bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Compression simulations of plant tissue in 3D using a mass-spring system approach and discrete element method
Authors: Pieczywek Piotr M. , Zdunek Artur
Published: September 2017

A hybrid model based on a mass-spring system methodology coupled with the discrete element method (DEM) was implemented to simulate the deformation of cellular structures in 3D.
Single-step wet-chemical fabrication of sheet-type electrodes from solid-electrolyte precursors for all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries
Authors: Oh Dae Yang , Kim Dong Hyeon , Jung Sung Hoo , Han Jung-Gu , Choi Nam-Soon , Jung Yoon Seok
Published: September 2017

Sheet-type electrodes, prepared from solid-electrolyte precursors by scalable single-step wet-chemical fabrication, exhibit the excellent electrochemical performance for all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries.
Nanocrystalline cubic ruthenium carbide formation in the synthesis of graphene on ruthenium ultrathin films
Authors: Jiménez-Villacorta Félix , Álvarez-Fraga Leo , Bartolomé Javier , Climent-Pascual Esteban , Salas-Colera Eduardo , Aguilar-Pujol Montserrat X. , Ramírez-Jiménez Rafael , Cremades Ana , Prieto Carlos , de Andrés Alicia
Published: September 2017

Novel nanocrystalline cP-RuC films and graphene covered hcp-Ru nanograins are obtained with size control by CVD.
The cosmological analysis of X-ray cluster surveys
Authors: Pierre M. , Valotti A. , Faccioli L. , Clerc N. , Gastaud R. , Koulouridis E. , Pacaud F.
Published: September 2017

Context. Despite compelling theoretical arguments, the use of clusters as cosmological probes is, in practice, frequently questioned because of the many uncertainties surrounding cluster-mass estimates.

Aims. Our aim is to develop a fully self-consistent cosmological approach of X-ray cluster surveys, exclusively based on observable quantities rather than masses. This procedure is justified given the possibility to directly derive the cluster properties via ab initio modelling, either analytically or by using hydrodynamical simulations. In this third paper, we evaluate the method on cluster toy-catalogues.

Methods. We model the population of detected clusters in the count-rate – hardness-ratio – angular size – redshift space and compare the corresponding four-dimensional diagram with theoretical predictions. The best cosmology+physics parameter configuration is determined using a simple minimisation procedure; errors on the parameters are estimated by averaging the results from ten independent survey realisations. The method allows a simultaneous fit of the cosmological parameters of the cluster evolutionary physics and of the selection effects.

Results. When using information from the X-ray survey alone plus redshifts, this approach is shown to be as accurate as the modelling of the mass function for the cosmological parameters and to perform better for the cluster physics, for a similar level of assumptions on the scaling relations. It enables the identification of degenerate combinations of parameter values.

Conclusions. Given the considerably shorter computer times involved for running the minimisation procedure in the observed parameter space, this method appears to clearly outperform traditional mass-based approaches when X-ray survey data alone are available.
Contemporary Management of Pulmonary Arteriovenous Malformations
Authors: Rauh Nicholas , Gurley John , Saha Sibu
Published: September 2017

Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVMs) are atypical vascular structures involving a direct connection between the pulmonary arterial and venous circulations. While PAVMs are a relatively uncommon disorder, unmanaged cases are at risk for the development of serious complications including embolization and infection. Since their first description in 1897, PAVMs have been identified and treated in a variety of ways. Advancements in diagnostic methods and operative techniques have allowed for more effective treatment of the disease. Most recently, the use of vascular plug transcatheter embolization has been described as an effective therapeutic procedure in the management of PAVMs. In this report, we present our experience with nine cases of PAVMs treated at the University of Kentucky, including special consideration of an exemplary case that illustrates the typical course of treatment for the disease.
The sensitivity of tokamak magnetohydrodynamics stability on the edge equilibrium
Authors: Zheng L. J. , Kotschenreuther M. T. , Valanju P.
Published: September 2017

