Social defence and international reconstructon : illustrating the governance of post-war criminological discourse

This article examines the technocratic priorities of criminological discourse following the Second World War. In doing so, it charts the role and influence of the United Nations and the doctrine of social defence, and traces those shifts and events that have forged a nexus between criminological endeavour and processes of governance. This article aims to illustrate that social defence and international reconstruction provide a useful framework for understanding the links between power/knowledge and the pragmatic orientations of criminological scholarship.

A review of "The Peace In Between : Post-war violence and peacebuilding", edited by Astri Suhrke and Mats Berdal, Routledge, 2012

The term post-war violence has been with us for much of the twentieth century but the issue itself has existed for centuries. The study of violence in post-war societies has been explored by philosophers (Erasmus), statesmen (Sir Thomas More) and sociologists (Emile Durkheim). In many cases the cessation of war and the signing of peace accords do not always mean an end to the violence. This book examines in considerable detail the causes and purposes of post-conflict violence and argues that features which constrain or encourage violence accumulate in such a manner as to create distinct and different types of post-war environments...

When the five giants of post war reconstruction meet the four pillars of welfare reform-young people lose out, again

This paper discusses proposed changes to the Australian welfare state in the Welfare Review chaired by Patrick McClure and launched by Kevin Andrews, Minister for Social Services in the Abbott government, in a recent address to the Sydney Institute. Andrews cited the Beveridge Report of 1942, referring to Lord William Beveridge as the “godfather of the British post-war welfare state”, commending him for putting forward a plan for a welfare state providing a minimal level of support, constituting a bare safety net, rather than “stifling civil society and personal responsibility” through generous provision. In line with a key TASA conference theme of challenging institutions and identifying social and political change at local and global levels, this paper examines both the Beveridge Report and the McClure Report, identifying key issues and themes of relevance to current times in Australia.

Reconstituting identity and history in post-war Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina

This paper by Carl Grodach demonstrates the careful unravelling of complexity, diversity, contestation and contradictions involved in the reconstruction of symbolic urban spaces after violent conflict, and the allied processes of cultural reinterpretation, political reconfiguration and material revaluation which accompany it. The paper analyses the reconstruction and redevelopment of the 16th-century historic centre of Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, following the Bosnian Wars of 1992–1995. Reconstruction efforts centre around Stari Most, the 16th-century Ottoman bridge destroyed by Bosnian Croat military in 1993. In Mostar, both international and local organizations are in the process of reinterpreting Bosnia’s legacy of Ottoman city spaces. This research and analysis illuminates how such spaces can be central to contemporary projects to redefine group identities and conceptions of place. It provides insight into the ways various groups are attempting to reshape outside perceptions of the city—and Bosnia’s ethnic conflict—to articulate a new definition of local identity and ethnic relations and to remake a stable tourist economy through Mostar’s urban spaces.

The Comovement between Monetary and Fiscal Policy Instruments during the Post-War Period in the U.S.

This paper empirically studies the dynamic relationship between monetary and fiscal policies by analyzing the comovements between the Fed funds rate and the primary deficit/output ratio. Simple economic thinking establishes that a negative correlation between Fed rate and deficit arises whenever the two policy authorities share a common stabilization objective. However, when budget balancing concerns lead to a drastic deficit reduction the Fed may reduce the Fed rate in order to smooth the impact of fiscal policy, which results in a positive correlation between these two policy instruments. The empirical results show (i) a significant negative comovement between Fed rate and deficit and (ii) that deficit and output gap Granger-cause the Fed funds rate during the post-Volcker era, but the opposite is not true.

Markov Switching Risk Premium and the term structure of interest rates. Empirical evidence from US post-war interest rates

This paper considers the basic present value model of interest rates under rational expectations with two additional features. First, following McCallum (1994), the model assumes a policy reaction function where changes in the short-term interest rate are determined by the long-short spread. Second, the short-term interest rate and the risk premium processes are characterized by a Markov regime-switching model. Using US post-war interest rate data, this paper finds evidence that a two-regime switching model fits the data better than the basic model. The estimation results also show the presence of two alternative states displaying quite different features.

The changing behaviour of the term structure of post-war US

Using U.S. interest rate data covering the period 1950:1-1992:7, this paper tests the rational expectations model of the term structure of interest rates. We show evidence that the rational expectations model of the term structure is supported by the data during the seventies and a period lasting from the mid-eighties to the end of the sample. However, during the …fties, sixties and a period that covers most of the Volcker’s office term (from September 1979 to April 1986) the term structure model is rejected by the data. Moreover, wefind evidence of regime changes in the short-term rate process and the term structure of interest rates. These regime switches roughly coincide with changes in the Federal Reserve chairman. The switches in monetary policy taking place when the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve changes therefore seem to play an important role in characterizing the term structure of interest rates.

Switching Regimes in the Term Structure of Interest Rates During U.S. Post-War: A case for the Lucas proof equilibrium?

Published as an article in: Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, 2004, vol. 8, issue 1, pages 5.

Widows' struggles in post-war Sri Lanka

This report documents the post-war struggle of women, mainly widows, from the fishing communities of Mannar, Sri Lanka, attempting to reconstruct their lives.

State power matters: power, the state and political struggle in the post-war American novel

This article is concerned with resituating the state at the centre of the analytical stage and, concomitantly, with drawing attention to the dangers of losing sight of the state as a locus of power. It seeks to uncover the relationship between two related lines of critical inquiry: Marxist and Foucauldian theories of the state; and the attempts by three postwar American novelist (Ken Kesey, William Burroughs and E.L. Doctorow) to determine the nature and extent of this power and to consider under what conditions political struggle might be possible. It argues that such a move is needed because recent critical analysis has been too preoccupied by corporeal micropolitics and global macropolitics, and that the postwar American novel can help us in this move because it is centrally concerned with the repressive potentiality of the US state. It maintains that the resuscitation of Marxist state theories in early 1970s and a debate between Poulantzas and Foucault is intriguingly foreshadowed and even critiqued by these novels. Consequently, it concludes that these novels constitute an unrecognized pre-history of what would become one of the key intellectual debates of the late twentieth century: an engagement between Marxist and post-structuralist conceptions of the power and resistance.