Breaking the Convention: Researching the "Illegal" Migration of Refugees to Europe

The study of refugees by geographers and other social scientists is, almost by definition, framed around a series of legal categories, which provide us with more or less neat categories of types of involuntary migrants. Yet the process of migration emerges in relation to legal categories and is not simply dictated by them. Thus, as legislation on migration in general and the interpretation of the 1951 Geneva Convention in particular have become more restrictive, patterns of migration have increasingly emerged that manipulate, circumvent or simply break existing legislation.
This paper examines the responses by researchers in geography and related disciplines to asylum–seeking and other forms of migration that are increasingly categorised as "illegal" as a result of recent European policy developments. Specifically, the potential for participatory and/or emancipatory research in such circumstances is explored, through comparative analysis of the ethical issues involved in radical research on a range of "trafficking" scenarios. The interaction of such research with public policy–making is also examined.     

EMPATHY IN HISTORY,EMPATHIZING WITH HUMANITY

The Fragility of Empathy After the Holocaust . By Carolyn J. Dean. History in Transit : Experience , Identity , and Critical Theory . By Dominick LaCapra.     

Targeting Research for Poverty Reduction in Marginal Areas of Rural Syria

Agricultural research in marginal dry areas can contribute to reducing poverty through the development of technological, institutional and policy options for poor farmers. Such research should address diversified opportunities and development pathways. This article analyses the diversity of livelihood strategies of rural people living in the Khanasser Valley in northwestern Syria, an area that is typical of marginal drylands. It proposes an operational classification of households based on their different livelihood strategies, applying an integrated methodology within a Sustainable Livelihoods framework. Households are classified into three clusters: agriculturists, labourers and pastoralists. The article examines the diversity of livelihoods involved, and considers where and how research should be directed to have greatest impact on poverty. Given that rural households are not homogeneous but dynamic entities, with diverse assets, capabilities and opportunities, the definition of household typologies can help to target development research. The article concludes that while agriculturists benefit most, poor labourers with enough land can also gain from pro‐poor agricultural research. The poorest households with little land, and pastoralists, benefit little or only indirectly.     

"The Civil Rights Movement of the 1990s?": The anti-abortion movement and the struggle for racial justice

In 1964, Claude and Jeanne Nolen, who were white, joined an interracial NAACP team intent on desegregating local restaurants in Austin, Texas as a test of the recently passed Civil Rights ACt. Twenty-five years later, the Nolens pleaded "no contest" in a courtroom for their continued social activism. This time the issue was not racial segregation, but rather criminal trespassing for blockading abortion clinics with Operation Rescue. The Nolens served prison sentences for direct action protests that they believe stemmed from the same commitment to Christianity and social justice as the civil rights movements.Despite its relationship to political and cultural conservatism, the anti-abortion movement since Roe v. Wade (1973) was also a product of the progressive social movements of the turbulent sixties. Utilizing oral history interviews and organizational literature, the article explores the historical context of the anti-abortion movement, specifically how the lengthy struggle for racial justice shaped the rhetoric, tactics, and ideology of the anti-abortion activists. Even after political conservatives dominated the movement in the 1980s, the successes and failures of the sixties provided a cultural lens through which grassroots anti-abortion activists forged what was arguably the largest movement of civil disobedience in American history.     

EXPLORING THE NUMBER OF FIRST‐ORDER POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS ACROSS COUNTRIES: SOME STYLIZED FACTS*

ABSTRACT Why do some countries have no first‐order administrative subdivisions (e.g., states or provinces), whereas other countries have over 80? Recently, economists have started to look at the optimal size of countries and forces influencing the creation of local political jurisdictions like school districts. This paper provides the first analysis of the “missing middle” level of political jurisdictions common to all countries. We empirically examine how country size, natural transportation infrastructure, location, population fractionalization, and level of development affect the number of first‐order subdivisions. The number of first‐order subdivisions is shown to be associated in a nonlinear way with measures of fractionalization—exhibiting a U‐shaped Kuznets curve for ethnic heterogeneity and an inverted Kuznets curve for lingual and religious heterogeneity. This is a different and more complex relationship than that found for local political jurisdictions where greater heterogeneity is associated with more districts suggesting that first‐order political subdivisions may serve a different role.     

Information Processing and Policy Dynamics

In this article, we trace the evolution of punctuated equilibrium theories of the policy process to the development of a full theory of government information processing. Noting that punctuated equilibrium is one realization of a larger theory of government information processing, we outline a research agenda for the study of agenda setting, policy dynamics, and information flows in the policy process. In doing so, we relate the study of government information processing to such important features of American government as inter-institutional dynamics and delegation in the policy process.