Civilian Agencies Research Articles

Cannabis farmers or criminals? Enforcement-first approaches fuel disparity and hinder regulation

Since California's cannabis legalization, localities have played a central role in determining the regulatory terms of where, how and within what legal bounds cannabis cultivation occurs. Siskiyou County, a rural, conservative and majority white county in Northern California, chose not to recognize cannabis cultivation as agriculture. It drew up highly restrictive cannabis cultivation regulations, largely under the purview of law enforcement rather than civil agencies. Hmong-American cultivators, made highly visible through enforcement practices, policy forums and media discourses, have borne the brunt of this regulatory regime. Cannabis policy, especially in its ethnic-racial dimensions, has become symbolic of broader anxieties about cultural and agricultural change. We employed ethnographic methods to research the formation and enforcement of Siskiyou's restrictive cannabis cultivation regulations, and their differential effects across local populations. We found that the county's law enforcement–first regulatory approach blurred civil and criminal lines, made some cultivators more visible and vulnerable to enforcement, and promoted criminalizing approaches to cultivators, even among civil regulatory agencies. These developments hinder the ability of agencies (including the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife) to ameliorate negative social and ecological effects of cannabis cultivation through civil regulation, support and services.

Rebel Territorial Control and Civilian Collective Action in Civil War: Evidence from the Communist Insurgency in the Philippines

Under what conditions do rebel organizations control territory during civil war? How do civilians influence the distribution of territorial control? This article introduces a civilian agency theory, emphasizing community collective action capacity (CAC) defined by underlying social network structure, to complement existing explanations of territorial control. I argue communities with greater CAC mobilize information and resources more efficiently, increasing belligerents’ incentives to control territory. However, CAC also increases community bargaining power to demand costly investments in governance, partially offsetting these gains. CAC increases rebel control in areas of state neglect. But, as state service provision increases, communities leverage CAC to demand prohibitively costly rebel governance, deterring rebel control. This article tests the theory in the context of the communist insurgency in the Philippines, using military intelligence reports from 2011 to 2014 to measure village-level communist insurgent territorial control and a household-level census (2008–2010) to measure village CAC. Interviews with village elders in Eastern Mindanao illustrate causal mechanisms and explore alternative explanations.

Australia, the utility of force and the society-centric battlespace

Abstract Greater uncertainty characterizes Australia's strategic environment. Power transitions in the Indo-Pacific test US primacy at a time when Australia as a major US alliance partner is encountering new asymmetric, society-centric threats from state and non-state actors in what is called the ‘cognitive battlespace’. This is a different kind of warfare, utilizing information as military force. Threats take the form of direct manipulation of interconnected, information-rich environments. Securing the national interest from society-centric threats involving the ‘weaponization of information’, especially of social media and the global corporate platforms upon which they operate, poses considerable strategic, conceptual and technological challenges for Australia's civilian and military cyber-defence agencies. We begin by briefly reviewing the evolution of the strategic culture underpinning Australia's understanding and use of military force, arguing that it is shaped largely by historical insecurity borne from a deeply embedded social sense of isolation and an unquestioned strategic imperative to rely on alliances with ‘great and powerful friends’. We give a brief account of Australia's ‘last wars’ which saw it deploy to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and note the evolving cyber-enabled changes to the battlefield. We then argue that the new cyber-threats target the domestic fabric of liberal democracies and market economies, posing risks to all military and civilian institutions as well as weakening citizens' belief in the values which underpin them. Finally, we examine Australia's evolving integration with US networked cyber capabilities, and legislative and bureaucratic reforms to counter foreign political interference campaigns, asking whether they are sufficient.

Gender Dimensions of (Non)Violence in Communal Conflict: The Case of Jos, Nigeria

Peacebuilding is more likely to succeed in countries with higher levels of gender equality, but few studies have examined the link between subnational gender relations and local peace and, more generally, peacebuilding after communal conflict. This article addresses this gap. I examine gender relations and (non)violence in ethno-religious conflict in the city of Jos in central Nigeria. Jos and its rural surroundings have repeatedly suffered communal clashes that have killed thousands, sometimes within only days. Drawing on qualitative data collected during fieldwork, I analyze the gender dimensions of violence, nonviolence, and postviolence prevention. I argue that civilian agency is gendered. Gender relations and distinct notions of masculinity can facilitate or constrain people’s mobilization for fighting. Hence, a nuanced understanding of the gender dimensions of (non)violence has important implications for conflict prevention and local peacebuilding.

