Criminalising Academia: The Protection of State Information Bill and Academic Freedom

This article assesses the implications of the controversial Protection of State Information Bill for academic freedom in South Africa, specifically for communications, media and journalism studies. The Bill requires the security cluster to classify sensitive documents on national security grounds. Academic teaching and research can help citizens to understand whether the security cluster is acting in the universal interest, rather than the interest of a political elite; it can also be used to assess media performance in reporting on national security matters. Using a critical approach to the concept of national security, I argue that the Bill favours secrecy over openness, and South Africa’s embrace of the human security definition of national security has contributed to the problem. This overemphasis on secrecy is likely to reduce the few spaces that exist in academia for critical, emancipatory work on security issues, which could hobble the sector’s attempts to understand the deeper processes at work in the security cluster. If such enquiry is marginalised, then the higher education system risks becoming an instrument for continuity rather than change in South Africa’s existing, highly unequal power relations: relations that are being maintained increasingly by force.     

Provider Perspectives on Sex Trafficking: Victim Pathways,Service Needs, & Blurred Boundaries

This study examines service providers’ perspectives on survivors of trafficking using a purposeful sample of professionals specializing in intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and child maltreatment. Entry points into trafficking included recruitment by Romeo pimps, survival sex, kidnapping, and deceptive offers of employment. Service needs of survivors were described as more extreme and enduring than those of other types of victims served, with particular needs in long-term housing, health and mental health, substance use treatment, legal aid, and employment assistance. An overarching issue involved survivors’ dual identities as both victims and offenders, including self-identification and understanding/treatment by human service providers and law enforcement officers.     

The Stability of Perceived Pubertal Timing Across Adolescence

It is unknown whether perceived pubertal timing changes as puberty progresses or whether it is an important component of adolescent identity formation that is fixed early in pubertal development. The purpose of this study is to examine the stability of perceived pubertal timing among a school-based sample of rural adolescents aged 11-17 (N=6,425; 50% female; 53% White). Two measures of pubertal timing were used, stage-normative, based on the Pubertal Development Scale, a self-report scale of secondary sexual characteristics, and peer-normative, a one-item measure of perceived pubertal timing. Two longitudinal methods were used: one-way random effects ANOVA models and latent class analysis. When calculating intraclass correlation coefficients using the one-way random effects ANOVA models, which is based on the average reliability from one time point to the next, both measures had similar, but poor, stability. In contrast, latent class analysis, which looks at the longitudinal response pattern of each individual and treats deviation from that pattern as measurement error, showed three stable and distinct response patterns for both measures: always early, always on-time, and always late. Study results suggest instability in perceived pubertal timing from one age to the next, but this instability is likely due to measurement error. Thus, it may be necessary to take into account the longitudinal pattern of perceived pubertal timing across adolescence rather than measuring perceived pubertal timing at one point in time.     

New Millennium,New Public Management and the New Zealand Model

Recently the much‐discussed ‘New Zealand model’ of new public management (NPM) has become significantly revised. It now lacks the theoretical coherence and the market‐led focus that it relied on between 1987 and 1996. Labour‐led governments since 1999 have undertaken gradual and pragmatic – yet significant – changes in public management structures and principles, refining and sometimes reversing the model implemented in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This article does a ‘stock‐take’ of public management developments in New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, and argues that New Zealand can no longer be viewed as a leading exponent of market‐led NPM. Some NPM principles have been refined, but others have been quietly abandoned. The new National‐led government appears unwilling to undertake radical reforms, and, while it may seek a greater role for the private sector, looks set to continue with the ‘gradual and pragmatic’ approach adopted since 1999.     

Cross-National Perspectives for Aiding Policy Choice

The field of public policy analysis, centered about practical choices, is being extended by this journal to include useful comparisons among nations or other political units, as well as borrowing or lesson-drawing. This extension should remain close to the practical orientation of the field, rather than seeking to contribute to those disciplinary theories that lack practical usefulness in the short term (several decades). Implications of this admonition are spelled out in the form of a list of suggested topics for articles in this journal.     

The Macroeconomic Effects of 2017 Through 2025 Federal Fuel Economy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards

In the absence of a national carbon price, the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards and the related greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) standards are the primary mechanisms through which the U.S. reduces transportation GHG emissions. In 2012, these standards were set to rise for light‐duty vehicles between 2017 and 2025, eventually achieving a target of 54.5 miles per gallon in 2025. Since 2012, conditions have changed: forecasts of future gasoline prices have dropped dramatically, consumers have demanded larger vehicles, and the cost of compliance appears to be larger than previously thought. In this article, we analyze the possible macroeconomic effects of the standards with both 2012 inputs and updated inputs to reflect these new market developments. The results reveal that the short‐term effects of the federal standards will be negative, but the long‐term effects will be positive, using both 2012 and updated inputs. The transition from annual negative employment impacts to positive impacts occurs between 2023 and 2026, depending on which set of assumptions are used. Possible revisions to the standards that freeze them at 2020 levels or decrease their stringency reduce short‐term negative impacts but also reduce long‐term positive impacts. We conclude with a discussion of policy implications as they relate to the current energy and climate policy conditions.     

The Aarhus convention and process cosmopolitanism

The convention on access to information, public participation in decision making and access to justice in environmental matters (Aarhus) celebrates its twentieth birthday in 2018, yet its ethical potential remains unexamined. This paper assesses its ethical potential via the ethico-normative lens of the English School of international relations, eliciting the degree of pluralism and solidarism evident. It first presents pluralism and solidarism as ideal types against which research objects are assessed. Second, it analyses Aarhus’ trinity of procedural rights, identifying solidarist potential whilst noting pluralist realities. Third, it casts Aarhus as exemplifying a nascent process cosmopolitanism, rendering sovereignty more responsible by enriching it with humanity, which here denotes a rudimentary sense of affinity between humans, irrespective of territorial identities, based on the rights shared by, and duties towards, one another. The paper concludes that Aarhus demonstrates the presence of, and contributes to, a solidarist international society, delineated by convention membership. If weaker cosmopolitanism accords equal concern to humans and stronger cosmopolitanism requires equal treatment, Aarhus demonstrates the feasibility of a stronger cosmopolitanism emerging in international environmental politics. Chiefly, Aarhus seeks to reduce imposed harm, suffered by humans who lack the knowledge and autonomy to influence decisions that affect them. Such headway is tentative, but this is welcomed as evolutionary reform coheres with the persistence of sovereign statehood. Aarhus’ cosmopolitanism, yielding a moderating influence on sovereignty, will not emerge without a stable framework in which states institutionalise it. International politics remains, but can be enriched by procedural approaches to foregrounding human rights, which states must accommodate to be deemed legitimate.     

Raman Microspectroscopic Mapping: A Tool for Identification of Fused Materials in Fire Debris

Examination of fire debris can provide information about the types of materials which were present at the time of the fire to give insights for fire scene reconstruction and understanding compartment fire dynamics. This paper demonstrates the ability of Raman spectroscopy for material identification postfire in complex situations, such as the production of fused masses during fire dropdown. A validated Raman spectral library is combined with Raman mapping in three fire case studies, to determine the individual materials in the fused masses formed. The case studies accessed material combinations of several common polymers. Raman mapping was carried out on a 10 μm × 10 μm square of the masses. Material identification using this technique ranged from a high of 85% match to a low of 40% match. This work demonstrated that complex masses found in the fire debris can be resolved into the individual material components for identification and spatial distribution.