The Politics of Contraception

Abstract

In modern societies the more obvious risks have already been reduced to level which are acceptable to the public, but there is a growing realization that serious error may be present in the allocation of resources to improve public and industrial safety. There appears to be considerable additional potential for saving many human lives, as well as large sums of money, by more rational and better-informed policies in the field. To reach this better understanding, it is necessary to compare risks and benefits for a set of alternatives and carry through a cost-effectiveness analysis for each proposal. It rapidly becomes more and more expensive to produce equal increments of risk reduction and, beyond a certain level of investment, further expenditure on safety actually increases the number of deaths and injuries, and becomes counter-productive.     

The Politics of Emergency

Military and humanitarian interventions have become commonplace in recent years, provoking some to suggest that the right to intervene in the face of an emergency has become a new global norm. Emergencies and interventions pose unique challenges for political and legal theories of sovereignty, legitimacy, and democracy. Political anthropologists and other social scientists have focused on critiques of sovereign power and military and humanitarian interventions, but more attention to the cultural aspects of how emergencies operate and to the positive and negative effects they might have on political and social life is needed.     

The Politics of Religion

The Politics of Religion in Restoration England. Edited by Tim Harris, Paul Seaward and Mark Goldie
From Persecution to Toleration. The Glorious Revolution and Religion in England. Edited by Ole Peter Grell, Jonathan I. Israel and Nicholas Tyacke.
The Restoration Church of England, 1646–1689. By John Spurr     

The Politics of Insurgency in Collapsing States

The phenomenon of failed states might be expected to lead to the development of mass–based social movements to address the typically ensuing social problems. This article explores the general failure of reformist insurgencies to develop in failed states, using analyses of Nigeria’s Bakassi Boys and Oodua People’s Congress, and references to other armed groups. The cause of this failure is found in the legacy of patronage politics, especially the strategies of rulers who monopolized economic opportunities as a way of controlling people. As centralized patronage networks fragment, popular movements develop to challenge this control. Local political entrepreneurs, however, continue to dominate local markets, including clandestine ones, and use this social domination to buy off members of mass movements. As their new patrons give them access to weapons and protection against rivals, the organizational position of members who pursue individual economic interests is enhanced, while the people with more overt ideological agendas are marginalized.     

Pinochet: The Politics

Against the background of the Pinochet affair, the author considers that a new era of international politics is in the process of being created. The House of Lords' ruling which has allowed extradition procedures against the former Chilean dictator, is understood as a formidable and groundbreaking decision in international law based on the defence of human rights against crimes committed by authoritarian and unlawful rulers. The decision taken under the European Convention on extradition and the setting up of a Permanent International Criminal Court in the summer of 1998 are, according to the author, signs that international law and international politics are moving in the direction of a universal acceptance that violators of human rights must bepunished.
However, the author is also cautious about the tension between the new path opened to international politics and the old power politics based on the absolute and indivisible sovereignty of the state. Double standards will certainly prevail and powerful states, in particular the United States, are reluctant to accept that international law and international politics are in the process of change.