Decommissioning dams in India: a comparative assessment of Mullaperiyar and other cases

With the ruefully anticipated breakdown of the Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala as the central issue, this article debates the decommissioning of large dams in India. Drawing on other examples of dam breakdown and decommissioning cases from India and the USA, the author argues that dams that have failed to deliver on their promises or are in an unsafe condition should be selectively decommissioned.

Démantèlement de barrages en Inde : évaluation comparative de Mullaperiyar et d'autres cas

En prenant comme prétexte le démantèlement prévu, à regret, du barrage de Mullaperiyar dans le Kerala, cet article discute du démantèlement des grands barrages en Inde. En s'inspirant d'autres exemples de cas de pannes et de démantèlement de barrages en Inde et aux États-Unis, l'auteur soutient que les barrages qui n'ont pas tenu leurs promesses ou qui sont en état précaire devraient être démantelés sélectivement.

El desmantelamiento de represas en India: una evaluación comparativa de Mullaperiyar y de otros casos

Utilizando como pretexto la avería de la represa Mullaperiyar en Kerala, el presente artículo analiza el desmantelamiento de las grandes represas de India. Apoyándose en ejemplos de averías y desmantelamiento de represas localizadas en India y en Estados Unidos, el autor propone que aquellas represas que no hayan cumplido con las expectativas que se tenían de ellas o que se encuentren en condiciones que generen inseguridad sean desmanteladas de manera selectiva.

Desativando barragens na Índia: uma avaliação comparativa de Mullaperiyar e outros casos

Diante do rompimento, tristemente previsto, da barragem de Mullaperiyar em Kerala, este artigo debate a desativação de grandes barragens na Índia. Baseando-se em outros exemplos de rompimento e desativação de barragens da Índia e dos EUA, o autor argumenta que as barragens que têm falhado em implementar aquilo a que se propõe ou estão em condições inseguras, devem ser seletivamente desativadas.     

L'évolution de la justice traditionnelle dans l'Afrique francophone

L'histoire du football Rwanda commence avec la colonisation du pays. En une cinquantaine d'années, ce jeu sport d'origine anglaise, en intégrant une société agro-pastorale et guerrière, est devenu une pratique culturelle locale. Comprendre ce phénomène nécessite d'articuler l'ancrage colonial d'une activité cosmopolite aux [ré]inventions culturelles locales suscitées par son implantation. Ce texte vise à montrer comment un jeu de balle, en traversant une société en cours d'occidentalisation, a marqué l'édification d'une modernité guerrière reçue et façonnée par les joueurs de l'époque. En traversant les transpositions ludiques d'enjeux sociaux et politiques plus larges, on observe que cette pratique, tout en participant du procès de "civilisation" que s'administra l'institution coloniale, constitua l'un des fers de lance de la lutte pour l'émancipation.     

Occupational stress among professional local government managers: introspections and a prognosis

The area of stress research is broad and not well understood. Little is known about the ways in which workers cope with job related stress .This article explores this element of stress related behavior for local government managers. Among the most important findings are that local managers perceive their stress levels to be equal to or greater than many other professions often associated with high demand. It appears that local managers see other professional managers as facing increased levels of stress over the past decade. Managers also see their stress levels as equal to or greater than that of previous occupations or occupations they might wish to hold in th future. While age and length of experience appear to have little association with percieved levels of stress, increased education does appear to reduce such perceptions.     

Design standards for laws to ensure effective democracy

Electoral suffrage and civil and political rights are insufficient to guarantee effective democracy in the age of social media and the Internet. Democracy must be upgraded to strengthen and reinforce accountability, transparency, fairness and rationality, and oversight independence. Design standards in the preparation and drafting of laws would be a major contribution to this objective.     

A NATIONAL SURVEY OF US POLICE ON PREPARATION AND CONDUCT OF IDENTIFICATION LINEUPS

A great deal of research has been aimed at identifying the factors that produce errors in eyewitness identification. However, most of this work has been conducted in laboratory environments using undergraduates and naive lay persons as research participants. Little information is available on what police officers do in the course of their identification activities. The present research investigated the procedures that police officers report employing when constructing and administering eyewitness identification lineups. We developed a survey that addresses a number of these issues, including experience, sources of lineup foils, lineup formation and display, lineup fairness evaluation, presence of suspect's attorney, witness instructions, historical records, and legal challenges. Surveys were sent to 500 US police jurisdictions; 220 were returned. Several survey items showed results consistent with previous laboratory research, however police officers reported using some procedures that are different from those established as most effective in the research literature. This paper summarizes the results of our survey and discusses the implications for future research and forensic procedures.     

