The United States Congress and nuclear war powers: explaining legislative nonfeasance

Scholarly debate over the role of the United States Congress in approving military action has focused on the respective war powers granted the executive and legislature by the United States Constitution. Although a voluminous literature has examined the institutional and partisan politics shaping their exercise, a conspicuous lacuna concerns nuclear war powers. Despite periodic but mostly ineffective reassertions of congressional prerogatives over war, the decision to employ nuclear weapons has been left entirely to presidential discretion since 1945. Explaining this consistent refusal by Congress to rein in the ultimate presidential power and exercise co-responsibility for the most devastating form of war relies less on disputatious constitutional grounds than on three arguments about congressional dysfunctionality, legislative irresponsibility, and the relative costs of collective action by federal lawmakers on perilous national security questions.     

对冻死尸体血糖变化的研究

用分光光度计对10具冻死尸体、50具非冻死尸体、50名健康体检人的血糖及5只家兔冻死前后的血糖分别进行测定,测得的数据用统计学“方差分析”方法处理,结果为健康人男、女的血糖浓度、健康人与非冻死尸体血糖的浓度差异无显著性;冻死与非冻死血糖的浓度、冻死与健康人血糖的浓度差异有高度显著性;家兔在冻前与冻死后血糖浓度的差异有高度的显著性。结论为冻死尸体血糖明显升高,可以做为法医确定冻死的佐证之一。     

信息战对战争法的挑战

信息战对传统战争法提出了严峻的挑战。它不仅强烈地冲击了战争法的基本原则,打破了“军事必要”与“避免不必要的痛苦”之间的平衡,使区分原则、比例性原则面临被淘汰的危险,而且对现有的战争法律关系也无情地发起了进攻,使它的主体模糊不定,客体重新组合分化,内容渐渐变异。无预见性立法是战争法目前陷入僵局的重要原因。战争法的发展,尤其是作战法规的调控点永远都应该跟踪战争实践,积极应对信息战     

Narratives of the Past and Present: Young Refugees' Construction of a Family Identity in Exile

Little attention has been given to the ‘refugee experience’of children who follow their parents in escaping violence. Thisstudy examines how the experiences of violence become importantevents in the lives of a group of young refugees who were bornin the Middle East, but escaped with their parents to Denmarkten years ago. On the basis of a narrative analysis the studyshows that the adolescents' experience of being a refugee isgreatly influenced by the stories of the past narrated aboutthe family, and the internal relations and conflicts withinthe families. Adolescent refugees who have grown up with violencein their family relations experience greater difficulties increating new homes in exile than adolescents whose memoriesof violence are connected with a narrative of the historicalpersecution and suffering of their family and people.     

Chechen ethnic identity: assessing the shift from resistance to submission

This article critically assesses the ostensible transformation in Chechen ethnic identity. Journalists and scholars who came to this conclusion based their claim on obvious changes in Chechen behavior. The brave and irreconcilable resistance the nation demonstrated during the First and the Second Russo-Chechen Wars of 1994–1996 and 1999–2009, respectively, was replaced by a submissive and loyal stance with regard to the new authorities and recent enemies. This article investigates whether such a change in behavior reflects a corresponding change in ethnic identity. This article asserts that ‘non-Chechen’ behavioral models do not signify changes in Chechen ethnic identity by presenting and analyzing Chechen narratives concerning the question. In summary, this article concludes that the ethnic identity of the nation remained mainly untouched. This conclusion is supported by the observed continuity of Chechen resistance, which has always been driven by cherished values such as freedom.     

