Islamophobic conspiracism and neoliberal subjectivity: the inassimilable society

O’Donnell analyses the confluence of Islamophobia and anti-government conspiracy theory in the works of the far-right think tank, the Center for Security Policy (CSP). He argues that, rather than only being a contemporary form of the religious and racialized demonologies that code ‘Islam’ as being the constitutive outside of ‘the ‘West—irrational, religious and authoritarian versus rational, secular and democratic—Islamophobic conspiracism should also be examined in the context of anxieties over the erosion of personal and state sovereignty under neoliberalization. Mobilizing an Islamophobic demonology that constructs ‘Muslims’ as inassimilable to ‘American’ subjectivity, the CSP's Islamophobic conspiracism projects this construction of absolute alterity on to American social and state systems. In doing so, O’Donnell contends, Islamophobic conspiracism takes neoliberalization's estrangement of the state and its citizens to its logical conclusion, transfiguring the societal processes that impact on the freedom of the individual—notably the state and civil society—into something inassimilable to that individual's claims to self-ownership and self-mastery.     

Public support for coercive diplomacy: Exploring public opinion data from ten European countries

Scholarship has increasingly acknowledged the importance of public attitudes for shaping the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy. Economic sanctions emerged as one of CFSP's central tools. Yet despite the emergence of sanctions as a popular instrument in the EU foreign policy toolbox, public attitudes towards sanctions are yet to be studied in depth. This article explains public support for EU sanctions, using the empirical example of sanctions against Russia. It looks at geopolitical attitudes, economic motivations and ideational factors to explain the variation in public support for sanctions. The conclusion suggests that geopolitical factors are the most important, and that economic factors matter very little. Euroscepticism and anti‐Americanism play an important role in explaining the support for sanctions at the individual level.     

The In-securitisation of Youth in the South and East Mediterranean

The securitisation of youth as a social category has been well-documented. For the South and East Mediterranean (SEM) countries, moral panics over demographic youth bulges, Islamist radicalisation and protracted conflicts have placed youth centre-stage as a threat to the security of states and societies. Rejecting such assertions as themselves being what Foucault might have termed ‘technologies of power’ in a neoliberal order, and instead taking a critical approach to security, the spotlight is turned towards youth themselves as the referent object of study. This reveals the multidimensional hyper-precarity and insecuritisation of young peoples’ lives which derive from that same neoliberal economic order and the political structures that sustain it in the SEM countries. The finding resonates with other studies of new, insecure, formats for adulthood in Africa and suggests that we should look at the insecurity of young people today to understand global neoliberal futures in countries beyond the post-industrial ‘core’.     

Towards food sovereignty: interrogating peasant voice in the United Nations Committee on World Food Security

The goal of the direct participation of food producer constituencies – and other citizens – is a key component of food sovereignty, the policy framework first launched by La Vía Campesina and engendering the much wider food sovereignty movement. In this paper, I outline the reasons why the reform of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) can be regarded as historically significant to this goal. Focusing upon the CFS's aspirations for inclusivity, I outline a framework for interrogating the experiences of social movement activists representing food producer constituencies seeking to convert their formal right to participate in the CFS into substantive participation. Going beyond the capturing of their experiences, the framework also reveals the different ways in which their challenges in attaining substantive participation can be overcome, with a particular emphasis upon adjustments within the arena itself. The paper concludes with an overview of the research agenda suggested by Raj Patel (2009), amongst others, and alluded to further in the content of this paper.     

Revisiting the 'Responsibility to Protect'

The Declaration on 'the responsibility to protect' (R2P), unanimously endorsed by the Security Council in April 2006, identified both national and international responsibilities in relation to genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This was highly significant in appearing to accept that the prevention of mass atrocities was a legitimate international concern. Subsequently, there has been some disappointment about the limited practical impact of R2P, and also anxiety that its progress may be impeded by the fear that it is designed to legitimise military intervention. However, this article concentrates on a different concern. Arguing that an earlier version of R2P (in the International Commission on Intervention and Sovereignty of 2001) linked the issues with those of human security and development, it suggests that the contemporary focus is far narrower, undermining its critical potential with regard to the policies of the global North and reducing its appeal to developing countries.     

Environmental Stressors and Food Security in China

This article considers the immediate forces influencing China’s food system and food security. By immediate is meant events of the reform period, from the late 1970s to 2008. It begins by asking the question that has preoccupied specialists since the publication of Lester Brown’s Who Will Feed China? in 1995: How much arable land does China have? Is that land area sufficient to insure grain sufficiency? To insure food security? The article focuses on the human pressures on the food production environment, and then treats the effects of socioeconomic change: land, air, and water degradation. The core of the article examines six responses of the state to both perceived and actual environmental stressors: policy restricting arable land conversion, China’s one-child policy, investment in irrigation systems, the South–North Water Diversion Project, large-scale afforestation and reforestation campaigns, and the program to convert marginal agricultural lands to forests and grasslands.     

美国的“网络自由”战略及其对策

为了操控国际互联网政治传播，关国政府制定和执行一整套“网络自由”战略。所谓的关式“网络自由”是美国国家利益的网络延伸，是美式民主、人权和美国霸权主义在虚拟世界的扩张和体现。美国的“网络自由”战略由理念输出、资金支持、技术研发和组织运作等几个方面构成。要深入揭示美式“网络自由”的虚伪和危害，加强应对美式“网络自由”的综合能力，不断提升对互联网和虚拟社会的管理水平。     

新时期公安群众工作艺术刍议

在现阶段世情、国情、党情、社情深刻变化的背景下,群众工作也面临着诸多新情况和新问题.进一步加强和改进新形势下的群众工作,需要高超的工作艺术.公安民警对待群众要敬之以心、动之以情、晓之以理、惠之以利、束之以法、立之以信,为建立起适应公安工作需要的、符合时代特征的“警爱民、民拥警、警为民、民助警”的新型警民关系发挥积极作用.     

Knowing the past to understand the present - issues in the contracting for cloud based services

This article builds on our previous introductory article to cloud computing ([2009] 25 CLSR 270-274) and seeks to explain how cloud computing has evolved. We then discuss how this evolution impacts on key contractual and legal considerations and how the treatment of these considerations might differ from their treatment in traditional IT supply agreements.     

新时期建立城市治安预警的理论依据阐释及意义分析

目前，我国警学界和公安部门对治安预警没有一个统一的界定，学者们从不同角度对治安预警的内涵进行了阐述。风险社会理论、危机管理理论和客观规律理论的发展和成熟，揭示了后现代化时期风险和危机时刻存在，并且日趋国际化，对公安实战部门提出了新的挑战和要求，因此建立一套符合我国国情的治安预警机制显得十分迫切。治安预警机制的建立现实意义深远，有利于增强公安机关的应变能力，履行维护社会治安秩序的使命，有利于增强人们的安全感，同时凸显了情报信息的作用，促进和谐警民关系的构建。