THE PROSPECT OF ESTABLISHING A TRUTH- TELLING AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION IN UGANDA

While eulogising former President Apollo Milton Obote, President Museveni argued that the time had come to look for ways to bring genuine reconciliation in the country. Since then, in the context of ending the conflict in northern Uganda, calls have been made for the government to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission （TRC） to heal not only the wounds occasioned by that conflict, but also those that have been inflicted in the whole country since independence. In this regard, specific recommendations have been made on the need to establish a TRC once and for all to deal with Uganda＇s past. However, the talk of reconciliation has been heard before. Former dictator Idi Amin instituted a commission in 1974 to look into the disappearance of people in the early years of his rule in 1974, but its recommendations were never implemented. When he took over in 1986, MusevenL in order to show that his government was different from those before, established a commission to look into violations of human rights from independence up to the day he took over. Very few recommendations of this commission were ever implemented. This paper argues that there is momentum to establish a TRC in Uganda, which should deal with the conflict not only in northern Uganda but rather should be national in outlook. This is because there are events that have occurred since independence in the country that need closure. Also, it is the contention of this paper that in order to be successful, any future TRC must learn from the experiences of past commissions.     

Metaphor and Imagination in James Wilson's Theory of Federal Union

"Through metaphor, the past has the capacity to imagine us, and we it." -Cynthia Ozick, in "The Moral Necessity of Metaphor"
American federalism is nothing more-und nothing less-than a metaphor.
This was how lames Wilson, the most prominent lawyer at the Philadelphia Convention, came to approach the novel problem of understanding and conveying what federalism in a modern republic should mean. The Federal Republic created in 1787 was, for Wilson, more than a mutter of ingenious political design, more than a mutter of the "new science of politics," and more than a mutter of constitutional law or constitutionalism itself-unless the Constitution were seen to "comprehend" the moral purpose and moral promise of the new nation.
To Wilson, this view of the importance of the moral content of republican federalism was entailed by the "knowledge" that he took to be the necessary foundation of the Republic. It was this knowledge of certain fundamental principles- of "moral science,'I human nature, and the nature of language, and, more generally, of "cultivation" us a political and social process that was also an end in itself-that ultimately justified "the People" us the "sublime" metaphor governing American constitutional theory.
Yet, for all Wilson's faith in figurative "comprehensiveness," his distinctive approach to securing the New Republic through a federal union of the American People seems to have proved less and less compelling to his contemporaries the more he tried to pursue it as far us his vision of a politics of cultivation directed.     

International Cooperation,Spoiling, and Transnational Terrorism

Do interstate relations influence the sources and targets of transnational terrorism? A considerable body of recent research suggests that the answer to this question is yes, and that one state may sponsor terrorist attacks to weaken the bargaining positions of other states. We suggest, in contrast, that positive or cooperative actions invite terrorist attacks from a different source: nonstate groups wishing to spoil interstate cooperation that they oppose. We assess this argument with a dyadic dataset using monthly data on transnational terrorist attacks and cooperative and noncooperative actions between states. Our results suggest that spoiling in response to interstate cooperation is an important determinant of transnational terrorism.     

Listening to voices: The use of phenomenology to differentiate malingered from genuine auditory verbal hallucinations

The experience of hearing a voice in the absence of an appropriate external stimulus, formally termed an auditory verbal hallucination (AVH), may be malingered for reasons such as personal financial gain, or, in criminal cases, to attempt a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. An accurate knowledge of the phenomenology of AVHs is central to assessing the veracity of claims to such experiences. We begin by demonstrating that some contemporary criminal cases still employ inaccurate conceptions of the phenomenology of AVHs to assess defendants' claims. The phenomenology of genuine, malingered, and atypical AVHs is then examined. We argue that, due to the heterogeneity of AVHs, the use of typical properties of AVHs as a yardstick against which to evaluate the veracity of a defendant's claims is likely to be less effective than the accumulation of instances of defendants endorsing statements of atypical features of AVHs. We identify steps towards the development of a formal tool for this purpose, and examine other conceptual issues pertinent to criminal cases arising from the phenomenology of AVHs.     

Practice tips for managing challenges in parenting capacity assessments in child protection court

Courts frequently rely on parenting capacity assessments to make decisions about visitation and case progress in child protection court. Although these evaluations can provide valuable information to courts, they often involve assessing areas of human behavior that are not clearly defined in the literature. For example, mental health professionals are often tasked with identifying risk and protective factors for child maltreatment while identifying factors that can impede progress towards reunification. Although some of these factors may be easy to identify and assess (e.g., symptoms of mental illness or substance abuse), others may be more challenging. For example, factors such as denial and minimization about risk factors and maltreatment, a parent(s)’ ability to protect their child(ren) from future incidents of maltreatment, the parent(s)’ potential for change, and the consideration of what is in the best interest of the child are hard to assess. This article will provide a summary of the research in these areas, provide tips for managing these areas, and highlight directions for future investigation that will help inform parenting capacity assessments in child protection court.     

Internal capabilities,external structural holes network positions,and knowledge creation

Social network theory suggests that firms bridging structural holes by connecting disconnected partners in a network benefit from timely access to diverse knowledge. However, the existing literature reports mixed evidence with regard to the performance implications of this view. Our study examines how a firm’s diverse knowledge base and knowledge-processing capabilities affect knowledge creation when a firm bridges multiple structural holes in an inter-firm network. The model is tested on a sample of 191 firms in high-technology industries. The dependent variable, knowledge creation, was measured by the number of patents generated. Results show that when a firm spans multiple structural holes, its diverse technological knowledge facilitates knowledge creation. However, when a firm already possesses well-developed knowledge acquisition capabilities, spanning structural holes reduces knowledge creation. This paper suggests that internal knowledge base and knowledge-processing capabilities determine the impacts of external network positions on firm knowledge creation. It provides implications on how a firm best capitalizes on external network positions.