Common Language,Different Meaning: What Mediators Mean When They Talk About Their Work

Mediators, for the most part, describe their work as facilitation but what they actually mean varies considerably. Based on an exploratory study with nearly 90 mediators in Canada (all of whom are also mediation trainers), the author describes the great diversity among mediators' understanding of commonly-used terms like facilitation, transformative, settlement, and humanistic. She also reports on how such factors as context, gender, and number of years mediating affect mediator perceptions of what they do. In addition, the author shows how perceptions affect the overall philosophy and goal of the mediation practitioner. One implication of this research is that we can no longer presume to know what people mean by mediation, nor can we assume mediators are like-minded in how they understand their work. Thus, practitioners, scholars and policymakers are encouraged to be purposefully clear when describing and writing about the practice of mediation.     

Common Language, Different Meaning: What Meidators Mean When They Talk About Their Work

Mediators, for the most part, descrive their work as "facilitation" but what they actually mean varies considerably. Based on an exploratory study with nealy 90 mediators in Canada (all of whom are also mediation trainers), the author describes the great diversity among mediators'understanding of commonly-used terms like facilitation, transformative, settlement, and humansitic. She also reports on how such factors as context, gender, and number of years mediating affect mediator perceptions of what they do. In addition, the author shows how perceptions affect the overall philosophy and goal of hte meidation practitioner: One implication of this research is that we can no longer presume to know what people men by "mediation," nor can we assume mediators are like-minded in how they understand their work. Thus, practitionsner, scholars and policymakers are encouraged to be purposefully clear when describing and writting about the practice of mediation.     

From Top-Down to Trickle-Up Influence: Revisiting Assumptions About the Family in Political Socialization

A growing number of theorists are calling for a revival of research on political socialization based on the premise that children are active in their own civic development. We advance this argument a step further by proposing a model of family communication that reverses the roles of parents and children as conventionally understood in political socialization. Adolescent children are not merely receptive to political stimulation; they possess the power to transform patterns of family communication in ways that benefit themselves and their parents. We first challenge a series of interrelated assumptions about the nature and direction of influence in the family. We then document evidence of "trickle-up influence," in which child-initiated discussion--stimulated by a civics curriculum--prompts the parent to increase her civic competence via increased news media use, knowledge gain, and opinion formation. The parent's response reflects her desire to maintain a leadership role in the family, and more important from a theoretical perspective, it reveals the intrinsic forces of family adaptation that can make the home a powerful incubator of citizenship. Political growth occurs when the family system adjusts to reestablish equilibrium in response to exogenous factors or developmental needs that propel change. The ultimate purpose of this essay is to propose a functional model of family political communication. We apply theoretical perspectives from developmental literature to illustrate how political communication serves the family goals of autonomy and cohesion during various stages of the family life cycle.     

Small States in the European Union: What Do We Know and What Would We Like to Know?

Recent developments in the European Union have created new opportunities and challenges for small member states, increasing the demand from policy-makers and diplomats for coherent and accessible analyses of the conditions and potential strategies of small states in the EU. Unfortunately, the academic literature on small states in the EU appears both diverse and fragmented: there is no agreement on how we should define a small state, what similarities we would expect to find in their foreign policies, or how they influence international relations. However, if we are to understand the challenges and possibilities currently faced by small EU member states, we need to systematise what we already know and to identify what we need to know. This article makes a modest contribution towards this goal by answering three simple questions: What is a small state in the European Union? How can we explain the behaviour of small EU member states? How do small states influence the European Union?     

Inequality and Human Rights: Who Controls What, When, and How

This article tests the empirical relationship between inequality and the protection of personal integrity rights using a cross-national time-series data set for 162 countries for the years 1980–2004. The data comprise measures of land inequality, income inequality, and a combined factor score for personal integrity rights protection, while the analysis controls for additional sets of explanatory variables related to development, political regimes, ethnic composition, and domestic conflict. The analysis shows robust support for the empirical relationship between income inequality and personal integrity rights abuse across the whole sample of countries as well as for distinct subsets, including non-communist countries and non-OECD countries. The hypothesized effect of land inequality is also born out by the data, although its effects are less substantial and less robust across different methods of estimation. Additional variables with explanatory weight include the level of income, democracy, ethnic fragmentation, domestic conflict, and population size. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the results are not due to reverse causation, misspecification or omitted variable bias. The analysis is discussed in the context of inequality and rights abuse in specific country cases and the policy implications of the results are considered in the conclusion.     

