Contrary Siblings: Syria,Jordan and the Iraq War

Jordan and Syria, severed parts of the same country, were in many ways ‘siblings’: their systemic situation, as economically weak small states surrounded by more powerful enemies, was similarly vulnerable; their leaders at the time of the Iraq War were of a similar ‘modernising’ generation; the identities of their populations were similarly Arab-Islamic. Yet, they followed diametrically opposite policies toward the invasion of Iraq: Jordan bandwagoning with the United States and Syria defying it. This contrary behaviour is explained by their differential experiences of state formation and the differing social forces incorporated and identities institutionalised in Ba'thist Syria and Hashemite Jordan.     

Vulnerability in Clinical Research with Patients in Pain: A Risk Analysis

Some have characterized patients living with intractable pain as a vulnerable population in both clinical and research settings. Labeling the population as vulnerable, however, does not provide clarity regarding the potential risks that they face when they participate in research. Instead, research vulnerability for patients in pain is a function of an interaction between their pain conditions and elements of the research enterprise. Therefore, the identification of potential risks requires consideration not only of characteristics of patients with chronic pain, but also consideration of features of researchers, the quality of institutional oversight, and the medical/social environment within which the research is conducted. This paper provides an analysis of those risks and provides some suggestions as to how the risks might be better managed.     

Management of Transnational Think Tank Networks

Transnational networks of think tanks are a new and growing phenomenon. Existing networks can be classified into three groups depending on their primary goal, incentives they give for think tanks to participate, basis for membership, and the degree of network coherence. This paper examines eight specific tasks that managers of think tank networks must address and how the tasks differ according to the four characteristics of the network just listed.     

The referral decision scale

We examined the validity of the Referral Decision Scale (RDS), a test designed to screen for mental disorder in jail inmates, in a sample of 790 men admitted to an urban pretrial jail. Our results indicated that, in general, the RDS had excellent reliability and acceptable validity as a screening measure for serious mental disorder in jail settings, despite making a large number of false positive errors relative to both contemporaneous and subsequent assessments of mental disorder. Although the RDS is well suited for use in research, more information is needed before the test is used for clinical purposes. We discuss some potential problems with the use of the RDS in correctional systems.     

Non-governmental Organizations and Governmentality: 'Consuming' Biodiversity and Indigenous People in the Philippines

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are playing an increasingly important role in the process Foucault called 'governmentality'. Drawing on the Foucauldian literature, this paper uses a case study of biodiversity conservation as well as indigenous people's ancestral domain in the Philippines to show how two quite different NGO-led conservation agendas nonetheless share a common underlying purpose: persuading indigenous people to internalize state control through self-regulation. Ironically, it is this sort of NGO contribution to the elaboration of government (in the Foucauldian sense) that may turn out be the most significant and lasting contribution that NGOs make to social change.