“Whenever the new Muses present themselves, the masses bristle.”
– Jose Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art

It is hard to understand at first, but Israel’s survival is linked to certain core insights of the great Spanish existentialist philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset. Although he was speaking to abstract issues of art, culture, and literature, Ortega’s insights can be extended productively to very concrete matters of world politics. More precisely, just as there must take place periodic “revolutions” in the way that we humans look at beauty (Ortega’s intended argument), there must also appear new ways of understanding national strategies.

Strategic theories, like theories of art, are essentially a “net.” In war and peace, only those who cast will catch. Moreover, this net must be constantly re-woven and refined. Without a carefully derived and markedly innovative system of theory, the IDF will be unable to conform its critical order of battle to the constantly changing and increasingly lethal correlation of forces mustering on the regional battlefield.

Not all of the staggering IDF planning problems are purely theoretical or conceptual. Even where strategic studies proceed on a sound intellectual foundation — for example, one that would involve appropriately dialectical reasoning, rather than merely sterile accumulations of collected data — they will still need to remain sheltered from unsound political judgments. This lack of sheltering was the real problem back in the “old days” of Oslo, and it is still likely to be a source of concern in the current intellectual climate of a US-endorsed Road Map.

Yet another expression of utterly twisted cartography, the politics-driven Road Map could quickly override even the most sophisticated and otherwise promising directions of Israeli strategic studies.

What needs to be done?

First, Israeli strategists must look directly, unhesitatingly, and relentlessly at their country’s manifestly existential threats, and then identify these particular threats, promptly and openly, as the primary object and rationale of their inquiries. They must, therefore, reveal an unambiguous hierarchy of what is now most important to safeguard and secure, and display a subsequent obeisance to the determined rank-orderings of this effectively “sacred” hierarchy.

Second, Israeli strategists must fully understand, and without any further delay, that Israel is a system; that existential threats confronting Israel are themselves interrelated; and that the complex effects of these interrelated threats upon Israel must be examined together.

Third, Israeli strategists must understand that the world arena is best understood as a system, and that any disintegration of power and authority structures within this wider macro-system will impact, with more-or-less enormous and at-least partially foreseeable consequences, the Israeli micro-system. Since the seventeenth-century and the Peace of Westphalia (1648), all world politics have been anarchic. Still, anarchy is not the same as chaos. How shall Israel prepare to survive in a world of growing chaos?

Fourth, Israeli strategists must consciously and conspicuously turn away from too-much “prudence,” that is, from altogether too-mainstream kinds of strategic analyses. For the moment, these assessments may please their designated military and political advocates, but they could nonetheless remain potentially valueless, or even counter-productive, for vital Israeli policy formations.

A principal assumption of current Israeli strategic studies is the always idée fixe of rationality in enemy calculations. Because the functioning of nuclear deterrence necessarily depends upon this core assumption, Israeli strategists consequently turn away from any unexpected circumstances in which rationality would not be expected to operate. The predictable and dangerous result is that Israeli strategic studies may now accomplish too-little to prepare the political leadership in Jerusalem for increasingly probable confrontations with irrational enemy states, or with equally-irrational state proxies.

Naturally, Israeli strategists must soon acknowledge, more forthrightly, the still-conceivable fusion of a non-rational leadership in Tehran, with a nuclear military capacity. This combination, after all, could produce what amounts to a suicide-bomber writ large. However, irrationality is not the same as madness; such national decision-makers would value certain preferences more highly than continued national survival.

Fifth, Israeli strategists, in their work, must learn to consider seemingly irrelevant literature, not the mundane and narrowly technical materials normally generated by American strategists, but the authentically creative and artistic product of writers, poets, and playwrights. The broad intellectual insights that can be gleaned from such serious literature can provide a fundamentally better source of strategic understanding than the visually-impressive, but often misleading matrices, mathematics, metaphors, and scenarios of our military “experts.”

Sixth, Israeli strategists need to recognize the distinct advantages of private as opposed to collective academic thought. There is a suitably correct time for collaborative or “team” investigations, but in certain matters concerning Israeli security, we may sometimes discover greater conceptual value in the private musings of certain talented single individuals, than in the combined efforts of entire academic centers.

Seventh, Israeli strategists now need to open up, again, and with far greater diligence and formal insight, the question of nuclear ambiguity. Here it must be understood that examining the “bomb in the basement” is not merely a matter of belaboring the obvious, but rather one of optimally exploiting appropriate and variable levels of nuclear disclosure, for purposes of enhanced nuclear deterrence, and, quite possibly, non-nuclear preemptions.

Eighth, Israeli strategists still need to widen their consideration of the broader national questions of nuclear weapons and national strategy. Key issues will be those of nuclear targeting doctrine, and ballistic missile defense. Corollary concerns should center on investigations of the “rationality of pretended irrationality” (a strategy that may now already be underway in North Korean nuclear posturing), and on more-or-less explicit intimations of a refined “Samson” doctrine.

Ninth, Israeli strategists must cease their contemplation of an end to national existence as a purely objective consideration. These strategists can somehow contemplate the literal end of Israel in their formal studies, and still persevere quite calmly in their most routine day-to-day affairs. This ironic and potentially counterproductive juxtaposition would no longer be the case if these flesh-and-blood scholars could begin to contemplate the very moment of Israel’s collective disappearance.

Tenth, Israeli strategists should pay special attention to the compelling requirements of scholarly audacity — to steer clear of the comfortable intellectual middle-ground. Individual strategists will need to take risks, both personal and professional, in finding serious policy answers to the vital strategic questions. From the beginning, Israelis have generally exhibited remarkable and even unique levels of personal bravery in war. As yet, however, there have been substantially fewer evident examples of “bravery” in Israeli strategic scholarship. For the most part, this scholarship has been narrowly technical and viscerally imitative of its American antecedents.

Israel has always had to travel along precipices. From the beginning, therefore, its overriding obligation has been to somehow keep its balance. Now, when still-growing and sometimes intersecting sources of instability present themselves, this obligation can best be met by accepting certain new and more creative forms of strategic scholarship. In the end, Israel’s fate will hang upon its willingness to accept and refine “new Muses” in all areas of its indispensable strategic thought.

Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is the author of ten books and several hundred scholarly articles dealing with international relations and international law. He has lectured and published widely on strategic matters in Israel, Europe, and the United States. Professor Beres’ writings also appear in many major newspapers and magazines, including US News & World Report and The Atlantic.

If you are interested in this subject, you may be interested in The Practice of Strategy: From Alexander the Great to the Present, edited by John Andreas Olsen and Colin S. Gray. It focuses on grand strategy and military strategy as practiced over an extended period of time and under very different circumstances, from the campaigns of Alexander the Great to insurgencies and counter-insurgencies in present-day Afghanistan and Iraq.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only current affairs articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: chess board with figure. Image by DusanJankovic, iStockphoto.

The post Israel’s urgent strategic imperative appeared first on OUPblog.

Avian influenza. H7N9. Bird flu. If you are planning a trip to China, these phrases might have you concerned. There are still many uncertainties regarding the new influenza A (H7N9) virus: it isn’t clear where the virus started or how people are getting sick, and a vaccine is not yet available. Amid these unanswered questions, it’s not surprising that many travelers are doubting their plans. You may find yourself wondering if travel to China is still safe, or if you should cancel your trip.

Travelers should be aware that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not recommending against travel to China at this time. Currently no sustained person-to-person spread of the H7N9 virus has been found. So, while public health officials will continue closely monitoring the situation and working to determine how the virus is spreading, travelers don’t need to cancel their trips at this time.

However, travelers and their physicians should take this opportunity to remember that healthy behaviors are always important, especially while traveling. CDC is repeating its standard advice to travelers and Americans living in China to follow good hand hygiene and food safety practices and to avoid contact with animals. Simple actions like staying away from animals, eating food that is fully cooked, and washing your hands often can go a long way toward preventing illness (including H7N9). Travelers should also see a doctor right away if they become sick with fever, coughing, or shortness of breath during or after travel to China.

It’s important for travelers to remember that, although new illnesses like H7N9 make it into the news, any international travel can pose a health risk if you aren’t prepared. If you are planning an international trip, you should visit your doctor at least 4-6 weeks before your trip. You may need vaccines or medicine to stay healthy while traveling and your doctor can advise you on actions you can take while you are overseas to make sure your trip is safe and healthy.

For the most up-to-date information for travelers from the CDC regarding H7N9, see the CDC Travel Notice. CDC will also provide updated information on the H7N9 situation as it becomes available. For more information on healthy travel, please visit the CDC travel website and follow them on Twitter @CDCtravel.

Megan Crawley O’Sullivan, MPH is a Health Communications Specialist in the Travelers’ Health Branch, Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new 2014 edition of CDC Health Information for International Travel (commonly known as The Yellow Book) will be released later this year by Oxford University Press.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only health and medicine articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Advice from the CDC on travel and H7N9 appeared first on OUPblog.

The Marketplace Fairness Act, now being debated in the US Senate, is a rare phenomenon: a bill with strong bi-partisan support and an accurate title. The Act would indeed establish fairness in the marketplace by imposing on out-of-state internet and mail order sellers the same sales tax withholding requirements now imposed only on in-state brick-and-mortar businesses. The Senate and then the House should adopt the Marketplace Fairness Act so that the President can sign it into law.

In 1992, the US Supreme Court in Quill Corporation v. North Dakota held that a state cannot require out-of-state sellers to collect sales taxes when such sellers ship goods into the state since such out-of-state sellers have no physical presence in the state. Quill Corporation conducted a classic mail order business in North Dakota. Quill sold office and equipment supplies to North Dakota customers, but had no salespersons, stores or other physical presence in North Dakota. Quill Corporation advertised in North Dakota, mailed catalogs and flyers to North Dakota households, and shipped purchased goods to North Dakota customers via mail or common carrier.

Since Quill Corporation had no in-state physical presence, the US Supreme Court ruled, North Dakota could not require Quill to collect sales tax from North Dakota customers on such customers’ purchases. However, the Court made clear, Congress can change this result by federal legislation authorizing states to impose sales tax withholding obligations on out-of-state sellers.

Since Quill, online commerce has burgeoned in important measure because out-of-state internet firms need not collect sales taxes while stores with in-state presence must. This unfairly disadvantages both ma-and-pa in-state stores which must collect sales taxes and so-called click-and-brick sellers like Staples.com and Walmart.com which, because of their in-state stores, must collect sales taxes on their internet sales. In contrast, online and mail order sellers which eschew such in-state stores can effectively sell sales tax-free since, under current law, such sellers cannot be required to collect sales taxes because they are not physically present in the state.

This situation is neither fair nor efficient. Technically, purchasers of online and mail order merchandise must on their own pay taxes on their purchases from out-of-state firms. In practice, the states cannot collect and enforce taxes on most online and mail order purchases. This disadvantages in-state businesses which must collect sales taxes while their internet and mail order competitors need not.

The Marketplace Fairness Act would overturn Quill for large internet and mail order sellers. The Act would thereby put sellers on the proverbial level playing field by authorizing states to require out-of-state sellers like Quill Corporation to collect sales taxes even when such sellers lack in-state physical presence.

Some opponents characterize the Act as establishing a new tax. Some opponents also argue that the Act would impose an unfair burden on small businesses. Neither argument is correct.

Internet and mail order buyers have always owed taxes on their purchases. Such buyers have generally been unaware of or have ignored their obligation to pay taxes on their purchases from out-of-state sellers. The Marketplace Fairness Act would put buyers from mail order and electronic sellers in the same position as persons who purchase from in-state brick-and-mortar stores, that is to say, subject to sales tax withholding by the seller.

Moreover, the Act would only permit states to impose sales tax collection responsibility on internet and mail order firms with at least one million dollars in out-of-state sales. Truly small businesses would, per the Quill, still enjoy immunity from tax collection responsibilities on their out-of-state sales as long as they have no physical presence in the taxing state.

Some states will use the revenues they collect under the Act to balance their budgets. Others will use those revenues to lower their respective sales tax rates. Each state should be free to decide for itself.

The Marketplace Fairness Act is long overdue. It is neither fair nor efficient to require brick-and-mortar sellers to collect sales taxes while their on-line and mail order competitors effectively sell sales tax-free. By overturning Quill, the Act would indeed establish tax fairness in the marketplace.

Edward A. Zelinsky is the Morris and Annie Trachman Professor of Law at theBenjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He is the author of The Origins of the Ownership Society: How The Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America. His monthly column appears here.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only law and politics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image Credit: President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress by Lawrence Jackson. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Adopt the Marketplace Fairness Act appeared first on OUPblog.

In April 2013, OUP attended the American Society of International Law’s annual conference in Washington, DC. Now, it is the turn of the society’s European counterpart, the European Society of International Law (ESIL).

The 2013 ESIL Research Forum, to be held in Amsterdam on 23-25 May, will gather delegates from all corners of the globe to discuss the key issues and challenges that affect international lawyers today.

