bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Enabling robust offline active learning for machine learning potentials using simple physics-based priors
Authors: Shuaibi Muhammed , Sivakumar Saurabh , Chen Rui Qi , Ulissi Zachary W
Published: November 2020

Machine learning surrogate models for quantum mechanical simulations have enabled the field to efficiently and accurately study material and molecular systems. Developed models typically rely on a substantial amount of data to make reliable predictions of the potential energy landscape or careful active learning (AL) and uncertainty estimates. When starting with small datasets, convergence of AL approaches is a major outstanding challenge which has limited most demonstrations to online AL. In this work we demonstrate a Δ-machine learning (ML) approach that enables stable convergence in offline AL strategies by avoiding unphysical configurations with initial datasets as little as a single data point. We demonstrate our framework’s capabilities on a structural relaxation, transition state calculation, and molecular dynamics simulation, with the number of first principle calculations being cut down anywhere from 70%–90%. The approach is incorporated and developed alongside AMPtorch, an open-source ML potential package, along with interactive Google Colab notebook examples.
Politics and Book Publishing in Argentina
Authors: Saferstein Ezequiel
Published: November 2020

In a country where literacy rates are among the highest in the region, books are cultural objects cherished by vast sectors of the Argentine population as well as powerful symbolic, cultural, economic, and political artefacts. In particular, books on politics are an indispensable segment in the catalog of any Argentine publishing house. The vertiginous nature of politics and the historical significance of the book in Argentine society are such that the publishing sector has been—and still remains—one of the preferred spaces where symbolic and political power is disputed. Throughout the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century, the publishing market responded to different historical circumstances by producing headlines that sought to engage readers in different ways, helping them make life choices and understand the significance of their own time, as well as forming or reinforcing their opinions. Manufactured from the Left to the Right, books on politics expressed and shaped wills and aspirations, serving as combat weapons and means for the creation of spaces where ideas and political sentiments flourish.

There are historical ties between the Argentinean publishing and political spheres, and the publishing process works as a fundamental form of mediation concerning the production and distribution of political ideas. Against the image of the book as an exclusive bridge connecting the authors with the reading public, a sociological and material viewpoint might focus on the publishing world and its protagonists: the ghost editors and agents who play an indispensable and decisive role in the processes whereby a book becomes an entitled cultural, economic, and political intervention—a great factory of ideas, discourses, and products with material and symbolic ramifications that influence public debates and agendas.
Heroism and the Provincial Novel
Authors: Chadwick Philip
Published: November 2020

It is generally accepted that 19th-century realist novelists sought to create heroes and heroines who were at once representative and exceptional: representative because they incarnate something instantly recognizable across space and time, exceptional because they must command narrative interest. The heroes of the provincial 19th-century novel struggle to navigate these competing impulses. Their creators inherited a literary tradition that tended to extol larger-than-life figures who, through military exploits or adventures on the border of empire, inspired admiration or worship. However, consonant with the realist novel’s rejection of both epic and Romantic heroes, the authors of provincial novels depict a world of fragmentation, a world that can no longer accommodate heroic ambition. Their provincial settings comprise an arena in which greatness cannot be realized: the province is too far removed from the world historical stage, it seems, too full of petty rivalries, to enable the hero to flourish. The provincial novelists George Eliot and Fyodor Dostoevsky can be read as case studies of writers who embody this tension. While the thrust of most criticism on both writers is to recast the dearth of heroic activity as a virtue (with the meanness of world historical opportunity being amply assuaged by opportunities for small acts of prosaic, diffusive kindness), Dostoevsky and Eliot treat with regret the inability of their protagonists to realize their heroic aspirations. In so doing, far from throwing their lot in with the limitations of the novel as a genre (i.e., its anti-epic parameters), they maintain a desire to transcend the limits of the novel genre’s mundane presentness. By rescuing their characters from the provincial environments in which they have been unable to realize their heroic feats and by destining them for future action elsewhere, the “here-now” chronotope of the provincial novel is rejected in favor of a “there-then” chronotope which, by definition, cannot be explicated in the form of the novel (and as such, their novels must end with the exile of their protagonists). Although readings of their novels that emphasize the importance of prosaic goodness remain persuasive, they do not altogether invalidate these writers’ desire for heroic activity.
Pidgin Poetics in Oceania
Authors: Winduo Steven
Published: November 2020

English is the main language of writing among Indigenous writers of Oceania for a number of reasons. The various textual appropriations and ways in which language of writing and language of the culture have been infused together to produce texts do reveal a dialogic process at work. It is impossible to avoid the linguistic features of written texts as they are constructed in Oceania. Writers in Oceania are free to choose the language of their texts without any interference. In this way, they make readers aware of the cultural truth that these writers are representing in their writings.

