Individual-Level Data on the Victims of Nepal’s Civil War, 1996–2006: A New Data Set

This article introduces individual-level microdata on victims of violence in Nepal’s civil war (1996–2006). The data being presented in this study are unique in that they are a census—not a sample—of the known population of victims for which information could be collected. The unit of analysis is the individual victim, and the data provide information on: whether the victim was killed, injured, or disappeared; the districts and villages where they were targeted; their permanent home addresses; the circumstances of the attack (combat, extrajudicial, etc.); socioeconomic information; whether they had any affiliation to rebel groups or other political parties; identification of the perpetrator; and whether the victim was considered to be a government or Maoist informant. After describing the data, an application of the data is performed and some preliminary findings are discussed on the differences in targeting behavior between the government and the Maoist rebels.     

Preferential Trade Agreements and Trade Expectations Theory

Studies find that members of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are less likely to be involved in militarized conflict. An expectation of continuing amicable trade relations is among the factors linking PTAs to peace. However, this role of PTAs is difficult to test due to the problem of observational equivalence; PTAs correlate with trade levels and liberalization, factors also linked to peace. In this article, we isolate the impact of PTAs on trade expectations by distinguishing between signed agreements and those in force. A focus on signed but not-yet-in-force PTAs allows us to assess the correlation between agreements and peace before other pacifying, and therefore potentially confounding, elements emerge. Statistical tests spanning 1957 to 2000 demonstrate that signed PTAs are pacifying, while in-force agreements have no statistically significant impact when controlling for other factors linked to peace.     

A Quality of Government Peace? Explaining the Onset of Militarized Interstate Disputes, 1985–2001

That democracies do not wage wars against each other is one of the most widely accepted claims within the study of international relations, although challenged lately by the capitalist peace argument. In addition to confirming both the democratic and capitalist peace effects, this article finds that the impact of quality of government—that is, having an impartial, nonpoliticized, and noncorrupt bureaucracy—on the risk of interstate conflict is at least on par with the influence of democracy. This result draws on dyadic Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) data in 1985–2001 and holds even under control for incomplete democratization and economic development, as well as for fatal MIDs, the Cold War era, and within politically relevant dyads. I argue that the causal mechanism underlying this finding is that quality of government reduces information uncertainty among potentially warring parties and improves their ability to credibly commit to keeping their promises. Both democratic and capitalist peace theory needs to be complemented by theories “bringing the state back in” to the study of interstate armed conflict.     

You’ve Got to Know When to Fold ‘Em: International and Domestic Consequences of Capitulation, 1919–1999

This article explores the effect of acquiescing to compellent threats on the probability that a leader loses office and on the probability that he or she is targeted in a subsequent international crisis. Using a leader-specific punishment (LSP) model that corrects for the endogeneity between domestic and international politics, an analysis of over 9,000 observations during the period 1919–1999 suggests that backing down generally increases both the risk of becoming a target and the probability of losing office. Leaders who back down to coercive threats without a fight are almost twice as likely to become targets in subsequent crises and much more likely to lose office than those who do not. Democratic leaders are more at risk than their autocratic counterparts for loss of office and becoming targets if they acquiesce to coercive threats.     

应收账款转让与应收账款质押冲突问题浅析

商业银行的资产业务不断地发展,传统的授信模式也随之发生改变,以往多以房产抵押或者信用为主,现今增加了担保措施和还款来源。应收账款作为还款来源以及担保措施之一也日益凸显重要性,在实际操作中,主要包括应收账款转让和应收账款质押。为了利益最大化,债权人可能重复处理债权,将债权同时用于转让和质押,以获得更多的融资的情形,二者并存时难免会产生冲突。所以,应从应收账款转让与应收账款质押的基础理论出发,分析相关法律关系以及并存现状,从而对确立冲突解决规则提出建议。     

Constitutional courts as arbiters of post-conflict territorial self-government: Bosnia and Macedonia

Constitutional and supreme courts frequently end up examining the political and legal questions at the heart of peace agreements and post-conflict constitutions. Where a peace agreement has included territorial self-government (TSG) provisions courts are often endowed with the capacity to adjudicate disputes between state and sub-state levels of government. The effectiveness of courts in fulfilling this role as not been comprehensively examined. This article fills this important gap examining whether the results of existing research on the role of constitutional and supreme courts in resolving disputes in traditional federalism also apply in these particular circumstances. It finds that where TSG is used as a conflict management mechanism judicial review can have centralizing tendencies if this occurs it can largely be attributed to the processes used to select though the devolutionary multinational nature of the states is also relevant.     

Framing Contests and Policy Conflicts over Gas Pipelines

This paper compares and contrasts high‐conflict policy debates over the siting of three natural gas pipeline projects at different decision stages of the siting process. This paper draws on over 600 newspaper articles spanning 3 years, analyzed through Discourse Network Analysis. Drawing from the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Policy Conflict framework, this paper finds that actor framing of opposing policy beliefs involves more indirect than direct confrontations, with statements in the media waxing and waning over time. Opponents of the pipelines more often explicitly argue against pipelines, while also using a broad range of conceptual arguments, whereas proponents more often couch their arguments around the economic benefits of pipelines and use fewer conceptual frames overall. We also find evidence that opposing coalitions use similar framing across different decision contexts. This paper concludes with a commentary on the status and contributions of this paper to the study of policy conflicts and next steps in advancing similar research agendas.     

论刑法中义务冲突的成立要件

刑法中的义务冲突,是指行为人同时负有数个义务,履行其中一个义务就无法履行其他刑事义务的困境。冲突的义务有轻重大小之分,只有刑事义务的不履行才可能构成刑法中的义务冲突。行为人主观上的故意、过失心态并不能成为义务冲突成立的要素。刑法中义务冲突的成立要件应当包括两个：第一个是行为人同时身负数个义务,此为义务冲突成立的形式要件;第二个是因履行一个义务而无法履行其他义务,此为义务冲突的实质要件。     

Analytical Fingerprint of Wolframite Ore Concentrates

Ongoing violent conflicts in Central Africa are fueled by illegal mining and trading of tantalum, tin, and tungsten ores. The credibility of document‐based traceability systems can be improved by an analytical fingerprint applied as an independent method to confirm or doubt the documented origin of ore minerals. Wolframite (Fe,Mn)WO₄ is the most important ore mineral for tungsten and is subject to artisanal mining in Central Africa. Element concentrations of wolframite grains analyzed by laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry are used to establish the analytical fingerprint. The data from ore concentrate samples are multivariate, not normal or log‐normal distributed. The samples cannot be regarded as representative aliquots of a population. Based on the Kolmogorov–Smirnov distance, a measure of similarity between a sample in question and reference samples from a database is determined. A decision criterion is deduced to recognize samples which do not originate from the declared mine site.     

冲突下的侦查——评《和谐侦查——侦查的冲突与嬗变》

侦查是伴随着冲突而生的,在当下,基于技术的进步、价值多元和观念更新等,侦查中所包含的冲突更是愈演愈烈。《和谐侦查——侦查的冲突与嬗变》指出了侦查的冲突,更提出了嬗变的机遇。该书能够兼顾承前启后,不仅总结了既有侦查理论,还重新解读了侦查历史,提出了和谐侦查的创新性概念,同时,该书理论与实践并重,既提出了侦查动态性、侦查冲突性、侦查语言、侦查拟像和侦查客观化的概念,又将各项主要的侦查措施进行细致的构建,最后还重点探讨了某些热点问题。该书的另一重大价值更在于启发了侦查学界及实务界对侦查和谐化的关注、自省、思考。