Copyright law as a matter of (inter)national security? – The attempt to securitise commercial infringement and its spill-over onto individual liability

This article evaluates the way in which copyright infringement has been gradually shifting from an area of civil liability to one of criminal penalty. Traditionally, consideration of copyright issues has been undertaken from a predominantly legal and/or economic perspectives. Whereas traditional legal analysis can explain what legal changes are occurring, and what impact these changes may have, they may not effectively explain ‘how’ these changes have come to occur. The authors propose an alternative inter-disciplinary approach, combining legal analysis with critical security studies, which may help to explain in greater detail how policies in this field have developed. In particular, through applied securitisation theory, this article intends to demonstrate the appropriation of this field by a security discourse, and its consequences for societal and legal developments. In order to explore how the securitisation framework may be a valid approach to a subject such as copyright law and to determine the extent to which copyright law may be said to have been securitised, this article will begin by explaining the origins and main features of securitisation theory, and its applicability to legal study. The authors will then attempt to apply this framework to the development of a criminal law approach to copyright infringement, by focusing on the security escalation it has undergone, developing from an economic issue into one of international security. The analysis of this evolution will be mainly characterised by the securitisation moves taking place at national, European and international levels. Finally, a general reflection will be carried out on whether the securitisation of copyright has indeed been successful and on what the consequences of such a success could be.

Quality management (QM) implementation in the Kuwaiti Oil Industry:An empirical study and a proposed generic framework

In an Arab oil producing country in the Middle East such as Kuwait, Oil industry is considered as the main and most important industry of the country. This industry’s importance emerged from the significant role it plays in both country’s national economy and also global economy. Moreover, Oil industry’s criticality comes from its interconnectivity with national security and power in the Middle East region. Hence, conducting this research in this crucial industry had certainly added values to companies in this industry as it investigated thoroughly the main components of the TQM implementation process and identified which components affects significantly TQM’s implementation and its gained business results. In addition, as the Oil sector is a large sector that is known for its richness of employees with different national cultures and backgrounds. Thus, this culture-heterogeneous industry seems to be the most appropriate environment to address and satisfy a need in the literature to investigate the national culture values’ effects on TQM implementation process. Furthermore, this research has developed a new conceptual model of TQM implementation process in the Kuwaiti Oil industry that applies in general to operations and productions organizations at the Kuwaiti business environment and in specific to organizations in the Oil industry, as well it serves as a good theoretical model for improving operations and production level of the oil industry in other developing and developed countries. Thus, such research findings minimized the literature’s gap found the limited amount of empirical research of TQM implementation in well-developed industries existing in an Arab, developing countries and specifically in Kuwait, where there was no coherent national model for a universal TQM implementation in the Kuwaiti Oil industry in specific and Kuwaiti business environment in general. Finally, this newly developed research framework, which emerged from the literature search, was validated by rigorous quantitative analysis tools including SPSS and Structural Equation Modeling. The quantitative findings of questionnaires collected were supported by the qualitative findings of interviews conducted.

Industry evolution and cross-sectoral skill transfers:a comparative analysis of the video game industry in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom

In this paper we explore the interrelationship between technological progress and the formation of industry-specific skills by analysing the evolution of the video-game industry in three countries: Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. We argue that the cross-sectoral transfer of skills occurs differently depending on national contexts, such as the social legitimacy and strength of preexisting industries, the socioeconomic status of entrepreneurs or pioneer firms in an emerging industry, and the sociocultural cohesiveness between the preexisting and emerging industries. Each country draws on a different set of creative resources, which results in a unique trajectory. Whereas Japan's video-game industry emerged out of corporate sponsorships in arcades, toys, and consumer electronics industries and drew skills from the comic book and animated-film sectors, the video-game industry in the United States evolved from arcades and personal computers. In the United Kingdom the video-game industry developed bottom-up, through a process of skills formation in the youth culture of 'bedroom coders' that nurtured self-taught programmers in their teens throughout the country.

