Destroying Nahr el-Bared: Sovereignty and urbicide in the space of exception

During the summer of 2007, Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon was the scene of a fierce battle between the Lebanese Armed Forces and a militant Islamist group called Fateh al-Islam. When Palestinian evacuees returned after the conflict, they found Nahr el-Bared utterly destroyed, houses smashed first by shells and bombs, then by vandalism and arson, possessions stolen and broken, offensive graffiti daubed on walls. I argue in this paper that the battle of Nahr el-Bared, and particularly the month of looting and arson that followed the battle, was a case of urbicide in a space of exception. The seemingly unrestricted destruction of homes, the theft of possessions and arson, went beyond any possible military necessity and became the deliberate and systematic erasure of the camp. This urbicide was made more possible by the very nature of the political spaces of the camp, which are in Lebanon but not of Lebanon, in which Lebanese sovereignty and law are not fully enforced, in which a whole range of non-Lebanese actors exercise political power outside the control of the Lebanese state. In these spaces of exception in which the rule of law is suspended, the looting, arson and vandalism took place without sanction. Palestinian homes and lives had become sacred in the sense that they could be destroyed without sanction, without recourse to legal redress, because there was no law.     

The relationship between school ground design and intensity of physical activity

In this study, we investigated the relationship between school ground design and children's physical activity levels. In particular, we were interested in understanding the contribution of ‘green’ school ground design to physical activity levels. Data for this study were collected at an elementary school in Australia and in Canada. At each school, scans of Target Areas were completed to record the students' location and intensity of physical activity, based on the System for Observing Play and Leisure Activity in Youth (SOPLAY) (Australia: 23 scans, 6 Target Areas; Canada: 18 scans, 7 Target Areas). At both schools, the highest percentage of children present was engaged in vigorous physical activity on the manufactured equipment (42% of children/scan). Similarly, at both schools, the green area encouraged the highest percentage of children present to be engaged in moderate physical activity (47% of Australian children/scan, 51% of Canadian children/scan). The patterns of sedentary behavior differed slightly between countries. At the Australian school, the paved sporting courts (57%) and the paved canteen courtyard (50.5%) promoted the highest degree of sedentary play. At the Canadian school, the treed grassy berm (42%) and the treed concrete steps (43%) encouraged the highest percentage of sedentary behavior, followed by the open asphalt (34%). These results are also discussed in light of gender distribution. We conclude with a discussion of the design and cultural factors that influence children's physical activity on school grounds. We argue that if school grounds are to realize their potential to promote physical activity, they should include a greater diversity of design features and ‘green’ elements that engage children of varying interests and abilities in active play.     

The Politics of European Union Immigration Policy: Institutions, Salience, and Harmonization

This article examines recent attempts to create a common European Union (EU) immigration policy. This "harmonized" policy has faced political blockages, despite being seen by most observers as necessary if the EU is to meet its goal of free movement of labor. Because of this resistance, immigration harmonization has lagged behind other EU policy areas. To explain national resistance to harmonizing immigration policy, our article develops a theoretical and conceptual model of how immigration policy is potentially harmonized at the EU level, but how this harmonization can be blocked or restricted. We explain these political blockages with a model of intergovernmental bargaining that focuses on political salience, political partisanship, and institutions that protect immigrant rights. We argue that these national-level factors have determined the success and the nature of various harmonization proposals, by determining the positions of member states when negotiating in the European Council. Our primary hypothesis is that when the political salience of a given immigration issue is high, any harmonization that results is more likely to be restrictive toward immigrant rights. We also hypothesize that the impact of institutions that protect immigrant rights, and of political partisanship, is variable depending on the issue area and the national context. We use literature on European integration, immigration politics, agenda-setting, venue-shopping, and two-level games to theorize, operationalize, and test these hypotheses. The article helps to advance scholarly work on immigration politics, but our model could also conceivably be applied to other high-salience policy areas in the EU.     

The importance of exercising in space

As a direct consequence of exposure to microgravity, astronauts experience a set of physiological changes which can have serious medical implications when they return to earth. Most immediate and significant are the headward shift of body fluids and the removal of gravitational loading from bone and muscles, which lead to progressive changes in the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems. Cardiovascular adaptations result in an increased incidence of orthostatic intolerance (fainting) following flight, decreased cardiac output, and reduced capacity for exercise. Changes in the musculoskeletal system contribute significantly to impaired function experienced in the post-flight period. The underlying factor producing these changes is the absence of gravity, and countermeasures are therefore designed primarily to simulate earthlike movements, stresses, and system interactions. Exercise is one approach that has had wide operational use and acceptance in both the US and Russian space programmes, and it has enabled humans to stay relatively healthy in space for well over a year. Although it remains the most effective countermeasure currently available, significant physiological degradation still occurs. The development of other countermeasures will be necessary for missions of longer duration, for example for human exploration of Mars.     

Operationalizing social equity in public policy design: A comparative analysis of solar equity policies in the United States

While it is widely recognized that energy injustices are prevalent in the clean energy transition process, there has been limited research attention on policy efforts aiming to mitigate these inequities. In this paper, we use solar equity policies as an empirical case study to understand how social equity considerations are conceptualized and operationalized in energy policy content. We build upon the policy design literature and code institutional statements of 54 solar equity policies adopted between 2001 and 2021 in the United States. In our comparative analysis, we focus on three levels of policy design elements that can be directly observed in written policy language: macro-policy goal construction, meso-policy instrument choices, and micro-level policy settings and calibrations. We find that the policy goal of energy justice is multifaceted, with a great emphasis on solar energy accessibility and provision of economic benefits and security for disadvantaged communities. There is a dominant preference by policymakers to use redistributive policies and community solar programs to advance energy justice-related goals. Solar equity policy instruments on-the-ground measures have also been calibrated to target specific disadvantaged populations in the energy system, which focus mostly on income-based vulnerability.     

Multiplex Network Analysis for Complex Governance Systems Using Surveys and Online Behavior

Text analysis, web scraping, and other computational techniques enable policy network researchers to efficiently obtain objective measures of network connections. However, the extent to which these observational methods differ from traditional survey instrument‐based measures remains an open question. Focusing on a large regional policy network of 221 organizations, this study compares a measure of collaboration generated via survey instrument to two different measures based upon internet hyperlinks and Twitter interactions between network actors. We address two questions: (1) To what extent do objective network measures based upon observed online interactions and subjective measures based upon self‐reported relationships reveal the same inter‐organizational partnerships and structural network dynamics? and (2) How useful are online network measures for supplementing survey‐based network measures? We find a significant, but substantively small, correlation between survey‐based measures and online interactions. Thus, online network measures may complement survey‐based measures, but likely reflect different aspects of the overall policy network. We conclude by discussing the potential for multiplex measures of policy networks that draw upon multiple measures to more fully understand policy network landscapes. These results bridge and help to contextualize prior work on policy network measures and virtual policy networks within the broader context of complex governance systems.