Public Diplomacy and International Conflict Resolution: A Cautionary Case from Cold War South America

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1093/isafpa/orz003Can public diplomacy help resolve protracted international conflicts? Both rationalist and constructivist traditions identify significant domestic obstacles to international peacemaking. However, Robert Putnam’s concept of “reverberation” implies that diplomats can expand their adversaries’ win-sets for cooperation by engaging foreign publics. This paper analyzes a most-likely case, with archival evidence: Argentine Ambassador Oscar Camilión’s unsuccessful quest for Argentine-Brazilian rapprochement in 1976–77. Although the two countries later overcame rivalry, public diplomacy contributed negligibly to this success: internal Argentine divisions created mixed messages toward Brazil, Brazilian leaders launched a competing public relations operation, and these two currents obstructed and nearly terminated Camilión’s mission. This case illuminates the paradoxes of Argentine foreign policymaking under military rule and offers a cautionary tale for scholars and practitioners of public diplomacy and conflict resolution

The Provenance Problem: Research Methods and Ethics in the Age of WikiLeaks

17 USC 105 interim-entered record; under review.The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055421001374How should political scientists navigate the ethical and methodological quandaries associated with analyzing leaked classified documents and other nonconsensually acquired sources? Massive unauthorized disclosures may excite qualitative scholars with policy revelations and quantitative researchers with big-data suitability, but they are fraught with dilemmas that the discipline has yet to resolve. This paper critiques underspecified research designs and opaque references in the proliferation of scholarship with leaked materials, as well as incomplete and inconsistent guidance from leading journals. It identifies provenance as the primary concept for improved standards and reviews other disciplines' approaches to this problem. It elaborates eight normative and evidentiary criteria for scholars by which to assess source legitimacy and four recommendations for balancing their trade-offs. Fundamentally, it contends that scholars need deeper reflection on source provenance and its consequences, more humility about whether to access new materials and what inferences to draw, and more transparency in citation and research strategies.U.S. Government affiliation is unstated in article text

Leveraging Naval Diplomacy to Reinforce Economic Programs and Compete with China

NPS NRP Executive SummaryAs competition between the U.S. and China intensifies, the U.S. Navy must plan and implement its overseas operations and diplomatic activities to advance U.S. influence. The main purpose of this study is to assess how the USN can leverage its operations and activities to reinforce U.S. economic programs and enhance U.S. influence. Building on an innovative influence framework developed by two of the investigators, it will systematically assess how USN activities and operations such as joint exercises, port calls, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, and training programs, generate influence in three important U.S. partner nations with significant Chinese investment and/or security presence: Chile, Senegal, and the United Arab Emirates. The project will also identify specific ways that USN activities can reinforce USG economic programs and build effective partnerships, specifying the most productive activity groupings, effective sequencing arrangements, and potential obstacles to interagency coordination. The project will produce a final report, as well as briefings to the sponsor and other interested audiences in the Navy. The report will consist of three country case studies and a comparative analysis of their findings. The precise organization and format of the deliverables will be designed to suit the needs of the topic sponsor. Interim reports will be provided to keep the sponsor apprised of our progress and to solicit feedback during the course of study.N3/N5 - Plans & StrategyThis research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Book Review: Christopher Darnton. Rivalry and Alliance Politics in Cold War Latin America

This document includes Dr. Field\u27s review of Christopher Darnton\u27s Rivalry and Alliance Politics in Cold War Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9781421413617 (paperback, $44.95). It is part of H-Diplo | ISSF, Roundtable, Volume VIII, No. 8 (2016)

When The News Was Sung: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe

News songs differ in crucial ways to the other news media of the early modern period like newsletters, newspapers, or diplomatic correspondence – they differ even from the prose broadsheets and pamphlets that they so closely resemble. As historians of news we need to ask different kinds of questions of these multi-media artifacts. For example, how does the presentation in a performative genre affect the dissemination and reception of information about events? What part do orality and aurality play in how the news was sold and received? Here the activities and social status of street singers play an important role. We must consider the production, format and distribution of these songs in order to understand their impact. We also need to pay attention to the conjunction between text and melody, and the ways in which this affected the presentation of a news event. On a broader scale, what kind of information can ballads provide about specific news events that other documents cannot or will not provide? Can they offer us a new medium by which to interpret historical events? And lastly, how should historians deal with these profoundly emotive texts? The combination of sensationalist language and affecting music meant that songs had the potential to provoke a more powerful response than any other contemporary news source, and this emotional potency can at times be challenging for a modern historian to decipher and explain. This article will attempt to answer some of these questions and suggest some of the skills we as historians need to develop in order to appreciate the full meaning of songs as the most popular of news media in early modern Europe

