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Classrooms or crackdowns? How violence affects security policy preferences in Mexico
Get PDFPenal policies have been the primary strategy of Latin American governments to combat crime, but preventative social policies such as youth education programmes may be more effective solutions. Penal and social policies are often treated as a trade-off by governments, who expect citizens—especially victims of violence—to be more supportive of punitive solutions. Using an original online survey experiment conducted in 2021 in Mexico, we challenge the idea of a trade-off between penal and social policies by studying how different policy solutions along the penal-welfare policy continuum affect victims’ support for increased state security presence. We unpack differences between victims of criminal perpetrators and state violence and those who are fearful of crime. Our vignette experiment reveals—in contrast to previous results—that crime victims are more supportive of state security presence when coupled with pre-emptive measures. Surprisingly, the same holds for victims of state violence and for those fearful of crime, including those residing in neighbourhoods with watch groups. Victimisation, by either crime or the state, raises demand for policies to increase employment and improve education
Budgeting for defence in the UK
No full textThe recent growth in international tension has been associated with countries either increasing their military spending or discussing such increases, thus defence budgeting has attracted increased attention. This paper reviews the UK defence budget in an historical context. It sets out the position in mid 2024 when the newly elected Labour Government commissioned a Strategic Defence Review. It summarises the planning process and the government budget constraint; considers the issues involved in measuring the defence budget and making international comparisons; reviews trends in the defence budget and the choices that need to be made between spending on personnel, conventional equipment, and nuclear weapons
Everyday engagements with the BBC across Leave and Remain identities, drawing on survey analysis, ethnographic interviews, and ethnographic case studies
No full textIn this chapter we examine the everyday media practices of British citizens. Unlike the traditional press and the more polarised tabloids which endorsed a Leave or Remain position in the Brexit campaign, the BBC, as a public broadcaster, maintained impartiality. The BBC was central to how the British public experienced both the Brexit transition period and the Covid-19 lockdowns. We integrate qualitative and quantitative data to examine everyday engagements with the BBC across Leave and Remain identities in Britain during this time. We draw on an online survey of 5000 respondents conducted during the pandemic lockdowns and in-depth interviews that formed part of ethnographic fieldwork within community settings between 2018 and 2021 to examine everyday use and how perceptions of bias and impartiality underpin trust in the BBC. These experiences show a nuanced picture of the BBC and its publics. Echoing the themes of other chapters in this volume (see Blamire et al., chapter 7), we find instances of shared experience and commonality that provide a contrast to the narratives about a polarising and divisive media environment
‘Knowledge is Power’: literature, invention, radical thinking at the London Mechanics’ Institution
Get PDFOn the occasion of the bicentenary of the London Mechanics’ Institution, this introduction goes back to the Baconian motto ‘Knowledge is Power’ adopted by the early proponents of mechanics’ education to reconstruct the place and function of literature in mechanic invention, practical education, and useful knowledge, against the backdrop of its emergence as an autonomous discipline of the creative imagination. Analysis of different published versions of George Birkbeck’s speech on the laying of the first stone of the lecture room in December 1824 reveals the precarious status of literature in the mechanics’ ‘Temple of Reason’ under construction: foregrounded in one version, excluded from another. Why? This intervention explores what is at stake in its inclusion or exclusion then and now, in the current predicament of the arts and humanities locally, nationally, and internationally
Struggles to define and counter-define unrest in the cities of the early Roman East
No full textThis chapter analyses discourses of unrest in the Greek poleis in the early stages of Roman rule (first century BC–first century AD). Like other chapters in the volume, it traces evolutions in the discourse of unrest in response to Roman power and associated social change. Traditional Greek discourse about stasis remained strongly influential. Stasis and division had always been something to be feared for a polis. Nonetheless, many traditional interpretations of it at least grudgingly accepted that participants on each side were engaging (sometimes in wrong, perverted ways) in political activity; this meant that unity could be restored through political processes and political institutions which incorporated all citizens. These tendencies endured in interesting ways into the Roman period, but they also had to contend with alternative ideas and practices, which treated any political unrest (but especially any with democratic aspirations) as a more fundamental challenge to peace, gentleness and civility, requiring new, more ethical styles of resolution. Sometimes even previously routine forms of political self-assertion or confrontation came under this rethought umbrella. This chapter examines the complex interaction of these different conceptualisations, including the ways in which that interaction mirrored ideological developments at Rome and in other provinces. It is argued throughout that evolutions in discourses of political disorder must be studied in tandem with changing discourses of political order and reconciliation
