Official Justification Research Articles

Politics Policy Indonesia's Moving A New Capital City To East Kalimantan: Its Impact On The Environment, Marginalization Of Local Communities, And Under The Shadow Of The Oligarch Interest

This paper discusses the political policy of President Joko Widodo's government to move Indonesia's national capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan. This controversial decision has sparked debate among various stakeholders, both domestically and internationally. The official justification for relocating the capital is Jakarta's overpopulation, severe traffic congestion, and flooding problems, along with the goal of fostering economic development and income equality outside Java. However, these reasons are overshadowed by significant political and business interests, particularly those of foreign investors, due to East Kalimantan's rich natural resources. These underlying interests drive President Joko Widodo's determination to proceed with the capital relocation amidst domestic economic and political challenges. The project exacerbates socio- economic inequality and national debt, benefiting a few oligarchs at the expense of many. Additionally, the relocation project has resulted in massive environmental damage, displacing tens of thousands of hectares and disrupting the lives of indigenous communities, such as the Balik tribe. This project erodes local wisdom and social systems that have existed for generations. The capital relocation is heavily influenced by Chinese business interests, facilitated by Government Regulation No. 12 of 2023, which provides a legal framework for investor control for 190 years. This regulation is seen as more exploitative than colonial practices of the past. Internationally, the project has drawn criticism for its environmental destruction amid global concerns about climate change. Ultimately, the New Capital City Relocation Mega Project raises critical questions about who truly benefits and who suffers from this massive undertaking.

State’s Legitimisation of Violence through Strategic Narration: How the Kremlin Justified the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

ABSTRACT The use of violence by state actors in political conflicts is often legitimised through the development of strategic narratives. The social construction of such narratives arguably relies on polarised storytelling centred on notions such as national heroism on one side and ‘perpetration against the nation’ on the other. The Kremlin’s official justification of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since February 2022 provides an illuminating example of this process of strategic narration. Relying on widely accepted cultural templates, Russia’s state institutions and officials put forward a narrative focused on Russia’s alleged heroic mission in Ukraine and the delegitimisation of the Ukrainian government and its external supporters as ‘ultimate perpetrators’. This highlights the proactive framing role that state actors may have in developing a discourse legitimising violence.

ВЛИЯНИЕ ВСПОМОГАТЕЛЬНОЙ РЕПРОДУКЦИИ НА САМОСОХРАНИТЕЛЬНОЕ ПОВЕДЕНИЕ НАСЕЛЕНИЯ

Significance. The introduction of assisted reproductive technologies based on in vitro fertilization into public health practice eliminates the direct impact of reproductive pathologies on individual childbearing, yet raises questions about which elements of reproductive health have the greatest impact on decision-making about giving birth to a child and how their role in self-preservation behavior is changing. The purpose of the study is to identify the main directions of the influence of modern methods of assisted reproduction on self-preservation behavior of the population. Material and methods. Based on open data from official and sectoral Russian and foreign statistics, as well as materials from Russian and English-language scientific publications, the analysis of the main indicators characterizing changes in self-preservation behavior under the influence of assisted reproductive technologies was carried out. The use of secondary sociological information and certain results of the current author's survey of medical university students made it possible to determine the prospects of assisted reproduction as an external factor of reproductive health. Results. A generalizing characteristic of reproductive health disorders is infertility, while assisted reproduction based on in vitro fertilization has been the most effective method of correction for almost half a century. Continuous improvement of assisted reproductive technology programs has made them a modern factor of self-preservation behavior, creating opportunities for the birth of healthy children not only in case of infertility, but also in case of subfertility against the background of chronic non-communicable diseases, as well as in case of inhibition of reproductive function after cancer treatment. As the availability of assisted reproduction programs expands, they began to be used as an alternative conception and have even indirectly influenced contraceptive behavior, leading to the choice in favor of comfortable, yet previously considered irreversible, sterilization. This determines the social and medical prospects of assisted reproductive technologies, however, an obstacle to their practical implementation may be the cost, which in Russia far exceeds the financial standards of in vitro fertilization under compulsory health insurance. Conclusion. The study showed the main current trends and extended scope of the impact of assisted reproduction on self-preservation behavior. Due to decrease in the number and health deterioration of the health of the population of reproductive age, a decrease in the birth rate becomes an urgent national challenge, which increases the importance of births that are impossible without the use of assisted reproductive technologies. This is especially important against the background of the increase in non-communicable diseases, leading to subfertility, and “social infertility” without reproductive pathologies, which are successfully corrected with in vitro fertilization. However, the commercialization and information popularization of assisted reproductive technology programs create inflated expectations among a certain segment of the population who expect to become parents at any age, regardless of health status. There are new requirements for official justification of indications and contraindications to in vitro fertilization, on the one hand, and for a more accurate account of individual reproductive capabilities of self-preservation behavior, on the other.

