Biopower, Disability and Capitalism: Neoliberal Eugenics and the Future of ART Regulation

Discourse around reproductive and contraceptive technology in the United States is typically organized around ideas of autonomy, privacy, and free choice. The dichotomy of “pro-choice” and “pro-life” structures all debates on the topic, and the political framework of neoliberalism channels discussion into prepackaged frameworks of cost-benefit analysis and the primacy of free market choice. However, an examination of history and present policy developments paints a different picture. This Note argues that access to and regulation around contraception, abortion, and overall reproductive health and technology has been informed by and continues to interact with ideas of biopower and both positive and negative eugenics, and that neoliberal conceptions of free reproductive choice ignore the implications of this connection. Part II traces the history of the eugenics movement in America, exemplified by forced and coerced sterilization of people considered mentally or physically “degenerate,” particularly those confined to institutions, and explores the rhetoric in early contraceptive-focused treatises and court decisions that reflect eugenicist views. Part III analyzes the modern trends on legal access to and regulation of reproductive and contraceptive technology and its interaction with race, socioeconomic status, and, in particular, disability (one of the more anxiety-producing categories of humanity in the neoliberal era). In Part IV, the Note goes on to argue that construction of a rational and compassionate legal framework where a woman’s right to choose is preserved (or revived) and the humanity of disabled persons is also respected is not only possible, but essential. A truly feminist reproductive framework must be built on justice, not market choice, and must respect both the agency and autonomy of pregnant women and the humanity and individual subjectivity of disabled persons. Policy strategies towards this end will not be easy, but attention to all the intersectional and overlapping factors that affect women’s reproductive decision-making, especially with regard to disability and reproductive technology, can change the way we view and value disabled personhood in our society

THE RECESSION, BUDGETS, COMPETITION, AND REGULATION: SHOULD THE STATE SUPPLY BESPOKE PROTECTION? RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 12 OCTOBER 2009

Recessions are harsh. Demand declines. Firms shed labour, reduce output or file for bankruptcy. Pressure mounts to reduce prices and increase productivity. Returns decline; margins are squeezed; dividends are suspended. Unemployment increases. Firms seek to delay payments to suppliers, while simultaneously demanding suppliers reduce input prices and extend credit. Carefully assembled workforce teams are broken up. New products and innovations are put on hold. Competition is characterised as cut-throat, destructive and excessive. Faith in markets begins to be questioned

Book Reviews

With the observation of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, interest has risen in models of PeV-mass decaying dark matter particles to explain the observed flux. We present two dedicated experimental analyses to test this hypothesis. One analysis uses 6 years of IceCube data focusing on muon neutrino ‘track’ events from the Northern Hemisphere, while the second analysis uses 2 years of ‘cascade’ events from the full sky. Known background components and the hypothetical flux from unstable dark matter are fitted to the experimental data. Since no significant excess is observed in either analysis, lower limits on the lifetime of dark matter particles are derived: we obtain the strongest constraint to date, excluding lifetimes shorter than $10^{28}$ s at 90% CL for dark matter masses above 10 TeV

Parameterized Algorithmics for Computational Social Choice: Nine Research Challenges

Computational Social Choice is an interdisciplinary research area involving Economics, Political Science, and Social Science on the one side, and Mathematics and Computer Science (including Artificial Intelligence and Multiagent Systems) on the other side. Typical computational problems studied in this field include the vulnerability of voting procedures against attacks, or preference aggregation in multi-agent systems. Parameterized Algorithmics is a subfield of Theoretical Computer Science seeking to exploit meaningful problem-specific parameters in order to identify tractable special cases of in general computationally hard problems. In this paper, we propose nine of our favorite research challenges concerning the parameterized complexity of problems appearing in this context

New directions in the analysis of inequality and poverty

Over the last four decades, academic and wider public interest in inequality and poverty has grown substantially. In this paper we address the question: what have been the major new directions in the analysis of inequality and poverty over the last thirty to forty years? We draw attention to developments under seven headings: changes in the extent of inequality and poverty, changes in the policy environment, increased scrutiny of the concepts of ‘poverty’ and inequality’ and the rise of multidimensional approaches, the use of longitudinal perspectives, an increase in availability of and access to data, developments in analytical methods of measurement, and developments in modelling