Due to the X-point singularity, the safety factor tends to infinity as approaching to the last closed flux surface. The numerical treatments of the near X-point behavior become challenging both for equilibrium and stability. The usual solution is to cut off a small fraction of edge region for system stability evaluation or simply use an up-down symmetric equilibrium without X-point as an approximation. In this work, we assess the sensitivity of this type of equilibrium treatments on the stability calculation. It is found that the system stability can depend strongly on the safety factor value (qa) at the edge after the cutting-off. When the edge safety factor value falls in the vicinity of a rational mode number (referred to as the resonant gap), the system becomes quite unstable due to the excitation of the peeling type modes. Instead, when the edge safety factor is outside the resonant gaps, the system is much more stable and the predominant modes become the usual external kink (or ballooning and infernal) type. It is also found that the resonant gaps become smaller and smaller as qa increases. The ideal magnetohydrodynamic peeling ballooning stability diagram is widely used to explain the experimental observations, and the current results indicate that the conventional peeling ballooning stability diagram based on the simplified equilibrium needs to be reexamined.
Electron capture and excitation processes in collisions of H+ with H in finite-temperature quantum plasmas
Authors: Zhao G. P. , Liu L. , Wang J. G. , Janev R. K.
Published: September 2017

Electron capture and excitation processes in H+-H collisions imbedded in warm dense quantum plasmas are studied by the two-center atomic orbital close-coupling (TC-AOCC) method in the energy range 1–200 keV. The screened potential which is used to describe the interaction between charged particles incorporates the quantum electron degeneracy, exchange-correlation and finite-temperature gradient correlation effects. The total and state-selective electron capture and excitation cross-sections for this collision system with this potential are calculated in a wide range of plasma densities and temperatures. It is demonstrated that the screening of Coulomb interactions affects the collision dynamics and the magnitude and energy behavior of the excitation and electron capture cross-sections. The results at very low and high temperatures are also compared with those obtained for zero-temperature quantum plasmas and Debye plasmas, respectively.
A Safe and Simple Synthesis of 1,4-Bis(trimethylsilyl)buta-1,3-diyne
Authors: Bock Sören , Low Paul J.
Published: September 2017

The buta-1,3-diyne synthon 1,4-bis(trimethylsilyl)buta-1,3-diyne (1) is an important building block for the introduction of butadiyne motifs into organic and organometallic structures. Although 1 is commonly prepared from the Hay homo-coupling of trimethylsilylacetylene (catalytic CuI/tetramethylethynylenediamine, O2, acetone), the report of a significant explosion during this preparation, likely arising from a static discharge during addition of the catalyst solution to the alkyne/acetone/O2 rich atmosphere, prompts consideration of alternative procedures. Here we report the use of the robust Navale catalyst system (CuI/N,N-dimethylaminopyridine, O2, NCMe) in the multigram-scale preparation of 1 with minimal manipulation of all-glass apparatus, greatly simplifying the process and minimising risks associated with the preparation of this useful compound.
Metonymy in human interaction
Authors: Jódar-Sánchez José Antonio
Published: September 2017

Human communication is based on mutual interaction between participants. Much of this communication is linguistic in nature. Language is structured by grammar and grammar is inherently metonymic (Langacker 2009). Thus, language and interaction must be metonymic. In this article, I explore the metonymic basis of human interaction in both its linguistic and non-linguistic aspects. First, I make a distinction between linguistic and cultural metonymy. Both have a conceptual basis. The former, extensively studied from the view of cognitive linguistics, has a linguistic source. The latter, found in fields as diverse as art, theater, and film, does not necessarily have a linguistic source. The broader concept of cultural metonymy seems to structure human interaction. Second, I delineate distinguishing factors between the two types of metonymies. Those are the nature of the source and the (mis)match in the intentionality of producer and perceiver. Third, I make an overview and provide real examples of what aspects of human interaction are metonymic. Its elements, including the content of the message, the identity, proxemics, and kinesics of the participants, and the context of the interaction, can be metonymic. Its processes, namely those of language production and reception, are as well inherently metonymic. Overall, I show that metonymy, understood as relatedness or association, pervades human interaction and plays an important role in its success.
When tense meets constructional meaning
Authors: Kiyama Naoki
Published: September 2017