Milan riots of 1853: history and remembrance

ABSTRACT The article recounts the revolt that took place in Milan on 6 February 1853 and investigates its presence in the official memory of the city. The main figures in the rebellion were from Milan’s working class: while the movement was fomented by Mazzini, it was carried out independently by badly organized groups of workers; unlike the ‘Cinque Giornate’ of 1848, the upper classes were not involved. Barricades were erected and Austrian soldiers were killed, but order was promptly restored by the Austrians. The occupying forces arrested hundreds of people, executed sixteen working-class men and ordered the seizure of the goods of exiles who had left Lombardy after 1848. The article looks at how the events of 1853 were treated by historiography and local commemoration from unification to the present day. It discusses the meaning of the inclusion of that failed, impracticable uprising – a divisive one, involving as it did only figures from the lower classes – in the official justification of the city’s heroism, sanctioned in 1948 when Milan was awarded the gold medal for military valour.

Bathing water quality analysis, management and policy: an integrated assessment for Ireland

Abstract Every bathing season in Ireland several bathing sites are closing and receiving warnings against bathing. In this report, their water quality status is assessed, and the broader picture of each case is investigated. A database is formed including location-maps, the restrictions they were/are subject to, the official justification, past and current annual water quality status, (sub)catchment where they are located, main water bodies flowing in, the closest wastewater treatment plants with their characteristics and performance based on EU treatment standards, the closest meteorological stations and the rainfall data related with stormwater overflow events (correlation analyses) and the surrounding land cover. For each case, possible causes were discussed; the actions so far and the relevant literature are analyzed to provide key policy recommendations which are useful for the review of the European Bathing Water Directive.

ISLAMOPHOBIA IN INDIA DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS

This article discusses how zealots exploit the COVID-19 pandemic to amplify Islamophobia in India. Qualitative content analysis of publications, speeches, websites, news bulletins, periodicals, YouTube and social media reveals a surge of anti-Muslim rhetoric and activity. It highlights deliberate misinformation by campaigns and outrages. These include blaming Muslims for the contagion, denying them medical treatment, official justification by doctors to murder Muslim corona patients, and the vandalization, boycott and destruction of Muslim homes, stalls and shops — all under cover of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Chinese Engagement Abroad in the Scrap Business

This paper explores the changing nature of Chinese engagement abroad in the scrap business. Based on primary sources and interviews conducted by the author, it identifies the factors that, at different times, led Chinese scrap dealers and recyclers to extend the scope of their professional activity beyond the borders of their home country. Drawing on recent scholarship in discard studies, the author argues that it is necessary to move beyond the environmental dumping narrative in order to better understand Chinese national policy and its implications. This narrative serves as the main official justification for the bans on imports of recyclable waste that the central government adopted in recent years. However, there is good reason to believe that, by adopting a highly restrictive stance on the international waste trade, the central government sought first and foremost to bolster the municipal solid waste management sector within China. In turn, official support for domestic industrial players makes it possible for some Chinese corporations to emerge as providers of waste collection and recycling services at the international level. The trend, described in the paper, has already begun. It marks a shift from globalisation from below to globalisation from above.

Secretive Symbolism? The Death Penalty, Executions, and Japan

The importance of analysing the death penalty and state-imposed executions is derived from their concerning the right to life, and their retaining wide-spread support throughout retentionist, abolitionist de facto, and abolitionist states worldwide. Discrepancies in the execution rates of retentionist states appear reducible to their serving symbolic or pragmatic functions i.e. they are used primarily to validate public opinion or primarily to deter crime. Prima facie, Japan seems akin to a symbolic state, due to its low execution rate and its official justification for both retaining the death penalty and continuing to use executions i.e. doing otherwise would be undemocratic. However, the practices that surround executions in Japan shroud them in secrecy and silence, which appears at odds with both its apparent symbolic function and this justification. This makes Japan a uniquely important case study for research on practices surrounding executions. Understanding why this contradiction exists will entail a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which the death penalty, executions, and the practices surrounding them, can function in retentionist states. This essay aids such understanding by critically analysing this official justification and various other arguments for why this might be the case and advancing an alternative explanation.

