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Posts in social sciences
Security and Privacy: Global Standards for Ethical Identity Management in Contemporary Liberal Democratic States

By John Kleinig, Peter Mameli, Seumas Miller, Douglas Salane and Adina Schwartz

This study is principally concerned with the ethical dimensions of identity management technology – electronic surveillance, the mining of personal data, and profiling – in the context of transnational crime and global terrorism. The ethical challenge at the heart of this study is to establish an acceptable and sustainable equilibrium between two central moral values in contemporary liberal democracies, namely, security and privacy. Both values are essential to individual liberty, but they come into conflict in times when civil order is threatened, as has been the case from late in the twentieth century, with the advent of global terrorism and trans-national crime. We seek to articulate legally sustainable, politically possible, and technologically feasible, global ethical standards for identity management technology and policies in liberal democracies in the contemporary global security context. Although the standards in question are to be understood as global ethical standards potentially to be adopted not only by the United States, but also by the European Union, India, Australasia, and other contemporary liberal democratic states, we take as our primary focus the tensions that have arisen between the United States and the European Union.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2011. 304p.

The Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Indian Opium Trade to China and its Lasting Legacy

By Elisa-Sofía García-Marcano

In recent years, two apparently different and unconnected problems have received repeated attention from global news outlets, namely the opioid crisis and the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. The opioid crisis, which is especially catastrophic in the United States, involves the over-prescription and abuse of synthetic opioid painkillers such as oxycontin and fentanyl (Felter, 2020). The pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong involves legions of protesters, many of them university students, taking to the streets against what they see as the erosion of their civil liberties at the hands of the mainland Chinese government (Perper, 2019). How can these two issues possibly be connected? This paper tells the story of how the world's first great opioid crisis occurred in nineteenth-century China, and how the drug trafficking British thwarted the Chinese government's attempts to stop drug imports, fighting two wars in the process. Upon conclusion of the first of these wars, China was forced to cede the territory of Hong Kong. This British colonial outpost became the principal entrepôt for British opium entering the Chinese market. Over the next century and a half, Hong Kong grew into one of the world's most dynamic commercial cities, and its citizens enjoyed liberties under British rule that were not available to the mainland Chinese population. Thus, the legacy of the opium wars and the British opium trade to China is still very much with us today.

 Online Journal Mundo Asia Pacifico10(19), 98–109. 

The Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another

By W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello

In this tragic and powerful story, the two Opium Wars of 1839–1842 and 1856–1860 between Britain and China are recounted for the first time through the eyes of the Chinese as well as the Imperial West. Opium entered China during the Middle Ages when Arab traders brought it into China for medicinal purposes. As it took hold as a recreational drug, opium wrought havoc on Chinese society. By the early nineteenth century, 90 percent of the Emperor’s court and the majority of the army were opium addicts.Britain was also a nation addicted-to tea, grown in China, and paid for with profits made from the opium trade. When China tried to ban the use of the drug and bar its Western smugglers from its gates, England decided to fight to keep open China’s ports for its importation. England, the superpower of its time, managed to do so in two wars, resulting in a drug-induced devastation of the Chinese people that would last 150 years.In this page-turning, dramatic and colorful history, The Opium Wars responds to past, biased Western accounts by representing the neglected Chinese version of the story and showing how the wars stand as one of the monumental clashes between the cultures of East and West.

Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2004.  352p.

Opioids: Addiction, Narrative, Freedom

By Maia Dolphin-Krute

An epidemic is a feeling set within time as much as it is a matter of statistics and epidemiology: it is the feeling of many of us in the same desperate place at the same desperate time. Opioid epidemic thus names a present moment — at once historic and historical — centered on the substance of opioids as much as it names the urgency of all of us who are currently in proximity to these substances. What is the relationship between these historic and historical moments, the present moment, the history of pharmacological capitalism, and a set of repeated neurological activities, as well as human loss and desire, that has fueled the exponential rise in the rates of opioid use and abuse between 2000-2018? Opioids: Addiction, Narrative, Freedom is an auto-ethnography written from deep within—biologically within—this opioid epidemic. Tracing opioids around and through the bodies, governmental, and medical structures they are moving and being moved through, Opioids is an examination of what it means to live within an environment saturated with a substance of deep economic, political, neuroscientific, and pharmacological implications. From exploring media coverage of the epidemic and emerging medical narratives of addiction to detailing the legal inscription of differences between “pain patients” and people addicted to drugs, Opioids consistently asks: what is it like to live within an epidemic? What forms of freedom become possible when continually modulated by our physical experiences of the material proximities of an epidemic? How do you live with something for a long time?

Brooklyn, NY: Punctum Books, 2018. 192p.

