Antisemitic publishing in Greece

A number of books and newspapers spreading antisemitic ideas have appeared in Greece in the last few years.     

Cyber conflict and deterrence

As with the strategic adaptation to nuclear weapons, effectively developing the policies, doctrines and plans required to stabilise the deterrence of cyber conflict constitutes a long-term challenge. Although major powers have exercised mutual restraint for fear of precipitating uncontrollable consequences, the self-deterrence arising from strategic ambiguity is too uncertain to be sufficient. Deterrence-by-denial mechanisms remain the most promising active measures, and arms control should be pursued.     

Human rights and cultural conflict

Conclusion In speaking of a right in relation to identity formation, I have avoided many important questions, including questions about how properly to understand identity formation itself. Evoking such a right does draw from existing trends, but it remains speculative. Nonetheless, it captures one valuable insight in criticisms of human rights as a Western imposition, namely the insight that an important kind of oppression figures in the imposition of identities. By affirming a human right in relation to identity formation, we can not only confront this kind of oppression but see that it has specific weight in contemporary globalizing politics, economics, and culture. Moreover, we see that human rights can offer a critical relation to that kind of identity assertion and cultural imperialism that has itself employed the language of universal principles. One reason to emphasize this possibility of human rights discourse is to explore how this discourse offers more generally a significant normative perspective for challenging various kinds of oppression and domination today. Emphasizing such possibilities is a way of exploring the respects in which any viable notion of democracy must provide an important place for human rights.     

The effect of being conflict non-avoidant: linking conflict framing and political participation

Abstract

The news media’s ability to mobilise citizens to participate politically by emphasising elite conflict in politics is not well understood. This article argues that citizens may gain knowledge when exposed to conflict news framing. It further theorises that whether they translate their knowledge into political participation is conditioned by their orientation towards conflict. Individuals who avoid conflict participate less frequently than individuals who do not. The proposed moderated mediation process was tested using a content analysis of news media coverage and a three-wave panel survey (n?=?2,061). Results show that the effect of exposure to conflict news framing on (changes in) political participation is positively mediated by knowledge. This mediation effect is moderated by conflict avoidance, where the effect is more positive among conflict non-avoiders than conflict avoiders. This study shows that understanding the news media’s mobilising effect on political participation requires attention to both news content and individual motivational factors.     

Political representation and ethnic conflict in new democracies

Abstract.  This article is an exploratory analysis of the efficacy of parliamentary representation as a means to moderate ethnic conflict in new democracies. The authors agree with many others that the interests of a minority ethnic group are better protected when the group has access to decision makers, can block harmful government policies and veto potentially damaging decisions. Parliamentary representation, however, does not always allow for an effective representation of those who are not in government. Seats in the legislature may be of little use in a parliament where the executive dominates the policy process at all stages. This article focuses on the new democracies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 2000. The authors use the number of parliamentary seats obtained by minority ethnic parties as their main independent variable and the MAR ethnic protest and rebellion scores as their dependent variables. In addition, they employ the system of government (i.e., parliamentary versus presidential) as a proxy indicator of the degree of influence that parliamentary parties have over decision making. A cross-section-time-series regression analysis shows that the ameliorative effect of parliamentary representation over ethnic conflict is stronger in those legislatures where the ethnic group has effective influence over decision making. It is also shown that representation within national parliaments has no ameliorative effects over violent secessionist conflicts. When the ethnic minority's demands are too radical, parliamentary representation is simply an inadequate instrument.     

Linguistic polarization and conflict in the Basque Country

This paper investigates the relationship between linguistic polarization and conflict in the Basque Country. During the 40 years of Franco??s dictatorship the use of the Basque language was banned. Therefore, there may be some linguistic roots underlying the conflict in the Basque Country. We show that at the municipality level, linguistic polarization reduces the level of conflict. This finding is robust to various ways of measuring linguistic and ideological polarization and the inclusion of other covariates. In addition, we find that a high level of the stock of human capital is beneficial for reducing conflict intensity.     

