Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Rational Choice theory has a background in two major social changes: one, the shift to stock-market-based monopoly-capitalism and two, Keynesian state intervention. The first determined the redefinition of economics to a subjectivist approach (marginalism), the second triggered the formulation of a general social science approach centred on freedom of choice more generally. This second strand which articulated the fear of a 'Road to Serfdom', has meanwhile become the dominant approach in US social science, including international studies. Its Achilles heel may well be that it not just a-historical but anti-empirical because it breaches the rule of positivism that there can be no First Principles; as an axiomatic approach it can only repeat its first principle, that of individual choice, whilst ruling out the independent existence of a society which it can only represent mathematically as game theory. The question that on a world scale people make choices from rationalities which are obviously different and mutating over time, cannot be answered without empirical reference to collective entities subject to historical change. The paper argues that rational choice therefore is a specific form of alienation that brings out the subordination of society to the economy and hence will be most firmly entrenched where this process has developed most strongly. It claims that in Europe and elsewhere, the resilience of classical social theory is part of the different balance between economy and society, so that even Institutionalism finds more resonance there than in its country of origin.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Current U.S. guidelines for human embryonic stem cell research (hESCR) adopted by the National Academy of Sciences and the state of California, like those of many other countries, prohibit compensation of egg donors. In this paper, I explore a variety of justifications for these guidelines, such as preventing coercion of egg donors and commodification and commercialization of their bodies. In prohibiting payments to egg donors based upon these rationales, the guidelines implicitly invoke the rubric of privacy and reject propertization of the human body. Unlike other countries that uniformly prohibit compensation of egg donors in all contexts, however, the U.S. guidelines fail to limit payments to egg donors involved in in vitro fertilization (IVF). Moreover, the U.S. guidelines permit commercialization and commodification by everyone else engaged in hESCR, except for those who provide eggs and other body parts. Thus, the scientists who conduct hESCR and the companies and universities that fund their research are all free to profit. I argue that these inconsistencies and contradictions ultimately undermine the objectives of the U.S. guidelines and reveal that the prohibition upon payment is intended more for political reasons than for substantive ones -- to insulate hESCR from the taint of filthy lucre in the eyes of the public, rather than to actually prevent coercion of egg donors or commodification of human life.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between the commodification of security and Beck’s ‘risk society’. It argues that the emergence of risk society can partly be explained by the increasing commodification and marketization of security which contributes to redefining security policy in terms of taking precautions against potential risks rather than addressing existing threats. State and non-state actors which increasingly rely on commercial actors such as consultancies for risk analysis are thus presented with a growing range security concerns, a nearly insatiable market. In fact, the search for new markets and profits is leads private security providers to exaggerate ‘unknown’ risks and the need to manage them. To support this argument this paper is structured in three parts. The first part explores the concept of ‘risk’ and how it is replacing the notion of ‘threat’. The second part examines the role that the market plays in how a particular risk perception is created and maintained. And the third part discusses how the commodification of security influences how risks are distributed among individuals, social groups and states.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: According to one observer, global environmental politics today is much less a project of addressing widespread environmental degradation than it is one of supporting “the private capture of public goods” on a worldwide scale. The Global Environment Facili

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explains the persistence of authoritarian practices in Latin American democracies with special attention to Argentina and Brazil. The presence of authoritarian practices is seen in the high levels of police violence that have proliferated in w