Democracy and mediation in territorial civil wars in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific

The awarding of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize to former President Martti Ahtisaari, Finland, cites his involvement in the settlement of the Aceh conflict. This at the same time highlights the lack of such efforts in the regions of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. While internal conflicts throughout the world often tend to be resilient to conflict management initiatives, conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region have proven to be particularly difficult to resolve. Internal conflicts in Southeast Asia and the Pacific often concern territorial issue, for instance, East Timor and ethnically based conflicts in Myanmar. This is also true for conflicts in the South Pacific, notably in Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) and New Caledonia (France). Territorial conflicts last longer, are more difficult to manage, and generally produce more adverse consequences than those over other issues such as ideology, government, and national power. Further, conflicts in this region appear to be of low priority for third parties, with comparatively few interventions from third parties. The strong central governments seem to be a factor in preventing mediation-based solution to such conflicts. Nevertheless, there are reasons to be optimistic. Third party mediation, democratization, and the recent success in Aceh provide promise for the future, and the recent Nobel Prize confirms this.     

Turnout as a Habit

It is conventional to speak of voting as “habitual.” But what does this mean? In psychology, habits are cognitive associations between repeated responses and stable features of the performance context. Thus, “turnout habit” is best measured by an index of repeated behavior and a consistent performance setting. Once habit associations form, the response can be cued even in the absence of supporting beliefs and motivations. Therefore, variables that form part of the standard cognitive-based accounts of turnout should be more weakly related to turnout among those with a strong habit. We draw evidence from a large array of ANES surveys to test these hypotheses and find strong support.     

The weakness of the strong: re-examining power in transboundary water dynamics

This article proposes a re-examination of how power is conceptualized within transboundary hydropolitics by arguing that power has been misrepresented in the water resources literature. Overemphasis on the factors of a country’s relative power, riparian position, and technological potential to exploit the resource has led to assumptions that the non-hegemon(s) is often unable to achieve their own positive outcomes and that the outcomes of interactions between hegemons and non-hegemons are predictable and detrimental. However, it appears that there are many examples that run counter to the power narrative that employs these factors. This study argues that this overemphasis neglects hegemonic vulnerabilities, which, when included with hegemonic capacities, are much more instructive in explaining transboundary water dynamics. The sources of the weakness of the strong of the alleged hegemon originates from several sources, including interlinkages between water and non-water issues, internal and external expectations, and consideration of whether the water-related issue at hand is crucial to each party’s survival or whether the party has the luxury to survive the outcome of the resolution. These factors allow for non-hegemons to achieve more favorable outcomes and, when incorporated in analysis, provide a fuller picture of the true power balance in each transboundary water interaction. We therefore call for a reconceptualization of power dynamics in transboundary waters that accounts for structural weaknesses present within all parties.     

Horse‐race Journalism and pollsters' performance in Israel

Abstract

This paper examines the interaction between the horse‐race attitude of the press in covering election campaigns and pollsters’ performance in Israel. Attempting to provide highly processed and more exciting reports, the press encourages pollsters to switch from relatively conservative approaches to projecting election results, into more daring ones, prone to situational errors. Moreover, criticizing such errors when they occur, the press focuses mainly on those errors consistent with its horse‐race orientation. Professional and political implications of the press's orientation and pollsters’ performance are discussed.     

The Effects of Continuous Application of the TASER X26 Waveform on Sus scrofa,

This study investigated and evaluated the safety margins of the continuous long duration (up to 30 min) effect of the TASER X26 waveform, using a Sus scrofa model. Long duration continuous stimulus has not been evaluated on humans or human surrogates prior to this study. Swine were used as models due to similarities with humans in their skin and cardiovascular systems. Very long duration was used to determine both exposure dose and possible adverse physiological effects of dose. The trial began with an application of 10 min, and subsequent animals received increasing exposure time up to a survived maximum duration of 30 min. At the onset of this work, it was hypothesized that there would be a time limit after which most animals would not survive consistent with increased dose response. However, this hypothesis was not supported by the experimental results. All animals (10 of 10) survived up to 3 min. Seven of the 10 animals survived up to a 10‐min exposure and 3 of 5 animals with a 30‐min target exposure survived the full exposure. Surviving animals were recovered and observed for 24 h, with no postrecovery deaths. This suggests that swine (based on physiology) will not experience a fatal event when exposed to the TASER X26 for a continuous 3 min. Conclusions regarding longer duration (10–30 min) are not as certain due to the small sample sizes at these time intervals.     

Book reviews

Lena Jonson, The Tajik War: A Challenge to Russian Policy (Discussion Paper No. 74) London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1998. Pp.54, no index. NP. ISBN 1‐ 86203–061–8.

Charles‐Philippe David and Jacques Lévesque (eds.), The Future of NATO: Enlargement, Russia and European Security. Montreal: McGill‐Queen ‘s University Press, 1999. Pp.xii + 261, incl. notes, no index. Cdn $65 (cloth); Cdn $22.95 (paper). ISBN 0–7735–1850–9 and 1872‐X (paper).

Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds.), Security Communities. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp.xiii + 462, index. $69.95 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0–521–63953–0 and ‐63051–7.

A.S. Panarin, Global'noe politicheskoe prognozirovanie v usloviyakh strategicheskoy nestabil'nosti [A Global Political Forecast under Conditions of Strategic Instability]. Moscow: Editorial URSS, 1999, Pp.277. NP. ISBN 5–8360–0027–1.

Nikolai Bindyukov and Petr Lopata, Osobaya tret'ya sila: Novyy politicheskiy fenomen [The Special Third Force: A New Political Phenomenon]. Moscow: ITRK, 1999. Pp.321. NP. ISBN 5–88010–066–9.

A. Podberezkin and V. Makarov, Stategiya dlya budushchego prezidenta Rossii: Russkiy put’ [A Strategy for the Future President of Russia: The Russian Path]. Moscow: Dukhovnoe Nasledie, 2000. Pp.168. 21 Rubles. ISBN 5–86014–106–8.

Nash put’: Strategicheskie perspektivy razvitiya Rossii v XXI veke: Tezisy kontspetual'nogo proekta [Our Path: Strategic Perspectives on the Development of Russia in the 21st Century: The Theses of a Conceptual Project], Moscow: ZAO ‘Russkoe Zoloto (A. P. Tarantsev), 1999. Pp.143. 49 Rubles. ISBN 5–8186–0002–5.     

What Do We Know About Village-Level Change and Stasis in India?

The study documents considerable spatial variation in change and stasis in development outcomes over the decade from 2001 to 2011 (proxied by women’s literacy and child sex ratio) even across villages within the same micro-region (taluk or sub-taluk) and with similar starting points. However, neither decentralization policy / practice nor other forms of public policy has identified village-level factors that mediate the impact of policy. Although extant literature has explored spatial variation, it has not explored such variation across different micro-regions of India, nor has it used methodologies that validate explanatory inference from spatial-longitudinal comparisons. The article notes that the degree of spatial variation in change over such a short period of time is remarkably similar across different micro-regions of the country. It also proposes a tentative methodology for identifying village pairs to produce more rigorous comparative longitudinal analysis of the drivers of development change and stasis.