Contents
Volume 22 No. 2, 2007
URBAN GOVERNANCE AND LEGALITY FROM BELOW
Randy
Lippert & Kevin Stenson, Guest Editors
Introduction
Urban Governance and Legality "From Below" 1
Gouvernance urbaine et légalité "d'en bas" 4
INTRODUCTION : Urban Governance and Legality from Below
John
Lea & Kevin Stenson
Security, Sovereignty, and Non-State Governance "From Below"
9
Abstract
Governmentality scholars document the new, pluralistic, post-Keynesian
modes of public governance linking State and non State agencies. This
emphasis on "governance from above" needs to be complemented
by a focus on "governance from below" by non State actors,
especially in urban areas. "Governance from below" may involve
actors ranging from commercial organisations and citizens' initiatives,
to organised crime and paramilitary networks operating as sites beyond
the jurisdiction of sovereign law and public authorities within and
between countries. In both rich and poor countries these may be antagonistic
to but may also become enrolled in forms of public governance. This
paper challenges the view that governance from below fills the vacuum
left by the retreat of the central nation State. Rather, these developments
signify complex forms of re-articulation of relations of governance
from above and below, which may at times strengthen the legal authority
of the central State.
Randy
Lippert
Urban Revitalization, Security, and Knowledge Transfer:
The Case of Broken Windows and Kiddie Bars 29
Abstract
This article investigates a downtown revitalization project in a Canadian
city and the problem it encountered to shed light on neglected aspects
of urban revitalization, security provision, and knowledge transfer.
With a gradual shift to "market friendly" downtown land-use,
Windsor's core underwent expansion of a night-time, youth-oriented,
retail alcohol economy. A security problem with moral dimensions emerged
and was deemed to detrimentally affect police patrol resources, residential
development and living, and retail business. Using governmentality and
Latourian-influenced analytical tools, attention is paid to three interrelated
facets: (1) the role of Windsor's downtown business improvement association
(BIA); (2) the influential movement of a consultant's report through
urban institutions rendered responsible for revitalization; and (3)
resulting measures, including an interim control bylaw and then a zoning
bylaw targeting and redefining a particular type of licensed liquor
establishment called a "kiddie bar." The implications of this
analysis for understanding the role of BIAs, governance "from below,"
and knowledge transfer are discussed.
Nicholas
Blomley
Civil Rights Meet Civil Engineering: Urban Public Space and Traffic
Logic 55
Abstract
The scholarly analysis of public space, despite ideological differences,
has tended to focus on the political and ethical dimensions of public
space, construed as a site for encounters between people. This has been
at the expense of what the author terms the "traffic logic,"
a pervasive administrative view of public space that emphasizes pedestrian
flow and motion, and tends not to discriminate between things and bodies.
The paper illustrates the prevalence and effects of traffic logic with
reference to By-Laws in the city of Vancouver. The author notes its
important consequences through brief discussions of cases involving
public protests and begging. While important, traffic logic's pervasiveness
and bureaucratic commonsensicality render its reach and effects harder
to discern. As a powerful yet mundane form of urban governance, it demands
closer scrutiny.
Jo
Phoenix
Governing Prostitution: New Formations, Old Agendas 73
Abstract
Recent governmentality literature distinguishes between government from
above and government "from below" in an attempt to avoid "top-down"
analyzes of state-centered government and to acknowledge the multiple
and diverse ways in which the governance is achieved. By analyzing key
shifts and changes in the regulation of prostitution in the UK in the
last three decades, it is possible to complicate the distinction between
the two modes of government. Whilst some writers highlight the ways
in which government from above and below become increasingly blurred,
this article argues that although the agendas and modes of government
from above and below are difficult to disentangle, the effects on sex
workers are not. Regulation remains rooted within coercive and punitive
state-centered criminal justice responses, even though organizations
"from below" may well be the very organizations tasked by
the state with carried out those responses.
Benoît
Dupont & Jennifer Wood
Urban Security, from Nodes to Networks:
On the Value of Connecting Disciplines 95
Abstract
Based on a nodal governance perspective, this article attempts to make
the case for connecting disciplinary perspectives in the study of urban
governance. We argue for more robust analytical enterprises that incorporate
mixes of quantitative and qualitative techniques that capture both "bottom-up"
and "top-down" empirical developments. Whilst stressing the
need to measure the nature and strength of ties between governing nodes,
we suggest there must be equal emphasis on depicting the various rationalities,
and the forms of knowledge and capacities that inform them, at various
nodal sites. We also highlight a number of cross-disciplinary contributions
that could be made to this project by research fields such as psychology,
economics, health and social work, geography and urban planning. The
authors draw from the work they are undertaking respectively in Montreal,
Canada and in Melbourne, Australia.
_______________________________________________________________________________
DOSSIER:
THE LAW COMMISSION OF CANADA
Yves Le Bouthillier
Introduction 113
Roderick A. Macdonald
Jamais deux sans trois ... Once Reform, Twice Commission, Thrice Law
117
Abstract
The decision of the Government of Canada in the fall of 2006 to terminate
funding of the Law Commission of Canada was of a piece with the earlier
decision of the government of Canada in 1993 to close the former Law
Reform Commission of Canada. Unsurprisingly, the creation of the Law
Commission of Canada was justified by the same general arguments as
those that were invoked when the Law Reform Commission was established.
