The Populist Marketplace: Unpacking the Role of “Thin” and “Thick” Ideology

Political Behavior - A growing body of work adopts a “thin” ideology conception of populism, which attributes populist parties’ electoral success to anti-elite and people-centric...     

Dramatising intelligence history on the BBC: the Camp 020 affair

This article considers an episode of the television drama-documentary series Spy!, broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1980. The programme proved controversial owing to its depiction of a physical assault during interrogation at an MI5 facility, Camp 020, during the Second World War. Numerous 020 veterans complained, pointing out that, with one exception, such physical violence had never taken place there. As their complaints were largely made in private correspondence with the BBC, which stood by its programme, the association of wartime British intelligence with physical abuse was allowed to go unchallenged in the minds of the viewing public.     

Utility of Postmortem Vitreous Beta-Hydroxybutyrate Testing for Distinguishing Sudden from Prolonged Deaths and for Diagnosing Ketoacidosis

A retrospective, cross-sectional analysis of vitreous beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) on 967 forensic cases over a two-year period was conducted. Cases were sorted into six categories of death: (i) sudden traumatic/non-natural (ST), (ii) sudden natural (SN), (iii) prolonged traumatic/non-natural (PT), (iv) prolonged natural (PN), (v) diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), and (vi) alcoholic ketoacidosis (AKA). The mean BHB for all cases was 1.67 mmol/L (17.4 mg/dL; range: 0.11–18.02 mmol/L). The numbers of DKA, AKA, PN, PT, SN, and ST deaths were 21, 5, 155, 258, 275, and 253, respectively. Their mean vitreous BHBs were as follows: 11.04 mmol/L (DKA), 8.88 mmol/L (AKA), 1.56 mmol/L (PN), 1.55 mmol/L (PT), 1.26 mmol/L (SN), and 1.38 mmol/L (ST). There was a statistically significant difference between the mean BHBs of the PN and SN death groups (p < 0.001), as well as between those of the PT and ST death groups (p = 0.004). Given the overlapping ranges seen between the prolonged and sudden death groups, the identified differences did not hold clinical significance. In addition, we sought to determine a threshold value for vitreous BHB to definitely diagnose cases of ketoacidosis. BHB threshold concentrations between 2.5 and 5 mmol/L produced sensitivities >92% and specificities >96%. A receiver operator characteristic curve found 3.43 mmol/L to be the optimal cutoff value, demonstrating a specificity of 98.3% and a sensitivity of 96.2%.     

Pursuing Consilience: Using Behavioral Public Administration to Connect Research on Bureaucratic Red Tape,Administrative Burden,and Regulation

Behavioral public administration (BPA) research aspires not only to draw on developments in behavioral science but also, importantly, to address central themes in public administration. By focusing a symposium on bureaucratic red tape, administrative burden, and regulation, we encouraged BPA scholarship to engage with fundamental public administration topics that are also relevant for the broader literature on organizations and management. Indeed, the symposium contributions demonstrate how BPA can better meld the behavioral science and public administration literatures. They expand on existing conceptions of BPA, with respect to both methodology and topical focus, and provide a basis for demarcating what might and might not be usefully described as BPA. The symposium contributions provide a blueprint for how BPA research might usefully evolve and the introduction offers a philosophical reflection on the future development of BPA and behavioral science.     

Institutional Models for Track Two Interventions

Conflict resolution as an academic field was built by pioneers like John Burton on the idea that conflict resolution academics must accomplish three basic interlocking tasks: conduct cutting‐edge research, educate students, and make a positive contribution to the real‐world work of practitioners engaged in resolving actual conflicts. Over time and as the field has grown, so have the demands to produce research deemed rigorous enough according to increasingly competitive and rigid traditional standards and so too have the demands of teaching growing numbers of students. Research and teaching commitments thus diminish the time and support available to engage in practice. In this article, I consider those pressures within universities and also consider the options available to conflict resolution scholar–practitioners outside the traditional university     

Are the Popes Leaving Behind Just War and Embracing JustPeace?

Since the mid-nineteenth century a significant, though not yet complete, shift in both the politics and the teachings of popes regarding war and peace has occurred, in an increasingly pacifist direction. More specifically, the emphasis of the papal office has noticeably changed from endorsing violence and war toward embracing the essential coupling of peace and justice, holistic peacebuilding, and active nonviolence.

Moving beyond the tendency in academic literature to focus solely upon the Catholic Church’s teaching on just war, this essay demonstrates how the papacy went through a transformation in their attitudes to war and peace since the accession of Pius IX (r.1846–1878). Mapping developments from the mid-nineteenth century down to the time of this writing in March 2018, this essay demonstrates that while the contemporary popes have left intact certain aspects of the teaching of just war, they nonetheless lend a large measure of support to JustPeace outcomes, defined by the authors as combining peace and social justice in a mutually enhancing and creative tension.     

Russia–Kazakhstan Relations in the Early Post-Soviet Era: Explaining the Roots of Cooperation

Abstract

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan was faced with domestic conditions that made cooperation with Russia rational. Kazakhstan inherited a large ethnic Russian population and a severe economic depression. These conditions affected other countries emerging from the Soviet Union, but only Belarus matched Kazakhstan’s level of strategic cooperation with Russia. President Nursultan Nazarbaev’s dominance of Kazakhstan’s national security agenda offers a partial explanation for the cooperation, but we still need to ask what makes him different from the leaders of other post-Soviet countries that faced the same conditions. Kazakhstan’s pattern of historical development provides the key to understanding the cooperation. The timing of the country’s contact and experiences with the Russian-led empires led to a ‘dominant ally’ image of Russia that continues to decide the two countries’ relationship to the present day.