Introduction to this Special Issue Cultural Diplomacy: What Role for Cities and Civil Society Actors?

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society -     

Individual-Level Data on the Victims of Nepal’s Civil War, 1996–2006: A New Data Set

This article introduces individual-level microdata on victims of violence in Nepal’s civil war (1996–2006). The data being presented in this study are unique in that they are a census—not a sample—of the known population of victims for which information could be collected. The unit of analysis is the individual victim, and the data provide information on: whether the victim was killed, injured, or disappeared; the districts and villages where they were targeted; their permanent home addresses; the circumstances of the attack (combat, extrajudicial, etc.); socioeconomic information; whether they had any affiliation to rebel groups or other political parties; identification of the perpetrator; and whether the victim was considered to be a government or Maoist informant. After describing the data, an application of the data is performed and some preliminary findings are discussed on the differences in targeting behavior between the government and the Maoist rebels.     

Lessons learnt from international environmental agreements for the Stockholm + 50 Conference: celebrating 20 Years of INEA

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics -     

Technology transfer perspectives in globalising India (drugs and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology)

The paper briefly outlines the status of technology transfer related issues in drugs & pharma and biotechnology sectors in India. The paper also outlines the contemporary business strategies including R&D and technology transfer models. The study indicates that present technology transfer policies and mechanisms are weak and need to be restructured. The current fiscal incentives and tax concessions etc. available for R&D in industry seem to have outlived and are no longer attractive because of continuous lowering of tariff rates and tax rates in the context of WTO and liberalization of policies. Moreover, the issue of R&D support to industry is not covered in the WTO as in case of subsidies. Therefore, it is advisable for the government to revisit the existing promotional measures for R&D. FDI policies also need to be tailored to encourage Technology transfers and capability building. Recommendations are made for making Technology Transfer more effective for the growth and competitiveness of the industry. A technology transfer management model is suggested.      

A Leadership Selection Index for multi-ballot political party conventions in Canada

Eugene McGregor (Journal of Politics 35, 459–478, 1973) recognized a regularity in multi-ballot leadership conventions in the United States. He hypothesized that the change in absolute votes between the first and the second ballot could be used to forecast the eventual winner of a leadership race. When the McGregor model is applied to the Canadian multi-ballot conventions the prediction rate is only 57 per cent. This paper seeks first to discuss the qualitative similarities found between these Canadian conventions and then use this as a basis to develop and to apply a model that extends on McGregor's work. The developed model is called the Leadership Selection Index (LSI). We find that the winner of most Canadian multi-ballot conventions (86%) could be forecasted after the second ballot by using the LSI method of analysis. Based on the evidence from the literature and a survey of Canadian political conventions, we develop a hypothesis of ‘two critical conjunctures' for multi-ballot leadership conventions. This hypothesis provides a suitable theoretical framework to interpret the performance of our empirical model.