The role of journalists’ questions in campaign forums

This article examines the role of journalists’ questions in campaign agenda‐setting, through an analysis of questions and answers from the 1984 campaign forums. The intention is to identify more fully the conditions and techniques in operation as the agenda is being composed and to illuminate ways in which questioners and candidates vie for dominance.

While the audience may see panel members as uninhibited inquisitors, the setting and context of forums circumscribe panelists’ actions and exert a moderating effect. Panel members are screened and can be vetoed by candidates, and they are bound by demands of television, concerned about embarrassment, reluctant to antagonize candidates, and influenced by the existing campaign agenda. They have influence in introducing topics and guiding discussion, but their questions can be disarmed or neutralized by an array of devices. To the extent that the forums contribute to the public agenda, the power to shape the contribution rests primarily with candidates and secondarily with questioners.     

Counterterrorism Killings and Provisional IRA Bombings, 1970–1998

Counterterrorism strategies involving the killing of terrorists are a prominently used but controversial practice. Proponents argue that such strategies are useful tools for reducing terrorist activity, while critics question their effectiveness. This article provides empirical insight into this strategy by conducting a series of negative binomial regression and Tobit estimations of the impact of killing Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) terrorists as well as members of the Catholic community on counts of PIRA bombings and targeting activity in Northern Ireland for the period 1970–1998. We consider the impact of discriminate and indiscriminate killings (where only PIRA militants are killed versus those in which both militants and civilians are also killed) on subsequent PIRA improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. Our findings illustrate that while total and discriminate counterterrorism killings have little to no effect on PIRA IED attacks, indiscriminate counterterrorism killings increased PIRA bombings overall and prompted the Provisional IRA to specifically target civilians in IED events. We conclude by discussing the scholarly and policy implications of these findings.     

Lethal Connections: The Determinants of Network Connections in the Provisional Irish Republican Army, 1970–1998

Using stochastic methods we illustrate that the Provisional Irish Republican Army's (PIRA) network is clustered along three primary dimensions: (a) brigade affiliation, (b) whether the member participated in violent activities, and (c) task/role within PIRA. While most brigades tended to foster connections within the brigade (that is, “closure”), the tendency to do so varied across the organization. Members who engaged with violent activities were far more likely to connect with each other; in later periods there is polarization into those who engage in violent activities and those who do not. Across brigades, those who engage in a particular task and role (improvised explosive device [IED] constructor, IED planter, gunman, robber/kidnapper/drug smuggler/hijacker) are more likely to connect with others who do the same task or play the same role than with other members who fulfill other roles. Standard forms of homophily (that is, the tendency to make connections with people who are similar in terms of demography or status) play a very weak role in explaining which members interact with one another. Finally, our analysis illustrates clear patterns of relational change that correspond to changes in the formal structures that PIRA's leadership promoted.     

Ferocious Times: The IRA,the RIC,and Britain's Failure in 1919–1921

The 1916 Rising was, in military terms, a shambolic failure. Despite the fact that Britain was locked in a gruelling struggle with Germany, the Rising was still utterly crushed within a week. How then, in the aftermath of victory against Germany, did Britain fail to win the subsequent struggle with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) between 1919 and 1921? This article assesses some of the key factors that played out in the conflict, drawing particular attention to the IRA's focus on the Royal Irish Constabulary and the consequences of this, and then later, how distorted perceptions of the proximity of success ultimately undermined British commitment. One of the most remarkable features of the conflict was the widespread belief among many on the British side (and more than a few in the Republican camp) that the IRA was on the verge of total defeat when the truce was declared in 1921. The IRA had suffered heavy casualties and were running low on weapons and ammunition. Yet, somehow the movement prevailed. This article aims to shed light on how and why that happened.     

The “Japan Card” in the United States Rapprochement with China, 1969–1972

United States rapprochement with China should be re-examined by taking into consideration the American negotiating approach towards Beijing regarding the role of Japan, the United States' major Asian ally and China's long-term rival in East Asia. Whilst announcing the Nixon Doctrine, which increased pressure on Japan to strengthen its defense and regional responsibilities, Nixon and Kissinger used the so-called “Japan Card,” Japan's possible military resurgence and China's long-term fear of it, as a tacit negotiating tool to justify to Chinese leaders the continued United States military presence in East Asia. This article examines the impact of the United States rapprochement with China on the American negotiating process with Chinese leaders for the continuation of the United States–Japan Security Treaty and to what extent it changed China's policy toward American relations with Japan.     

Fighting Talk: The Statements of “The IRA/New IRA”

With the advent of the new violent dissident merger, “The IRA/New IRA,” the group and its affiliates have had to legitimise their new existence. They have utilised the maintenance of paramilitary activity to achieve this. However, they have also produced a number of organisational statements, justifying their position, tactics, and strategies. This article analyses the evolution of these statements, both pre and post-merger from 2007 to 2015. 126 individual statements and four magazines are analysed using grounded theory. This analysis found that the statements have a dual strategy, aiming to foster trust in the movement and distrust in their perceived enemies. One of the dominant ways in which the group aims to foster trust is by proposing their possession of an historical mandate from the republican forefathers of 1916, as well as the internally lauded paramilitaries from The Troubles-era Provisional Irish Republican Army. The focus of the distrust narrative has been on the “constitutional nationalism” of Sinn Féin. However, it also pours scorn on the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and capitalism, across the island of Ireland. The analysis of these statements can provide us with an understanding of the future direction of the group, as well as giving us insight, which can inform the development of any counter-narrative.     

