Christian Democracy without Romance: The Perils of Religious Politics from a Public Choice Perspective

Christian Democracy is often championed as a romantic means of bringing ethical considerations for the common good into the daily life of politics. Public choice theory, on the other hand, reveals that the search for the common good is quixotic amidst divergent policy preferences within a nation. While there may be a handful of values that are accepted by nearly all citizens (e.g., prohibitions on murder), more mundane policy choices will likely promote differences of opinion. Given the often arbitrary nature of voting procedures, the ability of one faction to manipulate the vote choice, and the self-interested behavior of politicians to be re-elected, political parties will inevitably alienate some portion of the citizenry. Attaching Christianity to short-term political outcomes serves to undermine its long-term goal of promoting God's mission. Nonetheless, the Catholic concept of subsidiarity is congruent with many of the findings of public choice theory and offers a way for Christians to engage in public life without tainting themselves in the political partisan arena of political partisanship.     

End‐Member Mixing Analysis (EMMA) Applied to Sediment Grain Size Distributions to Characterize Formational Processes of the Main Excavation Block,Unit 2, of the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter (35HA3855), Harney Basin,Eastern Oregon (USA)

End‐member mixing analysis (EMMA) was conducted on the grain size distributions (GSD) of 13 sediment samples collected from the main excavation block, Unit 2, of the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter, a deeply stratified, multi‐component Palaeoindian rockshelter in the Harney Basin of eastern Oregon, USA. EMMA confirmed the three stratigraphic units (SU) observed in the field and identified three sedimentary end‐members (EM) that account for 95.52% of Unit 2 site formation. EM 1 comprises 70.72% of the total measured grain‐size variation and represents fluvial deposition, correlating with the bottom stratigraphic unit, SU 3. EM 2 comprises an additional 17.74% of the total measured grain‐size variation and represents fluvially reworked aeolian deposition, correlating with the upper stratigraphic unit, SU 1. EM 3 comprises the remaining 7.06% of the total measured grain‐size variation and represents possibly a two‐component aeolian deposition of suspension and short‐term saltation, correlating with the middle unit, SU 2. The results presented demonstrate the ability of EMMA as a technique to (1) unbiasedly distinguish between the SUs identified in the field using only the measured grain size distributions, (2) provide genetically meaningful and quantitative grain‐size end‐members to identify multiple major depositional processes of site formation, and (3) provide a geologically meaningful interpretation of site formation that is capable of facilitating the formulation of more focused hypotheses regarding human and environment interactions at the site.     

Linguistic incomprehension in British asylum appeal hearings

For the thousands of appellants who navigate Britain's asylum appeal courts every year, attending a hearing conducted in a language they do not understand and participating via an interpreter, is usually viewed as a significant disadvantage. The findings of a study that entailed ethnographic and structured observations of over 390 asylum appeal hearings in England and Wales during 2013 and 2014, however, indicate that the presence of interpreters often offers an important source of support in adversity. While the natural assumption may be to associate linguistic incomprehension with detriment, it transpires that there are important exceptions to this rule. Given the toughening of UK border controls in recent years, as well as British reluctance to share responsibilities for international refugees such as those fleeing from violence in Syria, these observations offer rare solace in a bleak policy landscape.     

Geographies of youth – a generational perspective

ABSTRACT

Twenty years ago the publication of Cool Places created visibility for emerging research on geographies of youth. Yet in comparison with Children’s Geographies geographical work on youth has failed to mature as a sub-disciplinary field. In this contribution I explore the reasons why this may be so highlighting the way youth geographies has struggled to define its own identity, and its lack of a strong founding, globally relevant, theoretical approach. Instead, I argue that the development of intergenerational geographies has led thinking about youth to be absorbed into wider framings of geographies of age, or geographies of family life.