Towards justice in planning: A reappraisal

The concept of justice is central to a political activity such as planning. This is reflected in the initial influence of consequentialism, particularly utilitarian conceptualizations, in planning thought and more recently in the application of Rawls' notion of “justice as fairness” and Habermas' “discourse ethics”. However, contemporary normative planning theory has been vigorously criticized by studies which take as their starting point the material realities of planning practices. In this paper it is argued that notwithstanding the crucial contributions of Habermas and Rawls to political philosophy their constitutional level conceptualizations were never intended to be applied to the task of situated judgement associated with the highly contested decisions at the heart of the planning activity. Consequently, the issue for the planning community is not so much can the concepts of justice embodied in Rawls' “justice as fairness” or Habermas' “discourse ethics” be found in practice but could they ever. More generally it has been argued that the inevitable abstraction in liberal theories of justice comes so close to idealization that their ability to help individuals and societies to address the question of “what is to be done?” is seriously called in to doubt. This in turn has led to concern that an adequate account of justice should be able to link abstract principles to context sensitive judgement of particular cases. The paper explores some implications of these debates for the future development of theory and practice in planning.     

The pharmaceutical industry in the twentieth century: A reappraisal of the sources of innovation

Abstract

The authors use an historical case‐study of a single line of therapeutic development (in vaccines and serum antitoxins) to bring out salient aspects of the shifting sources of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry during the twentieth century. Their emphasis is on the complex relationships that have evolved between three companies ‐ Mulford, Sharp & Dohme, and Merck & Co., Inc. ‐ and the loosely integrated networks of public, profit‐making, and non‐profit institutions that have been central to the process of innovation in this science‐based industry. Galambos and Sturchio enumerate the characteristics of pharmaceutical organisations that have remained successful innovators over the long term.     

Papal pronouncements on legitimate lordship and the formulation of nationhood in early fourteenth-century Scottish writings

Early fourteenth-century Scotland produced some of the period's clearest expressions of nationhood, most famously with the so-called Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. Despite the letter's fame, its conceptual language and that of related Scottish texts has not hitherto been entirely recognised. The present article demonstrates that these writings are closely informed by contemporary legal ideas concerning lawful jurisdiction and just war. Their use of legal ideas can be shown to have been inspired by the concerns and outlook of the papacy, particularly with regard to its temporal lordship in Italy. It is this inspiration that can explain the clarity and force with which the Scottish texts of these decades present the kingdom as specifically Scottish and the nation as a political force, for which they have since become renowned.     

Popery,politics, and play: visual culture in succession crisis England

This article assesses the place of graphic satire in the burgeoning news culture of late seventeenth-century England. It argues that historians who have used visual sources as typical of party positions in a manner similar to modern political posters underestimate the sophistication of their interventions into politics. Graphic satires did not simply distil already existing ideologies into easily digestible images, but made significant contributions to political culture: through the repetition of key images from the Popish Plot (1678–1682) Whig graphic satire created a narrative which asserted control over the interpretation of events in a bitterly contested news culture. In response, Tory satirists developed sophisticated visual strategies to undermine that narrative, and it is argued that the graphic element of graphic satire – the skilful playfulness with which it parodied, commentated upon, or mocked other elements of news culture – was vital to its unleashing biting political commentary.     

Averting a global financial crisis: the US,the IMF,and the Mexican debt crisis of 1976

This article explains the politics and diplomacy of the initial use of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) adjustment program as a tactic in a strategy to avert a possible global banking crisis. Scholars typically date the strategy to the Reagan administration's response to the sovereign debt crises in Eastern Europe and Latin America in the early 1980s. This article demonstrates that the approach originated instead during the 1976 Mexican debt crisis – the first potential postwar default by a developing country that threatened international bank failures. Key US and Mexican officials recognized that an IMF program of currency devaluation and austerity would probably fail in its stated objective of reducing Mexico's balance of payments deficit. Nevertheless, US Treasury and Federal Reserve officials, fearing that a Mexican default might lead to bank failures and subsequent global financial crisis, intervened to an unprecedented degree in the negotiations between the IMF and Mexico. The United States offered direct financial support and worked through diplomatic channels to insist that Mexico accept an IMF adjustment program, as a way of bailing out US banks. Mexican president Luis Echeverría's administration consented to IMF adjustment because officials perceived it as the least politically costly option among a range of alternatives.     

