Russian Economic Nationalism during the First World War: Moscow Merchants and Commercial Diasporas

While accounts of the end of the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires have often stressed the rise of Turkish and German nationalisms, narratives of the Romanov collapse have generally not portrayed Russian nationalism as a key factor. In fact, scholars have either stressed the weaknesses of Russian national identity in the populace or the generally pragmatic approach of the government, which, as Hans Rogger classically phrased it, “opposed all autonomous expressions of nationalism, including the Russian.” In essence, many have argued, the regime was too conservative to embrace Russian nationalism, and it most often “subordinated all forms of the concept of nationalism to the categories of dynasty and empire.” Recently, two authors have challenged the predominantly pessimistic portrayals of the extent of Russian national identity in late imperial Russia, focusing on peasant responses to the First World War. Scott Seregny makes a strong case that while peasants may not have been full “Russians” by 1914, the spread of politics and literacy to the countryside through the zemstvos was rapidly integrating peasants into a broader civic identity. Josh Sanborn argues that even though responses were varied and in fact protest against the war quite frequent, the important thing is that both positive and negative responses were expressed within a single national political framework and discourse. In response, S. A. Smith grants that the war strengthened rather than weakened national identity, but thinks Sanborn and Seregny underestimate the degree to which nation, empire, and class pulled in different directions from 1916, concluding that “by the summer of 1917, politics had become polarized between an imperial language of nation, used mainly by the privileged and educated strata, an anti-imperial language, used mainly by the elites of the non-Russian nationalities, and a language of class, used mainly by the subaltern classes.”     

Necessary Illusions: Misperception,Cooperation, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

A significant and growing body of literature related to security regimes focuses on the importance of either common knowledge or common norms to the success of efforts to limit military competition. This paper challenges this central pillar of the arms control literature. Security regimes, in particular arms control regimes, are not necessarily the product of common knowledge, norms, or shared identities. Rather, actors can and sometimes do cooperate because they do not fully understand one another and lack information. In these cases, examples of what I will refer to as “imagined intersubjectivity”—the mistaken belief that two actors share information, norms, and identities when in fact each has an idiosyncratic understanding—the lack of information is crucial for international cooperation. I analyze the record of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty negotiations. Through process-tracing, I will argue that three crucial moments in the negotiation process were premised on a misunderstanding of the position of the other party. The implications for cooperation without intersubjectivity are then explored.     

Introduction: South Africa's multiple languages in a shifting media environment

Abstract

The global South, as the collective for the peripheries of mainstream development is known, is often regarded as merely a beneficiary of Northern-borne notions in the field of organisational communication. The problem is that the Southern context and circumstance do not always mirror those of the North, meaning that these dominant, revered theories are not necessarily applicable. One Southern context is that of the South African mining and construction industries, which is seen as notoriously dangerous, plagued by various obstacles to internal organisational communication (such as illiteracy and diversity), and what Le Roux and Naudé (2009, 29) refer to as ‘historical baggage’. The research question of this article is whether congenital Northern communication theories can be adequately incorporated into the unique global South, in order to fulfil the important task of communicating safety information to employees. The article explores the appropriate implementation of the principles of the excellence theory, the stakeholder theory as well as the relationship management theory, and the research methodology includes interviews, focus groups and quantitative questionnaires at two organisations. The result of the empirical research is the amalgamation and reworking of these theories’ principles into a model for internal safety communication applicable to the South.     

The Publication of Precedents and Its Effect on Legislative Behavior

What was the effect of the publication of the precedents in the House in the late nineteenth century? Empirical analysis demonstrates a significant effect of the publication of the House precedents on the behavior of members' willingness to appeal decisions of the chair. Publication of the precedents reduced the frequency of appeals, a finding consistent with the qualitative arguments of past parliamentarians but never before demonstrated empirically. Further, parallel analysis of the Senate reveals that the publication effect found for the House is not an artifact of some secular trend in legislative behavior, doing so by showing that no similar pattern occurs in the Senate during the same period of time.     