Metonymy as a poetic device and cultural truth as a thematic in Indigenous writings capture the interests of many of the older and younger generations of Pacific writers. Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. Some of the best poetry published across Oceania by generations of Pacific writers reveals extensive use of metonymy as a device to convey cultural truth. Poetry is written from the intimate knowledge of poets, embedded in the society in which they find inspiration. Bill Ashcroft and coauthors state: “the tropes of the post-colonial text may be fruitfully read as metonymy, language variance itself in such a text is far more profoundly metonym” because nuances in language can represent a whole cultural text. Syntactic fusion is one among different strategies of appropriation in postcolonial writing such as glossing, untranslated words, interlanguage, code-switching, and vernacular transcription.
The Schengen Area
Authors: Peers Steve
Published: November 2020

Abolition of internal border controls—with corresponding harmonization of external border controls and other relevant policies (short-term visas, freedom to travel, control of irregular migration)—has become a cornerstone of the European Union’s (EU) overall integration project, being linked also to harmonisation of asylum policy, external relations issues, and policing and criminal law cooperation, including the ongoing development and extension of justice and home affairs databases such as the Schengen Information System and the Visa Information System. However, the Schengen process has been frequently contested over the past decade, first of all in the context of the Arab Spring in 2011 and subsequently due to the perceived migration crisis of 2015–2016. The EU has responded with a combination of further integration (such as more funding, more harmonization, and more power for EU bodies) along with deference to Member States regarding re-imposing border checks in order to stop flows of asylum-seekers. It may be questioned how well this strategy will work in the long term, but in the medium term it has succeeded in keeping the Schengen policy afloat in this modified form. The research in this field has concentrated on whether the Schengen system has accomplished its objectives and the possible tension between the system and human rights and data protection standards, as well as the overlapping tensions between the attempts to develop a uniform policy at EU level and the divergences in implementation and policy priorities at national level, particularly at times of crisis or intense political debate.
Gender Nonconformance in Non-Western Contexts: Hijras in India
Authors: Rai Saatvika , Kipgen Josephine
Published: November 2020

Hijras are described as eunuchs and intersexed individuals, and they are a subgroup within the transgender community in South Asia. They go beyond Western descriptions of LGBT persons and are better understood as a complex interplay of gender, sexuality, traditions, and kinship. Hijras face social stigma and legal discrimination due to their nonconformance with the gender and sexual norms of hetrosexuality dominant in India’s society. They negotiate their identity through religion and mythology, whereby they undergo rituals of castration and emasculation, by virtue of which they play a significant role in ceremonies and festivals. Previously, legal frameworks like the anti-sodomy law of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the lack of a gender category for the transgender in official government documents resulted in discrimination and marginalization of the Hijra community. They faced harassment and violence from the police, medical establishment, and other individuals, and they experienced systemic exclusion from vital social services like employment and healthcare. Legal reform in India, such as the Supreme Court’s recognizing the transgender community as a “third gender” in 2015 and the decriminalization of sodomy in 2018, have been positive steps to improve the status of Hijras. However, inconsistencies in the definition of transgender persons and ambiguity in operationalizing the self-identification process remain, posing a challenge to effective policy implementation. Sociocultural norms of Hindutva and homophobic ideology are still prevalent, resulting in little improvement in the marginalized status of Hijras and the transgender community in India.
Administrative Reform: Opportunities, Drivers, and Barriers
Authors: Cheung Anthony B.L.
Published: November 2020

Administrative reform has become an almost permanent feature of most governments across the world driven by the pursuit of efficiency, responsiveness and performance and sometimes induced by domestic or external crises. The paradigms and priorities of reform vary at different times in tandem with the dominant ideological currents. Despite similarities in the vision, rhetoric and tools of reform engaged, regional and national variations can be observed attributable to historical, cultural, political and institutional factors.

