The Challenge of Learning

This essay offers one attempt to apply insights from educational psychology to the teaching and learning of negotiation skills. First, we suggest a key reason why becoming an expert is challenging, namely, people's naïve theories about negotiation need to be challenged and largely put to rest. Second, we examine how professional schools typically teach negotiation. Third and finally, we offer suggestions for improving our negotiation pedagogy. To this end, we describe and review our research on analogical learning and how it can be used in classrooms to enhance learning.     

Red Dawn is Now: Race vs. Nation and the American Election

This article details the long-standing struggle within the American far right between those whose mission it is to resist the perceived subversion of international communism and its neo-Soviet successors now in power in the Kremlin and those whose mission is dedicated to preserving the White Race from the twin threats of miscegenation and marginalization from the corridors of power. Using the metaphor of the 1984 low-budget spectacular Red Dawn and noting the current pattern of Russian interference in the election and contacts with the Trump campaign, it traces the struggle from the ascendancy of anti-communism in the 1950s and 1960s to the current triumph of the race warriors and conspiracy theorists who championed the candidacy of Donald Trump. “Red Dawn Is Now” concludes with the observation that, for those who most fear foreign subversion, the revelations about Russian penwetration of the American election process and the Trump presidency represents a 21st-century version of the Soviet occupation that the young patriots of Red Dawn fame successfully repelled. If this is so, it suggests the possibility that Thomas Jefferson's observation that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants” may be prophetic and that the fifth wave of terrorism might at long last be at hand.     

Assessing the credibility of how climate adaptation aid projects are categorised

This article presents the findings of a re-evaluation of all 5,200 aid projects that OECD donors reported for 2012 as “climate change adaptation”-related, based on the “Rio marker” classification system. The findings confirm those from the academic and grey literature that the absence of independent quality control makes the adaptation Rio marker data almost entirely unreliable. This lack of credibility impedes meaningful assessments of progress toward the mainstreaming of adaptation in development cooperation activities. It also erodes trust in international climate negotiations, given that these data are frequently used in the financial reporting of developed countries to the UNFCCC.     

Communicating law,building peace: the pedagogy of public outreach from war crimes courts

ABSTRACT

There has been a growing interdisciplinary concern with the implications of public outreach processes from war crimes trials for new forms of citizenship in the wake of violent conflict. The enactment of such outreach, through seminars, civil society initiatives and workshops, provides a glimpse of the tensions between different conceptions of justice, belonging and rights in the post-conflict period. Specifically, such events constitute a rare public arena in the more fragmented and securitised domain of international legal practices. This paper focuses on a series of public workshops for survivors of wartime sexual violence carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) 2011–13. Drawing on participant observations and open-ended interviews, we argue that such public outreach programmes can be viewed as a form of pedagogy, where the materials, format and arrangement of the events structure the nature of participation and engagement. In doing so we are making two contributions. First, the discussion advances understandings of public outreach as a form of pedagogy, illustrating how practices of dissent, rejection and resistance animate processes of public outreach. Second, the paper illuminates the role of pedagogy as a governmental instrument, reflecting the micro-situations within which individuals are interpellated into the state.     

Discussion Networks,Issues, and Perceptions of Polarization in the American Electorate

Drawing on the sizable literature on polarization in the American public, we consider the link between discussion network composition and perceptions of polarization. Participants in the 2008–2009 ANES panel study were asked to complete an innovative battery; they interactively moved histograms to rate other groups’ positions on several prominent issues. These novel exercises provide data on individuals’ projections of the average attitudes of others, but critically, they also provide data on the variability of such attitudes. Thus, we use these “response-distributions” to thoroughly assess (1) the relationship between network characteristics and perceptions of the distance between party opinions, and (2) the relationship between network characteristics and perceptions of the homogeneity of opinions within parties. We find evidence that discussion networks track with individual perceptions of the parties in the electorate: exposure to interpersonal disagreement predicts the perception of less distance between (the mean opinions of) the parties, and the reporting of more heterogeneity of opinion within the parties. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for democratic functioning more generally.     

Feasibility and Acceptability of an Impact of Crime Group Intervention with Jail Inmates

The current study evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of a manualized Impact of Crime (IOC) group intervention implemented with male inmates (N = 108) at a county jail. Facilitator adherence to the intervention and participant attendance, homework completion, and feedback were assessed. On average facilitators covered 93.7% of each manual topic. Victim speaker recruitment was a challenge—43.5% of relevant sessions lacked victim speakers. Findings suggested significant participant engagement—67.3% attended at least 75% of sessions and 93.3% of homework assignments were submitted on time. Overall, participants indicated satisfaction with the intervention. Successful strategies, challenges, and potential enhancements are discussed.     

The Lawfulness of U.S. Targeted Killing Operations Outside Afghanistan

Targeted killing operations conducted outside Afghanistan have prompted debate regarding their lawfulness. For opponents of targeted killing operations, the debate tends to center on the number of civilians killed. Proponents respond by questioning the credibility and validity of the methods employed to determine the number of civilian casualties. This debate is important, but it also obscures the fact that the lawfulness of targeting killings is not determined by whether civilians were killed alone, while also lending legitimacy to unsubstantiated claims that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda and “associated forces.” This article classifies the hostilities in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. It then applies the applicable body of law to targeted killing operations in each of these respective states based on how the hostilities were classified.