Having your day in court:judicial opportunity and tactical choice in Anti-GMO campaigns in France and the United Kingdom

Investigating the recent direct action campaigns against genetically modified crops in France and the United Kingdom, the authors set out to understand how contrasting judicial systems and cultures affect the way that activists choose to commit ostensibly illegal actions and how they negotiate the trade-offs between effectiveness and public accountability. The authors find evidence that prosecution outcomes across different judicial systems are consistent and relatively predictable and consequently argue that the concept of a “judicial opportunity structure” is useful for developing scholars’ understanding of social movement trajectories. The authors also find that these differential judicial opportunities cannot adequately account for the tactical choices made by activists with respect to the staging of covert or overt direct action; rather, explanations of tactical choice are better accounted for by movement ideas, cultures, and traditions.

Performance management in the United States and France:four case studies in the retail and airline industries

The profusion of performance measurement models suggested by Management Accounting literature in the 1990’s is one illustration of the substantial changes in Management Accounting teaching materials since the publication of “Relevance Lost” in 1987. At the same time, in the general context of increasing competition and globalisation it is widely thought that national cultural differences are tending to disappear, meaning that management techniques used in large companies, including performance measurement and management instruments (PMS), tend to be the same, irrespective of the company nationality or location. North American management practice is traditionally described as a contractually based model, mainly focused on financial performance information and measures (FPMs), more shareholder-focused than French companies. Within France, literature historically defined performance as being broadly multidimensional, driven by the idea that there are no universal rules of management and that efficient management takes into account local culture and traditions. As opposed to their North American brethren, French companies are pressured more by the financial institutions that fund them rather than by capital markets. Therefore, they pay greater attention to the long-term because they are not subject to quarterly capital market objectives. Hence, management in France should rely more on long-term qualitative information, less financial, and more multidimensional data to assess performance than their North American counterparts. The objective of this research is to investigate whether large French and US companies’ practices have changed in the way the textbooks have changed with regards to performance measurement and management, or whether cultural differences are still driving differences in performance measurement and management between them. The research findings support the idea that large US and French companies share the same PMS features, influenced by ‘universal’ PM models.

Vulnerability of exporting nations to the development of a carbon label in the United Kingdom

Carbon labels inform consumers about the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) released during the production and consumption of goods, including food. In the future consumer and legislative responses to carbon labels may favour goods with lower emissions, and thereby change established supply chains. This may have unintended consequences. We present the carbon footprint of three horticultural goods of different origins supplied to the United Kingdom market: lettuce, broccoli and green beans. Analysis of these footprints enables the characterisation of three different classes of vulnerability which are related to: transport, national economy and supply chain specifics. There is no simple relationship between the characteristics of an exporting country and its vulnerability to the introduction of a carbon label. Geographically distant developing countries with a high level of substitutable exports to the UK are most vulnerable. However, many developing countries have low vulnerability as their main exports are tropical crops which would be hard to substitute with local produce. In the short term it is unlikely that consumers will respond to carbon labels in such a way that will have major impacts in the horticultural sector. Labels which require contractual reductions in GHG emissions may have greater impacts in the short term.

“I had a different way of governing”: The evangelical presidential style of Jimmy Carter and his mission for Middle East peace

President Jimmy Carter once said, "I had a different way of governing." In attempting to explain what he meant by this, Carter has been variously described as a political amateur, a trustee, a non-political politician, an "active-positive" president, and a forerunner of the 1990s' New Democrats. It is argued here, however, that mere secular descriptions and categories such as these do not adequately capture the essence of Carter's brand of politics and his understanding of the presidency. Rejecting Richard Neustadt's prescriptions for effective presidential leadership, Carter thought political bargaining and compromise were "dirty" and "sinful." He deemed the ways of Washington as "evil," and considered many, if not most, career politicians immoral. While he fully supported the institutional separation of church and state, politics for Carter was about "doing right," telling the truth, and making the United States and the world "a better demonstration of what Christ is." Like two earlier Democrats, William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson, Carter understood politics as an alternative form of Christian ministry and service. In this regard, Carter was a presidential exception. Carter's evangelical faith gave his politics meaning, skill, vision, and a framework for communication. Using Fred Greenstein's categories of presidential leadership, Carter's faith provided him with "emotional intelligence", too. However, Carter's evangelical style provoked many of his contemporaries, including many of his fellow Democrats. To his critics at home and abroad, Carter was often accused of being arrogant, stubborn, naive, and ultimately a political failure. But as evinced by his indispensable role in negotiating peace between Israel and Egypt, his leadership style also provided him some remarkable achievements. The research here is based on a thorough examination of President Carter's many writings, his public papers, interviews, and opinion pieces. Written accounts from former Carter administration officials and from Israeli and Egyptian participants at Camp David are also used. This project is largely descriptive, qualitative in approach, but quantitative data are used when appropriate and as supplements.

