Seeking Justice and Redress for Victim-Survivors of Image-Based Sexual Abuse

Feminist Legal Studies - Despite apparent political concern and action—often fuelled by high-profile cases and campaigns—legislative and institutional responses to image-based sexual...     

Corporate social responsibility in the European Union: a new trade barrier?

• This paper contributes to the discussion about Corporate social responsibility (CSR), competitiveness and trade policies, and how trade barriers emerge between countries already committed to CSR and those for whom CSR is still gaining ground. The authors describe the development of CSR within Europe and explain its role in shaping trade relationships. Gaining access to the European market, and obtaining the ‘licence to operate’ in light of strengthening commitment to CSR, is an issue for many companies. For countries outside the EU it is important to understand what CSR means in the European context and to recognize its implications for conducting business in the region. Further, through its economic power and resources, the EU sets standards and influences international trade norms. The authors conclude that the EU establishes CSR as a trade barrier for non‐complying companies in the terms of organizational culture, communication, capabilities and compliance.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Problems with Power-Transition Theory: Beyond the Vanishing Disparities Thesis

What happens when established states and rising powers meet on the world stage? Is conflict inevitable, or can adroit foreign policies produce peaceful accommodation between jostling Great Powers? Traditional power-transition theory tends to predict conflictual outcomes of shifting power, but this finding does not square with either the historical record or public policy-maker’s own intuitions about how international politics works. In this article, I exegete a central weakness of extant power-transition theory—that is, its reliance on vanishing disparities in national power as an explanatory factor—in order to understand where the theory is failing and how best to proceed with a view to generating greater understanding of geopolitical shifts. Beginning from the starting point that social science theory should generate useful implications for ‘real world’ social and political actors, I argue that power-transition theory’s monocausal vanishing disparities thesis is problematic in three respects: practical, theoretical and empirical.     

“De la música y los toros”: masculinities and the representation of Carlos Vives in Ángeles Mastretta's Arráncame la vida (1985)

This article is an innovative exploration of the representation of Carlos Vives as, potentially, an exemplar of feminist masculinity in Ángeles Mastretta's best-selling novel Arráncame la vida. On a theoretical level, it attempts to add the categories of feminist masculinity and resistant masculinity to Connell's influential sociological model centred on hegemonic masculinity. In this case, though, we should note that hegemonic and patriarchal masculinity as embodied in the character of Andrés Ascencio are synonyms. On a literary level, it attempts to transform radically current understandings of Carlos Vives as a foil for Andrés Ascencio and a touchstone of change in Catalina's life by arguing that he is a key character, of equal standing with Andrés, in Mastretta's representation of Mexican men and masculinities.     

Developing Benchmarks for Guiding CAO Performance

This article reviews a research study on developing performance benchmarks to guide Chief Administrative Officer performance in Nova Scotia. The study collected examples of excellent and substandard performance from 22 individuals who were CAOs, members of Council, or provincial advisors. The information was content analysed, revealing 13 competency areas, illustrating four types of competencies. A practical aspect of this study is the suggestion that the competencies might be arranged in a semicausal logic model (or Competency Scorecard, similar to the Balanced Scorecard) and that performance measures might include outcome and activity measures. The framework might guide researchers in calibrating the linkage between competencies and organisational performance measures.