Poetic Justice

This note examines the decision of the Court of Appeal in Tabernacle v Secretary of State for Defence (2009). The court held that byelaws prohibiting camping on Ministry of Defence land adjacent to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire violated the human rights of women peace protestors under Articles 10 and 11 European Convention on Human Rights. The note argues that this decision calls into question arguments recently made, that the association of women with peace should be abandoned. It also reveals the potential of law to facilitate the performative and transformative production of subject positions, as ‘woman’, which do not depend on or connect with debilitating patriarchal constructions of women as weak or vulnerable.     

Psychopathology and world politics

The relationship between psychopathology and world politics can be considered firstly from the world politics perspective. This means examining the dysfunctional forms of human behaviour manifest there—both individual and collective/communal. It means examining how such behaviour can be described and explained in psychiatric or psychological/psychoanalytical terms. The relationship between psychopathology and world politics can also be considered from the psychopathology perspective. This means examining some of the key psychopathological concepts that are of relevance to world affairs. It means examining paranoia or narcissism, for example, and the way understanding syndromes like these helps further our understanding of world affairs.     

The Bush Administration's 'Alliance-Based' East Asia Policy

The US will face major foreign policy challenges in East Asia in the twenty-first century. In this article, Ralph A. Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, Honolulu, examines the Bush administration's policy towards East Asia which he argues continues to be alliance-based. The principal issues include: the precarious situation on the Korean Peninsula; China's potential emergence as a regional power and the sensitive topic of the Taiwan Strait, Japan's struggle with economic and constitutional reform and an unstable Indonesia. The administration's stated commitment to missile defense has been well publicized and the security implications of this for the region are also examined by Cossa. Although a ''Vision statement'' on the Asia-Pacific is still lacking and needed, he argues that the basic components of the Bush administration's Asia strategy appear to be well-formed.     

Personnel Management: Politics, Administration, and a Passion for Anonymity

Personnel management is vitally important to the maintenance and preservation of the administrative state and its democratic institutions. This reaction critically examines the personnel recommendations made by Floyd W. Reeves and Paul T. David in their study Personnel Administration in the Federal Service. It questions the degree to which there is a coherent set of political and constitutional expectations marking the progress of personnel policy that might enable us to forecast the future, both theoretically and practically. The authors highlight how and why the field should pay greater attention to the political ends that our personnel theories serve.     

The consequences of a pragmatic turn for semiotics

Clara H. Stewardson Professor of Philosophy.