Non-profit and Community-based Green Space Production in Milwaukee: Maintaining a Counter-weight within Neo-liberal Urban Environmental Governance

This paper examines the rise of civic participation, a feature of neo-liberal privatisation, in the context of Milwaukee's urban green space management. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews and archival research, it presents the argument that civic organisations are not just ‘neo-liberal artifacts’ that facilitate trends of privatisation and commodification of and state retrenchment from urban environmental resources. Utilising a range of strategies, they simultaneously resist those trends, often ameliorating the socio-environmentally destructive effects of neo-liberal processes. Highlighting some of these strategies, this paper suggests that different kinds of non-profit organisations intersect with neo-liberalism differently to provide a variety of enabling opportunities for counter-neoliberalism.     

Migrants' remittances and economic voting in the Mexican countryside

This study advances and tests hypotheses about the effects of migrants' remittances on political behavior. Analyzing new survey data from Mexico, I find that despite being very poor, respondents who receive remittances tend to view their income as more stable than neighbors who do not receive this money. As a result, remittance recipients have relatively fewer economic grievances and tend to feel more optimistic about economic matters than neighbors who do not receive remittances. According to the economic voter thesis, citizens who are more satisfied with the economy are also less likely to pressure and oppose politicians, particularly incumbents. Analyses indicate that respondents in this sample who receive remittances are indeed less likely to lobby local officials for economic assistance. They were also less likely to mobilize against and punish the incumbent party in the 2006 Mexican presidential election.     

Images from a Neoliberal City: The State, Surveillance and Social Control

Smith (1996: 230–232) characterized the latetwentieth century crusade for a new urbanfrontier as akin to the Wild West ofnineteenth century America. In the last tenyears, not only in the North American contextbut in Europe too, extending the boundaries ofthe urban frontier – economically,politically, and culturally – has galvanizedpowerful urban coalitions in the task ofre-taking – both ideologically and materially– city spaces from the visible and symbolicelements of urban degeneration. The project ofurban reclamation has not been neutral but hasbeen formulated within a post welfare,neoliberal politics that has promoted aideology of self responsibilisation within aclimate of moral indifference to increasinglyvisible inequality. These ideological shiftshave been fuelled by, and consolidated in, anevolving form of state ensemble that, as arapidly moving target (Hay 1996: 3), has beenlargely neglected in criminological analysis.It is the contention of this paper that theagents and agencies of the neoliberal state areconstructing the boundaries and possibilitiesof the new urban frontier while simultaneouslyengaging in a project of social control thatwill have far-reaching consequences for how weunderstand the meanings of public space, socialjustice and the parameters of state power.     

Compensation for medical injury in New Zealand: does "'no-fault" increase the level of claims making and reduce social and clinical selectivity?

The issues of patient safety and quality of care have gained policy attention with a growing appreciation of the scale and impact of medical injury in health systems. While the focus is clearly on the prevention of iatrogenic injury, the question of patient compensation is now also considered important, if only because in fault-based tort systems the fear of litigation may itself be a barrier to the disclosure and open discussion of medical error. No-fault systems, by contrast, do not require proof of culpability, and thus may both reduce barriers to compensation and increase disclosure of error. Little evidence, however, is available on the performance of such systems. This article reports on the analysis of two data sources-a sample of hospital admissions and a complete set of compensation claims for medical injury. Both are for the same year and region of New Zealand, a country that has maintained a no-fault system of accident compensation for a quarter of a century. Just over 2 percent of hospital admissions were associated with an adverse event that was potentially compensable under scheme criteria. While the claims process was well targeted, the level of claims making and receipt was low, with the ratio of successful claims to potentially compensable events being approximately 1:30. Comparison of social and clinical characteristics of the two data sets revealed a degree of selectivity. Compared with the hospital events, the typical successful claimant was younger and female and was much more likely to have experienced a surgical adverse event that, while unexpected, was not due to substandard care. It is concluded that, in interpreting these results, account needs to be taken of a number of features unique to the New Zealand system. These include: the limited payoff for a compensation claim (no pain and suffering or lump sum, free hospital care); the relative complexity of the grounds for claim (either rarity and severity or practitioner error); and a history of limited litigation for medical error. This suggests that, while the New Zealand system is well targeted, cheap, and free of financial and legal barriers, a change in legal doctrine alone has not in itself been sufficient to remove completely the selective and low level of claims making traditionally associated with patient compensation under tort.