The European Society of International Law was formed in 2001 by the original editors of the European Journal of International Law, out of a need to develop a “general European network to bring together and to develop deeper understanding among all of those working in the field of international law, be they government officials, diplomats, legal advisers in international organizations, academics, or practising lawyers.” The society hosts a variety of events including its biennial conference, which takes place every other year. For those years inbetween it is the turn of the Research Forum, which is now in its fifth year.

The theme of this year’s Forum is law as a profession, which will be articulated through an exploration of the different roles carried out by international lawyers, ranging from the international lawyer as judge to the international lawyer as academic. What challenges do these lawyers face? And how will they be overcome? ESIL 2013 will attempt to answer these questions through a jam-packed few days of plenary sessions, panel discussions, workshops, and keynote addresses. Three ESIL interest groups will also convene the day before the Forum opens. These are: the International Business and Human Rights Interest Group; International Economic Law Interest Group and the Law of the Sea Interest Group. Visit the conference website for further details.

Here are some of the highlights:

• On arrival, make sure you attend the welcome addresses at the Opening Ceremony, all of which are being delivered by OUP authors: Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Elies van Sliedregt, and Andre Nollkaemper
• Many of our authors will be moderating, participating, and presenting at this year’s event. Check out the programme for further details/
• Some of the sessions will be streamed online, so you don’t have to be at the conference to enjoy all it has to offer.
• On Friday, ESIL will host the Gala Dinner — a lovely way to round off a busy day at the Forum.

No doubt you will be busy most days attending sessions, catching up with colleagues, and browsing the exhibition stands. However, if you do have some down time, ensure you take the time to explore Amsterdam, the host city of this year’s event. Why not take a boat cruise along the canal or visit the newly re-opened Van Gogh Museum? Or if you are feeling particularly energetic, perhaps take a bike ride around the city to view the sights?

While at the Forum, don’t forget to visit us at the OUP stand to browse our latest books and perhaps pick up a journal or two. Be sure to follow the #ESIL2013 hashtag for the latest updates. We look forward to seeing you there!

Katherine Marshall is Marketing Executive for Academic Law titles at Oxford University Press.

Oxford University Press is a leading publisher in Public International Law, including the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, latest titles from thought leaders in the field, and a wide range of law journals and online products. We publish original works across key areas of study, from humanitarian to international economic to environmental law, developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners worldwide.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only law and politics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Amsterdam by JORGE A. RAMOS C. Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons

The post Preparing for ESIL 2013 appeared first on OUPblog.

The new television show Hannibal resurrects Thomas Harris’s famous serial killer and offers a few new surprises bound to shock both newcomers and longtime fans of Dr. Lecter. So while you’re catching up on the latest incarnation of the series, why not brush up on criminology facts or learn something new about cannibalism?

CRIMINAL PROFILING

How does Will Graham get inside the minds of serial killers?

Criminal Law: The Essentials
By Sue Titus Reid
This brief text will introduce you to the main issues and developments within the field.

Crime Profiles: The Anatomy of Dangerous Persons, Places, and Situations
By Terance D. Miethe, Richard C. McCorkle and Shelley J. Listwan
Learn more about the motivation and design of criminal acts.

Forensic Psychology: A Very Short Introduction
By David Canter
A thorough overview of the field of forensic psychology including a chapter dedicated to how to track down a criminal.

CRIMINAL LAW AND JUSTICE

Jack Crawford’s FBI team doesn’t have the best record for bringing in criminals alive, but what can they expect when brought to justice?

Criminal Law: The Essentials
By Sue Titus Reid
This brief text will introduce you to the main issues and developments within the field.

Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology
By Charles Patrick Ewing and Joseph T. McCann
A behind-the-scenes look into high profile cases with an emphasis on the testimonies of mental health professionals.

Criminal Law
By Sue Titus Reid
A broader overview of criminal law and justice through a modified case by case approach.

The Oxford Handbook of Crime and Criminal Justice
Edited by Michael Tonry
A guide to the American criminal justice system and essential to learn what happens next to the killers caught on the show.

Criminal Law
By Nicola Padfield
Review this concise volume on criminal law before the next big case.

PSYCHIATRY

Do you need to stay ahead of Dr. Lecter’s mind games with the latest developments in psychiatry?

Psychiatry: A Very Short Introduction
By Tom Burns
Test your knowledge on this field and see if you can keep up with Dr. Lecter.

Psychiatry’s contract with society: Concepts, controversies, and consequences
Edited by Dinesh Bhugra, Amit Malik and George Ikkos
Read this to get a better handle on the complicated relationship between doctor and patient (luckily not as complicated as Graham and Lecter’s will be).

SERIAL KILLERS

Where did Thomas Harris get his inspiration from?

Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers, and Thieves: The Lives and Crimes of Fifty American Villains
Edited by Lawrence Block
Learn about the real villains that could have been the inspiration behind some of the characters on the show.

The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing
Edited by Rosemary Herbert
Review the entry on serial killers and mass murderers by Marion Swan to see how real life killers inspire our writers.

ANTHROPOPHAGY

How does human flesh taste?

The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy
By William Arens
No book list on Hannibal Lecter would be complete without a few reference books on cannibalism.

The Oxford Companion to the Body
Edited by Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennett
The entry on cannibalism by W. Arens provides a historical perspective on the anthropophagic nature of ‘others’.

Now that you’re prepared, use your newfound knowledge to solve the next case before Will does!

Kimberly Hernandez is a social media intern at Oxford University Press.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Image credit: All images from the Hannibal television series copyright NBC. Used for purposes of illustration.

The post An Oxford Companion to NBC’s Hannibal appeared first on OUPblog.

The central story of China’s economic reforms and the resulting economic miracle has been the move from a centrally planned to a largely market economy, and the emergence of a market-based and mainly private sector alongside the old state-owned sector. Most quantitative trends are still in that direction, and legal and institutional reforms, notably stronger property rights within a situation of limited rule of law, have provided some support. Nevertheless, China has maintained its distinctiveness from other varieties of capitalism, both in rhetoric (“socialist market economy”) and in reality. The Communist Party state retains a more powerful role in the economy than is the case with most capitalist countries, and the trend has by no means been unidirectional from state to private or from planning to market.

Indeed, over the past several years there has been a lot of discussion in China over a counter trend, that is “the advance of the state and the retreat of the private” (guo jin min tui). On the one hand this reflects the on-going perception in the Chinese leadership that only the “national champions”—the massive state-owned companies—are likely to be able to compete on the international stage. Moreover, the nature of the 2008 stimulus package—heavily weighted to large-scale infrastructure—meant that many of the resources went to state-owned companies. At the same time, the trend also involves struggles for power and wealth between different groups in society. Thus as the Economist reported, state interests were successful in the mid-2000s in seizing some 4,000 privately run oil wells in north-west China.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (L) talks with Vice President Xi Jinping as they leave after the closing session of the National People’s Congress on March 13, 2009 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Guang Niu)

One of the main arenas of contention between state and private interests has been the coal industry. Of course this is an arena where genuine claims of public interest can be made. China is critically dependent on coal as a source for its energy (coal provides around 70% of China’s total energy needs), a dependence that causes major environmental problems, and in that situation the state could be expected to pay close attention to the industry in any society. Moreover safety, or rather the lack of it, has provided a major reason and pretext for state intervention. Up to the early 2000s China’s coal safety record was an international embarrassment, with far higher levels of fatalities and fatality rates per million tons of coal produced even than other developing countries. This became a matter of concern both for the leadership and for the educated public in general. Wen Jiabao’s history as a geologist contributed to making this issue a major focus of the more “populist” agenda of the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao leadership. The worst safety record was found among the smaller rural and private mines, and therefore provided the pretext for a series of attempts to curtail or control such mines. It also allowed the state and the press to paint the small mine owners as “black-hearted coal owners,” and they received public sympathy.

The two trends—a general extension of state power in the economy and concern for coal safety—came together in the attempt to consolidate and rationalize the coal industry in the late 2000s. This happened most famously in Shanxi province, until 2008 China’s largest coal producer, and similar policies were then extended to other provinces, though with some variations. In Shanxi, the policy took the form of empowering State-owned mining enterprises to take over the resources of small mines within an area allocated to each of the large mines, thus ruling out any competition over resources. This was widely perceived, though not official described, as the (re-)nationalization of coal resources.

Private enterprises and owners not surprisingly felt bitter at the implementation of this policy, and argued strongly that any compensation that was paid was entirely inadequate. Owners among the local rural population were angry at being forced to sell below value, with dark rumours about bribes paid to local officials. But many of the targets of the policy were extra-provincial investors, and thus people for whom the provincial government would feel no particular responsibility. The largest group was from Wenzhouin Zhejiang, whose investors had sunk tens of billions of yuan into the Shanxi coal industry in the 1990s and 2000s. The overall trend towards the strengthening of property rights was shown by the fact that the Wenzhou owners felt able to fight the takeover, using media campaigns to denounce the nationalization and the state’s encroachment on private rights. They also attempted to call on the rule of law, hiring lawyers, who held workshops and conferences in Hangzhou to protest the policy, arguing that it contradicted the principles of the socialist market economy. Nevertheless the trends towards stronger property rights and the rule of law were only incipient, and it would appear that the mine owners’ protests had limited effect, and the nationalization went ahead.

Private owners were not the only interests adversely affected. By concentrating ownership in the hands of state owned enterprises at the provincial level, the policy also deprived local governments of the major part of their revenue streams and local populations (and migrant workers) of many employment opportunities. Thus there was much less enthusiasm for the policy at the county level and below than at the level of the province, though outright opposition was limited by the heavy weight the central state was giving to the improvement of work safety in assessing officials for transfer and promotion: the policy does appear to have very substantially reduced the accident rate, and resistance could be made to seem irresponsible. In addition to generating tax revenues, local governments had previously been able to pressure private mine owners into contributing to a wide range of social expenditures. As one local official complained, although they could get the private owners to build roads or schools almost at will, they couldn’t even get the new province-level owners to construct a public toilet.

One must be careful in extrapolating the experience of the Shanxi coal industry to the national economy, but at the minimum this episode shows that the state retains levers and the willingness to use them to impose its will on the enterprise sector to a far greater extent than in most other capitalist countries. While private owners appear to have a greater ability now to articulate their interests in public, they are still not able to roll back the advance of the state at the expense of the private where the state—or key elements of the state—sees its core interests involved.

Tim Wright, Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Bibliographies in Chinese Studies, is Emeritus Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK.  His research focuses on modern Chinese economic history, in particular natural and economic shocks to the economy, and on the political economy of contemporary China. His publications include Coal Mining in China’s Economy and Society, 1895–1937, The Chinese Economy in the Early Twentieth Century: Recent Chinese Studies, and The Political Economy of the Chinese Coal Industry: Black Gold and Blood-stained Coal.

Developed cooperatively with scholars and librarians worldwide, Oxford Bibliographies offers exclusive, authoritative research guides. Combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, this cutting-edge resource guides researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to current affairs articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: National People’s Congress 2009 via iStockphoto.

The post State and private in China’s economy appeared first on OUPblog.

By Christopher Wogan

In Trade Mark Law: a Practical Anatomy, Jeremy Phillips’ classic analysis of trademarks, Jeremy notes that how a trademark functions depends on “(i) how the trade mark owner uses it and (ii) how the purchaser views it.” The purpose of the trademark system is not only for those who own trademarks and their competitors, but also for those consumers who may or may not choose to use goods and services provided by the trade mark owner.

Trademark law is an interesting field because it is defined not only by legislation and legal books and treaties but also by the uses to which it is put. Trademark lawyers are at the forefront of deciding the legality of issues that affect commerce, companies, and consumers the world over. Do you ever wonder when you ask for a Coke whether what you are really asking for is any carbonated cola beverage or the drink specifically made by Coca-Cola? If you want to stitch your favorite football team’s name on your scarf do you need permission? Trademark lawyers regularly answer and deal with these finer points of intellectual property law.

A group of around 10,000 intellectual property law practitioners and trademark specialists will convene in Dallas, Texas from 4-8 May at the International Trademark Association’s 135th Annual Meeting. They will come together to talk about the latest trademark and intellectual property law issues, to catch up with friends from around the world, and to meet new ones. They will ask themselves how intellectual property and trademarks will evolve in a world that is more commercial and digitally connected than ever before.

Those who have been to the INTA annual meeting before know that it is a five day conference packed with informative panel discussions and networking events. This year’s conference is no different. The program sounds fascinating, with a keynote address from Jerry Jones, Owner, President, and General Manager of the Dallas Cowboys, while the Welcome Reception and INTA Gala are not to be missed.