A Critical Assessment of the Asia Rebalance

Abstract While the Obama administration’s Asia rebalance strategy received some praise from scholars and practitioners, it generated three problems that caused the USA to overlook many opportunities and neglect vital concerns. First, the strategy left Asia less stable by undermining US relations with China and smaller states in Southeast Asia. Secondly, it weakened America’s influence outside Asia by committing fewer resources. Finally, the rebalance was executed out of a relatively small cadre of government officials, allowing primarily civilian agencies to dictate Asia policy and excluding key branches of government. Furthermore, although the strategy competed with the strategies of restraint and offshore balancing, it never had the solid support of any international relations theories, leaving few scholars to directly associate it with a theory. Ultimately, the rebalance’s multiple logics prevented it from achieving intellectual hegemony in the American foreign policy discourse, and its substantive flaws and theoretical inconsistencies made difficult its acceptance as an enduring strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.

Rebel Territorial Control and Civilian Collective Action in Civil War: Evidence from the Philippines

Under what conditions do rebel organizations control territory during civil war? How do civilians influence the distribution of territorial control? This article introduces a civilian agency theory, emphasizing community collective action capacity (CAC) defined by underlying social network structure, to complement existing explanations of territorial control. I argue communities with greater CAC mobilize information and resources more efficiently, increasing belligerents’ incentives to control territory. However, CAC also increases community bargaining power to demand costly investments in governance, partially offsetting these gains. CAC increases rebel control in areas of state neglect. But, as state service provision increases, communities leverage CAC to demand prohibitively costly rebel governance, deterring rebel control. The article tests the theory in the context of the communist insurgency in the Philippines, using military intelligence reports from 2011-2014 to measure village-level communist insurgent territorial control and a household-level census (2008-2010) to measure village CAC. Interviews with village elders in Eastern Mindanao illustrate causal mechanisms and explore alternative explanations.

Blood on board: The development of a prehospital blood transfusion program in a Canadian helicopter emergency medical service.

Prehospital blood transfusion has been adopted by many civilian helicopter emergency medical services agencies, and early outcomes are positive. The Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society operates six bases in Western Canada and started a blood on board process in 2013 in Regina that has expanded to all bases. Two units of O negative packed red blood cells are carried on every mission. We describe the processes and standard work ensuring safe storage, administration, and stewardship of this important resource. The packed red blood cells are stored in an inexpensive, reusable temperature controlled cooler at 1°C-6°C. Close collaboration with local transfusion services and adherence to Canadian transfusion standards contributes to safety and sustainability. From October 1, 2013 to October 10, 2017, the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society administered blood to 431 patients. Of this total, 62.9% received blood carried on our aircraft. A total of 463 blood box units were administered, and the majority of patients (69.0%) received both units. Blood used in Calgary, Alberta was 100% traceable, and only 1.2% of total units dispensed was wasted. The vast majority of unused units were returned to circulation. We describe the process to set up and monitor a prehospital blood transfusion program. Our standard work and stewardship processes minimize wastage of blood while keeping it readily available for our critically ill and injured patients.

Contents of a Bug-Out Bag.

A large number of civilian agencies have published guides and recommendations on how to assemble personal and family emergency kits. However, the kits resulting from following these guidelines are impractical, particularly in the event evacuation becomes necessary. This report describes an alternative approach to assembling an emergency kit. OstrovskiyG, ShemeshAJ. Contents of a bug-out bag. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2018;33(6):647-649.

