Small arms and light weapons: the disjunction problem

ABSTRACT

Growing in range and urgency, humanitarian needs now pose increasingly acute questions for national security policy formulation. Whether over forced migration, food scarcity or nefarious electronic penetration, state security preferences face uneasy accommodations with individual needs be it for child survival, basic sustenance or rights to privacy. This paper deliberates a further field of increasingly apparent value contest: that involving the transfer, diversion and lethal use of small arms and light weapons (SALW). After outlining the scale of this phenomenon, existing regulatory mechanisms over SALW transfers are assessed. It is argued that these controls are inadequate, a deficiency that is embedded within a range of inter-linked disjunctions. They are outlined in a model that is evaluated against empirical findings. Where SALW control inadequacy is causally connected to the disjunctive model, it is argued, current levels of SALW-induced casualties are unlikely to abate. The paper concludes by considering feasible options for enhanced management of global SALW proliferation.     

Organized Crime in Asia: A Review of Problems and Progress

This paper provides a preliminary overview of research on organized crime in Asia drawing on selected papers from a symposium held at the National University of Singapore in June 2007. We draw on these contributions to emphasize the enterprise nature of organized crime and the common problems encountered by law enforcement in controlling and preventing the many harms inflicted by serious criminal activity. Recent attempts to address the changing character and forms of transnational organized crime, especially through the strengthening of mutual legal assistance by regional bodies such as ASEAN, are noted. These measures have yet to develop into the cross-border institutional frameworks now found in Europe, and the level of effective co-operation can only continue to improve. Countering organized crime in Asia also faces additional difficulties arising from the cultural diversity, relative weakness of law enforcement in some states and the lack of common strategies in respect to illicit markets.

Russian Views of Stalinism as a Negative Satellite of Capitalism

Abstract

The conflation of Stalinism with socialism was a key aspect of the relationship between Stalinism and capitalism. The Russian Marxist Nodari Simoniya exposed that conflation in his book What We Have Built, which is discussed in this essay in the context of Russian historiography about Stalinism. The main themes of Simoniya’s critique of Stalinism as a historical reversal are elaborated and linked to political images during the Cold War that distorted the meaning of socialism. Stalinism is revealed as a negative satellite of capitalism, constituting an external economic zone, not an alternative form of world order.     

Building little safe and civilized communities: community crime prevention with Chinese characteristics?

This article describes a community crime prevention program in China, set against a background of rapid economic development, large internal population migration, and increasing crime rates. Traditional social control in China has been transformed to adapt to the new reform era, yet some mechanisms remain intact. Crime prevention measures and strategies resemble those adopted in the West; however, the differences, constituting the so-called Chinese characteristics with community crime prevention are significant.