Media Freedom and Political Debate in the Digital Era

This article examines the impact of online expression on theories of media freedom. While media freedom has generally been justified instrumentally, the opportunities for expression via the Internet may require greater emphasis on the interests of the individual speaker. Despite this development, this article shows how a small number of speakers will still command a much wider audience and have greater influence over political debate. For such speakers the approach to media freedom devised in the mass media era will remain applicable.     

Suicides by starter's pistols and air guns

We report the case of a 25-year-old depressed woman who committed suicide with a starter's pistol loaded with CS tear-gas ammunition. The propellant gases of the contact shot entered her chest through the left sixth intercostal space. Exsanguination was caused by perforations of the pericardium and apex of the heart. Autopsy did not reveal any metallic or other foreign bodies that might have originated from the propellant, the cartridge, or any bulletlike material. Her injuries were thus caused by the propellant alone. 0.5 mg L-1 of the CS degradation product cyanide was detected in the cardiac blood. We also report the case of a 54-year-old man, suffering from depressive psychosis, who committed suicide with an air rifle. The lead-pointed Diabolo bullet entered his brain through the right large wing of the sphenoid bone, traversed the right temporal brain pole, damaged the right middle cerebral artery and the right optic tract, and finally lodged in the left central ganglia. There was extensive basal subdural hemorrhage and tamponade of all cerebral ventricles. Death was attributed to cerebral failure. We furthermore list another 26 cases of suicide by rarely used weapons from 1947 to 1989.     

The role of epistemic communities: local think tanks,international practitioners and security sector reform in Kosovo

ABSTRACT

Security sector reform (SSR) in Kosovo remains complex and challenging. The existing approach is heavily driven by international agencies. This article addresses the question: What role is played by local research in Kosovo’s SSR? This study focuses on the challenges that local research poses to internationally led SSR in Kosovo, and the contribution that local researchers make to the decision-making of international practitioners. In Kosovo, local research organizations produce research analysing and critiquing international SSR and offering alternative approaches. The study builds on existing studies of epistemic communities and research use in policy-making and new evidence based on the author’s interview survey of researchers and policy-makers in Kosovo. The article argues that focusing on the interaction between local researchers and international policy practitioners provides valuable insight into the construction of Kosovo’s SSR. The study deconstructs the structures, processes and agencies at the heart of the local/international relationship. It explains how local research on topics of security, justice and rule of law, and its interaction with international practitioners, challenges international SSR and contributes to international SSR decision-making.     

Politics and the Price of Rice in Thailand: Public Choice,Institutional Change and Rural Subsidies

Despite the Thai state’s long record of rice market interventions, historically politicians failed to leverage rice subsidies in their pursuit of political support, notwithstanding the large number of farmers in the country. Since Thaksin Shinawatra’s election in 2001, though, each government has subsidised rice producers, although at varying degrees. What explains this change? This article traces the four-decade history of rice price support programmes. It is proposed that these policies be interpreted through the dual lens of institutionalism and public choice theory, demonstrating how political institutions have shaped incentives for politicians to cater to different constituencies. During the pre-1980 period, under authoritarian regimes, Thai leaders applied rice price policies to benefit urban consumers and the government. From 1979 through 2000, following implementation of the block-vote system, rice interventions were used to appeal to voting intermediaries like rice millers, as bargaining chips among competing parties and as stopgap measures to diffuse farmer protests. Since 2001, responding to the electoral system created by the 1997 constitution, politicians have appealed directly to the voting public, seeking broad-based support via subsidies. The analysis highlights the impact that shifting institutional incentives have on politicians’ actions and thus the emergent policies.     

Collective decision making and the limits on the organization's size

This essay clarifies the relationship between the technology of organizational decision making and the limits on the size of the group of decision makers within the organization. Viewing the number and quality of decision makers, and the time required for decision making as inputs in the production of collective decisions, we show that there exist generic organizational forces that offset the incentive to unlimited expansion of the organization. Even in a long run competitive environment with perfect markets for managers, unlimited duplication of the firm may not be economically feasible. We first analyze in a general setting and then illustrate in two stylized examples, the interplay between individual decisional quality, time required for an individual decision, direct and indirect costs of decision making, and the optimal number of decision makers (for example, management size).We are indebted to an anonymous referee of this journal and to P. Aranson for their very helpful comments and suggestions.     

Saudi Arabia's rapprochement with Israel: the national security imperatives

The purpose of this article is to examine the evolution of Israel's relations with Saudi Arabia since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. The author explains how the major events in the Middle East affected Saudi Arabia's foreign policy orientation. It shows how Saudi Arabia's policy toward Israel was affected by the deterioration in Saudi-Egyptian relations, by its quest for security in the Arabian Gulf region and by its aspiration to hegemony in the Middle East. The author argues that Saudi Arabia's policy toward Israel remained far less hostile than that of the Arab states surrounding Israel. In addition, it argues that it was not until 1973 that Saudi Arabia became seriously involved in the attempt to pressure Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied in the Six-Day War. The author concludes by showing that neither Saudi Arabia's acquisition of the intelligence-gathering AWACS aircraft, nor Israel's invasion of Lebanon or the massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila had a serious impact on the bilateral relations, and that it was not until the emergence of the Iranian nuclear threat that Saudi Arabia's relations with Israel began to improve.     

United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection in Civil War

Does United Nations peacekeeping protect civilians in civil war? Civilian protection is a primary purpose of UN peacekeeping, yet there is little systematic evidence for whether peacekeeping prevents civilian deaths. We propose that UN peacekeeping can protect civilians if missions are adequately composed of military troops and police in large numbers. Using unique monthly data on the number and type of UN personnel contributed to peacekeeping operations, along with monthly data on civilian deaths from 1991 to 2008 in armed conflicts in Africa, we find that as the UN commits more military and police forces to a peacekeeping mission, fewer civilians are targeted with violence. The effect is substantial—the analyses show that, on average, deploying several thousand troops and several hundred police dramatically reduces civilian killings. We conclude that although the UN is often criticized for its failures, UN peacekeeping is an effective mechanism of civilian protection.     

Markets and Corporate Conflict: A Substitution-Cost Approach to Business Litigation

This paper examines the phenomenon of conflict escalaton in business relations. A theory of when conflict between firms will proceed from informal relationship-preserving norms to more formal and destructive end games involving litigation is developed and tested. The central theoretical claim is that substitution costs serve as an impediment against the escalation of conflict. Data on market concentration and dollar flows between aggregate markets in the economy are used to develop measures of substitution costs. Measures of substitution costs and trade figures are also used to describe power advantages in markets. The theory is tested through a series of regression models. The main findings are that (1) when substitution costs are high, parties are less likely to escalate conflict and (2) asymmetric market relations result in less conflict escalation than symmetric ones. Empirical analysis indicates that substitution costs are related in predictable and meaningful ways to conflict escalation and business litigation.     

Elections Are (Not) Exciting: Need for Cognition and Electoral Behaviour

Need for cognition (NFC) is the personality trait that describes differences in the enjoyment of cognitive efforts. By relying on data collected over two elections in Sweden in 2014, I show the trait's multifaceted political relevance. Individuals who enjoy cognitive challenges are more likely to think that it matters what government that is formed after the election, engage with campaign information, favor complex news over simple news and select stronger reasons for vote choice over weaker, e.g., ideology over habit. Overall, the results suggest that election studies would benefit from measuring need for cognition.