If you’re wondering what to do when you’re not attending sessions, check out these conference-related happenings:

• Saturday: First-Time Attendee Annual Meeting Orientation. Take full advantage of the INTA Annual Meeting and learn about the resources and opportunities for education, networking, navigating the Exhibition Hall and making the best use of your time. This session is for first-time attendees, as well as new members, who want to learn more about the most recent events and resources available on-site. 3:00 pm–4:00 pm
• Monday: Meet Oxford authors David Stone and Neil Wilkof. From noon onwards you can meet David Stone, author of European Union Design Law and Neil Wilkof, author of Overlapping Intellectual Property Rights at the Oxford University Press booth #815.  Also on Monday evening there is an Academic and Young Practitioner Happy Hour, an excellent networking opportunity for law and paralegal students, practitioners new to trade mark law, professors and adjunct professors to discuss, over cocktails, interesting new trade mark law developments.
• Wednesday: Grand Finale – Gilley’s Dallas. Enjoy your final night of the 2013 Annual Meeting at Gilley’s and get a real taste of Dallas culture. 7:00 pm–11:00 pm

Also, here are a few tips on what to expect when you get to Dallas:

• The weather in Dallas in May will be hot. Expect temperatures to reach between 27-30 degrees Celsius, 80-86 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Accessing the Internet: At the Convention Center, free wi-fi is available for attendees with wi-fi-compliant devices in public spaces such as concourses, food courts and common areas inside the Center.
• Finding your way around: You find can directions to the Dallas Convention Center and take a virtual tour of the Center.
• INTA have posted an orientation video explaining what the conference is like for first-time attendees.

If you are lucky enough to be joining us in Dallas, don’t forget to visit the Oxford University Press booth number 815, where you can browse our award-winning books, pick up a sample copy of one of our intellectual property journals or find out more about the JIPLP competition for 2013 – the $1 billion question!

To follow the latest updates about the INTA Conference as it happens, follow us @OUPAcademic and the hashtag #INTA13. See you in Dallas!

Christopher Wogan is the Marketing Manager for Intellectual Property Law products at Oxford University Press.

Oxford University Press is a leading publisher in intellectual property law including the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, edited by Professor Jeremy Phillips, and Reports of Patent, Design and Trade Mark Cases, as well as the latest titles from experts in the field, and a wide range of law journals and online products. We publish original works across key areas of study, from trade marks to patents, designs and copyrights, developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners worldwide.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only law and politics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Preparing for International Trademark Association Annual Meeting 2013 appeared first on OUPblog.

Justin Welby recently used his first Easter sermon as Archbishop of Canterbury to warn of the dangers of investing too much faith in frail and fallible human leaders, be they politicians or priests. Blind belief in the power of any single individual to bring about true change in any sphere, he argued, was simplistic and wrong, and led inevitably to disillusionment and disappointment. Surely this was the point in the sermon when a member of his flock was duty-bound to heckle ‘But what about that bloke called Jesus!’ Unfortunately, good manners triumphed and the leader of the world’s 77 million Anglicans was able to continue his sermon. ‘Put not your trust in new leaders, better systems, new organisations or regulatory reorganisation’ he told the congregation at Canterbury cathedral. ‘They may well be good and necessary, but will to some degree fail. Human sin means pinning hopes on individuals is always a mistake, and assuming that any organisation is able to have such good systems that human failure will be eliminated is naïve’.

Bishop Welby’s sermon reminded me of Max Weber’s famous essay of 1919 ‘Politics as a Vocation’ with its warnings against ‘infantile’ understandings of politics and its emphasis on the complexities of governing and the need to hold realistic expectations of what politics – and therefore politicians – can deliver. ‘Politics is’ as Weber maintained ‘a strong and slow boring of hard woods’ and one might argue that almost a century later the challenges of governing have, if anything, become far greater and more complex. And yet there was a nagging part of Bishop Welby’s sermon that left me disheartened, frustrated, and possibly even angry. It was, for me, as if the new Bishop had accepted the advice of Bernard Baruch to ‘vote for the man [or woman] who promises the least as they’ll be least disappointing’. Surely one of the key social roles of politicians and priests is to inspire, to promote hope, to make their communities believe they can deliver positive social change. Might it therefore be that in warning against ‘the hero leader culture’, Bishop Welby revealed his own weakness? In the sense that he seemingly does not understand exactly why certain social groups seem so willing to grasp ‘quick, easy and gratifying solutions’ to even the most intractable problems.

Bishop Welby suggests that people could only escape ‘cynical despair’ by acknowledging God and trusting in his power but if you’re living in poverty, and face a multitude of social challenges that conspire to limit your life chances from birth, then I can understand why individuals fall for the cheap tricks and empty promises of rogue politicians. Put slightly differently, instead of arguing that too many people look to politicians for simple and pain free solutions to complex and painful problems that simply do not exist, might it not be equally true to suggest that encouraging people to accept human fallibility and to trust on God is just a different form of expectation inflation that is almost guaranteed to fail – a ‘mere cruelty’ of a different kind?

Canterbury Cathedral, and the Portal Nave Cross-spire

I for one am actually quite glad that Barack Obama did not turn out to be Superman and Bishop Welby is surely correct that we should not set people or institutions up to the heights where they cannot do anything but fail. But it would be quite wrong to suggest that individuals cannot make a positive difference, or to deny that some politicians have in fact delivered on their promises, or that – when all is said and done – democratic politics generally delivers far more than most people seem to recognise. Welby concluded his sermon by quoting the Welsh poet and Anglican priest R. S. Thomas, from his poem Threshold, on the human need for communication with God,

‘I am alone on the surface / of a turning planet. What / to do but, like Michelangelo’s / Adam, put my hand / out into unknown space, / hoping for the reciprocating touch?

And yet once again my moral soul was irked by such platitudes; I could not help but think that what most humans crave is not so much communication with God but communication with each other. It is the increased social fragmentation that threatens humanity not some form of existential angst or theological breakdown. My concern is therefore not so much that the public demands too much of politics and politicians but that at many levels the public’s expectations are actually too low. Local elections, for example, are due to take place in the UK in a matter of days but have so far been met with a deafening silence in terms of public debate or interest. There seems little evidence of the blind faith or hero leader culture that Bishop Welby warns against in any of the 36 English and Welsh Councils that will be contested on 2 May. I’m not suggesting that one sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury has single-handedly dampened expectations that would otherwise have had the local election campaign buzzing across the country, but I am suggesting that the Bishop’s position is too simplistic. We actually need more trust in political leaders and more active community engagement at the local level alongside a measured dose of healthy scepticism about what our local political leaders can realistically deliver.

Matthew Flinders is Professor of Parliamentary Government & Governance at the University of Sheffield. He was educated at a succession of Catholic schools and is still recovering from this experience. Author of Defending Politics (2012), you can find Matthew Flinders on Twitter @PoliticalSpike and read more of Matthew Flinders’s blog posts here.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only politics and law articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Canterbury Cathedral and the Portal Nave Cross-spire. Photo by Hans Musil. Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Saints and sinners, politicians and priests, and the 2013 local elections appeared first on OUPblog.

It is perhaps natural human tendency to think that the big events that occur during our lifetimes — particularly if they involve us personally — are both unique and will change the course of history. Reality though is that most of us aren’t particularly good at predicting what future historians will consider important. Worse, we tend to dramatically exaggerate the importance of events that we have watched occur. Rogoff and Reinhart’s bestselling treatment of the history of sovereign debt has the ironic title This Time is Different precisely because of how often we are wrong in thinking that “this time is different.” Having provided these cautions, I am going to fall into the precise trap I warned against and assert that the period between March 2012 and March 2013 will go down in history as one of the most eventful ever in the history of sovereign debt. This time is different. Why?

There are a number of candidates in terms of potentially game changing events that occurred in the sovereign markets over these past twelve months. As a backdrop to these events, we are in the midst of what is likely one of the most biggest sovereign debt crises in history: the crisis of the euro area.  That crisis, which began with European politicians swearing up and down in 2010 and 2011 that no Eurozone country would ever default, saw Greece, in March 2012 impose one of the biggest and most severe haircuts on private sector creditors in history. Euro area politicians who (like me) seem to have little concern for how historians might subject their statements to ridicule in hindsight are now announcing loudly that the Greek restructuring was “unique and exceptional”.

So much happened within the Greek restructuring that was new, and even when not new, certainly eventful.  Foremost, there were the legislatively mandated Collective Action Clauses that were imposed on local law governed debt instruments. Then was the drama over whether the Greek restructuring was voluntary or not and whether the CDS contracts would be triggered (hard to imagine how anyone could think that a creditor taking a 70% haircut was doing so voluntarily; but that argument was made at various points). And if that was not enough, at the nth hour in the Greek restructuring, the European Central Bank demanded for itself, as a legal right, super priority over all other creditors — essentially the right to be exempt from the restructuring. As a matter of optimal rules for the system, there is probably an argument for Official Sector lending by institutions like the ECB and the IMF to be given super priority. But the ECB’s priority claim, unlike IMF claims in the past, was with respect to bonds that it had purchased on the market just as if it were an ordinary investor. There was a risk, therefore, that investors who had entered the Greek exchange would bring a legal claim against the ECB for having received an illegal priority. As of this writing it is not clear whether any of the claims that have been threatened will bear fruition, but the can of worms regarding the precise contours of Official Sector priority has been opened.

There was more that didn’t make the daily headlines, but will probably make the history books. There was the explicit inclusion of some of Greece’s sovereign guarantees in the restructuring (no one quite understands why some guarantees got ensnared and others escaped completely, but that is a matter for a different day). And then there were was the treatment of the foreign-law bonds in the Greek deal. There was some attempt to extract a haircut from them; but the attempt was half-hearted at best — much more could have been done to turn the screws. Which, in turn, raises the puzzle of why the holders of those foreign-law bonds (many of whom likely go under the moniker “hedge fund”) were treated with such solicitude Literally, the holders of some of these foreign-law bonds were just asked politely whether they would like to restructure and when they said no (some did say yes), they were paid in full and on time. By contrast, the holders of the local-law bonds got taken to the woodshed.

The events in Greece itself would have entitled the past twelve months to go down as one of the most eventful in periods in sovereign debt history. But so much more happened as well. In Ireland, to restructure the debts of one of the banking institutions at the center of that nation’s crisis, the authorities invoked a technique called the Exit Exchange. This technique, through the 1990s, had been used to successfully engineer multiple sovereign debt restructurings (among them, Ecuador, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic). The technique is one that is aimed at, to put it politely, incentivizing holdout creditors to accept a restructuring offer that a majority of other creditors like, but that the holdouts would rather not take. As a legal matter, utilizing the technique has always been a tricky matter, since there is a fine line between deterring holdout creditors from blocking a deal that is in the collective interest of the creditor group and coercing the whole group. In the transactions, the Irish authorities decided to go on an all out attack in terms of the “offer you don’t want to refuse” that they presented creditors with. The debt in question though was governed by English law and an English judge in Assénagon Asset Management v. IBRC decided that the aforementioned line had not only been crossed, but abused and trampled. So much so that he wrote an opinion that called into question the validity of all future uses of the technique. Whether the opinion is followed by other courts is yet to be seen. But I suspect that regardless of how much commentators complain about the Assénagon case, the Exit Exchange technique will never be the same.

In the meantime, while announcing that the Greek restructuring was “unique and exceptional”, the euro area authorities mandated, starting January 1, 2013, what is easily the biggest change in contract language in sovereign debt contracts ever. All Eurozone sovereign debt contracts, regardless of governing law or other provisions, will henceforth (with minor allowances for a transition period) will contain Collective Action Clauses or CACs. These E-CACs in question are the technical devices that Greece imposed on its bonds legislatively so as to be able to engineer its March 2012 restructuring. The Eurozone has put into effect in all bonds for all of its members, much the same mechanism that Greece utilized. There are at least two things about this Euro CAC initiative that are historically significant. First, the reform attempts to change the standard template for not just foreign-law governed bonds (the focus of prior contract reform attempts), but also local-law bonds. Second, the contract terms here are being mandated. Prior to this, sovereigns had always chosen the contract terms that they thought best suited their individual interests.  No longer; at least not in the euro area. The policy decision was made that one size should fit all. It might be a bit puzzling to some of us as to why, given the supposedly “unique and exceptional” character of the Greek restructuring these E-CACs are needed, but only time will tell.

To repeat myself, the foregoing should have been enough to conclude that the past twelve months were the most significant twelve month period in the history of the sovereign debt markets. But we have not gotten to the biggest event of them all — the holdout litigation against Argentina in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

The defining feature of sovereign debt, for time immemorial, has been that such debt is near impossible to enforce. Sovereigns, pretty much, have always been able to thumb their nose at creditors whenever they wanted. They pay because they want to, not because they have to. On rare occasions, there have been creditors who were important or big enough that they could get their nation’s gunboats to act as enforcers, but these events have been few and far between. And, in any event, using gunboats to enforce debt isn’t really allowed these days. Indeed, in the academic literature, there is a cottage industry of articles asking the question of why, absent enforcement, anyone in the modern era lends to a sovereign.  Well, all of that may have changed. The seeds of this change were laid in an obscure case in Brussels from a decade ago. The case provided a radical interpretation of a standard provision in sovereign debt contracts that everyone used (the pari passu clause), but almost no one understood. For about a decade or so, the implications of that case were largely dismissed by the pooh bahs of the sovereign market. No one else would follow this outrageous Belgian decision, they said. That is, until October 26, 2012, when the theory from that Brussels litigation found favor with a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit in New York — arguably the most sophisticated court on business matters anywhere. That case, that has been occupying the pages of the financial papers for some time now, and is the centerpiece of the most recent issue of the Capital Markets Law Journal, is NML Capital v. Republic of Argentina.

