Too big to fail: the transatlantic debate

Although the United States and the European Union were bothseriously impacted by the financial crisis of 2007, the resulting policy debates and regulatory responses have differed considerably on the two sides of the Atlantic. This paper by Nicolas Véron and Morris Goldstein examines the debates on the problem posed by "too big to fail" financial institutions. The authors then turn to possible remedies and how they may be differentially implemented in America and Europe. They conclude on the policy developments that are likely in the near future.

Debate Forum: preventing the extinction of the Sumatran rhinoceros

Sumatran rhino (SR), Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, represents one the oldest surviving mammal genera. Due to its role in traditional Chinese medicines, the horn of SR has been sought for well over a millennium and for many years the price of SR horn by weight rivalled that of gold. Extensive hunting lead to a precipitous decline in distribution and numbers of SR, particularly during the first decades of the twentieth century (van Strien, 1975) and it seems little short of a miracle that the species is not already extinct. By the mid twentieth century, the species was depleted from its former range and in danger of extinction in Malaya and Borneo (Hubback, 1939; Metcalf, 1961; Medway, 1977; Rookmaaker, 1977), and elsewhere on mainland Asia (Harper, 1945). Flynn and Abdullah (1984) suggested 52-75 SR roamed Peninsular Malaysia in the early 1980s, including 20- 25 individuals in the Endau-Rompin area, while Davies and Payne (1982) estimated 15-30 SRs in Sabah. By 1981, the only clear evidence of periodic breeding in wild SR in Malaysia was in Endau-Rompin and the Tabin area of eastern Sabah. At that time, the species was disappearing rapidly from the 20 or more locations where it had been present just a few decades earlier (Payne, 1990). Zainal Zahari (1995) found evidence of only five SRs, all adults, in Endau-Rompin by 1995, showing that published estimates of SR numbers were notoriously unreliable, and that actual numbers had declined by half over the preceding decade. The 1995– 1998 Global Environment Facility-UNDP Sumatran Rhinoceros Conservation Strategy project saw SR numbers declining still further, but inflated numbers kept appearing in public domain, largely due to some proponents’ disbelief that two decades of effort had failed. Zainal Zahari et al. (2001) plotted the disastrous decline of large mammals in Peninsular Malaysia from 1975-99

The Common Core Debate

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have ignited a passionate national debate about the standards that guide the education of our nation’s and state’s students. The purpose of this Arkansas Education Report is to add some clarity to the Common Core debate as well as offer a perspective that is specific to the Natural State

The great baby signing debate

‘Baby signing’ is an augmentative communication approach that has been developed for use with hearing preverbal infants. It involves teaching babies key word signing that they can use to communicate before they can talk. A baby signing movement is currently sweeping the country. Parents of infants everywhere are reading about the benefits of teaching ‘sign’ to their children and many are embracing this wholeheartedly. Numerous companies have been set up to promote and sell baby signing materials. All claim immense benefits to be had including facilitating spoken language development, reducing tantrums and even increasing a child’s intelligence

An (unintentional) façade of democratic debate

A review of the Colombian peace process. The article considers the actual extent of debate in a series of meetings and conferences in the UK that were held to analyse the peace process. The argument is put forward that the illegality, and thereby absence, of FARC at these meetings has contributed towards a distortion of events and arguments. Furthermore, it has left the current Colombian administration appearing as a far more inclusive and democratic institution than might be the case. The article welcomes the the interaction of the Colombian government in these UK meetings but suggests that measures are taken: i) to prevent the marginalization of FARC from democratic debate; ii) to limit the potential to breach Human Rights by the Colombian state; and iii) to define the difference between political violence and violent criminality

Mediating the Scottish independence debate

In the six months leading up to the referendum vote on 18 September 2014 Scotland experienced a period of exceptionally heightened political discourse, a widespread form of political participation unusual in western liberal-democracies. For almost two years fundamental questions about nation, state and society that are routinely taken for granted were exposed to widespread public discussion and debate involving millions of individuals normally silenced by the political fetish. Instead, these became the subject of open, often heated, discussion and debate by wide layers of society. This process of self-representation meant that political discourse was forced to shift from the logic of political self-marketing as the neutral, technical preserve of small circles of networked state managers and media interlocutors, what Pierre Bourdieu (1991) referred to as ‘political fetishism’. This widened public discourse began to break the stranglehold of the political fetish in Scotland, most obviously in the political vertigo experienced by the representatives of the Unionist parties and what might be called ‘media Unionism’. A mass grassroots movement in support of Independence benefited from a changed and, in some ways, reinvigorated media field. Where television once threatened the authority of newspapers, social media now challenges the dominance of television and the press