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This article examines systemic rivalry between Indonesian criminal justice agencies, highlighting the inherent conflicts that arise when institutional actors with distinct values and priorities interact. It argues that analysing these conflicts reveals underlying power dynamics that hinder the system’s effectiveness. Indonesia serves as a compelling case study for analysing inter-agency conflict, where the source of conflict transcends procedural differences and stems from a power struggle driven by institutional self-preservation. Utilizing interviews, court decisions, media reports, and legislative analysis, this article delves into the power struggle between the police, prosecutors, and the anti-corruption agency (KPK). The analysis reveals the police to be at the centre of this conflict, resisting reforms that threaten their institutional survival. This article then argues that substantial reform of Indonesia’s criminal justice system would be difficult to achieve, as such rivalry is driven by patronage politics both within and outside the institution.
In England, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) serogroup O26 has recently emerged as a public health concern, despite fewer than half of diagnostic laboratories in England having the capability to detect non-O157 STEC. STEC O26 cases frequently report exposure to farms or nurseries. We describe the epidemiology of STEC O26 and examine evidence for a relationship between O26 and exposure to these settings. We analysed national surveillance data describing laboratory-confirmed STEC cases and public health incidents over the past 10 years to explore the incidence, clinical outcomes, and association with farms and nurseries for STEC O26 cases compared to STEC O157 and other serogroups. Between 2014 and 2023, the proportion of STEC notifications which were STEC O26 increased from 2% (19/956) to 12% (234/1946). After adjusting for age, we found no difference in the likelihood of farm or nursery attendance between O26 and O157 cases but a significantly higher risk of HUS in O26 (adjusted risk ratio 3.13 (2.18–4.51)). We demonstrate that STEC O26 is associated with the same risk of farm or nursery attendance as other STEC serogroups but a higher risk of severe morbidity. Our findings reinforce the need for improved surveillance of non-O157 STEC.
Acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI) remains a significant public health issue and differences in risk based on a comprehensive set of sociodemographic characteristics remain poorly understood. Thus, this retrospective cohort study was conducted to identify the risk of incurring an AGI-related emergency department (ED) visit or inpatient hospitalization based on various sociodemographic factors. Linked respondents of Canadian Community Health Survey cycles 2.1, 3.1, and 2007–2015 were followed from their interview date until 31 December 2017, using the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) and the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD) to capture emergency ED visits and hospitalizations due to AGI, respectively. Effects of identified potential risk factors for the incidence of AGI-related ED visits or hospitalizations were estimated Cox proportional hazards regression to generate hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). A total of 190,700 respondents were linked to NACRS and 470,700 were linked to DAD. Six per cent of respondents visited an ED and 2% were hospitalized for AGI. Fully-adjusted estimates revealed that high-risk groups with the strongest effects were people with poor self-perceived health (ED visits: HR 1.47 (95% CI 1.40–1.54), hospitalizations: HR 1.92 (95% CI 1.82–2.02)), and people living with at least one chronic condition (ED visits: HR 1.54 (95% CI 1.47–1.61), hospitalizations: HR 1.65 (95% CI 1.57–1.73)). This study identified risk factors for requiring hospital care for AGI in the Canadian context. Additional research is needed to investigate mechanisms for differential exposure to pathogens by sociodemographic characteristics that might lead to increased risks of AGI.
Did the surge work? The surge had a major impact on the military situation, reversing the Taliban’s momentum and rapidly growing the Afghan army. Yet it seems equally clear that, by the beginning of the withdrawal in July 2011 – or even by the transition in 2014 – Afghan governance had not improved enough and there was no self-sustaining psychological dynamic of growing optimism and confidence. Importantly, the military surge cannot be evaluated apart from either the civilian surge or the withdrawal timetable because they were components of a single strategy. The civilian surge largely failed, replicating many of the same problems the Bush administration had seen when it tried to ramp up assistance for governance and reconstruction. But even more consequentially, the timetable – the most distinctive aspect of the Obama administration’s war – drove so much of the implementation and the decision-making as to become the controlling dynamic of the war. Together, the timetable and the civilian failure squandered whatever military gains the surge accomplished. By 2011, the insurgency had lost momentum, but the Afghan government was no closer to victory.
