Liberalism and Policing: The State We're In

Short online essay on the state of policing in liberal societies, discussing how executive discretionary power has grown to such a degree that it has trended toward illiberal practices and policies

Ice Cube and the philosophical foundations of community policing

Essay on police legitimacy through public reason and community policing

Informants, Police, and Unconscionability

Essay exploring the extent to which certain agreements between the police and informants are an affront (both procedurally and substantively) to basic tenets of the liberal tradition in legal and political philosophy

The Retrieval of Liberalism in Policing

There is a growing sense that many liberal states are in the midst of a shift in legal and political norms—a shift that is happening slowly and for a variety of reasons relating to security. The internet and tech booms—paving the way for new forms of electronic surveillance—predated the 9/11 attacks by several years, while the police’s vast use of secret informants and deceptive operations began well before that. On the other hand, the recent uptick in reactionary movements—movements in which the rule of law seems expendable—began many years after 9/11 and continues to this day. One way to describe this book is an examination of the moral limits on modern police practices that flow from the basic legal and political tenets of the liberal tradition. The central argument is that policing in liberal states is constrained by a liberal conception of persons coupled with particular rule of law principles. Part I consists of three chapters that constitute the book’s theoretical foundation, including an overview of the police’s law enforcement role in the liberal polity and a methodology for evaluating that role. Part II consists of three chapters that address applications of the theory, including the police’s use of informants, deceptive operations, and surveillance. The upshot is that policing in liberal societies has become illiberal in light of its response to both internal and external threats to security. The book provides an account of what it might mean to retrieve policing that is consistent with the basic tenets of liberalism and the limits imposed by those tenets. [This is an uncorrected draft of the book's preface and introduction, forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

The Possible World Defense: Why Our Current Legal Thinking about Entrapment is Philosophically Suspect

Essay on philosophical problems with police sting operations and the legal doctrine of entrapment

The direct Cu NQR Study of the Stripe Phase in the Lanthanum Cuprates

Using Cu NQR in Eu-doped La_(2-x)Sr_xCuO_4 we find the evidence of the pinned stripe phase at 1.3K for 0.08<x<0.18. The pinned fraction increases by one order of magnitude near hole doping x=1/8. The NQR lineshape reveals three inequivalent Cu positions. A dramatic change of the NQR signal for x > 0.18 correlating with the onset of bulk superconductivity corresponds to the depinning of the stripe phase.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Physica C, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity, Houston, February 200

Hobbesian causation and personal identity in the history of criminology

Hobbes is known for bridging natural and political philosophy, but less attention has been given to how this distinguishes the Hobbesian conception of the self from individualist strands of liberalism. First, Hobbes’s determinism suggests a conception of the self in which externalities determine the will and what the self is at every moment. Second, there is no stable conception of the self because externalities keep it in a constant state of flux. The metaphysical underpinnings of his project downplay the notion of a purely individualistic conception of the self, pointing to a positivist theory of criminology relying upon external forces. This theory is especially prescient with respect to twentieth-century variants of positivism that focus upon how social organization affects personality. In a sense, then, modern criminological theory is indebted to Hobbes’s focus upon the connections between externalities and the self; a focus that illuminates new ways of viewing responsibility and accountability

Interpreting high [O III]/H β ratios with maturing starbursts

Star-forming galaxies at high redshift show ubiquitously high-ionization parameters, as measured by the ratio of optical emission lines. We demonstrate that local (z < 0.2) sources selected as Lyman break analogues also manifest high line ratios with a typical [O III]/Hβ=3.36+0.14−0.04 – comparable to all but the highest ratios seen in star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 2–4. We argue that the stellar population synthesis code BPASS can explain the high-ionization parameters required through the ageing of rapidly formed star populations, without invoking any AGN contribution. Binary stellar evolution pathways prolong the age interval over which a starburst is likely to show elevated line ratios, relative to those predicted by single stellar evolution codes. As a result, model galaxies at near-solar metallicities and with ages of up to ∼100 Myr after a starburst typically have a line ratio [O III]/Hβ ∼ 3, consistent with those seen in Lyman break galaxies and local sources with similar star formation densities. This emphasises the importance of including binary evolution pathways when simulating the nebular line emission of young or bursty stellar populations