To reiterate, the basic enforcement problem with sovereigns is that sovereigns themselves are hard to sue and harder still to enforce against (most of their assets tend to be on their home soil). Enterprising creditors though, figured out that while they might not be able to get at the sovereigns themselves, they could perhaps get at others who the sovereigns cared about, who were less able to protect themselves (any fan of movies about the mafia and its enforcement techniques will immediately grasp the basic idea). Ordinarily, we suspect that a court would not have gone down the path of enabling creditor action of this type. But the defendant in this case is special — it is the Republic of Argentina, that (some might say) has been doing its best to aggravate and annoy the federal courts in New York for over a decade where unpaid creditors have been litigation ever since Argentina’s mammoth default a decade ago. NML Capital v. Republic of Argentina allows the creditors to get at the third parties; in particular, financial intermediaries, but maybe also other creditors who the Republic is choosing to pay while stiffing the holdouts. If NML v. Argentina holds up on appeal — and, as of this writing, it has held up well — this will mark the most fundamental change in sovereign debt in multiple centuries. These debts will now be enforceable. It still won’t be easy to enforce, but it won’t be impossible.

To show how this case has already had an impact on the direction of future events, on 4 March 2013, just a few weeks ago, the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada was on the receiving end of a request that third parties be enjoined, just as they were in NML. And this injunction was not sought by some hedge fund in Greenwich, Conecticut. It was requested by the Taiwanese Ex Im Bank. It may not be that long before we see suits against other nations who have long unpaid debts. Rumors of the potential impact of the NML decision seem to have even trickled down to the market for antique bonds. The owner of my favorite antique bond shop tells me that defaulted Chinese and Russian bonds from the early part of the twentieth century have increased in price in recent months; and particularly the ones with pari passu clauses (yes, she said “pari passu”). Somebody out there thinks that the probability of recovery on these bonds has just increased. I do wonder whether their excitement will wane somewhat when they tackle the statute of limitations issue.

And then there is Cyprus. On Friday, 15 March 2013, European leaders trespassed on consecrated ground. They insisted that Cyprus impose losses — euphemistically dubbed a “solidarity levy” — on insured depositors with Cypriot banks as a condition to receiving EU/IMF bailout assistance. Cyprus was in deep crisis thanks to its oversized banking sector. Contrary to anything anyone expected (other than perhaps the nincompoops in the room that Friday night), Cyprus decided not only to go after bank deposits, but also insured deposits. And at the same time, it also decided that it would pay its bonds — a sizeable portion of which were rumored to be held by foreign hedge funds — on time and in full. Faced with almost universal shock and criticism for its first decision, Cyprus quickly backed off its first plan (its legislature did not even give the plan a single vote), and has now put in place an alternate plan that primarily pursue uninsured depositors in some of its weakest banks (for some bizarre reason, the bondholders still get paid in full). It is not clear that the current plan will suffice, given the damage that the announcement of the first plan and the general move toward chasing deposits for debt relief has done to the Cypriot banking sector (the key industry for that small economy). In other words, Cyprus will probably need more debt relief than it had first calculated and the bondholders may yet get whacked. But, for purposes of this note, I’ll say just this: Wow.

This is an updated and expanded version of the Editor’s Note in the current issue of Capital Markets Law Journal.

Mitu Gulati is the North America Regional Editor (March 2013) for Capital Markets Law Journal. He is a Professor at Duke University. His research interests are currently in the evolution of contract language, the history of international financial law and the measurement of judicial behavior.

Capital Markets Law Journal is essential for all serious capital markets practitioners and for academics with an interest in this growing field around the World. It is the first periodical to focus entirely on aspects related to capital markets for lawyers and covers all of the fields within this practice area: Debt; Derivatives; Equity; High Yield Products; Securitisation; and Repackaging. With an international perspective, each issue covers articles and news relevant to the financial centres in the US, Europe and Asia.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only current affairs articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Sovereign debt after March 2013 appeared first on OUPblog.

Short-term stock traders — such as hedge funds — have come under fire for pursuing their own profits rather than the long-run health of companies they invest in. The recent financial crisis added fuel to flames, but they had started burning several decades earlier. In the 1980s, many commentators argued that Japan’s economic success resulted from shareholders taking long-term stakes and thus having incentives to improve their firms’ long-run health. They thus pushed the government to take actions to reduce the stock market’s “liquidity” — the ease with which investors can trade their shares. These calls have resurfaced in the recent crisis, through calls for transactions taxes and short-sales restrictions to dissuade “excessive” trading.

The Costs of Liquidity — The Traditional View

The traditional view is that liquidity undermines a firm’s corporate governance. Under this view, blockholders (large shareholders) can improve governance through engaging in direct intervention, otherwise known as “voice” — for example, removing an underperforming manager or blocking a misguided acquisition. But intervention is costly. Thus, blockholders may choose to simply sell their shares and walk away from a troubled firm. Liquidity makes selling easier, and thus discourages blockholders from sticking around and improving the firm’s long-run health.

The Benefits of Liquidity — The Modern View

But it is far from clear that liquidity is detrimental to governance — and thus to society. Indeed, Japan’s “lost decade” of the 1990s raised doubts about the low-liquidity model. The theoretical literature has identified two major benefits of liquidity. First, liquidity makes it easier for shareholders to acquire a block to begin with (Kyle and Vila (1991), Kahn and Winton (1998), Maug (1998)). By encouraging large shareholders to form, it facilitates voice. Second, Admati and Pfleiderer (2009), Edmans (2009), and Edmans and Manso (2011) show that the act of selling one’s shares (engaging in “exit”), far from being the antithesis of governance, can be a governance mechanism in itself. Such sales drive down the stock price, which hurts the manager because his pay depends on the stock price. The threat of exit induces him to maximize value in the first place.

What Does The Data Say?

With theoretical arguments for the desirability of liquidity being on both sides, it is ultimately an empirical question. Thus, it is to the data to which we turn. We analyze how liquidity affects both the decision to acquire a block and the choice of governance mechanism (exit or voice) once the block has been acquired. We study a particular type of blockholder — activist hedge funds — because they are unconstrained by legal restrictions and thus have both voice and exit at their disposal. Overall, we uncover a positive effect of liquidity on governance.

First, liquidity increases the likelihood that an activist hedge fund acquires a block (a stake of at least 5%) in a firm. To address concerns that there could be reverse causality (governance causes liquidity, rather than liquidity causing governance), or omitted variables driving both governance and liquidity, we use the decimalization of the US stock exchanges in 2001 as a natural experiment. This event led to a sudden increase in liquidity that was not caused by changes in governance.

Second, liquidity reduces the likelihood that the hedge fund files a Schedule 13D (which conveys an activist intent) upon block acquisition, and correspondingly increases the likelihood that it files a Schedule 13G (which conveys a passive intent). This finding is consistent with the traditional view that liquidity weakens governance as it discourages voice. However, it is also consistent with the “exit” view that liquidity merely causes a blockholder to adopt a different form of governance — exit rather than voice.

Third, we find that a 13G finding indeed represents a governance mechanism. It leads to increases in both stock price and operating performance, particularly in liquid firms. These results support the “exit” view that the 13G filings, that are encouraged by liquidity, represent governance through exit rather than the abandonment of governance altogether (as argued by the traditional view).

Our final finding concerns voice. Our first result, stated earlier, was that liquidity increases the likelihood of block acquisition, but our second result was that it decreases the likelihood of a 13D, conditional upon block acquisition. We find that the first effect outweighs the second. Thus, liquidity increases the unconditional incidence of voice. Coupled with its positive effect on exit, liquidity has an overall beneficial effect on governance.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that policymakers should not rush into regulations that inhibit trading. It is through trading that investors can acquire a large stake to begin with, and also punish an underperforming firm by selling their stake.

More broadly, our recent paper contributes to a recent literature on the real effects of financial markets. The traditional view (e.g. Morck, Shleifer, and Vishny (1990)) is that financial markets are simply a side-show, that passively reflect a firm’s fundamentals — for example, a fall in the stock price reflects a deterioration in firm performance. This newer literature, surveyed by Bond, Edmans, and Goldstein (2012), shows that stock prices actively affect a firm’s fundamentals — a fall in the stock price exerts governance on the manager by worsening his compensation and reputation; the threat of such a fall induces the manager to exert effort. Thus, policymakers should take into account the effects of financial markets on real economic activity when designing regulations.

Alex Edmans is an assistant professor of finance at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute. Vivian W. Fang is an assistant professor of accounting at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. Emanuel Zur is an assistant professor of accounting at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College. They are the authors of the paper “The Effect of Liquidity on Governance” in the new issue of The Review of Financial Studies, which is available to read for free for a limited time.

The Review of Financial Studies is a major forum for the promotion and wide dissemination of significant new research in financial economics. As reflected by its broadly based editorial board, the Review balances theoretical and empirical contributions. The Review is sponsored by The Society for Financial Studies.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only business and economics articles the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Is stock market trading good for society? appeared first on OUPblog.

Why compromise? Increasingly in civil litigation there are no winners — not even the lawyers, following the review and implementation of Sir Rupert Jackson’s report into costs. The question is rapidly being re-phrased as “Why litigate?”

Prior to 1 April, lawyers were able to work on a “no win, no fee” basis and recover a percentage uplift and after the event (ATE) insurance premium on top of their fees if the claim was successful. Now not only have the playing field and goal posts changed, but the game itself has, following the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO). Now the resources available for justice are limited, and the needs of the litigant have to be balanced against the resources available. This is recognised in the new overriding objective of the Civil Procedure Rules.

To start with, the funding options for claimants have changed. Now, lawyers cannot recover their success fee or ATE insurance premium from the defendant, but must instead look at other funding options, such as Damages Based Agreements (payment from damages) or Conditional Fee Agreements (where the success fee is taken out of damages, up to a limit). This results in claimant lawyers taking more risk. On the other hand, the changes also affect defendants, such as the 10% increase in general damages, the changes to CPR Part 36 regarding offers to settle, and Qualified One Way Costs Shifting in certain cases (whereby claimants can bring claims without the risk of having to pay the defendants’ costs if they lose). Parties in multi-track cases have to prepare a budget for the Court, estimating what the costs are likely to be in a particular case and the Court then approves a limit. Legal aid is being cut back as well, particularly in family cases, and the Ministry of Justice is under to pressure to cut its budget and to make Court users pay for the Court service. There is a sense in which mediation is being made to fill the void. There is no longer any unfettered right to litigate and mediation is seen as a way of reducing the cases that come before the Court. The former Justice Minister, Jonathan Djanogly was quoted as saying, in the context of family law:

“There’s been a 20% uptake in mediation and we know that of those who go through publicly funded mediation, 70% will have a successful outcome….It’s a cheaper process — one that takes a fifth of the time of going to court and it’s much less contentious…. 90% of people sort out their own problems, but 10% of people go to court. We think less of them should be going to court and more of them taking their own lives into their own hands, and mediation is a way of facilitating that.”

Eighth of Henry Holiday’s original illustrations to “The Hunting of the Snark” by Lewis Carroll. This illustration covers Fit the Sixth: The Barrister’s Dream. The Snark is in the foreground, in barrister’s robe and wig, and is acting to defend his client.

The Civil Procedure Rules have also changed, introducing a new test on proportionality of costs and tougher case management powers and low recoverable fixed costs in personal injury claims which are administered through the “portal.” Faced with these changes, is it any wonder that there is a renewed interest in finding alternative ways to resolve disputes? This is where mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution come in. Sir Rupert Jackson is a fan of mediation, judging by his report and recent judgments, so it appears to be coming of age. The Courts are increasingly willing to impose sanctions on those who unreasonably refuse to mediate, or negotiate and the Courts have their own mediation schemes in place, such as the Court of Appeal compulsory referral to mediation scheme. The successful small claims mediation pilot, applying to all non-personal injury small claims in the County Court, is being extended for a further 6 months to September 2013 and now takes in cases issued through the County Court Bulk Centre in Northampton and Money Claims Online. Cases issued with a value of under £5,000 are referred automatically to a Court Service mediator, who will try to save the parties’ and the Court’s time by seeing whether the case can settle. It has been successful so far, reducing the claims that go forward to a small claims hearing by a significant amount, freeing up valuable time to deal with other cases. These mediations take place by telephone and it is likely that online mediation will become increasing common as well.

Many claims could be resolved more quickly and easily through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and mediation.  In order to succeed, however, parties must be open to compromise and willing to give up their day in Court. Those that choose the alternative path often find it to be more fulfilling and less frustrating than litigation. Looking forward with a crystal ball, it is easy to see why mediation is likely to increase in future. The European Commission is favourable towards ADR, having approved the text of a directive concerning ADR and Online Dispute Resolution between consumers and traders. This follows on from the Mediation Directive, which in cross-border cases, seeks to encourage the uptake of mediation, by both protecting mediators from having to give evidence and ensuring that settlement agreements are enforceable.