In recent times, the effects of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and other natural disasters have undermined global efforts to reduce poverty and inequality among rural farmers. While efforts at mitigating the impacts of climate change, particularly in developing countries, have not yielded significant improvements, the global health crises of the COVID-19 pandemic have, in many ways, undermined the positive adaptations to climate change. Based on data produced through mixed methods, the paper explores how COVID-19 affected farmers’ ability to adapt to the changing climatic conditions in Ghana’s Coastal and Guinea savannah ecological zones. The paper argues that the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has undermined farmers’ access to markets, knowledge, innovations, technologies and critical inputs such as fertilisers, seeds and weedicides/herbicides/pesticides. This has decreased farm output, increased post-harvest loss and increased farmers’ vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change.
The case for more aid to Afghanistan slowly gained ground from late 2002. The Accelerating Success initiative, coupled with the Bonn Process and a new Afghan Constitution, began to move reconstruction efforts in the right direction. A new reconciliation program recognized the need for a settlement with the Taliban. But enduring challenges from recalcitrant warlords, international donors, inflexible diplomacy, and a sclerotic bureaucracy counteracted whatever progress was achieved from 2003 to 2005.
This article argues that environmental justice extends beyond planning and decision-making to include enforcement as a critical, yet often overlooked, dimension. It advances the claim that incorporating environmental justice into enforcement law and policy is essential for addressing structural inequalities and promoting accountability in environmental governance. The primary objective of the article is to identify environmental justice guidelines embedded in enforcement frameworks, with the aim of strengthening the role of justice in regulatory practice and enhancing the equity and effectiveness of enforcement outcomes. The analysis focuses on three enforcement tools that reflect a flexible and responsive approach: (i) the United States’ Supplemental Environmental Projects, (ii) the United Kingdom’s Environmental Enforcement Undertakings, and (iii) Chile’s Compliance Programmes. The article draws on three sources of data: case studies, the environmental justice guidelines applicable to them, and the existing state of enforcement. It begins by examining the regulatory design of enforcement systems in the three jurisdictions; it then analyzes each tool to identify how environmental justice dimensions are integrated – or could be integrated – into their design and implementation. Finally, it assesses the practical application of these instruments, arguing that the deliberate incorporation of environmental justice considerations can improve the responsiveness, transparency, and legitimacy of enforcement mechanisms, which ultimately benefits both the environment and affected communities.
This article examines diasporic Iranian responses to protests sparked by the death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini in September 2022. While Amini’s death galvanized widespread dissent inside Iran, it also spurred diasporic Iranian solidarity, often expressed through the call to “be the voice” of Iranian protestors. I analyze two key practices of diasporic narration: first, framing the Woman, Life, Freedom protests as a “revolution” in social media discourse; and second, the circulation of nostalgic video montages idealizing pre-1979 Iran as a lost era of political freedom. Together, these practices reveal how diasporic narratives may dilute protest demands by fitting them into revisionist frameworks. The conclusion reflects on both the potential and limits of diaspora narration in shaping political memory and understanding.
In much of its history from the nineteenth century to the last decade of the twentieth, comparative literature remained largely Eurocentric, and surveys or histories of the world’s literatures were mostly written by Western scholars from a West-centred perspective. Literature: A World History (LAWH) took the first step in writing a history of literature of the world from a non-Eurocentric point of view by having the voices of the world’s different traditions heard and by distributing the proper space to macro-regions more equally than ever before. That is the most significant contribution this long and arduous project made for a better understanding of the world’s literatures.
In this article, we address the role that European bordering and migration policy play in the broader construction of the European project by defining who does and does not belong in Europe. This question, and the policy answers to it, are shaped by a variety of different political and economic interests and factors, such as racialized narratives of border protection, labor market needs, and the securitization of borders. We tackle this question by examining the role that categories and figures of migration—such as the “genuine” and “bogus” asylum seeker, the refugee, and the economic migrant—play in European border policy and how they are changing in the present conjuncture. We argue that a redefinition is taking place of who counts as a “good” and “bad” migrant, which responds to the changing political economy of contemporary European capitalism and is reflected in the growing prominence of the dichotomy of “legal” and “illegal” migration. This, we argue, reconfigures the existing categories of economic migrant and asylum seeker and speaks to the emergence of new forms of racialized disposability at Europe’s borders. We do this by developing a critical political economy perspective that builds on our previous work and draws on the literature on racial capitalism and the concept of disposability.
