Towards a Critical Geography of Gambling Spaces: The Australian Experience

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Young
Keyword(s):  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Critical Geography ◽  
Community Benefit ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
Australian Experience ◽  
Gaming Machines

I attempt to develop a critical geography of gambling in Australia with particular reference to the proliferation of electronic gaming machines (EGMs), the Australian variant of the Vegas-style ‘slot-machine’, devices that have infiltrated nearly all settlements in the country over the past two decades. As a starting point, I borrow from David Harvey's analysis of the dual logics of power within ‘capitalist imperialism’ to reveal the dialectical relations between the state and capital that have been responsible for the mass-production of local EGM spaces of consumption. I develop the argument that EGM gambling, through its reproduction of bounded spaces, represents a new wave of global capital accumulation where local citizens are reconstituted according to the imperative of global aleatory consumption. The overlay of the postmodern on the logic of capital accumulation amounts to a stunningly efficient form of exploitation where consumption has been reduced to the pure cash nexus. A new set of dependencies has emerged in that the state, social service sector, and gambling industry have become terminally reliant on the most disadvantaged members of society to resolve their internal contradictions. Thus, there exists a continued need for capital and the state to resolve the contradictions between the consumer and citizen, modern and postmodern, leisure and harm, private sector income and public service provision, local markets and global products, individual harm and community benefit. Given this dialectical relationship between state and industry, and the level of dependency its development has engendered, we may expect the continued expansion of EGM gambling spaces as long as capital accumulation is the key goal in the neoliberal economy of Australia.

The Constitutional Principle of Accountability: A Study of Contemporary South African Case Law

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuks Okpaluba
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Review ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Case Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Constitutional Principle ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Law ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
The Many

‘Accountability’ is one of the democratic values entrenched in the Constitution of South Africa, 1996. It is a value recognised throughout the Constitution and imposed upon the law-making organs of state, the Executive, the Judiciary and all public functionaries. This constitutional imperative is given pride of place among the other founding values: equality before the law, the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution. This study therefore sets out to investigate how the courts have grappled with the interpretation and application of the principle of accountability, the starting point being the relationship between accountability and judicial review. Therefore, in the exercise of its judicial review power, a court may enquire whether the failure of a public functionary to comply with a constitutional duty of accountability renders the decision made illegal, irrational or unreasonable. One of the many facets of the principle of accountability upon which this article dwells is to ascertain how the courts have deployed that expression in making the state and its agencies liable for the delictual wrongs committed against an individual in vindication of a breach of the individual’s constitutional right in the course of performing a public duty. Here, accountability and breach of public duty; the liability of the state for detaining illegal immigrants contrary to the prescripts of the law; the vicarious liability of the state for the criminal acts of the police and other law-enforcement officers (as in police rape cases and misuse of official firearms by police officers), and the liability of the state for delictual conduct in the context of public procurement are discussed. Having carefully analysed the available case law, this article concludes that no public functionary can brush aside the duty of accountability wherever it is imposed without being in breach of a vital constitutional mandate. Further, it is the constitutional duty of the courts, when called upon, to declare such act or conduct an infringement of the Constitution.

OWNERSHIP IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA AND THE STATE AS THE HOLDER OF THE PROPERTY RIGHT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION IN 1991

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 1993-2005
Author(s):  
Shemsije Demiri ◽  
Rudina Kaja
Keyword(s):  
Legal Aspect ◽  
State Ownership ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
State Function ◽  
Dominant Form ◽  
Republic Of Macedonia ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Republic

This paper deals with the right to property in general terms from its source in Roman law, which is the starting point for all subsequent legal systems. As a result of this, the acquisition of property rights is handled from the historical point of view, with the inclusion of various local and international literature and studies, as well as the legal aspect devoted to the respective civil codes of the states cited in the paper.Due to such socio-economic developments, state ownership and its ownership function have changed. The state function as owner of property also changed in Macedonia's property law.The new constitutional sequence of the Republic of Macedonia since 1991 became privately owned as a dominant form of ownership, however, state ownership also exists.This process of transforming social property into state or private (dissolves), in Macedonia starts from Yugoslavia through privatization, return and denationalization measures, on which basis laws on privatization have been adopted. Because of this, there will be particularly intensive negotiations regaring the remaining state assets.

Unresolved Issues of Partition Politics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Udayon Misra
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
National Register ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Challenges

The concluding chapter takes up what it sees to be some of the major unresolved issues of Partition politics. While it tries to trace the roots of the violence centred around land in several areas of Assam, especially in the Bodo-inhabited region, it shows how issues such as the controversy over the cut-off year for immigrants to acquire citizenship are carry-overs from Partition days. Other major issues that are discussed include the status of Hindu refugees/displaced persons in the state, the National Register of Citizens, and the larger question of language and Assamese identity. It shows how with the new wave of immigrants being assimilated into the Assamese nationality, its transformation is underway and how this transformation itself throws up new challenges and equations.

