The Politics of Death:On Life after the ‘End of History'.

In this paper, the most recent writings by Giorgio Agamben and Bruno Latour are brought into dialog by examining what light they shed on contemporary debates concerning “end of life” decisions. More specifically, the paper focuses on the debates sparked by Diane Pretty's request for a grant of immunity against legal prosecution if her husband were to assist her to commit suicide and so terminate her increasingly unbearable suffering from motor neurone disease. The aim of this exercise is to articulate the presuppositions informing two influential and radically opposed views on the contemporary reconfiguration of relationships between humans, animals and other non-humans

Technical Capacity, Policymaking and Food Standards: An Overview of Indian Experience

The SPS Agreement in the WTO gives legal validity to the CODEX\ud standards. Since the developed countries have been at the forefront of\ud setting the food standards in the CODEX, the developing countries have\ud been increasingly engaged in the CODEX, and also in the WTO, with an\ud objective to increase their exports of the agricultural and food products.\ud But such objective and desire have often been stymied by the lack of\ud institutions which can sustain the intense technical negotiations at the\ud CODEX. If these participations are not qualitatively satisfactory, the very\ud objective of such participations is not fulfilled. But since most of the\ud developing countries are lacking in such high technical capacity, they are\ud unable to influence or qualitatively shape the negotiations in the CODEX.\ud This also impacts their exports of agricultural and food products.\ud India has been an active member of the WTO. But whether it has been\ud able to influence or respond to the play of events internationally and\ud concomitantly balance it with the domestic imperatives that are embedded\ud in the international legal and technological regimes, institutional capacity\ud constraints and other social issues. This paper examines such issues, and\ud also examines some bilateral trade agreements which demonstrate the\ud mounting pressure on the developing countries to conform to the food\ud standards of the developed countries

Framing Societal Cosmopolitanism in Europe. A Theoretical-Empirical Research Study

Inspired by the notion of 'societal cosmopolitanism' (Pendenza 2015a) - that combines at-tachment to local territory and openness towards others - social relations on the part of Europeans are tested empirically. The article posits that this type of cosmopolitanism can exist in concomitance with oth-er relational forms towards Otherness. Its main characteristic lies in the idea that it is not nourished by the abstract principle according to which such status can be attributed only if one feels a 'citizen of the world'. On the contrary, without totally rejecting the idea, societal cosmopolitan mantains that if cosmopolitanism is to shrug off its abstraction, it requires a social anchorage to root it more firmly to real life. From a meth-odological perspective, a contrastive analysis is putting in place relative to research carried out on Europe-an cosmopolitanism and subsequently tested empirically using data from EB71.3. Findings showed that almost 25.0% (30-40% in specific countries) of the European citizens fit the description 'societal cosmopoli-tans'

Meteorology

Greco-Roman meteorology will be described in four overlapping developments. In the archaic period, astro-meteorological calendars were written down, and one appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days; such calendars or almanacs originated thousands of years earlier in Mesopotamia. In the second development, also in the archaic period, the pioneers of prose writing began writing speculative naturalistic explanations of meteorological phenomena: Anaximander, followed by Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and others. When Aristotle in the fourth century BCE mentions the ‘inquiry that all our predecessors have been calling meteorology’ (338a26), he is referring to these writers. In the third development, the first two enterprises were combined: empirical data collection about meteorological phenomena began to be married to naturalistic theoretical explanation. This innovation was prompted by Democritus and synthesised in its most influential form by Aristotle. At this point more sophisticated techniques of both short-term weather forecasting and long-term speculation about global climate change were also developed. In the fourth development, the wider implications of the naturalistic explanation of meteorological phenomena were contested. The views of ‘meteorologists’ had been controversial since the archaic period because they were perceived, and sometimes intended, to displace the divine prerogatives and undermine traditional religion. These controversies intensified throughout the classical and Hellenistic periods

Why Were Biological Analogies in Economics “a Bad Thing”? Edith Penrose’s battles against social Darwinism and McCarthyism

The heuristic value of evolutionary biology for economics is still much under debate. We suggest that in addition to analytical considerations, socio-cultural values can well be at stake in this issue. To demonstrate it, we use a historical case and focus on the criticism of biological analogies in the theory of the firm formulated by economist Edith Penrose in post-war United States. We find that in addition to the analytical arguments developed in her paper, she perceived that biological analogies were suspect of a conservative bias – as in social Darwinism. We explain this perception by documenting the broader context of Edith Penrose’s personal and professional evolution, from her student days at Berkeley to her defense of Owen Lattimore against McCarthyism. We conclude that in the case under study at least, science and values were certainly intertwined in accounting for her skepticism towards biological analogies – insight we develop in the conclusion about today’s relationships between biology and economics