The closure in 1993 occurred after the LRCC had more or less abandoned
its original mandate and had taken on a role more in keeping with that
typically performed by provincial law reform agencies. That of 2006,
by contrast, was undertaken precisely because the LCC did not abandon
its statutory mandate. This note explores the conceptions of law, of
reform, and of commissions (institutional structure) through which public
engagement with, and public participation in reimagining law have been
pursued at the federal level. Rather than a lamentation for either the
LRCC or the LCC it offers an optimistic assessment of the policy choices
that a wise Parliament might well take up in its next iteration of the
law reform idea.
Nathalie
Des Rosiers
In Memoriam : La Commission du droit du Canada /
The Law Commission of Canada, 1997-2006 145
Abstract
In Memoriam I explained how the Law Commission of Canada developed a
law reform model that sought to respond more effectively to the gap
between law and reality and to democratize the process of law reform
itself. The Law Commission situated its work directly at the interstice
between law and action and experimented with different ideas about democratizing
its research agenda, its networks of partners and its output. The LCC
decided to firmly engage with interdisciplinary and community-based
scholarship in the definition of its plan of action (from legal categories
to dynamic social facts), in its research process (from legal expertise
to social sciences and humanities and to action-based research) and
its product (from legislative responses to mechanisms of empowerment).
In Memoriam II is organized around four themes: first, that a democratized
law reform project requires a process of "translation" between
different audiences, second, that it necessarily implies a painful exercise
of destabilization of the intellectual status quo, third, that it must
support the empowerment and capacity building of the different social
actors to embrace and demand change and fourth, that it must do so with
care. The paper includes testimonies and case studies derived from the
work of the LCC.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Nir Kedar
Law, Culture, and Civil Codification in a Mixed Legal System 177
Abstract
Comparatists usually describe mixed legal systems as being built upon
dual foundations of Romano-Germanic civil law and Anglo-American common
law. This widely accepted description examines mixed systems from a
formal internally legal perspective. My paper offers a new yardstick
for investigating mixed systems by posing an external perspective for
examining the complex interplay between law and culture in a mixed jurisdiction.
The case study is the codification of private law in the mixed system
of Israel. A civil code does not reflect the inner logic or history
of the Israeli legal system, as this system has been mostly shaped along
Anglo-Saxon lines which generally discourage the enactment of codes.
But seen from a cultural perspective, a civil code is not alien to Israeli
society because its perception as a symbol of legal independence and
modernization is inherent in the European political culture that most
Israelis are familiar with. The story of civil codification in Israel
demonstrates that beyond the common-law-civil-law "mixedness"
in Israeli law, the Israeli legal system is also mixed in a more profound
sense: while the country's law is primarily (though not exclusively)
influenced by the Anglo-Saxon tradition, its political culture is mainly
inspired by ideas embedded in continental Europe which were imported
to Israel by Jewish immigrants.
Avner
Levin
Big and Little Brother: The Potential Erosion of Workplace Privacy in
Canada 197
Abstract
Recent research shows that monitoring and surveillance of workers in
Canada is increasing. The Canadian Federal Government, at the same time,
is calling for increased access to proprietary databases for lawful
purposes. Employers therefore face a distinct possibility that their
monitoring and surveillance data will be routinely accessed by various
government and law enforcement agencies. Since in many provinces workers
enjoy little legal protection of their right to a private life, and
since new legal protective measures are unlikely, employers must look
to their role as socially responsible members of a liberal and democratic
society, and respect the rule of law by minimizing their collection
of personal worker information.
Review
Essay
Elsa Acem
Legal Expertise, Scientific Knowledge, and Medical Ethics at a Crossroads
231
Book Reviews
A
Response to a Review by Randy Lippert of:
Governing From Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
J. M. Sellers 245
Trudo
Lemmens & Duff R. Waring (eds.)
Law and Ethics in Biomedical Research: Regulation, Conflict of Interest,
and Liability
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.
Marie-Andrée Jacob 248
Paul
C. Friday & Xin Ren (eds.)
Delinquency and Juvenile Justice Systems in the Non-Western World
New York: Criminal Justice Press, 2006.
Jim Hackler 251
David
Szablowski
Transnational Law and Local Struggles: Mining, Communities and the World
Bank
Oxford & Portland: Hart Publishing, 2007.
Bonnie Campbell & Myriam Laforce 254
Philip
Slayton
Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada's Legal Profession
Toronto: Viking Press, 2007.
Paul Millar 260
Vincenzo
Ruggiero
Crime in Literature: Sociology of Deviance and Fiction
London: Verso, 2003.
Dale Spencer 262
Sharon
M. Meagher & Patrice di Quinzio (eds.)
Women and Children First: Feminism, Rhetoric and Public Policy
Albany: SUNY Press, 2005.
Lorna Turnbull 265
Jean
McKenzie Leiper
Bar Codes: Women in the Legal Profession
Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006.
Joan Brockman 270
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