Masks,Mingling and Magic: Gibberish Law in the Age of Covid

Liverpool Law Review - The experience of Covid-19 has taught us many things, not least the consequence of what John Milton termed ‘gibberish law’. Law drafted amidst the ‘throng...     

The Role of Competition in Best Value: How Far Does it Differ from CCT?

This article investigates the role of ‘competition’ within Best Value (BV) and compares it with that of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT). Utilising results of a survey of BV lead officers, the article reveals that ‘competition’ is not being used as widely as may have been expected. However, in terms of outcomes, services subject to BV seem to be at least as likely to be provided externally as would have been the case under CCT. Further analysis also considers the impact that party political control and service type have on the use and outcomes of competition.     

Contemporary radical right‐wing violence in Canada: A quantitative analysis

Despite the presence of radical right‐wing movements, groups, and individuals in Canada, a paucity of academic research on this topic exists. Concurrently, the majority of material on this particular area has employed either journalistic or ethnographic methodologies. What remains is several thesi and dissertations and a couple of excellent case studies describing not only membership, but also the most salient activities of radical right‐wing groups and parties. These studies, however, have been short on examining these actors’ proclivity to engage in violence. In contrast, this article, uses an events data methodology to show the dynamics of radical right‐wing violence in Canada over the last three decades. The author then maps out the attributes of this particular type of violence and where possible specifies its correlates. This work is a part of a larger project on violence in Canada.     

Research note: Hypotheses about political terrorism during the gulf conflict, 1990–1991

Based on a review of the literature and a logical deductive approach, the author develops 12 testable research hypotheses in connection with the possibility of oppositional political terrorism during the 1990–91 Gulf Crisis and War. The article represents the foundation of future research on one of most important anomalies of this political crisis.     

Gene Technology,Biological Weapons,and the Security of Science

This article addresses the security challenge posed by laboratory research involving genetic modification of microorganisms that could be applied for both benign and malevolent purposes. The authors propose that, for biological arms control purposes, a global governance culture is required to manage the security risks inherent in such research while minimizing scientific opportunity costs.     

Effect of time and relationships on victim–offender dialogue completion in felony cases

Victim–offender dialogues (VODs) often take place in organizational contexts, the stakeholders of which may very well be interested in measures of program effectiveness such as completion rates. When reported, completion rates typically ranged from 40 to 60%. At the time of this study, Ohio’s VOD program was completing just 25% of initiated cases and program stakeholders were unsure as to the cause(s). An archived data analysis was performed on a sample (n?=?212) of the Office of Victim Services (OVS) completed and will-not-proceed files. One hypothesis and two research questions make use of archived data to explore this felony VOD context. The amount of time between the date the crime occurred and the date on which the dialogue file was initiated was not a significant predictor of dialogue completion. However, both victim-offender’s pre-crime relationship and dialogue file initiator were found to significantly impact dialogue completion rates. These results are considered in light of social exchange and uncertainty reduction theories.     

An investigation into the applicability of the Ward and Siegert Pathways Model of child sexual abuse with Internet offenders

Abstract

This study examined the applicability of the Ward and Siegert (Psychology, Crime & Law, 8, 319–351, 2002) Pathways Model of Sexual Offending to a sample of Internet offenders. The Pathways Model identifies five etiological pathways, each with primary psychological deficits that interact to create a vulnerability to sexual offending behavior. The applicability of this model was tested on a sample of 72 cases drawn from a community sample in England and Wales, via the analysis of primary and associated psychometric indicators of pathway membership. Sixty per cent of men in the sample were found to display dysfunctional psychological mechanisms (43 cases). Two pathways were found to be particularly prominent: the intimacy deficits pathway and the emotional dysregulation pathway. The implications for future treatment and the appropriateness of current treatment programs for this population are examined in the light of these findings.     

Beijing and the Myanmar problem

Abstract

The re-emergence of China as a major economic and political power has drawn attention to the role it might play in solving regional problems. Prominent among many Asian issues on Beijing's agenda is its southwestern neighbour, Myanmar, and in particular the military machine that has long ruled the country with an iron fist. The junta in place today is both acknowledged as problematic by policymakers in Beijing, and seen by the wider world as a regional challenge on which China should take the lead. However, there is little agreement on ways forward. To determine how Beijing might handle the Myanmar problem, this article first examines the concept of intervention, reviewing the manifold modes found in the contemporary world and drawing up a typology. Then it surveys arguments about intervention, focusing on perspectives that are relevant in this context. Next it presents arguments about intervention in Myanmar, and follows up by looking in some detail at China's current low-level engagement. Finally it considers where Beijing might go from here in dealing with Myanmar. The argument pulled together in the conclusion is that while nobody has a full solution to the Myanmar problem, a case for enhancement of China's role can be grounded not only in its global obligations, but also in precepts found deep in its national tradition. It is here that efforts to boost Beijing's engagement should be directed.     

Personality as a vocation: the political rationality of the humanities

In responding to periodic government demands that it provide a rational justification for its activities as a public utility, the humanities academy typically appeals to the absolute ethical and intellectual values of liberal education. This paper investigates the nature of this response and its relation to the governmental field. The historical, ethical and political claims involved in the appeal to liberal education are discussed and rejected. It is argue that the cultivation of personhood has neither a single (‘complete’) from nor a privileged home in the university arts faculty. Weber's sociology of ethical orders is used to frame a discussion of intellectual cultivation as a specific vocation or discipline of life. From Foucault's conception of ‘govermentality’ the paper draws an account of share of political rationality dependent of the historical deployment or particular intellectual and political technologies. The problem of the political rationality rationality of the humanities is then discussed in terms of the unplanned historical convergence of the disciplines of cultivation and the technologies of government¹.     

Bodies,Materials, Practice: Habiting Space and the Representational Limits of Latour's Semiotics of Assemblies

This article identifies an emerging interest in actor-network theory (ANT) within spatial studies and its significance to social semiotics. It questions the usefulness of borrowing ANT for spatial analyses, arguing that ANT is a representational theory of knowledge rooted in a Chomskyan theory of competence and that this produces an impoverished conception of practice within spatial production. To illustrate this contention, a letter describing the Elliott household in 1860s Adelaide is examined as a programme for visiting the Elliott home. A comparison is then made between Latour's programme and Lefebvre's dialectic of spatial production. It is noted that the constituent elements of the programme, association and substitution, are analogous to Lefebvre's concepts of representations of space and representational spaces, respectively. However, since the programme does not offer any corresponding third element to match spatial practice, an ANT-informed interpretation of spatiality is criticised for bifurcating competence from performance and universalising a particular competence.