Is the internet an instrument of global democratization?

This article explores the hypothesis that people in less democratic nations will use the Internet newsgroups devoted to those countries as a relatively ‘safe’ form of political discussion and even protest. Also, it is expected that nationals of those countries living overseas will use these newsgroups to more openly discuss politics in those nations than they could otherwise do so. Before turning to a content analysis of the messages posted in non‐United States Usenet groups, the number of these groups and the levels of political discussion in them are quantified. The article quantifies the international usage of the Usenet as a first attempt to find some patterns in this usage that may be politically motivated. After all, many pundits imagine that the Internet will become the vaunted ‘global village’ and source of ‘grass‐roots democracy’, and not merely in the United States. An examination of the content of about 2500 messages in 41 Usenet groups then follows, with a view to establishing the following: how many messages are explicitly political; how many are in opposition to the current government; how many are pro‐government; whether they primarily serve as alternative sources of news; whether they are attempts to recruit people in the subject country and around the world into some sort of political action; and whether richer nations are more likely to have higher levels of discussion in their newsgroups than poorer ones. The findings conclude that newsgroups devoted to countries with lower levels of democratization have a much higher percentage of anti‐government messages than the newsgroups about nations that are more democratic.     

China’s rise: what about a transatlantic dialog?

Asia Europe Journal - This essay examines and evaluates China’s global rise and the state of the transatlantic discussions about this issue. Since 2010, the rise of China has been accompanied...     

Competing Narratives in a Case Biography: A Tale of Two Citadels

This article is the fourth in a series introducing the reader to methods and theories relevant to advancing socio-legal research. They are written for the curious rather than the expert reader and provide illustrations of how the theories, methods, and frameworks have been employed and might be used in your work. This article explores the use of case biography methods for socio-legal studies. Drawing on ‘paths to justice’ studies, network analysis, and legal archaeology, we develop a case study of AC v.Berkshire West Primary Care Trust. We show how the judicial determination of the case suppressed a transgender rights narrative construction of the dispute in favour of one about health care law. Our case biography analysis explores how competing narratives can be traced not only through legal argument and literature, but also through the personnel involved, in ways that are obscured by formal records. Paying attention to biographical features leads to a richer understanding of cases, including the importance of pre- and post-judicial decision-making aspects.     

Rethinking Timing of First Sex and Delinquency

The relation between timing of first sex and later delinquency was examined using a genetically informed sample of 534 same-sex twin pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, who were assessed at three time points over a 7-year interval. Genetic and environmental differences between families were found to account for the association between earlier age at first sex and increases in delinquency. After controlling for these genetic and environmental confounds using a quasi-experimental design, earlier age at first sex predicted lower levels of delinquency in early adulthood. The current study is contrasted with previous research with non-genetically informative samples, including Armour and Haynie (2007, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36, 141–152). Results suggest a more nuanced perspective on the meaning and consequences of adolescent sexuality than is commonly put forth in the literature.

Where Do We Go from Here?

The left needs a fundamental rethinking of its politics for a new era. The first task is to understand the contemporary conjuncture: the dynamic combination of events and circumstances which structure a political settlement. Two such conjunctures have occurred in recent history. The first produced the postwar welfare settlement of 1945, which broke down in the economic crisis of the 1970s. The second took shape in the 1980s around the revival of liberal market economics and what became known as Thatcherism. It failed following the 2008 financial crash, and has begun to break apart with the vote to leave the EU. New political and cultural faultlines are confounding the orthodoxies of the governing class and cutting across the partisan loyalties of the main political parties. They herald the renewal of politics. But Labour is on the edge of an abyss. This article considers what the left can learn from Labour's previous periods of defeat and revisionism, and suggests where—if it survives—it should go next.     

Reproducing remoteness? States,internationals and the co-constitution of aid ‘bunkerization’ in the East African periphery

ABSTRACT

The physical and social retreat of international interveners behind the walls of ‘bunkered’ aid compounds in (putatively) more remote and dangerous regions of the South has been the focus of growing critical attention in recent years. An increasingly remote and fearful culture of risk aversion and differentiation among Western states and organizations has been largely identified as the driving force behind this set of practices. This article presents a different perspective on the bunkerization phenomenon through focusing on the agency of Southern states in the process. Exploring bunkerization across eastern/central Africa—and in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region in particular—the study emphasizes not only how African states have been key promoters of modern bunkerization, but also how bunkerization behaviour and mentalities have historically characterized how many African borderlands—and contemporary sites of international intervention—have been incorporated into the global state system.