Retributive and Consequential Violence in 2 Sam 11–20

Elements of David’s transgression in 2 Samuel 11–12 are delineated, suggesting that David is not condemned for murder and adultery per se but for violating God’s prerogative to give and the principle that God takes from the master to give to the servant. Building on Klaus Koch’s distinction between retribution and natural consequences for sin, it is shown that the violence against David described in Nathan’s oracle in 2 Samuel 12 is both a judicial, proportional punishment and natural consequences in the form of a curse. The dynamics of God’s forgiveness of David are explored in depth, including the apparent role of retributive punishment for restoring the offender identified in the work of Kant. The nature and implications of collective punishment in the story of David, including the effects of David’s sin on his household, are addressed.

On prisoners, family life and collective punishment: The Namnam case

This article examines the 2019 decision by the Supreme Court of Israel (the Court) in the Namnam case, upholding a ban on family visits to Gaza prisoners incarcerated in Israel and affiliated with Hamas.1 This ban was adopted as part of Israel's attempt to pressure Hamas into an exchange of Palestinian detainees and prisoners against missing Israeli civilians and the bodies of Israeli soldiers, apparently being held by Hamas in Gaza. The Court examined the measure primarily in light of Israeli administrative law, and held that it had no grounds to intervene. It held that an analysis under international law would have yielded the same result. This article examines the decision of the Court in light of the applicable international law. It considers the Court's decision in terms of the permissible restrictions on the right to family life and draws on the Court's reasoning for an in-depth analysis of various unarticulated aspects of the prohibition on collective punishment. The article concludes that an international human rights law analysis might have led to a different outcome, and that had the Court applied the prohibition on collective punishment properly, it would have had to declare the measure unlawful. The article then places the decision in the broader context of the Court's engagement with international law in disputes relating to Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza.

Deterrence by Collective Punishment May Work against Criminals but Never against Freedom Fighters

The main goal of collective punishment (CP) is the deterrence of future “wrong-doing” by freedom fighters or terrorists, protesters against an authoritative government, polluters, students playing pranks on their teacher, football teams lacking enthusiasm, or soldiers showing cowardice to the enemy. CP could consist of the lockout of workers, additional training units for football teams, increased control of athletes and firms, up to the shooting of fellow villagers of assassins. I investigate two classes of problems. In one class, resistance against an authority is individually costly, but enough resistance can be successful (the production of a public good, for example, higher wages after a strike). In the other case, “resistance” is individually profitable (a criminal activity as pollution) and enough “resistance” produces a public bad. We find that, in the first situation, the announcement of CP never decreases the level of resistance. In the second situation, CP can be successful.

When Brands (Don’t) Take My Stance: The Ambiguous Effectiveness of Political Brand Communication

Brands increasingly take a stance on political issues, whereas consumers increasingly choose to either support a brand by buying their products (“buycotting”), or turn away from a brand (“boycotting”) for political reasons. While buycotts can be understood as a rewarding and cooperative form of mostly individual behavior, boycotts are a conflict-oriented form of collective punishment. Even though research has acknowledged these conceptual differences, studies have failed to analyze the difference in the absolute effect of consumers’ disapproval and approval. Moreover, research to date has not identified boundary conditions that might explain variation in the difference between consumers’ willingness to boycott or buycott. This research investigates this different effectiveness by conducting two experiments with different sets of brands, issues, and countries. Our results suggest that boycotting outweighs buycotting, implying that political brand communication is a risky strategy. Furthermore, we identify consumers’ political interest and category involvement as moderators of this imbalance.

ISLAM AND ANTI-COLONIAL REBELLIONS IN NORTH AND WEST AFRICA, 1914–1918

European empires experienced widespread anti-colonial rebellions during the First World War. These rebellions occurred for many different reasons, reflecting the diversity of context and history across colonial societies in Africa and Asia. Religion naturally played a strong role in most of the anti-colonial rebellions during the First World War, most prominently Islam. This article looks at the role Islam played in two key anti-colonial rebellions in North and West Africa: the rebellions in Batna, Algeria, and the Kaocen War in Niger, respectively. The article examines how Islam was instrumentalized by rebels, imperial collaborators, and French officers and administrators to further their own ends. Rebels called upon Islam to help inspire anti-colonial movements, to bind together diverse populations, and to contextualize their actions in wider socio-political conflicts. Imperial collaborators likewise called on religious authority to assist with European imperial recruitment efforts. French officers and administrators used Islam both as a justification and a target for collective punishment and repression after the rebellions were put down from 1917. This repression is still under-studied in a period usually portrayed as evidencing broad imperial harmony, rather than violent extraction and oppression.

(Re)producing Guilt in Suspect Communities: The Centrality of Racialisation in Joint Enterprise Prosecutions

Joint enterprise (JE) is an extraordinary legal device deployed to punish and (re)produce those who are frequently presented as threatening the normative boundaries of the British state. In acknowledging the global relevance of over-representation and the use of collective punishment, this paper presents the accounts of prisoners who have been convicted under JE laws across England and Wales. Analysis reveals a particular process of criminalisation through police and crown prosecution teams’ construction of the ‘gang’ narrative in courtrooms to drive the disproportionate punishment of members of negatively racialised communities. Of concern, the findings reveal that young Black men in particular are at risk of being convicted and punished for offences they did not commit. This paper empirically demonstrates how such racial injustice originates from a series of targeted and criminalising policies and practices.