EU governance of the internet:analyzing Europol’s role in the development of a EU cyber crime and cyber security policies

In recent years, the European Union has come to view cyber security, and in particular, cyber crime as one of the most relevant challenges to the completion of its Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. Given European societies’ increased reliance on borderless and decentralized information technologies, this sector of activity has been identified as an easy target for actors such as organised criminals, hacktivists or terrorist networks. Such analysis has been accompanied by EU calls to step up the fight against unlawful online activities, namely through increased cooperation among law enforcement authorities (both national and extra- communitarian), the approximation of legislations, and public- private partnerships. Although EU initiatives in this field have, so far, been characterized by a lack of interconnection and an integrated strategy, there has been, since the mid- 2000s, an attempt to develop a more cohesive and coordinated policy. An important part of this policy is connected to the activities of Europol, which have come to assume a central role in the coordination of intelligence gathering and analysis of cyber crime. The European Cybercrime Center (EC3), which will become operational within Europol in January 2013, is regarded, in particular, as a focal point of the EU’s fight against this phenomenon. Bearing this background in mind, the present article wishes to understand the role of Europol in the development of a European policy to counter the illegal use of the internet. The article proposes to reach this objective by analyzing, through the theoretical lenses of experimental governance, the evolution of this agency’s activities in the area of cyber crime and cyber security, its positioning as an expert in the field, and the consequences for the way this policy is currently developing and is expected to develop in the near future.

Leisure at work in Britain, West Germany, France and Japan : a cross-cultural comparative study

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the impact of changing values and attitudes toward work and the workplace in Britain, West Germany, France and Japan. A cross-national approach was adopted in order to gain a better understanding of differences and similarities in behaviour and to identify aspects specific to each society. Although the relationship between work and leisure has been thoroughly examined and there is a growing body of literature on changes in the values associated with these two phenomena, little research has been carried out into leisure at work. Studies of work time have tended to consider it as a homogeneous block, whereas recent research suggests that more attention should be devoted to unravelling the multiple uses of time at the workplace. The present study sought to review and analyse this new approach to the study of work time, and special attention is devoted to an examination of definitions of leisure, recreation, free time and work within the context of the workplace. The cross-cultural comparative approach gave rise to several problems due to the number of countries involved and the unusual combination of factors being investigated. The main difficulties were differences in the amount and quality of literature available, the non-comparability of existing data, definitions of concepts and socio-linguistic terms, and problems over access to organizations for fieldwork. Much of the literature generalizes about patterns of behaviour and few authors isolate factors specific to particular societies. In this thesis new empirical work is therefore used to ascertain the extent to which generalizations can be made from the literature and characteristics peculiar to each of the four countries identified. White-collar employees in large, broadly comparable companies were studied using identical questionnaires in the appropriate language. Respondents selected were men and women, aged between 20-65 years and either managers or non-managers. Patterns of leisure at work were found to be broadly similar in the national contexts, but with the Japanese and the West Germans experiencing the least leisure at work, and the British and the French perceiving the most. The general trend seems to be toward convergence of attitudes regarding leisure at work in the four countries. Explanations for variations in practice were sought within the wider societal contexts of each country.

Beyond securitisation : Western Mediterranean international relations from a security perspective 1989-2002

Following the end of the Cold War and the ensuing changes to the international landscape, thinking about security has tended to become more discursive and interpretative in nature. What counts as security has increasingly derived from security discourses (that is, 'securitisation') and uncertainty about the multi-faceted future facing various countries and regions. Within this post-Cold War discourse, the Western Mediterranean has emerged as a region fraught with latent and manifest threats in the economic, political, societal and military sectors. Improved access to EU markets for Maghrebi exports; the security of energy supplies to the EU from Algeria and Libya; lack of democracy and the advance of political Islam; the flow of northward migration and worries about law and order in France, Italy and Spain; the growth in military expenditure and weapons proliferation in the Maghreb; all have been central to the securitisation agenda. However, this agenda has often lacked credibility especially when inter-linkages have purportedly been established between economic underdevelopment and political instability, between the advance of political Islam and the threat to energy supplies, or between immigration and the threat to national identity. Such inter-sectoral linkages distract from the credibility of those 'securitisation instances' which correspond to reality; the former linkages have often been exploited by extremist politicians in south-west European countries as well as by regimes in the Maghreb to advance their respective interests. Thus, securitisation may defeat its main purpose; it may generate responses out of keeping with the aims proclaimed at the outset, aims centred on the countering of real threats and the ensuring of greater stability.