These factors mediate the specific reform agenda setting and implementation processes, resulting in distinct national reform hybrids. The realpolitik of reform cannot be devoid of the prevailing political order and structures of power and resources, which determine institutional interactions such as between politicians and bureaucrats, between the center and localities, and between the executive and legislature. Forces for and against change interplay in the domains of politics, bureaucracy and society to ultimately make or break reform. Opportunities for change are rooted in the same setting as the resistance to reform, such that the drivers of and the barriers to reform are paradoxically two sides of the same coin. All reform junctures comprise elements of both preservation and innovation or renovation, mostly ending in a negotiated settlement and mixed results.
Resistance to Extractivism and Megaprojects in Latin America
Authors: Picq Manuela L.
Published: November 2020

It is extremely dangerous to resist extractive megaprojects in Latin America. The intensive accumulation of natural resources for export on global markets has long characterized Latin America, but the boom in exports of raw commodities since 2000 has accentuated a violent history of dispossession. As of 2020, Latin America represents 60% of nature defenders killed in the world. Governments license natural resources at unprecedented rates, pushing land- and water-grabbing to new levels. Resistance against mining, oil, hydroelectric, and agribusiness projects is framed as antidevelopment and repressed with brutal violence. Governments are expanding the extractive frontier fast, promoting megaprojects in the name of national development or to fund social policies, a so-called redistributive neo-extractivism. This extractive consensus has increased social conflict across the region; but it has also inspired new forms of resistance. Resistance, which is mostly Indigenous and largely female, is a political struggle against extractive industries that represent ongoing forms of colonial dispossession. Resistance against extractivism focuses on the defense of nature as much as on rights to self-determination, a central element to shape a postextractive world. Ecuador is a case in point. The country recognizes international rights to prior consultation and established the first rights of nature framework in the world, yet it criminalizes nature defenders as it continues to expand the extractive frontier. The emerging rights of nature framework, like mining bans, are alternatives to extractivism that offer insights into experiences of resistance in the highlands of Ecuador. The Rio Blanco mine, an iconic megaproject financed by China, was suspended in 2018 thanks to a solid network of resistance that secured a broad mobilization of rural communities and urban youth, lawyers and academics, blending street protest with legal action. The Rio Blanco case shows the complementarity of various strategies, the potential of courts as allies, and the powerful coordination between social movements and government to contest structural dispossession.
Historical Legacies of Political Violence
Authors: Walden Jacob , Zhukov Yuri M.
Published: November 2020

Legacies of political violence are long-term changes in social behavior and attitudes, which are attributable—at least in part—to historical episodes of political conflict and contention. These legacies can potentially reshape the subsequent political and social order. Their catalysts can range from armed conflict, mass repression, and genocide to oppressive institutions and interpersonal violence. The lasting effects of violence include changes in political participation and preferences, intergroup relations, economic activity and growth, and public health outcomes. Estimating these effects presents a methodological challenge, due to selection, posttreatment bias, and the difficulty of isolating specific mechanisms. These challenges are particularly acute given the long time span inherent in studying historical legacies, where effects may be measured generations or centuries after the precipitating event. Understanding these legacies requires distinguishing between persistence mechanisms, where effects of violence continue within an individual directly exposed to violence through trauma, and the secondary transmission of effects between individuals through family socialization, community and peer influences, institutionalization, and epigenetic and evolutionary changes. Research on this subject remains nascent—across many disciplines—and inconclusive on whether violence fosters mostly negative or positive forms of social and political change.
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Unifying Armed Forces in a Divided State
Authors: Dudley Danijela
Published: November 2020

Bosnia and Herzegovina emerged as an independent state in 1995 after a bloody civil war that accompanied the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The new state faced the task of democratizing its political system and constructing its civil–military relations in the context of postconflict reconstruction and reconciliation, while working within the challenging parameters established by the Dayton Peace Agreement. In order to maintain a unified state of Bosnia and Herzegovina but at the same time create conditions in which Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs could coexist, the international community, which directed the terms of the Dayton Peace Agreement, divided the state internally into two entities and allocated public offices equally among the three ethnic groups, creating thus a convoluted power-sharing structure which continues to dominate the country’s political developments. In addition, the terms of the peace agreement established an extensive presence of the international community to oversee and to a large extent dictate the country’s postwar reforms and implementation of various aspects of the peace agreement. As a result of the context in which it reached statehood, the terms of the peace agreement, and regional circumstances, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s civil–military relations since independence have been shaped by three factors: sustained ethnic divisions among the three constituent peoples; continued, and sometimes forceful, presence of the international community; and the country’s desire for international integration, particularly potential membership in the European Union and NATO.

