Stand and Deliver: Private Property and the Politics of Global Dispossession

Property rights necessarily generate violent, and oftentimes lethal, processes of dispossession. While liberal theorists from Locke to Hayek consider property rights as an essential and emancipatory component of human freedom, they fail to consider societal power asymmetries impeding the ability of property rights to protect the interests of the weak and marginalised. If property rights produce freedom and prosperity, they do so very selectively. More obvious is the ongoing historical process of already propertied classes making 'clever usurpation into an irrevocable right' by extending private property regimes along two key dimensions – type and space. Examining various uses of private property over time reveals processes whereby relatively basic notions of private property, enforced by a Weberian state at the local level in the early era of industrialisation, are extended to encompass new and sophisticated forms of property that are enforced globally via international institutions. Two contemporary empirical cases of using property rights are examined in this paper: land reform in Southern Africa (specifically Zimbabwe) and intellectual property rights. In this context of ongoing dispossession, further privatisation and commodification can only exacerbate contemporary problems of marginalisation and dispossession.     

Problems associated with the diagnosis of vitality in burned bodies

The most important signs of vitality in burned bodies are soot deposits in the respiratory tract, the esophagus and the stomach as well as elevated CO-Hb values in the blood. But these findings show only that a person was exposed to fire fumes while alive; they are no indicator for vital heat exposure. As the external findings in burned bodies are often not very conclusive due to postmortem consumption by the fire, the internal findings are all the more important. Macroscopic signs that hot fumes were inhaled may be edematous swelling and vesicular detachment of the mucosa in the pharynx, the larynx and/or the upper section of the esophagus. As histological changes in the respiratory tract soot deposits, vesicular detachment of the epithelium, hyperemia and edema of the tracheal and bronchial mucosa as well as increased secretion of mucus have been described. These findings may partly be absent although the victim was alive during the fire, which can make diagnosis more difficult. Especially in peracute deaths vitality findings are usually sparse. The significance of the macroscopic and histological parameters of vitality was systematically investigated on the basis of our own autopsy material from the years 1996-2002 (88 cases) and compared with the statements found in the literature. In our study material, the vitality parameters were incomplete in 23% of the burned corpses. In 3% of the cases the question whether there was an antemortem heat exposure could not be answered.     

Fatal child neglect in West Germany 1 January 1985 to 2 October 1990. Results of a multicenter study]

Up to now reliable data were available on cases of lethal child neglect in the area of the Federal Republic of Germany prior to reunification (the former West Germany). In a multicenter study we therefore examined the police and court records for such cases occurring in the period from 1 January 1985 to 2 October 1990 in nearly the entire area of Federal Republic of Germany. RESULTS: The study center received information on 19 cases of lethal child neglect. Extrapolated to all institutes of legal medicine, this corresponds to 20 cases and thus 3.5 cases a year in the whole of West Germany in the period studied. There is to be added a dark-field which cannot be limited more precisely. However, the cases of fatal child neglect might have occurred much more seldom than fatal child abuse caused by use of physical violence. Slightly more than half the victims were younger than 1 year, the oldest one was 7 10/12 years old. Most frequently the children died of starvation and thirst. Mostly the mothers/nursing mothers killed the child alone or together with the victim's father/stepfather. In the majority of the cases there was not a close affection between parents and child. Nearly 30% female/male perpetrators suffered from chronic alcohol abuse. Only 15 (= 56%) of 27 female/male perpetrators were sentenced to imprisonment (period between 7 months on probation and 10 years). Mitigation circumstances existed for nearly half the persons sentenced to imprisonment. It is true that child neglect is a rarer crime, but the experts of legal medicine always have to indicate errors made during the external inspection of the corpse (among others failures to see indications of neglect).     