Changing employment relation systems in Japan:cases of the Mitsubishi Chemical Group and the Federation of Shinkin Banks

Over the past decade or so a number of changes have been observed in traditional Japanese employment relations (ERs) systems such as an increase in non-regular workers, a move towards performance-based systems and a continuous decline in union membership. There is a large body of Anglo-Saxon and Japanese literature providing evidence that national factors such as national institutions, national culture, and the business and economic environment have significantly influenced what were hitherto three ‘sacred’ aspects of Japanese ERs systems (ERSs). However, no research has been undertaken until now at the firm level regarding the extent to which changes in national factors influence ERSs across firms. This article develops a model to examine the impact of national factors on ER systems; and analyses the impact of national factors at the firm level ER systems. Based on information collected from two different groups of companies, namely Mitsubishi Chemical Group (MCG) and Federation of Shinkin Bank (FSB) the research finds that except for a few similarities, the impact of national factors is different on Japanese ER systems at the firm level. This indicates that the impact of national factors varies in the implementation of employment relations factors. In the case of MCG, national culture has less to do with seniority-based system. Study also reveals that the national culture factors have also less influence on an enterprise-based system in the case of FSB. This analysis is useful for domestic and international organizations as it helps to better understand the role of national factors in determining Japanese ERSs.

Neither security nor development? Czech and Hungarian identities and interests in the provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan

This article builds on the securitisation and post-development literature and it scrutinises the Czech and Hungarian legitimising discourses of the two countries’ respective Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in the Logar and Baghlan provinces of Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013. In spite of the hybrid civil–military character of the PRTs, their security–development nexus was absent and they were respectively securitised and “developmentalised” only indirectly and to a varying extent. The PRTs were mostly justified by the Czech Republic's NATO membership as an identity issue and they were justified as a Hungarian national interest and as both an obligation and an opportunity. Rather than merely importing NATO's arguments as suggested by the previous literature, the depoliticisation and positive connotation of the intervention in Afghanistan was constructed by the domestic NATO-related identities and interests in the Czech Republic and Hungary.

The unequal segmentation of public preparedness for mass evacuation:a cross-national perspective

This thesis is concerned with understanding how Emergency Management Agencies (EMAs) influence public preparedness for mass evacuation across seven countries. Due to the lack of cross-national research (Tierney et al., 2001), there is a lack of knowledge on EMAs perspectives and approaches to the governance of public preparedness. This thesis seeks to address this gap through cross-national research that explores and contributes towards understanding the governance of public preparedness. The research draws upon the risk communication (Wood et al., 2011; Tierney et al., 2001) social marketing (Marshall et al., 2007; Kotler and Lee, 2008; Ramaprasad, 2005), risk governance (Walker et al., 2010, 2013; Kuhlicke et al., 2011; IRGC, 2005, 2007; Renn et al., 2011; Klinke and Renn, 2012), risk society (Beck, 1992, 1999, 2002) and governmentality (Foucault, 1978, 2003, 2009) literature to explain this governance and how EMAs responsibilize the public for their preparedness. EMAs from seven countries (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom) explain how they prepare their public for mass evacuation in response to different types of risk. A cross-national (Hantrais, 1999) interpretive research approach, using qualitative methods including semi-structured interviews, documents and observation, was used to collect data. The data analysis process (Miles and Huberman, 1999) identified how the concepts of risk, knowledge and responsibility are critical for theorising how EMAs influence public preparedness for mass evacuation. The key findings grounded in these concepts include: - Theoretically, risk is multi-functional in the governance of public preparedness. It regulates behaviour, enables surveillance and acts as a technique of exclusion. - EMAs knowledge and how this influenced their assessment of risk, together with how they share the responsibility for public preparedness across institutions and the public, are key to the governance of public preparedness for mass evacuation. This resulted in a form of public segmentation common to all countries, whereby the public were prepared unequally.  - EMAs use their prior knowledge and assessments of risk to target public preparedness in response to particular known hazards. However, this strategy places the non-targeted public at greater risk in relation to unknown hazards, such as a man-made disaster. - A cross-national conceptual framework of four distinctive governance practices (exclusionary, informing, involving and influencing) are utilised to influence public preparedness. - The uncertainty associated with particular types of risk limits the application of social marketing as a strategy for influencing the public to take responsibility and can potentially increase the risk to the public.

