Money,Mortgages, and the Conquest of America

In colonial America, land acquired new liquidity when it became liable for debts. Though English property law maintained a firm distinction between land and chattel for centuries, in the American colonies, the boundary between the categories of real and personal property began to disintegrate. There, the novelty of easy foreclosure and consequent easy alienation of land made it possible for colonists to obtain credit, using land as a security. However, scholars have neglected the first instances in which a newly unconstrained practice of mortgage foreclosure appeared—the transactions through which colonists acquired land from indigenous people in the first place. In this article, I explore these early transactions for land, which took place across fundamental differences between colonists’ and native communities’ conceptions of money, land, and exchange itself. I describe how difference and dependence propelled the growth of the early American contact economy to make land into real estate, or the fungible commodity on the speculative market that it remains today.     

The “New Look” of German Diplomacy: The West German Foreign Service after the Second World War

When established in 1951, the West German Foreign Office resembled its pre-1945 Berlin Ministry predecessor in many ways. Notably, about 45 percent of Bonn’s diplomats came from the old service. Such continuities raised concerns about a restoration of old diplomatic traditions and attitudes. However, significant changes in German diplomacy—its West German variant—soon became evident, not least in terms of diplomatic style and methods. This analysis explores how the Foreign Office’s staff adopted, promoted, or rejected such changes. It assesses institutional processes of transformation and examines why diplomats were willing to “re-learn” diplomacy after the Second World War. Likewise evaluated are the problems and limits of re-orientation. By focussing on (dis)continuities within the Foreign Service in the 1950s and 1960s, the analysis contributes to the general field of research on processes of transition in West Germany after the end of the Third Reich.     

The Logic of Terrorist Target Choice: An Examination of Chechen Rebel Bombings from 1997–2003

The current article seeks to add to the quantitative approach to understanding terrorism by examining the logic underlying terrorist choice of targets and timing within the context of the Chechen–Russian conflict. Using data on Chechen rebel bombings in Chechnya and Russia from 1997–2003, the analysis revealed support for a logic underlying terrorist choice of targets. The results indicated that civilian targets were more likely to be targeted in Russia than in Chechnya, illustrating the importance of examining contextual effects within quantitative approaches to terrorism. The results also implicated an affect of weather and urbanization. Implications of the results and future directions for research are discussed.     

Secret Things and the Confinement of Walls

This article explores the under-examined issue of sexual abuse of children by women. It asks what are the conditions under which such things become knowable or when are they rendered unthinkable? The private sphere, marked by domestic walls, has been identified as the space most influenced and shaped by women. Its walls symbolise shelter and protection, and they are associated with the safety of all within. At the same time, however, the walls which constitute the private also enable a space within which women's actions can take place with limited oversight by others. Walls foster secrecy and what happens within can include elements of transgression. The sexual abuse of children by women—either their own or those entrusted into their care by others—is one such transgression. This article analyses a series of case studies derived from different historical sources in order to highlight how walls and the understandings of privacy that they support help to perpetuate a widespread belief that women can be unquestioningly trusted in their relations with children.     

Negotiating normative premises in democracy promotion: Venezuela and the Inter-American Democratic Charter

ABSTRACT

This article analyses negotiations on democracy promotion by looking at the case of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It argues that Venezuela contested the concept of representative democracy during the Charter negotiations, advancing the notion of “participatory and protagonist democracy” and that, even if it was unsuccessful in its demands, the country contributed to deepening the debate on the concept of democracy, on which there is far from worldwide consensus. The article suggests that the main drivers of the negotiation process and the final agreement were domestic political changes in Venezuela, specific features of the negotiations, and the structural position of Venezuela in the field of democracy promotion in the global and regional contexts, which were, at the time, favourable to a compromising attitude to conclusion of the Charter, even if not to the concept of democracy.     

Dermestes maculatus (Coleoptera: Dermestidae) development under fluoxetine effect using two drug administration models

Fluoxetine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, commonly used for the treatment of a variety of psychopathological conditions. As such, fluoxetine may be expected to appear in clinical and forensic cases. Dermestes maculatus De Geer (Coleoptera: Dermestidae) has been recognized as a relevant component of the insect fauna associated with decomposing human and animal remains. Experiments were conducted to study the effect of fluoxetine on developing D. maculatus using two‐drug administration models: a non‐living animal model (pork muscle) and a living one (Sus scrofa L. pigs). We assessed the duration of immature stages and total life cycle, as well as morphological parameters (body length, cephalic width, and weight). The effect of fluoxetine was studied at an overdose concentration: In the non‐living animal model the drug was mixed with macerated pork muscle (2000 mg/kg) and in the living animal model, pigs were given the drug orally (833 mg/kg). A control was used for each model. Daily observations were performed from the beginning to the end of the experiments. GC‐MS was used for drug detection and quantification. There were no statistically significant differences in the duration of immature stages, life cycle, larval mortality, morphological parameters, or sex ratio, between treatment and control, regardless of the drug administration model. Given that fluoxetine had no detectable effect on the development of D. maculatus, detection of this drug in forensic situations would not compromise the accuracy of PMI estimations.