Cultures of high-frequency trading: mapping the landscape of algorithmic developments in contemporary financial markets

Abstract

As part of ongoing work to lay a foundation for social studies of high-frequency trading (HFT), this paper introduces the culture(s) of HFT as a sociological problem relating to knowledge and practice. HFT is often discussed as a purely technological development, where all that matters is the speed of allocating, processing and transmitting data. Indeed, the speed at which trades are executed and data transmitted is accelerating, and it is fair to say that algorithms are now the primary interacting agents operating in the financial markets. However, we contend that HFT is first and foremost a cultural phenomenon. More specifically, both individuals and collective agents – such as algorithms – might be considered cultural entities, charged with very different ways of processing information, making sense of it and turning it into knowledge and practice. This raises issues relating to situated knowledge, distributed cognition and action, the assignment of responsibility when regulating high-speed algorithms, their history, organizational structure and, perhaps more fundamentally, their representation.     

Organizational ignorance: an ethnographic study of high-frequency trading

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of strategic uses of ignorance or not-knowing in one of the most secretive industries within the financial sector. The focus of the paper is on the relation between imitation and ignorance within the organizational structure of high-frequency trading (HFT) firms. In social studies of finance (SSF) literature imitation is considered a strategic act, i.e. imitation is a term applied when traders copy the strategies of other traders. I wish to turn this relation between ignorance and imitation on its head and consider ignorance itself as a strategic unknown and investigate the kinds of imitations that might be produced from structures of not-knowing (i.e. structures intended to divide, obscure and protect knowledge). This point is illustrated through ethnographic studies and interviews within five HFT firms. The data show how a black-box structure of ignorance is replicated within the organizational setting of these firms and re-enacted by the traders. Towards the end of the paper the politics of the relationship between imitation and ignorance is discussed.     

Does corruption suppress voter turnout?*

This paper investigates to what extent voters’ perceptions of political corruption affect turnout. In previous research, two opposing views are put forward with regards to the relationship between corruption and turnout. On the one hand, corruption increases turnout because voters either are bought off to participate or because they are mobilized on clean government issues. On the other hand, corruption decreases turnout because presence of corruption corrodes the political system which leads to general cynicism, distrust and voter apathy. In this paper, we contribute to the existing research by adopting a multi-level approach to the relationship between corruption and turnout. We test the hypothesis that voters’ perceptions of corruption dampens turnout but that the effect is conditional upon the corruption context. We test our hypothesis by combining individual-level data and country-level data from 26 countries from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and country-level data from the Quality of Government Data Set. The findings show that perceiving corruption negatively affects turnout, but only in countries with low to medium levels of system corruption.     

Routes and determinants of leaving home: the city of Gothenburg, 1915–1943

This paper deals with the home-leaving of young adults in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the period 1915–1943. We used individual-level panel data from population registers and poll-tax records, taking a competing risk design for the analysis of the determinants of leaving home to marry, or for non-familial living. We found a transitional, marriage-driven pattern of leaving home that neither fits the old context of life cycle service, nor the alternative modern routes out of the parental home into unmarried householdship. Young adults typically stayed at home until they married, although some moved out to temporary non-familial living first. Non-familial living consisted mainly of lodging in another household, but working outside it, which in a way was a forerunner of the modern pattern, in sharp contrast with the remnant of preindustrial times: the flow from rural areas into Gothenburg of teenage women immigrants to become residential domestic servants. Interestingly, we found that the main determinants of home-leaving in studies of modern-day populations were equally important in the population of Gothenburg in 1915–1943. For both young men and young women, having their own resources (employment, earnings) was positively associated with the likelihood of leaving the parental home. We also found clear gender differences. A higher level of human capital of the father was associated with later home-leaving to marry for sons, and earlier leaving for non-familial living for daughters. Lower levels of household income, or the presence of minor siblings or a widowed parent were push factors for non-familial living for daughters. We found no similar push factors for sons.     

Public Administration in Germany: Problems and Potential of a Fragmented Community

What is the discipline of Public Administration (PA) ultimately for? The German community has recently entered new deliberations on this recurrent question, with several papers and workshops addressing the present and future of their national discipline. This article uses original survey data to introduce the views of the German community at large and analyzes intellectual commonalities against a background of institutional fragmentation. It scrutinizes preferences for epistemological positions, research aims, and publication strategies, while also investigating potentials for cooperation through interdisciplinary exchange and theoretical or thematic concordance. The results show a community in intellectual crisis. Faced with fears of decreasing reputation and influence, German PA is still divided about its purpose and separated by disciplinary borders.