Anne Dölemeyer
Editorial, 1-3
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Uwe Luebken
Die Natur der Gefahr. Zur Geschichte der Überschwemmungsversicherung in Deutschland und den USA, 4-20
Two related arguments are developed in this paper. First of all, it is shown that theoretical work on the governance of security could benefit a great deal from the current literature on law and geography and law and space. Secondly, this article also argues that the analytical resources of ‘scale’ should be supplemented by insights derived from analyzing the workings of jurisdiction. Jurisdiction does not merely distinguish who governs: it also distributes governance in terms of governing capacities, objects of governance, and modes of governance. Using the ‘police power of the state’, with its typically urban scale, as the main example, the article shows that unpacking ‘jurisdiction’ can enrich the legal geographers’existing critiques of scale.
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Sabine Müller
Regen, Erdbeben und Klimawandel.
Die Katastrophe der unrechtmäßigen Herrschaft in antiker literarischer Tradition, 57-72
This paper explores the political interpretation of natural disasters in ancient literary tradition. Regarded as divine signs or punishments, a natural phenomenon or disaster is often connected to illegitimate rule. Specifically, the paper will examine the connection between natural disasters and political changes in ancient literature. It will be argued that descriptions of natural disasters often serve either to emphasize or to hide violations of political tradition or continuity of power.
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Reviews
73-84
Werner Schiffauer: Parallelgesellschaften. Wie viel Wertekonsens braucht unsere Gesellschaft? Für eine kluge Politik der Differenz. Bielefeld: transcript 2008. (Elena Buck)
Gérard Bouchard/Charles Taylor (Ed.): Building the Future. A Time for Reconciliation; Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles. Québec: 2008. (Daniel Schmidt)
Paul du Gay: Organizing Identity. Persons and Organizations
‘After Theory’. London: Sage Publications 2007. (Susanna Karawanskij)
Christoph Kucklick: Das Unmoralische Geschlecht. Zur Geburt der negativen Andrologie. Frankfurt a.M.: Edition Suhrkamp 2008. (Rebecca Pates)
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James K. Mitchell
Including the capacity for coping with surprises in post-disaster recovery policies.
Reflections on the experience of Tangshan, China, 21-38
Surprises are characteristic features of many disasters that pose major challenges to theorists as well as practitioners. When surprises occur during the recovery stage of disasters, they can complicate efforts to reestablish order, by introducing new variables that demand attention from societies that are already hardpressed to adjust to a problem-laden environment. The case of Tangshan, China stands as an example of an economic development surprise that permitted decision-makers greater than anticipated latitude to reset and attain post-disaster policy goals.
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Martin Voss
The vulnerable can't speak. An integrative vulnerability approach to disaster and climate change research, 39-71
This article discusses a vulnerability approach to disaster research and research on climate change adaptation.
As an integrated approach, it claims to consider social, economic and ecological factors. A hypothesis is debated in which the vulnerability of a reference unit (humans, community, ecosystem, etc.) is highly dependent on the degree of influence the unit can exert on its relevant conditions for subsistence. The ability to influence theses conditions depends, to a large extent, on discursive factors. To emphasise this special determinant of vulnerability, the term “participative capacity” is proposed.
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