Construction Grammar, one of the major frameworks in Cognitive Linguistics, has been successful in providing accounts of a wide range of empirical data. The approach has recently placed great emphasis on low-level generalizations, and some studies have argued that a constructional meaning is often associated only with a specific lexical item. Therefore, by investigating in detail the form [copulabe+ Adj. +enough+to-infinitive], the present study proposes that the combinatorial potential of the intensifierenoughand the derived constructional meanings are sensitive to tense, thus emphasizing the importance of ‘item- and tense-specific constructions’.
Tribocorrosion behaviours of cold-sprayed diamond–Cu composite coatings in artificial sea water
Authors: Wang Zhe , Chen Xiuyong , Gong Yongfeng , He Xiaoyan , Wei Yingkang , Li Hua
Published: September 2017

Frictional components in the marine environment always face a synergistic effect of wear and corrosion. Diamond-based composite coatings are known for their excellent wear performances, but few studies were conducted relating to their marine applications. Herein, diamond–copper composite coatings were successfully deposited on stainless steel 316L plates by the cold spraying, employing diamond powder coated with thin copper (Cu) layer. The diamond–Cu composite coatings with a diamond content of 31.79% were successfully fabricated. The coatings showed significantly enhanced wear resistance tested in artificial sea water with the reduced friction coefficient from 0.32 for the Cu coating to 0.10 for the diamond–Cu coating. Further electrochemical testing showed promoted anti-corrosion performances of the diamond-containing coatings. The newly constructed diamond–Cu coatings show encouraging promises as anti-tribocorrosion layers for marine structures.
The Role of the Media in Corporate Governance
Authors: Bednar Michael K.
Published: September 2017

Corporate governance scholars have long been interested in understanding the mechanisms through which firms and their leaders are held accountable for their actions. Recently, there has been increased interest in viewing the media as a type of corporate governance mechanism. Because the media makes evaluations of firms and leaders, and can broadcast information to a wide audience, it has the potential to influence the reputation of firms and firm leaders in both positive and negative ways and thereby play a role in corporate governance.

The media can play a governance role and even influence firm outcomes by simply reporting about firm actions, giving stakeholders a larger voice with which to exert influence, and through independent investigation. However, despite the potential for the media to play a significant governance role, several barriers limit its effectiveness in this capacity. For example, media outlets have their own set of interests that they must strive to fulfill, and journalists often succumb to several cognitive biases that could limit their ability to successfully hold leaders accountable.

While significant progress has been made in understanding the governance role of the media, future research is needed to better understand the specific conditions in which the media is effective in this role. Understanding how social media is changing the nature of journalism is just one example of the many exciting avenues for future research in this area.
Using Guilt to Motivate Individuals to Adopt Healthy Habits
Authors: Turner Monique Mitchell
Published: September 2017

In social marketing, the use of guilt appeals can be effective for influencing healthy behaviors. Guilt, being a moral, other-based emotion, can spur people to think of others, act honestly, and be empathetic. Likewise, collective guilt, the feeling that arises when people believe their in-group caused illegitimate harm to others, can lead people to feel positively toward the victimized others and desire policies that will help them. We can see then, that guilt, though often considered “negative” can lead to an array of prosocial, constructive, behaviors. In that vein, a number of researchers have assessed the possibility that guilt based persuasive appeals can induce such positive behaviors.

