民族地区突发事件与危机管理机制研究

近年来,我国民族地区突发事件的频发度与危害的严重性均呈上升趋势,已经明显阻碍了民族地区的经济发展乃至社会稳定。在对我国民族地区突发事件的表现形态、特征与产生原因等方面的特殊性进行深入分析的基础上,试图提出构建民族地区危机管理机制的基本思路。认为该机制的构建既需要发挥政府的主导作用,又不能单靠外援式或政府强制式推进,而应将民族传统文化与现代高科技相结合,发挥民族文化多样性优势,发掘和利用民间传统智慧,让民族地区的危机管理成为内源式的危机管理。     

论政府与媒体在危机传播中的良性互动

媒体作为同政府、公众共同架构起的互动系统,成为危机管理体系中不可缺少的一部分。当危机爆发时,要实现政府与媒体的良性互动,政府必须做出相应的调整,以积极的姿态来实现互动,发挥和利用媒体的功能,利用媒体开展政府公关,化危机为转机,塑造政府危机管理的新形象。     

Protective Orders and Domestic Violence: Risk Factors for Re-Abuse

One of the few legal tools for protecting victims of domestic violence is the civil Protection Order (PO). How effective they were in preventing re-abuse was analyzed by examining court and police records from 210 couples in which female victims (or applicants) filed POs against their violent partners. Police records for 2 years prior and two years following the issuance of a PO were reviewed. Results indicated a significant decline in the probability of abuse following a PO. Prior to filing a PO, 68% of the women reported physical violence. After filing, only 23% reported physical violence. Several risk factors were assessed and it was found that very low SES women were more likely to report re-abuse as were African-Americans.     

Myanmar: analyzing problems of transition and intervention

Myanmar's State Peace and Development Council touts the 2010 elections as an important milestone on the roadmap to democracy. While the consensus among scholars is that the result is a foregone conclusion, these elections may also mark the beginning of a transition. As a transition from authoritarian rule may lead to internal chaos and result in calls for external intervention, the relevant dimensions of intervention are explored. The capabilities, interests and approaches of key external players in the context of Myanmar are identified. Both India and China have capabilities and multiple interests in Myanmar. However, the India–China rivalry and the lack of consensus around the responsibility to protect the doctrines are identified as risk factors. In spite of its shortcomings, the ASEAN Regional Forum remains the most appropriate venue to explore possible responses in case of chaos in Myanmar, which would be a tough test of its aptitude and relevance. The forum should upgrade organizational and practical capacities to respond to major crises such as a hypothetical collapse of central authority in Myanmar.     

基于网络媒介的突发性公共危机信息传播仿真和管理对策研究

危机信息的健康传播在突发性公共危机管理中至关重要。为了研究突发性公共危机信息在网络环境中传播的特征,本文以复杂适应系统理论为指导,利用多主体建模方法,基于Repast平台模拟突发性公共危机信息在网络媒介中的传播过程。通过模型仿真我们发现突发性公共危机在网络环境中传播的生命周期现象和群极化现象;并且分析比较了各主体属性在不同参数值下的演化结果,探寻危机信息传播的有效方法,为政府如何应对危机管理提供决策支持,以期有效控制突发性公共危机信息在网络环境的恶性传播。     

The Evolution of Political Violence: The Case of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab

This research investigates the development and expansion of the al-Shabaab movement in Somalia from 2000 to 2013. Initially a marginal player in Somalia, by 2013 al-Shabaab had transformed into the most formidable armed opposition to challenge the nascent Somali government and its allies. During this time period they administered territory domestically, while expanding their tactical repertoire and geographic scope of attacks. After analyzing the historical conditions (2000–2006) from which al-Shabaab emerged, I explore the evolution of this organization through the use of historical process tracing. This entails looking for critical junctures on a global, national, and local level that had a dramatic impact on the future trajectory of the insurgency. The results show that harsh foreign interventions had many deleterious consequences, acting as an initial impetus for armed resistance, while also acting as a continuous source of controversy which al-Shabaab exploited to gain new recruits. Moreover, irreconcilable intra-organizational schisms also contributed to altering the future organizational decisions made by al-Shabaab. The culmination of these results engage and expand the theory of categorical terrorism, offering observations to help scholars and policy makers alike begin to re-conceptualize ways to study terrorism and political violence.     

