Fuelling the panic: The societal reaction to boy racers

This article is part of the Moral Panic Studies Working Paper Series, edited by Amanda Rohloff of Brunel University. The series disseminates the work of a network of international researchers on all areas of moral panic studies.Fuelled by media coverage of reckless, irresponsible and anti-social driving, young (male) motorists are an area of concern for politicians, police and citizens more generally. In media and popular discourses the symbol of the boy racer has come to represent deviance, anti-social behaviour, criminality and risk on the roads. This paper focuses on a local moral panic concerning boy racers in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. Five elements, which characterise a moral panic, are identified and include: concern, hostility, consensus, disproportion and volatility (Goode and Ben- Yehuda 2009[1994]). Urban regeneration played a key part in this particular moral panic in terms of class, cultural and intergenerational clashes between racers and outside groups. The moral panic was further institutionalised through the use of measures such as anti-social behaviour legislation. Moreover, it was symptomatic of wider societal concern regarding the regulation of young (male) motorists and the related governance of urban space and incivilities. The discussion draws on data collected via participant observation with the drivers, semi-structured interviews with members of the outside groups and content analysis of media reports which focus on the culture

The Bumpy Path Towards Knowledge Convergence for Pro-Poor Agro-Biotechnology Regulation and Development: Exploring Kenya’s Regulatory Process

The political nature of biotechnology regulation....................................................4 Setting the scene: Conceptual and analytical context...........................................

International differences in self-reported health measures in 33 major metropolitan areas in Europe.

The increasing concentration of populations into large conurbations in recent decades has not been matched by international health assessments, which remain largely focused at the country level. We aimed to demonstrate the use of routine survey data to compare the health of large metropolitan centres across Europe and determine the extent to which differences are due to socio-economic factors