The Civil Mediation Council is tentatively looking at whether there is any appetite to widen its scope, to accredit individual mediators, and to possibly set up a Mediation Standards Board, having issued a consultation document seeking views on the future direction. It seems inevitable that with the increased use of mediation, the general public will want to see mediators abiding by a code of professional conduct, like other professionals, and to have a route to complain about a mediator. There are also moves afoot to introduce a business ADR commitment, much like the Dispute Resolution Commitment (DRC), which already requires government departments and agencies to be proactive in the management of disputes, and to use effective, proportionate and appropriate forms of dispute resolution to avoid expensive legal costs or court actions. This includes adopting appropriate dispute resolution clauses in all relevant government contracts.

In order for alternative forms of dispute resolution to take hold, we need a change of culture, so that instead of issuing proceedings, parties consider instructing a mediator to resolve their dispute at the outset. There are a jigsaw of initiatives being introduced to encourage a change of culture and to increase the take up of alternative forms of dispute resolution.

Peter Causton is a solicitor at Berrymans Lace Mawer and commercial mediator. He is a contributor to The Jackson ADR Handbook and a member of the Law Society Civil Justice Committee.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only law and politics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Image credit: By Henry Holiday (1839-1927) after Lewis Carroll [Real name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832-1896). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Mediation and alternative dispute resolution appeared first on OUPblog.

Despite the recognized virtues of democratic rule, both for protection of personal rights and liberties and for economic progress, the current list of world governments still classifies 46 of all countries, or 25%, as dictatorships. Rulers in these existing dictatorial regimes resist the transition to democracy, often at a high cost each year in lives and resources. One would hope that the potentially sizeable benefits of democracy could be shared to the mutual advantage of the once ruling elite and the poor majority. The gains are there, why can’t they do a deal? The answer turns on the inability of a new democracy’s poor majority to credibly promise the elite that they will not be exploited once democracy becomes the new order.

Yet, in one of the most important political events of the 20th century, South Africa solved this problem. In April 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected President of the new Republic of South Africa, and on 11 October 1996, a democratic constitution was approved unanimously by the National Parliament with the full support of the once autocratic National Party. In President Mandela’s words the new constitution offered the citizens of South Africa “a democratic government… that (has) an inbuilt mechanism which makes it impossible for one group to suppress the other” (speech by President Mandela, Stellenbosch University, May 1991). That built-in mechanism was federal governance, of a particular kind.

How can federal governance using both democratically-elected national and state or provincial governments provide the essential protections for the elite needed for a peaceful transition from autocracy to democracy? Three elements are necessary. First, having given up political and military control, the old ruling elite will need to find its future influence in another way — through the economy, perhaps. Since land and machines can always be expropriated, it will have to come from the labor skills of the elite that the majority will need but cannot import or master quickly on their own. In South Africa these elite skills were found in the provision of public services, and in particular, in health care, education, and efficient public administration.

Second, the elite must be able to withhold these needed skills if the majority threatens to expropriate elite-owned land, nationalize elite-owned firms, or to set tax rates on income at excessive rates. It is often thought that the elite’s ability to migrate would be a sufficient deterrent to expropriation or excessive taxation. In South Africa, migration from the country has been modest. You cannot take land and machines with you when you leave, and for all but the most talented, comparable jobs in a new homeland may not be readily available.

What then is an alternative way to withhold needed talents? Perhaps a “strike” or a “work slowdown” organized through elite control over the provision of essential government services? But since the elite is now a political minority, it cannot be a country-wide slowdown. However, it can be a slowdown in one important part of the country where middle and upper income households might constitute a political majority. Local political control could be assured by a constitution that creates provincial governments and draws the provincial borders so that first, there are enough new (lower income) majority residents in the province so that the majority-run national government cares what happens to these constituents, but second, not so many that the middle and upper income households lose political control over the province. We call this requirement the Border Constraint and it must hold so that the elite controls at least one or two important provinces in the new democracy. In South Africa, that important province has become the Western Cape, home of Capetown and South Africa’s wine country. Further, so that this local control can be used as a credible deterrent to excessive national taxation, the provinces must be assigned responsibility for providing important public services. We call this requirement the Assignment Constraint. In South Africa, these constitutionally assigned services are primary health care, K-12 education, and the administration of social security payments.

President Bill Clinton with Nelson Mandela, 4 July 1993.
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Third and finally, the elite-run provinces cannot become economic islands unto themselves, as indeed the National Party had originally proposed during constitutional negotiations. President Mandela and the ANC rejected this approach to federalism by insisting that all important taxing powers remain in the hands of the national government. But without significant taxing powers, how can provincial governments provide important public services? The answer is the last element in the design of the federal constitution: a clearly specified formula for sharing national tax revenues with the provincial governments. In South Africa’s constitution, this formula is called the “Equitable Share” and is recommended each year by a constitutionally protected commission called the Financial and Fiscal Commission composed of representatives from each of the nine provinces.

The elite’s expertise in the provision of important public services, empowered through an appropriately designed federal constitution, gave Nelson Mandela the “inbuilt mechanism” he needed to assure F.W. de Klerk and the National Party that their economic interests could be protected in the new democracy. Having fashioned a federal constitution for South Africa’s democratic transition, and it is holding so far, who has benefitted?

Crime and unemployment remain serious problems, but crime rates are no higher than those in many of the largest US cities and there is a thriving black market for those who are formally unemployed. Taxes on middle and upper income households have increased to finance expanded public services to lower income households, and there remains an important significant inequity in the distribution of education, health care, and infrastructures. All said, while pressures on education and other public services have continued to grow, tax rates are still below our estimates of maximal taxation and there have been no exploitive land transfers or wholesale nationalization of private capital. Adult disability and child mortality rates continue to fall, new lower income housing is being built, school enrollment is up, class sizes are shrinking, and literacy has increased. When we compare what lifetime earnings would have been for the majority of South Africans had apartheid continued (with negative growth!) to earnings today and into the foreseeable future, the typical poor majority resident has become 160,000 Rand ($20,000) richer and the typical elite resident about 350,000 Rand ($45,000) richer over their lifetimes.

To be sure, South Africa continues to face important challenges to its economic and political futures, but there is little doubt that by almost any measure of personal welfare, the average elite and majority resident are better off today than they might have been under the continuation of apartheid. Our argument here is that federal governance, appropriately constructed, made this possible. Perhaps South Africa’s experience holds lessons for others seeking a peaceful transition to a stable democracy.

Robert P. Inman and Daniel L. Rubinfeld are the authors of “Understanding the Democratic Transition in South Africa” in the American Law and Economics Review, which is available to read for free for a limited time. Robert Inman is the Richard K. Mellon Professor of Finance, Economics, and Public Policy at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Daniel Rubinfeld is the Robert Bridges Professor of Law and Professor of Economics, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley and Professor of Law, New York University School of Law. Professors Inman and Rubinfeld served as economic advisors to the Financial and Fiscal Commission and to the national government’s Departments of Finance, of Education, and of Welfare on matters of fiscal policy for the period 1994-2000.

The American Law and Economics Review is a refereed journal which maintains the highest scholarly standards and that is accessible to the full range of membership of the American Law and Economics Association, which includes practising lawyers, consultants, and academic lawyers and economists.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only politics and law articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Freedom Day and democratic transition appeared first on OUPblog.

By Charles Townshend

When the ‘global war on terror’ was launched by George W. Bush – closely followed by Tony Blair – after the 9/11 attacks, many people no doubt felt reassured by these leaders’ confidence that they knew the best way to retaliate. Some, though, found the global war concept alarming for several reasons. The notion of a ‘war’ seemed to indicate a wrong-headed belief that overt military action, rather than secret intelligence methods, was an effective response. More seriously, perhaps, this seemed to be a ‘war’ which couldn’t be won. Since it is all but inconceivable that terrorism per se can ever be eliminated by any method, the Bush-Blair crusade looked dangerously like a declaration of permanent war of an Orwellian kind.

President George W. Bush delivers remarks on the Global War on Terror during a visit Wednesday, 19 March 2008, to the Pentagon.

So how was that threat read? In almost apocalyptic terms, the terrorists were said to be driven by mortal hatred of the West and to represent a deadly threat to ‘our way of life’. The first assertion was true as far as it went, the second a patent exaggeration  but one which went largely unchallenged and unexamined. British journalists showed remarkably little inclination to press ministers to explain its logic. (As, for instance, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer allocated £3 billion in the 2003 budget to cover the cost of Britain’s part in the invasion of Iraq — a figure that even then was clearly a wildly optimistic estimate.) It took the passage of nearly a decade, including two fearsomely expensive, destructive, and ineffective ‘real wars’, to undermine it. And it was not a politician but a judge who first pointed out the absurdity of trying to set the threat posed to ‘our way of life’ by terrorist groups on the same level as that posed by the Wehrmacht in 1940.

At last, four years ago, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband broke ranks and accepted that the concept of the war on terror was ‘misleading and mistaken’. Worryingly late in the day, perhaps, but better late than never. The spectre of an unending war seemed to be laid to rest. Miliband specifically criticised the notion of a ‘unified transnational enemy’ that had been evoked in the global war on terror. He had grasped that al-Qaida had not lived up to its billing.

So it came as something of a surprise when David Cameron, who had seemed unconcerned to take up this element of the Blair legacy, reacted to the January attack on the Amenas gas plant in southern Algeria by pronouncing it part of a ‘global threat’. This grim event in the deepest Sahara desert was the work of an extremist Islamist terrorist group linked, like those in Pakistan and Afghanistan, to al-Qaida, whose aim, the prime minister held, was ‘to destroy our way of life’.

If his intention was to counter the risk that the public might dismiss the attack as too distant to be worth serious consideration, fair enough. But the terms he used surely went beyond what was needed for that. He went as far as to label the threat represented by the terrorists ‘existential’. This striking echo of 2001 did not go entirely unchallenged, as it had done a decade previously. This time, journalists with real experience like Jason Burke are around to point out that al-Qaida, reeling from ‘blow after blow’ over the last five years, is only a shadow of the organisation that once did perhaps represent a threat on a global scale. And that, however deadly the Amenas attack, ‘a gas refinery in southern Algeria is not the Pentagon’.

But clearly such perspectives (shared, as Burke pointed out, by the PM’s security experts) do not meet the rhetorical needs of the moment. David Miliband’s key argument was that the more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, ‘the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common.’ What seemed by 2009 to have become no more than common sense has now been peremptorily abandoned again.

Jason Burke, maybe too charitably, described Cameron’s rhetoric as ‘dated’. That would in itself not be reassuring, but there seems to be something more going on. Though he specifically rejected the idea of a purely military solution, the prime minister’s emphasis on the ‘ungoverned spaces’ in which terrorists thrive opens up an agenda at least as indefinite as the original war on terror. His undertaking to ‘close down’ such spaces, and acceptance that this would take decades, has revived the spectre of a protracted conflict without proposing any plausible method of ending it. The function of these ‘ungoverned spaces’ is in fact highly doubtful. If such spaces exist — and the concept is highly dispuatble — they may well be useful to terrorist groups, but to suggest that they are crucial is seriously misleading. The fact that the deadliest Islamist attack in Britain was carried out by people from Leeds, Huddersfield, and Aylesbury might of course indicate that Yorkshire and Buckinghamshire are also ‘ungoverned spaces’, but the implications of that would be alarming indeed.

Charles Townshend is Professor of International History at Keele University. He has held fellowships at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina and the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC. Amongst his previous publications are Political Violence in Ireland (1983), Making the Peace: public order and public security in modern Britain (1993), and Ireland: the twentieth century (1999). His most recent books are Easter 1916: the Irish rebellion (2005) and When God Made Hell: the British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921 (2010). The second edition of Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction published in 2011.

The Very Short Introductions (VSI) series combines a small format with authoritative analysis and big ideas for hundreds of topic areas. Written by our expert authors, these books can change the way you think about the things that interest you and are the perfect introduction to subjects you previously knew nothing about. Grow your knowledge with OUPblog and the VSI series every Friday and like Very Short Introductions on Facebook.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only VSI articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only current affairs articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: White House photo by Eric Draper [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The post Global warfare redivivus appeared first on OUPblog.

Recently Planned Parenthood announced that it will no longer use the term “choice” to describe what the organization aims to preserve. It’s about time. The weak, consumerist claim of individual choice has never been sufficient to guarantee women what they need — the right to reproduce or not — and to be mothers with dignity and safety.

I was 26 when the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in 1973, and like others of my generation assumed that this had settled the matter. I didn’t doubt that Roe v. Wade had established a new order that would change women’s lives forever. The backlash against the civil rights movement was in plain sight then, for example, in the fight against affirmative action, the closing down of Great Society programs, and the growing political attacks on poor mothers who received welfare benefits. Yet many women’s rights activists and others didn’t foresee the long decades of backlash against women’s new sexual and reproductive freedoms that lay ahead. Few understood at the time what would be involved to achieve reproductive freedom for women across race and class lines.

