Settler colonialism and the nuclear family

Colonial societies revolved around nuclear families. Though they often seemed natural, universal and inevitable, colonial nuclear families were in fact produced through a series of laws and customs that regulated sex and marriage. These legal, social and cultural practices conspired to make the family an adaptable and formidable social institution, both a pillar and a beneficiary of colonization. Hegemonic but not universal, family members were privileged over other members of colonial societies, who not only survived on the margins and in the shadows of colonialism, but also played crucial roles in resettlement societies.     

Une histoire de résidus : à propos des facteurs généraux et locaux de croissance régionale au Canada,de 1971 à 2001

Starting from an econometric model of local employment growth, applied to Canada (1971–2001), residuals—relative to model predictions—are analyzed over time and over space, in turn allowing us to draw a distinction between general explanatory variables and factors of a more local, cyclical or accidental nature. The model's explanatory power grows over time, founded on variables such as urban size, market access and industrial structure, allowing us to conclude that local employment growth in Canada follows an increasingly geographically predictable pattern. However, an examination of the residuals reveals more localized processes. Growth volatility is most manifest in Alberta and British Columbia, home to the most erratic local economies. Emerging patterns are visible in the last period, most notably the underperformance of Northern Ontario and of non‐metropolitan communities between Windsor and Québec City, lying along the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence. The over‐performance—compared to model predictions — of small and mid‐sized towns in south‐eastern Québec can, on the other hand, be interpreted as a sign of truly local social processes, generally associated with a particularly dynamic local entrepreneurial class.     

The EU as a conflict manager? The case of Georgia and its implications

This article offers an analysis of the EU's engagement in Georgia as a standpoint from which to assess the EU's role as a conflict manager. The article begins with a brief narrative account of the development of EU—Georgia relations in the context of the country's two unresolved conflicts over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It then proceeds to the analysis of two sets of factors—those within, and those external to, the EU—that are crucial for understanding the nature and impact of EU efforts to manage the two Georgian conflicts. On the basis of this case-study analysis, the authors offer a wider analysis of the EU's potential for assuming a wider role as an international security actor. This is undertaken by considering both the limitations of the EU's existing capabilities for conflict resolution and the new developments contained within the Lisbon Treaty. The final part of the article asserts that the EU has suffered from two key weaknesses that have prevented it from living up to its aspirations of becoming a globally significant and effective conflict manager. The first is structural—the lack of, to date, a permanent External Action Service; the second is conceptual—the lack of a coherent and comprehensive conflict management strategy. The article concludes with five substantive principles that should guide the EU's approach to conflict management.     

Space, place and innovation: a distance-based approach

Innovation is increasingly considered a prerequisite for regional development and it is commonly understood that certain regions are more conducive to innovation than others. Regions that do not possess the required institutional and cultural contexts are often encouraged to work on creating them. However, there is increasing evidence that innovation is also a spatial phenomenon: the propensity of establishments to innovate also varies with their location relative to major and minor metropolitan areas, independent of local context. This article investigates whether the geography of innovation is similar for three different types of manufacturing sectors ( high-tech (HT), medium-tech, first and second transformation) and across two different types of innovation (product, process). It is shown that, in Québec, to the extent that geography and innovation are connected, it is principally distance from a metropolitan area that plays a role. Our results lend support to   McCann's (2007)   recent spatial model of innovation and are also compatible with   Duranton and Puga's (2003)   theory of nursery cities. Our results also show that HT innovators behave differently from other manufacturers, with a tendency to internalize their innovation behaviour (perhaps out of necessity or for reasons of secrecy) in more distant locations.     

5. REPLIES TO COMMENTS ON IMAGES OF HISTORY BY WARREN BRECKMAN,ROBERT R. CLEWIS,AND ESPEN HAMMER

In my replies to the perceptive and cogent observations and questions about my book offered by Warren Breckman, Robert Clewis, and Espen Hammer, I emphasize the thought that we must learn to live with standing tensions between settled institutions and improvisatory courses of action. In reply to Breckman, I suggest that Münchhausen's Trilemma is best regarded as a practical problem that should be addressed in different ways in different contexts rather than as an epistemological puzzle to be solved, and I embrace his rejection of methodological individualism. Although our evolved biology sets some limits and some possibilities, our practical lives are also relatively autonomous from biological determination. In reply to Robert Clewis, I emphasize that Kant has a picture of divine noumenal causation, dimly discernible in history and operating principally through human beings as agents, and I suggest, with Kant, that we may well be unable to explain in any satisfactory way the nature of this noumenal causation. In reply to Espen Hammer's worries about whether a dialogue between Kant and Benjamin is really possible without doing violence to one side or the other, I stress that I am not myself trying to develop a single consistent theory of the meaning of history. Instead, I am “working through” my own perplexity at the constitutive tensions that shape human life, including my own, and trying to see those tensions more clearly.     

The 100 billion dollar brain: central intelligence machinery in the UK and the US

The ‘Five Eyes’ alliance, led by the United States, spends close to 100 billion dollars a year on intelligence. This review article argues that western countries are distinguished by their sophisticated approach to the making of intelligence‐led national security policy. Political leaders and policy‐makers who access this sensitive material are often involved in elaborate systems that constitute part of the core executive and which seek to task and improve the intelligence leviathan. Western intelligence therefore has a ‘central brain’ that devotes considerable energy to both analysis and management. By contrast, in the majority of other states around the world, the orientation of intelligence has often been inward facing, with a high priority given to regime security. Some would suggest that intelligence has been an important component of western power projection, while others would argue that this process has been over‐expensive and has under‐delivered, not least in the last decade. Either way, the debates about development of the central intelligence machinery that supports western security policies are of the first importance and fortunately this discussion has been advanced by the appearance of several valuable new studies: these are discussed in this review article.