Give light, and the darkness will disappear: Australia’s quest for maritime domain awareness in the Indian Ocean

ABSTRACTThere is a growing understanding among maritime security practitioners of the importance of Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) as an essential enabler of maritime security. This article describes Australia’s efforts to develop an integrated national MDA system that brings together data and intelligence from a range of military and civil agencies and commercial sources to which a risk-based assessment is applied. This has become an essential tool to combat transnational maritime security threats in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. But inherent limitations of national MDA systems are also pushing Australia and other countries to cooperate in trying to improve MDA. This paper then examines ways in which Australia can promote MDA cooperation in the Indian Ocean. It considers the effectiveness and limitations of current and proposed multilateral information sharing arrangements in the region. It concludes that Australia should primarily focus on working with selected Indian Ocean partners to enhance information sharing and help develop integrated national MDA systems.

Commercial Orbital Transportation Services: A Case Study for National Industrial Policy

Abstract Debates over U.S. space policies often focus on the potential economic outcomes of funding a civilian space agency. NASA has consequently become an outlier in a political climate that has ...

Relationship between Civil and Military in Disaster Response and Recovery

In recent years, military and civil agencies play an important role in disaster response and recovery. These include an increase in the scale and incident of natural disasters, a concurrent trend towards militarization of humanitarian response in conflict situations and increased interest in disaster response on the part of military. Hence, the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) and civil agencies play an effective role to ensure the effectiveness of managing the disaster response in that area. The objective of this study is to know the problems faced by the Malaysian Armed Forces and Civil Agencies in Sarawak. This study is to examine the civil-military cooperation between the Malaysian Armed Forces and civil agencies during the disaster, to examine the civil-military coordination in disaster management, and to examine the civil-military activities between armed forces and civil agencies and the activities carried out by the army and civil agencies and also the challenges faced during the response and recovery in disaster management. This study is based on qualitative research method through interviews and focus group discussion involving the military infantry unit at 11 Royal Malay Regiment, 13 Royal Malay Regiment, 3 Royal Ranger Regiment, and 10 Royal Ranger Regiment in Sarawak. There are also problems such as disagreement between the military and civil agency that weakened their professional relationship. It is important for the military and civil agency to have a good relationship in order to work together in managing the disaster.

Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center: The First 25 Years

Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center: The First 25 Years

Leading the National Security Enterprise

Today's complex, chaotic, and interconnected world has forced us to rethink some of our fundamental assumptions about the nature of leadership, especially when it comes to leading whole-of-government or even whole-of-nation efforts. This is especially the case in the U.S. national security enterprise (hereafter referred to as the NSE or enterprise) where a complex, diverse constellation of military and civilian agencies must wield both hard and soft power on behalf of the United States. For various reasons, that enterprise has become our nation's first responder when it comes to almost any challenge, from traditional military operations to a myriad of nonmilitary ones, to include disaster and pandemic relief and humanitarian assistance (the Ebola crisis comes to mind), post-conflict reconstruction, and even nation-building. Irrespective of the challenge, our nation's political leaders look to senior officers-particularly but not exclusively those in uniform-who are in, and/or who have been developed by our NSE to lead the way.However, are they prepared for what we ask of them? As former U.S. Coast Guard Commandant, Admiral Thad Allen and others (including myself) have argued, almost everything of any consequence that government does today is collaboratively co-produced by a complex collection of public and private entities, from other agencies and levels of government, to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and even other countries, and international bodies.1 This is becoming the new normal for national leaders-whether they are elected, or in the case of senior career military and civilian officials, appointed or selected-and it has made their job exponentially more difficult. From the short-term dramas of pandemics, hurricanes, ecological disasters, and lone wolf terrorist attacks to the decades-long challenges of homeland security, energy independence, the health of our veterans and, at the extreme, great power competition and conflict-virtually everything government does requires the concerted efforts of complex networks that are comprised of multiple actors and organizations.In this regard, there is a realization among senior government leaders, both military and civilian, that the national security challenges they face can no longer be addressed by individual agencies or commands, each narrowly (even myopically) focused on its own specialized authorities and responsibilities. Rather, as those challenges become even more complex and interdependent, leaders at all levels-all with potentially overlapping jurisdictions and diverse areas of expertise-are required to collaborate with one another towards some common mission outcome. Thus, NSE leaders must have the meta-leadership skills to reach beyond their immediate organizations and mobilize a network of interdependent actors to achieve a shared mission and in so doing, achieve outcomes that are greater than the sum of their individual parts.2A New Kind of NSEFor purposes of this paper, NSE is defined in two ways. First, in concept, it represents all of the various departments and agencies, mostly though not exclusively federal, that have some responsibility for the U.S. national and homeland security missions broadly defined. This includes the usual suspects like the Defense Department (DOD) and the elements of the Intelligence Community (IC), but it also includes parts of the Departments of Energy, State, Justice, and Commerce, as well as more specialized agencies and departmental subcomponents like the United States Agency for International Development, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Oceanic and Administrative Administration.Not every element of that constellation of organizations will be relevant to a particular circumstance-indeed, that is part of the leadership challenge-so the second definition is more situational. In that context, the NSE is that operational subset of those institutional entities that may be necessary to accomplish a specific national or international mission sanctioned by the United States as relevant to its national security. …

