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Book part
Publication date: 19 October 2016

Michael Watts

Using the case of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, I argue that the catastrophe was less an example of a low probability-high catastrophe event than an…

Abstract

Using the case of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, I argue that the catastrophe was less an example of a low probability-high catastrophe event than an instance of socially produced risks and insecurities associated with deepwater oil and gas production during the neoliberal period after 1980. The disaster exposes the deadly intersection of the aggressive enclosure of a new technologically risky resource frontier (the deepwater continental shelf) with what I call a frontier of neoliberalized risk, a lethal product of cut-throat corporate cost-cutting, the collapse of government oversight and regulatory authority and the deepening financialization and securitization of the oil market. These two local pockets of socially produced risk and wrecklessness have come to exceed the capabilities of what passes as risk management and energy security. In this sense, the Deepwater Horizon disaster was produced by a set of structural conditions, a sort of rogue capitalism, not unlike those which precipitated the financial meltdown of 2008. The forms of accumulation unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico over three decades rendered a high-risk enterprise yet more risky, all the while accumulating insecurities and radical uncertainties which made the likelihood of a Deepwater Horizon type disaster highly overdetermined.

Details

Risking Capitalism
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-235-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 September 2021

Robert J. Lake

Of all the major, global professional sports where women have made inroads, striving toward equality in terms of status, earnings and media attention, tennis stands at the…

Abstract

Of all the major, global professional sports where women have made inroads, striving toward equality in terms of status, earnings and media attention, tennis stands at the forefront. This chapter traces this historical development, outlining the sport's earliest socio-cultural features that afforded the inclusion of female players and charting the progress of notable women who thrust tennis into the limelight and turned themselves into commodities – the essence of professionalisation. Suzanne Lenglen blazed the trail by becoming, in 1926, the principal attraction in the sport's inaugural professional tour. Female players were encouraged to cast aside the shackles of restrained femininity and chart their own courses in a sport still dominated by men and played according to male standards. The rise of ‘Open Tennis’ in 1968 removed the playing restrictions and stigma of professionalism, but by opening up to the male-dominated corporate world, unsurprisingly it was the male players who initially competed for the lion's share of new money. Billie Jean King's efforts to galvanise her fellow female professionals to compete on a rogue tour sponsored by Virginia Slims left them ousted by the sport's main officials, but the tour's commercial success propelled them toward equality in terms of prize money and status. Still more or less a white, middle-class-dominated pursuit, the arrival of Venus and Serena Williams in the late 1990s turned tennis toward new markets, and the sport's significance for women remains apparent in the fact that its leading players are the most recognisable and well-paid of all professional female athletes.

Details

The Professionalisation of Women’s Sport
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-196-6

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Book part
Publication date: 22 May 2015

Robert Smith and Gerard McElwee

To explore and document the emerging international market for stolen tractors and plant in the United Kingdom. Whilst this may appear to be a criminological problem relating…

Abstract

Purpose

To explore and document the emerging international market for stolen tractors and plant in the United Kingdom. Whilst this may appear to be a criminological problem relating specifically to rural crime, it is a sophisticated international criminal business organised by traditional organised crime groups (OCGs) such as the Italian, Polish and Turkish Mafia’s in conjunction with a network of criminal entrepreneurs.

Methodology/approach

Using annual statistical data provided by National Farmers Union (NFU) Mutual and Plant and Agricultural National Intelligence Unit (PANIU) and other material sourced using documentary research techniques supplemented by qualitative interviews with industry specialists we present 10 micro-case studies of rural OCGs engaged in this lucrative enterprise crime. The data is verified and authenticated using narrative inquiry techniques.

Findings

There is an entrepreneurial dimension to the crime because traditional criminal families with knowledge of rural areas and rural social capital form alliances with OCGs. The practical utility of the NFU model of entrepreneurial alliances with interested parties including the police is highlighted.

Research limitations/implications

Implications for research design, ethics and the conduct of such research which are identified and discussed. These include the need to develop an investigative framework to protect academic researchers similar to guidelines in place to protect investigative journalists.

Practical implications

An investigative framework and the adaption of the business model canvass (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) to cover illegal business models are proposed.

Social implications

Suggestions are provided for the need to legislate against international criminal conspiracies.

Originality/value

Uses a mixture of entrepreneurship and criminological theories to help develop an understanding of the problem from an investigative perspective.

Details

Exploring Criminal and Illegal Enterprise: New Perspectives on Research, Policy & Practice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-551-8

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Book part
Publication date: 1 June 2004

John D Blair, Robert K Keel, Timothy W Nix and K.Wade Vlosich

When modeling environmental jolts from terrorist attacks, various aspects should be analyzed in order to properly present an accurate configuration. The following article…

Abstract

When modeling environmental jolts from terrorist attacks, various aspects should be analyzed in order to properly present an accurate configuration. The following article discusses how asymmetrical warfare has an impact on the outcomes of a terrorist attack. The several dimensions of terrorist attacks can be extracted to deduce the ways that asymmetrical warfare can damage the health care system. The article will relate real life terrorist attacks and hypothetical scenarios to better inform the reader about the weak attacking the strong, and then explain how this relates to health care providers.

