Zoning,More Than Just a Tool: Explaining Houston's Regulatory Practice

The intent of this article is to understand why Houstonians reject zoning while simultaneously adopting a collection of mechanisms that serve zoning-type functions. The answer is found in discursive-institutionalist approaches that emphasize the symbolic meaning (besides the instrumental value) that people give to regulatory tools. Zoning as a label is generally associated with an interference with individual liberty. Apparently, the other interventionist instruments do not carry the same negative value, which makes it possible to implement them without much opposition. Discourses shape institutions, like planning regulations, and we need to unravel and to understand these processes in order to increase the performance of planning.     

Saddam Hussein,Islam, and Just War Theory: The Case for a Pre-emptive Strike

Abstract

America and its allies face a world that has become more and more dangerous with its weapons of mass destruction and a shadowy world of terrorists more than willing to use them. The wisdom of the past does not have the prescience or universal insight to deal with this new threat. America and its allies must change direction if they wish to respond to the challenge in an effective manner, even if it means employing policies that seemed dubious in the past. The state is called to protect its citizens in a Machiavellian world, filled with depravity and compromise. The church is called to submit to the superior wisdom of those who have the special intelligence, experience and expertise to handle the current crisis.     

'More carrot than stick', British Economic Warfare and Spain, 1941-1944

During the Second World War, economic factors became a centralaspect of Spain's relations to both Britain and Nazi Germany.In 1940, when the Franco regime was on the brink of joiningthe war on the side of the Axis, Britain tried to use Spain’sdependence on imports from the west to convince Franco to retainhis country's neutrality. Although, at the time, British ‘economicappeasement’ was not a major factor in the failure ofGerman-Spanish negotiations, it contributed to Spain's verygradual detachment from Nazi Germany over subsequent years.Between1941 and 1944, the focus of British policy towards Spain movedfrom keeping the country out of the war to restricting the servicesSpain rendered to the German war economy. Franco's sympathiesfor the Nazi regime and the economic and financial benefitsof continuing trade with Germany made British and US economicwarfare activities however only a partial success.     

"Just War" and the Contemporary Art of Justifying the Unjustifiable

Abstract

This article assesses the recent application of "just war" criteria by Charles Reed. It is clear Reed has uncritically supported Anglo-American power by omitting a great deal of counter evidence and by misrepresenting opposing views. Some consideration is given to the ways in which intellectuals can unintentionally support violence and power.     

Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Situating al-Qaeda and the Global War on Terror within Geopolitical Trends and Structures

Two North American political geographers situate contemporary terrorism in the world within broad historical trends and geopolitical structures. They employ Rapoport's "four waves of terrorism" to illustrate the changing geography of terrorism (from an intrastate to an international phenomenon) and place it within the context of broad historical shifts in modes of warfare that envisages terrorism as a form of war stemming from imperialism and state-building. The authors broaden the structural setting of terrorism to include geoeconomics and the concept of relative deprivation, using empirical analysis to argue that contemporary terrorism is primarily a feature of the semi-periphery of the world-economy (middle-income countries). Specific characteristics of the Global War on Terror are interpreted by relating processes of imperialism and state-building to a situation in which the U.S. is facing geopolitical challenges and a possible decline in global-power status. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I390, O100, Y900. 3 figures, 1 table, 52 references.     

The Supreme Court in Times of Hot and Cold War: Learning from the Sounds of Silence for a War on Terrorism

Justice William J. Brennan once remarked that the Court has never fully developed a jurisprudence of national security. It is simply too episodic, he said. ¹ Our present Chief Justice would, it would seem, largely agree, though his own research shows some greater willingness for the Court to superintend—at least after the fact ² —the actions of the executive in times of war or similar crisis. My assignment in this essay was to ask the question slightly differently; namely, has the posture of the Court differed in times of hot or cold war, and if so, how has it differed? As will be evident momentarily, that question is less helpful to our present circumstance than it might seem. Why? Because, frankly, we are in neither a hot nor cold war, but something quite different ³ —something that has the potential to be not only hot, but blistering, and something which will likely never be fully appreciated as having gone truly cold.