Energy security in the news:North/South perspectives

Analysis of newspaper reporting on the topic of energy security in eight countries – four from the global North (France, Germany, the UK, and the United States) and four from the global South (China, India, Brazil, and South Africa) – produces no support for the thesis that news is disseminated from core countries to the periphery and semi-periphery. There is an important difference between China and the other three fast-developing countries and a highly asymmetric flow of news not aligned to old core-periphery boundaries. In general, energy security is mainly covered in trade and business outlets and less in newspapers with mass circulation, indicating that the topic is still an elite concern. In some instances, attention has surged at the same time in different countries. But very few of these instances show a homogenous coverage across countries. Despite increasingly globalised media, news is created and consumed at a national level.

Book review: Laurel Kamada, Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls: Being Half in Japan. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2010

Arguably, the catalyst for the best research studies using social analysis of discourse is personal ‘lived’ experience. This is certainly the case for Kamada, who, as a white American woman with a Japanese spouse, had to deal first hand with the racialization of her son. Like many other mixed-ethnic parents, she experienced the shock and disap-pointment of finding her child being racialized as ‘Chinese’ in America through peer group taunts, and constituted as gaijin (a foreigner) in his own homeland of Japan. As a member of an e-list of the (Japan) Bilingualism Special Interest Group (BSIG), Kamada learnt that other parents from the English-speaking foreign community in Japan had similar disturbing stories to tell of their mixed-ethnic children who, upon entering the Japanese school system, were mocked, bullied and marginalized by their peers. She men-tions a pervasive Japanese proverb which warns of diversity or difference getting squashed: ‘The nail that sticks up gets hammered down’. This imperative to conform to Japanese behavioural and discursive norms prompted Kamada’s quest to investigate the impact of ‘otherization’ on the identities of children of mixed parentage. In this fascinat-ing book, she shows that this pressure to conform is balanced by a corresponding cele-bration of ‘hybrid’ or mixed identities. The children in her study are also able to negotiate their identities positively as they come to terms with contradictory discursive notions of ‘Japaneseness’, ‘whiteness’ and ‘halfness/doubleness’.The discursive construction of identity has become a central concern amongst researchers across a wide range of academic disciplines within the humanities and the social sciences, and most existing work either concentrates on a specific identity cate-gory, such as gender, sexuality or national identity, or else offers a broader discussion of how identity is theorized. Kamada’s book is refreshing because it crosses the usual boundaries and offers divergent insights on identity in a number of ways. First, using the term ‘ethno-gendering’, she examines the ways in which six mixed-ethnic girls living in Japan accomplish and manage the relationship between their gender and ethnic ‘differ-ences’ from age 12 to 15. She analyses in close detail how their actions or displays within certain situated interactions might come into conflict with how they are seen or constituted by others. Second, Kamada’s study builds on contemporary writing on the benefits of hybridity where identities are fluid, flexible and indeterminate, and which contest the usual monolithic distinctions of gender, ethnicity, class, etc. Here, Kamada carves out an original space for her findings. While scholars have often investigated changing identities and language practices of young people who have been geographi-cally displaced and are newcomers to the local language, Kamada’s participants were all born and brought up in Japan, were fluent in Japanese and were relatively proficient in English. Third, the author refuses to conceptualize or theorize identity from a single given viewpoint in preference to others, but in postmodernist spirit draws upon multiple perspectives and frameworks of discourse analysis in order to create different