Renaming States\u2014A Case Study: Changing the Name of the Hungarian State in 2011. Its Background, Reasons, and Aftermath

A provision of the Hungarian constitution, adopted in 2011, has renamed the state. The name changed from the Republic of Hungary to Hungary, while the form of the state has remained “republic”. The purpose of this study is to explore the meaning, significance, and several consequences of this provision. The analysis consists of three main parts. The first one gives a general overview of the functions of the names of states. It claims that not only names but also changing or modifying names of states—taking place either by name-giving or by shaping convention—can serve certain functions. The second part focuses on the historical and constitutional details of renaming the Hungarian state, and summarizes the legal context that provided the framework for the 2011 renaming. The third part outlines the arguments for the change, takes a look at the official justification and actual reasons, and reveals some of the consequences of the name change in the past decade. The main contention of the paper is that the renaming of the Hungarian state that took place in 2011 lacked any overt and reasonable justification, and is best explained as an expression of anti-republican sentiment, which indicated, and partly paved the way for the transition into a kind of an authoritarian regime. Finally, the study raises a possible interpretation of the renaming of the Hungarian state in 2011, the point of which is that it adumbrated many later changes in public law and political systems.

Slovakia’s Oversized Cabinet after the 2020 Parliamentary Elections: Barrier against Extremism Vol. II, or Protection of Its Own Stability?

This article deals with one of the major political consequences of parliamentary elections in every parliamentary regime – the process of government formation. It focuses on the formation of the coalition government following the 2020 parliamentary elections in Slovakia, in the context of both pre-election developments as well as the main challenges and appeals of contemporary politics in general – the rise of far-right political parties. Its aim is to identify the coalition strategies presented before the elections of political parties and movements that had a theoretical chance of being elected to Parliament. Special emphasis is placed on the definition by the other political parties and movements of the long-time ruling party Smer and the far-right party Our Slovakia. The analysis continues with the post-election government formation process, the classification of the established coalition, including the allocation of cabinet portfolios, assessment of the similarities and differences of coalition parties, and factors that could possibly cause both instability as well as stability. It concludes that the joint definition by the new ruling parties and movements of Smer and Our Slovakia will, at least for some time, serve as a unifying factor keeping the coalition together. However, the coalition’s stability will be under almost constant pressure coming from both relations between coalition parties and the possibility of internal conflicts within the coalition parties and movements. The article argues that the establishment of the surplus majority coalition might – besides the official justification for it – serve as a protection against government destabilization.

Evolutionary Legal Theory with A Brief Note on The Possible Subversive Character of Originalism

This paper has one main aim. It will sketch a theoretical framework for a descriptive account of legal change. The framework will identify some social facts as being relevant for a political or moral value-free enquiry about the law. The main contention will be that social conventions for identifying the sources of law, i.e., the hartian rule of recognition, are not enough for a proper understanding of legal phenomena. Thus, other conventions should be taken into account. The paper will end with a brief note on how, according to the theoretical framework sketched in the first section, it is possible that originalist doctrines of constitutional interpretation may be rather subversive of a certain legal culture. Despite its official justification of keeping the law as it is, originalism may be, in certain contexts, an invitation for a radical change in the legal system.

The Trade Goes, and the Flag Follows? British State Intervention and Natural Resource Extraction in Colombia, 1989–2010

ABSTRACTDuring the 1960s, agents of the Colombian state began carrying out a counterinsurgency campaign against elements of the domestic population considered ‘subversive’. Subversion, according to US counterinsurgency manuals, largely translated to involvement in social organisation. As a result, trade unionists, political activists and human rights defenders in Colombia became aggressively targeted. While violence in Colombia's past has been widely documented, recent British involvement has not. The official justification for British military and police assistance, beginning in 1989, was within the context of the drug war. By drawing on a wide range of sources including newly declassified documents from the UK National Archives in Kew, this article posits that British counter-narcotics assistance was contentious in nature and ineffective in outcome. Meanwhile, this assistance lent structural and active support to the counterinsurgency conflict. In this light, the protection of British capital interest in Colombia – specifically that of British Petroleum – is analysed as a persuasive underlying motive for British military and police assistance. Finally, British Petroleum's private security strategy in Colombia is investigated as a case study in the utilisation of counterinsurgency, with the result of the near-total elimination of social organisation within its areas of operations.