‘Learning for resilience': Developing community capital through flood action groups in urban flood risk settings with lower social capital

The role of civil agency in preparing and adapting to changing risk is an increasingly critical element within devolved local flood risk management. However, effective civil agency for flood resilience needs to draw on, and if necessary develop, community capital. Community Action Groups form one model for local resilience building for flood risk, and one actively supported by some governments. This research evaluates the participatory model of flood group development involving horizontal support rather than top-down or bottom-up generation. The process involved nascent groups working with an NGO facilitator in the implementation of a set of processes framed in the context of 'learning for resilience' that supported flood group development in a situation of challenged social capital (lower socio-economic status; health issues, lack of previous flood experience) in the UK. The methodology involved repeat semi-structured interviews with flood group members and flood risk management (FRM) agencies who worked with them through the process, as well as observation of flood group meetings. Results outline how groups emerge from transient and disconnected communities, the value of local knowledge, evolving communication skills and agency, normalisation of group members within participatory processes, frustrations within these processes, group sustainability and FRM agency perspectives. Discussion then critiques the co-working/partnership model and assesses its implications for social 'learning for resilience' within challenged flood groups with variable social capital. The authors propose a framework ('The 6Ss') for anticipating concerns or barriers within such participatory processes as a guide to future local urban DRR practice.

Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II Mark R.Wilson. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.

Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II Mark R. Wilson. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.During World War II, America produced nearly two-thirds of all munitions used by the Allied forces. How this was accomplished in such a comparatively short time is the subject of Destructive Creation. Mark R. Wilson frames his book through two conflicting narratives popular during the war, both of which contain some truth, although both obscure the role of the military as well as civilian and governmental agencies. The first narrative praises patriotic business leaders who retooled their companies in their country's time of need. The second narrative emphasizes how corporations exploited the war emergency to make large profits, thwart smaller businesses and unions, and fight the New Dealers. The reality is somewhere in between, but big business spent a lot of money to promote the first narrative, which was so successful that they were able to leverage their power after the war into creating the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about and which is still so powerful today.Prior to 1941, businessmen were haunted by their problems during the First World War, including the government's coerced procurement of finished goods, takeovers of privately owned enterprises, and formal control of infrastructure, including railroads, telegraph, telephone, and radio. The government also strengthened its regulation of businesses and legislated an eight-hour day.During the Depression, big business came under critical scrutiny because of the high unemployment rate. The government came to the rescue, in the form of various New Deal measures that created public projects including the building of dams, roads, and parks, all of which provided millions of jobs. The low regard with which citizens and the government regarded business extended to the arms trade. In a 1936 Gallup poll, eighty-two percent of those interviewed thought that the manufacture and sale of war munitions for private should be prohibited (32). The Senate's Nye Committee (begun in 1932 with a final report in 1936) investigated war profiteering, called for heavy price and profit controls in wartime, and recommended that the government control munitions production.As it became clear that another war was coming, there was a need to build the nation's arsenal. However, progressives did not want to boost corporate profits, and conservatives did not want the war to reenergize the New Deal; businesses just wanted the government to give them money to produce what the military needed. …

Introduction to this special section: Unmanned autonomous vehicles

Over the past decade, enormous improvements have been made in the capabilities, performance, and applications of unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV) systems (airborne, marine, and terrestrial). Although unmanned underwater vehicle systems are used extensively in the oil and gas industry and have been around for decades, the advent of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), popularly referred to as drones, is relatively new. Previously the exclusive purview of military and high-tech civilian agencies, small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) are widely available today and are used increasingly in the public and commercial sectors. The price tag for a capable UAS system now ranges from less than US$5000 to more than US$1 million, with sustained flight times (endurance) ranging from about 20 minutes to five hours.

