The political roots of domestic environmental sabotage

In this paper, we demonstrate that when environmentalist niche parties compete in a given constituency over a number of elections, but continually fail to win seats, then environmental sabotage becomes more frequent in that constituency. When mainstream tactics fail, radical tactics are used more frequently. Using a new data-set on the success rates of all Green Party candidates in US states, we show that environmental sabotage occurs more often when Green Party candidates fail to win even minor offices. This is true even when we control for other political expressions of environmentalism, such as interest group activity, and when we define ‘success’ through votes not seats. We discuss the implications of this for environmental politics, for social movements and democracy, and for political violence in the US.     

Divergent Paths to Martyrdom and Significance Among Suicide Attackers

This research used open source information to investigate the motivational backgrounds of 219 suicide attackers from various regions of the world. We inquired as to whether the attackers exhibited evidence for significance quest as a motive for their actions, and whether the eradication of significance loss and/or the aspiration for significance gain systematically differed according to attackers’ demographics. It was found that the specific nature of the significance quest motive varied in accordance with attackers’ gender, age, and education. Whereas Arab-Palestinians, males, younger attackers, and more educated attackers seem to have been motivated primarily by the possibility of significance gain, women, older attackers, those with little education, and those hailing from other regions seem to have been motivated primarily by the eradication of significance loss. Analyses also suggested that the stronger an attacker’s significance quest motive, the greater the effectiveness of their attack, as measured by the number of casualties. Methodological limitations of the present study were discussed, and the possible directions for further research were indicated.     

Conditioned Networking: Swiss–EU Relations in Transport

This article addresses the structural characteristics of the interactions between Switzerland and the EU in the transport sector, i.e. transport by air and land. More precisely, it is focused on two different aspects of this relationship: first the modes of coordination between Switzerland and the EU according to the concept of external governance and, second, those conditions that make inclusive patterns of interaction more likely. The central finding of this case study is an expansion of both the regulatory and organisational boundary in both cases. This shift finds expression in the incorporation of Swiss actors into a variety of networks that, at least in some cases, allow Swiss actors to shape EU policy making. The actual patterns of interaction are influenced by a number of factors, including the type of governance inside the EU that facilitates the inclusion of third parties in EU external governance and the problem structure that is characterized by coordination rather than enforcement problems.     

Rethinking Measures of Psychological Agency: A Study on the Urban Fringe of Bamako

Attempts to measure psychological agency have drawn on social psychology scholarship. Nonetheless, it is well documented that the Euro/American psychology paradigm is challenged by its tendency to universalise its theories. This raises a challenge for development scholars trying to measure the psychological domain; especially regarding understanding what the psychological domain may mean to people outside the Western liberal tradition. We examine the use of theoretical measures of psychological agency against local concepts of psychological agency from a neighbourhood on the urban fringe of Bamako. We conclude that there is no clear association between local and theoretical measures of psychological agency and therefore there is a need to include local and theoretical measures in the study of agency.     

Federalism and university governance in Canada

There is increasing interest in how universities are governed, externally and internally (Austin and Jones 2016). Drawing on a comparative case study of the governance of six major Canadian universities and the literature, this article describes the impact of federal research and innovation policy and programs on universities and reflects on Ottawa's role. We suggest that the federal government participates in the external governance of universities, but in a way that differs significantly from provincial governments. Canadian federalism appears to be generally beneficial for university autonomy and examination of its operation sheds light on factors that enable universities to sustain their autonomy.     

Sexual dimorphism in teeth: discriminatory effectiveness of permanent lower canine size observed in a XVIIIth century osteological series

Recent studies have shown that the most dimorphic tooth is the mandibular canine. We have carried out a study on a random sample of 146 skeletons dating from the plague outbreak in Marseilles (1722). We studied 1284 maxillary and 1432 mandibular permanent teeth. Sexual dimorphism was tested on 89 individuals. We selected a set of four dental indices and calculated the dimorphism percentage by ratio expression male/female. Dimorphic ranking was made, by allotting the first rank to the tooth presenting the highest dimorphism and the last rank to the one presenting the lowest ratio. Comparisons of means were made on both sexes (sex determined by post-cranial data) through a Student's test (t-test). We noted that lower canines and lateral incisor are the most interesting teeth in the dimorphic dental determination. The lower index presented the highest relative risk with RR = 1.56 [1.04-2.32]. In 58% of the cases, the lower dental index enabled a correct sex determination (determined on the basis of the post-cranial skeleton). These results showed the existence of a relative dental dimorphism (male > female mesiodistal diameters) with humans. In conclusion, this method, using dental measurements, may be used as an additional technique to determine sex on fragmentary adult skeletons, immature material, missing pieces or ambiguities on post-cranial remains.