For almost a decade after the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina lacked state-level defense institutions. In fact, the Dayton Peace Agreement allowed the three ethnic groups to maintain their wartime armed forces, leading to the maintenance of three separate militaries, each commanded and controlled by the corresponding ethnic group. Only after a decade of separate existence were the armed forces united and central institutions for their control established. This unification, however, would not have been possible without the international community’s actions and incentives. The continued presence of the Office of the High Representative, coupled with the country’s desire to satisfy the conditions of membership in the European Union and NATO, have led to the establishment of formal institutional structures for democratic civil–military relations and the unification of its ethnic-based armed forces into one military force. At the same time, while the armed forces have been unified and formal institutional structures for civilian control over the armed forces established, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s civil–military relations have yet to be classified as democratic because the formal powers of the civilian leadership have yet to be fully realized.
China: Party–Army Relations Past and Present
Authors: Ledberg Sofia K.
Published: November 2020

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a key political actor in the Chinese state. Together with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese state institutions, it makes up the political foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the early years after the founding of the PRC in 1949, the military played an important role in state consolidation and the management of domestic state affairs, as is expected in a state founded on Leninist principles of organization. Since the reform process, which was initiated in the late 1970s, the political role of the PLA has changed considerably. It has become less involved in domestic politics and increased attention has been directed toward military modernization. Consequently, in the early 21st century, the Chinese military shares many characteristics with the armed forces in noncommunist states. At the same time, the organizational structures, such as the party committee system, the system of political leaders, and political organs, have remained in place. In other words, the politicized structures that were put in place to facilitate the role of the military as a domestic political tool of the CCP, across many sectors of society, are expected to also accommodate modernization, professionalization, and cooperation with foreign militaries on the international arena in postreform China. This points to an interesting discrepancy between form and purpose of the PLA.

The role of the military in Chinese politics has thus shifted over the years, and its relationship with the CCP has generally been interpreted as having developed from one marked by symbiosis to one of greater institutional autonomy and independence. Yet these developments should not necessarily be seen as linear or irreversible. Indeed, China of the Xi Jinping era has shown an increased focus on ideology, centralization, and personalized leadership, which already has had consequences for the political control of the Chinese armed forces. Chances are that these trends will affect the role of the PLA in politics even further in the early decades of the 21st century.
Ethiopia: The Role of the Military in the Political Order
Authors: Kebede Alem
Published: November 2020

The history of the military in Ethiopia is a social history. There is no surprise here. Military institutions are social constructs whose structure and functions in each society can only be understood contextually. Because the Ethiopian military has emerged as a relatively independent institution after World War II, its nature, and role in the political order, has been impacted by structural conditions—including the interplay between tradition and modernity, the rise of the middle class, authoritarian culture and political makeup, interethnic tensions, chronic economic problems, and geopolitical conditions. Nevertheless, while being constrained by these factors and processes, the military, like other political actors in the country, has not acted as a passive spectacle; instead, members of the military have played an essential role in the perpetuation and unmaking of political regimes. Within the three administrations that have surfaced during the last nine decades, the role of the Ethiopian military in the political order has ranged from soft to active intervention. However, in all these regimes, military power has invariably undermined people power. The most extreme of all the regimes was the military establishment of 1974–1991. Under this palpably authoritarian government, to the extent that the distinction between military and civilian rule was blurred, the army was involved in politics more than its due share. During the imperial era (1930–1974), on the other hand, the emperor, who cherished his power (with no pretense for democratic governance) more than his outspoken commitment to the idea of progress, made the military subservient to his bidding while forcing it to remain politically indifferent. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) regime (1991–present) shared similar attributes with the imperial government in its recognition (at least theoretically) of the distinction between military and civilian rule. Here too the military was the strong arm of the incumbent. Despite its fervent claim for political and cultural pluralism, the EPRDF used the military to defend its “democratic” authoritarian interests. The lesson to be learned from this social history of the military is clear: Ethiopia needs a proper military–civil relationship, along with institutional mechanisms that counterweight against the military’s detrimental intervention in political affairs, for it to materialize the potential of its people and create a well-ordered, just society.
Madagascar: The Military in Politics
Authors: Ramasy Juvence F.
Published: November 2020