Is the Future of SSR non-linear?

This article explores issues around security sector reform (SSR) and the involvement of the international community in peace-building. It argues that the international architecture which surrounds SSR privileges a particular form of knowledge that reflects a technocratic approach to security, and illustrates this by systematically examining the literature. Research on the literature itself shows that three core themes dominate: state-centric approaches, technocratic approaches, and approaches to local ownership. These comprise a current, linear approach to SSR that ignores much of the critical literature on peace-building. The article then goes on to draw on some of this critical literature to develop an alternative approach to SSR building using a non-linear approach which incorporates a better understanding of institutional politics, an emphasis on process rather than structures, and analysis of hidden politics.     

Precedents,parliaments, and foreign policy: historical analogy in the House of Commons vote on Syria

Abstract

This analysis investigates the role of historical analogies in the influence that parliaments have in foreign policy. Our empirical focus is the UK Parliament’s unusual opposition to the Prime Minister on UK involvement in Syria in 2013. The vote challenges many conventional expectations about the role of parliament in security affairs. Important in this vote were lessons learned and strategically used from UK participation in the intervention of Iraq in 2003. This argument is developed theoretically based on research on historical analogies: parliaments, ‘learn’ (primarily negative) lessons about past foreign policy events which guide parliamentary preferences and procedures and can enhance parliaments’ role in subsequent foreign policy. The article contributes to research on analogies by extending the logic to lessons on process. This use of precedents can offer more structurally oriented perspectives that translate critical junctures into reforms in procedures and policy-making practices.     

Let’s Intervene! But Only If They’re Like Us: The Effects of Group Dynamics and Emotion on the Willingness to Support Humanitarian Intervention

International relations (IR) studies on humanitarian intervention have debated both the nature and strength of intervention norms. This article contributes to this debate by exploring under what conditions individuals are willing to support military humanitarian intervention (MHI) and the psychological factors that influence whether, and the degree to which individuals support MHI. Taking a psychological approach, we hypothesized that individuals’ decision to support MHI is influenced by in-group favoritism and emotional responses to in-group suffering. We tested our theory with two experiments, each of which recruited roughly 200 American participants. Both experiments centered on the ongoing Syrian civil war and assessed Americans’ willingness to support intervention to protect different civilian groups. The results suggested that support for intervention was widespread, but not a majority view in most cases. The findings also suggested that participants exhibited slightly higher rates of support for intervention when those suffering were Christian, as opposed to Muslim. Furthermore, we found that the dynamics of support for intervention changed when chemical weapons were introduced into the scenario, which reframed the the crisis as a national security issue. Overall, our results suggest that individuals’ decisions to act upon norms can be influenced by the context of a crisis and individual level psychological factors, which have been under explored in IR scholarship on norms.     

On Humanitarian Refugee Biometrics and New Forms of Intervention

This article traces the development from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) initially using biometrics in a few pilot projects (in the early-to-mid-2000s) to the emergence of a policy in which biometric registration is considered a ‘strategic decision’. It then engages key insights from current debates about ‘materiality’ and agentic capacity in combination with current debates about new forms of intervention. Finally, these insights are combined into a framework through which the article engages critically with this development of humanitarian refugee biometrics by posing the following question: how does an approach to technology that takes seriously the idea of matter as capable of agentic capacity enhance an appreciation of the ways in which these humanitarian technologies may contribute to the emergence of new forms of intervention? Through an analysis of how the emergence of digitalized biometric refugee data has affected the relationship between the UNHCR, donor states, host states and refugees, the article shows how the UNHCR’s trialling of new biometric technologies – combined with actual and potential data-sharing practices – has advanced the technology’s performance and acceptability whilst at the same time also rendering new dimensions of refugee life intervenable, not only to humanitarian actors.