Clearly, guilt-appeals can be an effective tool for reducing risk (STI testing), increasing prevention practices (encouraging mammograms), and effecting altruistic health-related behaviors (donating blood). In the correct conditions, guilt appeals can induce guilty feelings, lead people to want to “right the wrong,” generate positive attitudes about the message’s advocacy, and intend to engage in a behavior.
Ethical Issues and Considerations in Health and Risk Message Design
Authors: Guttman Nurit
Published: September 2017

The design and dissemination of health and risk messages invariably involves moral and ethical issues. The choice of the topics, the focus on particular recommended practices, the choice of particular groups to be the intended recipients of the messages and their inclusion in or exclusion from the message development process, all raise ethical issues. Further, the persuasive tactics used to influence people to change their attitudes and beliefs and to adopt recommended changes in their lives also raise ethical concerns. For example, persuasive tactics may infringe on people’s privacy when people view images they may find intrusive, offensive, or cause them distress. Tactics that “tug” at people’s emotions may infringe on their unhindered ability to make a conscientious decision. Employing digital media and sophisticated advertising and marketing tactics also elicits ethical challenges both related to their manipulative potential and their differential reach: all of which may contribute to social and health disparities. In addition, the practices recommended in health and risk messages may conflict with values people cherish. For example, people could be urged to change the way they communicate with their spouses on intimate issues, relinquish the consumption of favorite traditional foods—or messages may raise issues that recipients find taboo according to their culture or religious beliefs. Health and risk messages may have unforeseen and unintended adverse effects that could affect people’s emotional and physical aspects by inadvertently contributing to people’s sense of guilt through shaming or stigmatization. Also, on the cultural and social level, such messages may contribute to an idealization of a certain lifestyle or commercialization of products and celebrities associated with the messages.

Philosophical and ethical frameworks typically used in communication ethics, bioethics, communication campaigns, and social marketing literature emphasize the central guiding principles of personal autonomy and privacy with the aim to ensure equity and fairness. The obligation to avoid “doing harm” includes concerns regarding labeling, stigmatizing, and depriving; the obligation to help; the obligation to respect people’s autonomy to make free choices, particularly concerns regarding persuasion tactics and manipulations and the use of threat tactics, provocative appeals, distressing images, framing tactics, cultural sensitivity, and moral relativism; the obligation to obtain consent; the obligation to truthfulness; the obligation to sincerity; the obligation to correctness, certitude, and reliability; the issue of personal responsibility; equity obligations including concerns regarding segmentation and “targeting”; the obligation to comprehensibility; the obligation of inclusion; utility and efficiency considerations; the “harm reduction” approach; and concerns regarding social value priorities and “distortions,” which includes prosocial values as moral appeals.
Social Influence Processes and Health Outcomes in Alcoholics Anonymous
Authors: Wright Kevin
Published: September 2017

Social influence processes play an important role in the recovery process for alcoholics who affiliate with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Group norms at AA emphasize the sharing of stories about past difficulties with alcohol, the circumstances that led a person to join AA, and how life has changed since achieving sobriety. These narratives serve to increase collective identity among AA members via shared experiences and to reinforce AA ideology. In discussions and interpersonal interactions at AA meetings, AA ideology is also communicated and reinforced through AA literature and the discussion of central tenets, such as the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, the idea that alcoholism is a progressive disease, and the need to be active in one’s sobriety. Moreover, AA meetings provide an opportunity for recovering alcoholics to find others who share similar experiences, an opportunity for greater social comparisons to other alcoholics than are typically available in primary social networks, and group-suggested role obligations that influence commitment to AA and long-term sobriety. These social influence processes have been linked to important health outcomes, including longer abstinence from alcohol use than with other treatment options, reduced stigma associated with alcoholism, reduced stress/depression, increased self-efficacy, and the acquisition of coping skills that are important to the recovery process.
Metaphor in Health and Risk Communication
Authors: Sopory Pradeep
Published: September 2017

