A weak pillar for American national security: The CIA's dismal performance against WMD threats

American preemptive or preventive military action against WMD-armed adversaries in the future will simply not be feasible without high-quality and timely intelligence. But is American intelligence up to this load-bearing task for the post-11 September national security? This article surveys the Central Intelligence Agency's record of gauging potential WMD threats for more than a decade and assesses its overall performance as dismal. The CIA's recent intelligence debacle against Iraq was one of the greatest in a long series of failures that has publicly exposed the Agency's profound weaknesses. These intelligence failures were due in large measure to the CIA's poor human intelligence collection and shoddy analysis, areas that cannot be remedied alone by the creation of the new Director of National Intelligence post. This article recommends steps needed to increase the quality of intelligence produced by CIA, or elsewhere in the new intelligence community, to move American intelligence in lockstep with military transformation to give the Commander-in-Chief realistic options for countering hostile nation-states or terrorist groups seeking or acquiring WMD.     

American diplomatic realism: A tradition practised and preached by George F. Kennan

George F. Kennan's work remains pertinent to the contemporary debate over American foreign policy in which voices calling for a realistic conduct of American diplomacy have been faint. Kennan's thought contains a framework that can be used to examine critically the drift in American diplomacy from the realist assumptions held by the American Founding Fathers towards the liberal or Wilsonian school of international relations. Wilsonianism has seized the world view of contemporary American diplomats and statesmen, particularly during the Clinton administration. Kennan's analysis provides a salutary word in the debate over the course of post‐Cold War American foreign policy that takes Wilsonian assumptions for granted.     

State of the world 2018: democracy facing global challenges*

This article analyses the state of democracy in the world in 2018, and recent developments building on the 2019 release of the V-Dem dataset. First, the trend of autocratization continues and 24 countries are now affected by what is established as a “third wave of autocratization”. Second, despite the global challenge of gradual autocratization, democratic regimes prevail in a majority of countries in the world (99 countries, 55%) in 2018. Thus, the state of the world is unmistakably more democratic compared to any point during the last century. At the same time, the number of electoral authoritarian regimes had increased to 55, or 31% of all countries. Third, the autocratization wave is disproportionally affecting democratic countries in Europe and the Americas, but also India’s large population. Fourth, freedom of expression and the media, and the rule of law are the areas under attack in most countries undergoing autocratization, but toxic polarization of the public sphere is a threat to democracy spreading across regimes. Finally, we present the first model to predict autocratization (“adverse regime transitions”) pointing to the top-10 most at-risk countries in the world.     

Does Training and Documentation Improve Emergency Department Assessments of Domestic Violence Victims?

This study aimed to determine whether training and documentation led to improved assessment of female victims of assault due to domestic violence presenting to an emergency department. Eighty clinical records were audited using a valid and reliable audit tool over four time periods for variables including history, risk assessment, and examination. Documentation differed across the four groups (p?=?0.011). Between group analysis found there was a difference (p?=?0.055) between Groups 1 (before training) and 2 (after training), and Group 3 (with a specialist form in place), and there was a difference (p?=?0.009) between Groups 1 and 4 (8 years later). Training alone did not lead to change. Introducing specialist documentation with training was associated with an improvement in the standard of clinical assessment of female victims of assault due to domestic violence and this change increased over time.     

Stressful Life Experiences and Peer Externalizing Behaviors Mediate the Relation Between Reduced Family Support and Externalizing Symptoms in Low-Income Urban Youth

Family support, urban stressors, and peer behavior were examined in relation to externalizing symptoms in 605 predominantly low-income urban sixth through eighth grade adolescents. Mother and father support were each associated with lower levels of externalizing symptoms in both males and females. For males, father absence was associated with increased peer externalizing behavior and heightened rates of youth externalizing symptoms. Stress (in the form of major life events, daily hassles, and exposure to violence) and peer externalizing behavior were examined as mediators of the relation between parent support and youth externalizing symptoms. Increased stress exposure mediated the relation between weak mother and father support and youth externalizing symptoms. Additionally, for females, peer externalizing behavior mediated the relation between weak mother support and youth externalizing symptoms.     

Trust, Distrust and Betrayal: A Social Housing Case Study

This paper discusses the importance of trust, distrust and betrayal in the context of relational contracts in the modern welfare state. We use a specific case study of the allocation of social housing. That context is one in which the local authority has statutory obligations towards households in housing need but limited ability to fulfil those obligations without reliance on other social housing providers, specifically registered social landlords. Relationships between providers are, in theory, negotiated through nominations agreements. In this paper, we draw on data from a research project concerned with 'problematic nominations' to illustrate the production of trust, distrust and betrayal. Our analysis is structured by reference to three frameworks for the production of trust: characteristic-based, process-based and institutional based trust.     

Does Ambivalent Sexism Influence Verdicts for Heterosexual and Homosexual Defendants in a Self-Defense Case?

The current research examined the role of defendant and participant sex, presence or absence of expert testimony of the “battered person syndrome”, and sexual orientation of the defendant on perceptions of guilt in a self-defense case. The role of sexism in judgments of culpability was also examined. A sample of 442 participants read a self-defense case scenario and responded to questions pertaining to verdict, defendant culpability, legal element ratings, and sexist attitudes. Results revealed a four-way interaction, showing female participants prescribed the lowest guilt ratings to heterosexual female and homosexual male defendants who received expert testimony of the battered person syndrome. When heterosexual male defendants received expert testimony, ratings of guilt significantly increased. A multiple regression was conducted to determine whether legal and extra-legal factors predicted defendant culpability. Sexist attitudes (benevolent sexism towards men and women) and certain legal elements were predictive of defendant culpability. Limitations and implications are discussed. Study findings were presented in a poster at the annual meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society (APLS), Jacksonville, Florida (March, 2008).     

‘A Figure of Annihilated Human Existence’: Agamben and Adorno on Gesture

In this paper, I consider Giorgio Agamben’s essays on gesture, and the loss of gesture, in relation to Theodor Adorno’s account of gesture given in his work on Kafka. I argue that both share an account of gesture as an involuntary, yet non-intentional figure of a generalised destruction of experience. However, in their respective accounts of an emphatic possibility that can be located in the loss of gesture, Agamben and Adorno move in fundamentally different philosophical directions. For Agamben, the loss of gesture opens up the possibility of a space of existing within the pure possibility of speaking itself. For Adorno, the loss of gesture returns us to a reified embodiment that can nevertheless image the possibility of a different way of relating to materiality. I argue that, in the attempt to immanently construct forms of resistance within a generalised destruction of experience, Agamben’s articulation of an absolute gesturality tends towards an immuring of the subject within the repetitive space of what Adorno terms ‘objectless inwardness’. Although Adorno’s account of gesture and its relation to metaphysics and politics is equally problematic in many ways, I argue that his account of a metaphysical experience that appears within alienated gestures offers the possibility for moving beyond the destruction of experience.