forms of knowledge and understandings of her subject. Drawing on this ‘multi-perspectival’ approach, Kamada examines grammatical, lexical, rhetorical and interactional features from six extensive conversations, to show how her participants position their diverse identities in relation to their friends, to the researcher and to the outside world. Kamada’s study is driven by three clear aims. The first is to find out ‘whether there are any tensions and dilemmas in the ways adolescent girls of Japanese and “white” mixed parentage in Japan identify themselves in terms of ethnicity’. In Chapter 4, she shows how the girls indeed felt that they stood out as different and consequently experienced isolation, marginalization and bullying at school – although they were able to make better sense of this as they grew older, repositioning the bullies as pitiable. The second aim is to ask how, if at all, her participants celebrate their ethnicity, and furthermore, what kind of symbolic, linguistic and social capital they were able to claim for themselves on the basis of their hybrid identities. In Chapter 5, Kamada shows how the girls over time were able to constitute themselves as insiders while constituting ‘the Japanese’ as outsiders, and their network of mixed-ethnic friends was a key means to achieve this. In Chapter 6, the author develops this potential celebration of the girls’ mixed ethnicity by investigating the privileges they perceived it afforded them – for example, having the advantage of pos-sessing English proficiency and intercultural ‘savvy’ in a globalized world. Kamada’s third aim is to ask how her participants positioned themselves and performed their hybrid identities on the basis of their constituted appearance: that is, how the girls saw them-selves based on how they looked to others. In Chapter 7, the author shows that, while there are competing discourses at work, the girls are able to take up empowering positions within a discourse of ‘foreigner attractiveness’ or ‘a white-Western female beauty’ discourse, which provides them with a certain cachet among their Japanese peers. Throughout the book, Kamada adopts a highly self-reflexive perspective of her own position as author. For example, she interrogates the fact that she may have changed the lived reality of her six participants during the course of her research study. As the six girls, who were ‘best friends’, lived in different parts of the Morita region of Japan, she had to be proactive in organizing six separate ‘get-togethers’ through the course of her three-year study. She acknowledges that she did not collect ‘naturally occurring data’ but rather co-constructed opportunities for the girls to meet and talk on a regular basis. At these meetings, she encouraged the girls to discuss matters of identity, prompted by open-ended interview questions, by stimulus materials such as photos, articles and pic-tures, and by individual tasks such as drawing self-portraits. By giving her participants a platform in this way, Kamada not only elicited some very rich spoken data but also ‘helped in some way to shape the attitudes and self-images of the girls positively, in ways that might not have developed had these get-togethers not occurred’ (p. 221). While the data she gathers are indeed rich, it may well be asked whether there is a mismatch between the girls’ frank and engaging accounts of personal experience, and the social constructionist academic register in which these are later re-articulated. When Kamada writes, ‘Rina related how within the more narrow range of discourses that she had to draw on in her past, she was disempowered and marginalized’ (p. 118), we know that Rina’s actual words were very different. Would she really recognize, understand and agree with the reported speech of the researcher? This small omission of self-reflexivity apart – an omission which is true of most lin-guistic ethnography conducted today – Kamada has written a unique, engaging and thought-provoking book which offers a model to future discourse analysts investigating hybrid identities. The idea that speakers can draw upon competing discourses or reper-toires to constitute their identities in contrasting, creative and positive ways provides linguistic researchers with a clear orientation by which to analyse the contradictions of identity construction as they occur across time in different discursive contexts