Secession and Intervention in the Former Soviet Space: The Crimean Incident and Russian Interference in Its ‘Near Abroad’

Following Russian intervention and a referendum held on 16th March 2014, the Ukrainian republic of Crimea became incorporated within Russia. The Crimean episode marked just the latest in a series of situations arising in former Soviet states in which secessionist movements within disaffected territorial units were able to advance their causes aided by Russian external intervention. These situations raise significant international legal issues pertaining to secession by component parts of existing states, underpinned by external intervention. The unwillingness of the international community to recognise Russia’s incorporation of Crimea, similar to its earlier rejection of the purported secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia, reinforces the widely held view that non-consensual secession must be grounded in exceptional circumstances which were found to be lacking in all of these situations. It also reaffirms the principle that territorial changes brought about by external intervention will not be recognised. However, while legal assessments of these incidents may appear prima facie straightforward, they cannot be entirely divorced from the wider political phenomenon of ethnic conflict in former Soviet states and tensions existing in those states between factions seeking to further European integration and those prioritising strengthening relations with Russia. The international legal reasoning employed by the key protagonists must be understood with reference to this wider context.     

The effect of uniform and prior knowledge on children's event reports and disclosure of secrets

The present paper examined the effect of police uniform on the accuracy of 6- to 8-year-old children's reports about an event and it explored the roles that interviewer prior knowledge and social status play in mediating any effects of uniform. Two studies were conducted; in the first study, interviewers wore uniforms that were independent of a forensic context whereas in the second study, the interviews were conducted by police officers who wore either uniform or civilian clothes. Children reported more information (accurate, as well as inaccurate) to a police interviewer in civilian clothes compared to uniform. This finding was found only in the police uniform context. Interviewer's prior knowledge had no impact on the children's reports in either context. The likely impact of police uniform is discussed. Authors' Note: Thanks to many teachers, principals and children who volunteered to partake in this project and to Sarah Agnew, Greg Angenent, Catherine Borg, Sue Connor, Agnes Kalinowski, Joanna Kellis and Vivian Mikhail who assisted in the data collection, coding and analysis. Thanks also to the members of the Victorian Police (Community Policing Squad) who conducted interviews for this project, and to Sergeant Lisa McMeeken, and Senior Constable Jennifer Evans of the VATE project who coordinated the police interviews.     

Pinpointing the Powerful: Covoting Network Centrality as a Measure of Political Influence

This article introduces centrality in covoting networks as a measure of influence. Based on a simple cueing dynamic, it conceptualizes those lawmakers as most central—and thus as having the greatest signaling influence—who impact the greatest number of colleagues' voting decisions. A formal proof and an agent‐based simulation show that cue‐providers are always more central than followers; hence, we can use real‐world voting data to identify the most influential legislators. To confirm the measure's construct validity, we predict covoting centrality in the European Parliament and find those factors that are expected to impact legislators' influence to predict their centrality.