In many African countries, armies played a key public role in the aftermath of independence. For this reason, no study of African politics can overlook the militarization of the state. Postcolonial Madagascar, for example, was ruled for over two decades by personnel from its army. National armies often present themselves as neutral entities that can guarantee a country’s political stability. However, there is no such thing as neutrality, whether in Africa or elsewhere. The best hope for armies to become and remain as politically neutral as possible is the demilitarization of political power. The withdrawal of the military from politics and their subordination to civilian decisions is important but does not suffice to ensure the army’s political neutrality. Such a withdrawal was widely carried out through the third wave of democratization, the historical period during which there was a sustained and significant increase in the proportion of competitive regimes. Democratization processes cannot succeed without efforts toward neutralizing the military, and thus, toward demilitarizing the political society and depoliticizing the army. Post-transition regimes striving for democracy should bring about and preserve a formal separation of power between the political and the civilian spheres. For these regimes to establish a solid mandate, the army and the security apparatus need to be placed under democratic control. In Africa, the disengagement of the military from the public sphere came about with the political transitions of the 1990s. But changes in political regimes over the past decade have challenged the democratization process, as the return of praetorianism (an excessive political influence of the armed forces in the Sahel and Madagascar) testifies. Hence, demilitarizing politics, on the one hand and depoliticizing and reprofessionalizing the army on the other remain essential issues to be addressed.
Uganda: A Perspective on Politico-Military Fusion
Authors: Kagoro Jude
Published: November 2020

Uganda is among the African countries characterized by high levels of politico-military fusion. In 1986, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), led by President Yoweri Museveni, assumed power after winning a five-year guerrilla war. NRM’s takeover was a continuation of an established tradition in which military means such as coups d’état, guerrilla wars, and military schemes had been used to effect regime changes since Uganda’s independence from the British in 1962.

From its inception as a guerrilla force, the NRM’s military commanders, including Yoweri Museveni, doubled as political leaders, and Uganda is the only country in Africa where the military has official representation in the national assembly. Additionally, several military officers serve in the executive while others have been appointed to head numerous government departments that are ideally of civilian pursuit. Moreover, many significant political decisions, including constitutional amendments intended to facilitate Museveni’s presidency for life, were in essence determined in the context of a military atmosphere at the National Leadership Institute in Kyankwanzi (central Uganda).

The military, the police, and other paramilitary structures are the bedrock of the NRM’s long-term grip on power and have played profound roles in President Museveni’s “victories” in the five presidential elections (1996, 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016) in which he has competed. Thus, the presidency, the ruling party, and the military essentially function as a single entity.

The wider society equally attaches high sociopolitical value to military culture, sustaining the shared mentality that military credentials are crucial in politics. Ultimately, an analysis of Uganda’s politico-military fusion contributes to our understanding of the militarization of politics and the general character of governments that emerged out of guerrilla wars in Africa and beyond.
The Consequences of Military Rule: Juntas Versus Strongmen
Authors: Geddes Barbara
Published: November 2020

During the 20th century, seizures of power led by military officers became the most common means of imposing new dictatorships. The consequences of military rule have varied, however, depending on how widely power has been shared within the military-led government. Most military-led dictatorships begin as relatively collegial, but the dictator’s position in collegial military regimes is inherently unstable. His closest collaborators command troops and weapons with which they could, if they are dissatisfied with his policy choices, oust him without ending the regime. This vulnerability to ouster by close allies both constrains the dictator to consult with other officers in order to keep them satisfied and gives him reasons to try to protect himself from coup plots. Common means of protection include taking personal control of the internal security police, in order to spy on officers as well as civilian opponents, and creating paramilitary forces recruited from personal loyalists. Dictators build new paramilitary forces to defend themselves from attempted coups staged by the regular army. A military dictator who can withstand coup attempts need not consult with other officers and can concentrate great power in his hands.