[Subway ride on the way to] demonstration at Playboy Club

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Powers, liabilities and expertise in community safety: Comparative lessons for ‘urban security’ from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland

This paper begins by outlining and critiquing what we term the dominant anglophone model of neo-liberal community safety and crime prevention. As an alternative to this influential but flawed model, a comparative analysis is provided of the different constitutional-legal settlements in each of the five jurisdictions across the UK and the Republic of Ireland (ROI), and their uneven institutionalization of community safety. In the light of this it is argued that the nature of the anglophone community safety enterprise is actually subject to significant variation. Summarizing the contours of this variation facilitates our articulation of some core dimensions of community safety. Then, making use of Colebatch’s (2002) deconstruction of policy activity into categories of authority and expertise, and Brunsson’s (2002) distinction between policy talk, decisions and action, we put forward a way of understanding policy activity that avoids the twin dangers of ‘false particularism’ and ‘false universalism’ (Edwards and Hughes, 2005); that indicates a path for further empirical enquiry to assess the ‘reality’ of policy convergence; and that enables the engagement of researchers with normative questions about where community safety should be heading.

Capital 2.0 capital formation and legal risk in a new global economic order from fiat to exit: including case studies of the proposed transatlantic trade and investment partnership between the United States and the European Union and the financing relation between the United States and the People’s Republic of China