Details

Bioterrorism Preparedness, Attack and Response
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-268-9

Book part
Publication date: 24 November 2022

Cain Miller

The vigilante subgenre represents one of the more problematic trends in American action cinema, as it inherently boasts reactionary sentiments through the promotion of violence as…

Abstract

The vigilante subgenre represents one of the more problematic trends in American action cinema, as it inherently boasts reactionary sentiments through the promotion of violence as an adequate means of asserting one's masculinity. As will be argued in this chapter, American vigilante films can be categorised into three distinct historical waves: the 1970s, the 2000s and the 2010s. The products of each wave present themes of masculinity relevant to their respective cultural period, specifically, anti-counterculture sentiments, post-9/11 anxieties and a growing cultural awareness of toxic masculinity. The third wave of vigilante films is particularly noteworthy in that it correlates with the prospective emergence of metamodernism, a cultural movement that, in contrast to postmodernism's use of apathy as response to trauma, opts for a cautiously optimistic return to metanarratives. Consequently, third wave vigilante films provide more deconstructive portrayals of vigilante figures through metamodernism's oscillation between irony and optimism. This chapter will outline the history of these three waves of vigilante cinema and provide textual analysis of Blue Ruin (2013) and You Were Never Really Here (2017), two third wave films that demonstrate self-reflexive portrayals of vigilante violence in correlation with metamodern masculinity. The results of these analyses indicate that vigilante films, and perhaps American action cinema in its entirety, are moving towards narratives that seek to challenge the more reactionary sentiments of films from years prior.

Details

Gender and Action Films 2000 and Beyond
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-518-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 6 April 2023

Samantha Joy Cheesman

Purpose – This chapter examines how the response to the pandemic will have an impact for many years on rule of law mechanisms and human rights within Hungary.Methodology/Approach

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter examines how the response to the pandemic will have an impact for many years on rule of law mechanisms and human rights within Hungary.

Methodology/Approach – The arguments put forward in this chapter are supported by analysis of key legislation both domestic and international concentrating on how the concept of rule of law has been redefined. This analysis is conducted by focusing on the Hungarian legislation, Fundamental Law, and key sources engaging in the analysis of the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on reshaping the legal landscape.

Findings – In the unprecedented times of a global pandemic it is important to reflect on how the Governments of the world responded to the immediate danger and what ramifications those changes will have as the pandemic unfolds over the coming years. This raises questions regarding the European political landscape and how the cause of the rule of law can be furthered. This chapter argues that the rule of law project of the European Union (EU) as set out in Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) has been circumvented by several rogue states. The European parliament now is finding new ways to engage with and curtail “rogue” Member States which, according to them, step out of line.

Originality/Value – The current research contributes to the ongoing dialogue about the tension that the COVID-19 pandemic had on global legal frameworks. Of particular interest is how the EU and its institutions are uniquely placed to act as an external guarantor of the rule of law. However, this relationship has been tested by Member States, in particular Hungary, with its use of emergency measures. This chapter compliments the body of academic work by analyzing how Hungary has reached the position it is in today and what could be done to bring it back within the ethos of Article 2’s common values of the Member States.

Details

Crime and Social Control in Pandemic Times
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-279-2

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Abstract

Details

Challenges to US and Mexican Police and Tourism Stability
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-405-5

Abstract

Details

Corporate Fraud Exposed
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78973-418-8

Book part
Publication date: 20 August 2020

Solveiga Zibaite

The death-positive movement can be described as a de-centralised contemporary social movement originating and operating predominantly in the global West, specifically the United…

Abstract

The death-positive movement can be described as a de-centralised contemporary social movement originating and operating predominantly in the global West, specifically the United States, connecting death workers, educators, artists, journalists, etc., and geared towards encouraging open dialogue about death and dying. It has succeeded in capturing significant media attention over the last few years and is largely driven by its strong social media presence. This chapter looks at ‘playfulness’ within the death-positive movement. Examining the dimension of ‘playfulness’ addresses the affective aspect of communication that in this movement is inseparable from the message. First, the author investigates the aesthetics of representation through death-positive merchandise, produced and advertised by The Order of the Good Death’s (subsequently – The Order) core members. Second, the author considers some of the cultural output produced under the umbrella of death-positivity, but not by the core movement members, specifically taking the first video game to be explicitly marketed as death-positive – A Mortician’s Tale (Laundry Bear Games, 2017) as a case study. Finally, the author analyses the role of entertainment value in the movement’s leaders’ discourse on death, taking leader of The Order Caitlin Doughty’s playful rhetoric on her YouTube channel, Twitter profile, and Instagram pages. The manifesto, found on the movement’s official website (http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/) encourages its participants to break the ‘culture of silence’ around death, indicating that the whole premise of the movement is based on the supposed presence of death denial in Western countries. Ultimately, the author argues that by eliciting playfulness, this challenge to the social climate becomes a somewhat jovial and enjoyable endeavour and generates response from outside the movement.

Details

Death, Culture & Leisure: Playing Dead
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-037-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 21 November 2022

Linda Evans

Drawing upon the findings from three related research projects focused on academic leadership provided by university professors, in this chapter a leadership-sceptic lens is…

Abstract

Drawing upon the findings from three related research projects focused on academic leadership provided by university professors, in this chapter a leadership-sceptic lens is applied to the examination of the concepts of, first, leadership, and second, academic leadership. Discussion then focuses on the ways in which their perceptions of their leadership roles were found to influence how professors carried out their work, and with what effect(s). The key challenge is to persuade senior managers to remove their blinkers so that they may then see leadership not primarily as embodied in a person, but as influential agency that may – and does – occur in a myriad of ways, many of which go unnoticed and unrecognised, and are difficult to monitor and assess through formal performativity mechanisms.

Details

International Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-305-5

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