Failed States After 9/11: What Did We Know and What Have We Learned?

This paper addresses the relationship between accumulated knowledge and U.S. policy dealing with failed states and terrorism. The central thesis is threefold: (1) that more was known about the possible linkages between failing states and terrorism than appears in pre-9/11 U.S. policies; (2) that since 9/11 some important realignment of knowledge and practice has occurred, but it remains partial and incomplete; and (3) that new knowledge, especially about the policies to sustain and promote legitimate governance, needs to be generated in order to support an effective grand strategy for addressing the threats and challenges of the twenty-first century. The paper recommends such a grand strategy and, in addition to the required new knowledge, a significant reorganization of the U.S. national security policy-making apparatus. International studies curricula appear well suited for contributing to that new knowledge and the practitioners we require.     

Chinese Military Power: What Vexes the United States and Why?

The enhancement of Chinese military power over the past decade is generating ample debate over its meaning and consequences for American security interests. China's characterization in larger conceptions of U.S. national security strategy has experienced repeated shifts over the decades. China is now an arrived major power according to virtually all relevant power criteria, without U.S. policy makers conclusively resolving the implications of China's military modernization for American security interests. Comparable uncertainties bedevil Chinese thinking about American military power. The latent elements of strategic rivalry (if not outright confrontation) are beyond dispute, and could readily take deeper root in the bureaucratic processes of both countries. Without leaders in both systems fully imparting and communicating to one another their respective strategic equities in Asia and the Pacific, the emergence of a reconfigured regional security order fully accepted by both states remains very uncertain.     

When States Prefer Non-Citizens Over Citizens: Conflict Over Illegal Immigration into Malaysia

Why would a state encourage illegal immigration over the opposition of its citizens? According to the theories of immigration and citizenship, we should expect exactly the opposite: that states will monitor, control, and restrict illegal immigrants' access to citizenship on behalf of its citizens, as has been the experience of most countries. I use my research on Filipino immigration to Sabah, Malaysia to show how Malaysia utilizes census practices and documentation to incorporate an illegal immigrant population from the Philippines. Illegal immigrants play an electoral role in Sabah because of the loosely institutionalized nature of citizenship, a feature common to many other developing countries. Our examination of Malaysia reveals several elements of illegal immigration and citizenship that are common to migratory flows in other developing countries. I conclude by showing how this case is generalizable and what it tells us about illegal immigrant participation in the international system.     

Russian Hypersonic Glide Vehicles: What to Know and What to Fear

Recent news of hypersonic tests in both Russia and China stoke fears of a technological gap for the United States. However, a sober analysis of the state of hypersonic technology raises doubts of its capabilities, or usefulness in military operations. Instead, overassessment of hypersonics gives them their strategic value: political leverage. A nuclear-tipped hypersonic might not actually tilt the balance of deterrence at all but would nonetheless require a complex arms control negotiation between the United States, Russia, and China. A conventional hypersonic would have to overcome serious technical barriers to even match current precision weapon systems, but not fulling knowing the system’s capabilities means the United States must treat it as a credible threat. Without a careful measure of the technology, policymakers risk diplomatic missteps, budgetary waste, and an escalatory miscalculation.     

United States Hegemony and Globalisation: What Role for Theories of Imperialism?