The Norwegian Criminal Regulation of Drugs: An Overview and Some Principled Challenges

This article describes and critically analyses the current state of the Norwegian criminal regulation of drugs. The first parts of the article describe the contemporary rules and Norway’s international obligations in this field of law. The following part addresses the official justification of this regulation. Here, the article scrutinises the official justification for the contemporary regulation, in particular the criminalisation of use and minor possession of drugs. The analysis applies the principle opted for by the Norwegian legislator as a guiding criminalisation principle in the preparation of the Criminal Code of 2005, i.e. the harm principle. The article does not completely reject the possibility for justifying the regulation, but concludes that the contemporary regulation at least rests on an insufficient normative basis. The final section critically discusses the high levels of punishment applied in Norway in the drug context.

Positive externalities from active car safety systems: A new justification for car safety regulations

Policymakers around the globe have opted for high levels of regulation of the market for vehicle safety and declared many vehicle safety systems as mandatory for new cars. In this paper we argue that the delivered justifications for these policies are at least questionable. We add a completely new argument to the discussion and show in a simple theoretical model that vehicle safety systems might cause positive externalities. Based on a large dataset of traffic accidents in Germany we show that the these externalities in fact occur. Based on our estimation results we show that for anti-lock-brakes (ABS) and electronic stability programmes (ESP) the average expected externality exceeds the price of these systems. Thus, the obligation to equip any new car with both ABS and ESP is adequate from an allocative point of view although the official justification for the introduction of these regulations are flawed.

Managing donor perceptions: Contextualizing Uganda's 2007 intervention in Somalia

This article explores Uganda’s decision to send peacekeeping troops to Somalia in 2007 as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and argues that the intervention has as much to do with Uganda’s relationship with its donors as it has with maintaining regional stability – the official justification for intervention. Museveni’s decision to intervene in Somalia is the most recent example of his regime’s multipronged ‘image management’ strategy in which the President has involved Uganda in numerous foreign and domestic activities to ensure that donors perceive his government in a particular way vis-a-vis their interests: as an economic success story, a guarantor of regional stability, or, in relation to Somalia, an ally in the global war on terror. In so doing Museveni’s strategy, conceptualized here within a constructivist framework, has been able largely to avoid censure in areas of traditional donor concern such as governance, thereby achieving a considerable degree of agency in a seemingly asymmetric relationship. THOUGH UGANDAN TROOPS HAVE BEEN IN SOMALIA since early 2007 as part of the AU peacekeeping mission AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia), their presence there has received particular scrutiny since the July 2010 Kampala bombings, an act perpetrated by the Islamist Somali rebel group Al-Shabaab. Since the attacks, which killed 74 people, Ugandan journalists and politicians have increasingly questioned the motivation behind their army’s involvement in the conflict, seeking better to comprehend what they are doing in Somalia and how this will affect *Jonathan Fisher ( j.fisher@bham.ac.uk) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham. Earlier versions of this article were presented in 2010 at the UK African Studies Association conference, University of Oxford, and in 2011 at the University of Birmingham as part of an ESRCBISA Seminar Series on African Agency. I thank participants in these events and colleagues in Oxford and Birmingham for their helpful feedback. Research for the article has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC; award numbers PTA-0312007-ES/F024509/1 and PTA-026-27-2861). I am also grateful to St Antony’s College, University of Oxford and to the Chester and Mellon and Cyril Foster Funds, University of Oxford for contributing to fieldwork costs. African Affairs, 00/00, 1–20 doi: 10.1093/afraf/ads023 © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved 1 African Affairs Advance Access published May 9, 2012

Language of Lullabies: The Russification and De-Russification of the Baltic States

