The Origins of the European Coalition for Vision: Exploring the Formation of a Network

Despite growing interest in EU-level transnational networks, there is little understanding about how these form. This article investigates the formation of one network—the European Coalition for Vision (ECV). Using document analysis of 100 email exchanges, 12 semi-structured interviews, and observation of 5 ECV meetings, it identifies environmental and organizational triggers, most important to the creation of the ECV. Findings show that while environmental triggers played a role in ECV formation, organizational triggers were crucial. In particular, the presence of network leaders, a network entrepreneur and a network mentor were vital for the successful creation of the network.     

略论推进农村信息网络建设的现实意义和方式

信息滞后所形成的城乡之间的"数字鸿沟",是我国最大的城乡差距之一.大力推进农村信息网络建设,可在短期内缩小和消除城乡之间的差别,是当前深化改革和加快发展的现实需要.推进农村信息网络建设,提高互联网普及率,并整合涉农信息资源,构建信息化的各类应用平台,推进面向"三农"的信息化服务,有利于提高农民群众的文化素质、生活素质和劳动生产技能,将对建设社会主义新农村,促进城乡一体化发展,推动农村经济发展和社会进步产生巨大的积极影响.     

论网络“人肉搜索”在侦查工作中的运用

网络人肉搜索是在现代信息科技手段的辅助下,人工参与并提纯信息的一种新兴信息获取方式。实践证明,人肉搜索强大的搜索能力有助于侦查部门查明犯罪嫌疑人身份、锁定犯罪嫌疑人位置、扩大破案线索、查明尸源。人肉搜索在侦查中的运用,是网络时代侦查破案的新途径,是侦查工作群众路线的新形式。在侦查工作中,人肉搜索的运用应当作为一种最后手段,在运用的范围、条件和程序上进行严格控制,在运用方法上要科学合理,兴其利而除其弊,合法地为侦查破案服务。     

NGO networks in Central Asia and global civil society: potentials and limitations

Based on research carried out by INTRAC (International NGO Training & Research Centre) in 2006–2007 in four countries of Central Asia for Oxfam–Novib, the article investigates NGO networks and their international links in the context of current theory on civil society and global civil society. Three case studies of NGOs working in service delivery, community development and free media are examined to show the diversity of aims and the potential and challenges of networking in the region. Civil society advocacy at national and international levels is analysed with a fourth case study on the campaign conducted in Kyrgyzstan against joining the World Bank's Highly Indebted Poor Countries programme. This example shows a more radical, alternative mode of civil society activism. The article emphasizes the importance of national- and regional-level networking and poses the question of whether NGOs in Central Asia can shift from their current positions on the periphery of global movements and debates.     

Transatlantic Institutions: Can Partnership be Engineered?

The transatlantic alliance is widely viewed as being in a state of decline. Conflict over the war in Iraq highlighted a growing divergence between the Bush administration and European Union governments in their attitudes towards multilateralism. The rift severely tested institutions created to manage bilateral EU–US relations in the aftermath of the cold war. This article examines how well this institutional architecture has held up. It scrutinises the limitations of networked governance in transatlantic relations and acknowledges the quandary of trying to manufacture partnership using imperfect institutions. The Brussels–Washington channel is only one among many through which transatlantic relations flow, but we argue that it continues to gain in importance. Despite the limits of institutional engineering, we conclude that the US and the EU remain each other's most important ally.     

Cross-gender Violence Perpetration and Victimization Among Early Adolescents and Associations with Attitudes Toward Dating Conflict

This study examined gender differences in cross-gender violence perpetration and victimization (ranging from mild, e.g., push, to severe, e.g., assault with a knife or gun) and attitudes toward dating conflict, among an urban sample of 601 early adolescents (78% African-American). Comparisons across gender groups for cross-gender (e.g., female-to-male) violence perpetration and victimization indicated higher levels of perpetration for girls and higher levels of victimization for boys. Girls also reported higher levels of verbal and physical violence toward partners with regard to attitudes toward dating conflict. A path model was specified and indicated that cross-gender violence perpetration, harsh parenting, peer deviance, low family income, and neighborhood hazards accounted for significant variation in attitudes toward dating conflict. Findings were discussed regarding the need to identify developmental precursors of dating violence in early adolescence and to focus prevention efforts on components (e.g., social skills, coping strategies) necessary to prevent the onset and escalation of adolescent dating violence.