Military dictators who have to share power with other high-ranking officers (juntas) behave differently than military rulers who have concentrated power in their own hands (strongmen). These differences affect the well-being of citizens, the belligerence of international policy, the likelihood of regime collapse, how military rule ends when it finally does, and whether it is followed by democracy or a new dictatorship. In comparison to junta rule, strongman rule tends to result in erratic economic decision-making and high rates of corruption. Strongmen also behave more aggressively toward their neighbors than do juntas. Nevertheless, regimes led by strongmen last longer, on average, than do juntas. When faced with widespread opposition, juntas tend to negotiate a return to the barracks, while strongmen often must be overthrown by force. Negotiated transitions tend to end in democratization, but forced regime ousters often result in new dictatorships.
Outsourcing War and Security
Authors: Swed Ori , Burland Daniel
Published: November 2020

The phrase outsourcing war has been used since the late 1990s to describe the trend toward the hiring of private military and security companies (PMSCs) by national governments to perform functions that previously had been assigned only to members of national military forces. These private companies, in turn, hire employees, usually on limited-term contracts, to carry out the missions that the companies have agreed to accomplish. PMSCs may undertake combat missions independently or in direct cooperation with deployed national military forces. They may be assigned to security missions in secret or to meet a highly visible demand, as in the case where the United States contributed private military contractors to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Kosovo in 1998. This was an early case in which privately contracted military employees were hired by one nation to function cooperatively with uniformed members of other national military forces. During the 20th century, private military forces had been considered a form of organized crime populated by mercenaries, a delinquent group at the fringes of the social order who traded in violence to advance the interests of anyone willing to pay them. By the beginning of the 21st century, however, the outsourcing of war and security functions to private companies had become commonplace, transforming the previously prevailing belief that only states had the right to wage war. States often deployed their militaries alongside PMSCs who were contracted to provide support to forces on the ground. In other cases, private companies would pay representatives of other private companies to defend their assets, such as oil fields or diamond mines. During this period at the turn of the 21st century, PMSCs came to be perceived as representatives of a legitimate industry. With this transformation, the nature of security and modern conflict changed as well. Private military and security companies became an important instrument in war-making and the projection of power.
Domestic and International Constituencies in Military Coups
Authors: Aslan Ömer
Published: November 2020

Available scholarship on civil–military relations literature treats the occurrence of military coups d’état either as a purely domestic affair or a simple outcome of international dynamics. That is, a large body of literature assumes that a military coup d’état takes place on either a domestic or international level. When taken as an exclusively domestic affair, reasons for military coups d’état run the gamut from domestic instability and political corruption, state weakness, economic collapse, and the institutional culture of a military and its desire to protect its corporate interests, to political culture and popular support. Yet, a parallel body of work either reduces coup plotters to the status of proxies of powerful global state actors or assumes that wars, crises, external threats, foreign military training, or peacekeeping missions shape the military decision to seize power. Both perspectives deservedly take the military as the focal point of coups, yet presume either that that military is easily able to dictate a particular course of action to all the remaining domestic actors or is unidirectionally influenced by international actors.

A coup d’état, however, must take into account different constituencies within and outside the military for it to take place. At the domestic level various actors, from opposition politicians, media corporations, and labor unions to business associations and “military opinion” itself, need to be taken into account. At the international level, coup plotters may either directly engage in negotiations, bargaining, and dialogue with or try to interpret signals delivered by external state actors. Coup plotters may use military-to-military relations developed by military officer exchanges and joint work in common security and defense organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Given that they are rational actors, coup-makers know well enough to look for ‘propitious circumstances’ at home and abroad (regional and international) as well as predict resonance between the domestic and international environment. Although military elites are better positioned to use their international network to engage in dialogue and bargaining at the international level, mid-ranking officers also take into consideration the outside dimension. When several domestic pressure groups such as business organizations or ordinary people deem a coup not in their interest or not to be a preferred action at a particular point in time, and show their displeasure by sustained street action, a permissive international environment may not suffice to produce a coup. It is in the context of this brittle coup coalition and in this intimate and fragile appeal to domestic and international audiences that a coup attempt takes place.
American Prosecutors as Principals and Agents
Authors: Curry Brett , Miller Banks
Published: November 2020

The pervasiveness of their influence arguably makes prosecutors the most consequential actors in the American criminal justice system. Armed with discretion over which cases to pursue, what charges to file, and which issue areas to prioritize, prosecutors play a decisive role in determining what progresses from investigation to the courtroom. It is their charge to do justice in each case, but that obligation hardly forecloses the influence of politics on their decisions. Despite their centrality, however, prosecutors and their behavior have failed to garner even a fraction of the attention that scholars have directed toward law enforcement, correctional systems, or judges.