In the 1970s, the Supreme Court’s legalization of contraception for unmarried persons, along with its legalization of abortion, did seem to define “reproductive politics” as a matter of individual choices about pregnancy. It wasn’t long, however, before “choice” didn’t seem to capture what was at issue. For example, reports emerged about how some physicians routinely sterilized poor women — often women of color — without their knowledge and their “informed consent.” Manufacturers of birth control pills and IUD’s were pressured to provide full information about a range of bad side effects. Welfare laws arbitrarily excluded poor women accused of having too many children.

Debates about public funding of reproductive health services, beginning almost immediately after Roe, also revealed the insufficiency of “choice,” as have disputes about the role of religion in civic life; about what constitutes the family and its “values;” about the environment, toxicity, and population growth; and about the potential and dangers of science and technology. In short, “reproductive politics” doesn’t submit to simple mapping and extends far beyond “choice.”

This was predictable, considering how laws, policies, and court decisions have over time allowed various authorities to treat the reproductive capacities of different groups of women differently, valuing and ennobling the reproductive lives of some women while degrading others. Nineteenth-century laws governing the fertility of enslaved Africans, for example, facilitated the origins and maintenance of the slavery system. Laws and policies regulating female fertility have provided mechanisms for achieving immigration, eugenic, welfare, and adoption goals as well as supporting or hindering women’s aspirations for first-class citizenship. In the mid-twentieth century, some (white) women were constituted as good choice-makers while others (poor, women of color) were routinely regarded as bad choice-makers who produced expensive, undesirable children.

Many Americans have accepted the Supreme Court rulings fully legalizing contraception and largely legalizing abortion. Other Americans have, of course, worked against these decisions for four decades. Legislators across the country debate, enact, or reject laws regarding the status and rights of the fetus. They define whether a pregnant woman who has used a controlled substance requires criminal prosecution or medical treatment and whether the state should limit, deny, or provide assistance to poor women who become mothers.

Debates continue over whether “emergency contraception” amounts to abortion; whether the state has the right to mandate a “vaginal probe” before granting a woman her right to abortion; whether the new health insurance exchanges should include or exclude specific reproductive services; whether all babies born in the United States are US citizens; whether gay, lesbian, queer, and transgendered persons, as well as disabled people, have the same rights to parenthood, variously achieved, as heterosexual persons; and whether the relationship between rules governing “gestational carriers” (surrogate mothers) and their clients are public business or private matters. Indeed, all kinds of questions about who gets to be a legitimate mother in the United States, who does not and who decides, transcend “choice,” continue to resist resolution, and shape national politics.

Rather than constituting private matters involving individual choices, reproductive politics involves large social, economic, and political structures. In 2010 the fate of the entire federal health care reform project — passing legislation to ensure care for up to 51 million uninsured Americans — hinged on excluding abortion coverage. In 2011, state legislatures considered hundreds of bills restricting or ending long-established reproductive services and passed a number of them. Meanwhile in the United States, one out of every two women of childbearing age has experienced at least one unintended pregnancy, and low-income women are four times more likely to have this experience than middle-class women. Sexually transmitted infections, some of which can lead to infertility, have been called a “hidden epidemic” affecting all of our communities, while funding for reproductive health services is uniquely threatened.

It remains to be seen if Planned Parenthood and other organizations can convince Americans to replace the idea of individual “choice” with a new concept such as “reproductive justice,” a term that points toward what every woman needs when she decide whether or not to get pregnant, to stay pregnant, and to be a mother.

Rickie Solinger is a historian and curator. She has written and edited a number of books about reproductive politics, including Reproductive Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe v. Wade and Beggars and Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption, Abortion, and Welfare in the U.S. Solinger has organized exhibitions that have traveled to 140 college and university galleries over the past eighteen years. She lives in the Hudson Valley and New York City.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only law and politics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image Credits: (1) Pro-choice demonstrators. Photo by internets_dairy’s. Creative Commons Licence via Wikimedia Commons. (2) Planned Parenthood volunteers. Photo by ProgressOhio. Creative Commons Licence via Wikimedia Commons.

The post The illusion of “choice” appeared first on OUPblog.

On 24 April 1993, the city of London was brought to a standstill. A massive terrorist bomb exploded at the NatWest tower, killing one person and injuring at least 40 more. The truck bomb, planted by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was designed to strike at the financial heartland of London, and it succeeded. In addition to the human casualties, what has since become known as the Bishopsgate bomb caused $1 billion in financial damages.

Twenty years later, the IRA is no more. Its members have laid down their arms and its leadership committed to a hard-fought peace process that has since brought stability and prosperity to a region of the world that has suffered four decades of terrorism. Perhaps the most visible signal of that progress came with the official visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Republic of Ireland in 2011.

In a week in which terrorism came to the streets of Boston and was foiled in Canada, the past several years has seen the slow rise of terrorist activity on the streets of Northern Ireland.

The problems in Northern Ireland are mostly over. However, despite the extraordinary progress made via a hard fought peace process, the legacy of Northern Ireland’s Troubles is still deeply felt. Many people remain disaffected, disillusioned, and impervious to the prosperity brought by the stability of the peace process. Sectarian tensions occasionally bubble to the surface, and communities remain deeply divided with polarized identities. Visitors to Northern Ireland today will see a great change from the region’s darker days, but visitors will also see even greater signs of attempts to keep those communities separate via the increase in intimidating ‘peace walls’ (large structures that keep those divisions alive and visible). Given how deeply affected Northern Ireland has been from the Troubles, inter-community tensions will understandably take generations to fully heal, and that road will not ever be an easy one. But there are those who would quickly see that healing process stopped in its tracks.

Though the Irish Republican Army is no more, several small groups have split away from the ‘mainstream’ Republican movement, shunning the peace process and condemning the IRA leadership for compromising on the core ideals of traditional Irish Republicanism – to gain a United Ireland. The result has been a prolonged attempt at developing and sustaining campaign of low-level terrorism, characterized by intermittent though influential and impactful attacks.

These groups have many names. Known collectively as “dissident Republicans,” they comprise several small militant splinter groups. The “Real IRA” and the “Continuity IRA” are probably the most well known of these, though both of these entities have given rise to what my colleague Dr. John Morrison once called serial splintering, spawning several further sub-groups. They operate both in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. What unites them is their hatred for the Sinn Fein leadership, their rejection of the authority of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and their equally abject rejection of the various peace agreements that emerged in recent years. The differences between the various dissident factions will seem inconsequential to onlookers, but carry immense significance to respective followers. The various groups are as divided by personalities, jealousies, and petty rivalries as they are divided along geographical, ideological, and strategic lines.

Aside from a clichéd call to “uniting Ireland,” what they want is never entirely clear because their aims are often lofty and obscure when you examine the respective groups’ ideological statements. On a day-to-day basis, what drives and sustains them is their utter hatred for Sinn Fein and the IRA leadership for what the dissidents feel is a ‘sell-out’. The dissidents view the peace process as an abject failure, a compromise that hasn’t delivered the Irish Republican fantasy of a 32-county Irish Republic. They want a united Ireland, but won’t engage in democratic means of achieving that. They take great psychological solace from their ‘outsider’ status, with one faction reveling in what they call a state of ‘noble isolation’.

There are some important tactical differences between the various factions, but in a nutshell, they engage in low-level terrorist tactics in an attempt to grab attention. They’re aware of their ability to carefully choreograph media attention and they commit semi-regular acts aimed at disruption (e.g. by leaving a pipe-bomb in a public place) and targeted killings. They have killed prison officers and police officers, and have increasingly threatened members of Sinn Fein. Though their ranks include former senior members of the IRA, they have attempted to recruit adolescents and young children in recent years. They are adept at social media. They engage in public displays of strength, marching and protesting, and in intelligence gathering on future potential targets. They are aware of the fact that they are heavily monitored by the security services but view this as a badge of honor, affirmation of their importance.

These dissidents are characterized by remaining a heterogeneous and divided cluster of small groups. There is always the danger, however, that a highly symbolic act of violence could serve to unify them in ways that will appear obvious only with hindsight. Entrepreneurial dissidents have made multiple attempts to form a coalition, but these have failed to gain much traction. There is a sense, however, that the forthcoming 100th anniversary of the 1916 Irish Republican rebellion may ultimately serve to focus the dissidents in ways we haven’t seen before. We should not rule out the possibility of a high profile, targeted attack in the next two years.

Nobody is overestimating the dissident Republican threat, but it would be very dangerous to underestimate them. They continue to recruit and train, and they are deeply embedded in crime, especially in the Republic of Ireland. A single successful attack (especially if the target is psychologically significant to them) could serve to unify their otherwise divided elements and re-energize their (albeit small) base of supporters. Their small size and lack of popular support should not be taken as a measure of their weakness. Instead it points to their unpredictability given their insensitivity to the broader community consensus that the dissidents are fighting a fantasy war that nobody wants. But unpredictability and insensitity to the broader public make for very dangerous conditions in the context of terrorist threat assessment. The current consensus is that the dissidents may well be infiltrated by police and intelligence agents given a fairly persistent track record of foiled and failed bomb plots in recent times. But they have often found inspiration from high visibility targeted attacks, and given that the 2016 anniversary may well be their last opportunity to prove relevant, it would be wise to keep a close eye on their efforts.

John Horgan is author of Divided We Stand: The Strategy and Psychology of Ireland’s Dissident Terrorists. He is Director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at the Pennsylvania State University, where he is also Associate Professor of Psychology. He is a member of the editorial boards of multiple journals, including Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, Behavioral Science of Terrorism and Political Aggression, and Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict. Dr. Horgan is a member of the Research Advisory Board of the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC).

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post 20 years since the Bishopsgate bombing appeared first on OUPblog.

Mike was a doctoral student profoundly appreciated and esteemed by faculty, peers, staff, and all who came in contact with him. As is typical in our community, Mike was already a successful mid-career professional. He worked in the tech world and brought his expertise to us. He didn’t have a background in research psychology, but in the last year of his doctoral program, his work was published on nine occasions. Nine publications during the last year of graduate school is an incredible feat for anyone. But the heart-wrenching part of the story is that in the last eight months of his doctoral program, Mike also learned he had life-threatening cancer to which he finally succumbed about a month after graduation.

Mike’s family kept a blog of his progress and not long after graduation we learned that the end had come. Some of us attended the funeral in person. One member of our community gave the eulogy—a very stirring story of their travels, work, and time spent together in the program. The funeral was even livecast on the web so those who couldn’t be there physically could attend virtually.

Mike’s virtual wake

In the midst of these events, several of us wanted to commune so we held what amounted to a kind of virtual wake—a video chat with people from all around the country talking about our shared loss and joy of having had Mike in our lives. Several of us wrote eulogies for Mike and shared them with each other online. In mine, I spoke about how my relationship with Mike flashed through my mind like a dream sequence. In it, I remembered Mike and I in various settings: walking on the beach planning research, touring the MIT Media Lab, attending a presentation at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet research, and talking on the phone or Skyping.

People often grapple with the question of what is “real” versus “unreal” in the realm of media and technology. As a media psychologist I study how media use influences our feelings, actions and thoughts, and use media every day to teach a doctoral program that uses a hybrid model of higher education. While we do meet face-to-face (F2F), more often we use other forms of communication to meet virtually.

My students and I text, call, video chat, email, and post in social networking groups.  We discuss research walking the beach, brainstorm together in a seminar, or hold intriguing debates via video chat. Our F2F meetings are what one colleague calls “intense bursts of togetherness.” They’re the kind of thing where you might spend a week in morning-through-night meetings, classes, and social gatherings.  These varied means of communication have a deep reality for us, and through these experiences we are bonded together in unique ways. Our community is a kind of exciting world-within-a-world where we study what we do and we do what we study.

But for now, I’m honored to tell part of Mike’s story, and in some way, Mike’s presence in our virtual community is a legacy of the powerful ways technology can bring us together.

Karen Dill-Shackleford is the author of How Fantasy Becomes Reality and the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology. She has testified before the US Congress about media violence and about representations of race and gender in the media. 

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only media articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post More than virtual: real community, many ways of connecting appeared first on OUPblog.

Journalists want to report the news not be the news. But in the case of Ann Curry, the former Today show co-host who was pushed into stepping down from the co-anchor slot last June, she has become the news. New York Times reporter Brian Stelter’s recent feature article about morning television and the toxic culture at NBC’s Today show provides more than enough information to conclude that Ann Curry was a target of workplace mobbing.

Whatever your personal opinions of Curry and her work, she was clearly mobbed out of her Today show job. Workplace mobbing is a process of humiliation and degradation of a targeted worker with the purpose of removing that worker from the workplace or at least from a particular unit of it. It is a dark side of organizational life, involves co-workers ganging up on the target, and includes management’s involvement through active participation in the mobbing or through failure to stop it once it becomes known to them. Mobbing in the workplace includes a characteristic course of events that were first described by Heinz Leymann, the psychiatrist who conceptualized the problem in the 1980s. Let’s look at what Stelter reports as having happened to Ann Curry through the framework of this pattern of events representative of workplace mobbing.