The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational. Second Edition

By Nick Robins

The English East India Company was the mother of the modern multinational. Its trading empire encircled the globe, importing Asian luxuries such as spices, textiles and teas. But the Company’s takeover of much of India was achieved by force and fraud; in China, the battering ram was opium. The East India Company’s corruption and violence shocked its contemporaries and still reverberates today. The Corporation That Changed the World is the first book to examine the Company’s enduring legacy as a corporation. It uncovers the factors that drove it to excess and eventual collapse. This expanded edition looks at recent activist and cultural responses to the Company in China and India, and the corporate reform agenda in light of the economic crisis. In his account of the Company's story Robins highlights enduring lessons on how to make global business accountable. This will be vital reading for students and academics in economics and history.

London: Pluto Press, 2012. 281p.

History of the Opium Problem: The Assault on the East, ca. 1600-1950

By Hans Derks

This is the first scholarly study in which the production, trade and political effects of opium and its derivatives are shown over many centuries, and in many countries (China, India, Indonesia, Japan, all Southeast Asian countries and some in Europe and the Americas). Starting in the 16th century, slavery and opium became the two means with which the bodies and souls of men and women in the tropics were exploited in western imperialism and colonialism. The first waned with the abolition movement in the 19th century, but opium production and trade continued to spread, with the associated serious social and political effects. Around 1670 the Dutch introduced opium as a cash crop for mass production and distribution in India and Indonesia. China became the main target in the 19th century, and only succeeded in getting rid of the opium problem around 1950. Then it had already been transformed from an “Eastern” into a “Western” problem.

Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2012. 850p.

To Make Negro Literature: Writing, Literary Practice, and African American Authorship

By Elizabeth McHenry

Elizabeth McHenry locates a hidden chapter in the history of Black literature at the turn of the twentieth century, revising concepts of Black authorship and offering a fresh account of the development of “Negro literature” focused on the never published, the barely read, and the unconventional.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021. 313p.

Child Protection in England, 1960-2000: Expertise, Experience, and Emotion

By Jennifer Crane

This open access book explores how children, parents, and survivors reshaped the politics of child protection in late twentieth-century England. Activism by these groups, often manifested in small voluntary organisations, drew upon and constructed an expertise grounded in experience and emotion that supported, challenged, and subverted medical, social work, legal, and political authority. New forms of experiential and emotional expertise were manifested in politics – through consultation, voting, and lobbying – but also in the reshaping of everyday life, and in new partnerships formed between voluntary spokespeople and media. While becoming subjects of, and agents in, child protection politics over the late twentieth century, children, parents, and survivors also faced barriers to enacting change, and the book traces how long-standing structural hierarchies, particularly around gender and age, mediated and inhibited the realisation of experiential and emotional expertise.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 218p.

The Crime of All Crimes: Toward a Criminology of Genocide

By Nicole Rafter

Cambodia. Rwanda. Armenia. Nazi Germany. History remembers these places as the sites of unspeakable crimes against humanity, and indisputably, of genocide. Yet, throughout the twentieth century, the world has seen many instances of violence committed by states against certain groups within their borders—from the colonial ethnic cleansing the Germans committed against the Herero tribe in Africa, to the Katyn Forest Massacre, in which the Soviets shot over 20,000 Poles, to anti-communist mass murders in 1960s Indonesia. Are mass crimes against humanity like these still genocide? And how can an understanding of crime and criminals shed new light on how genocide—the “crime of all crimes”—transpires? In The Crime of All Crimes, criminologist Nicole Rafter takes an innovative approach to the study of genocide by comparing eight diverse genocides--large-scale and small; well-known and obscure—through the lens of criminal behavior. Rafter explores different models of genocidal activity, reflecting on the popular use of the Holocaust as a model for genocide and ways in which other genocides conform to different patterns. For instance, Rafter questions the assumption that only ethnic groups are targeted for genocidal “cleansing," and she also urges that actions such as genocidal rape be considered alongside traditional instances of genocidal violence. Further, by examining the causes of genocide on different levels, Rafter is able to construct profiles of typical victims and perpetrators and discuss means of preventing genocide, in addition to delving into the social psychology of

  • genocidal behavior and the ways in which genocides are brought to an end. A sweeping and innovative investigation into the most tragic of events in the modern world, The Crime of All Crimes will fundamentally change how we think about genocide in the present day.

New York: New York University Press, 2016. 320p.

