The Indonesian killings of 1965–1966: the case of Central Java

The mass killings of 1965–1966 in Indonesia marked a watershed in its history. The consensus estimate of lives lost is 500,000. In this paper, demographic and geographic methods are used to characterize the violence in Central Java, one of the worst-affected provinces. The findings provide a portrait of the violence and its dynamics. This portrait highlights the likely complicity of a diverse array of political opponents of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The findings also provide evidence supporting Clifford Geertz's three-aliran (cultural “stream”) model of Javanese society, with the complex interplay of the three aliran and the Indonesian Army in the political realm producing the violent outcomes of 1965–1966. In this manner, this study builds on prior work by Hefner, Jay, Lyon, Mortimer, and Ricklefs on the cultural and social underpinnings of the violence. It also builds on more recent work on the neighboring province of East Java in which the role of two of the three alirans was found to be a significant factor, underlining the importance of the intersection of culture, geography, and politics in understanding this violent episode in Indonesian history.     

Topic Modeling the Research‐Practice Gap in Public Administration

The possible existence of a research‐practice gap is the topic of a long‐standing debate in the field of public administration. In this Viewpoint essay, the authors examine the agendas of scholars and practitioners using the topic modeling technique of computational social science. Topic modeling a content analysis of 35 topics identified in Public Administration Review and PA Times (3,796 articles) showed that just over 50 percent of topics were common to both groups, indicating shared interests. There were, however, topics that the two groups distinctly focused on. Moreover, scholars and practitioners attached significant differences to the weights allocated to the prominent topics in their writing. Taken together, these findings indicate that topic modeling can shed new light on the research‐practice gap in public administration.     

From human rights to human dignity

Abstract

Mainstream human rights ideas that most of us are familiar with today evolved from the European Enlightenment and the secularization of thought and society of the last 150 years. These ideas have contributed significantly to human civilization in at least four ways. One, they have endowed the individual with certain basic rights such as the right of free speech, the right of association, the right to a fair trial, and so on. Two, they have strengthened the position of the ordinary citizen against the arbitrariness of power. Three, they have expanded the space and scope for individual participation in public decision-making. Four, they have forced the state and authority in general to be accountable to the public.     

Problems and justifications of the theory of Drstisrsti

Journal of Indian Philosophy -     

DDR and transitional justice: bridging the divide?

This article explores the complex relationship between disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of ex-combatants (DDR) and transitional justice. While both DDR and transitional justice often operate simultaneously, neither process has traditionally been designed with the other in mind. In fact, they are often in tension or competition, pursuing competing demands and potentially drawing on the same scarce donor pools. While scholars and practitioners of transitional justice have become somewhat attuned to the presence of DDR processes in countries emerging from conflict, and the challenges and opportunities they present for transitional justice, we observe that by comparison, it is only fairly recently that DDR policies, if not programmes, have begun to take account of the demands and practice of transitional justice. We argue that while the activities of DDR and transitional justice may often be in tension, in some instances they might be designed to operate in a more complementary fashion. However, for this to even be conceivable, it is essential that scholars and practitioners of each seek to understand the work of the other better.     

High performance liquid chromatographic determination of alcohols with reference to body distribution of methanol.

A method has been developed on reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography for simultaneous determination of methyl, ethyl and isopropyl alcohols under refractive index detection using pure water as the mobile phase. A good separation has been achieved between these alcohols. Detector response was linear with a detection limit of 5 mg/100 ml. Recovery studies were performed by adding known amounts of methyl and ethyl alcohols to blood, lung and liver within the range 80-90%. The reproducibility of the results was always greater than 90%. The quantitative distribution of methyl alcohol in postmortem body tissues and fluids has been reported in three cases of poisoning.