Twitter,incivility, and presidential communication: A theoretical incursion into spectacle and power

ABSTRACT

By approaching civility as an operational logic for democracy, we ask how incivility is a strategy related to power and domination, particularly from the president of the United States. We propose that Twitter is part of an infrastructure of incivility, through which structures and discursive mechanisms contribute to a devaluation of normative democratic discourses. Spectacle provides a theoretical framework to contextualize the forces at play in mediating our relations. Using President Trump’s Twitter use as a case study, we offer four propositions that together formulate a framework for theorizing the strategic use and deployment of incivility as an increasingly legitimate, yet problematic tool for democratic governance.     

Scrambled systems: the (im)mobilities of ‘storm Desmond’

This article examines a 3-day blackout, triggered by a ‘1-in-100-year’ rainfall event. Storms and floods account for almost three-quarters of weather-related disasters, and are typically accompanied by cascading infrastructure failures, which pattern and amplify their effects in highly significant ways. Such disruptions reveal aspects of everyday life that ordinarily remain obscure, including capacities for resilience embodied in people, cities and infrastructure. The article proposes that disruption events be understood in terms of ‘scrambles’, as they involve abrupt demobilisation and remobilisation of a range of people and materials. The article firstly examines the astonishing capacity for failure latent in ‘pervasively powered’ arrangements, as well as the many ways in which people and things were ‘scrambled’ in response. The article then proceeds to explore the ways in which vulnerabilities result in part from mobilisation in response to previous disruption events, before examining the ‘circuits’ that link far-flung places in mobile disaster geographies, global patterns of electricity dependence, the rise of data overload in the ‘cloud’ to carbon overload in the atmosphere. The article concludes by presenting further evidence in support of the thesis that disruptions and disasters are part of a ‘new normal’, and what this means for prevailing sociotechnical arrangements reliant on ‘sunk’ infrastructure.     

Then press enter: digital payment technology and the history of telephone interface

The internet and other digital networks in the U.S. (and beyond) remain essentially an upgrade of the national telephone network built by AT&T over the first half of the twentieth century, and digital payment remains tethered to telephony at the level of infrastructure. Telephone history also continues to inform digital payment at the level of interface. Debit card readers feature a keypad nearly identical to those introduced (also by AT&T) to the dialling public a half-century ago on touch-tone telephones. In this essay I highlight the development of the touch-tone keypad as a transformative payment technology. There have been three great leaps forward in the history of telephone interface: the dial, the keypad and the touch screen. Each corresponds to a period of technological transformation in the telephone industry and society more broadly: the rotary dial and automation, touch-tone keypads and digitization, and touch screens and computerization. The successful careers of the dial and the keypad, especially when read in tandem, suggest that touch screens will alter the everyday economics of retail payment even more radically than its predecessors. I also describe a broader trajectory of digital naturalization, whereby telephone numbers have proliferated into a personal identification number, passwords and a plethora of personalized information. Payments increasingly circulate today as subsets of personal information within the vast sea of big data. Payment apps are demonstrating a capacity to reorganize retail transactions on a scale as vast as any technology since the cash register. The history of retail payment finds the point of sale heading from the till into shoppers’ pockets. As a result, consumers are increasingly shouldering the costs of purchasing, maintaining, upgrading and securing the technology used for everyday transactions.     

A Probabilistic Model of the Economic Risk to Britain's Railway Network from Bridge Scour During Floods

Scour (localized erosion by water) is an important risk to bridges, and hence many infrastructure networks, around the world. In Britain, scour has caused the failure of railway bridges crossing rivers in more than 50 flood events. These events have been investigated in detail, providing a data set with which we develop and test a model to quantify scour risk. The risk analysis is formulated in terms of a generic, transferrable infrastructure network risk model. For some bridge failures, the severity of the causative flood was recorded or can be reconstructed. These data are combined with the background failure rate, and records of bridges that have not failed, to construct fragility curves that quantify the failure probability conditional on the severity of a flood event. The fragility curves generated are to some extent sensitive to the way in which these data are incorporated into the statistical analysis. The new fragility analysis is tested using flood events simulated from a spatial joint probability model for extreme river flows for all river gauging sites in Britain. The combined models appear robust in comparison with historical observations of the expected number of bridge failures in a flood event. The analysis is used to estimate the probability of single or multiple bridge failures in Britain's rail network. Combined with a model for passenger journey disruption in the event of bridge failure, we calculate a system‐wide estimate for the risk of scour failures in terms of passenger journey disruptions and associated economic costs.     

