Governing the Safety and Security of the Malacca Strait: The Nippon Foundation between States and Industry

ABSTRACT

Despite long-standing sovereignty sensitivities, the Malacca and Singapore Straits have been the site of co-operative governance and regime building. Of note is the 2007 Co-operative Mechanism of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, characterised as a milestone achievement in regional co-operation towards improved safety and security in the Straits. Yet, well before the Co-operative Mechanism were also earlier instances of co-operation dating to the 1970s – specifically between the Straits’ littoral states under a tripartite framework and Japanese actors through the Malacca Strait Council. In addition to providing a template for the Co-operative Mechanism, these arrangements offer alternative models of governance and regime building that challenge conventional characterisations of “regional governance” – what it looks like, as well as its driving actors. This article considers the significance of these early efforts, with attention to the ways that the region’s developmental context bears on the actors, structures and processes of governance in Southeast Asia. Not only does this historical process of co-operation give expression to alternative governing arrangements composed of mixed actors and obligations, but an unconventional governance agent – the Nippon Foundation – has played an especially defining role in bringing actors to the table and substantiating the co-operative process.     

War and identity: the case of the Donbas in Ukraine

Abstract

The study of identities struggles to capture the moments and dynamics of identity change. A crisis moment provides a rare insight into such processes. This paper traces the political identities of the inhabitants of a region at war – the Donbas – on the basis of original survey data that cover the four parts of the population that once made up this region: the population of the Kyiv-controlled Donbas, the population of the self-declared “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic,” the internally displaced, and those who fled to the Russian Federation. The survey data map the parallel processes of a self-reported polarization of identities and the preservation or strengthening of civic identities. Language categories matter for current self-identification, but they are not cast in narrow ethnolinguistic terms, and feeling “more Ukrainian” and Ukrainian citizenship include mono- and bilingual conceptions of native language (i.e. Ukrainian and Russian).     

The Dog That Didn’t Bark: Explaining Change in Germany's Tobacco Control Policy at Home and in the EU

This article revisits the earlier debates on Germany's abysmal record on tobacco control policies, which attributes that record to cultural, institutional, and political barriers. This article shows that Germany has made progress in tobacco control, though its commitment to smoke-free public spaces is lagging. We argue that the explanation for Germany's progress on tobacco control is that EU legislation directly and indirectly influenced public attitudes, raised awareness about the health consequences of smoking among the public and medical establishment, elevated the visibility of medical and health NGOs, and altered the institutional venue of policy making. However, in areas where the EU does not impose legislation, such as second-hand smoke, Germany continues to show more modest progress, owing to its federalised structure of health policy. State governments are in change of smoke-free eateries/drinking establishments and they are more susceptible to pressures from the gastronomy sector and allied tobacco interests.     

PERMANENCE FOR OLDER FOSTER YOUTH1

I discuss the importance of permanency for older youth in foster care and the limitations of current foster care programs in meeting the permanency needs of these youth. I provide an overview of federal and state policies and describe recent initiatives that are successfully increasing permanence for older foster youth, overcoming barriers to adoption, and using creative strategies to identify alternative permanent arrangements. A key component is inclusion of foster youth in the decisions that affect their lives.     

Citizenship,Identity and Foreign Policy: The Contradictions and Consequences of Russia's Passport Distribution in the Separatist Regions of Georgia

This article examines the role of Russian passports and citizenship in facilitating Abkhazian and South Ossetian separatism in Georgia. It questions Russian leaders' justification of the country's intervention in the August 2008 South Ossetian crisis on the basis of defending co-nationals' human rights, noting the tenuous circumstances under which citizenship was granted and Russian policymakers' general disregard for human rights among non-ethnic russkii groups both domestically and abroad. The rationale for Russian state actions is placed within the desire for geostrategic gain in the former Soviet Union and the restoration of civic national pride.     

Establishing Likelihood Ratios for Patterned Garment Comparisons from Seam Measurement Data,

It is often challenging to ascribe an objective measure of confidence for identifications based on surveillance imagery from a crime scene. The present work seeks to address this deficiency in the case of garment comparison evidence by developing a quantitative method for establishing a conservative lower bound on the likelihood ratio (LR) for identifications involving patterned garments. The method is based on statistical analysis of pattern offset measurements taken from a sample of garments of the same type (manufacturer, style, and size) as the seized evidence. The developed analysis framework was demonstrated on different types of garments over a range of modeled surveillance imaging scenarios with variable image quality; the lower bounds on the LRs ranged from approximately 10–1 to over 400–1. The statistical model was tested and validated through a large‐scale empirical study involving both simulated and human observer‐performed garment comparisons.     

Women between a new marriage and an independent position: Rural widows in Bohemia in the first half of the nineteenth century

This article discusses the position of widowed rural women in early 19th-century Bohemia. It focuses on women who had been married to full peasant farmers, holders of smaller farmsteads or cottagers. The data collected are based on the method of family reconstruction, which made it possible to carry out an in-depth examination of the background of individual widows as well as of the factors which influenced the widows' future. Results show that in deciding whether to remarry, widows were not determined only by economic or demographic circumstances (their age). Rather, the decision depended on specific life experience of each widow. One of the crucial factors was whether a widow was entitled to managing the farmstead of her late husband and also the number and age of children in the family. Young widows under 35 remarried in 88% of the cases, which was only natural since they did not have enough time to fulfil their maternal needs — 62% of women under 35 had either no child or only one when they became widowed. By contrast, the majority of older widows (61% of widows aged 35–50) decided to manage the farm by themselves, since by entering into a new marriage they would compromise the inheritance shares of their existing children.     

Political Indigestion: Germany Confronts Genetically Modified Foods

Why has German policy toward agricultural biotechnology been notably unsupportive, compared to other countries with large biotechnology industries, despite its economic significance and the senior governing party's initial support across both the SPD–Green and Grand Coalition governments? I argue that German policy is the result of the interlocking dynamics in the economic and political arenas. In both realms, the GMO issue led to ‘business conflict’ by dividing economic sectors into pro-GMO and anti-GMO blocs. This enhanced the anti-GMO movement's ‘opportunity structures’ in both the economic and the political arena. It also affected the relative strength of contending political coalitions on both sides of the GMO issue, which in turn affected policy outcomes. Finally, I argue that the partisan composition of Germany's coalition governments also contributed to the outcome.