New Philosophical Foundations for International Law: From an Order of Fear to One of Respect

The international legal order is dominated by a concern for security, whether national or individual, an explicit fear of the Other, towards whom one exists in no moral relation. This is not a recent phenomenon but goes back to the origin of modernity in a Hobbesian rejection of classical and medieval natural law. This fear is not marginal to liberalism; rather, the amorality vacuum affecting personal relations is integral to liberal contractarianism. This fear-inducing vacuum has to be countered through a phenomenology of the person in community, following Paul Ricouer, which restores the ethical dimension of society. At the same time, a critical phenomenology can expose the pathologies of fear, the use of force to dominate, and the consequences of the absence of respect. The whole subject-matter of international law is inherently vulnerable to these negative contradictions, and not just recent tragedies, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain. An exit strategy from a world of fear to one of respect has still to recognise the limits imposed not so much by the difference of the Other, as by the perplexity of one's own opaqueness. The destructiveness of fear remains at this initial stage. However, one can never completely overcome it by coming out of the modernity of the isolated self. We are equally opaque to one another.     

Peasant federations and rural development policies in the Andes

This chapter focuses on a special type of structural social capital embedded in second-tier indigenous peasant federations in the Andean countries. It first examines the manifestations of this social capital and then goes on to analyze the strategies of the various social actors for its use, mainly to further the interests of poor and oppressed members, but often in the service of broader societal or narrower partisan purposes. Cases are presented to illustrate how such a social capital resource, once created, can be used or transformed for other than the original purposes. Sometimes these spillovers are socially beneficial, confirming the mutability thesis of Hirschman (1984); but in other cases the diversions can be harmful and disempowering. The authors conclude that even considering these varied uses, meso-level peasant federations, when incorporated into rural development policies, can help to achieve equity and sustainability.     

The Fatal Defect in the Federal Accounting System

For many years, the federal accounting system has focused on obligations. Beginning in 1949, several blue-ribbon committees recommended changing the focus to expenses. Focusing on expenses provides more useful information than focusing on obligations for both planning and control purposes. Unfortunately, the House Appropriations Committee continues to make appropriations on an obligation basis. The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) has developed a system that focuses on both expenses and obligations that was supposed to be operational in 1997 but in fact will not be operational until 2003 at the earliest. Even then, users will not pay much attention to the expense focus if funds continue to be appropriated on an obligation basis.     

How Big Is a Policy Network? An Assessment Utilizing Data From Canadian Royal Commissions 1970–2000

The subsystem approach to policy studies is now well established in theory. Despite many applications to empirical cases, however, many elements of the operationalization of this approach have remained problematic, prompting some critics to reject it as “unscientific.” Although the approach has been defended as “more than a metaphor,” it is certainly apparent that additional work is required to address fundamental aspects of the model and ensure that its application to specific cases is done in such a way as to meet basic methodological prerequisites of consistency and replication. This article builds on earlier work by one of the authors attempting to address some of these concerns. Specifically, it addresses issues surrounding the methods through which subsystem membership can be identified and attempts some preliminary conclusions with respect to the estimation of average subsystem size in contemporary advanced liberal democracies.     

Suicide by pipe bomb: a case report.

While lying down, a 23-year-old man detonated an improvised explosive device placed behind his head. The posterior neck and shoulders were singed, and much of the brain was avulsed. Death was due to laceration and partial avulsion of the cerebrum, midbrain, and brain stem. The injuries had a directional nature. Facts derived from the scene investigation and gross dissection, including nature, distribution, and extent of the wounds, in conjunction with preceding medical and social history, allowed for a reasonable reconstruction of the circumstances.