Uncertain Governance and Resilient Subjects in the Risk Society

Over the past decade or so, a series of new or revitalised strategies have been promoted to govern the highly uncertain threats that risk appears no longer able to prevent. Most owe their ascendancy to the lessons of 9/11, and the ‘bureaucratising of imagination’ that US sources have proposed as a response, by centring the possible, or even merely imaginable, rather than the statistically probable. Precaution, preparedness and speculative pre-emption have been particularly prominent, although new hybrid statistical and speculative techniques have broadened risk techniques to cope with labile conditions of high uncertainty. But while diverse, each establishes a negative and defensive framework of ‘freedom from’ that has been associated with creating a ’neurotic subject’. In the past decade, programs of resilience, and particularly resiliency training, have been developed with the aim of creating subjects able to thrive and prosper under conditions of extreme uncertainty. They constitute a form of governance promoting a positive ‘freedom to’. Reflecting many of the assumptions and goals of neo-liberal politics, resiliency has already emerged as a principal technology for military and business, and may be the answer to the neo-liberal dream of a society of extreme entrepreneurs. Durante la última década, se han promovido varias estrategias nuevas o renovadas destinadas a gestionar amenazas que el riesgo ya no parece capaz de prevenir. La mayoría deben su predominancia a las lecciones aprendidas tras el 11-S, y la “burocratización de la imaginación” que las fuentes estadounidenses han propuesto como respuesta, predominando lo posible, o incluso simplemente lo imaginable, por encima de lo estadísticamente probable. Han predominado la precaución, preparación y especulación preventivas, aunque las nuevas técnicas estadísticas y especulativas híbridas han ampliado las técnicas de riesgo para hacer frente a las condiciones inestables de alta incertidumbre. A pesar de que sean diferentes, cada una de ellas establece un marco negativo y defensivo de “libertad de” que se ha asociado con la creación de un “sujeto neurótico” En la última década se han desarrollado programas de resiliencia, y en especial de formación en resiliencia, con el objetivo de crear sujetos capaces de crecer y prosperar en condiciones de incertidumbre extrema. Constituyen una forma de gobierno que promueve una “libertad para” positiva. Como reflejo de muchas de las hipótesis y los objetivos de la política neoliberal, la resiliencia ya se ha constituido como una importante tecnología militar y empresarial, y puede ser la respuesta al sueño neo-liberal de una sociedad de emprendedores extremos

Sentencing as craftwork and the binary epistemologies of the discretionary decision process

This article contends that it is time to take a critical look at a series of binary categories which have dominated the scholarly and reform epistemologies of the sentencing decision process. These binaries are: rules versus discretion; reason versus emotion; offence versus offender; normative principles versus incoherence; aggravating versus mitigating factors; and aggregate/tariff consistency versus individualized sentencing. These binaries underpin both the 'legal-rational' tradition (by which I mean a view of discretion as inherently suspect, a preference for the use of philosophy of punishment justifications and an explanation of the decision process through factors or variables), and also the more recent rise of the 'new penology'. Both approaches tend to rely on 'top-down' assumptions of change, which pay limited attention to the agency of penal workers. The article seeks to develop a conception of sentencing craftwork as a social and interpretive process.1 In so doing, it applies and develops a number of Kritzer's observations (in this issue) about craftwork to sentencing. These craftwork observations are: problem solving (applied to the rules - discretion and reason - emotion dichotomies); skills and techniques (normative penal principles and the use of cognitive analytical assumptions); consistency (tariff versus individualized sentencing); clientele (applied to account giving and the reality of decision making versus expression). By conceiving of sentencing as craftwork, the binary epistemologies of the sentencing decision process, which have dominated (and limited) the scholarly and policy sentencing imaginations, are revealed as dynamic, contingent, and synergistic. However, this is not to say that such binaries are no more than empty rhetoric concealing the reality of the decision process. Rather, these binaries serve as crucial legitimating reference points in the vocabulary of sentencing account giving

Indigenous governance. by Pat O'Malley

The governmentality literature's focus on mentalities of rule, and its aversion to sociological analysis, tends to produce a programmatic vision of governance. This paper explores aspects of Australian policies of self-determination for Aboriginal peoples..

Baseball - 1971-1980 - 39

Athletics: Baseball - 1971-1980photograph date: ca. 197

Baseball - 1971-1980 - 66

Athletics: Baseball - 1971-1980photograph date: ca. 197

The Politics of Mass Preventive Justice

Hosted by Green College as part of the Knowledge Brokers and Knowledge Formats symposium. Today, the study of knowledge production, knowledge formats and knowledge politics is being developed across a wide variety of research fields. Along with the work of scholars such as Ian Hacking, Mary Poovey, and Bruno Latour, the work of the late Green College Principal, Richard Ericson, have all on policing, risk, the news media, and the insurance industry made an important contribution not only to these substantive areas but also to the methodological tools that scholars use in their everyday study of knowledge‐power processes. Jointly sponsored by Green College, UBC, and the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto.Graduate and Postdoctoral StudiesOther UBCUnreviewedFacult

Baseball - 1971-1980 - 39

Athletics: Baseball - 1971-1980photograph date: ca. 197