Following the intrinsically linked balance sheets in his Capital Formation Life Cycle, Lukas M. Stahl explains with his Triple A Model of Accounting, Allocation and Accountability the stages of the Capital Formation process from FIAT to EXIT. Based on the theoretical foundations of legal risk laid by the International Bar Association with the help of Roger McCormick and legal scholars such as Joanna Benjamin, Matthew Whalley and Tobias Mahler, and founded on the basis of Wesley Hohfeld’s category theory of jural relations, Stahl develops his mutually exclusive Four Determinants of Legal Risk of Law, Lack of Right, Liability and Limitation. Those Four Determinants of Legal Risk allow us to apply, assess, and precisely describe the respective legal risk at all stages of the Capital Formation Life Cycle as demonstrated in case studies of nine industry verticals of the proposed and currently negotiated Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the United States of America and the European Union, TTIP, as well as in the case of the often cited financing relation between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Having established the Four Determinants of Legal Risk and its application to the Capital Formation Life Cycle, Stahl then explores the theoretical foundations of capital formation, their historical basis in classical and neo-classical economics and its forefathers such as The Austrians around Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek and most notably and controversial, Karl Marx, and their impact on today’s exponential expansion of capital formation. Starting off with the first pillar of his Triple A Model, Accounting, Stahl then moves on to explain the Three Factors of Capital Formation, Man, Machines and Money and shows how “value-added” is created with respect to the non-monetary capital factors of human resources and industrial production. Followed by a detailed analysis discussing the roles of the Three Actors of Monetary Capital Formation, Central Banks, Commercial Banks and Citizens Stahl readily dismisses a number of myths regarding the creation of money providing in-depth insight into the workings of monetary policy makers, their institutions and ultimate beneficiaries, the corporate and consumer citizens. In his second pillar, Allocation, Stahl continues his analysis of the balance sheets of the Capital Formation Life Cycle by discussing the role of The Five Key Accounts of Monetary Capital Formation, the Sovereign, Financial, Corporate, Private and International account of Monetary Capital Formation and the associated legal risks in the allocation of capital pursuant to his Four Determinants of Legal Risk. In his third pillar, Accountability, Stahl discusses the ever recurring Crisis-Reaction-Acceleration-Sequence-History, in short: CRASH, since the beginning of the millennium starting with the dot-com crash at the turn of the millennium, followed seven years later by the financial crisis of 2008 and the dislocations in the global economy we are facing another seven years later today in 2015 with several sordid debt restructurings under way and hundred thousands of refugees on the way caused by war and increasing inequality. Together with the regulatory reactions they have caused in the form of so-called landmark legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the JOBS Act of 2012 or the introduction of the Basel Accords, Basel II in 2004 and III in 2010, the European Financial Stability Facility of 2010, the European Stability Mechanism of 2012 and the European Banking Union of 2013, Stahl analyses the acceleration in size and scope of crises that appears to find often seemingly helpless bureaucratic responses, the inherent legal risks and the complete lack of accountability on part of those responsible. Stahl argues that the order of the day requires to address the root cause of the problems in the form of two fundamental design defects of our Global Economic Order, namely our monetary and judicial order. Inspired by a 1933 plan of nine University of Chicago economists abolishing the fractional reserve system, he proposes the introduction of Sovereign Money as a prerequisite to void misallocations by way of judicial order in the course of domestic and transnational insolvency proceedings including the restructuring of sovereign debt throughout the entire monetary system back to its origin without causing domino effects of banking collapses and failed financial institutions. In recognizing Austrian-American economist Schumpeter’s Concept of Creative Destruction, as a process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one, Stahl responds to Schumpeter’s economic chemotherapy with his Concept of Equitable Default mimicking an immunotherapy that strengthens the corpus economicus own immune system by providing for the judicial authority to terminate precisely those misallocations that have proven malignant causing default perusing the century old common law concept of equity that allows for the equitable reformation, rescission or restitution of contract by way of judicial order. Following a review of the proposed mechanisms of transnational dispute resolution and current court systems with transnational jurisdiction, Stahl advocates as a first step in order to complete the Capital Formation Life Cycle from FIAT, the creation of money by way of credit, to EXIT, the termination of money by way of judicial order, the institution of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Court constituted by a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of International Trade and the European Court of Justice by following the model of the EFTA Court of the European Free Trade Association. Since the first time his proposal has been made public in June of 2014 after being discussed in academic circles since 2011, his or similar proposals have found numerous public supporters. Most notably, the former Vice President of the European Parliament, David Martin, has tabled an amendment in June 2015 in the course of the negotiations on TTIP calling for an independent judicial body and the Member of the European Commission, Cecilia Malmström, has presented her proposal of an International Investment Court on September 16, 2015. Stahl concludes, that for the first time in the history of our generation it appears that there is a real opportunity for reform of our Global Economic Order by curing the two fundamental design defects of our monetary order and judicial order with the abolition of the fractional reserve system and the introduction of Sovereign Money and the institution of a democratically elected Transatlantic Trade and Investment Court that commensurate with its jurisdiction extending to cases concerning the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership may complete the Capital Formation Life Cycle resolving cases of default with the transnational judicial authority for terminal resolution of misallocations in a New Global Economic Order without the ensuing dangers of systemic collapse from FIAT to EXIT.

Preparing for the Research Excellence Framework: Examples of Open Access Good Practice across the United Kingdom

This article concerns how higher education institutions across the United Kingdom are implementing systems and workflows in order to meet open access requirements for the next Research Excellence Framework. The way that institutions are preparing is not uniform, although there are key areas which require attention: cost management, advocacy, systems and metadata, structural workflows, and internal policy. Examples of preparative work in these areas are taken from institutions who have participated in the Open Access Good Practice initiative supported by Jisc.

Eighty years 'Owre the Sea': Robert Burns and the early United States of America, c. 1786-1866.

This thesis represents the first extensive critical study of the relationship between Robert Burns and the early United States of America. Spanning literature, history and memory studies, the following chapters take an interdisciplinary approach towards investigating the methods by which Burns and his works rose to prominence and came to be of cultural and literary significance in America. Theoretically, these converging disciplines intersect through a transnational, Atlantic Studies perspective that shifts emphasis from Burns as the 'national poet of Scotland' onto the various socio-cultural connections that facilitated the spread of his work and reputation. In addition to Scottish literary studies, the thesis contributes to the broader fields of Transatlantic, Transnational and American Studies. Previous studies have suggested that Burns's popularity in the early United States might be attributed to his kinship with 'national' American ideals of freedom, egalitarianism and individual liberty. While some of the evidence supports this claim, this thesis argues that it also wrongly assumes a spatiotemporal unity for the nineteenth-century American nation. It concludes by suggesting that future critical studies of the poet must heed the multifarious complexities of 'national' paradigms, pointing the way to further work on the reception and influence of Burns in other 'global' or, indeed, transnational contexts.

