“At That Time We Were Intimidated on All Sides”: Residues of the Malayan Emergency as a Conjunctural Episode of Dispossession

ABSTRACT:

This article proposes that the Emergency counterinsurgency campaign of the British colonial state should be viewed as a conjunctural episode of dispossession of Malayan laboring people. Conjunctural episodes of dispossession of working people through state violence and racialized rhetoric emerge as a response to crises in capitalist accumulation occurring at multiple and overlapping scales of capitalist systems – the imperial, the national/colonial, and the local/regional. During these episodes state and capitalist strategies destroy political organizations and solidarities among laboring people and demoralize them over long periods of time, through processes simultaneously material and semiotic. Employing new theorizations of the global anthropology of labor, this article first examines the postwar and Emergency years when the multiethnic and industry-wide bases of Malayan trade unions were destroyed while an estimated half a million working people were forcibly concentrated in so-called New Villages. This had the effect of suppressing a discourse of class and class struggle in favor of a dominant discourse of ethnic conflict. In an effort to articulate class struggle despite the presence of this dominant discourse of essential ethnic difference this essay examines the formation of a new working men's “society” in 1978–1980 and a dispute between truck drivers and truck owners in northern Malaysia.     

A decade of decline: a longitudinal look at big city and big county strategies to cope with declining revenues

Many local governments have now endured a decade of fiscal decline due to periodic reductions in external funding (federal and state and slowdowns in the rate of growth of the state and local government sector. This research examines the extent to which six large jurisdictions (three cities, three counties) under fiscal duress avoided political conflict and prevented further fragmentation of their authority between 1978 and 1987. The results showed that local officials generally chose retrenchment strategies (revenue, expenditure, and borrowing) with the least anticipated political opposition; but where hard choices had to be made (personnel reductions), they were made without hesitation. The timing of politically unpopular choices to coincide with downward trends in the private sector reduced the level of political fallout, even in heavily unionized, socioeconomically diverse communities. The results also showed that local officials strongly endorsed, rather than opposed, strategies that further fragmented their authority (privatization, intergovernmental cooperative agreements), because these approaches produce significant personnel and capital savings in the short term. Finally, the results indicated that the long-term cumulative effects of short-term decremental decisionmaking on the quality of life (as measured by drops in bond ratings) were negative in only one-third of the jurisdictions.     

The Ludwig Martens–Maxim Litvinov Connection, 1919–1921

Research began when the author realized that Antony Sutton had misidentified the author of a key document published in his Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution (1974). This article reports on the interception by federal agents of the document (a letter) brought from the Copenhagen office of Soviet diplomat Maxim Litvinov and intended for Kenneth Durant who was employed by Ludwig Martens, Lenin's unrecognized representative in New York City. Analysis of the letter revealed the true author and opened a research channel for learning more about the backgrounds of three Soviet agents: Bornett Bobroff, Nora Hellgren, and Wilfred Humphries.     

Long-Term Capital Management and the sociology of arbitrage

Arbitrage is a key process in the practice of financial markets and in their theoretical depiction: it allows markets to be posited as efficient without all investors being assumed to be rational. This article explores the sociology of arbitrage by means of an examination of the arbitrageurs, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM). LTCM's 1998 crisis is analysed using both qualitative, interview-based data and quantitative examination of price movements. It is suggested that the roots of the crisis lay in an unstable pattern of imitation that had developed in the markets within which LTCM operated. As the resulting 'superportfolio' began to unravel, arbitrageurs other than LTCM fled the market, even as arbitrage opportunities became more attractive, causing huge price movements against LTCM. Three features of the sociology of arbitrage are discussed: its conduct by people often personally known to each other; the possibility and consequences of imitation; and the limits on the capacity of arbitrage to close price discrepancies. It is suggested that by 1998 imitative arbitrage formed a 'global microstructure' in the sense of Knorr Cetina and Bruegger.     