Cognition, Incentives, and Public Governance:Laboratory Federalism from the Organizational Viewpoint

The Second Generation Theory (SGT) of fiscal federalism, which draws upon contemporary economic and industrial organization theory, hitherto focuses only on the negative benefits of public decentralization: the potentially superior ability to align perverse incentives vis-à-vis the centralized governance alternative. The SGT neglects the positive benefits of decentralization (mistake-ridden learning, flexibility, and option discovery), although the limitations of organization theory do not justify such neglect. By likening intergovernmental grants to incomplete contracts, this work shows that the SGT can include the laboratory nature of decentralization.Experimentation, incomplete contracts, intergovernmental grants, learning, Second Generation Theory of fiscal federalism.

The Tragedy of Distrust in the Implementation of Federal Environmental Law

The relationship between the EPA and Congress Since the founding of the EPA in 1970 has been marked by congressional oversight that has seriously frustrated the development and implementation of federal environmental protection policy. A destructive cycle has emerged: agency distrust has led to the failure of its policies, creating further distrust and further failure

L’intervention de type criminologique à l’aune de la Collaboration Cochrane

Dans les échelles d’appréciation de la qualité scientifique des recherches, les essais randomisés contrôlés (ERC) figurent en haut de la liste. En termes de crédibilité, dans le courant des pratiques fondées sur des données probantes (Evidence Based Practice [EBP]), les résultats qu’ils obtiennent ont la priorité sur les autres. Les recensions Cochrane, qui portent généralement sur l’efficacité d’interventions médicales, s’intéressent aussi aux interventions de type criminologique. À notre connaissance, aucune étude ne s’est encore penchée sur les conclusions dégagées par la Collaboration Cochrane sur ce type d’intervention. Dans le présent article, le contenu de la revue électronique Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews a été analysé, pour la période allant de 2000 à 2008. Les résultats montrent que 33 recensions Cochrane ont traité d’interventions de type criminologique. Privilégiant les ERC, ces recensions n’ont retenu en moyenne que 2 % de toutes les études publiées dans différents champs d’intervention. Un tel résultat permet de discuter de la pertinence de la méthode Cochrane pour évaluer l’efficacité d’interventions à caractère plus social. Les questions posées concernent la représentativité des milieux où sont implantées les interventions, la concomitance et la complexité des problèmes à résoudre, les apports et limites des « protocoles » d’intervention, ainsi que les risques de retard, voire de paralysie, dans l’implantation d’approches innovantes.In reviews of scientific quality of studies, randomized controlled trials (RCT) are typically regarded as having the highest methodological rigour. Although the Cochrane Reviews are best known for their analysis of the effects of treatment in healthcare settings, they also investigate the effectiveness of criminological interventions. To our knowledge, no study has ever examined the conclusions of the Cochrane Reviews for this type of intervention. In this study, our analysis of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews between 2000 and 2008 found 33 Cochrane Reviews of criminological interventions. Not surprisingly, given its weight on RCT, on average only 2 % of these studies were assessed as having high methodological quality. These results raise questions about the appropriateness of the Cochrane Reviews to evaluate the scientific quality of social type interventions. Issues such as the representativeness of the environment where interventions are implemented, the concomitance and complexity of social problems, the contributions and limits of intervention protocols and the risks of delay, even paralysis, in the implementation of innovative approaches are not part of their scientific quality examinations.Los estudios randomizados controlados (ERC) figuran a la cabeza de las escalas de evaluación de la calidad científica de las investigaciones. En términos de credibilidad, sus resultados tienen prioridad en la corriente de prácticas basadas en la evidencia (Evidence Based Practice). Las revisiones sistemáticas Cochrane, que por lo general tratan sobre la eficacia de las intervenciones médicas, se usan también en las intervenciones de tipo criminológico. Hasta donde sabemos, ningún estudio se ha detenido aún en las conclusiones de la Colaboración Cochrane sobre la intervención de tipo criminológico. En este artículo hemos analizado el contenido de la revista electrónica Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews de 2000 a 2008 ; los resultados muestran que 33 revisiones sistemáticas Cochrane tratan sobre intervenciones de tipo criminológico. Privilegiando los ERC, estas revisiones no han retenido en promedio más que el 2 % del total de estudios publicados en ésta u otra área de intervención. Este resultado permite discutir la pertinencia del método Cochrane para evaluar la eficacia de intervenciones de índole más social. Las cuestiones planteadas conciernen la representatividad de los medios en que se han implantado las intervenciones, la concomitancia y complejidad de problemas por resolver, los aportes y límites de los protocolos de intervención y el riesgo de retraso, e incluso parálisis, en la instrumentación de enfoques innovadores