China’s Institutional Changes in the Foreign and Security Policy Realm Under Xi Jinping: Power Concentration vs. Fragmentation Without Institutionalization

This article focuses on the institutional changes that have occurred in the foreign and security policy realm since Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in November 2012. The establishment of a National Security Commission (NSC) in November 2013, the power centralization in the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the reorganization of the CCP leadership of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as well as the major branches of the PLA, the reorganization in March 2013 of the various civilian maritime security agencies and the establishment in December 2013 of a Cybersecurity and Informatization Leading Small Group (LSG) are the most striking organizational reforms introduced by Xi. But other institutional changes have taken place as Xi’s inclination to rely on a larger number of actors and in particular to give his closer political allies a bigger role also in foreign and security policy. These changes have obviously helped concentrate more power in the hands of Xi Jinping and, to some extent, better coordinate domestic and external security objectives and on the whole have well served China’s foreign and security policy’s assertiveness and initiatives. However, these changes have only partly reduced the power fragmentation that has developed extensively under Hu Jintao, and they have not contributed to institutionalizing decision-making processes at the top of the CCP and the state apparatuses. On the contrary, it appears that through these changes Xi has not only created new bureaucratic overlaps and tensions but also, in relying more on his own advisers, fed frustrations and competitions among agencies and officials, in other words, new forms of power fragmentation.

The First Amendment and the Off-Duty Conduct of Public Employees: Tradeoffs Among Civil Liberties, Agency Mission, and Public Trust

This article examines the dilemmas that public managers face in dealing with controversial off-duty speech and/or organizational affiliations by their employees. While public employees have First Amendment and, often, civil service protections against retaliation from superiors for their off-the-clock conduct, agency executives and managers have disciplined or dismissed employees because of expression and/or group affiliations deemed incompatible with the mission of their agencies. This article examines the pertinent case law, as well as the ethical conflicts over allowing diverse viewpoints in the workforce while at the same time managing organizations that implement policies that have particular purposes that are incompatible with some viewpoints. The possibility that the disciplining of employees, or the failure to discipline them, may affect public trust in government is explored.

Any Enlightened Government

Mortimer Graves, as the executive secretary of the American Council of Learned Societies, championed a National Center for Far Eastern Studies in the mid-1930s to address the shortfall of American East Asia experts. Graves reached for a national solution because of a progressive worldview that valued centralization and looked to European institutions as models. A National Center would incorporate Far Eastern Studies into the New Deal state and provide a u.s. response to French, German, and English orientalism centers. World War ii changed Graves’ view, however. Valued as u.s. national security assets, Asia specialists found employment in the upper echelons of military and civilian intelligence agencies as educators and analysts. No longer an insecure field, Graves saw the value in institutional diversity, becoming a champion of a university-based model of Far Eastern area studies after 1943. Centralization and respect for government lay dormant within the field, blooming atavistically as East Asia specialists became crucial knowledge producers for the u.s. government during the Cold War.

Knowing One’s Place

Between April and July 1413, a large group of Parisians led the violent Cabochien Uprising. This revolt has been positioned primarily as an extension of civil war politics between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. I argue that it was far more than that; it was a meaningful example of political resistance and an extraordinary event that nonetheless borrowed from everyday practices of civil autonomy and agency. In drawing from but moving beyond the civil war narrative, I examine the importance of urban spatial tactics, voice and violence in this rebellion. This approach enables us to discern what opportunities were available to early fifteenth-century Parisians to directly challenge their exclusion from politics, and to carve out a place of importance for their voices. Moreover, the same source material for the rebellion also illuminates the established systems, the spaces and the habits that empowered Parisians in the day-to-day. It was these conditions that provided the scaffolding for their rebellion, and they reveal strong tension between the king’s sovereign authority and his subjects’ autonomy. These complicated dynamics limited the king’s actual power in the streets, and suggest that Parisians could lay claim to more independence than we have previous considered.