Dissent,Public Space and the Politics of Citizenship: Riots and the ‘Outside Agitator’

This paper presents an historical examination of a significant period in which state authority and citizenship came together around the question of dissent in the US. Drawing on congressional records, news accounts and legal documents—and deploying theories of citizenship and space—it presents an argument about how state power and geographical space came together around the question of the ‘race riots’ that swept American cities in the late 1960s. I focus in particular on how government officials and others constituted the figure of the ‘outside agitator’ as the cause of illegitimate dissent and the subject of state intervention. Such arguments about the geography of authority and dissent were themselves interventions in the politics of citizenship. More broadly, then, the paper argues for closer attention to issues of difference—and the geography of difference—in the constitution of state power.     

The Advent of Space Weapons

Constellations of observation satellites resemble the “Panopticon” system imagined by British philosopher Jeremy Bentham in his 18th century project for an ideal jailhouse — a system that Michel Foucault analyzed in Discipline and Punish (1975). Just as the warden in the central tower watches the prisoners without their being able to see him, satellites watch the Earth while observed countries cannot escape or monitor the extent of the observation.

Will observed countries factor in the control exerted by observing countries, just as prisoners will eventually interiorize the warden's discipline? This may indeed have been the goal of the U.S. satellite observation policy during the Cold War (1950's–1980's). The U.S. at the time sought to exert a new form of power on the international scene, resorting to persuasion and deterrence rather than all-out aggression.

U.S. satellite surveillance was at work vis-a-vis the USSR through different policies linked to nuclear deterrence; and vis-a-vis U.S. Allies (NATO, Great-Britain, France and Israel), then subject to a U.S. information monopoly. The intended panoptical power was not totally efficient, however. Regarding the USSR, its exercise depended ultimately on the political climate between the two Superpowers. Allied countries succeeded repeatedly in warding off U.S. attempts at control through information.     

RELIGIOSITY,PEER ASSOCIATIONS,AND ADOLESCENT MARIJUANA USE: A PANEL STUDY OF UNDERLYING CAUSAL STRUCTURES*

This paper examines the relationship between the religious factor and adolescent marijuana use. Using panel data from a sample of 264 high school youth, several three-wave, four-variable models derived from social learning theory and social control theory are estimated. Each model specifies causal links between measures of religious attitude and predispositions (religious commitment and an act-specific religious belief), involvement with marijuana-using friends, and self-reported marijuana use. The results provide evidence that the impact of religion is indirect through its influence on the variable Peer Associations. The findings also show the emergence of a direct effect of the act-specific belief on behavior over time. This effect is interpreted to be more a function of within-group attitude-behavior similarity due to social selection than to socialization to peer group standards. These findings extend rather than refute previous research which fails to control for the effects of peer influences.     

CONSENSUS IN CRIME SERIOUSNESS: EMPIRICAL REALITY OR METHODOLOGICAL ARTIFACT?*

Miethe (1982) has recently argued that the consistent findings of wide-spread consensus in the rankings of the seriousness of crimes may be more a rejection of the methodological approaches used by past researchers than of actual public sentiments. Building on Miethe's insights, this paper examines the extent to which the nature of the techniques employed to analyze data influences seriousness evaluations. The results indicate that consensus is affected by such factors as the rating task given to the subjects, how consensus is measured, and the type of offense under investigation. In turn these methodological considerations caution against using existing research as the bask either for the verification of consensus theories of justice or for the formulation of sanctioning policy.     

From Sectoral to Macro Green Governance: The Canadian Department of the Environment as an Aspiring Central Agency

Through a case study of the Canadian Department of the Environment, the article examines three conceptual issues involved as governments seek to institutionalize sustainable development concepts and practices into the center of executive decision-making. The conceptual issues examined in the dynamics of moving from sectoral to macro green governance are: the dynamics of transforming a latent policy paradigm into an operational one; the organizational and concrete resource base needed for environment departments to become and remain a central agency in executive government; and the importance of viable policy communities to sustain new paradigms and make them workable in a day-to-day sense. Five practical constraints are also examined in the Canadian context: the different types of decisions and varying statutory capacities involved; the volume of decisions; the relationships with other departments; the need to mobilize and manage the green policy community and network; and the problems of analytical and scientific competence.