Entrepreneurship: a long way to go

Entrepreneurship education has emerged as one popular research domain in academic fields given its aim at enhancing and developing certain entrepreneurial qualities of undergraduates that change their state of behavior, even their entrepreneurial inclination and finally may result in the formation of new businesses as well as new job opportunities. This study attempts to investigate the Colombian student´s entrepreneurial qualities and the influence of entrepreneurial education during their studies.

Applying integrated resource and environmental management to transmission right-of-way maintenance

The concept of a substantive integrator is introduced as a method for integrated resource and environmental management as a means to assimilate different resource values at the operational or field level. A substantive integrator is a strategic management tool for integrating multiple uses into coprorate management regimes that traditionally manage for single values. Wildlife habitat management is presented as a substantive integrator for managing vegetation on electric utility power line corridors. A case study from northern British Columbia provides an example of wildlife habitat management as a means to integrate other resource values such as aesthetics, access and subsistence along British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority's transmission rights-of-way.

Creative design and the generative evolutionary paradigm

Design as seen from the designer's perspective is a series of amazing imaginative jumps or creative leaps. But design as seen by the design historian is a smooth progression or evolution of ideas that they seem self-evident and inevitable after the event. But the next step is anything but obvious for the artist/creator/inventor/designer stuck at that point just before the creative leap. They know where they have come from and have a general sense of where they are going, but often do not have a precise target or goal. This is why it is misleading to talk of design as a problem-solving activity - it is better defined as a problem-finding activity. This has been very frustrating for those trying to assist the design process with computer-based, problem-solving techniques. By the time the problem has been defined, it has been solved. Indeed the solution is often the very definition of the problem. Design must be creative-or it is mere imitation. But since this crucial creative leap seem inevitable after the event, the question must arise, can we find some way of searching the space ahead? Of course there are serious problems of knowing what we are looking for and the vastness of the search space. It may be better to discard altogether the term "searching" in the context of the design process: Conceptual analogies such as search, search spaces and fitness landscapes aim to elucidate the design process. However, the vastness of the multidimensional spaces involved make these analogies misguided and they thereby actually result in further confounding the issue. The term search becomes a misnomer since it has connotations that imply that it is possible to find what you are looking for. In such vast spaces the term search must be discarded. Thus, any attempt at searching for the highest peak in the fitness landscape as an optimal solution is also meaningless. Futhermore, even the very existence of a fitness landscape is fallacious. Although alternatives in the same region of the vast space can be compared to one another, distant alternatives will stem from radically different roots and will therefore not be comparable in any straightforward manner (Janssen 2000). Nevertheless we still have this tantalizing possibility that if a creative idea seems inevitable after the event, then somehow might the process be rserved? This may be as improbable as attempting to reverse time. A more helpful analogy is from nature, where it is generally assumed that the process of evolution is not long-term goal directed or teleological. Dennett points out a common minsunderstanding of Darwinism: the idea that evolution by natural selection is a procedure for producing human beings. Evolution can have produced humankind by an algorithmic process, without its being true that evolution is an algorithm for producing us. If we were to wind the tape of life back and run this algorithm again, the likelihood of "us" being created again is infinitesimally small (Gould 1989; Dennett 1995). But nevertheless Mother Nature has proved a remarkably successful, resourceful, and imaginative inventor generating a constant flow of incredible new design ideas to fire our imagination. Hence the current interest in the potential of the evolutionary paradigm in design. These evolutionary methods are frequently based on techniques such as the application of evolutionary algorithms that are usually thought of as search algorithms. It is necessary to abandon such connections with searching and see the evolutionary algorithm as a direct analogy with the evolutionary processes of nature. The process of natural selection can generate a wealth of alternative experiements, and the better ones survive. There is no one solution, there is no optimal solution, but there is continuous experiment. Nature is profligate with her prototyping and ruthless in her elimination of less successful experiments. Most importantly, nature has all the time in the world. As designers we cannot afford prototyping and ruthless experiment, nor can we operate on the time scale of the natural design process. Instead we can use the computer to compress space and time and to perform virtual prototyping and evaluation before committing ourselves to actual prototypes. This is the hypothesis underlying the evolutionary paradigm in design (1992, 1995).