Reason of state and a new notion of fortune : Historicising the risk society

Since the 1980s the concept of risk has produced a large and diverse volume of sociological research. Ulrich Beck’s groundbreaking risk society thesis provides a particularly engaging contribution, since it seems that nearly every sociological account of risk engages with this work. For Beck, we are living in second modernity – a new epoch that breaks with pre-modernity and industrial society due to the centrality, incalculability and reflexivity of globalised risk. While Beck’s theory is compelling, a reading of other theorists such as Foucault (2007[1978]) and Hacking (1975,1990) suggests that a difficulty with Beck’s work is that in attempting to explain what is novel about risk in contemporary times, he too quickly passes over the complexities and ruptures of historical change that impact on the history and contingency of risk. This paper begins by presenting a brief analysis of the present state of risk by introducing Beck’s historical narrative of risk from pre-modernity to the risk society; it then outlines the challenges with the “risk as epoch” argument by considering a range of literature, which suggests risk has a more complex history than proposed by Beck; and finally it highlights the value in examining strategies of statecraft in early modern Europe, specifically Machiavelli’s The Prince (2008[1513]) and Giovanni Botero’s political treatise, Della Ragion di Stato (1956[1589]) – as a means of more thoroughly understanding how our current concept of risk emerges. In doing so, this paper seeks to open up new trajectories in the historicisation of risk for other interested scholars.

Constitutional reason of state : the survival of the constitutional order /

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The reason of state,

Mode of access: Internet.

Equation of state for hot dense matter using a relativistic screened hydrogenic model

The study of matter under conditions of high density, pressure, and temperature is a valuable subject for inertial confinement fusion (ICF), astrophysical phenomena, high-power laser interaction with matter, etc. In all these cases, matter is heated and compressed by strong shocks to high pressures and temperatures, becomes partially or completely ionized via thermal or pressure ionization, and is in the form of dense plasma. The thermodynamics and the hydrodynamics of hot dense plasmas cannot be predicted without the knowledge of the equation of state (EOS) that describes how a material reacts to pressure and how much energy is involved. Therefore, the equation of state often takes the form of pressure and energy as functions of density and temperature. Furthermore, EOS data must be obtained in a timely manner in order to be useful as input in hydrodynamic codes. By this reason, the use of fast, robust and reasonably accurate atomic models, is necessary for computing the EOS of a material.

Problems Connected with the Realisation of State E-governance in the Republic of Bulgaria

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2013

Fear, trust and Aborigines : The historical experience of state institutions and current encounters in the health system

Troubled dynamics between residents of an Aboriginal town in Queensland and the local health system were established during colonisation and consolidated during those periods of Australian history where the policies of 'protection' (segregation), integration and then assimilation held sway. The status of Aboriginal health is, in part, related to interactions between the residents' current and historical experiences of the health and criminal justice systems as together these agencies used medical and moral policing to legitimate dispossession, marginalisation, institutionalisation and control of the residents. The punitive regulations and ethnocentric strategies used by these institutions are within the living memory of many of the residents or in the published accounts of preceding generations. This paper explores current residents' memories and experiences.

Benedict-Webb-Rubin equation of state constants for N2O4 ⇄ 2NO2,NO,and O2

Benedict-Webb-Rubin equation of state constants for NO, O2, and the equilibrium mixture N2O4 ⇄ 2NO2 are reported.

Birth of the European individual : Outline of a theory of legal practice

The modern subject is what we can call a self-subjecting individual. This is someone in whose inner reality has been implanted a more permanent governability, a governability that works inside the agent. Michel Foucault s genealogy of the modern subject is the history of its constitution by power practices. By a flight of imagination, suppose that this history is not an evolving social structure or cultural phenomenon, but one of those insects (moth) whose life cycle consists of three stages or moments: crawling larva, encapsulated pupa, and flying adult. Foucault s history of power-practices presents the same kind of miracle of total metamorphosis. The main forces in the general field of power can be apprehended through a generalisation of three rationalities functioning side-by-side in the plurality of different practices of power: domination, normalisation and the law. Domination is a force functioning by the rationality of reason of state: the state s essence is power, power is firm domination over people, and people are the state s resource by which the state s strength is measured. Normalisation is a force that takes hold on people from the inside of society: it imposes society s own reality its empirical verity as a norm on people through silently working jurisdictional operations that exclude pathological individuals too far from the average of the population as a whole. The law is a counterforce to both domination and normalisation. Accounting for elements of legal practice as omnihistorical is not possible without a view of the general field of power. Without this view, and only in terms of the operations and tactical manoeuvres of the practice of law, nothing of the kind can be seen: the only thing that practice manifests is constant change itself. However, the backdrop of law s tacit dimension that is, the power-relations between law, domination and normalisation allows one to see more. In the general field of power, the function of law is exactly to maintain the constant possibility of change. Whereas domination and normalisation would stabilise society, the law makes it move. The European individual has a reality as a problem. What is a problem? A problem is something that allows entry into the field of thought, said Foucault. To be a problem, it is necessary for certain number of factors to have made it uncertain, to have made it lose familiarity, or to have provoked a certain number of difficulties around it . Entering the field of thought through problematisations of the European individual human forms, power and knowledge one is able to glimpse the historical backgrounds of our present being. These were produced, and then again buried, in intersections between practices of power and games of truth. In the problem of the European individual one has suitable circumstances that bring to light forces that have passed through the individual through centuries.

Influence of state of stress on the processing map for hot working of stainless steel type AISI 304L: compression vs. torsion

Processing maps for hot working of stainless steel of type AISI 304L have been developed on the basis of the flow stress data generated by compression and torsion in the temperature range 600–1200 °C and strain rate range 0.1–100 s−1. The efficiency of power dissipation given by 2m/(m+1) where m is the strain rate sensitivity is plotted as a function of temperature and strain rate to obtain a processing map, which is interpreted on the basis of the Dynamic Materials Model. The maps obtained by compression as well as torsion exhibited a domain of dynamic recrystallization with its peak efficiency occurring at 1200 °C and 0.1 s−1. These are the optimum hot-working parameters which may be obtained by either of the test techniques. The peak efficiency for the dynamic recrystallization is apparently higher (64%) than that obtained in constant-true-strain-rate compression (41%) and the difference in explained on the basis of strain rate variations occurring across the section of solid torsion bar. A region of flow instability has occurred at lower temperatures (below 1000 °C) and higher strain rates (above 1 s−1) and is wider in torsion than in compression. To achieve complete microstructure control in a component, the state of stress will have to be considered.

Cyclization of enediyne radical cations through chemical, photochemical, and electrochemical oxidation: The role of state symmetry

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