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In Purging the Odious Scourge of Atrocities, Bruce Cronin explains the growth of a small body of human rights law that bans the use of violence against a state's own population when it is deemed a mass atrocity, regardless of whether they have accepted it by signing treaties, or whether it is consistent with widespread state practice. Specifically, Cronin offers a theory of international law that explains how the international community developed universal bans on genocide; widespread, systematic attacks on civilian populations; torture; and the violation of civilian immunity in civil wars. By allowing us to rethink the mechanisms that give international law actual force, Purging the Odious Scourge of Atrocities promises to reshape our understanding of why states abide by human rights norms they never consented to by treaty.

This article examines how military organizations that are generally committed to following the laws and customs of war exploit what the author terms 'the collateral damage exemption', by employing legally-sanctioned war-fighting strategies that result in significant numbers of civilian casualties. This exemption shields combatants from legal liability for 'incidental' or 'inadvertent' civilian losses and the destruction of civilian objects that may occur during lawful actions. The author argues that military strategies which promote the use of overwhelming force under conditions that are likely to adversely affect the civilian population on a significant scale push the boundaries of legal behavior. Under these conditions, collateral damage is not inadvertent, but the calculated results of policy decisions. Most academics, journalists, and political leaders focus on blatant violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), for example, deliberate attacks on civilian populations. However, these actions are in many ways the least interesting from both a policy and scholarly perspective. This is because such violations are usually unambiguous, easily detected, and difficult to defend. More insidious are practices that deliberately straddle the line between legitimate action and violation by exploiting the collateral damage exception to IHL. This article demonstrates that high rates of civilian casualties that occur under the shroud of legality threaten the integrity of the laws and customs of armed conflict.

This paper examines developments through the quarter century since the publication of Stokman, Ziegler and Scott's (1985) iconic ten-nation study of the structure of interlocking directorships. The surprising decline of research in the area following the publication of Networks of Corporate Power is in part testimony to the rigour of the comparative methods used, raising the standard of evidence required for subsequent director interlock studies. But it also reflected a critical weakness in director interlock research to that point, the limited ability to answer what Mark Mizruchi has called the "So what?" question. While replicated studies found clear structures in director interlocks, varying from country to country, and there was some speculative fit with the distinctive political economies of these countries, there was little evidence of any effect of these structures on firm performance or activity. The more recent resurgence in director interlock research is in some ways rooted in a second generation of the original drivers; the ready availability of now large masses of data on firm governance and firm level performance and further advances in social network analytical techniques. Where Stokman and his colleagues manually compiled lists of directors scoured from company reports, these data are now routinely collected and compiled in accessible databases by government agencies and business information services in many countries. And there has been a gradual accumulation of advances in addressing the "so what" question.

Most theories that seek to explain the relationship between major war and the creation of new political orders posit a direct link between the interests of the winning states and the type of order that emerges. We tend to assume that since most wars are fought for specific purposes and a defined goal, the aftermath of the conflict will reflect the interests and preferences of the winning parties. This article challenges this approach, arguing that the necessity of securing public support and winning allies forces states to make public commitments for a postwar reconstruction that they might otherwise avoid. During the course of the war, states unintentionally limit their options for the postwar reconstruction by publicly articulating a set of 'war aims' that are designed to rally public support and win over potential allies. Since war aims are as much statements of propaganda as of policy they often do not reflect the state interest per se. However, once articulated, they become the official policy of the coalition, and political leaders are forced to implement their principles as the foundation for the new order.

AbstractHeterodox economics is in part defined by exclusion from orthodox circles and there is an understandable tendency for heterodox economists to engage primarily with each other outside these circles. Yet the critique offered by heterodoxy speaks more widely. This study examines the diffusion of heterodox economic ideas beyond the immediate confines via an analysis of the citation of heterodox economic journals by other journals. The diffusion of heterodox economics across wider disciplines is traced utilizing data from Emerald, Wiley, and Sage bibliographic databases. Employing the techniques of social network analysis, key journals in the diffusion process are identified, with implications for heterodox economics publishing strategy and engagement in valuation processes.

"Security Regimes: Collective Security and Security Communities" published on by Oxford University Press.

"Treaty Law: New Trends" published on by Oxford University Press.