Constructing Population Control: Social and Material Factors in Norm Emergence and Diffusion

To demonstrate that norms have independent causal power, constructivists de-emphasise material factors related to state interests and highlight social factors. Similarly, they conceptualise international organisations as autonomous from state influence, and focus on cases featuring non-state actors that stimulate a “tipping point” of norm diffusion among states in advance of state sponsorship. By contrast, this article utilises an historical materialist approach that admits both social and material data to examine the contrasting case of population control. It finds that US corporate foundations, eugenist demographers, feminist birth control activists and related NGOs conceptualised and promoted population control in the United States, at the United Nations, and across developing countries. However, the tipping point of norm diffusion occurred only after the United States publicly advocated population control. Indeed, material and social factors were inextricably bound together.     

Moral Rights,Judicial Review,and Democracy: A Response to Horacio Spector

Law and Philosophy -     

The future of Fair Trade coffee: dilemmas facing Latin America's small-scale producers

Fair Trade has become a dynamic and successful dimension of an emerging counter-tendency to the neo-liberal globalisation regime. This study explores some of the dilemmas facing the Fair Trade movement as it seeks to broaden and deepen its impact among the rural poor of Latin America's coffee sector. We argue that the efforts to broaden Fair Trade's economic impact among poor, small-scale producers are creating challenges for deepening the political impact of a movement that is based on social justice and environmental sustainability. The study is based on two years' research and seven case studies of Mexican and Central American small-scale farmer cooperatives producing coffee for the Fair Trade market.     

Proficiency testing (external quality assessment) of drug detection in oral fluid

Eighteen external quality assessment (proficiency testing) samples were prepared from client specimens collected with the Intercept^® oral fluid collection device and by spiking drug-free oral fluid. Samples were circulated in pairs at quarterly intervals to 13 UK and USA based laboratories for analysis by a panel of OraSure micro-plate Intercept^® enzyme immunoassay kits and hyphenated mass spectrophotometric techniques. During the survey, there was a single case of non-specificity in a false report for methadone. The major errors were of lack of sensitivity relative to the concentration thresholds specified for the immunoassays. The sensitivity for overall ‘present’/‘not found’ reports calculated as true positives/(true positives + false negatives) were for the amfetamine specific assay 50%, methyl-amfetamines 93%, barbiturates 64%, cannabinoids 73%, cocaine and metabolites 100%, benzodiazepines 69%, methadone 95%, opiates 79% (opiates excluding oxycodone 93%), phencyclidine 93% and human gamma-globulin 97%. A small number of the sensitivity errors were attributable to errors in chromatographic confirmation techniques.     

Custody decisions in Alabama before and after the abolition of the tender years doctrine

This study investigated the impact of the abolition of the tender years doctrine on custody decisions in divorce cases. This doctrine supported the presumption that the mother is the more suitable parent for young children. In March of 1981, the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama found this doctrine to be unconstitutional. To assess the hypothesis that this ruling had a significant effect on custodyrelated decisions, a sample of court records for divorce cases in an Alabama county was examined as representative of the state on a number of key variables. Overall, no significant differences were found on indicator variables for the comparisons before and after the ruling. There was neither an increase in custody grants to fathers nor an increase in custody requests by fathers.