an excuse to do so.This paper is partly drawn from and cites chapters in a forthcoming book on the Srebrenica massacre, Srebrenica: The Politics of War Crimes, written by George Bogdanich, Tim Fenton, Philip Hammond, Edward S. Herman, Michael Mandel, Jonathan Rooper, and George Szamuely. This book is referred to in the notes below as Politics of War Crimes. The author and his colleagues are indebted to Diana Johnstone, David Peterson, Vera Vratusa-Zunjic, Milan Bulajic, Milivoje Ivanisevic, Konstantin Kilibarda, and George Pumphrey for advice. Johnstone’s Fools Crusade is a fine basic statement of an alternative perspective on the Balkan Wars; George Pumphrey’s “Srebrenica: Three Years Later, And Still Searching,” is a classic critique of the establishment Srebrenica massacre narrative and repeatedly hit the target with facts and analyses still not rebutted.     

Dependency or Institutions? Economic Geography, Causal Mechanisms, and Logic in the Understanding of Development

What explains the global distribution of growth and economic activity? Proponents of unit-level explanations dismiss systems-level arguments like dependency and world systems theory for logically incorrect reasons. They argue that these system-level arguments lack the precise mechanisms that various unit-level arguments provide. But the absence of precise system-level causal mechanisms in some system-level theories does not logically imply that all system-level theories are wrong. Economic geography provides system-level theories with precise mechanisms that comport with most of the economic predictions offered by dependency theories. This does not mean that unit-level theories are either wrong or useless, but rather that unit-level explanations must (1) claim that the new economic geography is totally wrong, or (2) show how system and unit-level mechanisms interact causally, or (3) argue that unit-level mechanisms are independent of system-level causal mechanisms.     

Antipodean dilemmas

Nicky Hager, Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network (Nelson, New Zealand: Craig Potten, 1996). Pp.299, index. NP. ISBN 908802–35–8.     

Retrieval of analytical data and substance identification in systematic toxicological analysis by the mean list length approach

Chromatographic techniques are basic tools in systematic toxicological analysis. Extensive data bases with retention parameters of known drugs to aid in the identification of substances found are available or in preparation. For a search in such a data base the computer is indispenable. The commonly used window search has some disadvantages which can be overcome by a search based on the statistical concept, the mean list length. The latter retrieval system gives for each candidate in the identification process a probability value. It is shown that these probability values are highly influenced by the reproducibility of the retention parameters of the analytical systems used. Explanations for these phenomena are given.     

PUBLIC ENTERPRISE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, AND THE IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION: THE EXPERIENCE OF AMERICAN SEAPORTS ON THE PACIFIC RIM

Port authorities perceive their ideas as broadly supportive of regional economic development and are strongly associated with chambers of commerce, economic development agencies and growth oriented citizens groups. However, shifts in American foreign trade and the use of new technologies atid environmental regulation have dramatically changed the seaport industry over the last 15 years. As public enterprises, many ports responded to the new competitive markets by developing efficient but capital intensive container technologies. Environmental regulation also had a role in stimulating more efficient use of port lands. Although frequently viewed as a road block to all development plans, the intergovernmental review processes may have helped turn ports away from their traditional patterns of land expansion development and toward redevelopment of existing facilities. With the constraint of greatly reduced expansion opportunities. the enterprising ports figured out they could greatly increase cargo handling capacity without enacting the wrath of environmental quality interests. This paper examines this contention with both economic logic and inferential data.