744 research outputs found

    From abuse to trust and back again

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    oai:westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk:w7qv

    Searching for Themes in a Chamber full of Noise? How Language Affects United Nations’ Actions and Decisions

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    Against a scholarly mountain of literature on the United Nations, it is astounding how profoundly little we know about the decision-making processes of its most powerful and secretive body, the UN Security Council. In particular, no study has systematically investigated the rhetoric in the Council and assessed its impact on actions and decisions in authorized resolutions. Since diplomats, lawyers, and policymakers held almost 80,000 speeches in public debates between 1995 and 2018 alone, one has to wonder, do these speeches matter? Do they affect intergovernmental decision-making procedures? Do they amount to anything in world politics? And if so, what is their effect? The lack of answers to these questions shows the need for a theory-driven systematic, and rigorous empirical investigation of Council rhetoric

    Intelligence Oversight In Times of Transnational Impunity: Who Will Watch the Watchers?

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    This book adopts a critical lens to look at the workings of Western intelligence and intelligence oversight over time and space. Largely confined to the sub-field of intelligence studies, scholarly engagements with intelligence oversight have typically downplayed the violence carried out by secretive agencies. These studies have often served to justify weak oversight structures and promoted only marginal adaptations of policy frameworks in the wake of intelligence scandals. The essays gathered in this volume challenge the prevailing doxa in the academic field, adopting a critical lens to look at the workings of intelligence oversight in Europe and North America. Through chapters spanning across multiple disciplines–political sociology, history, and law–the book aims to recast intelligence oversight as acting in symbiosis with the legitimisation of the state’s secret violence and the enactment of impunity, showing how intelligence actors practically navigate the legal and political constraints created by oversight frameworks and practices, for instance by developing transnational networks of interdependence. The book also explores inventive legal steps and human rights mechanisms aimed at bridging some of the most serious gaps in existing frameworks, drawing inspiration from recent policy developments in the international struggle against torture. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, sociology, security studies, and international relations

    The age of the bailout : contention, party-system collapse and reconstruction in Greece, 2009-2015

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    Defence date: 10 June 2019Examining Board: Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi, European University Institute; Prof. Elias Dinas, European University Institute; Prof Maria Kousis, University of Crete; Prof. Mark R. Beissinger, Princeton UniversityThe Greek epicenter of the Eurozone crisis was violently shaken by one of the deepest economic depressions of the past century. The call for financial assistance by the 2010 Greek government resulted in a series of bailouts whose conditionality and policy requirements deeply divided Greeks for the next eight years. This thesis deals with the dismantling of the Greek party-system during the Eurozone crisis, in conjunction with the volatile outburst of one of the proportionally largest protest campaigns in post-war Europe. The Greek case is interesting firstly due to its unique outlier status in multiple dimensions, like the depth of economic crisis, the unique mass scale of protest and party-system change. But beyond the case specifics, the thesis uses the Greek case as a unique contemporary vantage point to understand patterns of interaction between large-scale contentious and institutional politics and the mechanisms of abrupt party-system change. To study contentious institutional interactions, a novel framework is proposed, examining the Greek case through the detailed narration of four contentious episodes, streams of interactions among government, challengers and third parties around contested policy packages, the bailouts. This methodological novelty is complemented by a theoretical framework that conceptualizes the bailout-induced change in structures of policy-making and political competition, and thus the context within which the protest wave unfolded. The thesis follow the evolution of escalating protest and party-system unraveling through the succession of contentious episodes to detect the mechanisms through which they interact. I draws attention mainly to indirect mechanisms through which social movements influence party-system outcomes, namely elite breakdown and paralysis and the reconfiguration of dimensions of political conflict. Additionally, the dissertation delimits the effect of social movements mostly on those indirect effects. To complete the story of party-system punctuation, I expose critical elements of agency and structure unrelated to protest, such as the bailout’s opportunity structure, shrewd party positioning and the revealing of the mental (mis)calculations of institutional protagonists, which are the other required elements to guide us through the process of Greek party-system implosion. The final chapters eventually expand on how this punctuation was overcome, this time by reference to the missing contentiousness and the ways Syriza used persuasion, its profile as a new party and its leader’s popularity to avoid a repetition of the first cycle of contention, bringing the crisis full circle

    Fundamentals of Business

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    Fundamentals of Business, fourth edition (2023) is an open education resource intended to serve as a no-cost, faculty-customizable primary text for one-semester undergraduate introductory business courses. It covers the following topics in business: Teamwork; economics; ethics; entrepreneurship; business ownership, management, and leadership; organizational structures and operations management; human resources and motivating employees; managing in labor union contexts; marketing and pricing strategy; hospitality and tourism, accounting and finance, personal finances, and technology in business

    The Impact of Project Management on the Adoption of Emerging Media to Non-commercial Broadcasting Media Businesses in Hispanic Markets

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    Non-commercial radio broadcasting organizations are experiencing a significant loss of audience based primarily on migration to digital media outlets. The ineffectiveness of developing new media, such as podcasts, to reach new audiences and expand new business opportunities is reducing the chances of survivability for a hard-regulated radio sector established by the Federal Communications Commission regulations. A major new media integration exists in the non-commercial radio broadcasting industry in Puerto Rico, and inquiries into the knowledge and application of Project Management tools and techniques present on the management level of Hispanic markets help understand the occurrence. The performed study integrated a qualitative research method with a single study approach to increase comprehension and improve knowledge of how radio broadcasting managers handle audience migration from an efficiency perspective. Inquiring into the decision-making and operational problem of non-commercial radio broadcasting firm managers’ points of view resulted in a better understanding of the limitations and ineffectiveness of web-based platform media development. The participants’ answers showed relevant data that should help radio broadcasting businesses develop new media, such as podcasts, as part of their product offerings and expansion opportunities. The findings include themes such as lack of formal education, training needed, lack of urgency, knowledge of project management methods, and limited planning to develop new media
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