• Today was losing market share, critics were saying the show was stale and that there was no chemistry between the co-hosts Ann Curry and Matt Lauer. Understandably, management was concerned. Their solution, however, is a classic error of logical type. Blame an individual — in this case, Ann Curry — for what was obviously a much more systemic problem. (Precipitating event or situation)
• Once “the problem,” had been identified as Ann Curry, management’s next step, according to Stelter, was to mount a campaign to get rid of her and they even had a name for it, “Operation Bambi.” (Targeting of a worker for elimination and involvement of management or administration)
• Curry was subjected to a series of hostile, negative acts that by most people’s standards would be humiliating and hurtful. Stelter reports the making of a blooper reel that showed Curry’s worst on-air moments and blunders, the gathering of staff to watch a particular on-air gaffe and presumably to talk about it, the collection of boxes of Curry’s belongings in a closet as if she had already left, control room staff making fun of Curry’s clothing choices and “generally messing with her,” and the comparison of a yellow dress that she wore to Big Bird and photo shopping her head on to Big Bird’s image and then asking staff to vote on which one wore the yellow outfit best. (Unethical communication about the target and series of negative acts)
• Such negative acts, tailored to the particular work environment, are characteristic of workplace mobbing and serve several functions. They separate and exclude the target from the rest of the workplace, telegraph to other workers that the target is “damaged goods,” and encourage a general ganging up on the target. Once the target in a workplace mobbing has been cast as “other,” and as “less than” it’s much easier to further objectify that person and treat him or her callously. The negative acts can go on for months, as seems to be the case for Ann Curry, or even years as has been the case for others who have been mobbed in the workplace. It doesn’t take much imagination to appreciate the human toll of psychological and physical suffering that such ongoing hostility and abuse causes. (Isolation and exclusion of the target, more ganging up, and resulting escalation of mobbing)
• On 28 June 2012, Ann Curry emotionally announced her departure from the Today show. It was clear to anyone watching her announcement that she was in pain and that she was not happy about leaving. The mobbing of Ann Curry was entirely successful. She was now gone from the Today show. Stelter notes that the executive producer led a group of Curry’s co-workers in a toast to her departure at a nearby restaurant only hours after her announcement that she was stepping down. Such cheering and celebrating after a successful workplace mobbing is common and fairly predictable. (Elimination from the workplace)

For most people who are victims of workplace mobbing, an unfortunate and common workplace event, the aftermath is difficult at best and disabling at worst. Income is lost, health and retirement benefits can be lost, reputation is damaged, professional identity is compromised as is the victim’s career trajectory, family and friendship relationships are strained, and the lingering traumatic effects of the interpersonal abuse and social exclusion at the heart of workplace mobbing can persist for a very long time. It is no surprise at all that Stelter reports Ann Curry as having described her experience as “professional torture.” Heinz Leymann called workplace mobbing “psychological terrorism.”

Ann Curry’s multi-million dollar salary may make the financial side of being a victim of workplace mobbing a lot easier for her than it is for most victims. I would assume, though, that her salary doesn’t ease the psychological and emotional pain she has had to endure and that is most likely her legacy from having been mobbed. While Ann Curry may not like the position of being the news, the story of how she was a victim of workplace mobbing is important. The stories of many others who have been victims of workplace mobbing but who are not public figures might more fully be understood through hers.

Maureen Duffy is a family therapist, educator, and consultant about workplace and school issues, including mobbing and bullying, and is the co-author of Mobbing: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions and the forthcoming book, Overcoming Mobbing: A Recovery Guide for Workplace Aggression and Bullying. Read her previous blog posts “Seven ways schools and parents can mishandle reports of bullying” and “Excluded, suspended, required to withdraw.”

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Workplace mobbing: add Ann Curry to its slate of victims appeared first on OUPblog.

Obrigado a todos que participaram no período de acesso gratuito à Oxford Reference e ao OED pela Semana da Biblioteca Nacional. Tanto o OED quanto a Oxford Reference oferecem algum conteúdo gratuito adicional para o público e ambas estão disponíveis para teste gratuito por um período de 30 dias (Bibliotecas podem enviar por e-mail solicitações de períodos de teste gratuito para library[dot]marketing[at]oup[dot]com).

A Oxford Reference é o lar da publicação de referência da Oxford que reúne mais de 2 milhões de verbetes, muitos dos quais ilustrados, em um recurso pesquisável de plataforma única.

Conteúdo gratuito na Oxford Reference inclui:

• Linhas do tempo Oxford Reference – Explorando a história
• Citações Oxford Essential – Descubra quem disse o que e quando em
• ‘Você sabia?’ feed – Inscreva-se para receber fatos interessantes entregues diariamente a você
• Artigos em destaque – Descubra o que o jornalista e ex-político Matthew Parris pensa sobre a importância das palavras na política, ou o que Garrett Oliver, cervejeiro mestre da The Brooklyn Brewery e autor do livro Oxford Companion to Beer pensa sobre a evolução da enciclopédia e natureza convincente do conteúdo de referência.

O OED é um dos maiores dicionários do mundo e autoridade reconhecida na evolução do idioma inglês, acompanhando o uso de mais de 600.000 palavras durante os últimos 1.000 anos através de 3 milhões de citações. O OED define:

• como uma palavra tem sido usada
• de onde ela veio
• quando ela se tornou parte do idioma inglês
• como seu significado mudou com o tempo e ao redor do mundo

Ele ilustra estas definições citando mais de 100.000 textos modernos e históricos, desde literatura clássica como peças de Shakespeare a roteiros de filmes e televisão como Buffy – A Caça-Vampiros, como também testamentos, livros de culinária, blogs e outros.

Conteúdo gratuito no OED inclui:

• A palavra do dia – Assine e receba uma nova palavra e definição todos os dias
• Histórias de palavra
• O OED atrai
• Inglês em uso – Considere diferentes formas de inglês por lugar (regional e internacional)
• Modelador do inglês

Assinantes do OED também podem acessar o Historical Thesaurus do OED em www.oed.com. Este recurso único permite que você explore as riquezas do idioma inglês por tema, e mapeie o progresso linguístico no tempo de um objeto, conceito ou expressão escolhida.

Exemplos de perguntas que você pode responder com o OED:

• É uma palavra específica de Londres ou da Austrália?
• Quais foram as novas palavras para falar sobre corrida de cavalos em 1700?
• Quais palavras rastreamos de volta a Shakespeare?
• Qual década apresenta mais palavras relacionadas a futebol registradas primeiro?
• Quais são os 93 substantivos que têm sido usados para chuva na história do inglês?
• Quem contribui com a mais antiga evidência conhecida para mais palavras em inglês, Chaucer ou Milton?
• Como as mudanças sociais são refletidas na linguagem, desde as 250 palavras relacionadas à motorização datadas de 1900-09, e o número de palavras relacionadas a filmes entre 1920-1939?

Obrigado mais uma vez a todos por nos ajudar a celebrar bibliotecas semana passada.

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Obrigado por participar da Semana da Biblioteca Nacional appeared first on OUPblog.

Gracias a todos los que participaron en el periodo de acceso gratuito a Oxford Reference y al OED para la Semana Nacional de Bibliotecas. El OED y Oxford Reference ofrecen periodos de prueba gratuitos adicionales y ambos se encuentran disponibles por 30 días. (Las bibliotecas pueden escribir sus solicitudes para periodos de prueba gratuitos a library[dot]marketing[at]oup[dot]com ).

Oxford Reference es el lugar por excelencia para encontrar las calificadas publicaciones de referencia de Oxford, y reúne más de 2 millones de entradas, muchas de ellas ilustradas, en un recurso único multibúsqueda.

El contenido gratuito de Oxford Reference incluye:

• Líneas de tiempo de Oxford Reference — Explorando la Historia
• Citas esenciales de Oxford — Descubra quién dijo qué, cuándo y cómo lo dijeron
• ‘¿Sabía qué?’ –  Regístrese para obtener datos interesantes diariamente
• Artículos Destacados — Averigüe lo que piensa el periodista y ex político Matthew Parris sobre la importancia de las palabras en la política, o lo que Garrett Oliver, maestro cervecero del Brooklyn Brewery y el autor de Oxford Companion to Beer piensa de la evolución de la enciclopedia y la naturaleza del contenido de referencia.

El OED es uno de los diccionarios más grandes en el mundo y rastrea la evolución y el uso histórico de  más de 600,000 palabras en los últimos 1,000 años a través de 3 millones de citas.

El OED define:

• cómo un apalabra ha sido utilizada
• de dónde vino
• cuándo entro por primera vez al idioma inglés
• cómo su definición ha cambiado a través del tiempo y alrededor del mundo

Ilustra estas definiciones citando más de 100,000 textos históricos y modernos, desde la literatura clásica cómo las obras de Shakespeare a guiones de películas y televisión, como Buffy the Vampire Slayer, hasta blogs, testamentos, libros de cocina y más.

El contenido gratis del OED incluye:

• La palabra del día – Regístrese y reciba un apalabra y definición nueva cada día
• Historias de Palabras
• El OED Appeals
• Inglés en uso — Considere las diferentes formas del inglés por lugar (regional e internacional)
• Transformadores del Inglés

Suscritores al OED pueden acceder el tesauro histórico del OED en www.oed.com. Este recurso único le permite explorar la riqueza del idioma inglés por tema, y trazar el progreso lingüístico a través del tiempo de un objeto escogido, concepto o expresión.

¡Gracias nuevamente a todos por ayudarnos a celebrar las bibliotecas la semana pasada!

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Gracias por participar en la Semana Nacional de Bibliotecas appeared first on OUPblog.

Oxford Reference  is the home of Oxford’s reference publishing bringing together over 2-million entries, many of which are illustrated, into a single cross-searchable resource.

Free content on Oxford Reference includes:

• Oxford Reference timelines — Exploring history
• Oxford Essential Quotations — Find out who said what and when they said it
• ‘Did you know?’ feed — Sign up to get interesting facts delivered to you daily
• Feature Articles — Find out what the journalist and former politician Matthew Parris thinks about the importance of words in politics, or what Garrett Oliver, brew master of The Brooklyn Brewery and author of Oxford Companion to Beer thinks about the evolution of the encyclopedia and compelling nature of reference content.

The OED is one of the largest dictionaries in the world and the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language, tracing the use of more than 600,000 words over the last 1,000 years through 3 million quotations. The OED defines:

• how a word has been used
• where it came from
• when it first entered the English language
• how its meaning has changed over time and around the world

It illustrates these definitions by quoting from more than 100,000 modern and historical texts, from classic literature such as Shakespeare’s plays to film and television scripts such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as wills, cookery books, blogs, and more.

Free content on the OED includes:

• The Word of the day – Sign up and receive a new word and definition each day
• Word Stories
• The OED Appeals
• English in use – Consider different forms of English by place (regional and international)
• Shapers of English

Subscribers to the OED can also access the Historical Thesaurus of the OED on www.oed.com. This unique resource allows you to explore the riches of the English language by theme, and to chart the linguistic progress over time of a chosen object, concept, or expression.

Examples of questions you can answer with the OED:

• Is a particular word from London or Australia?
• What were the new words to talk about horseracing in 1700?
• Which words do we trace back to Shakespeare?
• Which decade sees the most words relating to football first recorded?
• What are the 93 nouns that have been used for rain throughout the history of English?
• Who contributes the earliest known evidence for more English words, Chaucer or Milton?
• How are social changes reflected in language, from the 250 words related to motoring dated from 1900-09, and the number of film-related words from between 1920-1939?

Thanks again for everyone for helping us celebrate libraries this past week. See who won our National Library Week Photo Contest on Tumblr.

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Thank you for participating in National Library Week appeared first on OUPblog.

I have been pondering this question since asking my seven-year-old son (who for the record is not an environmental law scholar) what Earth Day was about and he told me ‘That’s the day you think about climate change and stuff’. His description might not be the most accurate and Earth Day has a complex history, but he is correct in the general sentiment. The problem of course, is that like all environmental law scholars, I am thinking ‘about climate change and stuff’ every day and so having a special day to think about these issues seems a bit gratuitous.

Or maybe not. Earth Day, if it is anything for a scholar, is a day to take stock and reflect on how environmental protection policy and law have evolved over four decades. That reflective process is not as easy as most would think; the speed and scale of environmental debate often leaves scholars, decision-makers, and ordinary people with little time to think about the bigger picture. Different areas of environmental law have become specialized and compartmentalized. There is no such thing as a generalist environmental lawyer or environmental law scholar anymore; rather there are experts working in specialist areas of environmental protection. In such circumstances it becomes very difficult to see how environmental law has evolved overall. So let me use this Earth Day to reflect on that process of evolution and progression.