Popular Culture, Crime and Social Control

Edited by Mathieu Deflem

This volume contains contributions on the theme of popular culture, crime, and social control. The chapters in this volume tease out various criminologically relevant issues, pertaining to crime/deviance and/or the control thereof, on the basis of an analysis of various aspects and manifestations of popular culture, including music, movies, television, paintings, sculptures, photographs, cartoons, and the internet-based audio-visual materials that are presently available. Thematically diverse within the province of criminology, the chapters in this book are not restricted in terms of theoretical approach and methodological orientation. Using a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives, the volume is diverse in addressing dimensions of popular culture in relation to important criminological questions.

Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing, 2010. 308p.

The Branch Davidians of Waco The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Sect

By Kenneth G. C. Newport

What were the beliefs of the Branch Davidians? This is the first full scholarly account of their history. Kenneth G. C. Newport argues that, far from being an act of unfathomable religious insanity, the calamitous fire at Waco in 1993 was the culmination of a long theological and historical tradition that goes back many decades. The Branch Davidians under David Koresh were an eschatologically confident community that had long expected that the American government, whom they identified as the Lamb-like Beast of the book of Revelation, would one day arrive to seek to destroy God's remnant people. The end result, the fire, must be seen in this context.

Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Psychology and Crime. 2nd Edition

By Aidan Sammons and David Putwain

What does a criminological psychologist actually do? Most people picture a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, helping the police to solve crimes, but the reality is far more interesting and complex. Psychology and Crime offers a fascinating introduction to criminological psychology, providing the reader with a comprehensive grounding in everything from cognitive forensics to police interviewing. Concise, informative and accessible, the book explores a range of theories to understand criminal behaviour, from the physiological to the social. It covers a range of contexts within the criminal justice system where psychology offers unique insights, including police investigation, the perspective of witnesses and victims, and courtroom proceedings. Thoroughly updated throughout to reflect developments in the field, and featuring new chapters covering cybercrime, terrorism and insights from neuroscience, this edition also includes a student-friendly ‘Apply your learning’ feature and case studies to bring the research to life. Accessibly written for all levels and with concise coverage of both classic and contemporary psychological theory, this is the ideal book for anyone studying criminal or forensic psychology.

Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2019. 226p.

Psychology and Crime: An Introduction to Criminological Psychology

By Clive R. Hollin

Psychological theory and method have played a major part in shaping our understanding and interpretation of crime. Psychology and Crime supplies a timely and much-needed general text covering the range of contributions psychology has made both to understanding crime and responding to it. The book provides an accessible overview of theory and research from criminology, sociology, and psychology, focusing on three distinct themes. First, psychological theories about the offender are discussed, including the way in which mental disorder is defined. Second, the author analyses society's response to crime - the role of police and the courts. Finally, the book looks at crime prevention - both the rehabilitation of offenders and situational strategies for preventing crime.

London; New York: Routledge, 1989. 438p.

Crime, Cultural Conflict, and Justice in Rural Russia, 1856-1914

By Stephen P. Frank

This book is the first to explore the largely unknown world of rural crime and justice in post-emancipation Imperial Russia. Drawing upon previously untapped provincial archives and a wealth of other neglected primary material, Stephen P. Frank offers a major reassessment of the interactions between peasantry and the state in the decades leading up to World War I. Viewing crime and punishment as contested metaphors about social order, his revisionist study documents the varied understandings of criminality and justice that underlay deep conflicts in Russian society, and it contrasts official and elite representations of rural criminality—and of peasants—with the realities of everyday crime at the village level.

Berkeley, CA: London: University of California Press, 1999.

Crime and Punishment in Russia: A Comparative History from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin

By Jonathan Daly; Jonathan Smele; Michael Melancon

Crime and Punishment in Russiasurveys the evolution of criminal justice in Russia during a span of more than 300 years, from the early modern era to the present day. Maps, organizational charts, a list of important dates, and a glossary help the reader to navigate key institutional, legal, political, and cultural developments in this evolution. The book approaches Russia both on its own terms and in light of changes in Europe and the wider West, to which Russia's rulers and educated elites continuously looked for legal models and inspiration. It examines the weak advancement of the rule of the law over the period and analyzes the contrasts and seeming contradictions of a society in which capital punishment was sharply restricted in the mid-1700s, while penal and administrative exile remained heavily applied until 1917 and even beyond. Daly also provides concise political, social, and economic contextual detail, showing how the story of crime and punishment fits into the broader narrative of modern Russian history. This is an important and useful book for all students of modern Russian history as well as of the history of crime and punishment in modern Europe.

London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. 258p.