Introduction: Technology and ethics
Get PDFThe authors in this special issue present case studies of socio-cultural responses to technologies in terms of their relationships with ‘ethics’ and ‘politics,’ to ecologies, and to the ways in which those technological processes are framed as empowering, alienating, dispossessing, transformative or destructive. This introduction elaborates some connections between the papers, focusing on the ways that technology both creates, and becomes part of, ethical and political struggles over visions of the future. Technology is frequently used to increase the extent and range of control, and to impose a politicised order upon others in villages, towns, environments and landscapes, although this control cannot be guaranteed. Technology can also become part of the rhetoric used to persuade people of the inevitability, validity and desirability of imagined futures, while leaving other factors to be ignored. Technology, ethics and politics are not always separable, and the results of their interaction may not always be predictable
Pen sketch
No full text'Pen Sketch' reflects on the changing nature of family construction and the complicated relationship between donor and parent. It is also an exploration of small town, English life and the importance of origin stories
International survey of psychosocial care for cancer survivors in low/middle and high-income countries: current practices, barriers, and facilitators to care
Get PDFPurpose: The number of cancer survivors living with and beyond cancer treatment is rising globally. It is fundamental to understand the extent and type of psychosocial care services offered worldwide. We evaluated models of cancer survivorship care, psychosocial care practices in the post-treatment survivorship phase, and barriers/facilitators to delivery of psychosocial care services, including in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Patients and Methods: The International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS) Survivorship Special Interest Group led a cross-sectional online survey between March and November 2022. Healthcare professionals and researchers in psycho-oncology were invited through the IPOS global membership, social media, and snowballing. The survey was administered to individuals but included questions relating to practices in their country at a national level. Results: 283 respondents from 37 countries participated (40% from LMICs), with a median of 12 years’ experience (IQR=6-20) in the psycho-oncology field. Participants reported that the most common elements of routine survivorship care were related to the prevention/management of recurrences/new cancers (74%), physical late effects (59%), and chronic medical conditions (53%), while surveillance/management of psychosocial late effects (27%) and psychosocial/supportive care (25%) were least common. Service availability was more commonly reported in HICs than LMICs relating to reproductive health (29% vs 17%), genetic counselling/support (40% vs 20%), and to identify/manage distress (39% vs 26%) and pain (66% vs 48%). Key barriers included providers focusing on ‘treatment not survivorship’ (57%) and on ‘medical not psychosocial care’ (60%), and a lack of allied health providers to deliver psychosocial care (59%). Conclusion: The psychosocial needs of people with cancer are not adequately available and/or provided in post-treatment survivorship even in HICs, due to barriers at patient-, provider- and system-levels
Evolution of arc‐continent collision in the southeastern margin of the South China Sea: insight From the Isugod Basin in Central‐Southern Palawan
Get PDFThe evolution of arc‐continent collision between the Palawan microcontinental block and the Cagayan Ridge in the southeastern margin of the South China Sea (SCS) is vital to understand how this collision
correlated with seafloor spreading of the SCS. To address the evolution of arc‐continent collision, we studied the biostratigraphy and provenance of syn‐collisional sediments in the Isugod Basin in central‐southern Palawan.
Microfossil analysis indicates a Late Miocene age (11.5–5.6 Ma) for the Isugod and Alfonso XIII Formations and rapid subsidence during initiation of the basin which may have been triggered by local extensional collapse
of the wedge in response to forearc uplift. Multidisciplinary provenance analysis reveals that the Isugod and Alfonso XIII Formations were derived from the Middle Eocene–lower Oligocene Panas‐Pandian Formation on
the Palawan wedge and the Late Eocene Central Palawan Ophiolite. These results suggest the emergence of both the orogenic wedge and obducted forearc ophiolite at ∼11.5 Ma, implying collision onset before ∼11.5 Ma. The collision initiation in Palawan could be better constrained to ∼18 Ma, based on the drowning of the Nido carbonate platform in the foreland. Therefore, the gravitational collapse of the Palawan wedge and the
subsidence/formation of the Isugod Basin might reflect a significant uplift pulse in the hinterland of the wedge beginning within 13.4–11.5 Ma in the late stage of collision. It indicates that although compression originated
from spreading of the SCS had ceased at 16–15 Ma, arc‐continent collision in Palawan did not stop and was sustained by compression from the upper plate afterward
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