An Exploratory Examination of a Gendered Model of the Effects of Role Stressors

A gendered model of the effects of role stressors on job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment was tested. Ordinary least squares regression analysis of survey data from correctional staff provided partial support for the proposition that men and women perceive and respond to the work environment differently. Work–family conflict was found to influence levels of job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment among women but not among men. Conversely, role ambiguity, role overload, and perceived dangerousness influenced levels of job stress for men but not women. Furthermore, levels of role conflict and role ambiguity influenced levels of job satisfaction for men but not for women. These findings lend support to further development of gendered theoretical models.     

Conspiracy Theories and the Paranoid Style(s) of Mass Opinion

Although conspiracy theories have long been a staple of American political culture, no research has systematically examined the nature of their support in the mass public. Using four nationally representative surveys, sampled between 2006 and 2011, we find that half of the American public consistently endorses at least one conspiracy theory and that many popular conspiracy theories are differentiated along ideological and anomic dimensions. In contrast with many theoretical speculations, we do not find conspiracism to be a product of greater authoritarianism, ignorance, or political conservatism. Rather, the likelihood of supporting conspiracy theories is strongly predicted by a willingness to believe in other unseen, intentional forces and an attraction to Manichean narratives. These findings both demonstrate the widespread allure of conspiracy theories as political explanations and offer new perspectives on the forces that shape mass opinion and American political culture.     

Dealing with cross-sectoral policy problems: An advocacy coalition approach to climate and water policy integration in Northeast Brazil

Policy Sciences - The governance of several cross-cutting challenges, such as food security, climate change, and sustainable development, calls for integrative policy approaches. However, efforts...     

Proteolytic‐Based Method for the Identification of Human Growth Hormone*

Abstract: Human growth hormone (HGH) is a relatively small protein consisting of 191 amino acids and has an average mass of 22,125 amu. The forensic analysis of proteins such as HGH must meet the analytical sufficiency requirements for the laboratory and consists of a binary approach. A suspected sample is analyzed as the whole protein for retention time and mass determination using high performance liquid chromatography equipped with a photodiode array and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. Further fragmentation of the protein using a proteolytic enzyme adds another dimension to the specificity of the analysis. Porcine trypsin digests proteins in a very predictable manner and yields peptide fragments of the original protein that can be used as a means for fingerprinting the larger biomolecule. In silico, or theoretical, digestion of HGH by trypsin yields 21 peptides ranging in size from 1 to 23 amino acids in length. The larger fragments containing higher numbers of amino acids give more specificity to identifying a protein based on a fragment produced by the digestion of trypsin. Herein, the analysis of HGH using a proteolytic approach is presented that meets the Scientific Working Group for the Analysis of Seized Drugs (SWGDRUG) recommendations for the identification of unknown substances.     

Heir, Celebrity, Martyr, Monster: Legal and Political Legitimacy in Shakespeare and Beyond

The seventeenth century placed Western political thought on a path increasingly concerned with ascertaining the legitimacy of a determinate individual, parliamentary or popular sovereign. As early as Shakespeare, however, a parallel literary tradition serves not to systematise, but to problematise the discourses used to assert the legitimacy with which control over law and government is exercised. This article examines discourses of legal and political legitimacy spawned in early modernity. It is argued that basic notions of ‘right’, ‘duty’, ‘justice’ and ‘power’ (corresponding, in their more vivid manifestations, to categories of ‘heir’, ‘celebrity’, ‘martyr’ and ‘monster’) combine in discrete, but always encumbered ways, to generate a variety of legitimating discourses. Whilst transcendentalist versions of those discourses begin to wane, their secular analogues acquire steadily greater force. In addition to the Shakespearean histories, works of John Milton, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Friedrich Schiller and Richard Wagner are examined, along with some more contemporary or ironic renderings.