116 research outputs found

    Regime Defense: Internal Threats and Explaining Regime Responses to Ethnonationalist Challengers

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    Pakistan has failed to end an on-again, off-again rebellion by members of the ethnic Baloch since 1948. While Pakistan’s policies towards the Baloch have varied over the years, the continued use of repression and nonaccommodative responses are counterproductive and thus puzzling. The policies further motivate rebels and contribute to the cycle of violence while damaging the state’s reputation and economic progress. Why engage in a seemingly failing (ed) policy? How and why do Pakistan’s policies toward the minority ethnic Baloch vary with periods of peace (non-violence) and violence? In sum, what explains temporally varying regime security responses to ethnonationalists? Why do regimes peace respond peacefully to groups sometimes and violently toward the same group at other times? This study seeks to answer these overarching questions

    Investigating Key Risk Factors Across Violent and Non-violent Extremists in the United States

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    Problem Statement: This study investigated risk factors commonly highlighted by prior studies and risk assessment tools (e.g., Violent Extremism Risk Assessment Version 2 (VERA-2) and Extremism Risk Guidance 22+ (ERG22+)). It compared the risk factors across and within two groups – violent extremists (i.e., jihadists and far-right extremists) and non-violent extremists (i.e., jihadists and far-right financial/material support crime extremists) in the U.S. Jihadists and far-rightists are the two greatest security threats facing the U.S., and the findings can aid counterterrorism efforts on assessment development, identifying effective risk factors across varying groups, and assessing violence risk. Research Questions/Objectives: This study aimed to achieve two central objectives: (1) compare these risk factors across and within two groups: violent extremists (i.e., jihadists and right-wing extremists) and non-violent extremists (i.e., jihadists and right-wing financial/material support crime extremist offenders) and (2) explore underlying associations between risk factors and theoretical domains. Theoretical framework: Although criminological theories are applied to better inform radicalization and violent extremism pathways, psychological theories have dominated the risk assessment and factor development with little influence from criminology. Both tools under study here did not utilize criminology theories to inform their development of these risk factors. To develop the study’s hypotheses about the extremist violence correlates, I applied and integrated two individual-level criminological theories. Both rational choice and social network theories inform risk factor domains and conceptualizes these factors within a nested model, similar to ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007). Rational choice is an individual-situational theory focusing on individuals’ behaviours resulting from their decisions based on situational characteristics, with the assumption of an individual’s agency. The rational choice theory has links to social network theory. Social network is an individual-group theory outlining individual-group interactions and emphasizes relationship significance and promoting specific actions (e.g., violence). Research design and subjects: This mixed-method study used 1990 – 2018 offender-level data from the open-source U.S. Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) and randomly selected a sample of 420 offenders, including 210 violent extremists (i.e., 105 jihadists and 105 far-rightists) and 210 non-violent financial/material support crime extremists (i.e., 105 jihadists and 105 far-rightists). The ECDB is an open-source relational database and includes many offender-level attributes, both incident-level and individual-level characteristics. Importantly, this study enhanced the ECDB and innovatively collected new variables to fully operationalize these risk factors. The first research question was examined using a series of binary logistic regression models to predict and compare for significant risk factors. The second research question was investigated using tetrachoric correlation coefficients to run an exploratory factor analysis model to determine the associations between the dichotomous variables. The case study constructions across both groups selected three cases each from groups and sampled for heterogeneity (n = 6). The six case studies were developed to explore contextual nuances within the risk factors (i.e., unique behavioral manifestations of risk) at the individual level. Findings: Generally, the risk factors do not necessarily differ across and within both the violent and non-violent groups with several exceptions. Specific risk factors that merit possible logical explanations for their statistical significance are provided within the dissertation. Additionally, the exploratory factor analysis findings concluded almost all the various motivations examined can be grouped into the individual-situational and individual-group domains instead of the individual domain. The qualitative study provided six case studies involving one jihadist and two far-right extremists for each violent and non-violent group. The study provided several examples of each risk factor extracted from the case studies to provide variation. Potential avenues of future research were suggested to examine certain aspects of the project. Points for consideration: First, it should be noted VERA-2 risk factors can be applicable to the non-violent extremist groups as demonstrated from both the quantitative and qualitative evidence. Second, several variables were highly correlated across and within domains and may result in multiple risk factors appearing in an extremist’s profile, inaccurately raising their risk level. Third, the risk factors were harder to map onto the non-violent far-right extremist group extremists (e.g., sovereign citizens, tax defiers and/or protestors) for two reasons. First, open-source data concerning non-violent extremists are limited compared to violent extremists’ (and non-violent jihadists), impacting risk factor variable coding. Second, it is likely the risk assessments were developed with jihadists (both violent and non-violent) as the main focus. The ERG 22+ was developed based on U.K cases, specifically jihadists. As such, more research is still needed to examine whether these risk factors are truly applicable to the non-violent extremist group