House of Trump, House of Putin: How Vladimir Putin and the Russian Mafia Helped Put Donald Trump in the White House

By Craig Unger

'A bombshell.' Daily Mail 'Damning, terrifying and enraging.' The Spectator House of Trump, House of Putin offers the first comprehensive investigation into the decades-long relationship among Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Mafia that ultimately helped win Trump the White House. It is a chilling story that begins in the 1970s, when Trump made his first splash in the booming, money-drenched world of New York real estate, and ends with Trump's inauguration as president of the United States. That moment was the culmination of Vladimir Putin's long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and associates had ensnared Trump in, starting more than twenty years ago with the massive bailout of a string of sensational Trump hotel and casino failures in Atlantic City. This book confirms the most incredible American paranoias about Russian malevolence. To most, it will be a hair-raising revelation that the Cold War did not end in 1991--that it merely evolved, with Trump's apartments offering the perfect vehicle for billions of dollars to leave the collapsing Soviet Union. In House of Trump, House of Putin, Craig Unger methodically traces the deep-rooted alliance between the highest echelons of American political operatives and the biggest players in the frightening underworld of the Russian Mafia. He traces Donald Trump's sordid ascent from foundering real estate tycoon to leader of the free world. He traces Russia's phoenix-like rise from the ashes of the post-Cold War Soviet Union as well as its ceaseless covert efforts to retaliate against the West and reclaim its status as a global superpower. Without Trump, Russia would have lacked a key component in its attempts to return to imperial greatness. Without Russia, Trump would not be president. 

New York: Dutton, 2018. 384p.

Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Russia

By Nancy Kollmann

This is a magisterial new account of the day-to-day practice of Russian criminal justice in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Nancy Kollmann contrasts Russian written law with its pragmatic application by local judges, arguing that this combination of formal law and legal institutions with informal, flexible practice contributed to the country's social and political stability. She also places Russian developments in the broader context of early modern European state-building strategies of governance and legal practice. She compares Russia's rituals of execution to the 'spectacles of suffering' of contemporary European capital punishment and uncovers the dramatic ways in which even the tsar himself, complying with Moscow's ideologies of legitimacy, bent to the moral economy of the crowd in moments of uprising. Throughout, the book assesses how criminal legal practice used violence strategically, administering horrific punishments in some cases and in others accommodating with local communities and popular concepts of justice.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 506p.

Criminally Queer: Homosexuality and Criminal Law in Scandinavia 1842-1999

Edited by Jens Rydström and Kati Mustola

This book provides a coherent history of criminal law and homosexuality in Scandinavia 1842-1999, a period during which same-sex love was outlawed or subject to more or less severe legal restrictions in the Scandinavian penal codes. This was the case in most countries in Northern Europe, but the book argues that the development in Scandinavia was different, partly determined by the structure of the welfare state. Five of the most experienced scholars of the history of homosexuality in the region (Jens Rydström, Kati Mustola, Wilhelm von Rosen, Martin Skaug Halsos and Thorgerdur Thorvaldsdóttir) describe how same-sex desire has been regulated in their respective countries during the past 160 years. The authors with their backgrounds in history, sociology, and gender studies represent an interdisciplinary approach to the problem of criminalization of same-sex sexuality. Their contributions, consisting for the most part of previously unpublished material, present for the first time a comprehensive history of homosexuality in Scandinavia. Among other things, it includes the most extensive study yet written in any language about Iceland's gay and lesbian history. Also for the first time, the book discusses in detail same-sex sexuality between women before the law in modern society and presents previously unpublished findings on this topic. Female homosexuality was outlawed in Eastern Scandinavia, but not in the Western parts of this region. It also analyzes the modern tendency to include lesbian women in the criminal discourse as an effect of the medicalization of homosexuality and the growing influence of medical discourse on the law.

Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, 2007. 312p.

Fentanyl Availability on Darknet Markets

By Roderic Broadhurst, Matthew Ball and Harshit Trivedi

A snapshot of the sale of fentanyl and its analogues across several popular darknet markets between 2 January and 27 March 2019 reveals the amount, types and physical forms available. Of the 127,541 unique drug listings identified, 13,135 were opioids (10.3% of all drugs), of which 1,118 (0.876% of all drugs) were fentanyl or its analogues. Between 27.3 and 39.3 kilograms of fentanyl and its derivatives were available over the period. The average price of fentanyl was A$99 per gram, while carfentanil was A$26.8 per gram. The shipping methods, cross-market operations and product specialisation of the 303 active fentanyl vendors on these darknet markets are also described.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 14p.

Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking: Final Report

By United States and Rand Corporation

The Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking, established under Section 7221 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, was charged with examining aspects of the synthetic opioid threat to the United States—specifically, with developing a consensus on a strategic approach to combating the illegal flow of synthetic opioids into the United States. This final report describes items involving the illegal manufacturing and trafficking of synthetic opioids, as well as the deficiencies in countering their production and distribution, and includes action items directed to appropriate executive branch agencies and congressional committees and leadership. Get appendices to the report.

Rand, 2022. 148p.