Suchergebnisse

THE AUTHOR SUGGESTS THAT THERE ARE SIGNIFICANT FOUNDATIONAL PROBLEMS WITH MANY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT, WIDELY HELD ARGUMENTS IN SECURITY STUDIES AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY. HE BELIEVES THAT WHEN ONE COMPARES THE CONTRIBUTION TO SECURITY STUDIES OF THE LATEST WAVE OF FORMAL THEORY, WHICH BEGAN IN THE MID-1980S, TO THAT OF NONFORMAL THEORY, THE FORMER HOLDS UP QUITE WELL. FORMAL THEORY HAS MADE IMPORTANT ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS, AND MANY FORMAL THEORIES ARE BEING TESTED EMPIRICALLY. HE SHOWS THAT ONE CAN STILL OBTAIN A BADLY DISTORTED PICTURE OF AN ENTIRE LITERATURE EVEN IF ONE EXAMINES ONLY MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS. ALSO, NO ONE SHOULD JUDGE THE RATIONAL CHOICE LITERATURE ON THE BASIS OF STEPHEN WALT'S SUMMARY OF ELEVEN EXAMPLES.

This paper focuses on a recent public consultation to criminalise trespass in England and Wales. Through an analysis of the consultation discourse and documentary evidence, we argue that the government has used this process to manufacture a mandate for criminalisation. We show how the construction of democratic support has been achieved by: Pre-coding responses in the initial call for evidence; distorting evidence in the response; and utilizing 'state simplifications' which foreground hostile and racist sentiments whilst presenting sedentarisation as in the 'best interests' of nomadic communities. While the 2018/19 consultation is only the most recent in a long history of civilising offensives against Gypsy-Travellers, as well as other 'unfixed' communities, this particular move to criminalise trespass and attack nomadic heritage is also further evidence of the UK government's steady formalization of property ownership: moving away from considering property 'use' on the ground towards an abstracted registration system de-rooted from place. This denies long-standing rights to roam and non-normative modes of inhabitation, thereby pushing property relations in a direction that rarely benefits those on the housing margins. We foreground an alternative to criminalisation, pointing towards a recent pragmatic, bottom-up policy of 'negotiated stopping' in Leeds in northern England. This builds upon dialogue and cooperation in avoiding costly and disruptive eviction and criminalisation processes, but also potentially creates spaces and opportunities for more positive urban encounters with difference.

The link between parasite-stress and complex psychological dispositions implies that the social, political, and economic benefits likely to flow from public health interventions that reduce rates of non-zoonotic infectious disease are far greater than have traditionally been thought. We sketch a prudential and ethical argument for increasing public health resources globally and redistributing these to focus on the alleviation of parasite-stress in human populations.