From Non-consensual Pornography to Image-based Sexual Abuse: Charting the Course of a Problem with Many Names

ABSTRACT

Every day, people’s most intimate moments are recorded, uploaded and circulated online without their consent. This gross invasion of privacy – commonly known as ‘revenge pornography’ – has become part of the scenery in cyberspace. But the name ‘revenge pornography’ fails to communicate the scope and severity of this harm. It is a victim blaming term that risks misdirecting government policy and misinforming the public. So, in order to mobilise against ‘revenge porn’, activists have begun renaming it. ‘Non-consensual pornography’, ‘image-based sexual abuse’, and ‘digital rape’ are just a few of their new coinages. This research seeks to understand how ‘revenge pornography’ is being renamed and reframed in different contexts. To do so, it draws on interviews with thirty activists, experts, and scholars from twelve countries and seven professions. The article begins by comparing their alternative terminologies, bringing to light points of similarity and difference. It then looks forward, identifying new developments in activists’ thought and action. Despite their different vocabularies, this research finds among respondents a shared understanding upon which they could build an enduring coalition.     

Drugs of choice,drugs of change: Egyptian consumption habits since the 1920s

Abstract

Much has been written and published about the 25 January 2011 Egyptian revolution from the perspective of contemporary history and political science. Much less attention has focused on social policy. I am unaware of any scholarly material that has dealt with illicit drugs during the critical 2011–2016 period, yet increasing drugs consumption provided a social backdrop to the events of that period. This paper identifies historical trends in illicit drugs consumption over the course of the last century to the beginning of the Arab Spring. During much of this period hashish was the drug of choice. This paper argues that drug consumption was on the rise in Egypt well before the downfall of President Husni Mubarak in February 2011, but that it has grown markedly since the ousting of the former president. It will ask which have been and are the drugs of choice in contemporary Egypt. It will further ask how this composition has changed and why, giving special focus to the relatively new mass, opioid drug, Tramadol.     

Do Online Discussion Groups Enhance Students’ Analytical Ability and Recall of Factual Knowledge?

This research examines whether online discussion groups enhance students’ ability to analyze political problems and recall factual knowledge. The study compares four sections of the author’s introductory world politics course—two that employed online discussion groups and two that did not. The results revealed little difference in the performance of the sections with and without the online groups. These findings suggest the need to pursue further research focusing on how learning is measured, how discussion group size affects outcomes, how providing students with a study guide detailing course objectives impacts learning, and whether alternative forms of active learning, such as research projects or problem solving exercises, might better develop the capacity for analysis.     

法院信息化建设二十二年：实践、问题与展望

法院的信息化建设是当下信息技术高速发展背景下,法治建设、司法审判领域内的一项重要课题。中国法院的信息化建设自1996年始,重点在于审判机制的信息化,其目的在于通过信息技术在审判工作中的有效适用,提升审判工作的质量与效率。对司法信息化的探索不仅要着眼于大数据、人工智能等新技术之融合适用,也应重视研究已有法院信息化机制的理论与实践问题。通过对网上法庭、庭审直播与电子签章的制度梳理,能够有效发现与解决现行信息化制度之问题,这对于司法信息化的进一步深入发展有着重要的理论与实践价值。     

The Backbone Structure of Audience Networks: A New Approach to Comparing Online News Consumption Across Countries

Measures of audience overlap between news sources give us information on the diversity of people’s media diets and the similarity of news outlets in terms of the audiences they share. This provides a way of addressing key questions like whether audiences are increasingly fragmented. In this article, we use audience overlap estimates to build networks that we then analyze to extract the backbone—that is, the overlapping ties that are statistically significant. We argue that the analysis of this backbone structure offers metrics that can be used to compare news consumption patterns across countries, between groups, and over time. Our analytical approach offers a new way of understanding audience structures that can enable more comparative research and, thus, more empirically grounded theoretical understandings of audience behavior in an increasingly digital media environment.     

跨国网上仲裁若干法律问题研究

作为选择性争议解决方法的一种新形式,网上仲裁遭遇到若干独有的法律问题,诸如如何认定仲裁协议及仲裁裁决的书面形式,如何界定仲裁地和仲裁裁决的做出地,如何明确仲裁所应适用的程序法与实体法,网上仲裁裁决如何承认与执行,等等.如果有关国家的国内法认可网络行为的法律效力,则大多数网上仲裁所引发的难题是可以通过套用普通国际商事仲裁中的原则、规范来加以解决的.     

