Reassurance: A Strategic Basis of U.S. Support for Israel

This article argues that Israel experiences a unique perception of the perils of anarchy that drives it to a strategic preference for disproportionately offensive action against rivals and enemies. Actions taken pursuant to that doctrine have caused serious inconvenience to U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast for over four decades. This article argues that by reassuring Israel, both diplomatically and with arms sales, that the United States is committed to its survival, the United States has obtained significant measures of strategic restraint on Israel's part. That restraint has brought significant benefit to the United States as it seeks to guarantee regular access to the vital resources of the Middle East. This article provides examples of both successful reassurance and reassurance denied to illustrate the argument that U.S. support produces tangible strategic benefits for the United States.     

The Network of Law Reviews: Citation Cartels,Scientific Communities,and Journal Rankings

Research evaluation is increasingly influenced by quantitative data. We focus on the influential Web of Science Journal Citation Reports (JCR) ranking of law journals and critically assess its methodology. In particular, we consider the existence and impact of a tacit citation cartel between US law reviews. A study of 45 US student‐edited (SE) and 45 peer‐reviewed (PR) journals included in the category of Law in the JCR revealed that PR and SE journals are more inclined to cite members of their own class and that this phenomenon is more pronounced in SE generalist journals, reflecting tacit cartelistic behavior generated by deeply entrenched institutional practices. Because US SE journals produce more citations than PR journals, the fact that their citations are directed almost exclusively to SE journals elevates their scores and distorts the journals' ranking and can consequently undermine the flow and creation of ideas. We discuss policy measures that can counter the adverse effects of this situation.     

Psychoanalysis and development: contributions,examples, limits

This article examines the contributions of psychoanalysis to international development, illustrating ways in which thinking and practice in this field are psychoanalytically structured. Drawing on the work of Lacan and ?i?ek, the article will emphasise three key points: (1) psychoanalysis can help uncover the unconscious of development – its gaps, dislocations, blind spots – thereby elucidating the latter’s contradictory and seemingly ‘irrational’ practices; (2) the important psychoanalytic notion of jouissance (enjoyment) can help explain why development discourse endures, that is, why it has such sustained appeal, and why we continue to invest in it despite its many problems; and (3) psychoanalysis can serve as an important tool for ideology critique, helping to expose the socioeconomic contradictions and antagonisms that development persistently disavows (eg inequality, domination, sweatshop labour). But while partial to Lacan and ?i?ek, the article will also reflect on the limits of psychoanalysis – the extent to which it is gendered and, given its Western origins, universalisable.     

Rallying or Criticizing? Media Coverage of Authorities' Reaction to Terror Attacks Targeting Sporting Events

The reaction of authorities to terror attacks or threats has the potential to attract both support and criticism. The current study aims to examine the international media's discourse surrounding authorities' reaction to sporting events that have suffered from terror attacks or terror threats. A comparison is made between events that are canceled and events that take place as planned despite the attack or threat. Our findings indicate no significant differences between the coverage of events that are canceled and those that continue as planned. The evidence actually exhibits greater levels of support rather than criticism of authorities in international media coverage.     

Jewish-Palestinian Relations in Israel: From Hegemony to Equality?

This article focuses on the relationships between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority in Israel. Opening with a historical perspective that emphasizes the marginality of the minority, the article proceeds to describe empirically that minority's inferior and subservient condition. The third section proposes an elaborate conceptual framework for analyzing politics in deeply divided societies and then applies it to the Israeli case. The final part addresses the possibility of transforming Israel's political system from one that is ethnically hegemonic and democratically flawed into a polity that is open, inclusive, and genuinely democratic. The article identifies ways for effecting such a systemic transformation through individual-based approaches (especially liberal democracy) and group-based designs (consociationalism, multinationalism, federalism, cantonization, and autonomy).     

Capitalism,culture, agency: Dependency versus postcolonial theory

This article reads dependency alongside and against postcolonial theory in an attempt to reinvigorate and re-validate some of the insights of the former, while at the same time supporting the latter's current ascendancy in the field of Third World politics. It is argued that although dependency and postcolonial theory share some common territory--a suspicion of Western liberal modernity, a critical-historical analysis--they tend to have irreconcilable differences that show up their respective strengths and vulnerabilities. Dependency chooses a structuralist and socioeconomic perspective, seeing imperialism and development as tied to the unfolding of capitalism, whereas postcolonial theory favours a post-structuralist and cultural perspective, linking imperialism and agency to discourse and the politics of representation. The article stages a mutual critique of them, based on the work of Frank, Cardoso & Faletto, Said, Spivak and Bhabha.     

Clinical epidemiology of urban violence: responding to children exposed to violence in ten communities

This study explores the clinical epidemiology of children's exposure to violence as addressed by a program in which mental health clinicians work with law-enforcement agents in 10 U.S. cities. Data were collected on all participants contacted by the Child Development Community Policing Program (N = 7,313 individuals involved in 2,466 community incidents). Multivariate regression was used to examine sociodemographic and clinical correlates of the role of participants (victim, offender, or witness), location, and type of incident. The majority of incidents occurred in participants' homes. Adolescents were at a higher risk than children of being: (a) victimized, (b) involved in incidents outside their home, (c) experiencing a threat to their lives, and (d) suffering physical injuries. Males were more likely to be offenders than females, and to be subjected to physical injuries or involved in incidents that imposed a threat to their life. Females were significantly more likely to be victimized.     

Street‐Level Tort Law: The Bureaucratic Justice of Liability Decision‐Making

Most legal scholarship on tort focuses primarily on judicial decisions, but this represents only a limited aspect of tortious liability. The vast majority of decisions concerning tortious liability are made by bureaucrats. Unavoidably then, there are two tiers of justice in tort law. This article focuses on the lower tier – bureaucratic decision‐making – arguing that the justice of bureaucratic decisions on tort should be considered on its own terms and not by judicial standards. We develop the notion of bureaucratic justice, applying a normative framework originally set out in relation to public administration. This enables an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of different ways of bureaucratically determining liability claims in tort. The regimes discussed concern the liability of public authorities, but decision makers comprise both state and non‐state actors and the bureaucratic justice framework is, in principle, applicable to understand and evaluate the liability of both public and private actors.