GUUAM and the future of CIS military cooperation

This study analyses the establishment and development of the GUUAM cooperation and offers an assessment of the future implications of this regional grouping for the CIS military alliance. It presents three key arguments. First, that the GUUAM members have bandwagoned with western states at the system level and balanced against Russia at the regional level. Second, that there is a dialectical relationship between these two policies, with one getting added momentum from the other. And finally, that on this background we should expect to see increased future balancing by the GUUAM states — and possibly by other CIS members as well — causing a further undermining of the CIS military cooperation.     

Deficits,Democracy, and Demographics: Europe’s Three Crises

This article argues that the EU and, above all, the eurozone are facing not one crisis – an economic and fiscal one – but three: an economic crisis, a crisis of institutions, and a crisis of demography. These crises are not simultaneous; they are overlapping and self-reinforcing, and there is a high degree of feedback across all three crises. Economically, the euro inflated economic growth and government revenue in the peripheral economies, giving those member states a false sense of their economic prospects. Institutionally, mechanisms were too weak at the EU level to prevent a dangerous escalation of asset (above all house) prices and too fragmented to confront the crisis through an immediate and decisive plan that would provide calm to the markets. Demographically, Europe’s economic and fiscal problems are and will increasingly be exacerbated by the continent’s demographic situation and its projected development, especially in southern Europe.     

Measuring media oriented terrorism

Although long established, media oriented terrorist events have not been conceptualized or measured in a coherent manner. To forward the empirical study of media oriented terrorism, a measure that can be applied to terrorist events or to terrorist groups was developed and employed to compare terrorist activity for twenty terrorist groups and two hundred terrorist events. The media orientation measure taps into five factors of media orientation and successfully differentiates high from low media orientated events and active and inactive media oriented terrorist groups. The single most important factor regarding any group's individual media orientation level was their base of operation. Terrorist groups that were engaged in regional struggles were found to be less media oriented. Despite the news value of death and injury, the terrorist group with the highest fatality and injury averages ranked ninth in its media orientation score indicating that death and injury was not a necessary indicator of media orientation. Scores further suggest that media savvy well-known terrorist groups did not pursue media oriented activity as a constant strategy.     

Back to the Archives? A Critique of the Danish Part of the Manifesto Dataset

The dataset of the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) is one the best known and often used datasets in comparative studies of Western Europe. However, the Danish part of the data is very problematic. On average, nearly a third of the content of the Danish manifestos is deemed impossible to code. A close examination of the Danish data reveals large variations in the number of coded sentences across time and parties. An analysis of the manifestos on which the coding is based sets all the warning lights flashing. First, not all manifestos are in fact manifestos; a number consist of other political texts (i.e. speeches, drafts) or even stem from different elections (e.g. municipal manifestos masquerading as national manifestos). Second, the large variation in the length of the manifestos across time suggests that the information derived from them is not readily comparable. This leads to a distorted picture of the positions of the Danish parties. The conclusion of this article is that in order for the Danish part of the CMP dataset to become more trustworthy, it is necessary to search the archives, find the actual manifestos and recode them.     

Exploiting the common pool or looking to the future? A study of free-riding leading up to the 2007 municipal amalgamations in Denmark

ABSTRACT

Municipal amalgamations can create incentives for opportunistic behaviour. Several fairly recent studies have examined this on amalgamations in Denmark and Sweden using the so-called law of 1 over n. However, they have yielded inconclusive results and I argue that one plausible explanation is a theoretical deficiency in the law, as it does not account for how future political representation can mitigate the incentive to free-ride. I examine this using large-scale amalgamations in Denmark in 2007. This case is quite unique as the amalgamations were implemented in such a manner that they constitute a quasi-experiment, and because an extra fiscal year was added to the election period where the composition of the new councils was known with certainty, while the municipalities retained some decision-making power. The study’s findings are consistent with the argument that the incentive to free-ride depends on the decision makers’ future political stake in the new, amalgamated municipality.     

Gendered entanglements: Dakotas and Scandinavians at Spirit Lake, 1900–1930

In this article the author explores the interconnections between the social and the material—as people move to a space on the land, coexisting with one another. By focusing in on one specific place—the Spirit Lake Dakota Indian Reservation (formerly called the Devils Lake Sioux Indian Reservation) in North Dakota—the author analyzes what happened when white immigrants came to homestead and live on land historically reserved for Dakotas. Against the backdrop of Native dispossession, this illustrative case reveals the ways everyday interactions created entanglements through landownership, the gendered division of paid work, neighboring practices, and leasing land. It challenges us to uncover gendered processes, probe denials, and interrogate silences.