Richard Nixon and Economic Nationalism in Latin America: The Problem of Expropriations, 1969–1974

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Nixon administration confronted the problem of how best to protect US economic interests in Latin America during a period of rising economic nationalism. After extensive debate, the president approved a policy designed to deter expropriations and rein in nationalist economic sentiment by threatening to terminate US and international financial assistance to countries that expropriated American holdings without prompt and adequate compensation. As it turned out, however, this policy was little short of a disaster. Nixon's stance heightened American unpopularity during a period when US credibility in Latin America was already on the wane, and failed to have any restraining effect on either the number of expropriations by Latin American countries or the strength of economic nationalism in the area. Informed by domestic and bureaucratic pressures and the same ideological proclivities that have long characterized American relations with the underdeveloped world, Nixon's policy on the expropriations issue ultimately proved ineffective and even pernicious to US interests in Latin America.     

The Politics of China’s Aid to North Vietnam during the Anti-American Resistance, 1965–1969

Behind the public display of Sino–North Vietnamese unity in the anti-American resistance during the height of the People’s Republic of China’s Cultural Revolution from 1965 to 1969, Beijing’s insistence on Hanoi’s acceptance of Maoist ideology coupled with its assertive demand for Hanoi to denounce Soviet revisionism politicised its economic and technical assistance to North Vietnam. Although appreciating Beijing’s enthusiasm to aid North Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam [DRV] resented Beijing’s political and ideological objective of promoting Maoism and anti-Soviet revisionism in North Vietnam. In response, the DRV government asserted independent decision-making and bureaucratic control over the management of foreign economic and technical aid, which in turn collided with the Chinese assertion of superiority and insistence on their control over all China-aided projects. The fragmentation of Chinese bureaucratic institutions and the political chauvinism of some radical Maoists at the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, who oversaw Chinese aid to North Vietnam, further hindered Beijing’s ability to exert significant influence over Hanoi.     

The politics of judicial review in Chile in the era of democratic transition, 1990–2002

The study addresses the politics and effects of judicial review in Chile. It concludes that by and large the Chilean courts have refused to exercise their constitutional review powers in defence of individual rights. Although this suggests that Chile represents a ‘negative model’ of judicial review in transitional democracies, the author argues that such an understanding would be simplistic. The Chilean courts' reluctance to exercise their review powers represents the continuation of a long-held strategic stance of avoiding politically controversial cases. This in turn has contributed to the preservation of the autonomy and political independence that has historically allowed the Chilean judiciary to play a crucial role in the promotion and maintenance of the legality that characterises this country. Merging the insights of two academic fields that rarely communicate – democratization studies and public law and courts – the author proposes that prematurely introducing judicial review of the constitution in non-consolidated democracies could actually make things worse. This, because it introduces irresistible incentives for government intervention in the work of the courts, thus destroying a sine qua non of the rule of law: judicial independence.     

Hostage Diplomacy: Britain,China, and the Politics of Negotiation, 1967–1969

During the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution in 1967–1969, China's violation of the diplomatic norms of the international community reached an unprecedented level. Two dozen British diplomats and private citizens on the mainland became de facto hostages of their host government. In response to China's hostage-taking, the British government preferred quiet diplomacy to extreme retaliation such as a rupture of diplomatic relations and economic sanctions. It focused on negotiations through minimal publicity and reciprocal gestures. But in China, the British found a culturally different negotiating partner that was obsessed with principles rather than details. Through a step-by-step negotiating approach recommended by the Sinologists in the British Mission, London was finally successful in securing the release of its detained nationals. The lesson of Britain's quiet diplomacy was a culture-sensitive approach to negotiation and the ability to separate the hostage question from the wider political and economic relationship that would facilitate the resolution of future hostage crises.     

Conflict over Israel: The Role of Religion,Race, Party and Ideology in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1997–2002

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the contours of support for the state of Israel in the House of Representatives from 1997 to 2002. In an analysis of votes and cosponsorship decisions, we find that when Congress considers innocuous resolutions of support for Israel, support is consensual and nonpartisan. However, as the violence escalated between Israel and the Palestinians in the 106th and 107th Congresses (1999–2001), the House increasingly considered bills and resolutions that directly engaged the Palestinian issue and forced legislators to take a side in the ongoing conflict. This transformed the politics of support for Israel and increased the level of conflict among legislators. With that, new partisan, ideological, religious, and racial cleavages emerged. Democrats, liberals, and African Americans started to identify with the Palestinians—not Israel—as the oppressed group. At the same time, religious and ideological conservatives and Republicans started to identify with Israel as a just state under attack from lawless individuals considered to be outside the Judeo-Christian tradition. At least with regard to Israel, this suggests that the development of U.S. foreign policy, which is often characterized as an elite-driven pursuit of national interests, is heavily marked by domestic ethno-religious forces.     

The Enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919–1923

This paper uses the episode of the Kapp putsch in March 1920 to isolate and analyze a number of high policy themes that dominated the period from the signature of the Treaty of Versailles through to the Franco-Belgian invasion of the Ruhr. These included: the questions of what mechanisms existed to enforce the treaty; the sanctions available to the victorious governments to enforce their will; the position and problems of the German government; the relationship and suspicions existing between Britain and France and the differing aims, ambitions, and approaches of the major participants.     

Rebel's dilemma: The changing relationship between the IRA,Sinn Féin and paramilitary vigilantism in Northern Ireland

The 40‐month period which has followed the introduction of the IRA's 1994 cease‐fire has witnessed the most intensive vigilante campaign ever carried out by the movement. A commitment to vigilantism has profoundly affected the evolution of both the policy and structure of Sinn Féin and the IRA. However, vigilantism bears costs for the two organizations and several serious attempts have been made by senior figures to end the practice. This article sets out to understand and describe the dynamics of militant republicanism's fluctuating commitment to vigilante violence, and in particular to understand the complex issues vigilantism has raised within Sinn Féin and the IRA in the past three decades. The article concludes that the two organizations are now irretrievably committed to vigilantism, and short of major RUC reform, they will be unable to end what has become a politically‐damaging policy.     

The role of ideology in terrorists’ target selection

Ideology plays a crucial role in terrorist's target selection; it supplies terrorists with an initial motive for action and provides a prism through which they view events and the actions of other people. Those people and institutions whom they deem guilty of having transgressed the tenets of the terrorists’ ideologically‐based moral framework are considered to be legitimate targets which the terrorists feel justified in attacking. As an extension of this, ideology also allows terrorists to justify their violence by displacing the responsibility onto either their victims or other actors, whom in ideological terms they hold responsible for the state of affairs which the terrorists claim led them to adopt violence. While it is not the only factor which determines whether a potential target is attacked, ideology provides an initial range of legitimate targets and a means by which terrorists seek to justify attacks, both to the outside world and to themselves.     

Strategic considerations in the US–China relationship and the role of European soft power

This paper analyses strategic considerations within the conceptual, the policy and the systemic dimension of US–Sino relations. Furthermore, the role of the EU’s soft power in the context of US–China relations will be assessed. It will be argued that current US–China relations are mainly a function of the current US foreign policy towards China, which doesn’t take into account that an engagement policy towards China needs to be paralleled by an engagement policy towards the East Asian region. A functional equivalent of the EU’s soft power and its approach of bilateral and multilateral engagement of East Asian actors is a missing element in US–China relations. The thinking on China affairs in the USA can be broadly structured into two different schools of thought. On the one side there are those who favour an engagement policy vis-à-vis China. The engagement school argues that bilateral and multilateral cooperation with China needs to be intensified. Traditionally members of this school are found in the Department of State and the Bureau of the US Trade Representative. On the other side there are those who think of China as a threat that needs to be contained. The politicians and experts that belong to the threat school (e.g. in the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute) emphasize their fears of China’s future role on the regional and global level. Though China has supported the US’s “war on terrorism” after the attacks of 9/11, Beijing’s increasing military budget, its neglect of non-proliferation agreements (e.g. in its relations with Pakistan) and its behaviour within the Six-Party Talks are taken as examples of the China threat. Security policies do not solely determine the relationship between the USA and China. The US China policy is a function of both the US’s economic and security interests. This explains why Washington follows a dual policy of simultaneous engagement and containment, i.e. a policy of hedged engagement. But the current state of affair of the Sino–US relationship does not reflect the rise of China as a de facto hegemon of an East Asian community. It is the inherent danger of the current US China policy that the missing regional component in US–China relations could facilitate the formation of a fortress Asia. Since Beijing holds the key to Asian regionalism, China should be the main target of European soft power in Asia by exporting the principles of regionalism and multilateralism to Asia. To what extent the EU and its model of intraregional cooperation and integration can influence the objective and trajectory of Asian regionalism will demonstrate partly the extent of Europe’s soft power in the international system.

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Living in the Past or Living in the Future? Analyzing Parties’ Platform Change In Between Elections,The Netherlands 1997–2014

Do parties change their platform in anticipation of electoral losses? Or do parties respond to experienced losses at the previous election? These questions relate to two mechanisms to align public opinion with party platforms: (1) rational anticipation, and (2) electoral performance. While extant work empirically tested, and found support for, the latter mechanism, the effect of rational anticipation has not been put to an empirical test yet. We contribute to the literature on party platform change by theorizing and assessing how party performance motivates parties to change their platform in-between elections. We built a new and unique dataset of >20,000 press releases issued by 15 Dutch national political parties that were in parliament between 1997 and 2014. Utilizing automated text analysis (topic modeling) to measure parties’ platform change, we show that electoral defeat motivates party platform change in-between elections. In line with existing findings, we demonstrate that parties are backward-looking.