Teaching Students How to Fail: Simulations as Tools of Explanation

Instead of always teaching students how to succeed—as is the norm in higher education—it might also be useful to teach them about failure. Understanding failure (that is, why actors fail to reach common objectives in inter-group settings) gives students deeper insight into how to resolve global problems, and the conditions under which success can be achieved. This enhances student awareness of complexity in world affairs, including the nature of inter-group relations. Simulations are a good way to teach students about the possibility of failure, and how to learn from it, because they allow students to go through the learning process on their own. In this article I discuss how a simulation I ran on Middle Eastern politics can be used as an example of how to instruct students about failure as much as about success.     

Engaging the narrative in ontological (in)security theory: insights from feminist IR

Ontological security theory (OST) provides a unique account of how state Self-identity is formed and reformed in international relations. OST postulates that state Self-identity is usefully understood by inquiring into the foundation of a state's sense of Self: its autobiographical narrative. We seek to amend this line of argument by further suggesting that the autobiographical narratives of states are ‘gendered’. Feminist theorizing about the relationship between gender and power implies that the dominant autobiographical narrative of state Self-identity is ‘gendered’ masculine. The power of this masculinized autobiographical narrative flows from an ‘internal othering’ process of counter ‘feminine’ autobiographical narratives that exist alongside the masculinized autobiographical narrative. Our goal is to suggest that opportunities do arise for counter ‘feminine’ narratives to challenge the dominant autobiographical narrative due to their interdependence and we explicate two practices by which masculinized narratives can be engaged, challenged and disrupted.     

Implicating ‘fisheries justice’ movements in food and climate politics

Abstract

While much debate on climate change has emerged around food, forest and land politics, the fisheries sector has only recently become more visibly implicated in these discussions. Similarly, in comparison to food and agrarian movements, fishers’ resistance to intensified mitigation efforts and resource exclusion is still significantly understudied academically, and receives little attention in political spheres. This highlights a critical gap in both food and climate politics literature, which this paper aims to present a framework for addressing. To do so, it contextualises the emergence of overlapping processes of exclusion in global fisheries, and explores the implications global food system transformations have had in the fisheries sector, and the reactions this has spurred from South African fishers. It then traces the convergence of fishers’ movements with other resource justice movements, and how this has contributed to the rise of ‘fisheries justice’. Finally, it presents four interlinked propositions – highlighting food sovereignty, resource access and conflict, climate change and mitigation, convergences between movements, and alternatives proposed by fishers – as a framework for how incorporating fisheries and fishers’ movements can broaden our understanding of transnational social movements, and expand the depth and scope of food and climate politics.     

Decolonising drugs in Asia: the case of cocaine in colonial India

Abstract

This article examines a drugs trade in Asia that has been largely forgotten by historians and policy-makers, that in cocaine. It will briefly trace some of the contours of this commerce and the efforts to control it. It will also assess how successful these efforts were. The article is designed to contribute fresh perspectives on recent controversies in the historiography of drugs in Asia to argue that the agendas and agency of consumers are central to understanding why markets have formed there for psychoactive substances in the modern period.     

Urgent issues and prospects in reforming interrogation practices in the United States and Canada

The current article presents a series of commentaries on urgent issues and prospects in reforming interrogation practices in Canada and the United States. Researchers and practitioners, who have devoted much of their careers to the field of police and intelligence interrogations, were asked to provide their insights on an area of interrogation research that they believe requires immediate attention. The submitted independent commentaries covered a variety of topics – from police recruitment, interrogation training, use of proper interrogation practices, and the treatment of confession evidence in court. Common concerns from the contributions pertained to the lag between scientific knowledge on interrogations and the application of such knowledge in the justice system, and the glaring disparity between the treatment of similar issues in the interrogation context versus other criminal justice contexts. A primary intent of this collection of commentaries is to serve as a resource pointing researchers in the direction of the fundamental areas that require immediate consideration and encouraging them to simultaneously pursue solutions to the overarching concerns that emerged from this project.     

An evaluation of intimate partner violence intervention with incarcerated offenders

The following study is an evaluation of the Moderate Intensity Family Violence Prevention Program (MIFVPP). The sample consisted of 298 male federal offenders who participated in the MIFVPP while incarcerated or on release within the community. Participants were assessed pre-, mid-, and postprogram using an assessment battery consisting of self-report questionnaires and facilitator-rated evaluation scales. Results of the study found uniform and significant (p < .001) improvement for pre and post program change in the self-report questionnaires and in the facilitator ratings. A positive improvement in motivation, whether assessed by the participant or facilitator, was associated with improvement in program outcomes and significant within, between, and interaction effects were found when participant program performance over time was compared among grouped postprogram ratings of motivation. The implication for the efficacy of addressing offender motivation to change in intimate partner violence (IPV) interventions is discussed.     

Subprime Lending Foreclosures,Crime, and Neighborhood Disorganization: Beyond Internal Dynamics

Research and theorizing about communities and crime has largely focused on internal neighborhood dynamics, to the neglect of factors external to the community that may be important processes in shaping community crime rates. We argue that subprime lending practices and the foreclosures that result may result in higher crime rates. We utilize data from the Summit County Lending Study, the Akron Police Department, and the 2000 U.S. Census to test the hypothesis that subprime lending foreclosures increase crime in urban neighborhoods. We find that subprime lending foreclosures have substantial impact on crime counts, net of controls. We conclude that additional research and theorizing about the role of external factors in the disorganization model is required.     

The effect of listenability factors on the comprehension of police cautions

We examined the extent to which modifying a police caution using three listenability factors (Instructions, Listing, and Explanations) improved comprehension. A 2 (Instructions vs. No Instructions) × 2 (Listing vs. No Listing) × 2 (Explanations vs. No Explanations) between-participants design was used. Participants (N = 160) were presented verbally with one of eight cautions and asked to record their understanding of the legal rights contained in the caution. Results showed a main effect of Explanations, thus suggesting that repeating the information contained in the caution in different terms increased comprehension. Partial support was also found for the hypothesized additive interactions of modifications, as the caution containing all three modifications resulted in the highest level of comprehension. The implications of these findings for the comprehension of police cautions, and verbally delivered information in general, are discussed.