Framing the local and the global in the anti-nuclear movement: Law and the politics of place

This article examines the politics of place in relation to legal mobilization by the anti-nuclear movement. It examines two case examples - citizens' weapons inspections and civil disobedience strategies - which have involved the movement drawing upon the law in particular spatial contexts. The article begins by examining a number of factors which have been employed in recent social movement literature to explain strategy choice, including ideology, resources, political and legal opportunity, and framing. It then proceeds to argue that the issues of scale, space, and place play an important role in relation to framing by the movement in the two case examples. Both can be seen to involve scalar reframing, with the movement attempting to resist localizing tendencies and to replace them with a global frame. Both also involve an attempt to reframe the issue of nuclear weapons away from the contested frame of the past (unilateral disarmament) towards the more universal and widely accepted frame of international law.

Libraries and literature in Rome

A chapter of 6,000 words on books, literary culture, and public and private libraries in the ancient city of Rome

Nutritional and safety assessments of foods and feeds nutritionally improved through biotechnology: Case studies

During the last 2 decades, the public and private sectors have made substantial international research progress toward improving the nutritional value of a wide range of food and feed crops. Nevertheless, significant numbers of people still suffer from the effects of undernutrition. In addition, the nutritional quality of feed is often a limiting factor in livestock production systems, particularly those in developing countries. As newly developed crops with nutritionally improved traits come closer to being available to producers and consumers, we must ensure that scientifically sound and efficient processes are used to assess the safety and nutritional quality of these crops. Such processes will facilitate deploying these crops to those world areas with large numbers of people who need them. This document describes 5 case studies of crops with improved nutritional value. These case studies examine the principles and recommendations published by the Intl. Life Sciences Inst. (ILSI) in 2004 for the safety and nutritional assessment of foods and feeds derived from nutritionally improved crops (ILSI 2004). One overarching conclusion that spans all 5 case studies is that the comparative safety assessment process is a valid approach. Such a process has been endorsed by many publications and organizations, including the 2004 ILSI publication. The type and extent of data that are appropriate for a scientifically sound comparative safety assessment are presented on a case-by-case basis in a manner that takes into account scientific results published since the 2004 ILSI report. This report will appear in the January issue of Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety.

Patents and transgenic plants

One of the recurring themes in any discussion concerning the application of genetic transformation technology is the role of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). This term covers both the content of patents and the confidential expertise, usually related to methodology and referred to as “Trade Secrets”. This review will explain the concepts behind patent protection, and will discuss the wide-ranging scope of existing patents that cover all aspects of transgenic technology, from selectable markers and novel promoters to methods of gene introduction. Although few of these patents have any significant commercial value, there are a small number of key patents that may restrict the “freedom to operate” of any company seeking to exploit the methods. Over the last twenty years, these restrictions have forced extensive cross-licensing between ag-biotech companies and have been one of the driving forces behind the consolidation of these companies. Although such issues are often considered to be of little interest to the academic scientist working in the public sector, they are of great importance in any debate about the role of “public-good breeding” and of the relationship between the public and private sectors.

The expenses scandal and the politics of electoral reform

The scandal over MPs' expenses that erupted in 2009 was followed by a surge in discussion of electoral reform. A range of reforms to Westminster's existing electoral system are now high on the political agenda. This article examines the extent and the nature of the scandal's impact on the electoral reform debate and draws out comparative implications for the sorts of conditions that can force politicians to accept electoral reforms that they do not want. It finds that the expenses scandal significantly changed debate about some electoral reform topics, but not about others. It proposes three factors likely to increase the impact of scandal in sparking reform: that the scandal is seen as harming ordinary people in their daily lives; that reforms can readily be understood as likely to mitigate the sources of scandal; and that those reforms do not seriously harm politicians' own perceived interests.

Resilience planning, economic change and the politics of post-recession development in London and Hong Kong

For much of the 1990s and 2000s, the emphasis of urban policy in many global cities was on managing and mitigating the social and environmental effects of rapid economic growth. The credit crunch of 2008 and the subsequent recession have undermined some of the core assumptions on which such policies were based. It is in this context that the concept of resilience planning has taken on a new significance. Drawing on contemporary research in London and Hong Kong, the paper shows how resilience and recovery planning has become a key area of political debate. It examines what is meant by conservative and radical interpretations of resilience and how conservative views have come to dominate ‘recovery’ thinking, with élite groups unwilling to accept the limits to the neo-liberal orthodoxies that helped to precipitate the economic crisis. The paper explores the implications of such thinking for the politics of urban development.