Metaphor equates two concepts or domains of concepts in an A is B form, such that a comparison is implied between the two parts leading to a transfer of features typically associated with B (called source) to A (called target). Metaphor is evident in written, spoken, gestural, and pictorial modalities. It is also present as latent patterns of thought in the form of conceptual mappings between domains of experience called conceptual metaphor. Metaphor is found commonly in a variety of health and risk communication contexts, including public discourse, public understanding and perceptions, medical encounters, and clinical assessment. Often metaphor use is beneficial to achieving desired message effects; however, sometimes its use in a message can lead to unintended undesirable effects. There is a general consensus, although not complete agreement, that metaphors in messages are processed through engagement with corresponding conceptual mappings. This matching process can be taken as a general principle for design of metaphor-based health and risk messages.
Popular Media and Exposure to Health and Risk Messages
Authors: Kline Kimberly N.
Published: September 2017

Popular media are a source of information, a powerful socializing agent, and generate sociopolitical and sociocultural meanings that impinge on health promotion and/or disease prevention efforts and individual lived experiences. Thus, motivated by the goal of improving individual and social health, multidisciplinary scholars attend to the implications of entertainment and news media with regard to a range of topics such as individual health threats related to prevention, health conditions and illnesses, patient–provider interactions and expectations, public health issues related to crisis management and health recommendations, and public policy. Scholarship in this line of research may approach the study of popular media guided by the social scientific tradition of media effects theory to explain and predict response or by critical theory to consider ideological implications and employ different methodologies to describe and evaluate the images of health and health-related matters to which people are being exposed or that focus on media representations or audience (both individual and societal) response.
Mediated Contact
Authors: Joyce Nick
Published: September 2017

Mediated contact involves exposing audiences to people from other social groups (ethnic, religious, political, etc.) through media. It is an extension of intergroup contact theory, one of the most widely studied and successful prejudice reduction strategies in the social sciences. Mediated contact has effects on explicit and implicit attitudes, as well as physiological responses towards other groups. These effects generally serve to improve intergroup relations in terms of affective, cognitive, and normative outcomes. These outcomes can be understood in terms of a number of psychological processes, which here are synthesized into three thematic headers: Liking, identifying, and learning. Each of these themes taps into existing theoretical areas including parasocial relationships, social identification, and social cognition. Mediated contact has been shown to be effective across a wide variety of study methodologies and contexts, for a wide variety of participants, targeting a wide variety of social out-groups. Although the effects of mediated contact seem to be secondary to face-to-face experience, the fact that many people possess information about groups primarily through media make it an important area of study. While the current media landscape is often less positive and diverse than the ideals of mediated contact, research suggests that positive mediated contact can still have an impact on audiences in both the laboratory and the real world.
Social Media and Intergroup Communication
Authors: Carr Caleb T.
Published: September 2017

Social media are increasingly ubiquitous communicative channels, used to create and maintain groups. Bearing several commonalities with computer-mediated communication more broadly, social media afford users opportunities to present both their social and personal identities, often concurrently, which can respectively activate intergroup and interpersonal communicative processes. Moreover, social media provide groups and their members some unique properties and opportunities for communication, which can both build and blur boundaries among groups. Thus, as individuals increasingly interact via services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, QQ, and other social media channels, it is important to consider the recursive relationships and effects among intergroup communication and the use of these tools: What about social media may affect the nature of group communication, and what about groups may affect how members use social media channels? Exploring the processes and effects of activated social identities, this chapter explores the potential for social media to both silo and span disparate groups, and for group communication within social media to spill over into other channels, including offline.
Uncertainty Management Theories
Authors: Hogg Michael A. , Belavadi Sucharita
Published: September 2017

The subjective state of uncertainty can be understood as deriving from reduced predictability of and control over events and the world around us. There are different ways to conceptualize the nature of uncertainty, its antecedents and predictors, and the strategies that individuals use to manage & reduce uncertainty within communication science and social psychology.

