Culture and collective action: Japan, Germany and the United States after 11 September 2001

In order to put a lens on the issue of international security cooperation after 11 September 2001, this article examines the question of how collective action in International Relations becomes possible. The author maintains that a fair amount of inter-state collective action can be understood, even explained, by analysing the culture of the international system. Using discourse analysis as a tool, the analysis addresses the underlying ideas, norms and identities that constitute the relationship between the United States and Japan, on the one hand, and Germany and the United States, on the other, as it has evolved since September 2001. The method exposes how some ideas are privileged over others, how norms are maintained, reformulated and abandoned, how identity is constructed and how power is legitimized in the 'war on terror'

Polarimetric Properties of Flux-Ropes and Sheared Arcades in Coronal Prominence Cavities

The coronal magnetic field is the primary driver of solar dynamic events. Linear and circular polarization signals of certain infrared coronal emission lines contain information about the magnetic field, and to access this information, either a forward or an inversion method must be used. We study three coronal magnetic configurations that are applicable to polar-crown filament cavities by doing forward calculations to produce synthetic polarization data. We analyze these forward data to determine the distinguishing characteristics of each model. We conclude that it is possible to distinguish between cylindrical flux ropes, spheromak flux ropes, and sheared arcades using coronal polarization measurements. If one of these models is found to be consistent with observational measurements, it will mean positive identification of the magnetic morphology that surrounds certain quiescent filaments, which will lead to a greater understanding of how they form and why they erupt.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, Solar Physics topical issue: Coronal Magnetis

From rhetoric to reality: which resilience, why resilience, and whose resilience in spatial planning?

This paper analyses contrasting academic understandings of ‘equilibrium resilience’ and ‘evolutionary resilience’ and investigates how these nuances are reflected within both policy and practice. We reveal that there is a lack of clarity in policy, where these differences are not acknowledged with resilience mainly discussed as a singular, vague, but optimistic aim. This opaque political treatment of the term and the lack of guidance has affected practice by privileging an equilibrist interpretation over more transformative, evolutionary measures. In short, resilience within spatial planning is characterised by a simple return to normality that is more analogous with planning norms, engineered responses, dominant interests, and technomanagerial trends. The paper argues that, although presented as a possible paradigm shift, resilience policy and practice underpin existing behaviour and normalise risk. It leaves unaddressed wider sociocultural concerns and instead emerges as a narrow, regressive, technorational frame centred on reactive measures at the building scale

Nanotechnology, governance, and public deliberation: What role for the Social Sciences?

In this article we argue that nanotechnology represents an extraordinary opportunity to build in a robust role for the social sciences in a technology that remains at an early, and hence undetermined, stage of development. We examine policy dynamics in both the United States and United Kingdom aimed at both opening up, and closing down, the role of the social sciences in nanotechnologies. We then set out a prospective agenda for the social sciences and its potential in the future shaping of nanotechnology research and innovation processes. The emergent, undetermined nature of nanotechnologies calls for an open, experimental, and interdisciplinary model of social science research

Project management between will and representation

This article challenges some deep-rooted assumptions of project management. Inspired by the work of the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, it calls for looking at projects through two complementary lenses: one that accounts for cognitive and representational aspects and one that accounts for material and volitional aspects. Understanding the many ways in which these aspects transpire and interact in projects sheds new light on project organizations, as imperfect and fragile representations that chase a shifting nexus of intractable human, social, technical, and material processes. This, in turn, can bring about a new grasp of notions such as value,\ud knowledge, complexity, and risk