Politics by Other Means in the Italian ‘Years of Lead’: Armed Groups, Ideology and Patterns of Violence

Though many studies have analysed the variations in the use of violence by armed groups, an overall understanding of the phenomenon remains challenging. Building on the work addressing the role of institutions and ideology in armed group behaviour, this paper proposes a greater understanding of the role of the programmatic content of an ideology in shaping patterns of violence, specifically in terms of targeting and repertoire. The starting point of this analysis is to provide a new perspective on the meaning of political violence and address the organisational role of ideology in influencing the institutions of an armed group. To account for this, the paper does not consider the presence of an ideology but rather its strength, as a useful lens of analysis. I argue that if an ideology matters in defining a group, then the use of violence should be reflexive of its organisation. This theoretical framework is used for a micro-comparative, most-similar case study analysis of the Red Brigades and New Order militant organisations in Italy during the so-called ‘Years of Lead’. The case studies both share the presence of a strong ideological underpinning, with similar end goals and in the same context but present variations in their patterns of violence. The scope condition of the case studies is to examine whether the different patterns of violence can be explained by the variations in the programmatic nature of the ideology. Through the analysis of qualitative sources and quantitative evidence, the paper highlights the causal nexus between ideology and observed patterns of violence whereby the use of violence by armed groups represents an information and identification mechanism ideologically defined

Assessing State Efforts to Integrate Transportation, Land Use and Climate

Climate change is increasingly recognized as a threat to life on earth. “Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems. Limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions” (International Panel on Climate Change, 2014, 8). The transportation sector accounts for almost one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the United States. Reducing GHG from transportation rests on the “three-legged stool” of improving vehicle efficiency, reducing the carbon content of fuels and reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT). But “technological improvements in vehicles and fuels are likely to be offset by continuing, robust growth in VMT” (Ewing et al., 2007, 2). Thus, a crucial strategy in curbing GHG from transportation relies on reducing total VMT by promoting alternative modes of transportation hand in hand with promoting development patterns that support the use of such modes, in addition to pricing strategies (for GHG, parking, gas taxes, tolls, etc.) and lifestyle changes to shift from driving. In developing climate action plans, states have begun to acknowledge the connection between transportation and development patterns. This project explores the institutional barriers and opportunities for reducing VMT, hence GHG, through improved transportation options and smarter development patterns in four states: California, Maryland, Oregon and Washington. The research team analyzed existing policy frameworks around transportation, land use and climate change, outlining the statutory context around plans and actions within state agencies and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). The research team used content analysis to analyze existing plans under these agencies, and conducted interviews with over 40 stakeholders to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of state approaches. The research team assessed the existing policy framework within the case study states and offers recommendations for improving existing frameworks. Finally, lessons learned from these four states can inform other states attempting to reduce GHG from transportation

Characterizing performance improvement in primary care systems in Mesoamerica: A realist evaluation protocol [version 1; referees: 1 approved]

Background. Improving performance of primary care systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) may be a necessary condition for achievement of universal health coverage in the age of Sustainable Development Goals. The Salud Mesoamerica Initiative (SMI), a large-scale, multi-country program that uses supply-side financial incentives directed at the central-level of governments, and continuous, external evaluation of public, health sector performance to induce improvements in primary care performance in eight LMICs. This study protocol seeks to explain whether and how these interventions generate program effects in El Salvador and Honduras. Methods. This study presents the protocol for a study that uses a realist evaluation approach to develop a preliminary program theory that hypothesizes the interactions between context, interventions and the mechanisms that trigger outcomes. The program theory was completed through a scoping review of relevant empirical, peer-reviewed and grey literature; a sense-making workshop with program stakeholders; and content analysis of key SMI documents. The study will use a multiple case-study design with embedded units with contrasting cases. We define as a case the two primary care systems of Honduras and El Salvador, each with different context characteristics. Data will be collected through in-depth interviews with program actors and stakeholders, documentary review, and non-participatory observation. Data analysis will use inductive and deductive approaches to identify causal patterns organized as ‘context, mechanism, outcome’ configurations. The findings will be triangulated with existing secondary, qualitative and quantitative data sources, and contrasted against relevant theoretical literature. The study will end with a refined program theory. Findings will be published following the guidelines generated by the Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Syntheses study (RAMESES II). This study will be performed contemporaneously with SMI’s mid-term stage of implementation. Of the methods described, the preliminary program theory has been completed. Data collection, analysis and synthesis remain to be completed

