Immigrants into Citizens

This paper examines the citizenship test which is part of the UK naturalisation process. The test is based on the government publication Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship. A detailed analysis of its two editions (2004 and 2007) reveals that the conception of the citizen, and the picture of British government and society underlying each are very different. There is, additionally, a mismatch between the rationale offered for the Life in the United Kingdom test and what the latter can in fact test: the attitudes and civic virtues mentioned in the rationale are untestable on-line. A society which aspires to be a democracy, it is argued, needs to scrutinise carefully the fairness and democratic appropriateness of its procedures for admitting new citizens.     

Bushwhacking the Democratic Peace

The invasion of Iraq has been justified, ex post , as for the purpose of promoting the democratic peace. It does not, however, appear to have been a principal goal ex ante . Most democratic peace theorists, moreover, do not endorse democratic regime change by great-power external military intervention. Success is difficult to achieve (usually at high cost), and the conditions in Iraq were not promising even had the occupation been carried out more competently. Greater success in democratization has been achieved by UN peacekeeping operations, and by various regional international organizations using a variety of peaceful measures to ensure free elections, constrain authoritarian leaders, and empower democratic forces. International organizations, notably those whose membership is largely composed of democracies, are especially likely to succeed in promoting democracy.     

A Stone’s Throw from the Metropolis: Re-Examining Small-Agency Homeland Security Practices

Police agencies nationwide have enhanced their homeland security preparedness capacity since the 9/11 attacks. Evidence suggests that departments have not uniformly adopted measures to prepare for and respond to critical incidents. Rather, larger agencies are more likely than their smaller peers to take such steps. Small agencies do not constitute a homogenous group; some experience geographic isolation while others are near major metropolitan areas. Unclear is whether small agencies (25 or fewer full-time sworn personnel), those that are commonly found to be less prepared, benefit from proximity to large-agency peers. This study examined whether physical and relational proximity to large departments contributed to homeland security preparedness in over 300 small departments. A structural equation model revealed that interactions with large agencies facilitated preparedness but physical proximity had no direct effect. Increasing geographic isolation from large-agency peers indirectly affected preparedness by stifling the level of inter-department interactions.     

试论乡镇机构改革的保障：依法行政（定编）及税费改革

新一轮乡镇机构改革,必须以依法行政(定编)作为根本保障,并以税费改革作为重要保障,从而才能真正实现乡镇政府职能的转变和富余人员的成功分流。     

经济组织与纠纷自决——以两个企业为例的分析

作为成本低廉的纠纷解决方式,自决是各型经济组织的首选。诉讼在多数情况下只是一种不得已的选择。而同时,由于企业规模以及各自经济实力等差异,纠纷的自我解决形式表现出明显的差异。反思经济组织自决机制的本质,既表现一定的伦理性,也呈现某种反伦理特征;就其与诉讼机制的关系而论,则既存有竞争,也有同一关系。     

‘I do not have the means to speak:’ educating youth for citizenship in post-conflict Liberia

Although policymakers stress the importance of education in promoting peace, little research examines the ways that schools prepare students affected by conflict to participate in the restoration of peace in their political community. Post-conflict societies experience severe challenges in strengthening political processes and social cohesion. This paper discusses citizenship education at a school run by a non-governmental organization near Monrovia, Liberia, examining the implemented curriculum in an 8th grade civics classroom. The paper details the ways that young people expressed civic critiques within the classroom, and provides a counterstory to narratives of harsh and violent educational environments in the region. This classroom was a space where students and their teacher engaged in talk about contentious issues: students discussed corruption and injustice, and highlighted the relationship between economic and political power. I argue that if the goal of education is to produce engaged, effective citizens, teachers should have pedagogic support to confront the differences between the implemented curriculum and students’ lived experiences. Peace education in such contexts must include equipping students to seek justice. Furthermore, because possibilities for civic education are embedded in students’ local and national contexts, current global civic education initiatives must be adaptive to local realities.     

‘I'm still a hustler’: entrepreneurial responses to precarity by participants in phase I clinical trials

Abstract

This paper questions the implications of entrepreneurial responses to conditions of employment precarity by ‘healthy volunteers’ in phase I clinical trials in the United States. Such individuals are typically serial participants who often identify as professional volunteers and seek out drug studies as their primary source of income. Drawing on extensive qualitative research, this paper illustrates how healthy volunteers selectively import the identity of ‘hustler’ from the street environment and reposition it as connoting a set of valuable creative skills that give them a competitive edge over other participants. An entrepreneurial ethos allows them to view personal sacrifice and exposure to potentially dangerous drugs as smart investments leading to financially stable futures. These discursive moves normalize extractive, and at times dehumanizing, labour relations that offload expenses and risks to workers.