The Transformative Impact of Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping

ABSTRACT

Civilians, working together, and using non-violence to protect themselves and others from direct violence, challenges widespread assumptions that peace and protection can only be delivered by the military and with the threat of force. Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping (UCP), with 35 years of evidence from projects worldwide, demonstrates that the assumption that an armed actor will not yield to anything except a weapon is false, therefore, challenging the exclusive role of military in peacekeeping. This paper explores (i) by conceptualising UCP as part of peacekeeping new insights into the approaches and mechanisms for preventing violence are revealed, (ii) the transformative capacity of UCP though the relationship with nonviolence theory. Using evidence from the practice of UCP from the organisations involved (including Peace Brigades International and Nonviolent Peaceforce) this paper sets out how we can create different approaches to peacekeeping.     

Mock-juror reactions to multiple interview presentation and rapport-building

ABSTRACT

In the UK and some US states, video-recorded investigative interviews of child victims/witnesses can be presented in court as the child’s evidence-in-chief. However, there is scarce advice or research on the effect that presenting different sections of the interviews may have on juror perceptions of the child’s testimony. Two aspects of testimony presentation are examined here: first, whether to show the rapport-building phase of the interview, and second, the presentation of multiple interviews (i.e. more than one interview with the same child). Participants (n?=?103) informed they were watching two interviews of the same child separated by a week had more positive perceptions of the child’s testimony than those informed they were watching just one extended interview with a ten-minute break. Also, those watching the rapport-building phase had less positive perceptions of the child’s testimony than those who did not watch this phase. Participants’ perceptions of the interviewer and their case progression decisions were mainly not related to the above presentational differences. Thus, (i) mock-jurors were not inherently biased against multiple interviews and (ii) decisions regarding whether or not to show the rapport-building phase in court may have significant effects on jurors’ perceptions of the child and their testimony.     

Some characteristics of the education policy formation system

This paper examines some of the distinctive features of the educational policy formation system. First, the formal goals of education are discussed and their relation to the policy formation system is examined. The main characteristics reviewed are problems caused by the intangibility of many educational goals; means-ends relationships; the inconsistency of educational goals; priority ordering of goals and weighting of educational goals; and the cost of goals. The second section discusses environmental influences on policy formation, emphasizing the dominant role of the environment in policymaking and its influence on other characteristics of the education system. In the third section, the influences of internal actors on the education policy formation are analyzed, especially the influence of teachers and the managerial apparatus. The fourth section examines decisionmaking processes in education. They are characterized by a lack of feedback; limited use of analysis and limited search for alternatives; incremental change as the main pattern of decisionmaking; wide discretion and the need for heuristic methods. The last section is devoted to a normative review of analytical approaches to education policy formation and a critical examination of their potentialities and limitations.     

‘Loose tweets sink fleets’ and other sage advice: social media governance,policies and guidelines

While social media represents a broad range of benefits to organisations and institutions, such as enhanced brand engagement, it also presents challenges and risks to reputation and security, such as confidentiality breaches. Employee use of popular social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, both at work and about work has resulted in organisations developing social media policies and guidelines as part of contemporary governance practice. This paper investigates this recent approach to corporate governance by examining 20 social media policies and guidelines from a sample of corporate, government and third sector organisations that are active social media users. It develops a basic framework for social media governance based on the 13 common themes that emerge from the sample, including confidentiality, disclosure and the public–private divide of social media usage. It draws on social contract theory and considers its importance to the field of social media governance. Key implications for managers who are tasked with developing and implementing social media policies and guidelines are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.