Methodological Framework of WP6

Work Package six analyzes strategic communication as purposefully designed communicational advocacy that is distributed on the behalf of an organization or an institution. Our main research interests is the identification of semantic patterns in strategic content and their potential migration into other discourses – the media coverage, political debates and public discourses - and vice versa. Additionally, we seek to investigate strategic communication’s potential impact on a conflict’s dynamic and, consequently, it’s potential for de-escalation. Finally, we also apply a gender sensitive approach and analyze the portrayal of gender in strategic communication. To fulfill these objectives, we make use of an innovative multi-step content analytic approach. In a qualitative pilot-study we identified idiosyncrasies within the language used in strategic content. Our sample of strategic communication mainly consists of two groups of texts: (1) contents that simulate journalistic language and, thus, can be labeled PR and (2) messages that often use strongly connoted expressions and can be referred to as propaganda. Within our qualitative pilot study we created rules and guidelines for the identification of semantic patterns – frames, evidential claims and agendas for action – while taking the two groups of texts and its different use of language into account. In our quantitative computer-based content analysis we will use an updated version of the AmCat program called JAmCat to identify frames, agendas for actions and evidential claims in a large corpus of texts. Our main research interest consists of five dimensions. First, (1) we will analyze strategic communication in different countries on a case-based perspective focusing on the content’s idiosyncrasies in different conflict cases. In doing so, we will (2) analyze strategic communication’s narrative in different conflict phases (for example escalation, de-escalation) and examine (3) the construction of similar ideas and semantic patterns over different conflicts, debates and the conflicts’ time frames. We then will (4) compare the contents distributed by different groups of strategic actors. Here, we address the differing perspectives and communicative strategies of different strategic actors and the thus resulting differences within their distributed frames. A central aim of WP6 is a close cooperation with WPs 5, 7, and 8 to (5) examine the diffusion of strategic discourse on the same conflict into different debates – the media coverage, (other) strategic communication, political debates and social media – and thus to also investigate the functional roles of strategic communicators in the shaping of public discourse and their (different) success in enforcing/asserting their particular frames. In our qualitative in-depth analysis, we will enrich the results with more details and provide additional context while focusing on key moments, actors and ideas in the discourses. In doing so we will combine information from the quantitative stage with relevant insight from other work packages also relating to the results of INFOCORE’s interviewing groups and contextual information from the literature

Weathering Climate Change: Provisions for Climate Change Resiliency in Transboundary River Treaties

Climate change will be most apparent in alterations to the hydrologic system - shifts in movement, variations in extremes - thereby defining many resource disputes in the coming decades. Water is a boundaryless resource; as its hydrologic patterns shift within and without borders, so too will preexisting agreements on its use and allocation. The question for transboundary water agreements is: how can agreements both satisfy parties\u27 needs and account for future uncertainties of climate-induced changes to their basins\u27 hydrologic systems? From examining literature and water agreements, this thesis develops a list of provisions identified as foundational to resiliency in transboundary water agreements. The context of Central Asia provides a case study for determining the effectiveness of provisions in fostering resiliency, ultimately concluding that, if the implementation of an agreement is weak, then the impact of provisions is negated. The value of an agreement\u27s content is secondary to the resilient action resulting from it. Future research is needed to understand how provisions can be used to promote or strengthen agreement implementation

Lee Kuan Yew at the Barbecue: When Social Enrichment Interacts with Propositional Content

