Shadow values,shadow figures: real violence

How can violence be both a public anathema and a private common place? In order to explore this question, data from the North London Domestic Violence Survey are revisited and the reasons why men justify violence against women investigated. This is related to Sykes and Matza’s dual notions of the techniques of neutralization and subterranean values indicating the potential of this work in understanding domestic violence. Further, this paper confronts recent arguments that estimates relating to the extent and distribution of domestic violence are either too unreliable due to problems of response and differences in defining ‘violence’ or that those figures produced by feminist research arise from a massaging of the data and, as such, exaggerate the risk.     

Gatekeeper persuasion and issue adoption: Amnesty International and the transnational LGBTQ network

Network theory is a valuable tool for understanding how transnational human rights advocacy emerges and develops; how norms become salient; and how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) gain prominence within networks. This article evaluates political network theory through the case study of the transnational lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) advocacy network. Through interviews with key figures at human rights and LGBTQ NGOs, I suggest that the transnational LGBTQ network emerged through contestation with the human rights gatekeeper, Amnesty International, and its US section, AIUSA. This process of contestation would produce a specific type of gatekeeper activism that would become a defining feature of the network. Over time, the network would evolve from a collection of national groups engaging in direct action to a highly professional and international network with a dual focus on movement building in the Global South and the advancement of LGBTQ rights at the United Nations.     

Network Structures: Working Differently and Changing Expectations

There is a growing need for innovative methods of dealing with complex, social problems. New types of collaborative efforts have emerged as a result of the inability of more traditional bureaucratic hierarchical arrangements such as departmental programs to resolve these problems. Network structures are one such arrangement that is at the forefront of this movement. Although collaboration through network structures establishes an innovative response to dealing with social issues, there remains an expectation that outcomes and processes are based on traditional ways of working. It is necessary for practitioners and policy makers alike to begin to understand the realities of what can be expected from network structures in order to maximize the benefits of these unique mechanisms.     

Development in motion: what to think about migration?

Recent interest in migrant remittances as a development resource calls attention to a deeper issue: the relationship between migration and development. Remittances may be a significant source of economic inflows to poor countries and regions, but their actual development impact (positive or negative) is tied to the migration processes that generate them. Attention to migration in turn creates an opportunity to think about the broader context of development policy and practice, and to re-think the boundaries that we put around our work.