    Spaces of Care - Confronting Colonial Afterlives in European Ethnographic Museums

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    Alarming environmental shifts and disasters have raised public awareness and anxieties regarding the future of the planet. While planetary in scale, the negative effects of this global crisis are distributed unequally, affecting some of the already most fragile communities most intensely, thus contributing to rising global inequality. The pairing of environmental crises and a sense of inadequacy facing hitherto celebrated models of citizenry informs a current spirit of the times. The contributors to this volume place ethnographic or world cultures museums at the centre of these debates - these museums have been embroiled in longstanding debates about their histories, collections, and practices in relation to the colonial past

    Queer ecofeminism: from binary feminist environmental endeavours to postgender pursuits

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    Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Ecofeminism: Inception; Development and Challenges Chapter 2: On De-Essentialising Ecofeminism Chapter 3: Gendered Climate Politics: Between the Far Right and Social Justice Chapter 4: Queering Ecofeminism: Challenging Heteronormative Far-Right Politics Chapter 5: Post-Gender Semiotics Conclusion ReferencesN

    Command and Persuade

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    Why, when we have been largely socialized into good behavior, are there more laws that govern our behavior than ever before? Levels of violent crime have been in a steady decline for centuries—for millennia, even. Over the past five hundred years, homicide rates have decreased a hundred-fold. We live in a time that is more orderly and peaceful than ever before in human history. Why, then, does fear of crime dominate modern politics? Why, when we have been largely socialized into good behavior, are there more laws that govern our behavior than ever before? In Command and Persuade, Peter Baldwin examines the evolution of the state's role in crime and punishment over three thousand years. Baldwin explains that the involvement of the state in law enforcement and crime prevention is relatively recent. In ancient Greece, those struck by lightning were assumed to have been punished by Zeus. In the Hebrew Bible, God was judge, jury, and prosecutor when Cain killed Abel. As the state's power as lawgiver grew, more laws governed behavior than ever before; the sum total of prohibited behavior has grown continuously. At the same time, as family, community, and church exerted their influences, we have become better behaved and more law-abiding. Even as the state stands as the socializer of last resort, it also defines through law the terrain on which we are schooled into acceptable behavior. This title is also available in an Open Access edition

    Xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa: A case study in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Eastern Cape

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    The central thesis pursued in this study is that xenophobia and its violent manifestation thrive in post-apartheid South Africa owing to contextual dynamics chiefly characterized by normlessness and weak law enforcement. The scourge of xenophobia and its attendant violent reaction to the presence of foreign citizens in immigrant receiving countries, such as post-apartheid South Africa, is not only a threat to global peace and security, but also an impediment to achieving our full humanity and a common future. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the contexts and manifestations of xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa. The study endeavoured to achieve the following objectives: to explore the underpinnings of xenophobia in contemporary post-apartheid South Africa; to expound the manifestations of xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa; to investigate the effectiveness of agents of social control in dealing with xenophobia; to suggest interventions to address xenophobia in contemporary post-apartheid South Africa, and to discuss, if any, integration deficits experienced by foreign nationals. The overarching theoretical framework that was utilised in this study was constituted by the following frames: labelling theory of deviance; social control theory of deviance; learning theory of deviance; and social construction theory – these are theoretical frames situated in the theoretical field of sociology of deviance. The multi-faceted and complex nature of the phenomenon under investigation evidently necessitated a methodological approach and design strategy involving the utilisation of a qualitative research approach and methodology. Qualitatively, the data was collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, key informants’ interviews, and secondary data sources. The study revealed, amongst other things, that: the expression of the xenophobic sentiment and associated violence in contemporaneous post-apartheid South Africa was underpinned and driven by a potpourri of factors, amongst which are negative attitudes, perceived competition, perceived fear and illusions, inflammatory xenophobic rhetoric from government representatives, national identity, and afrophobia; and that xenophobia manifested itself through violent behaviour, prejudice and discriminatory behaviour, hatred, labelling, and impunity. Another revelation of this study was that immigrants (particularly black African immigrants) were socially constructed as deviants by society and official agents for social control purposes. Once labeled, the label sticks with disastrous and violent consequences. This situation is exacerbated by the liminal status that immigrants, particularly Black African immigrants, occupy in the post-apartheid South African context. Additionally, the study revealed that law enforcement agents were perceived to be ineffective in dealing with xenophobia, and violence. In response to the findings the following recommendations are made: training and capacitating agents of social control; conscientising society about migration policies vis-à-vis the rights of foreign nationals; coming out with novel strategies to job creation; inculcating the spirit of Ubuntu in young children; embracing the pan-African spirit ; making immigration policies more humanising; mainstreaming xenophobia in social and learning institutions’ curricula; and engaging in perennial research on xenophobia.Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, 202