国际间网络仲裁裁决的承认与执行

网络仲裁的产生和运用使得传统仲裁的局限性得到了解决,但随之产生了很多新的问题,本文主要探讨了在网络仲裁裁决的承认与执行这个关键环节上,如何确定网络仲裁裁决的有效性及其国籍,这个问题的解决直接关系到一个裁决能否得到被申请国的承认和执行;对于相应的问题,我国如何结合我国国情,借鉴国际上的先进做法完善现行法律,     

The state and the rebel: Online nationalisms in Niger

The advent of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) – particularly the internet and associated networks – have made it possible to express previously repressed nationalist sentiments, forbidden languages, ethnic loyalties, and new identities free from the control exerted between the boundaries of the state. New forms of nationalistic conflicts (that take place in what Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1996, 2001) call ‘netwars’) are now being waged along the lines of multiple forms of loyalties (civic, state-induced, or ethnic or subversive). Since the advent of democracy in Francophone Africa, the state has lost its monopoly over the media and now cannot control actors (particularly diasporic communities scattered around the world) who are disputing its hegemony and legitimacy. Citizens who no longer live in the national territory are fighting back against divisive and subversive tendencies in the name of national cohesion, unity, territorial integrity, and democratic governance. For example, in Niger since the beginning of 2007, two rebel movements led by Tuareg insurgents have been fighting the government on both the military and the virtual fronts. They have invaded existing virtual networks such as discussion forums and online media websites and created their own websites and chat rooms. In the name of national unity and peaceful development, they are being countered by the state as well as other citizens of the diaspora.

This article analyses how Tuareg identity has been framed over time by colonial anthropologists and administrators in Niger and how this identity is now being expressed online by current Nigerien Tuareg rebels in the context of conflicting nationalisms involving the state and its opponents. The discussion argues that, contrary to the deterministic role attributed to ICTs, it is the ‘external’ social and political conditions that determine the online contours of nationalistic expressions and conflicts. This article falls within the framework of the ‘structuralist-constructivist’ theory devised by Bourdieu; consequently, it approaches such conflicting nationalisms as ‘symbolic struggles over the power to produce and to impose a legitimate vision of the world’ (Bourdieu 1989, 20).

The topic here is limited to the Nigerien Tuareg movements and does not address in any way the Malian Tuareg movements or the pan-Amazigh movement. Where necessary, however, references will be made to the one or the other for the purpose of clarifying issues related to Nigerien Tuareg movements.     

Struggles for autonomy from and within the market of southeast Mexico's small coffee producers

This contribution examines the historically shifting reproduction strategies of southeast Mexico's small coffee producers through the lens of autonomy. It argues that producers attempt to create and occupy spaces of relative autonomy from commodity and labour markets while also struggling to exert a degree of control over their commodity market integration – termed here ‘autonomy within the market’. Recent developments in Mexico's coffee sector – falling real prices for certified coffee, an emerging quality programme led by transnational export firms, and devastating crop disease – are transforming coffee growing regions, threatening producer livelihoods and driving diverse reconfigurations of autonomous struggles.     

Varieties of regional monetary cooperation: a tool for reducing volatility in developing economies?

Can regional monetary cooperation shield developing regions from global volatility? The article argues that the main contribution of regional monetary cooperation to enhancing the shock-buffering ability of its member countries is to provide short-term liquidity and to increase regional trade and financial links. In contrast, traditional optimum currency area (OCA) theories formulate the advantages of regional monetary cooperation in terms of allocative efficiency gains and aim at a full currency union as final stage. As such, traditional theory widely ignores the shock-buffering capacity of regional monetary cooperation as well as their varieties. In contrast, the article argues that intermediate stages of regional monetary cooperation have their own rationales related to such shock-buffering capacity. This paper systematically examines the variety of regional cooperation arrangements in the developing world that range from regional payments systems over the pooling of reserves to exchange rate coordination. We propose that the potential for shock buffering is dependent on the chosen form of cooperation. Furthermore, in contrast to full monetary integration, which is highly demanding in terms of policy coordination, the requirements for regional policy coordination are significantly lower, depending on the form and aim of the arrangement.