79 research outputs found

    The importance of regime similarity to explain democratic diffusion

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    Studies of democratic diffusion have generally emphasised the role of geography in explaining waves of democratisation. Edward Goldring and Sheena Chestnut Greitens show that regime type has been significantly under-appreciated. Dictatorships often break down and even democratise along networks of similar regimes rather than via geographical proximity. Their work has important implications for questions of authoritarian survival and durability, as well as understanding the diffusion of political phenomena across the world, including in the UK

    Coercive Institutions and State Violence under Authoritarianism

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    How do autocrats construct their coercive apparatus, and why do these institutions engage in different levels of violence and repression? Despite a wave of recent interest in authoritarian politics, the origins, design, and behavior of coercive institutions that embody the state's monopoly on violence remain relatively unexamined. This project examines the origins and operation of the coercive apparatus in three Cold War anticommunist authoritarian regimes -- Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea. She argues that autocrats face an organizational trade-off between designing their internal security apparatus to deal with a popular threat, or coup-proofing it to defend against elite rivals. Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security Studies.Institute for Korean StudiesEvent Web Page, Event Photo

    Bargaining of beliefs : agencies, advocacy groups, and the evolution of pesticide regulatory reform

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    Includes bibliographical references (pages [211]-221).The policy beliefs of advocacy groups, policymakers, and other interested individuals help to shape public policy. Yet, policy beliefs are rarely used in policy analyses. This dissertation changes that by examining the role of policy beliefs in pesticide regulatory reform in the 1980s and 1990s. Important concepts explored in this analysis of pesticide regulatory reform include: a determination of whether the policy core beliefs of like-minded advocacy groups possess enough uniformity to justify categorization of these groups into larger advocacy coalitions, an identification of the process by which an advocacy coalition’s secondary policy beliefs toward pesticide regulations change over time, an examination of whether compromises in secondary policy beliefs among advocacy coalitions are associated with policy change, and an investigation into whether stronger advocacy coalitions influence compromises in secondary policy beliefs among weaker advocacy coalitions. Examining these concepts reveals the role of policy beliefs in shaping public policy. In addition, the answers to these questions help to compare two policy theories: the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Punctuated Equilibrium. The findings help integrate key concepts from the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Punctuated Equilibrium to forge a new level of policy analysis that explores how the policy beliefs of advocacy groups change. By analyzing the debates over pesticide regulatory reform in the 1980s and 1990s, this dissertation finds that the policy beliefs of consumer-environmental advocacy groups exhibit a punctuated equilibrium pattern. In essence, these groups incorporate pro-agribusiness beliefs when a change in pesticide regulations seems imminent. This suggests that proenvironmental groups bargain with their beliefs in attempts to influence pesticide regulations. Other findings examine key tenets of both the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Punctuated Equilibrium model through time-series analyses, group comparison tests, and interviews with agency personnel and advocacy groups. Overall, these findings indicate that the need for policy reform often drives compromises in policy beliefs and that advocacy groups often use policy beliefs to directly influence other advocacy groups.Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy

    Facing Forward: Policy for Automated Facial Expression Analysis

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    The human face is a powerful tool for nonverbal communication. Technological advances have enabled widespread and low-cost deployment of video capture and facial recognition systems, opening the door for automated facial expression analysis (AFEA). This paper summarizes current challenges to the reliability of AFEA systems and challenges that could arise as a result of reliable AFEA systems. The potential benefits of AFEA are considerable, but developers, prospective users, and policy makers should proceed with caution

    First and most northern occurrence of a thalattosuchian crocodylomorph from the Jurassic of the Isle of Skye, Scotland

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    The Jurassic was a key interval for the evolution of dinosaurs, crocodylomorphs and many other vertebrate groups. In recent years, new vertebrate fossils have emerged from the Early–Middle Jurassic of the Isle of Skye, Scotland; however, much more is known about Skye's dinosaur fauna than its crocodylomorphs. Here we report new crocodylomorph material collected from Jurassic marine deposits at Prince Charlie's Cave on the NE coast of Skye. The specimen is a small cobble containing postcranial elements from an individual that is considerably larger in size than previous crocodylomorphs described from Skye. Based on features of the vertebrae and osteoderms, the specimen is assigned to Thalattosuchia, an extinct clade of semi-aquatic/pelagic crocodylomorphs. Specifically, the sub-circular and bean-shaped pit ornamentation on the dorsal surface of the osteoderms in alternating rows suggests affinities with the semi-aquatic lineage Teleosauroidea. Although the ornamentation pattern on the osteoderms is most similar to Macrospondylus (‘Steneosaurus’) bollensis, we conservatively assign the specimen to Teleosauroidea indeterminate. Regardless of its precise affinities and fragmentary nature, the specimen is the first thalattosuchian discovered in Scotland and is the most northerly reported Jurassic thalattosuchian globally, adding to our understanding of the palaeobiogeography and evolution of this group

    Suitability of pesticide risk indicators for less developed countries: a comparison

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    Pesticide risk indicators provide simple support in the assessment of environmental and health risks from pesticide use, and can therefore inform policies to foster a sustainable interaction of agriculture with the environment. For their relative simplicity, indicators may be particularly useful under conditions of limited data availability and resources, such as in Less Developed Countries (LDCs). However, indicator complexity can vary significantly, in particular between those that rely on an exposure–toxicity ratio (ETR) and those that do not. In addition, pesticide risk indicators are usually developed for Western contexts, which might cause incorrect estimation in LDCs. This study investigated the appropriateness of seven pesticide risk indicators for use in LDCs, with reference to smallholding agriculture in Colombia. Seven farm-level indicators, among which 3 relied on an ETR (POCER, EPRIP, PIRI) and 4 on a non-ETR approach (EIQ, PestScreen, OHRI, Dosemeci et al., 2002), were calculated and then compared by means of the Spearman rank correlation test. Indicators were also compared with respect to key indicator characteristics, i.e. user friendliness and ability to represent the system under study. The comparison of the indicators in terms of the total environmental risk suggests that the indicators not relying on an ETR approach cannot be used as a reliable proxy for more complex, i.e. ETR, indicators. ETR indicators, when user-friendly, show a comparative advantage over non-ETR in best combining the need for a relatively simple tool to be used in contexts of limited data availability and resources, and for a reliable estimation of environmental risk. Non-ETR indicators remain useful and accessible tools to discriminate between different pesticides prior to application. Concerning the human health risk, simple algorithms seem more appropriate for assessing human health risk in LDCs. However, further research on health risk indicators and their validation under LDC conditions is needed

    Authoritarianism in the Living Room: Everyday Disciplines, Senses, and Morality in Taiwan’s Military Villages

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    With the nationalist government – Kuomintang (KMT) – retreating from mainland China in 1949, some 600,000 military personnel relocated to Taiwan. The military seized former Japanese colonial properties and built its own settlements, establishing temporary military dependents’ villages called juancun (眷村). When the prospect of counter-attacking the mainland vanished, the KMT had to face the reality of settling permanently in Taiwan. How, then, did the KMT’s authoritarian power enter the everyday lives of its own support group? In this article I will focus on the coercive elements of KMT authoritarianism, which permeated these military villages in Taiwan. I will look at the coercive mechanisms through the analytical lens of Foucauldian discipline. I argue that disciplinary techniques such as surveillance, disciplining of the body and the senses, as well as the creation of morality regimes played an important role in the cooptation of village residents into KMT authoritarianism by normalising and naturalising it
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