“一带一路”背景下中国区域物流网络模型研究

选取“一带一路”重点涉及的五大区域18个地区为研究对象,利用改进引力模型测量区域物流引力大小及地区引力总量,构建区域物流网络模型。在明确现有模型的特点和“一带一路”对物流网络目标要求的基础上,考虑区域物流发展水平和区域间差异情况,给出优化方案及优化后的物流网络模型,指出中国区域物流网络存在的问题并给出合理化建议,旨为政府决策提供参考。     

基于元网络分析的重大基础设施建设项目风险评估框架与实证

重大基础设施项目具有战略性、集成性、复杂性等特征，项目容易受到多种风险因素的综合影响，导致项目目标的偏离。现有风险评估与风险决策的方法缺乏对于风险因素、风险事件之间关联的分析。为了实现重大基础设施建设项目综合系统的风险评估，本文采用元网络分析方法，构建项目目标、风险事件和风险因素的交互模型，揭示重大基础设施风险事件发生机制的黑箱过程。风险评估过程中，通过多个网络叠加运算分析每个风险因素对于各种风险事件以及项目各目标的影响情况，改进了以往仅对风险因素单一影响程度的风险评估方法。同时，本研究选择我国某河流水电站过坝运输项目方案比选的风险评估过程验证方法的适用性。     

陕西省交通基础设施对经济增长的空间溢出效应

为了从外部性角度说明目前陕西省交通基础设施的建设和投资在地域上存在的问题，为陕西省交通基础设施建设方向提供理论帮助，基于陕西省2009~2017年间各市相关数据，在交通基础设施对经济增长效应研究的直接效应和溢出效应基础上，加入空间要素，构建生产函数和空间权重矩阵，通过自相关检验（莫兰指数）、LM检验和 Hausman检验，选取合适的空间面板计量模型对陕西省交通基础设施的经济溢出情况进行研究。研究认为，2009~2017年间陕西省交通基础设施对经济增长的溢出效应（显著）整体为负，但依然存在正溢出的局部地区，即以西安为首的经济聚集区（西安、宝鸡、咸阳）和榆林、延安联合的陕北经济聚集区，资源过于集中和两个高地之间缺乏互联互通是整体呈现负溢出的重要原因。在地域分配的量和质上应充分考虑交通基础设施的溢出效应，避免资源过度集中在西安，在两个经济高地之间打通一条经济要道，并重点扶持相对落后又有发展前景的城市可促使陕西经济发展由总体集聚向总体扩散转变。     

“一带一路”沿线国家互联网基础设施的贸易效应——基于贸易成本和全要素生产率的中介效应分析

在"一带一路"建设背景下，研究阐释"一带一路"沿线国家互联网基础设施的贸易效应及其作用机制，对于当前中国优化沿线国家的互联网基础设施建设布局，有效激发贸易效应，应对外贸环境的不利冲击，具有重要的现实意义。文章基于贸易成本和全要素生产率的分析视角，构建2007-2017年中国与45个"一带一路"沿线国家的面板数据，运用中介效应模型实证考察"一带一路"沿线国家互联网基础设施的贸易效应。总体检验结果表明，"一带一路"沿线国家互联网基础设施有利于中国与沿线国家的双边贸易往来，且主要通过降低贸易成本而非提高全要素生产率来发挥贸易效应。异质性检验结果表明，无论区分贸易方向还是沿线国家经济发展差异，互联网基础设施都具有明显的贸易效应，其中：贸易成本的中介效应主要发生在沿线发达国家对中国进、出口贸易中；全要素生产率的中介效应主要发生在沿线国家对中国出口贸易以及沿线发展中国家对中国进出口贸易中。新形势下中国参与"一带一路"沿线国家的互联网基础设施建设，要注意合理布局和把握建设力度，既培育贸易增长新动能，也优化进出口贸易结构。     

Urban greening and mobility justice in Dhaka’s informal settlements

ABSTRACT

Urban greening in Dhaka, Bangladesh is fraught with injustice for slum dwellers. Access to the commons for the enactment of gardening, farming and foraging by the urban poor, many recent internal migrants from rural areas, is contested by wealthier citizens, developers and political elites. Through qualitative research with households within the informal settlement of Korail in Dhaka’s urban core, and a range of stakeholders in governmental and non-governmental organizations, this study critiques competing policy visions that involve urban greening and urban green infrastructure. Repurposing the conceptual lense of ‘mobility justice’ to analyse environmental and ecological issues in the global South, the findings highlight the importance of mobility concerns to just futures for urban planning.     

A Decision Framework for Managing Risk to Airports from Terrorist Attack

This article presents an asset‐level security risk management framework to assist stakeholders of critical assets with allocating limited budgets for enhancing their safety and security against terrorist attack. The proposed framework models the security system of an asset, considers various threat scenarios, and models the sequential decision framework of attackers during the attack. Its novel contributions are the introduction of the notion of partial neutralization of attackers by defenders, estimation of total loss from successful, partially successful, and unsuccessful actions of attackers at various stages of an attack, and inclusion of the effects of these losses on the choices made by terrorists at various stages of the attack. The application of the proposed method is demonstrated in an example dealing with security risk management of a U.S. commercial airport, in which a set of plausible threat scenarios and risk mitigation options are considered. It is found that a combination of providing blast‐resistant cargo containers and a video surveillance system on the airport perimeter fence is the best option based on minimum expected life‐cycle cost considering a 10‐year service period.