Public–private partnerships in national cyber‐security strategies

Despite its centrality in the national cyber security strategies of the US and the UK, the public–private partnership is a nebulous arrangement, which is especially problematic in the context of critical infrastructure protection. Privately owned and operated critical infrastructure that is regarded as a potential national security vulnerability raises questions about the allocation of responsibility and accountability in terms of cyber security. As with many aspects of cyber security, this issue is often discussed with little reference to previous scholarship that could provide conceptual scaffolding. This article draws on the extensive literature on public–private partnerships in order to assess the tensions and challenges of this arrangement in national cyber‐security strategies. It finds that there is a serious disjuncture in expectations from both ‘partners’. The government regards privately owned and operated critical infrastructure as a key element of national security but is reluctant to claim a mandate to oversee network security. At the same time, the private sector is not inclined to accept responsibility or liability for national cyber security. This challenge for governments to manage national cyber security raises questions about how well equipped these states are to promote their own security in the information age. Acknowledging the flaws in the ‘partnership’ is an essential step towards addressing them.     

1. NARRATIVE EXPLANATION AND ITS MALCONTENTS

In this paper I look at narrative as a mode of explanation and at various ways in which the explanatory value of narrative has been criticized. I begin with the roots of narrative explanation in everyday action, experience, and discourse, illustrating it with the help of a simple example. I try to show how narrative explanation is transformed and complicated by circumstances that take us beyond the everyday into such realms as jurisprudence, journalism, and history. I give an account of why narrative explanation normally satisfies us, and how or in what sense it actually explains. Then I consider how narrative is challenged and rejected as a mode of explanation in many scientific and other contexts and why attempts are made to replace it with something else. I try to evaluate the nature and sources of these challenges, and I describe this controversy over narrative against the historical background of its emergence. My paper ends with a pragmatic defense of narrative explanation against these challenges.     

WOAD, TATTOOING AND IDENTITY IN LATER IRON AGE AND EARLY ROMAN BRITAIN

Summary. This paper explores the archaeological evidence for the practice of facial and corporeal dyeing, painting and tattooing in the later Iron Age and early Roman period. The aim is to construct a hypothesis which explains how, why, when and by whom such pigments were worn. Although this hypothesis discusses woad-derived indigo, this is used mainly, although not exclusively, as an experimental tool, as no conclusive archaeological evidence exists which reveals the identity of the 'real' pigment(s). Woad has also long held a place in the popular imagination as the source of the dye which the ancient Britons used to paint themselves.
This paper explores the possibility that the cosmetic grinder was the focal artefact used in body painting or tattooing, and was used for grinding and mixing body and face paint. It is suggested that, rather than being a 'Roman'-style tool for cosmetic application from the start, it may have begun life as an artefact first used by the later Iron Age Britons for body painting and expressing indigenous identities.