Japan and the cross-Taiwan Strait conflict

An armed conflict between Taiwan and China is not unthinkable in the future. For historical, geographical, economic, and diplomatic reasons, Japan would not be able to stand on the sidelines. Relying on three major concepts—national interests, path dependence and balance of power, this paper explores Japan’s three possible roles in the event of a cross-Strait conflict. First, Japan could pass the buck, staying out of the conflict as much as possible and providing at most logistical and intelligence support for an American military operation. Second, it could balance power, throwing its weight behind Washington against Beijing. Finally, it could play peacemaker. At the end of the article, the author discusses several key factors that would shape Tokyo’s decision-making in the event of a cross-Strait conflict and assesses the relative probability of each option. He is the author ofExplaining Chinese Democratization (Praeger, 2000). His recent research interests include Chinese pacifism and China’s historical place in the world. For their comments, the author would like to thank anonymous reviewers, Natalie Edwards, Mei Guan, Sujian Guo, James Hsiung, Wade Hudson, Erica Johnson, Chien Liu, Andrew Needle, Anne Schotter, Steve Snow, Liang Tang, Wallace Thies, Yong Wang, and Kim Worthy.     

On the formation of alliances in conflict and contests

This paper examines the problem of the formation of alliances in conflict and, more generally, in contests with three players. Each player possesses an exogenous strategic endowment (e.g., arms, efforts, rent-seeking activity). The outcome of contests, including those between any alliances of players, is governed by a Contest Success Function (CSF). In the three-person/one-cake problem an alliance between two players against the third one will form if and only if the CSF has an increasing returns characteristic. When an alliance forms, there is a tendency to be formed by the weaker players against the strongest player. Similar tendencies exist in other three-person problems that I examine.     

Class conflict and fairness in “democratic capitalism”

This paper studies the distribution of income, class formation, deformation and conflict, and fairness in a political economy combining basic features of capitalism with certain democratic institutions determining the wage level by voting.     

Styling the self online: semiotic technologization in weblog publishing

ABSTRACT

Testing on digital semiotic production the concepts of (self-)styling and technologization of discourse, developed for offline linguistic phenomena, the article investigates the role of digital platforms in shaping the relation between self-expression online, semiotic regulation and the social construction of taste. By focusing on the use of semiotic resources of webdesign for identity expression, the study analyses the semiotic regimes emerging from regulatory practices and webdesign styles on WordPress, and their influence on the changes in the projected identity of a personal blogger. In spite of the participatory character of WordPress, results show the role of the platform in objectifying/technologizing hegemonic semiotic preferences, with consequent normalising effects in bloggers’ self-styling practices. The conclusions relate the findings to broader power dynamics in the social construction of taste and their implications for both online and offline forms of self-expression.     

Humanitarian implications of armed conflict in cities

The Syrian civil war and the military campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, have prompted a major reconsideration of responses to armed conflict in cities. The growing consensus among practitioners is that responses to urban armed conflict should extend beyond short-term aid and lay the groundwork for dealing with longer-term challenges posed by urbanisation.     

种族冲突与国家弱化--兼论弱化国家的行政管理

冷战后,种族冲突和民族分离主义在世界各地迅速泛滥,对世界和平与发展构成严重威胁.本文认为,世纪之交种族的冲突和民族分离主义与民族国家的弱化有密切关系,国家弱化主要表现在两个方面一是民族国家在管理职能上的弱化,二是殖民主义分而治之的殖民遗产造成民族国家发展上的弱化,国家弱化加深民族冲突.     

Adversary and cooperationist institutions for conflict resolution in public policymaking

Compared with other societies, the United States makes unusually extensive use of adversary institutions for resolving public conflicts—that is, institutions where the job of advocates is to present for a third party the strongest possible case for their own point of view and where responsibility for actual political choice is then left to the third party. This article presents a case for placing greater reliance on “cooperationist institutions,” that is, ones where parties talk with each other rather than to a third party and where the parties attempt to reach agreement among themselves, acceptable to most or all the participants, about the issue in question. The case for cooperationist institutions is argued in terms of the effects of such an institutional design on the development of public spirit among participants in the policymaking process. The article also considers objections against cooperationist institutions and concludes by making some suggestions about the concrete forms that such institutions might take in the United States.     

Education-based group identity and consciousness in the authoritarian-libertarian value conflict

The increasing importance of New Politics or authoritarian-libertarian values to electoral behaviour in advanced Western industrial democracies and the previously documented strong link between such values and educational attainment indicates that, contrary to the claims of some New Politics theorists, the ideological conflict is anchored in the social structure – in particular in educational groups. For this interpretation to be warranted, however, it should be possible to document the existence of education-based group identity and group consciousness related to the value conflict. The article develops indicators of the core variables out of Social Identity Theory. Based on a unique survey from Denmark, which includes the new set of indicators, the analyses show that members of the high and low education groups have developed both group identity and consciousness reflecting a conflict between the groups and that these factors are related to authoritarian-libertarian values. The results are interpreted as reflecting a relationship of dominance, which supports the view that the ideological conflict is structurally anchored.