Matters of the State
Addressing Eating Habits of Food Desert Residents: The Relevance of a Systems Approach Based on Principles of Design Thinking
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Terrence Thomas
Food deserts are low income neighborhoods where nutritious foods are unavailable. These communities have disproportionately higher rates of obesity and other chronic diseases associated with an unhealthy diet. This study sets out to describe the shopping behavior and the food-related lifestyle of food desert residents and their impact on the food related behavior of these residents. Results from two studies we conducted indicate that the lack of access to healthy foods in food desert communities play only a limited role in determining the eating habits of residents. In the first study, data were collected from a random sample of 325 residents via a telephone survey. In the second study, data were collected from 120 residents `using a telephone survey of a purposeful sample and a face-to-face interview of a convenience sample. The data from the first study indicate that residents do most of their shopping where they have access to healthy foods and not at the convenience stores in their communities that offer mostly unhealthy foods. Data from our second study suggest that residents’ food-related lifestyle influence their food-related behavior, which explains why residents of food desert communities still make unhealthy food choices even though they have access to healthy ones. This work suggests that applying a systems approach that combines data about the food environment, the psychometric character of residents, and a “design thinking” approach increases the likelihood of improving dietary behaviors. This combination may prove useful for addressing eating habits and related dietary diseases in a global context.
Citizenship without the State: Anarchist Models of Citizenship
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brian Smith
Since the late twentieth century, scholars across disciplines have been theorizing about a crisis of citizenship. It is routinely argued that trends in globalization are undermining the conventional features of political membership, namely, its spacial, political, and cultural dimensions. This crisis of citizenship discourse parallels with a renewed interest in anarchist theory. In recent years there has been a proliferation of scholarship on anarchism's supplementary role with regard to new social movements and anti-globalization activism. What is less appreciated in this literature is the degree to which anarchist theorists not only anticipated the crisis of citizenship but that they have been positing alternative modes of citizenship, variations of what is commonly called active citizenship. This paper outlines some of these trends and it seeks to illustrate what contemporary expressions of anarchist citizenship look like by way of the activist communes that emerged in Russia after the Bolotnaya Square protests in 2011.
Policing Democracies: The Different Rationales for Introduction of Body Worn Cameras to Address Police Legitimacy in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Israel, and Uruguay
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Barak Ariel, Donald Papy, Kristin Kissling
The path to introduction of body worn cameras (BWC) by the police in five major democracies, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Israel, and Uruguay has been different, illuminating the different societies as well as the efficacy of the new technology. The nature of the police legitimacy crisis in these five countries illustrates different societal forces: internal social movements; economic responses to national and global exigencies; seeking effective methods for fighting corruption in the police service; or a method of professionalizing the agency. In the UK, a major impetus has been coping with the austerity regime imposed on British departments. In the US, high profile police-citizen incidents such as in Ferguson and Baltimore; as well as constitutional challenges to "stop and frisk" strategies. In Germany, largely because of perceived increases in assaults against police there has been BWC experimentation and implementation. In Israel, calls to implement BWC were borne out of pressures to increase police accountability, and to reduce the use of police violence, particularly with minority groups in deeply divided societies. Finally, Uruguay attempted to modernize and professionalize the conduct of police patrols. The various rationales in these five major democracies shed light on the challenges to police legitimacy in the rapidly changing and globalizing world. The intersectionality as well as the differences between the motivations to endorse this multibillion-dollar industry is discussed.
Resilience Instruments for the Protection of Water Resources
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Francesco Anastasi
The right to water, as a constitutionally protected value and as an essential common good to be guaranteed to every individual, is one of the fundamental problems of the twenty-first century. According to the 2015 edition of the World Water Development of the United Nations, is expected by 2030 a 40% drop in water availability, unless the management and use of this fundamental resource is improved. Water is a fundamental right, and, at the same time, a common good that belongs equally to everyone. Every person has the right to use it for what is necessary to satisfy their needs. In this context, on the basis of the empirical analysis of the exploitation of the resource have emerged the market failures, consisting in a lack of private law in guaranteeing an effective protection of the environment and the defects of a public regulation based on planning. This regulatory framework was not able to favor the introduction of new products or the use of more efficient and rational production techniques, penalizing investments in innovation in the water sector. This research project evaluates how the creation of artificial markets, similarly to what happened in the electricity sector, powered by a request induced by the need to comply with legal obligations on companies and citizens, can generate a mechanism able to grant the efficiency and rationalization of private exploitation of the water resources both industrial and domestic.