The first thing to note is that the process of evolution in relation to environmental law and policy has not been linear. The first Earth Day in 1970, celebrated primarily in the US, was at a time when there was bipartisan support for environmental protection in many Western jurisdictions. Much of this arose out of the appreciation that environment degradation placed real limits on economic growth. That appreciation developed into the concept of sustainable development with the Bruntland report in 1988 and the Rio Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. The situation now is far more complex. On the one hand, there have been the development of quite ambitious environmental law regimes; the UK Climate Change Act 2008 is a good example. On the other hand, environmental protection has less political traction than it once did and there is now a perception that environmental law, not environmental problems, provides limits on growth. Another example is public participation. While it is recognized as an important feature of regulatory regimes in theory, that does does not mean that it is an accepted part of the landscape in practice.

Paysage à Port-Goulphar, Claude Monet, 1886. Art Institute of Chicago.

Second, it is clear that over time the governance structures for environmental decision-making have become more polycentric and require a more nuanced account of governance structures. Within any one jurisdiction, a number of different regimes that address different issues will exist and these will overlap and interrelate. Likewise, the national, transnational, and international levels of environmental regulation interact in complex ways. Thus for example, the nature of regulatory competition in the environmental context is multi-dimensional and national decisions about nuclear energy don’t take place in a jurisdictional bubble.

Finally, environmental law scholars must really get to grips with the legal detail. We must dig deep into the infrastructure planning regime so as to understand what role public participation is really playing in that context. You cannot understand the prospects of the Climate Change Act 2008 without understanding the legal and political nature of devolution. Scholars must move past simple understandings of regulatory competition. The evolution of environmental law is thus really about its increasingly complexity, and thus the need for greater expertise on the part of legal scholars. This of course is one of the reasons for the compartmentalization of the subject; it is hard to foster expertise right across the vast landscape of environmental law.

Such fragmentation and specialization does not mean that environmental law scholars in different areas cannot and should not communicate with each other. Rather the challenges of interacting across these specialized areas need to be faced head on. Likewise, any attempt to develop overarching approaches to environmental law should not be at the expense of the legal detail.

So all in all there is great merit in my son’s perception of Earth Day. There is a lot of ‘stuff’ to think about, and think hard about. That ‘stuff’ requires careful and critical reflection and the process of thinking is by no means easy. That of course makes Earth Day important for environmental law scholars.

Liz Fisher is General Editor of the Journal of Environmental Law. Read a special collection of journals articles for Earth Day.

Condensing essential information into just three issues a year, the Journal of Environmental Law has become an authoritative source of informed analysis for all those who have any dealings in this vital field of legal study. The journal exists for both legal practitioners and academics, but also proves accessible for all other groups concerned with the environment, from scientists to planners.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only law and politics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post What does Earth Day mean for an environmental law scholar? appeared first on OUPblog.

The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law is a comprehensive online resource containing peer-reviewed articles on every aspect of public international law. Written and edited by an incomparable team of over 800 scholars and practitioners, published in partnership with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and updated through-out the year, this major reference work is essential for anyone researching or teaching international law. The articles in the quiz above are available to read for free for a limited time.

Oxford University Press is a leading publisher in Public International Law, including the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, latest titles from thought leaders in the field, and a wide range of law journals and online products. We publish original works across key areas of study, from humanitarian to international economic to environmental law, developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners worldwide.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only law and politics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post How much do you know about environmental law? appeared first on OUPblog.

How was Learned Hand influential in the practice of law?

Click here to view the embedded video.

How did Learned Hand differ from Justice Felix Frankfurter?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Did Learned Hand ever expect that his correspondences to be published?

Click here to view the embedded video.

How were you inspired to compile his correspondences?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Constance Jordan is Professor of English and Comparative Literature Emerita at Claremont Graduate University. Jordan has published many books and articles on the subject of literature and the law. She is editor of Reason and Imagination: The Selected Letters of Learned Hand and Learned Hand’s granddaughter.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only law articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Judge Learned Hand’s influence in the practice of law appeared first on OUPblog.

When the names and ethnic backgrounds of the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects were released on Friday, 19 April 2013, rumors immediately began flying over Chechnya, its people, and its role in the world. In order to provide some deeper perspective on the region after the fall of the Soviet Union, we present this brief extract from Thomas de Waal’s The Caucasus: An Introduction.

The Soviet legacy is stronger than it seems in the South Caucasus. Many things that people take for granted are a product of the Soviet Union. They include urban lifestyles, mass literacy, and strong secularism. All three countries still live with an authoritarian political culture in which most people expect that the boss or leader will take decisions on their behalf and that civic activism will have no effect. The media is stronger on polemic than fact-based argument. The economies are based on the patron-client networks that formed in Soviet times. Nostalgia for the more innocent times of the 1960s and 1970s still pervades films, books, and Internet debates. An engaging website of the former pupils who attended Class B in School No. 14 in Sukhumi in the early 1980s gathers the reminiscences of people now living in Abkhazia, Tbilisi, Moscow, Siberia, Israel, Ukraine, Israel, and Greece. The sepia photos of the children in red cravats suggest a multiethnic past in a closed world that has gone forever.

Different perceptions of the Soviet past also confuse the already complex relationship between the three newly independent countries and Russia. The end of the Soviet Union in 1991 meant the decoupling of Russia and the South Caucasus after an enforced union that had lasted two hundred years with one small interruption. The rupture was somewhat better managed than in 1918, but independence was again a traumatic experience. Two vital elements of statehood—economic planning and security—had been steered by Moscow, and it took the three republics at least a decade to reconstruct a functioning economy and law enforcement agencies.

In 1991, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia understandably based their legitimacy on the fact that they had been illegally annexed by the Bolsheviks and had the right to recover their independence. Georgia even readopted its 1921 Constitution. However, the Soviet Union had been not so much a Russian project as a multinational hybrid state with a strong Russian flavor. Besides, in 1991 Russia itself became a newly independent state, which raises the question what exactly the three new states in the South Caucasus were becoming independent from. On occasion, the new Russia would provide an answer, especially for Georgians, by behaving in a menacing, neoimperial fashion, but even Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a long way from being the heir to that of Stalin and Alexander I. The Russian Federation is still in the process of constructing a new post-Soviet identity for itself and deciding whether it is the direct heir of the Soviet Union, has been liberated from its captivity, or, in some undefined way, both.

Where Russia goes in its search for a new identity has a strong bearing on its relationship with its neighbors in the South Caucasus. No models from the past are useful: Russia has never had fully independent neighbors before. In 1992, the Russian government coined the phrase “near abroad” as a catchall term for the newly foreign status of the post-Soviet states. The phrase made sense to Russians, but to the other states it was faintly menacing, implying a less than full endorsement of their independence. Russians across the political spectrum have implied as much. In 1992, Andrei Kozyrev, Boris Yeltsin’s supposedly liberal foreign minister, visited Tbilisi; one of his Georgian hosts complained later that Kozyrev had stopped patronizingly outside the front door of the new foreign ministry and said, “So, you’ve already put a sign up.” This kind of attitude exudes an overbearing familiarity that grates on the Georgians. Consider also the fact that the three men who succeeded Kozyrev as Russian foreign minister all had connections with Tbilisi: Yevgeny Primakov grew up in the city, Igor Ivanov had a Georgian mother, and Sergei Lavrov’s father was a Tbilisi Armenian.

Current Russian policy is still overreliant on “hard power” in the South Caucasus. In the age of Putin and Medvedev, it employs as instruments its presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, its military alliance with Armenia, and its gas pipelines to all three countries. Moscow’s use of these tools and aggressive behavior in 2008 summon up some unwelcome ghosts from the past. But the paradoxical result, as in the Soviet era, is that Armenian and Azerbaijani (but no longer Georgian) leaders dutifully visit Moscow to pledge the importance of their alliance but simultaneously work to counterbalance the Russian influence and build up relationships with other international players, such as the European Union and NATO.

Russia has inherited abundant resources of “soft power” in the Caucasus that Europeans or Americans could only dream of, yet it conspicuously fails to use them. As many as two million Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and Georgians are working in Russia and sending remittances home—but they are generally regarded as marginal migrant workers rather than a friendly resource. There is also the Russian language, which is still widely spoken and was the lingua franca of the region for at least a century but is in rapid decline, in large part because the Russian government is doing almost nothing to support it. University libraries in Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan are full of Russian-language books that a younger generation of students cannot read. In 2002, the director of the cash-strapped public library in Tbilisi said he had received donations of books from all the foreign embassies in the city—except the Russian embassy. As a result of actions like these, the good achievements of the Soviet era are gathering dust, while the Russian imperial legacy looms larger over the region.

Thomas de Waal is a Senior Associate on the Caucasus at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the author of The Caucasus: An Introduction, Black Garden, and co-author with Carlotta Gall of Chechnya.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only current affairs articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Post-Soviet Chechnya and the Caucasus appeared first on OUPblog.

Immediately after two bombs rocked Boston Marathon bystanders and runners, medical volunteers, Medical Reserve Corp members, and law enforcement were seen running to aid victims. For those who suffered trauma, it is likely that these heroic and timely interventions saved lives and improved outcomes. Regrettably and realistically, most future terrorist targets will not have the benefit of a relatively large cadre of trained first aid responders who are standing by and ready to treat heat stroke and other running-related maladies. By all reports, Boston had taken adequate steps to meet the potential medical needs of the runners and to protect the public from a terrorist attack. Yet even with a pre-event sweep of the area for explosive devises and extra police presence on site, two explosions occurred.

Boston Marathon explosions. 16 April 2013. Photo by Aaron Tang. Creative Commons License. flickr.com/photos/hahatango/

It is well recognized that soft targets, such as races, outdoor concerts, and shopping malls, are much easier to attack than hard targets with a strong security presence, like airports and athletic events held in stadiums. Events or locales that are frequented by the public and not subject to security checks will always be at high risk. Given the likelihood of an increased volume of natural disasters, technological catastrophes, pandemics, and terrorist events it is time to reconsider our existing first aid training model. At present, non-profit agencies like the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association, routinely offer first aid training to first responders as well as to the general public. However, this approach is no longer enough. A key challenge is the small number of people who are trained to provide both medical and psychological intervention. Further compounding this dilemma is the shortage of trained first responders who can be deployed to assist survivors and communities in rural areas or in communities with limited resources. As a nation we would be better served by using an effective training model commonly implemented in public schools by local fire departments.

Across America, many fire departments provide fire safety training to upper grades in elementary schools. Students are taught basic fire safety that includes, but is not limited to verifying the presence of home smoke alarms, having an escape route, and knowing the steps to take should a fire occur. Because of this approach, we have been largely successful in creating a culture that recognizes and values fire preparedness and safety. Incorporating fire safety training into school curriculum makes sense and is easily justified because relative to other types of disasters, fire emergencies are high base-rate events.

Today most buildings are inspected by fire marshals and equipped with a variety of fire alarms, extinguishers, and sprinklers. Additionally, most communities have dedicated personnel, fire stations, and vehicles that are highly visible and ready to respond to emergencies. In marked contrast, it is likely that few people know the location of their local emergency operation center or disaster shelter, have an emergency plan, or own an adequately stocked to-go kit. Given the challenges in preparing for high impact but low base-rate disasters, it is imperative that we expand the model currently in place for fire safety to include first aid training.

A first aid training program should be incorporated into upper middle school curriculum with yearly recertification required. The proposed model should not be solely limited to medical first aid, but should also include training in psychological and mental health first aid. A basic premise of first aid is that appropriate, early intervention can mitigate functional impairment and reduce the potential for more serious and enduring health problems that require formal treatment. A comprehensive first aid program is critical as most natural and human-caused disasters result in a high incidence of psychological and not physical casualties. Just as medical first aid may save lives or offset more serious medical complications, psychological first aid has the potential to mitigate serious mental health consequences and build resilience. Moreover, delivery of psychological first aid in tandem with medical intervention would not only be feasible but highly desirable.

The proposed first aid training approach is appropriate for many types of crises, suitable for training both professional and laypeople, applicable to a broad range of disaster events, and incorporates evidence informed practices. We believe that adoption of the first aid training model described above would represent significant progress in fulfilling a key element of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006 mandate (PL 109-417). By training all students to use first aid techniques we take an important and much needed step toward preparing our citizenry to respond to all types of disasters.

Lisa Brown and Bruce Bongar are editors of Psychology of Terrorism with Larry E. Beutler, James N. Breckenridge and Philip G. Zimbardo. Lisa M. Brown, Ph.D. is a tenured, Associate Professor in the School of Aging Studies, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, University of South Florida. Dr. Brown’s clinical and research focus is on aging, health, vulnerable populations, disasters, and long-term care. Since 2004, Dr. Brown has studied the short- and long-term psychosocial reactions and consequences of natural and human-caused disasters. In addition to her scholarly activities, she is also a Medical Reserve Corp volunteer. Bruce Bongar, Ph.D., ABPP, FAPM is the Calvin Professor of Psychology at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology at Palo Alto University, and Consulting Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Bongar’s main research focus is on suicidal behavior, clinical emergencies, psychology of terrorism, and suicide terrorism.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only health and medicine articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post The need for a new first aid training model in a post-9/11 world appeared first on OUPblog.