Accommodating death penalty legislation: Personal and professional views of assistant district attorneys toward capital punishment

Reinstatement of the death penalty in New York in 1995 forced an entire generation of prosecutors to confront capital punishment for the first time in their professional capacities. A total of 191 assistant district attorneys (ADAs) from 44 of New York’s 62 county prosecutors’ offices responded to a written survey. The results show ADAs hold widely divergent views about capital punishments, although most respondents fail to recognize their colleagues maintain differing viewpoints. The return of the death penalty appears to have both personal and professional implications for New York ADAs, and has precipitated potentially significant changes in their work environments.     

The death penalty: Down but not out in the summer of '02

This paper discusses questions of borders, communities, and refugees through an examination of the work of film director Theo Angelopoulos, in particular his so‐called “Balkan trilogy,” which includes Eternity and a Day. In these films, Angelopoulos looks at the nature of borders and communities and at what they do to people in general and refugees in particular. I argue that the refugees cannot be placed in any straightforward fashion according to the logics of political sovereignty and national divisions. They are a heterogeneous excess from the constitution of borders and divisions, yet by making visible this heterogeneity, Angelopoulos shows the contingency of political and national borders. As a consequence, the critique of the injustices resulting from existing borders must start from what is heterogeneous to them. Only in this way is it possible to transform existing structures. However, this does not mean that politics should aim simply at the elimination of borders and exclusion. Rather, we must accept the ineradicability of borders and exclusion while contesting any particular ones.     

the death penalty: An American history

Stuart Banner's thoughtful book, The Death Penalty: An American History (2002), serves as the basis of this review essay which explores the forces shaping the nation's experiences with capital punishment. The essay traces Banner's account of important death penalty developments throughout American history and examines justifications traditionally offered in support of capital punishment, issues of administration, and execution protocols. It concludes by projecting that, consistent with historical trends and nagged by serious and recurring administrative problems, the death penalty in America will in due course become a thing of the past.     

Administering Romance: Government Policies Concerning Pre-marriage Education Programs

Recent policy objectives surrounding the institution of marriage are based on strategies aimed at sustaining a stable and morally cohesive society. Policy-makers disapproving of marriage breakdowns often focus on the behaviour of individuals to explain the breakdowns. Policy initiatives seek to 'cure' individuals to overcome the problem of marriage failure. Pre-marriage education programs encourage self-help and depend on individuals solving their own problems. I argue in this paper that this rational view of marriage is flawed because it does not engage with the issue of romance. This is an important concern to administrators because romance often plays a central role in partner choice and people's expectations of marriage. Policy-makers either ignore romance or treat it as a myth to be countered; they rarely discuss how it influences a couple's decision to marry in the first place. I argue that romance should not be dismissed so easily as it plays a significant role in gender relations. Acknowledging romance ought to be a significant part of administering marriage education programs.     

Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army: the new order no one ordered

For almost 18 years, the so-called ‘Lord’s ResistanceArmy’ (LRA) has waged war on the Ugandan government andits own people, the Acholi. The robustness of the conflict indicatesthat the forces working against peace outstrip those workingfor it. Analysis of the conflict is often reduced to describingthe LRA rebellion as the handiwork of a religious fanatic. However,the social disorder that the National Resistance Movement, ledby current President Museveni, inherited in 1986 after the downfallof the Acholi-led Okello regime, contained the root causes forcontinued insurgency. These were amplified by external circumstancesthat created the operational leeway for rebellion, gatheringforce in the absence of a credible Acholi political leadership.A deliverance couched in religious discourse resolved the quandary.The emergence and transformation of the LRA can be made comprehensibleonly in relation, or even in opposition, to the emergence anddownfall of the Holy Spirit Mobile Forces (HSMF) as a radicalstructure of rejection. Millenarian religious justificationcontextualizes violence and the use of terror as a means ofimmobilization and control of the population. As the characterand composition of the LRA evolved to include the kidnappingof children, and as the terror escalated, the insurgency becameincreasingly ensnared in a web of internal contradictions. Theresult is that the LRA has exacerbated the process of dehumanizationthe HSMF first set out to counter.     

Women,the other academics

In Britain, women academics occupy an elite position and therefore have not excited much feminist sympathy. Yet when compared to their male counterparts such women are clearly disadvantaged. This paper analyses three persistent problems British women academics typically encounter. The first involves the coordination, over time, of demands of two ‘greedy institutions’: home and work. The second is the management of colleague relations while occupying token status in a department. The third is the task of understanding and confronting biases reflecting male dominance in what is considered acceptable professional knowledge and practice. What links all three is the marginality, the ‘otherness’ of women academics. Their vulnerability is high and their political potential low; yet by advancing feminist scholarship they can turn their talents to good use.     

The Changing Business of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art: Markets,Audiences, Artists,and the Large Art Fairs

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the relationship between the growth of large Australian Aboriginal art fairs and shifts in the fine art market and state policies; audience and art insiders' experiences; and the implications of art fair participation for artists and art centers. In contrast to the traditional gallery model, the art fairs draw buyers and artists together in regional centers, along with families, managers, curators, commentators, administrators, and politicians. Using the assemblages concept, we analyze the emergence of a new engagement that prioritizes social, cultural, and interpersonal aspects of art making and where buyers consume “relational goods” linked to their purchasing context.     

Disconnected relationship values and marriage policies in England

The article examines relationship values which influence the government’s marriage-related policies. It constructs a framework of core values as the ‘conception of the desirable’ to highlight a central problem for the government: there are many conflicting values that can be identified as potentially relevant. Traditional morality and equality highlight marriage as the ultimate goal for heterosexual and same-sex couples by emphasising responsibility, commitment and stability to encourage and strengthen couple relationships. The articulation of these values associated with celebrating marriage is evident in policies such as transferable tax allowances for married couples and couple relationship education. However, marriage is a public and a private institution which encompasses disconnected values. The article analyses the different values that policy-makers confront by examining evidence from interviews with stakeholders which suggests that marriage-related policies do not necessarily resonate with various actors’ understanding of relationship values. They compete with values such as individual autonomy, the desire for financial security and diverse relationships.