SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES IN SITING A NUCLEAR-FUEL WASTE DISPOSAL FACILITY IN ONTARIO, CANADA

An environmental assessment of the Canadian Nuclear Fuel Waste Disposal Concept was initiated in 1989. The primary purpose of the assessment is to determine the technical feasibility of burying nuclear-fuel waste deep into the Canadian Shield. If deemed acceptable, a second phase of facility siting will commence. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the social and political dimensions of nuclear-fuel waste management in Canada. It is contended that nuclear-fuel waste management transcends technical concerns, and that the ultimate success or failure of siting procedures is hinged on social and political acceptability. Data focusing on various facets of a nuclear-fuel waste disposal facility were collected from a sample of residents from three northern Ontario communities. Results demonstrate that there is a strong relationship between facility acceptability, risk perception, and distance from community. On the basis of these findings, it is contended that a regional siting approach needs to be developed and implemented to ensure that concerns over the viability of nuclear power, equity, and trust are incorporated and granted legitimacy in the management of nuclear-fuel waste. Une évaluation environnementale du concept d'élimination des déchets de combustible nucléaire au Canada a débuté en 1989. L'idée première de cette évaluation est de déterminer la faisabilité d'enfouir les déchets de combustible nucléaire dans le Bouclier canadien. Si l'on estime que c'est possible, une deuxième phase dans le choix d'un emplacement d'enfouissement débutera. Le but de cet exposé est d'évaluer les dimensions sociale et politique qu'entraînent la gestion des déchets de combustible nucléaire au Canada. On dit que la gestion des déchets de combustible nucléaire va au-delà des préoccupations techniques et que le succès ou l'échec des procédures de choix d'emplacement dépendent aussi de l'acceptabilité sociale et politique. Les données portant sur différentes facettes d'élimination des déchets de combustible nucléaire ont été recueillies auprès de résidents sélectionnés dans trois communautés du nord de l'Ontario. Les résultats ont montré qu'il existait un lien très fort entre l'acceptabilité des installations, la perception de risque qu'elles entraînaient et la distance qui les en séparait de la communauté. Sur la base de ces constatations, on a avancé, quant au choix d'un emplacement, qu'il fallait envisager une approche sur le plan régional pour assurer qu'en matière de gestion des déchets de combustible nucléaire, on reconnaisse de manière légitime les préoccupations touchant à la viabilité de cette énergie.     

The Flag Salute Cases Reconsidered

First, my very warmest thanks to the Supreme Court Historical Society for inviting me, to Chief Justice Roberts for his most gracious introduction (which I can only hope will not be retracted silently by the time I finish), and to all of you for coming inside on a glorious spring day to listen to an old professor talk about constitutional law.     

The end of the 'Euro-Mediterranean vision'

Relations between the European Union and North Africa have veered away from the political vision expounded under the Barcelona Process. The Union for the Mediterranean will likely deepen this trend. The Euro–Mediterranean space is increasingly characterized by competitive, containment-based and exclusionary security strategies. The more political dimensions of the partnership are now given short shrift and the EU appears inattentive to the dynamics of change within North African societies. Countries such as Spain and the UK have been overly passive in rescuing the Euro-Med vision from French diplomacy and the nature of relations between Europe and North Africa are increasingly out of sync with the changing international system.     

Sustainable development and climate change

In 1987, the authors of Our common future argued that unless the world embraced and operationalized sustainable development, it would risk being overwhelmed by a series of interlocking crises related to population growth, urbanization, poverty and environmental degradation. Since then, many authors have argued that the world is on a worst case scenario trajectory. Post‐Rio assessments of progress towards sustainable development have been largely negative. Since 1987, climate change has added a new stressor to the mix while shortening the time frame for transformation. In the context of accelerating change and converging stresses is the concept of sustainable development as compelling today as it was twenty years ago? Is it reasonable to believe there are means by which to reduce poverty and simultaneously protect the environment? This article briefly reviews the global challenges that first stimulated the concept of sustainable development and asks how contemporary processes of global change are affecting both these challenges and this approach to addressing them. While there are some grounds for optimism, several variables are identified that make sustainable development increasingly difficult to design and implement. The article concludes with an evaluation of how these difficulties might be overcome, and why it is essential that we try.     

Social conflict and the global Cold War

This article offers a critical assessment of Fred Halliday's theorization of the Cold War and, in particular, his attempt to offer a more global perspective on it through a greater focus on the role of developments emanating from the Third World as constitutive of the Cold War. The author argues that although Halliday's theorization of the Cold War as ‘inter‐systemic conflict’ is a major advance in our understanding of the Cold War—through the attention it pays to the causal linkages between capitalist development and imperialism, revolutionary transformations and superpower geopolitical confrontations—it fails, ultimately, to fulfil its potential as a theory of global Cold War. Halliday's temporalization of the Cold War and his insistence on the autonomy of the superpower arms race and strategic competition end up detaching developments in the Third World from the axis of superpower conflict and, consequently, suggests a residual Eurocentrism within his theory. The article begins by contextualizing the wider theorization of the Cold War and the (absence) place of the Third World in it. It then proceeds to assess critically Halliday's conceptualization of the Third World in the Cold War. The final section outlines an alternative theoretical framework for a theory of global Cold War that builds on elements of inter‐systemic conflict focused on how geopolitical confrontations involving the superpowers derived from the revolutionary consequences of uneven capitalist development.     

Rethinking the Anthropology of Religious Change: New Perspectives on Revitalization and Conversion Movements

This article reviews the history of anthropological engagements with religious change. Anthony Wallace made one of the most important contributions to this work by developing the first comprehensive model of revitalization movements. In recent years, contributions to the field have burgeoned in response to a renewed anthropological interest in globalization and transnational religious and social forms. Wallace's work has an ongoing relevance for much of this contemporary writing, in that many of the “new” theorists share many of the concerns that he first explored. However, they differ in their conceptualization of the processes and political contexts of change.