    FEAR, HOPE, AND LOVE: APOCALYPTIC FAITH AND THE ORIGINS OF TOLERATION

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    This project explores the development, theory, and practice of toleration in a world steeped in apocalyptic ideas and imagery. Despite the influence of religious concepts upon modern political order, many liberal democratic theorists worry that fundamentalist, other-worldly, or apocalyptic religious movements are incapable of supporting or sustaining liberal norms of toleration and openness. Meanwhile, the persistence of apocalyptic movements around the globe indicates the continued relevance of eschatology to politics. I argue that the relationship between apocalyptic eschatology and toleration is more complicated than is commonly assumed. I develop close textual readings of the Puritan churchman Roger Williams, the egalitarian reformer Gerrard Winstanley, and the novelist, poet and preacher John Bunya, in order to illuminate the eschatological roots of early modern toleration and illustrate the promise and peril of apocalyptic politics. Drawing on literary, religious, and political sources, I argue that eschatological concepts such as divine judgment, eschatological confidence, and millenarian expectation underpin a significant and expansive early modern account of toleration. For Williams, Winstanley, and Bunyan, a patient yet hopeful eschatology provides the necessary conceptual framework to justify and sustain the practice of toleration through difficult times. Rejecting both revolutionary chiliasm and political pessimism, these thinkers instead invoke apocalyptic concepts in order to defend the absolute liberty of conscience and promote toleration. By embracing an apocalyptic framework, Williams, Winstanley, and Bunyan present a compelling justification for toleration while avoiding the pitfalls common to apocalyptic politics. I conclude by reflecting on the relationship between toleration, patience, and hope. While apocalyptic premises may provide the sense of hope necessary to sustain a confident and expansive practice of toleration, they also threaten social and political stability if not tempered by patience and a distrust of those who promise to inaugurate the eschaton through human activity. By pairing patience and hope, however, these seventeenth century defenders of toleration provide powerful support for the practice of toleration.Doctor of Philosoph

    United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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    This report appears in: Albert, Richard and Landau, David and Faraguna, Pietro and Drugda, Ĺ imon and De Carolis, RocĂ­o, The 2021 Global Review of Constitutional Law (November 23, 2022). The 2021 Global Review of Constitutional Law. ISBN: 978-0-692-15916-3. Sponsored by the Constitutional Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Published by EUT Edizioni UniversitĂ  di Trieste. ISBN: 978-88-5511-361-8 (EUT), U of Texas Law, Legal Studies Research Paper , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=428503

    Sharon Pollock

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    As playwright, actor, director, teacher, mentor, theatre administrator, and critic, Sharon Pollock has played an integral role in the shaping of Canada's national theatre tradition, and she continues to produce new works and to contribute to Canadian theatre as passionately as she has done over the past fifty years. Pollock is nationally and internationally respected for her work and support of the theatre community. She has also played a major role in informing Canadians about the "dark side" of their history and current events. This collection, comprised entirely of new and original assessments of her work and contribution to theatre, is both timely and long overdue. Includes a new play titled "Sharon's Tongue" by the Playing with Pollock Collective With contributions by: Kathy K. Y. Chung Donna Coates Carmen Derksen Sherrill Grace Martin Morrow Jeton Neziraj Wes Pearce Tanya Schaap Shelley Scott Jerry Wasserman Jason Weins Cynthia Zimmerma

    Play Among Books

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    How does coding change the way we think about architecture? Miro Roman and his AI Alice_ch3n81 develop a playful scenario in which they propose coding as the new literacy of information. They convey knowledge in the form of a project model that links the fields of architecture and information through two interwoven narrative strands in an “infinite flow” of real books
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