With over five thousand languages and dialects in the world and approximately two hundred countries, most nations are home to a large number of people whose native language is different from the national language. Laws on language are therefore very important in most countries of the world. Language, for most of us, is more than just a means of communication. It is often a part of ethnic heritage and identity and is intertwined with culture, literature, and even lullabies. Thus, language laws have important implications for the rights and treatment of linguistic minorities. Linguistic minorities have become a sudden and especially serious problem in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. There has been much controversy over the laws that the post-Soviet states have passed which impose the national language as the official language. The Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, have been at the forefront of this controversy because they first confronted the issue of linguistic minorities and enacted some of the strongest laws to promote the national languages. Most scholars have focused on the negative effect of these laws on the linguistic minorities, most significantly, the Russian minority. While identifying the potentially discriminatory effects of these laws is important, it leaves unanswered the questions of why the laws were enacted and whether they are necessary to serve the legitimate goals of the State. To answer these questions, we must examine these laws in their historical context and as a reaction to the language laws that existed under the Communist system. This article argues that the laws for promotion of the national languages are a legitimate means for the Baltic states to establish their cultural independence from Russia and the former Soviet Union.The article is organized in three sections. Part I examines the current language laws in Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia and reviews and analyzes the effect that the laws have had on the States and on their minority populations. Part I then reviews the official justification for the current laws: to reverse the Soviet policy of Russification. Part II examines the history of language policies in the former USSR. It begins by reviewing the Tzarist legacy and the language policies of the early Communist leaders who did not intend the nationwide spread of Russian. An assessment of Nikita Khrushchev's language theories and laws follows, focusing especially on his policy of sliianie and the results thereof. Part II also discusses the results of Khrushchev's policies, specifically the increased status of Russian and the responses of Russian and non-Russian groups to these policies. Part II concludes with an examination of language laws of the post-Khrushchev Soviet leaders. Part III then evaluates the language laws of the Baltic states to see if the justifications offered by the States have merit. It argues that the laws are justified for three reasons. First, when properly viewed in their historical context, the laws are a necessary response to Soviet language laws, especially those that promoted Russification. Part III asserts that the laws are a means of reclaiming the national languages. Second, though the laws may have some discriminatory effect, they do not violate international law. Third, the Baltic laws are not unique among the post-Soviet states. All of the newly independent states have, to varying degrees, attempted to regain their cultural and linguistic independence by enacting laws to promote the national language. The article concludes by examining the lessons learned from Khrushchev's language policy and by examining why language laws are important. One of the great ironies of the Soviet legacy is that Khrushchev, viewed by many as a reformer, changed Soviet language policy to the point where Russification became the primary focus. This has both practical and theoretical relevance for the post-Soviet states. On a theoretical level, the lessons of Khrushchev's reign are valuable for understanding whether liberal language laws are possible. On a practical level, the policy of Russification led to the loss of native languages and the laws adopted by the post-Soviet states are a necessary response to that loss.

Media and the British Empire, edited by Chandrika Kaul

Reviewed by: Media and the British Empire Julie F. Codell (bio) Media and the British Empire, edited by Chandrika Kaul; pp. xv + 266. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, £47.00, $75.00. Chandrika Kaul's edited anthology continues work she carried out in her book Reporting the Raj (2003) and adds to a growing field of studies of the collusion between empire and media, now aligned with studies of journalism, communication, and imperial identity politics. Media and the British Empire is thoroughly interdisciplinary. Its authors, largely specialists in history and journalism, examine relationships between media and imperial politics in India, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, New Guinea, the Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca, Singapore), several African colonies (South Africa, Bechuanaland/Botswana), and Britain. They define media broadly, embracing rumor, mail, newsreels, wire service, and television, all focusing on the English-medium press during the long nineteenth century to expose Victorian imperialism's far-reaching legacy. Kaul applies an "integrative approach" to "the role of the media in shaping the political, economic, social and cultural dynamics" (1) through multiple colonial and metropole perspectives. Authors emphasize "cross-media culture of past societies" [End Page 157] in which communication is "complementary and cumulative" (3). Essays cover the early nineteenth century to the 1960s through several themes: communications, India's impact on British politics, imperial culture, and government media "management." Politics, technology, and institutions mutually inflected one another as colonial and British media contested national identities and the meanings of specific incidents that induced both imperial surveillance and colonials' resistance. Tim Pratt's outstanding study of how Chartist Ernest Jones, editor of the People's Paper, deployed the "Mutiny" exemplifies this dynamic. Pratt demonstrates "the fluidity of the nineteenth-century newspaper as a text, and indeed the concept of 'news' itself" (89). Jones contextualized the event within Chartist goals, but his positions changed as reports and events changed. Despite efforts to connect the Mutiny with domestic reform, Jones was undone by its failure, his own financial precariousness, and atrocity stories. While The Times insisted the rebellion demonstrated Indians' inherent irrationality and incapacity for self-government, Jones, writing India in "an increasing European image" (91), interpreted the revolt as evidence of Indians' desire for democracy, paralleling democratic movements in Britain. Jones used the revolt's failure to admonish British working classes about what not to do and to emphasize the importance of joining together despite differences, which he perceived as Indians' failure. He also stressed the importance of a strong leader—by which he meant himself. Like Jones, Winston Churchill was motivated by the desire for political leadership, even opposing his own Tory party. Ian St. John's essay analyzes Churchill's use of the press to convey his hostility to dyarchy (giving Indians more political participation) proposed by Stanley Baldwin's Conservatives in 1929 (104). St. John explores interdependencies between newsgathering as a system and personal relationships to understand why Churchill's public pronouncements found little press sympathy. Linked to Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail, which published his views, Churchill was marginalized not only for criticizing his own party and for his own credibility problems, but also for suggesting that Stanley Baldwin was attempting to wrench power from elected government. A compelling example of how the press was used to overcome and reverse government activities is the forced exile of King Seretse Khama of Bechuanaland after he married a white English woman, Ruth Williams. Bowing to behind-the-scenes pressure from South Africa but denying this influence, the government's position became increasingly untenable. Susan Williams lucidly traces how the Bangwato tribe and Seretse's use of media offered a counter-narrative to the official justification for removing Seretse and exposed the government's hypocritical promotion of racial equality in Africa. Seretse was eventually elected prime minister in 1966, as post-independence Bechuanaland became Botswana. Seretse's case can be compared to the Victorian press's debates over the Zulu Wars and the British removal of Zulu King Cetshwayo and of maharajas considered "unsympathetic" or "seditious" throughout the nineteenth century. Several essays examine the broader significance of specific events. Philip Woods explains how Viceroy Mountbatten controlled most press and newsreel depictions of India's...

