International Intrigue
Elizabeth Levy Paluck
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Mass media are often used to generate discussion for the purpose of conflict reduction. A yearlong field experiment in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) tested the impact of one such media program, a talk show designed to promote listener discussion about intergroup conflict and cooperation. A stratified random half of all nonoverlapping broadcast regions in eastern DRC aired the talk show, which encouraged listeners to consider tolerant opinions and outgroup perspectives, and promoted extended intergroup contact using a related soap opera. The other regions aired the soap opera only. Compared to individuals exposed to the soap opera only, talk show listeners discussed more but were more intolerant, more mindful of grievances, and less likely to aid disliked community members. These results point to some of the limits of discussion and suggest further research on ideas connecting theoretical recommendations for discussion and conflict reduction.
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The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution
Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini
Journal of Law and Economics, May 2010, Pages 329-358
Abstract:
Property rights, whose security may be threatened by terrorism and civil conflict, are a necessary condition for a market economy. Yet a fundamental and unresolved empirical question is whether the lack of political and civil freedoms is a cause of greater insecurity. This paper takes a new approach to an answer by using microdata on 106,170 people in 61 nations for 1981- 97. Controlling for country and year fixed effects, we find that freedom has strong and robust negative effects on revolutionary support. A 1‐standard‐ deviation rise in freedom, equivalent to a shift from Argentina to the United States, decreases support by 3 percentage points, or 37 percent of the standard deviation of the proportion of people who want to revolt. Greater growth in the gross domestic product can buy off part of the increase in support when freedoms are constrained. Being religious reduces revolutionary tastes.
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Analyzing Evacuation Versus Shelter-in-Place Strategies After a Terrorist Nuclear Detonation
Lawrence Wein, Youngsoo Choi & Sylvie Denuit
Risk Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
We superimpose a radiation fallout model onto a traffic flow model to assess the evacuation versus shelter-in-place decisions after the daytime ground-level detonation of a 10-kt improvised nuclear device in Washington, DC. In our model, ≈80k people are killed by the prompt effects of blast, burn, and radiation. Of the ≈360k survivors without access to a vehicle, 42.6k would die if they immediately self-evacuated on foot. Sheltering above ground would save several thousand of these lives and sheltering in a basement (or near the middle of a large building) would save ~ 1/3 of them. Among survivors of the prompt effects with access to a vehicle, the number of deaths depends on the fraction of people who shelter in a basement rather than self-evacuate in their vehicle: 23.1k people die if 90% shelter in a basement and 54.6k die if 10% shelter. Sheltering above ground saves approximately half as many lives as sheltering in a basement. The details related to delayed (i.e., organized) evacuation, search and rescue, decontamination, and situational awareness (via, e.g., telecommunications) have very little impact on the number of casualties. Although antibiotics and transfusion support have the potential to save ≈10k lives (and the number of lives saved from medical care increases with the fraction of people who shelter in basements), the logistical challenge appears to be well beyond current response capabilities. Taken together, our results suggest that the government should initiate an aggressive outreach program to educate citizens and the private sector about the importance of sheltering in place in a basement for at least 12 hours after a terrorist nuclear detonation.
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Innovation in War: Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005-2007
James Russell
Journal of Strategic Studies, August 2010, Pages 595-624
Abstract:
This article analyzes operations by three battalions conducting counterinsurgency, or COIN, operations in Iraq over the period from July 2005 through March 2007: the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment (1-7) along the Iraq-Syrian border in the first half of 2006; the 1st Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment (1-37) battalion operating in south-central Ramadi in the fall of 2006; and the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, or 2-1, operating in eastern Mosul in 2005-06. The empirical evidence presented in these cases suggest that, contrary to popular perceptions, the units successfully innovated in war - a process largely executed organically within the units themselves. Innovation is defined here as the development of new organizational capacities not initially present when the units deployed into the theater. The evidence presented in these cases suggests that the innovation process enabled these units to successfully transition from organizations structured and trained for conventional military operations to organizations that developed an array of new organizational capacities for full-spectrum combat operations. The units in this study developed these new capacitites largely on their own initiative.