International audienceSocial enrichment occurs when socially indexed linguistic variation is used to convey social information about the speaker. As [1] argues, this information is distinct from propositional content, though the mapping between linguistic variants and social properties often depends on the linguistic context. In this study, we consider a special case of context dependence in which this mapping is predicted to interact productively with the propositional content of the utterance. Specifically, in certain cases of dialect contact (i) the propositional interpretation can depend on which social properties are attributed to the speaker, and (ii) the potential for (propositional) miscommunication can influence how interlocutors coordinate regarding social enrichment. Our starting point is Singapore English (SgE), which as an edge prominence language [2], does not use pitch accents to mark focus [3]. Consequently, object pronouns are prosodically prominent regardless of how they refer. This contrasts with stress accent varieties (e.g., American), in which pronouns can refer to the subject or object of the previous clause depending on whether they are accented. Crucially, SgE speakers have substantial contact with stress accent varieties. Listeners make limited use of pronoun accentuation to decide reference, and this tendency can be modulated by implicit cues to national identity [4]. Some speakers even modify their prosody towards stress accent varieties to mark a cultural affiliation or because of time abroad. A listener's decision about pronoun reference may therefore depend on which identity they attribute to the speaker. Singaporeans are notorious style-shifters. A matched guise study [5] showed that the use of colloquial features (e.g., reduced morphological marking) is associated with solidarity, likely because those features index a shared Singaporean identity. Standard features, which are largely shared with non-Singaporean varieties, were associated with status. A close parallel can therefore be drawn between the use of (ING) in AmE to index competence or friendliness [1], and the use of standard versus colloquial features in SgE to index status or 'Singaporeanness' (solidarity). The key is that if interlocutors do not converge with respect to the latter, pronoun reference (and therefore propositional content) may not be successfully communicated. Assuming that propositional content carries a high value relative to social properties, this has at least two important consequences for the type of analysis in [1]. First, it can affect the set of personae that constitute equilibria. Table 1 shows the payoff matrix from [1, Table 6] with personae replaced by Singaporean equivalents. In general, the persona {low, −Sing} is not a Nash equilibrium, but when propositional content is at stake, it is. Equations (1) and (2) show the expected utility profile for the use of verb morphology both without and with propositional content at stake. Crucially, the presence of this factor changes which form yields the highest expected utility. The interaction becomes more complex if the cost of propositional miscommunication is not arbitrarily high, or if the choice of prosodic patterns itself is treated as socially meaningful. Our initial results, however, clearly show that propositional content and social enrichment are not independent

If you build it, will they come? How researchers perceive and use web 2.0

Over the past 15 years, the web has transformed the way we seek and use information. In the last 5 years in particular a set of innovative techniques – collectively termed ‘web 2.0’ – have enabled people to become producers as well as consumers of information. It has been suggested that these relatively easy-to-use tools, and the behaviours which underpin their use, have enormous potential for scholarly researchers, enabling them to communicate their research and its findings more rapidly, broadly and effectively than ever before. This report is based on a study commissioned by the Research Information Network to investigate whether such aspirations are being realised. It seeks to improve our currently limited understanding of whether, and if so how, researchers are making use of various web 2.0 tools in the course of their work, the factors that encourage or inhibit adoption, and researchers’ attitudes towards web 2.0 and other forms of communication. Context: How researchers communicate their work and their findings varies in different subjects or disciplines, and in different institutional settings. Such differences have a strong influence on how researchers approach the adoption – or not – of new information and communications technologies. It is also important to stress that ‘web 2.0’ encompasses a wide range of interactions between technologies and social practices which allow web users to generate, repurpose and share content with each other. We focus in this study on a range of generic tools – wikis, blogs and some social networking systems – as well as those designed specifically by and for people within the scholarly community. Method: Our study was designed not only to capture current attitudes and patterns of adoption but also to identify researchers’ needs and aspirations, and problems that they encounter. We began with an online survey, which collected information about researchers’ information gathering and dissemination habits and their attitudes towards web 2.0. This was followed by in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a stratified sample of survey respondents to explore in more depth their experience of web 2.0, including perceived barriers as well as drivers to adoption. Finally, we undertook five case studies of web 2.0 services to investigate their development and adoption across different communities and business models. Key findings: Our study indicates that a majority of researchers are making at least occasional use of one or more web 2.0 tools or services for purposes related to their research: for communicating their work; for developing and sustaining networks and collaborations; or for finding out about what others are doing. But frequent or intensive use is rare, and some researchers regard blogs, wikis and other novel forms of communication as a waste of time or even dangerous. In deciding if they will make web 2.0 tools and services part of their everyday practice, the key questions for researchers are the benefits they may secure from doing so, and how it fits with their use of established services. Researchers who use web 2.0 tools and services do not see them as comparable to or substitutes for other channels and means of communication, but as having their own distinctive role for specific purposes and at particular stages of research. And frequent use of one kind of tool does not imply frequent use of others as well

