Affairs of the Heart: Hate Crime and the Politics of Crime Control

Various scholars have noted the priority given to law in the politics of hate violence; violence is the problem and law, more specifically the criminal law, the solution at the ‘heart’ of society. This article seeks to explore some of the gaps and silences in the existing literature and politics that mobilize these ideas and associations. It is the gap sand silences associated with demands for and expectations of criminal justice that will be the particular concern of this article. The demand for law is examined by way of David Garland's recent work on the culture of crime control. His work offers an analysis of the contemporary place of crime control in Anglo-American liberal democracies. A distinctive feature of his analysis is to be found in the way it maps an important paradox of contemporary crime control; its political centrality and an increasing recognition of its limitations. Garland's ‘criminology of the self’ and the ‘criminology of the other’ raise some important challenges for those who advocate resort to crime control. My particular concern is to consider the significance of Garland's work for a contemporary sexual politics that puts violence and criminal justice at the heart of that politics. Feminist, gay and lesbian scholarship first on criminal justice and second, on violence and law will be used to develop a critical dialogue with Garland's analysis and to reflect upon the challenges raised by his insights into contemporary crime control. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Book reviews

Toward a Global Civil Society edited by M. Walzer. Providence, RI and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995. Pp.341. £31. ISBN 1 57181 05 4

Politics UK by Bill Jones, Andrew Gray, Dennis Kavanagh, Michael Moran, Philip Norton and Anthony Seldon. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall, 1998 (3rd edn). £16.50 (paperback). Pp.xiv + 571; index. ISBN 0132696061

Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought by Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. Pp.426. £38 (hardback); £13.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 691 05697 8 and 02919 9

The Rise and Fall of State Socialism: Industrial Society and the Socialist State by David Lane. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996. Pp.viii + 233; index. £45 (hardback); £12.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 74560 742 X and 743 8

Government and Politics in Africa by William Tordoff. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997. Pp.xxii + 326; notes and references; index. £45 (hardback); £14.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 333 69473 2 and 69474 0

Democracy in Zambia: Challenges for the Third Republic edited by Owen Sichone and Bornwell C. Chikulo. Harare: SAPES Books, 1996. Pp.237; index. NP (paperback). ISBN 1 77905 047 X

Mapping the Women's Movement edited by Monica Threlfall. London: Verso/New Left Review, 1996. Pp.vii + 312; index. £44.95 (hardback); £13.95 (paperback). ISBN 1 85984 984 9 and 120 1

Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy by Robert Putnam. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993. Pp.xiii + 258. £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 691037388

Culture and Politics by Oliver H. Woshinsky. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995. Pp.xv + 205; index. £15. ISBNO 13 311366 3

Political Ideas in Modern Britain by Rodney Barker. London: Routledge, 1997 (2nd edn). Pp.352; index; bibliography. £45 (hardback); £14.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 415 161665 and 07121 6     

Contradictions between economic liberalization and democratization: The case of South Korea

This article examines the relationships between economic liberalization and democratization in South Korea. The two processes are often correlated, but in Korea liberalization has been problematic for democratization. Domestic liberalization initially expanded space for labour organizations, but after they appeared to become too active, the process was so managed as to block political activity. This also resulted from pressures brought on by international liberalization, which made competitive wage costs increasingly important and raised the prospect of disinvestment by Korean and foreign firms. Liberalization has not reduced the power of business (the chaebol). Deregulation and privatization have encouraged a transfer of public economic power to the private sector. The increased political role of business is not necessarily beneficial, and the chaebol's economic power represents a threat to democratization in a variety of ways. In previous decades state power rested on economic controls; and the main impetus for democratization has come from the expansion of civil society through economic development, rather than from economic liberalization. State intervention in the economy may continue to be required to protect the position of certain civil society groups and to control business power, but domestic and international liberalization have challenged both of these functions and may increasingly curtail them in the future. Thus, close examination of the specifics of liberalization in South Korea show no automatic positive correlation can be made between economic and political reform without risking either reductionism or reification.     

The ‘basket case’ and the ‘poster child’: explaining the end of civil conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique

Through a comparison of protracted domestic conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique this paper evaluates several standard explanations regarding the roles of leaders, third parties and domestic social forces in resolving or continuing civil wars in Africa. The paper finds that no single account of how peace is achieved is sufficient to explain the continuance of violence in Liberia and the successful attainment of peace in Mozambique. Rather, an explanation that can accommodate the divergent outcomes of conflict in the two countries must combine insights from elite, structuralist and agency‐based approaches. Furthermore, the paper addresses the ways in which the construction of social organisations, particularly women's groups, during wartime affects the direction of donor funding and the shape of reconstruction efforts after the peace is signed. We illustrate our argument by examining the efforts of leaders, third parties and local actors, particularly women, to perpetuate violence or to bring about peace in Liberia and Mozambique, and the gendered contexts in which donor aid is distributed in the postwar period.     

K2 Toxicity: Fatal Case of Psychiatric Complications Following AM2201 Exposure

Limited forensic and clinical experience and the lack of confirmatory testing strategies for synthetic cannabinoids (SC) prevent adequate characterization of SC toxicity and the potential impact on public health. A statewide surveillance system identified a fatality involving a 23‐year‐old man found with a large stab wound to the neck following use of a SC product suspected of containing AM2201. Analytical testing for common SCs, SC metabolites, routine drugs of abuse, and over‐the‐counter medications was performed on heart blood obtained at autopsy. Additionally, assays were performed on the SC raw material and drug paraphernalia found on the decedent. High concentrations of AM2201 were detected in all samples. AM2201 metabolites were detected in postmortem blood. Other than a trace amount of JWH‐073 found in smoke residue, no other substances were detected. Psychiatric complications including self‐induced, lethal trauma can occur after the use of SC products.