How the war began: Conceptualizing conflict escalation in Ukraine's Donbas

This article proposes a new theoretical framework based on conflict escalation theory and the concept of critical junctures to facilitate a more transparent analysis of the war in Ukraine's Donbas. It argues that researchers have proposed a variety of causes of the outbreak of violence in the region. However, in the absence of an overarching theoretical framework, it remains difficult to analyse the interplay of these causes and compare their explanatory power. In response, this article develops a theory-guided escalation sequence model. According to this model, the conflict's formative phase consisted of an escalation sequence that lasted from April until August 2014 and comprised six critical junctures. This article argues that attempts to explain the conflict should be evaluated and compared in terms of their ability to explain these critical junctures. It concludes that similar escalation sequence models could improve research on armed conflict beyond the case of the Donbas

The Limits of International Human Rights Law and the Role of Food Sovereignty in Protecting People from Further Trade Liberalization under the Doha Round Negotiations

International free trade agreements under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) seriously undermine the international human right to adequate food. Conceivably, those deprived should be able to seek redress under Article 11 of the International. Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which spells out the right to adequate food. Unfortunately, while the concept of the right to adequate food has developed substantially since its inception, its implementation has been slow. It is not a well-developed tool for individuals or the groups representing them to redress harms that will likely result from the current Doha Round negotiations of the WTO. The limitations in the law\u27s development suggest a need for an alternative strategy. Food sovereignty, a movement that has as one of its central tenets that food should be removed as a tradable commodity from WTO agreements, provides such an alternative. Section I of this article discusses the present state of world food insecurity and draws from the experiences of Mexican farmers and consumers under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)-the 1994 agreement liberalizing trade between the United States, Canada, and Mexico--to show how food security can be undermined by agricultural trade liberalization. It also discusses how further agricultural trade liberalization under the WTO\u27s Doha Round will likely have similar results, even if agricultural goods are exempted from the negotiations. Section II details how the right to adequate food is embodied in international human rights law. It argues that developments in this area of the law have increased people\u27s opportunities to obtain redress when their rights have been denied due to trade policies. It also details the law\u27s developmental limits. Section III discusses the food sovereignty movement and argues that it is a better strategy for protecting people\u27s food security than the right to adequate food

Forensic conflict studies: Making sense of war in the social media age

Online media is a blessing and a curse for academic research on war. On the one hand, the internet provides unprecedented access to information from conflict zones. On the other hand, the prevalence of disinformation can make it difficult to use this information in a transparent way. This article proposes digital forensic process tracing as a methodological innovation to tackle this challenge and make case study research on the causes of war fit for the social media age. It argues that two important features of process-tracing methodology – source criticism and Bayesian updating – are well developed in theory but are rarely applied to the study of armed conflict. Digital forensic process tracing applies these features to online media sources by drawing on the journalistic practice of open source intelligence (OSINT) analysis. This article uses the case of the war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed methodology

Nothing ventured, nothing gained? The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and the effectiveness of the European Neighbourhood Policy

Relations between the European Union (EU) and Ukraine appear to be stuck at the verge of a new era. While a new Association Agreement providing for an unprecedented degree of political cooperation and economic integration is ready to enter into force, political developments in Ukraine prevent the EU from proceeding with its signature and ratification. This peculiar situation represents a crucial test case for the effectiveness of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Effectiveness in this case is defined by the objectives that guide the EU in its pursuit of the ENP, and by the degree to which the Union lives up to its capabilities to reach them. In the case of Ukraine, the policy turns out to be largely effective, considering that the EU’s top priority is the avoidance of political and economic risks. However, this focus on risk avoidance severely limits the Union’s leverage regarding the attainment of any other policy objectives, most importantly norm transfer and security cooperation. Consequently, even a largely effective ENP is unlikely to have a significant impact on the situation in Ukraine and elsewhere as long as the Union does not change its priorities

A digital open source investigation of how war begins: Ukraine’s Donbas in 2014

This dissertation demonstrates the usefulness of digital open source information (DOSI) for academic research on the causes of war through an in-depth case study of the conflict in eastern Ukraine’s Donets Basin (Donbas). It argues that the current social science literature is in need of theoretical and methodological innovation to operate in the abundant but murky information environment that surrounds the Donbas war and other conflicts of the social media age. The result is a deep divide in the academic literature between scholars who emphasize domestic causes of the Donbas war and those who emphasize Russian involvement. To address this shortcoming, my dissertation develops new theoretical and methodological frameworks. My theoretical framework combines conflict escalation theory with the historical institutionalist concept of critical junctures. Based on this framework, I develop an escalation sequence model of the Donbas conflict which divides the formative phase of the war into six critical junctures. Moreover, my theoretical framework draws attention to intervention and delegation as two distinct modes of external actor involvement in these critical junctures. My methodological framework combines process tracing with the journalistic practice of DOSI analysis to shift the methodological focus towards source criticism and probabilistic reasoning. I argue that this shift towards digital forensic process tracing is essential to make social science methodology fit for the social media age. The six empirical chapters of my dissertation apply digital forensic process tracing to the six critical junctures of the Donbas war’s escalation sequence. For each critical juncture, they assess the available open source evidence of domestic causes and Russian interference. I argue that there is convincing evidence that Russian involvement was the primary cause of four of the six critical junctures. For this reason, my dissertation concludes that the Donbas war is primarily an interstate war between Russia and Ukraine

Recent Decisions

Comments on recent decisions by John W. Beatty, Fernand N. Dutile, Michael D. Sullivan, John A. Hauter, John M. Lamont, and John T. Mulvihill

Transición y actualidad política salvadoreña: supuestos fundamentales en los nuevos procesos democráticos

