John Hannigan

Reservations cancelled: Consumer complaints in the tourist industry

Abstract This paper discusses the nature and dimensions of consumer complaints in the tourist industry. Tourist grievances are rooted in four structural features of the industry: the lack of coordination between the four major tiers of the service delivery chain; a “contingent” style of operation necessitated by constant environmental uncertainties; a proliferation of travel firms, many of which are small, independent businesses; and an uneven, seasonal fluctuation of consumer demand. In addition, the gap between tourist expectation and the reality of the holiday destination further creates a context favorable to the generation of tourist complaints. Based on cases handled by Canadian/American newspaper ombudsmen, the content of tourist complaints is identified and recommendations for improved industry/client relations are offered.

The Armalite and the Ballot Box: Dilemmas of Strategy and Ideology in the Provisional Ira

For revolutionary movements, the twin tasks of external legitimation and grass roots mobilization often conflict with the maintenance of an exclusive organization with tight discipline, restricted membership, and doctrinal purity. With its “armalite-ballot box” strategy, the contemporary Provisional Irish Republican Army is attempting to circumvent these conflicts and reconcile political action with the armed struggle for national liberation. In this paper, I examine the contexts and conditions surrounding the emergence of this strategy and discuss three factors–structural incongruence, ideological conflict, and the problem of legitimation–that limit its effectiveness, I argue that the strain generated by the shift toward greater inclusiveness will result in either the schisms which have characterized gun and ballot dualism in the past or in a far-reaching organizational transformation.

Disasters Across Borders: Borderlands as Spaces of Hope and Innovation in the Geopolitics of Environmental Disasters

This chapter builds on Chris Rumford’s (Political Geography, 30, 67–8, 2011) proposal that we shift our emphasis from “seeing like a state” to “seeing like a border”. This entails thinking of borders as spaces in their own right (including “spaces of hope”); recognizing “bordering” activity as equally the business of state and non-state actors (NGOs, ordinary citizens); and treating “borderlands” as dynamic sites of discursive contestation and claims-making. Political geographers have identified a disjuncture between the notion of a borderless world in an age of globalization and the reality of state borders that are rapidly hardening due to economic protectionism, competition over new sources of petrochemical and mineral resources, anti-immigration sentiments, and concerns over terrorism. This is very much the case for the Asia Pacific region, which has become increasingly central to global commerce, politics and security. How then can inclusive and collaborative disaster governance networks and structures that extend across national borders be successfully created and sustained? To provide insight into the challenges of governing environmental disasters extending across national borders, the chapter draws upon recent research on sovereignty claims and clashes (especially in the Arctic, South China Sea and the Indian Ocean), transnational ocean governance, and escalating threats to deep sea and coastal ecosystems from overfishing, oil and gas drilling, underwater mining, and global climate change.

Another Form of Collaboration? Discovering the Deep Blue

Strategic ocean planning has become a familiar feature on the global policy landscape, but scientific collaboration on deepwater research continues to lag, especially at the North American level. Hannigan claims that there is an unfulfilled potential for scientific collaboration on oceans. He discusses the potential for, and barriers to, continental collaboration on deepwater research across Canada, Mexico, and the USA; identifying differences on scientific research for ocean management and planning. Afterward, he points at some successful transnational projects happening in European deep-sea research; thus providing a template for expanding scientific collaboration on deepwater research in North America. Lastly, he identifies the direction that scientific exploration of the ocean has been taking and how this might influence the nature of scientific collaboration.

Grasping the Nettle: Sociology, Political Economy and Carbon Dependency: A Response to Redclift

In his article, ‘The Response of the Hermeneutic Social Sciences to a ‘Post Carbon World’ ‘, which appeared in the 2011, Vol. 1, issue 3 of the International Review of Social Research, Michael Redclift (2011) argues that sociologists have ‘taken a back seat’ in the debate about post-carbon societies. Why this is so is never elaborated, although the author suggests that it’s related somehow to sociology’s longstanding difficulties with policy agendas, and to its skittishness with biological explanations of human behaviour. There are, of course other reasons that aren’t included in Redclift’s discussion. In their critique of Constance LeverTracy’s (2008a) article ‘Global Warming and Sociology,’ Reiner Grundmann and Nico Stehr (2010) offer two alternative explanations for ‘sociological abstinence’ on issues related to carbon dependence and climate change. First of all, they suggest that as anthropogenic climate change evolved from a science-based issue to top global policy issue, social scientists became gun-shy, avoiding a ‘polarized debate where academic research might be