The 2009 strategy review resulted in the most consequential decisions of the war. While scholars and historians have typically focused on the surge of 30,000 additional troops, the administration’s strategy was not simply to add more troops. Obama rejected the logic that to defeat al-Qaida required defeating the Taliban and made an explicit decision not to seek the Taliban’s defeat – but he also chose to escalate the war against them anyway. Instead, Obama adopted a vague goal of “reversing their momentum,” while training Afghan security forces. That was muddled enough, but he undermined even those goals by adopting a public withdrawal timetable for US troops and failing to coordinate the surge with reconstruction and diplomatic efforts. Coupled with internal miscommunications, tensions with the military, and a growing attitude of pessimism, the changes introduced in the December 2009 strategy hamstrung the surge and set the course for the rest of Obama’s presidency.
The experiences of Latina women and girls with state surveillance, and their responses to unfair policies and practices, remain underexplored. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Latinas—primarily of Mexican descent—living in San Diego, we examine how encounters with local police and immigration enforcement shape their political practices. Participants described repeated negative encounters with police and immigration enforcement agencies over the life course. These cumulative experiences fostered distrust of police and critical views of surveillance practices designed to restrict the mobility of immigrants and other systematically minoritized groups. In response, many of the women engaged in community organizing and adopted counter-surveillance strategies. Our findings show how patterned experiences with state surveillance generate political critique and action.
Agricultural intensification has profoundly transformed Europe’s landscapes, driving widespread declines in farmland bird populations. Among the most pressing threats is the loss of meadows, either through conversion to arable land as a result of intensification, or through agropastoral abandonment leading to shrub encroachment. Although farmland bird populations in Central and Eastern Europe have historically declined more slowly than in other regions, recent evidence shows that even once-common species are now in decline. This highlights the urgent need to quantify these trends and identify their underlying drivers. In this study, we investigate habitat preferences and factors underlying the severe, over 30-year decline of Red-backed Shrike Lanius collurio, an iconic farmland species and key bioindicator of grassland biodiversity. Our research focused on a 440-ha alluvial floodplain in Slovenia’s Sub-Pannonian region, a site considered a national stronghold for the species. Territory surveys were conducted intermittently from 1992 to 2025, with detailed habitat mapping available from 2004 to 2022. Consistent with previous studies, our results indicated that breeding Red-backed Shrikes primarily occupied ecotonal habitats marked by extensive meadow cover, moderate shrub density, and high habitat heterogeneity. Alarmingly, between 1992 and 2025, the population declined by 92.44%, decreasing from 172 territories to just 13. The steep decline observed was likely driven by agricultural intensification, persisting under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), with conversion of meadows into arable land and the loss of traditional management leading to shrub encroachment. The latter emerged as the strongest predictor of population decline in the most recent years. Our findings emphasise the urgent need to protect, manage, and restore meadows to prevent further biodiversity loss. Considering the relatively better historical status of farmland bird populations in Central and Eastern Europe compared with their Western European counterparts, this worrying trend indicates that similar declines are likely widespread, highlighting the need for immediate research and targeted conservation efforts.
This article examines the lived experiences of multiculturalism among the Indonesian migrant women living in South Korea through the lens of ‘everyday otherness’. The process experienced in this context is seen as part of a broader development of Korean multiculturalism. The article investigates how cultural encounters are perceived, interpreted, and negotiated by Indonesian migrant women. Drawing from qualitative research that dealt with migration narratives, the study aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion on Korean multiculturalism and identify areas for improvement. It argues that everyday otherness practices in Korea have become subtler, more nuanced, and multi-layered. It reveals that while everyday multicultural practices in Korea have become more welcoming the presence of foreigners, the daily experience of racism and otherness continues, and is even more confounding.