Dependence of Bacterial Chemotaxis on Gradient Shape and Adaptation Rate

Simulation of cellular behavior on multiple scales requires models that are sufficiently detailed to capture central intracellular processes but at the same time enable the simulation of entire cell populations in a computationally cheap way. In this paper we present RapidCell, a hybrid model of chemotactic Escherichia coli that combines the Monod-Wyman-Changeux signal processing by mixed chemoreceptor clusters, the adaptation dynamics described by ordinary differential equations, and a detailed model of cell tumbling. Our model dramatically reduces computational costs and allows the highly efficient simulation of E. coli chemotaxis. We use the model to investigate chemotaxis in different gradients, and suggest a new, constant-activity type of gradient to systematically study chemotactic behavior of virtual bacteria. Using the unique properties of this gradient, we show that optimal chemotaxis is observed in a narrow range of CheA kinase activity, where concentration of the response regulator CheY-P falls into the operating range of flagellar motors. Our simulations also confirm that the CheB phosphorylation feedback improves chemotactic efficiency by shifting the average CheY-P concentration to fit the motor operating range. Our results suggest that in liquid media the variability in adaptation times among cells may be evolutionary favorable to ensure coexistence of subpopulations that will be optimally tactic in different gradients. However, in a porous medium (agar) such variability appears to be less important, because agar structure poses mainly negative selection against subpopulations with low levels of adaptation enzymes. RapidCell is available from the authors upon request

Predicted Auxiliary Navigation Mechanism of Peritrichously Flagellated Chemotactic Bacteria

Chemotactic movement of Escherichia coli is one of the most thoroughly studied paradigms of simple behavior. Due to significant competitive advantage conferred by chemotaxis and to high evolution rates in bacteria, the chemotaxis system is expected to be strongly optimized. Bacteria follow gradients by performing temporal comparisons of chemoeffector concentrations along their runs, a strategy which is most efficient given their size and swimming speed. Concentration differences are detected by a sensory system and transmitted to modulate rotation of flagellar motors, decreasing the probability of a tumble and reorientation if the perceived concentration change during a run is positive. Such regulation of tumble probability is of itself sufficient to explain chemotactic drift of a population up the gradient, and is commonly assumed to be the only navigation mechanism of chemotactic E. coli. Here we use computer simulations to predict existence of an additional mechanism of gradient navigation in E. coli. Based on the experimentally observed dependence of cell tumbling angle on the number of switching motors, we suggest that not only the tumbling probability but also the degree of reorientation during a tumble depend on the swimming direction along the gradient. Although the difference in mean tumbling angles up and down the gradient predicted by our model is small, it results in a dramatic enhancement of the cellular drift velocity along the gradient. We thus demonstrate a new level of optimization in E. coli chemotaxis, which arises from the switching of several flagellar motors and a resulting fine tuning of tumbling angle. Similar strategy is likely to be used by other peritrichously flagellated bacteria, and indicates yet another level of evolutionary development of bacterial chemotaxis

Archives and Inference Documentary Evidence in Case Study Research and the Debate over U.S. Entry into World War II

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_a_00306Did Franklin Delano Roosevelt escalate confliict with Japan and Germany before Pearl Harbor, or did he attempt to avoid war? To what extent did U.S. public opinion influence these decisions? And, crucially, how do we know? Scholars offer diametrically opposed analyses of this historical case, bearing directly on international relations theories regarding the effects of democracy on war and foreign policy. In this debate and the broader security studies field, scholars increasingly employ published and archival primary sources. Because researchers lack a clear template for descriptive and causal inference with documentary evidence, though, such work is indeterminate and ultimately unpersuasive. How can political scientists approach archives and primary documents more effectively and efficiently? Above all, case studies need stronger research designs and clearer source selection strategies, not just more authoritative documents. A critical review of the sources cited in recent scholarship in the debate leading to the United States' entry into World War II, and a replication analysis of a key portion of the documentary record, underscores this need for improved research design and buttresses eight guidelines for the selection and analysis of textual evidence in case study research