Blueing business as usual in the ocean: Blue economies,oil, and climate justice

Oceans are increasingly looked toward for their contribution to addressing climate change. These so-called ocean-based climate “solutions” often fall under the umbrella of the “blue economy,” a term used to refer to new ways of organizing ocean economies to provide equitable economic and environmental benefits. Yet, thus far the literature exploring blue economies and blue economy governance has largely overlooked or downplayed its equity and justice roots and implications, including how blue economies are embedded in multiple scales of environmental injustices. This is particularly important when blue economies include offshore oil production. The purpose of this paper is to both emphasize the need and provide an approach to incorporate justice and equity—specifically climate justice—into blue economy planning and scholarship. We build on conceptualizations of blue economies as assemblages to draw attention to the global reach of climate impacts associated with oil that are often overlooked or ignored at sites of production and through regional governance. We argue that greenhouse gas emissions from the life cycle of oil should be included in policies and planning (including blue economy planning) at sites of production, but that this must also incorporate underlying power structures that lead to uneven impacts and climate injustice. We look at environmental assessments as a regional governance tool that could be used to shape opportunities and openings to organize blue economies differently. To illustrate these points, we look at how environmental assessments are playing (and could play) a role in enacting and shaping Newfoundland and Labrador's blue economy.     

Fronto, the bishops, and the crowd: Episcopal justice and communal violence in fifth-century Tarraconensis

Augustine's Epistula 11* was addressed to the bishop of Hippo by an aristocratic laymen called Consentius. The letter recounts, ostensibly verbatim, the tribulations of the Spanish monk Fronto in his efforts to prosecute what he regards as a heretical conspiracy amongst the clergy of Hispania Tarraconensis. Fronto's narrative is a rare first-person account of the late antique judicial process, in all its complexity of overlapping imperial and ecclesiastical jurisdictions. The present article examines the letter's evidence for judicial strategies and rhetoric, as well as the role of status, power and violence in influencing legal outcomes.     

Financial order and world politics: crisis, change and continuity

Many insist that the world economy today is in the grip of the most severe financial crisis since 1931. Although the origins of this crisis are in dispute, the extent and scale of the changes prompted by it are becoming clear. Among these changes are a recalibration of the relationship between public and private authority, a reconfiguration of the regulatory responsibilities and capacities of the state with respect to the financial system, and a rebalancing of relations of power among states. While the financial crisis has generated points of stress along all of these axes of change, we should be wary of expecting an entirely new global financial order to emerge from the carnage. The complex links between financial order and world politics suggest that this financial crisis will result in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary transformation in the world's financial order.     

Vengeance, justice and the reactions in the Revolutionary Midi

This article explores the nature of political conflict, violenceand justice in the Midi provençal during the French Revolution.It emphasizes the continuity of conflict between rival factionsdividing most communes in the region throughout the Revolutionarydecade, conflict that frequently issued in individual and collectiveviolence, most notoriously the prison massacres of the WhiteTerror (or the Reaction, as it was known among contemporaries)at Aix, Tarascon and Marseille in the spring of 1795. Thesemassacres, among the most spectacular expressions of collectivevengeance and popular justice in the Revolution, presented thenascent judicial system of the Revolution with some of its greatestchallenges in the pursuit and punishment of these crimes, notleast because of the political partiality of the judicial authorities.This article further illustrates how the phenomenon of multipleReactions between warring factions, representing fundamentalsocio-economic differences and competing visions of the Republic,provides an understanding of the whole Revolutionary processin the region.     

Fordism in the hospital: Albert Kahn and the design of Old Main, 1917-25

The 1917-25 planning and construction at the University of Michigan of a new University Hospital, later dubbed Old Main, offers a noteworthy case study of the formal convergence of hospital and factory in early twentieth-century America. Designed by Albert Kahn, the architect responsible for Ford Motor Company's archetypal automobile plants, and located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, less than forty miles from Detroit's burgeoning factory landscape, Old Main was well positioned to reflect the values of industry in both appearance and operation. The building's outer surface represents a striking departure from the historicism that characterized several other hospitals of this period, while plans for the building's novel diagnostic unit demonstrate unique operational parallels to the assembly line model of production. Ultimately, Old Main's industrial design similarities cast it as a precociously modernist hospital, relating streamlined form to function more explicitly than many of its contemporary institutions.     

Urbanisation,crisis and urban policy in Greece

Urbanization trends in Greece since the 1950s are reviewed, with particular reference to the problems that arose in the 1970s. The authors examine the two major attempts at state intervention in urban planning during this period. They conclude with an overview of possible policy interventions that could resolve some of the problems related to urbanization.