For Safety or Profit? How Science Serves the Strategic Interests of Private Actors

Science is central to the regulation of risk. But who provides the science on which risk regulations are based? Through an in-depth empirical analysis of domestic health and safety standards, this article shows how private actors use scientific information to acquire preferential outcomes. I develop a formal model delineating conditions under which firms will seek stricter standards on their own products, and I reveal how companies can acquire these outcomes through the strategic provision of information. To test the theory, I track changes to U.S. agrochemical standards over a two-decade period. I also introduce firm-level petition data and historical evidence to test the mechanism directly. My findings provide new insight into the strategies companies use to benefit from regulations, while also forcing us to reevaluate what it means for regulations to be based on science.     

Fragility within stability: the state,the clan and political resilience in Somaliland

Abstract

Even in the context of a relatively flourishing state, fragility can be an enduring feature of a political system, particularly in the case of recently established or unrecognised states. This article examines the nature of state-building in a specific context to question the assumption that forms of hybrid governance or pre-existing forms of governance are a necessary evil to be tolerated but which needs ultimately to be overcome during state-building. It does this by adopting the language of resilience and focusing on the case of Somaliland to highlight the role of clan governance as a mechanism of political resilience and as a means of promoting the flexibility required for state-building. Yet, at the same time, the process of state-building often involves formalising governance and limiting the role of traditional social-political forms of governance such as clans, ignoring their role in legitimating and stabilising the political system. However, as this article argues, stability and fragility are inextricably linked; while the clan system has been an important force in stabilising the state, it has also become a pressure point for the state’s latent fragility. By contextualising fragility and stability within the language of resilience, though, this symbiotic relationship can be better analysed.     

Does Medicare Coverage Improve Cancer Detection and Mortality Outcomes?

Medicare is a large government health insurance program in the United States that covers about 60 million people. This paper analyzes the effects of Medicare insurance on health for a group of people in urgent need of medical care: people with cancer. We used a regression discontinuity design to assess impacts of near-universal Medicare insurance at age 65 on cancer detection and outcomes, using population-based cancer registries and vital statistics data. Our analysis focused on the three tumor sites for which screening is recommended both before and after age 65: breast, colorectal, and lung cancer. At age 65, cancer detection increased by 72 per 100,000 population among women and 33 per 100,000 population among men; cancer mortality also decreased by nine per 100,000 population for women but did not significantly change for men. In a placebo check, we found no comparable changes at age 65 in Canada. This study provides the first evidence to our knowledge that near-universal access to Medicare at age 65 is associated with improvements in population-level cancer mortality.     

Scottish legal education after Brexit

ABSTRACT

This paper offers some reflections on the possible consequences of Brexit for legal education in Scotland. Scotland’s small and distinctive legal system is bolstered by devolved legislative powers and characterised by a tradition of openness to external influences. Scotland’s legal system and relatedly, its legal education system, will be poorer for Brexit. That said, this paper argues that the features and traditions of the legal system and legal higher education system in Scotland make them well placed (and perhaps better placed than those in the other domestic jurisdictions) to resist such dampening pressures and indeed to embrace EU legacies and other European and international influences.     

Chick lit politics in a post-truth era: tricksters,blessees and postfeminist girlpower in Angela Makholwa’s The Blessed Girl

The possibility of an emancipated politics in chick lit novels remains a contested question among postfeminist critics. Drawing on definitions of postfeminism as a transnational sensibility, this article examines South African chick lit in relation to what has been termed post-truth or trickster politics in the context of the rise of politicians, such as Donald Trump. I read Angela Makholwa’s novel The Blessed Girl as an example of African chick lit that features a blessee narrator, a young woman who lives a luxurious lifestyle financed by older men, who is deeply influenced by a Trumpian mode of self-making. By employing a trickster aesthetic and narrative strategies, such as unreliable narration and reader address, the novel, I argue, however also unsettles established parameters of neoliberal girlpower, moving beyond its assumed anti-politicalness, as well as a simple understanding of the blessee figure through either a lens of victimhood or amorality.     

The limits of agency: Emily Hobhouse’s international activism and the politics of suffering

Abstract

This article pieces together the activism of the British welfare worker and feminist-pacifist Emily Hobhouse (1860–1926) during two largely unrecorded episodes of transnational activism: firstly, her ministry of Cornish miners in Virginia, Minnesota, in the United States; and secondly, her interventions during the period of reconstruction following the South African War (1899–1902). The article endeavors to contextualize Hobhouse’s activism and offer a broader understanding of the limitations and restraints on her actions. Ultimately, her activism required a platform that was in the gift of political actors and establishment figures, and dependent on fluctuations within specific political and bureaucratic situations. Based on close inspection of undocumented material in both South African and British archives, the article investigates Hobhouse’s repertoire of missionary and philanthropic roles within a wider context of humanitarian politics. It demonstrates how women’s activism and their behind-the-scenes politicking informed political decision-making in modern imperial and international affairs.     

The use of serum protein analysis in the diagnosis of fatal envenomation via Crotalus horridus (timber rattlesnake)

Deaths occurring due to rattlesnake envenomization are extremely rare and must be thoroughly investigated in the same manner as any other type of death. Our research presents the case of an adult white male who suffered a fatal timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) envenomation in northwest Florida in 2018. Blood samples were taken from the decedent's heart and vasculature of the chest and sent for serum proteomic analysis. Serum proteomic analysis was utilized in order to identify proteins from timber rattlesnake (C. horridus) found within the victim's blood. The confirmation of the presence of timber rattlesnake venom within the victim's blood allows the forensic pathologist to determine the cause of death most accurately and likewise, assists with the manner of death determination. Blood samples were separated into two groups: one with the abundant endogenous proteins depleted to facilitate detection of lower abundant proteins and one undepleted. In the depleted sample, a total of 712 proteins were identified, with 47 of the proteins (6.6%) occurring originating from timber rattlesnake (C. horridus). Likewise, a total of 742 proteins were identified in the undepleted sample, with 52 of the proteins (7.0%) occurring in timber rattlesnake (C. horridus). No timber rattlesnake (C. horridus) proteins were found in control human serum.     

Ballistic impact of hollow-point ammunition on porcine bone

Identifying failure mechanisms in skeletal tissue allows a deeper understanding of the effects of specific projectile impacts on bone. While ballistic trauma in flat bones is largely researched, knowledge of how long bones react to gunshot impacts is limited in the literature. The impacts of deforming ammunition appear to produce higher levels of fragmentation; however, these have not been studied in depth. This study compares the damage to femora bone by HP 0.357 and 9 mm projectiles constructed with both full and semi-metal jackets. Impact experiments were undertaken on a single-stage light gas gun involving the use of a high-speed video camera and full reconstruction of the bones to ascertain fracture patterns occurring in the femora. Higher degrees of fragmentation are likened to the presence of semi-jacketed HP projectiles than jacketed HP projectiles. The observations of external facing beveled edges are believed to be associated with the increased separation of the jacket and lead core of projectiles. Additionally, experimentation has shown that the amount of kinetic energy lost postimpact is likely related to the presence or the absence of a metal jacket on an HP projectile. The observed data, therefore, suggest that the composition, rather than the configuration, of a projectile affects the type and extent of the damage.