The capacities of institutions for the integration of ecosystem services in coastal strategic planning: The case of Jiaozhou Bay

This paper explains how the practice of integrating ecosystem-service thinking (i.e., ecological benefits for human beings) and institutions (i.e., organisations, policy rules) is essential for coastal spatial planning. Adopting an integrated perspective on ecosystem services (ESs) both helps understand a wide range of possible services and, at the same time, attune institution to local resource patterns. The objective of this paper is to identify the extent to which ESs are integrated in a specific coastal strategic planning case. A subsequent objective is to understand whether institutions are capable of managing ESs in terms of uncovering institutional strengths and weaknesses that may exist in taking ESs into account in existing institutional practices. These two questions are addressed through the application of a content analysis method and a multi-level analysis framework on formal institutions. Jiaozhou Bay in China is used as an illustrative case. The results show that some ESs have been implicitly acknowledged, but by no means the whole range. This partial ES implementation could result from any of four institutional weaknesses in the strategic plans of Jiaozhou Bay, namely a dominant market oriented interest, fragmented institutional structures for managing ESs, limited ES assessment, and a lack of integrated reflection of the social value of ESs in decision-making. Finally, generalizations of multi-level institutional settings on ES integration, such as an inter-organisational fragmentation and a limited use of ES assessment in operation, are made together with other international case studies. Meanwhile, the comparison highlights the influences of extensive market-oriented incentives and governments' exclusive responsibilities on ES governance in the Chinese context

Kaleidoscope JEIRP on Learning Patterns for the Design and Deployment of Mathematical Games: Final Report

Project deliverable (D40.05.01-F)Over the last few years have witnessed a growing recognition of the educational potential of computer games. However, it is generally agreed that the process of designing and deploying TEL resources generally and games for mathematical learning specifically is a difficult task. The Kaleidoscope project, "Learning patterns for the design and deployment of mathematical games", aims to investigate this problem. We work from the premise that designing and deploying games for mathematical learning requires the assimilation and integration of deep knowledge from diverse domains of expertise including mathematics, games development, software engineering, learning and teaching. We promote the use of a design patterns approach to address this problem. This deliverable reports on the project by presenting both a connected account of the prior deliverables and also a detailed description of the methodology involved in producing those deliverables. In terms of conducting the future work which this report envisages, the setting out of our methodology is seen by us as very significant. The central deliverable includes reference to a large set of learning patterns for use by educators, researchers, practitioners, designers and software developers when designing and deploying TEL-based mathematical games. Our pattern language is suggested as an enabling tool for good practice, by facilitating pattern-specific communication and knowledge sharing between participants. We provide a set of trails as a "way-in" to using the learning pattern language. We report in this methodology how the project has enabled the synergistic collaboration of what started out as two distinct strands: design and deployment, even to the extent that it is now difficult to identify those strands within the processes and deliverables of the project. The tools and outcomes from the project can be found at: http://lp.noe-kaleidoscope.org

IDR : a participatory methodology for interdisciplinary design in technology enhanced learning

One of the important themes that emerged from the CAL’07 conference was the failure of technology to bring about the expected disruptive effect to learning and teaching. We identify one of the causes as an inherent weakness in prevalent development methodologies. While the problem of designing technology for learning is irreducibly multi-dimensional, design processes often lack true interdisciplinarity. To address this problem we present IDR, a participatory methodology for interdisciplinary techno-pedagogical design, drawing on the design patterns tradition (Alexander, Silverstein & Ishikawa, 1977) and the design research paradigm (DiSessa & Cobb, 2004). We discuss the iterative development and use of our methodology by a pan-European project team of educational researchers, software developers and teachers. We reflect on our experiences of the participatory nature of pattern design and discuss how, as a distributed team, we developed a set of over 120 design patterns, created using our freely available open source web toolkit. Furthermore, we detail how our methodology is applicable to the wider community through a workshop model, which has been run and iteratively refined at five major international conferences, involving over 200 participants