Hooks down! Anti-apartheid activism and solidarity among maritime unions in Australia and the United States*

Our research compares and contrasts the transnational activism of maritime unions in Australia and the United States in what became the first and longest example of global solidarity in the post-World War II era – the anti-apartheid movement. Dockworkers, with a deep history of solidarity, occupied a strategic position to exert real influence on the South African state by refusing to unload South African cargo. We analyze the actions of the Waterside Workers’ Federation (WWF) in Australia and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in the US, namely by exploring notions of solidarity and political unionism among marine transport workers, ideological motivations for solidarity activism, ethnic and race relations among workers, and labor connections these maritime unions made beyond the waterfront. We find and account for similarities and differences in Australian and US labor activism that often is underrepresented and incompletely explained in the literature.     

Cultural encounters: learning from cross-disciplinary science and development practice in ecosystem health

Overcoming challenges to ecosystem health calls for breaking down disciplinary and professional barriers. Through reflection on a research and development project to address pesticide-related concerns in northern Ecuador, this article presents challenges encountered and accommodations made, ranging from staff recruitment, through baseline assessments and community education activities, to mobilising for policy change. In so doing, it exposes underlying problems of paradigm and process inherent in bringing researchers and development practitioners together, in addition to the problematic role of advocacy that is associated with joint research and development initiatives in the fields of agriculture and health.     

Science and the Death Penalty: DNA, Innocence, and the Debate over Capital Punishment in the United States

The death penalty debate in the United States has recently undergone a fundamental shift. The possibility of executing the innocent has emerged as some abolitionists' most salient argument, displacing debates over such issues as fairness, deterrence, and cost. Innocence has managed to move to the fore of the debate in part because of the success of death penalty opponents in attaching epistemological certainty to one particular category of postconviction exonerations, those vouched for by the authority of DNA evidence. We suggest that such moves are primarily rhetorical because, while DNA evidence may be more accurate and reliable than other forensic science, it still fundamentally probabilistic in nature and is prone to uncertainties at all stages of its production. Yet, because of the certainty attached to DNA evidence in public discourse, it can be used as a lever with which to challenge law's claims to truth-making authority, and to undermine public trust in the death penalty. A few abolitionists and other scholars have expressed misgivings about the abolitionist embrace of the innocence argument. We push this concern further, suggesting that both abolitionists and death penalty reformers, who seek to promote a "scientific" death penalty centered on DNA evidence, draw upon a mythologized notion of "science" as a producer of epistemic certainty.     

Small but Significant: Why Small Parties Benefit from a Presidentialised German Party System

Poguntke and Webb suggest a trend toward the presidentialisation of modern democracies. Small parties would seem to be disadvantaged by presidentialisation, given a traditional lack of emphasis on personalities in their governing and campaign styles. This study attempts to show that smaller parties in the Federal Republic are actually advantaged by presidentialisation as the policy convergence of the larger CDU and SPD coupled with declining levels of partisanship in the electorate have made smaller parties more relevant in the politics of the Federal Republic.     

The Health Action Zone Initiative: Lessons from Plymouth

The article considers the impact of the Health Action Zone (HAZ) in Plymouth through a theory-based evaluation that combines theories of change and realistic evaluation. The study assesses the impact of 37 projects sponsored by this HAZ. The extent to which these projects used a realistic evaluation/theories of change framework and achieved their objectives are evaluated. The impact of these projects on the three main objectives of Plymouth HAZ – developing partnership working; modernising the care system; and tackling health inequalities – is assessed and explanations for the success or failure of specific projects are identified.     

The New Governance of French Education?

This article contributes to ongoing debates in comparative public administration through exploring the governance paradigm in the unfavourable empirical terrain of French education. After identifying potentially relevant features of governance, we investigate changing patterns of policy-making in French education at macro, meso and micro levels. Extrapolating research findings from extensive interviews and participant observation at ministerial meetings, we conclude the existence of a French-style governance that operates within distinctive ideational and institutional environments and interest structures. The article emphasizes the importance of historical and institutional traditions in framing the available pathways of governance.