The State as an Actor

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Menz
Keyword(s):  
Service Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regulatory Capture ◽  
Banking Institutions ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Central Actor ◽  
Capitalist State ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Rules Of The Game

Despite the state being such a central actor in establishing and policing the rules of the game of any given political economy, its role is often neglected. In this chapter, we briefly review relevant state theories and explore changes to the nature and appearance of the capitalist state. The awesome increase in the political fire power of the financial service sector has unfortunately led to regulatory capture. The state can no longer be considered a neutral umpire, being heavily influenced by the prerogatives of major banking institutions. This state of affairs corrupts the hopes that liberals place in the self-policing powers of the marketplace and reflects certain fears on the political left regarding the pernicious effects of ‘financialization’.

Capital Switching and the Role of Ground Rent: 1 Theoretical Problems

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
R J King
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Housing Market ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Rent Extraction ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Speculative Investment ◽  
Capital Switching

The flow of both productive and speculative investment into housing relates to the state of capital accumulation in other economic sectors, as hypothesised in the ‘circuits of capital’ argument, but it also relates to the incentive to ‘switch’ investment into and out of housing, and therefore to expectations of ground rent and the (changing) social conditions that enable ground rent extraction. This is the first of three papers in which the relationships involved in these processes are explored. A series of theoretical problems arising from the argument are dealt with, principally relating to its seeming economic determinism and to an inappropriately narrow treatment of crisis and social change. In the subsequent papers, in this journal, these various ideas will be used to reflect on housing market and related social change in Melbourne from the 1930s to the 1980s.

Leviathan on a Leash

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Fleming
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World

States are commonly blamed for wars, called on to apologize, held liable for debts and reparations, bound by treaties, and punished with sanctions. But what does it mean to hold a state responsible as opposed to a government, a nation, or an individual leader? Under what circumstances should we assign responsibility to states rather than individuals? This book demystifies the phenomenon of state responsibility and explains why it is a challenging yet indispensable part of modern politics. Taking Thomas Hobbes' theory of the state as a starting point, the book presents a theory of state responsibility that sheds new light on sovereign debt, historical reparations, treaty obligations, and economic sanctions. Along the way, it overturns longstanding interpretations of Hobbes' political thought, explores how new technologies will alter the practice of state responsibility as we know it, and develops new accounts of political authority, representation, and legitimacy. The book argues that Hobbes' idea of the state offers a far richer and more realistic conception of state responsibility than the theories prevalent today and demonstrates that Hobbes' Leviathan is much more than an anthropomorphic “artificial man.” The book is essential reading for political theorists, scholars of international relations, international lawyers, and philosophers. It recovers a forgotten understanding of state personality in Hobbes' thought and shows how to apply it to the world of imperfect states in which we live.

IT for Peace? Fighting Against Terrorism in Social Media – An Explorative Twitter Study

i-com ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Reuter ◽  
Katja Pätsch ◽  
Elena Runft
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
The Internet ◽  
New Members ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Media

AbstractThe Internet and especially social media are not only used for supposedly good purposes. For example, the recruitment of new members and the dissemination of ideologies of terrorism also takes place in the media. However, the fight against terrorism also makes use of the same tools. The type of these countermeasures, as well as the methods, are covered in this work. In the first part, the state of the art is summarized. The second part presents an explorative empirical study of the fight against terrorism in social media, especially on Twitter. Different, preferably characteristic forms are structured within the scope with the example of Twitter. The aim of this work is to approach this highly relevant subject with the goal of peace, safety and safety from the perspective of information systems. Moreover, it should serve following researches in this field as basis and starting point.

scholarly journals Global Capital, the State, and Chinese Workers: The Foxconn Experience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pun Ngai ◽  
Jenny Chan
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Frontline Workers ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Work Pressure ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Chinese Workers ◽  
Technology Group ◽  
The One

In 2010, a startling 18 young migrant workers attempted suicide at Foxconn Technology Group production facilities in China. This article looks into the development of the Foxconn Corporation to understand the advent of capital expansion and its impact on frontline workers’ lives in China. It also provides an account of how the state facilitates Foxconn’s production expansion as a form of monopoly capital. Foxconn stands out as a new phenomenon of capital expansion because of the incomparable speed and scale of its capital accumulation in all regions of China. This article explores how the workers at Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, have been subjected to work pressure and desperation that might lead to suicides on the one hand but also open up daily and collective resistance on the other hand.

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