The logic of competitive influence-seeking: Russia,Ukraine, and the conflict in Donbas

The crisis in Ukraine since late 2013 has seen four successive internationally mediated agreements that have been at best partially implemented. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and 42 key informant interviews sides, we explain this outcome with reference to the logic of competitive influence-seeking: Russia is currently unable to achieve a friendly and stable regime in Kyiv and thus hedges against the consolidation of an unfriendly pro-Western and stable regime by maintaining its control over parts of eastern Ukraine and solidifying the dependence of local regimes there on Russian support. This gives Russia the opportunity to maintain the current status quo or settle for re-integration terms through which Russia can sustain long-term influence over Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy. We conclude by reflecting on the consequences of competitive influence-seeking in the post-Soviet space: the likely persistence of low-intensity conflict in Ukraine; the further consolidation of territorial divisions in other post-Soviet conflicts; and the need for policy-makers in Russia and the West to prioritize the management of the consequent instability.     

War and identity: the case of the Donbas in Ukraine

Abstract

The study of identities struggles to capture the moments and dynamics of identity change. A crisis moment provides a rare insight into such processes. This paper traces the political identities of the inhabitants of a region at war – the Donbas – on the basis of original survey data that cover the four parts of the population that once made up this region: the population of the Kyiv-controlled Donbas, the population of the self-declared “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic,” the internally displaced, and those who fled to the Russian Federation. The survey data map the parallel processes of a self-reported polarization of identities and the preservation or strengthening of civic identities. Language categories matter for current self-identification, but they are not cast in narrow ethnolinguistic terms, and feeling “more Ukrainian” and Ukrainian citizenship include mono- and bilingual conceptions of native language (i.e. Ukrainian and Russian).     

A painful break or agony without end? The stateness problem and its influence on democratization in Croatia and Serbia

That matters of the state must always be resolved before democratization seems to be a fairly common position in the scholarly literature. There are, however, also scholars that stress the importance of an alternative perspective: ‘no democracy, no state’. This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of this very important issue, advocating the need for a more nuanced argument about the relationship between the state and democracy. To do so, Croatia and Serbia serve as empirical examples as their different outcomes regarding the consolidation of democracy are explained as due to their (un)resolved stateness problem. The article uses process tracing to explain these outcomes and attempts to craft a minimally sufficient explanation of the outcomes by developing causal mechanisms.     

His(Tory): why British History needs Conservatives

British academia today is overwhelmingly left-leaning in its political orientation and especially pro-Labour. This article examines what impact this is having on British political history. It begins by demonstrating just how recent this left-wing preponderance is and how, as late as the 1990s, there remained a strong grouping of right-leaning political historians. This, the article argues, helps in part explain the relative vibrancy of political history in that era compared to today. Turning to the advantages a larger number of conservative voices would bring to the sub-discipline, the article identifies how those on the right are more likely to subscribe to different methodological approaches, have different historical interests and be interested in different kinds of political questions from their left-leaning colleagues. Most of all, it stresses how political diversity would help historians of every persuasion better recognise the ideological frameworks that inform their own work.     

国家安全新需求与军事理论创新

军事发展需要先进的军事理论作为引领和指导。具有穿透力和前瞻性的军事理论研究，不仅必须在充分借鉴国内外已有研究成果和实践经验的基础上，同时还必须关注国际安全背景的演变及其带来的限制条件的变化，把握重大问题发展演变的内在线索和逻辑，并形成系统性和可验证的知识体系。只有国家现代化才有军事学术的现代化，而学术现代化又反过来助推国家战略能力的提升。新时代国家安全需求为军事理论发展创造了更广阔的空间，加上中华文明丰厚的战略思想遗产可资借鉴，今天的军事理论创新具有十分有利的条件。在新军事革命浪潮中，理论研究不能迷失方向，要在历史、现实和未来之间架起有益的桥梁，这样才能跟踪战争形态演变，理解战争制胜机理，准确把握当代战争的特点和规律，提出具有指向性、系统性的军事思想，也才能使军事斗争准备真正反映当代战争的本质要求。战略是决定国家命运的关键要素。历史发展证明，殖民主义、霸权主义的老路已经行不通，中国要走出一条不同于传统权力争霸的和平发展道路，对军事能力建设及其运用提出了相应的更高要求，也需要军事实践和理论的强有力支撑，并必然成为理论创新的重要动力来源。