网络问政的政府回应逻辑：公开承诺压力与选择性回应——基于66个政府网站领导信箱的实验设计

立足我国制度环境与行政体制,建构了网络问政领导信箱回应运行理论框架,提出影响回应绩效五个影响因素,包括行政系统区域特点与领导者特质两个内部因素,外部因素包括政治压力、舆论压力及诉求压力三个维度。采用德尔菲法建构了领导信箱回应绩效指标体系,并采用实验设计搜集66个领导信箱网络问政回应的有效样本。实证结果显示：政治压力中的公开承诺程度对回应绩效有正向效应,诉求压力中的诉求类别对回应绩效有显著影响,政府回应存在“选择性回应”问题。为了进一步提升政府网站领导信箱的回应绩效,可以完善内部回应流程、公开对外服务承诺与建立自下而上回应性问责机制。     

Terrorist violence and the enrollment of psychology in predicting Muslim extremism: critical terrorism studies meets critical algorithm studies

Discourse on terrorist violence has long facilitated an especially liberal form of securitisation. Originally evoked in reference to anarchists and communists, a rational consideration of terrorist violence, inaugurated by the concept, asks for deferred judgement about the nature of, or reasons behind, violence related to terror on the premise that state and international legal norms governing the legitimate use of violence fail to circumscribe the proper capacities of the state to regulate and explain terrorism. Where sovereign powers along with their military and civilian instruments of coercion are deemed unable to regulate violence effectively, analysts of terrorist violence and their readership are invited to consider and cultivate new sensibilities. Beginning in the 1980s, studies by psychologists found renewed urgency among a growing cadre of interdisciplinary terror experts who found religion, Islam especially, a key variable of analysis. I situate their contributions in a longer history of secular and racialising discourse about terrorist violence. Central to this history are practices of reading, translating, interpreting and archiving texts. Evidence for the argument is based on the analysis of an algorithm that allegedly predicts the likelihood of terrorist strikes by counting words spoken by al-Qa?ida leaders and correlating their frequency with over 30 psychological categories.     

Women’s experiences of peacebuilding in violence-affected communities in Kenya

Despite the attention to gender and conflict in empirical positivist peace research, and the interest in local agency in recent peacebuilding literature, women’s understandings and lived experiences of peacebuilding are not necessarily well accounted for. This article, drawing on interviews, focus groups and observation research with 57 female victims/survivors of post-election violence in Kenya, provides an ethnographic study of women’s largely informal peacebuilding activities, ranging from mediation and dialogue to economic empowerment. It analyses women’s constructions and ways of making sense of being peacebuilders, demonstrating that, while participants employed dominant gender frames, they exerted considerable transformative agency in their communities. It argues that their ‘gendered responsibility for peace’ at community level is simultaneously empowering and disempowering. The research aims to increase understanding of the gendered nature of peacebuilding and the ways in which women exercise peacebuilding agency through a focus on their own voices and lived experiences.     

Accountability in Public Management Networks: An Analysis of Cost Monitoring in Chicago Municipal Networks

Public management networks (PMNs) continue to proliferate as governance becomes more complex, and so does the need to hold them accountable. Agency and collaboration theories provide a solid foundation, but additional constructs are necessary to adapt to this dynamic era. Building from Bovens et al. (2008), the authors offer an ecological framework of third-party accountability that incorporates a number of prominent accountability theories under the same construct. Employing a mixed-methods research design that examines eight local PMNs in the Chicago region, the study finds that an exemplar accountability mechanism—additional cost monitoring—occurs more often in situations predicted by the framework. Additionally, qualitative interviews of network participants suggest that cost structures can differ by network type, which is verified quantitatively.