How the News was Made: The Anti-Social Behaviour Day Count, Newsmaking Criminology and the Construction of Anti-Social Behaviour

‘Newsmaking criminology’ is an approach to criminological research characterised by critical engagement with topics being covered by the news media, offering greater engagement with public debate and reflexive critique of the objects of criminological knowledge. Two examples of Brisith criminological researchers taking an identifiable ‘newsmaking’ approach are discussed in this paper: the Anti-Social Behaviour One Day Count, a 24-h comprehensive survey of reports of anti-social behaviour carried out in 2003, and the 24-h Domestic Violence Audit, carried out in 2000. This paper analyses the construction of knowledge of anti-social behaviour through the Day Count, identifying continuities and discontinuities between the Day Count and the Domestic Violence Audit. This leads to a discussion of the strengths and limitations of the ‘newsmaking’ approach, suggesting that it may serve conservative as well as progressive ends.     

The State,Identity, and the National Question in China and Japan,by Germaine A. Hoston

Abstract

This very dense book represents a significant effort to come to terms with the “national question” in radical discourse—the meaning of the nation in relation to, or in opposition to, the state—through the prism of the adoption of Marxist ideas in China and Japan in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This is a critical problem inasmuch as issues of state-building in China and of state hegemony in Japan have dominated the recent histories of those two countries.     

Averting Environmental Justice Claims? The Role of Environmental Management Systems

Today, more regulatory provisions are in place for protecting low‐income minority populations who shoulder a disproportionate amount of environmental risk. Recognized as communities of “environmental justice,” industrial facilities located within these areas bear greater legal liabilities for and societal scrutiny of their environmental impacts. The authors offer compelling evidence that, in an effort to avoid regulatory and societal claims that they are disproportionately harming minority and ethnic populations, businesses operating inside environmental justice communities tend to adopt an environmental management system (EMS). The article probes whether industries actually improve the environment as a consequence of EMS adoption or whether such systems are simply used to avoid greater governmental scrutiny without necessarily reducing overall environmental risks.     

Patterns of neo‐fascist violence in Italian politics

This paper explores the characteristics and meaning of Fascist violence in Italy during the two major crisis periods that appear to have stimulated it. The pattern of Fascist attacks during the post‐World War I era is compared to acts of Neo‐Fascist violence from the late 1960s through the early 1970s. Substantial differences are disclosed with respect to the targets the Fascists chose to assault in the two eras. Much of the initial wave of Fascist violence was directed against peasants, workers, and the employment‐related organizations that sought to act on their behalf. Major targets of Neo‐Fascist violence, on the other hand, have been university and secondary school students: groups that went totally unscathed in the dopoguèrra. The differences and similarities between the two waves of Fascist violence are then used as evidence to speculate about the nature of fascism in Italy.     

Causes of bewilderment: Necessity,sufficiency and facilitating conditions for democratization

Explanations of democratization are often criticized using criteria that cannot feasibly be satisfied. One possible result of this is that all explanations are made to appear woefully inadequate. Another is the misapplication of the criteria to deliver prejudiced judgement on rival accounts. The problems attached to such criteria are outlined. Replacement strategies adopted by different approaches are identified and assessed, stressing the constructive role that values and interests may play in the appraisal of competing explanations.