The discretion of American prosecutors is theoretically immense; there are few formal constraints upon it. If a federal or state prosecutor declines to pursue a case that has been referred to him or her, that declination decision is essentially immune from judicial review. But these formalisms come with more practical limitations. At the federal level, United States Attorneys are appointed by the president and, therefore, are expected to carry out an administration’s general policy priorities. In the states, most district attorneys answer to the electorate, which imposes its own constraints on a prosecutor’s freedom of action. Chief prosecutors—state and federal—are simultaneously principals to their subordinates and agents of the people or the president.

If those considerations were not enough, American prosecutors must be mindful of still other factors. How might their actions today impact their future career paths? What influence might legislative changes, public opinion, or judicial rulings have on how they operate? Scholarship on prosecutors has addressed some of these questions, but we still lack a good understanding of all the ways in which politics infects prosecutorial decision-making. As “progressive prosecutors”—many who are former public defenders—continue to win office, new questions will arise about how far prosecutors can push reform of the criminal justice system. A major looming question is how voters conditioned to law-and-order rhetoric will evaluate the new prosecutors. Some preliminary work shows that non-White prosecutors tend to reduce rates of incarceration, while Republican-affiliated prosecutors increase them.
A Survey Researcher’s Many Decisions
Authors: Koning Ashley
Published: November 2020

Survey research is often interpreted as an exact science, but its role in assessing the social world—and its foundation in statistics—make it a methodological tool less about absolute certainty and more about estimation, choice, and trade-off. Much like any other research method, the survey process involves a number of important decisions for a researcher to make, and every decision affects not only the end result but also all of the subsequent choices along the way. Some of the most important issues that any researcher conducting a survey should consider include sampling, questionnaire design, and modality—and how these decisions, in turn, affect the thought processes and responses of survey takers. Each of these broader categories involves a multitude of choices that are dictated by research goals, as well as time and budget constraints. These aspects of the survey process have become more complex—and thus decisions have become more challenging—in the face of rapidly declining response rates and skyrocketing costs. There is no singular survey formula or path that all researchers follow; survey research is instead an accumulation of knowledge and best practices, trial and error of new techniques, and continual adaptation—all in an effort to say something with some level of statistical confidence about a particular population.
Indigenous Peoples and Criminology
Authors: Tauri Juan Marcellus
Published: November 2020

Indigenous criminology has developed since the start of the 21st century as a result of the regeneration of Indigenous epistemologies and reinvigoration of Indigenous critique of the criminal justice practices of settler-colonial states. In stark contrast to Carlen’s call for criminology as a scientific art, Indigenous formulations—political, partisan, and subjective, reflective of the stated aims of activist scholars such as Agozino, Monture-Angus, Victor, Tauri, and Porter—are evangelical by necessity to hold the settler-colonial state accountable for the violence it perpetrates against Indigenous peoples, and to subject western criminologists to critical scrutiny for their historical and contemporary support for the state. This support manifests through the use of theories and research methodologies that silence Indigenous experiences of settler-colonial crime control, and approaches to crime and social harm, and through the discipline of criminology’s continued support for the state’s continued subjugation of Indigenes. The Indigenous critique challenges the Eurocentric nature of much western criminological analysis of Indigenous over-representation in criminal justice, especially in settler-colonial settings, which often lacks a theory of colonialism, reserving analysis for the recalcitrant native and their supposedly criminogenic culture. Also problematic is the tendency of many criminologists to utilise non-engaging methods for researching Indigenous peoples, a process that too often sidelines their experiences of crime control processes. In contrast, Indigenous scholars and their non-Indigenous allies propose an Indigenous variant of the discipline based on core principles that distinguish their activist scholarship from the mainstream, including rejecting the false dichotomy between objectivity and commitment, giving back by speaking truth to power, and making research real for Indigenous peoples.
State–Corporate Crime Nexus: Development of an Integrated Theoretical Framework
Authors: Schotter Casey James , Kramer Ronald C.
Published: November 2020

