Fear of Crime in the Swedish Daily Press—Descriptions of an Increasingly Unsafe Society

Fear of crime is a subject that is described increasingly often in the daily press. In spite of this, very few studies have examined how the press describes fear of crime. This article focuses on how fear of crime is presented, in what context, and who is labelled as fearful in the Swedish daily press. The theoretical frameworks are theories about the risk society and how fear of crime can be understood in a society characterized by risk, uncertainty, and worry. The current study analyses articles from four national daily newspapers employing a qualitative, thematic content analysis. In the analysis, four principal themes were distinguished: fear of crime defined, fear of crime personified, fear of crime situationalized, and fear of crime contextualized. The articles examined describe an increasingly unsafe society characterized by rising crime, particularly in the suburbs, which is producing fear among women and children. Male police officers are also described as being afraid and as no longer being able to protect the public. The daily press establishes clearly who should be afraid of crime, which crimes produce fear, and where and why people are afraid. The articles formulate special ways of describing fear of crime, in which fear appears as a natural and expected reaction to life in an increasingly unsafe and violent society.     

Mediterranean Security Revisited

At the dawn of the last century, the European and Mediterranean countries failed to reach a consensus on building a cooperative security system. This article is an attempt at revisiting the concept of the Mediterranean security system and assessing the conditions for restarting security dialogue in the region. Upon recognition of the need for taking into account the new dimension of risks along with the traditional dimension of threats, the article reviews the insecurity factors of the Mediterranean region and the lesson learned in the security dialogue of the Barcelona Process. Some proposals about rehearsing that dialogue are advanced in the concluding section.     

执法办案风险评估预警工作的困境与对策研究

上海检察机关自2011年开展执法办案风险评估预警工作。从风险评估、风险预警、风险处置三个方面对该项工作的现状作出分析,对实践中存在的困境进行研究,并提出相应的对策。     

行政法视野下的公众参与制度

参与民主理论的发展,催生参与式行政的兴起,使之逐渐成为各国所普遍接受和采用的现代行政管理模式。参与式行政将公众纳入行政过程,促进行政的民主化、理性化、科学化。处于社会转型时期的中国,参与式行政是一项逐渐发展中的系统工程。通过分析公众参与的行政法价值,探讨构建公众参与制度的关键,为行政领域公众参与的法治化提供有价值的参考。     

Labour supply and wages among nuclear and extended households: The Surinamese experiment

This article explores labour market behaviour of members of extended and nuclear households in Suriname. Previous analyses have found that co‐operative childcare opportunities within the extended household increase female labour force participation. Such coordination implies correlated participation decisions, which invalidates standard assumptions made in estimating participation with probits and wages with regressions. We employ a GMM estimation, which allows correlation among household members. We find that extended and nuclear household members are not significantly different in participation propensities, but do differ significantly in wages. We argue that greater home production opportunities in extended households dilute labour market effort and hours, reducing earnings.     

Supply Response and Risk in Chinese Agriculture

The main objective of this paper is to model the production and supply response in Chinese agriculture, which includes not only the standard arguments like expected prices but also risk. We extend Lin's work [1991, 1992] by modelling supply response as a three-equation model. We fit our model to data for 28 Chinese provinces from 1970 to 1997 to determine whether national Chinese agricultural supply is price and price risk responsive. Further, we fit our model to data for North, Northeast, South and Southeast regions. Results from the three systems equations are compared to single equation estimations. At the national level, Chinese agriculture is found to be price and price risk responsive. The regional analyses suggest that significant regional differences exist. Unlike Lin, we do not find the household responsibility system (HRS) to be the dominant factor in increased yields in different regions of China.     

中国企业在发展中国家投资矿业的风险与应对策略

近年来,中国企业对外矿业投资发展迅速。鉴于市场竞争程度、开发成本及自身实力等原因,许多中国企业选择了在发展中国家进行投资。本文对中国企业在发展中国家开发矿产资源过程中的风险和问题进行分析,并提出应对建议。     

Risky business: Covering slow‐onset hazards as rapidly developing news

The emerging field of risk communication has yet to thoroughly grapple with how the mass media report risk. Through a content analysis of five newspapers noted for their science reporting, newspaper coverage of four environmental hazards is compared to media coverage of more traditional risky events. In general, these slow‐to‐develop stories are reported in much the same way as more traditional disaster stories. News accounts emphasized an event orientation, framed risks in terms of human activity rather than social and political contexts, described risk in terms of harms and benefits, and relied on traditional sources. The authors then explore how this version of mass‐mediated risk might change current definitions of risk communication and how a mediated construction of risk may influence public perception of the political choices these issues raise.     

Catastrophe risk

This paper examines the recent emergence of initiatives involving the reinsurance industry and the capital markets to develop mechanisms to finance the losses arising from catastrophic events. These initiatives are discussed from two perspectives. One perspective explores these financing mechanisms from the contention that catastrophic events are becoming increasingly non-insurable within contemporary risk society. In this regard the paper addresses issues relating to the coherence and sustainability of the risk networks underpinning efforts to maintain the insurability of catastrophic events. These catastrophe-financing initiatives are also discussed from a second, although related perspective. This refers to the very emergence of these different financing mechanisms. In this regard the moving potential of liberal government or the inventive mechanics driving the development of different ways to manage catastrophic risk become significant. The paper argues that the emergence of these different catastrophe-financing mechanisms is occurring at the intersection of concerns over the non-insurability of the catastrophic and the extremes of capitalist ingenuity, suggesting both perspectives might offer insights into some of the possible future trajectories of risk society.