Normative Support for Terrorism: The Attitudes and Beliefs of Immediate Relatives of Jema’ah Islamiyah Members

Families might be an important source of norms that legitimize terrorism, an assumption that has yet to be tested empirically. To investigate this, surveys were administered to 20 immediate relatives of 16 Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI) members in Indonesia. Family members were found to agree with their kin's involvement in the violent activities of JI, and perceived their community as being supportive. Agreement with their relative's involvement in JI was predicted by anti-Western sentiment, not support for violent jihad. Kinship to a suicide bomber predicted less support for their family member's involvement in JI. Implications for deradicalization strategies are discussed.     

Image formation,the low involvement viewer,and televised political advertising

Political observers have extensively documented the national media's focus on committee and party leaders. Legislators' local coverage, in contrast, remains largely unexplored and unexplained. This article examines 40 local newspapers to explore how these factors may influence legislators' local newspaper coverage. We find that local newspapers do not provide more coverage to congressional leaders and that independent papers write more frequently than chain-owned competitors about the local House delegation. Additionally, the extent to which a legislator's district geographically overlaps with the newspaper's market has a strong effect on legislators' mentions.     

Field Experimental Designs for the Study of Media Effects

Field experimentation is a promising but seldom used method for studying the effects of media messages on political attitudes and behavior. The practical challenges of conducting media experiments in real-world settings often come down to securing cooperation from research partners, such as political campaigns. To do so, researchers must be prepared to adapt their experimental designs to satisfy the constraints imposed by research partners and the media environment in which they operate. This article provides an overview of some alternative field experimental designs that allow researchers to maintain the advantages of random assignment while addressing practical considerations. Examples are drawn from the growing field experimental literature examining the effects of television, radio, and online communication.     

Another look at across-crime similarity coefficients for use in behavioural linkage analysis: an attempt to replicate Woodhams,Grant, and Price (2007)

Abstract

In the absence of physical evidence, investigators must often rely on offence behaviours when determining whether several crimes are linked to a common offender. A variety of factors can potentially influence the degree to which accurate linking is possible, including the similarity coefficient used to assess across-crime similarity. The current study examines the performance of two similarity coefficients that have recently been compared to one another, Jaccard's coefficient (J) and the taxonomic similarity index (Δ_s), using samples of two crime types, serial homicide (N=237) and serial burglary (N=210). In contrast to previous research, the results indicate that Δ_s does not significantly outperform J with respect to linking accuracy. In addition, both coefficients lead to higher levels of linking accuracy in cases of serial homicide compared to serial burglary. Potential explanations for these findings are presented and their implications are discussed.     

Judicial Review of Local Land-Use Decisions in California

The California courts have a reputation for sustaining local land-use controls where no other state court would do so. The reputation was certainly deserved prior to 1966, when courts still presumed that necessary findings to support a variance had been made and that the findings were properly supported. Prior to that time no appellate court had ever reversed the grant of a variance. This was changed, however, by Cow Hollow Improvement Club v. Dibene, 245 Cal. App. 2d 160;53 Cal Rptr. 610 (1966) and Broadway, Laguna, Vallejo Assoc. v. Board of Permit Appeals, 66 Cal.2d 767, 59 Cal. Rptr. 146,427 P.2d 810 (1967). Thereafter, where the ordinance required specific findings, findings on each of the standards for a variance had to be made and each had to be supported by substantial evidence. This standard was extended to the granting of conditional use permits and other major work of the zoning board of appeals in Stoddard v. Edelman, 4 Cal. App. 3d 544, 84 Cal. Rptr. 443 (1970). Cautious attorneys who recommended that such standards be applied even if not specified in the ordinance were also vindicated recently by Topanga Assoc. for a Scenic Community v. Los Angeles, 113 Cal.Rptr. 836 (1974).     

Judicial Decisions

“Judicial Decisions” are abstracts of federal and state court decisions addressing issues of importance to the land use lawyer and planner, such as zoning, inverse condemnation, growth management, signs and billboards, vested rights, and many more.