State–corporate crime research has developed significantly since William Chambliss’s presidential speech to the American Society of Criminology in 1989 calling for specific attention to corporate crimes and connections with the state. From 1992 to 2000, four foundational case studies established a working theoretical framework. Since its debut in 1998, the integrated theoretical framework has had two levels of analysis added as well as the key concepts of state-initiated, state-facilitated, corporate-initiated, and corporate-facilitated crime. However, events of the 21st century have demonstrated the importance of developing the international level of analysis of the theoretical framework. The Great Recession of 2008, the Panama Papers and tax evasion by those people and corporations named, Peruvian lawsuits against German fossil fuel industries regarding climate change, the Cambridge Analytica data-mining scandal, and the global Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 elucidate the international connections between states and businesses and the need for extensive research uncovering these connections and the mechanisms used by states and corporations to maintain and reproduce these criminal partnerships.
Social and Emotional Learning in the Physical Education Curriculum
Authors: Wright Paul M. , Gordon Barrie , Gray Shirley
Published: November 2020

Physical education as a subject area simultaneously addresses psychomotor, cognitive, and affective learning objectives. Despite the recognized potential of physical education to promote affective learning objectives, these have been ill-defined in the curriculum and often neglected in practice. However, with a growing interest in social and emotional learning across the curriculum, physical education is now expected to better articulate and demonstrate its contributions in this area. While the framework may be new, social and emotional learning competencies (e.g., self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making) can be seamlessly integrated into quality, student-centered physical education. Given the growing policy support and existing best practice for teaching personal and social skills, it seems clear that with continued advocacy and teacher education, social and emotional learning competencies can be integrated into the physical education curriculum in a much more intentional and coherent way.
Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientations in Curriculum
Authors: Wozolek Boni
Published: November 2020

Curriculum studies is a field that addresses the sociopolitical, historical, and cultural norms and values that impact the classrooms and corridors of schools and their interrelated systems of schooling. Questions of curricula, the formal (what is meant to be taught), the null (what is not taught), the enacted (what is learned through interactions), and the hidden (what is learned through cultural norms) are significant to curriculum studies and are entangled with local and less local histories, politics, and cultures. Sociocultural precepts such as race, gender, and sexual orientation are therefore enmeshed with these forms of curriculum. The study of how race, gender, and sexual orientation are related is therefore at once historical and contemporary in its significance. To understand the relationship between these ideas is to follow lines from Title IX, the Meriam Report, the exclusion of certain terms from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, redlining, and other significant national policies and practices that impact schools and the curriculum. Finally, while it may be easy to falsely split questions of race from questions of gender or sexual orientation, an attention to how intersectional identities impact the curriculum becomes especially significant to disrupting colonial, sexist, racist, homophobic, and transphobic norms and values that often render the fe-male body as property of the cis-hetero patriarchy. Within these intersectional dialogues, curriculum studies scholars often find the important tools for dismantling and discussing normalized marginalization in schools and across systems of schooling as they touch and are touched by local and less local communities.
Reimagining University Partnerships with Local Schools in the United States
Authors: Burgard Karen L. B. , Jozwiak Melissa M.
Published: November 2020

Developing a successful university–school partnership has been a topic for research since the early 1900s. In this case study, faculty members at one university in the southern United States believes they may have found one possible answer. This university has been working toward forming a partnership with three local schools to bring about transformative change to the schools and the community. Through this collaboration, faculty members sought to intentionally trouble the pervasive top-down approach many universities take when communicating with schools and to disrupt the savior complexes that often center on these efforts. Instead, by starting to identify the community needs, listening intently to the community desire for future changes in local schools, and working in solidarity with the community, sustainable partnerships were formed, and meaningful change has already happened in the short term.

Creating multi-layered relationships rooted in a commitment to culturally relevant/responsive and sustaining pedagogy, the partnerships began with a shared vision between the university and the schools to work collaboratively, responding to the individual needs of each school and the surrounding community. The university faculty members committed to working in and with the community understand that centering the culture of the community in all partnership discussions was tantamount to their success, demonstrating that cultural relevance should not be confined to the walls of the university classroom, but rather, should be a guiding principle in all interactions between universities, local schools, and communities. The success of these partnerships, and the strong relationships built as a result, has created a possible model for future university–school partnerships.