Estudiar la transición y actualidad política desde la perspectiva de los cambios democráticos operados en los principales actores del sistema salvadoreño y analizar los procesos democráticos desde la institucionalidad política-jurídica que se encaminan al establecimiento del Estado Democrático de Derecho en la sociedad salvadoreña. La transición el El Salvador esta marcada por un proceso histórico de grandes proporciones que tuviese su inicio en la dictadura militar en 1932, fenomeno político histórico que marca el inicio de la pasada transición política y por ende de la actualidad misma. En el nivel político El Salvador ha transitado hacia la democracia política la cual es la antesala de una democracia más global, la democracia social que los actores políticos que se desenvuelven en esta nueva realidad política: partidos, gobiernos, sociedad civil deben apostarle a la democracia real de la sociedad salvadoreña, la tarea es de la sociedad en general y así superar los niveles de democracia formal en la que actualmente se encuentra El Salvador. En el nivel económico la democracia política sobre la que ha transitado la nación contempla patrones sociales de injusticia social estructural, puesto que la distribución de la riqueza nacional producida por todos los salvadoreños es aprovechada por un pequeño sector de la sociedad denominado burguesía, que las reglas del juego económico las cuales determinan las reglas políticas en El Salvador se encuentran monopolizada por el grupo financiero local que concentra cada vez más la riqueza a costa del empobrecimiento de la sociedad en general, lo que tiene protagonimo en el modelo económico impulsado por el gobierno en turno que responde a intereses de grupos hegemónicos, es urgente una democratización económica que sea la antitesis de la democracia actual. En el nivel jurídico, es observable un Estado de Derecho sin proctección del derecho, es decir que el ordenamiento jurídico existente en el país no cobra vida en la institucionalidad encargada hacer cumplir dicha legalidad, lo cual es motivado por factores de corrupción, incapacidad e inoperancia de los aplicadores de justicia e influencias políticas partidarias, que ejerce control en un número considerable de aplicadores de la justicia, es necesario democratizar el sistema judicial en El Salvador, la transición no esta completa si el sistema legal del país padece de niveles considerables de injusticia. En el nivel cultural, es necesario transitar hacia una verdadera Cultura de Paz y de democracia en el país, los niveles culturales generalizados de incapacidad ante los cambios sociales, de subordinación al poder político por parte de la sociedad civil, de mantenerse al margen de los acontecimientos políticos hace que la transición no avance hacia niveles de democracia real, mientras persistan los patrones del individualismo, de la visión de grupo y de la irresponsabilidades sociales vista a través de la solución de los problemas personales, no se podrá avanzar hacia la transición democrática real. En el nivel social la transición ha esquematizado una sociedad con un alto nivel de organización y movilización, es de recordar la manifestaciones sociales de más de 300,000 personas, dado la nueva realidad político-social que vive la nación, las organizaciones sociales sólo actúan en función de eventos de gran importancia y su lucha se concreta en factores meramente de mejoras al orden establecido parece ser que la sociedad están satifecha con la situación actual en que vive algo, que es contradicho en de los instrumentos realizados en la investigación, mientras que la sociedad no cambie sus patrones sociales actuales la transición democrática no estará completa. En términos generales el país transitó hacia la democracia pero una democracia política o formal, falta el transito hacia la democracia real o sustancial preámbulo del cambio de una matriz socioeconómica, por otra, actualmente lo observable en la redefinición de las reglas políticas de la democracia formal, redefinición para la actualización en el momento presente o para la adopción de estrategias acordes con el momento actual. Estudiar la transición y actualidad política en El Salvador, refleja una problemática de diferentes magnitudes, por lo que su análisis requiere centrar su estudio en la generalidad respectiva, así la presente investigación tiene por objetivos el estudiar la transición y actualidad política desde la perspectiva de los cambios democráticos operados en los principales actores del sistema salvadoreño y analizar los procesos democráticos desde la institucionalidad política jurídica que se encaminan al establecimiento del Estado Democrático de Derecho en la sociedad salvadoreña. Para el desarrollo del estudio se realizó un análisis detallado de los elementos históricos y actuales en relación a la política de El Salvador, basándose en la aplicación exhaustiva del método de estudio documental y de campo, lo cual permitió llegar a conclusiones como que en términos generales el país transitó hacia la democracia pero una democracia política o formal, falta el tránsito hacia la democracia real o sustancial preámbulo del cambio de una matriz socioeconómica, por otra, actualmente lo observable en la redefinición de las reglas políticas de la democracia formal, redefinición para la actualización en el momento presente o para la adopción de estrategias acordes con el momento actua

Predominant Influence of Environmental Determinants on the Persistence and Avidity Maturation of Antibody Responses to Vaccines in Infants

BackgroundImmune responses are complex traits influenced by genetic and environmental factors. We previously reported that genetic factors control early antibody responses to vaccines in Gambian infants. For the present study, we evaluated the determinants of the memory phase of immunoglobulin G (IgG) responses MethodsAntibody responses to tetanus toxoid (TT), measles vaccines, and environmental antigens (total IgG levels) were measured in 210 Gambian twin pairs recruited at birth. Intrapair correlations for monozygous and dizygous pairs were compared to estimate the environmental and genetic components of variations in response ResultsIn contrast to antibody responses measured in infants at age 5 months, 1 month after immunization, no significant contribution of genetic factors to anti-TT antibody and total IgG levels was detected at age 12 months. Genetic factors controlled measles antibody responses in 12-month-old infants, which indicates that the increasing influence of environmental determinants on anti-TT responses was not related to the older age of the children but, rather, to the time elapsed since immunization. Environmental factors also predominantly controlled affinity maturation and the production of high-avidity antibodies to TT ConclusionsGenetic determinants control the early phase of the vaccine antibody response in Gambian infants, whereas environmental determinants predominantly influence antibody persistence and avidity maturatio