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Elad Segev
International Journal of Internet Science, 2010
Abstract:
What countries get more online news attention around the world? The following paper compares 35 popular news sites in 10 different languages in order to assess the salience of countries in different news topic, their level of self-occupation, their news-links with other countries and their network configuration during a period of six months between February and July 2009. Based on special text-mining tools developed by the author for this purposes, it offers new indices, measurements, and techniques to portray the world perceived by news sites in different countries. Supporting previous observations on newspapers and traditional media, findings indicate that there is a strong correlation between the economic power of a country and its online news salience. The U.S. is by far the most salient country in popular news sites around the world. Middle-Eastern countries receive particularly high attention in world news, Asian countries in business and technology news and European countries in cultural news. Countries with higher political, economic, or social instabilities tend to be more self-occupied in their news. The networks of news-links within different countries display three different structures: centralized networks presented by American and French news sites, two-hub networks presented by most European and Asian news sites, and decentralized networks presented by Middle-Eastern news sites. The implications of these findings are discussed.
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Patriots-in-training: Spanish American children at Hazelwood School in England during the 1820s
Karen Racine
Paedagogica Historica, August 2010, Pages 495-509
Abstract:
Although the Spanish American independence movements are reflexively assumed to have been inspired by the American and French Revolutions, the patriot leaders actually looked toward Great Britain for much of their inspiration and material support. One of their most cherished social goals was to reform and uplift their education systems and to that end they looked to the mutual education model popularised by Joseph Lancaster. This article discusses the experiences of the approximately 20 Spanish American children of patriot leaders who attended the famous Hazelwood School in Birmingham, England which was run by the radical Hill family and linked to the Bentham circle. At Hazelwood, the youthful patriots were trained in habits of self-government, self-directed acquisition of practical knowledge, and the virtue of serving their fellow citizens.
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Democratization and the Middle Class in China: The Middle Class's Attitudes toward Democracy
Jie Chen & Chunlong Lu
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do the middle classes in authoritarian, late-developing countries support democratization? Among scholars, there seems no clear consensus on this question. To fill this gap, this article examines the case of the middle class in China, based on data collected from a probability-sample survey. The findings from this study indicate (1) the middle class does not necessarily support democratization in authoritarian developing countries, (2) there is a negative correlation between the middle class's dependence on the state and its support for democracy, and (3) the middle class's perceived social and economic well-being is also negatively associated with its democratic support.
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Turnover of organized crime and money laundering: Some preliminary empirical findings
Friedrich Schneider
Public Choice, September 2010, Pages 473-486
Abstract:
After a short literature review, the paper quantifies the turnover of organized crime with the help of a MIMIC estimation procedure for the years 1995 to 2006 for 20 highly developed OECD countries. The volume of turnover from organized crime was US-$ 270 billion in the year 1995 for these 20 OECD countries, rising to $ 614 billion in 2006. The worldwide turnover in organized crime had a value of $ 595 billion in 2001 and rose to $ 790 billion in 2006. These figures are very preliminary but clearly indicate the importance of the turnover of organized crime or the extent of money laundering.
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The egalitarian battlefield: Reflections on the origins of majority rule in archaic Greece
Athanassios Pitsoulis
European Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We explore the emergence of formal institutions of majority rule in archaic Greece from a historical and conflict-theoretic perspective. Referring to ancient and modern sources we first conclude that institutions of majority rule entered Greek collective decision-making in the seventh century BC. We argue that this development must be seen in connection with the local economic growth pattern and the adoption of a highly idiosyncratic form of warfare, which enabled Greek city-states to mobilize a greater number of citizens for war. Military participation of citizens depends on parameters of warfare and economic parameters. We show that the reduction of the average costs of fighting, coupled with an increased decisiveness of conflict, may result in an increased military participation rate. The integration of elements of majority rule in the constitution of the city-states were political consequences of this development.
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War-related stress exposure and mortality: A meta-analysis
David Roelfs, Eran Shor, Karina Davidson & Joseph Schwartz
International Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Background: Domestic and international wars continue to be pervasive in the 21st century. This study summarizes the effects of war-related stress on all-cause mortality using meta-analyses and meta regressions.
Methods: A keyword search was performed, supplemented by extensive iterative hand-searches for observational studies of war-related stress and mortality. Two hundred and twenty mortality risk estimates from 30 studies were extracted, providing data on more than 9 million persons.
Results: The mean hazard ratio (HR) was 1.05 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.98-1.13] among HRs adjusted for age and additional covariates. The mean effect for men was 1.14 (CI 1.00-1.31), and for women it was 0.92 (CI 0.66 -1.28). No differences were found for various follow-up durations or for various types of war stress. Neither civilians nor military personnel had an elevated mortality risk. Those exposed to a combat zone during the Vietnam War had a slightly higher chance of death (HR 1.11; 95% CI 1.00-1.23).
Conclusions: The results show that, over all, exposure to war-stress did not increase the risk of death when studies were well controlled. Effects were small when found. This lack of substantial effect may be the result of selection processes, developed resiliency and/or institutional support.