Missionaries of the state: the Summer Institute of Linguistics, state formation, and indigenous Mexico, 1935-1985

Lazaro Cardenas, president of Mexico 1934-40, is widely remembered as the most nationalistic and populist Mexican executive and was demonized by foreign investors scandalized by his nationalization programs, particularly in the oil industry. Less well known are his efforts to 'Mexicanize' indigenous populations and to reduce the power of the conservative Catholic hierarchy by encouraging anti-clericalism and Protestant evangelical activity. Common aims therefore united Cardenas and Cameron Townsend, an American Protestant missionary. With the support of Cardenas and like-minded Mexican officials, Townsend formed the Summer Institute of Linguistics, or SIL, a training school for Protestant missionaries who undertook to learn indigenous languages and to translate the Bible into those tongues. The official justification of this project was that the Indians' new vernacular literacy would serve as a bridge to learning Spanish and thus to assimilating into the larger national population. If at the same time Townsend's linguists also served as evangelists of a fundamentalist form of Protestantism, so much the better; in doing so, the SIL effort would undermine the Catholic hierarchy, which was seen as a rival of the Mexican state and its plans for secular national development. This unusual yet enduring alliance of a national government not know for friendship to foreigners and an unlikely collection of North Americans who united scholarship, political savvy, and religious zeal is this book's topic. The author relates the development of the SIL from its close association with official Mexico in the early 1930s to the late 1970s, when a growing anti-SIL alliance led by a new generation of Mexican anthropologists induced the Mexican government to curtail its support for the SIL. Hartch contributes objectivity to a topic that has been dominated by the polemics of either SIL supporters or opponents, recognizing the self-interest that actuated all parties, but also acknowledging that the SIL, whether or not it meant to, empowered and enriched many indigenous communities through the provision of literacy.

The Political Economy of Trade Protection: The Determinants and Welfare Impact of the 2002 US Emergency Steel Safeguard Measures

This paper analyses the political economy of trade protection in the context of the factors determining the US Emergency Safeguard Measures for steel imposed March 2002. The paper identifies several factors in addition to the official justification stated problems of global over-capacity and the penetration of imports in the US market, namely the continued failure to restructure poorly performing firms, failure of previous attempts at protection and the influence of the domestic steel lobby and short-term political gains to the Bush Administration of protectionist action. The paper also reviews several ex ante and ex post empirical studies of the impact of the steel Safeguards on the steel industry and downstream steel-consuming activities. All of these studies find that the costs of the Safeguard Measures outweighed their benefits in terms of aggregate GDP and employment as well as having an important redistributive impact. The paper provides a brief summary of the subsequent WTO steel case and the final resolution of the dispute. The evidence suggests that the steel Safeguards owed more to political expediency than justification for protection under the WTO rules.

Should religious education be a compulsory school subject?

Britain is an increasingly secular society, yet religious education is a compulsory school subject. Is its compulsory status justifiable? Religious education was made compulsory in 1944 partly so as to support the moral values underlying democracy. This civic justification faded after the war, but even today one official justification of religious education is in terms of moral education. Another has to do with understanding and respecting other religions and beliefs. This essay examines both justifications and concludes that neither is strong enough to support the continued existence of religious education as a separate, compulsory subject. The same verdict is passed on a third justification, based on a recommended switch in the content of religious education classes to the critical analysis of religious claims.