Parallels, prescience and the past: analogical reasoning and contemporary international politics

Analogical reasoning has held a perpetual appeal to policymakers who have often drafted in historical metaphor as a mode of informing decision-making. However, this article contends that since the beginning of the ‘War on Terror’ we have arguably seen the rise of a more potent form of analogy, namely ones that are selected because they fulfil an ideological function. Analogical reasoning as a tool of rational decision-making has increasingly become replaced by analogical reasoning as a tool of trenchant ideologically-informed policy justification. This article addresses three key areas which map out the importance of analogical reasoning to an understanding of developments in contemporary international politics: the relationship between history and politics, in intellectual and policy terms; a critical assessment of the appeal that analogical reasoning holds for policymakers; and the development of a rationale for a more effective use of history in international public policymaking

Micronutrient supplements and mortality of HIV-infected adults with pulmonary TB: a controlled clinical trial.

SETTING: Zomba and Blantyre, Malawi, Africa. OBJECTIVES: To determine whether daily micronutrient supplementation reduces the mortality of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected adults with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). DESIGN: A randomised, controlled clinical trial of micronutrient supplementation for HIV-positive and HIV-negative adults with pulmonary TB. Participants were enrolled at the commencement of chemotherapy for sputum smear-positive pulmonary TB and followed up for 24 months. RESULTS: A total of 829 HIV-positive and 573 HIV-negative adults were enrolled. During follow-up, 328 HIV-positive and 17 HIV-negative participants died. The proportion of HIV-positive participants who died in the micronutrient and placebo groups was 38.7% and 40.4%, respectively (P = 0.49). Micronutrient supplementation did not reduce mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 0.93, 95%CI 0.75-1.15) among HIV-positive adults. CONCLUSIONS: Micronutrient supplementation at the doses used in this study does not reduce mortality in HIV-positive adults with pulmonary TB in Malawi

Reactions:The new (para-) military urbanism

In this chapter I argue that the new wave of urban guerrillas needs to be countered by appropriate counter-measures by law enforcement, paramilitary and military forces who also have to move into cities in order to defend them. I start the chapter with a more detailed introduction into the art of Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP), commenting on the difficulties of protecting our open societies against modern forms of terrorism or ‘urban guerrilla warfare’. Next, I critically discuss the two basic (ideal type) models on how to respond to the terrorist threat: the Criminal Justice Model (CJM) and the War Model (WM). Drawing on riots in a number of French banlieues (suburbs) and on the London 2011 riots, I also point out that terrorists are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the outbreak of latent conflicts in modern urban sprawls. I conclude this section with a first brief look at the question of how far liberal democracies can go in order to respond to the terrorist threat.</p