The 1915 Locust Attack in Syria and Palestine and its Role in the Famine During the First World War

The famine that befell Syria during the First World War was among the most tragic events in the region's modern history. The article argues that the 1915 locust attack, which is often neglected altogether or given terse treatment as one among a laundry list of causes of the famine, was a critical factor which drove many across the region, especially in Lebanon and Palestine, to starvation beginning in late 1915. Given that the scale of the attack was far worse than anything Syria had witnessed in many decades, if not centuries; and that a huge percentage of the region's major foodstuffs and sources of livelihood, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, fodder and a small but not insignificant amount of cereals, were devoured by the locusts, it is suggested that many of the 100,00–200,000 people that died from starvation or starvation-related diseases in the year immediately following the attack – that is, from November 1915 to November 1916 – can be attributed to the locust invasion.     

Negative Campaigning in the Social Media Age: Attack Advertising on Facebook

Recent studies examine politicians’ decisions to use social media, as well as the content of the messages that these political actors disseminate on social media platforms. We contribute to this literature by examining how race competitiveness and a candidate’s position in the race relative to her opponent affect their decisions to issue attacks. Through content analysis of nearly 15,000 Facebook posts for tone (positive or negative), we find that while competitive races encourage both candidates to issue more negative posts, candidates in less competitive races embrace attack messages with more or less frequency depending on whether they trail or lead their opponent. We find that social media negativity is much more likely to be a desperation strategy employed by underdog candidates in less competitive races. We also run separate models examining the factors that drive policy and personal attacks. While underdog candidates are more likely to engage in issue attacks, candidates in competitive races are significantly more likely to use Facebook to make personal attacks.     

Managing the Goal-Setting Paradox: How to Get Better Results from High Goals and Be Happy

Many negotiation teachers share the same tip early on: negotiators who set higher goals "do better." It turns out that one of the most empirically supported "truths" about negotiation comes with a big "but." Negotiators who set higher goals are likely to feel worse. In other words, negotiators who set optimistic goals are likely to obtain better objective outcomes but worse subjective outcomes.
We call this empirical finding the "goal-setting paradox." This article considers sources of and explanations for the goal-setting paradox and suggests how negotiators and negotiation teachers may better manage this paradox through mindfulness and other techniques.     

Under the radar: policing non-violent domestic abuse in the US and UK

Physical violence is but one of many tools that may be used to gain greater power within intimate relationships, yet the legal response has been critiqued for failing to recognise and respond to the full spectrum of abusive behaviours, such as coercive control. Using a sample of police officers from the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), the current study utilises hypothetical vignettes to assess police officers’ perceptions of domestic abuse, including those incidents that are not necessarily physically violent, but involve stalking and other coercive, controlling behaviours that are harmful and require intervention. Within- and between-country similarities and differences were analysed. Findings revealed that the majority of officers in both countries possessed a good level of understanding of domestic abuse and how they should respond to it – amidst and beyond the physical violence. However, our analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data also showed that the use of physical violence is at the forefront of many officers’ expectations about domestic abuse, and that when physical violence is absent, the police response is less proactive. Our study finds some support for the idea that non-physical abuse does go “under the radar” to some extent for some officers, and that this is more the case for American officers than their British counterparts. Findings are discussed in terms of context of the research sites and implications for policy, practice and future research.     

Father,son, and holy ghost: Pye,Solomon, and the ‘spirit of Chinese politics’

Abstract

Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture structurally is two books. The first (parts I and II pp. 1-159) is a discussion of Chinese psychological characteristics based on the author's 1966 dissertation for MIT, The Chinese Revolution and the Politics of Dependency: The Struggle for Change in a Traditional Political Culture. The second (parts III and IV pp. 160-526) is a competent if somewhat narrow think-tank piece written in 1969 on the Hundred Flowers, the Great Leap, and the early phase of the Cultural Revolution.