This article examines the return of the subject of imperialism to the social sciences since 2001, focusing in particular on Marxist and Marxist-related attempts to reconstruct an analysis of the US-led international order based on this concept. It does so by first examining attempts to update Marxist and Marxian work to understand contemporary globalisation, and then points to both the weaknesses of these approaches and international events that have undermined these theories. The paper then examines the return of imperialism in some detail. While the international order can still be described as imperialist, the article is sceptical of many accounts of the ‘new imperialism’. This is partly because the utility of classical theories was questionable in the pre-1914 era, and are even more so now. Theorising imperialism in turns of surplus capital or a spatial fix ignores the direction of capital flows, both before the First World War, and in the current era. Moreover, as Marxist and Marxian theories of globalisation point out, the current era is one of greater openness and international integration than the pre-1914 era, and there is far greater cooperation between the core capitalist states, as well as sovereign states in the developing world. Contemporary imperialism is characterised by US hegemony but also greater global interdependence, and US military domination does not guarantee its economic domination. At the same time however, US hegemony is closely related to neo-liberalism and, despite as much as because of US intentions, these same policies undermine the prospects for development in the ‘South’. In this respect, US attempts to ‘Americanise’ the world are undermined by US hegemony and the imperialism of free trade.     

Norms Are What States Make of Them: The Political Psychology of Norm Violation

I examine why states violate norms they embrace as members of international society. The rationalist answer, that norms are violated whenever they conflict with interests, is underspecified and empirically challenged. Constructivists cannot address violations well from their structural, sociological perspective. I argue from political psychology that violations stem from the motivated biases of actors who face a moral dilemma between personal desires and social constraints. These biases compel leaders to interpret norms and situations in a manner that justifies violation as socially acceptable. The ability to do so depends on the norm and the situation. The more parameters a norm possesses, and the more ambiguous those parameters are, the easier it is for actors to interpret them favorably to justify violation. Oftentimes norms are what states make of them. If the situation is plausible for states to claim exemption, they violate; otherwise they are constrained. The U.S. invasion of Panama illustrates these dynamics.     

China: Converging to What?

Rather than looking at the entire East Asian region, this article studies one of its major economies--that of China--and questions where it is heading. After outlining the history of the Chinese economy over the past two decades, during which it moved toward an increasingly market-based economy, Perkins contends that the Chinese system is still not close enough to the Anglo-American model to comply with international standards as exemplified by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). China is instead closer to the South Korean and Japanese models, where the state plays a greater role in the economy. Yet even this similarity is limited, making China's economy unique among all others in the current international order. While China must continue to move toward an economy in accordance with international norms, the current situation requires an international organisation that will recognise China's advances rather than demand immediate compliance.     

Reassessing the focus of transitional justice: the need to move structural and cultural violence to the centre

After over six decades of evolution, transitional justice remains focused on courts and commissions, evidenced by the allocation of international attention and resources. This is understandable given that courts and commissions are ideal platforms to hold perpetrators to account. While violent individuals and events can be addressed through courts and commission, what cannot be adequately addressed is the structural and cultural violence that makes mass atrocities possible, and remains intact in spite of truth and accountability. Structural and cultural violence manifests as systemic vulnerability and dehumanization, and it is this type of built-in violence that continues to plague countries where transitional justice has been pursued, for example the criminalization and repression of communities in South Africa, or the forced evictions that occur daily throughout Cambodia. This article argues that it is this type of violence which should become the central focus of transitional justice.     

When Terrorism Goes to Sea: Terrorist Organizations and the Move to Maritime Targets

Terrorist groups are often relatively conservative in their choice of strategy, tactics, and targets, and it is worth asking what characteristics are associated with unconventional behavior. In this article we explore the question of why terrorist organizations move to one type of unconventional attack that has been a focus of concern of policymakers in recent years, namely attacks on maritime targets. Through an investigation of the organizational capacity and ideology of terrorist groups that committed maritime attacks between 1998 and 2005, we argue that this kind of violent behavior is driven by capability. Certain organizational characteristics of terrorist groups—territorial control, involvement in the drug trade, organizational size, and connections with other groups—provide groups with the capabilities that make maritime attacks both realistic and desirable. Terrorist groups' ideology—what they believe, and what their goals are—does not have the same impact, with the possible exception of groups affiliated with al-Qaeda. Our findings have implications for future research.