The paradox of militarization: democratic oversight and military autonomy in Mexico and Colombia

Throughout Latin America, leaders facing persistent internal security threats have expanded military deployments. In such circumstances, civilian policymakers place an important political bet on military compliance and effectiveness in carrying out the mission—and are therefore loath to raise the military’s hackles by encroaching on sensitive institutional prerogatives. Contrary to the expectation of reinforced military autonomy, however, large-scale mission expansions in Mexico and Colombia showed that the disruptions induced by militarization can yield increased democratic oversight of the armed forces. In Colombia the change in democratic oversight was dramatic: between 2009 and 2017, over 1,000 soldiers were convicted of murder in civilian courts. Mexico’s oversight rise proved more tenuous, but the military lost its ability to protect soldiers accused of rights violations from prosecution in the civilian justice system. That the increases in oversight occurred most starkly in the realm of judicial accountability is puzzling, since prosecutions have been treated as the third rail of civil-military relations. To explain these changes, I start by noting that military autonomy thrives in the darkness, but militarization places a spotlight on military behavior. When rights abuses occur, civil society actors mobilize to create pressure for accountability at both the domestic and international levels, especially by calling attention to militarizing states’ failure to comply with obligations under domestic laws, international treaties, and foreign assistance packages. Greater international pressure, in particular, weakens domestic leaders’ commitment to protecting the military from greater oversight. Despite this pressure, reform will be limited while executives remain dependent on the military to maintain order—as in Mexico. The existence of a policy alternative to militarization, however—such as Colombia’s peace process with the country’s main rebel group—may result in a fracturing of the executive-military alliance and pave the way for a substantial increase in democratic oversight.Governmen

Five College Blue Sky Report

This report includes all of the proposals gathered as part of the Five College Directors’ sustainability initiative, “Blue Sky Brainstorm: Envisioning Sustainability for the Five Colleges and Beyond.” The proposals are arranged in the same order as the March 7, 2012 report, and each idea is linked to a full proposal. The Five College working committee includes Jan Dizard (Amherst College), Sue Darlington (Hampshire College), Tim Farnham (Mount Holyoke College), Joanne Benkley (Smith College), Ezra Small (UMass Amherst), and Beth Hooker (Five Colleges)

A quantitative structure- property relationship of gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric retention data of 85 volatile organic compounds as air pollutant materials by multivariate methods

A quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) study is suggested for the prediction of retention times of volatile organic compounds. Various kinds of molecular descriptors were calculated to represent the molecular structure of compounds. Modeling of retention times of these compounds as a function of the theoretically derived descriptors was established by multiple linear regression (MLR) and artificial neural network (ANN). The stepwise regression was used for the selection of the variables which gives the best-fitted models. After variable selection ANN, MLR methods were used with leave-one-out cross validation for building the regression models. The prediction results are in very good agreement with the experimental values. MLR as the linear regression method shows good ability in the prediction of the retention times of the prediction set. This provided a new and effective method for predicting the chromatography retention index for the volatile organic compounds

The Economic Impact of the Value Chain of a Marcellus Shale Well

The Economic Impact of the Value Chain of a Marcellus Shale Well Site examines the direct economic impact of a Marcellus Shale well located in Southwestern Pennsylvania. This study seeks to fill a critical information gap on the impact of gas drilling and extraction from Marcellus Shale deposits deep underground: an assessment of the economic impacts – emphasizing the direct economic impact, rather than just focusing on the perceived benefits and impacts affecting the region. Our analysis is based on extensive field research, including a site visit and interviews with industry participants. It is further cross-validated by examining similar costs for development of Marcellus Wells by a vertically-integrated exploration and production firm

Evolutionary dynamics of group formation

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Group formation is a quite ubiquitous phenomenon across different animal species, whose individuals cluster together forming communities of diverse size. Previous investigations suggest that, in general, this phenomenon might have similar underlying reasons across the interested species, despite genetic and behavioral differences. For instance improving the individual safety (e.g. from predators), and increasing the probability to get food resources. Remarkably, the group size might strongly vary from species to species, e.g. shoals of fishes and herds of lions, and sometimes even within the same species, e.g. tribes and families in human societies. Here we build on previous theories stating that the dynamics of group formation may have evolutionary roots, and we explore this fascinating hypothesis from a purely theoretical perspective, with a model using the framework of Evolutionary Game Theory. In our model we hypothesize that homogeneity constitutes a fundamental ingredient in these dynamics. Accordingly, we study a population that tries to form homogeneous groups, i.e. composed of similar agents. The formation of a group can be interpreted as a strategy. Notably, agents can form a group (receiving a ‘group payoff’), or can act individually (receiving an ‘individual payoff’). The phase diagram of the modeled population shows a sharp transition between the ‘group phase’ and the ‘individual phase’, characterized by a critical ‘individual payoff’. Our results then support the hypothesis that the phenomenon of group formation has evolutionary roots.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

CHANGING THE SUBJECT: THE EARLY NOVELS OF CHRISTINA STEAD (POLITICS/ART, 1930\u27S, SURREALISM)

Christina Stead is a modernist whose life and art are profoundly informed by socialism. Chapter I describes the intellectual context into which Stead fits: the debates about art and partisanship which occupied leftwing intellectuals in Europe in the thirties. Georg Lukacs\u27 theories about totality and mediation are compared to the counter-arguments of Bertold Brecht and Walter Benjamin, especially Benjamin\u27s project: a critical practice informed by Marxist dialectic and by sympathy toward modernist experiments like surrealism. The whole chapter discusses the relationship between ideology and realism. Chapter II is a biography. Christina Stead\u27s childhood in Sydney, her residence in Europe from 1928 until 1937 and her encounter with Hollywood anti-communism are focal points. The method compares interviews with autobiographical fragments and with passages from Stead\u27s novels, mainly Seven Poor Men of Sydney, The Beauties and Furies and For Love Alone. Chapter III examines The Beauties and Furies, showing how Stead\u27s trios of lovers in Paris interweave in the political ferment of the Third Republic. Close textual study combined with historical research establishes the novel is at once realistic and surreal, featuring subtle interactions between characters that bear the stamp of both individual psychology and social class. Surreal fantasy enters the realistic text to exhibit personalities in the flux of change, and under stress. Chapter IV shows House of All Nations similarly blends realism and fantasy to expose the money galls of international banking, in a world rumor rules. An appendix demonstrates this long novel is very carefully plotted. In conclusion, the thesis proposes Stead\u27s unusual effects, the changes in the subjects and the rapid shifts from one subject to another, emerge from her early education in Darwinian biology together with the marxist social theories she absorbed from reading and discussion in college and in Paris. Her vision has a double focus on the individual and the environment

Digital diplomacy : U.S. foreign policy in the information age/ Dizard

215 hal.; 23 cm