Prominent theories of uncertainty within communication—uncertainty reduction theory, anxiety/uncertainty management theory, and approaches to uncertainty management—focus on states of uncertainty and lowered predictability within the context of interactive communication with others. In these theories, communication with others plays a central role in the production, maintenance, and management of uncertainty. These three communication-based approaches also differ in the ways in which they conceptualize uncertainty and its management in communicative contexts. Uncertainty reduction theory treats uncertainty as an aversive state that individuals always aim to reduce. In contrast, although anxiety/uncertainty management theory and approaches to uncertainty management discuss uncertainty as an aversive state, they also provide for conditions under which uncertainty might be a desired state.

Within social psychology, the construct of uncertainty has received different treatments. Some approaches have conceptualized the extent of uncertainty experienced and tolerated by individuals as an enduring individual difference or a personality attribute. Social psychologists have also conceptualized uncertainty as an aspect of a person’s identity and self-concept. For instance, uncertainty-identity theory explains uncertainty as a context-invoked aversive state associated with lowered perceived predictability of self and others—uncertainty about who one is, how one should behave, and how one will be treated by others. The theory argues that individuals are motivated to reduce such uncertainty by seeking group memberships, as groups provide a framework for self-definition that helps manage self-conceptual uncertainty.
Constructivism
Authors: Kratochwil Friedrich , Peltonen Hannes
Published: September 2017

Constructivism in the social sciences has known several ups and downs over the last decades. It was successful rather early in sociology but hotly contested in International Politics/Relations (IR). Oddly enough, just at the moment it made important inroads into the research agenda and became accepted by the mainstream, enthusiasm for it waned. Many constructivists—as did mainstream scholars—moved from “grand theory” or even “meta-theory” toward “normal science,” or experimented with other (eclectic) approaches, of which the turns to practices, to emotions, to new materialism, to the visual, and to the queer are some of the latest manifestations.

In a way, constructivism was “successful,” on the one hand, by introducing norms, norm-dynamics, and diffusion; the role of new actors in world politics; and the changing role of institutions into the debates, while losing, on the other hand, much of its critical potential. The latter survived only on the fringes—and in Europe more than in the United States. In IR, curiously, constructivism, which was rooted in various European traditions (philosophy, history, linguistics, social analysis), was originally introduced in Europe via the disciplinary discussions taking place in the United States. Yet, especially in its critical version, it has found a more conducive environment in Europe than in the United States.

In the United States, soon after its emergence, constructivism became “mainstreamed” by having its analysis of norms reduced to “variable research.” In such research, positive examples of, for instance, the spread of norms were included, but strangely empirical evidence of counterexamples of norm “deaths” (preventive strikes, unlawful combatants, drone strikes, extrajudicial killings) were not. The elective affinity of constructivism and humanitarianism seemed to have transformed the former into the Enlightenment project of “progress.” Even Kant was finally pressed into the service of “liberalism” in the US discussion, and his notion of the “practical interest of reason” morphed into the political project of an “end of history.” This “slant” has prevented a serious conceptual engagement with the “history” of law and (inter-)national politics and the epistemological problems that are raised thereby. This bowdlerization of constructivism is further buttressed by the fact that in the “knowledge industry” none of the “leading” US departments has a constructivist on board, ensuring thereby the narrowness of conceptual and methodological choices to which the future “professionals” are exposed.

The aim here, in exploring constructivism and its emergence within a changing world and within the evolution of the discipline, is not to provide a definition or a typology of constructivism, since such efforts go against the critical dimension of constructivism. An application of this critique on constructivism itself leads to a reflection on truth, knowledge, and the need for (re-)orientation.
Systemic Leadership, Energy Considerations, and the Leadership Long-Cycle Perspective
Authors: Thompson William R. , Zakhirova Leila
Published: September 2017

System leaders, sometimes referred to as hegemons or world powers, emerge based on a foundation of technological innovation and global military reach. To this foundation energy is now added as a third leg of the power stool. It is not a coincidence that observers posit 17th-century Netherlands, 19th-century Britain, and 20th-century United States as the leading states in political-economy terms of their respective eras. The Dutch used peat and windmills, the British married coal to the steam engine, and the United States added petroleum and electricity to coal to fuel a host of new machines. The greater a country’s lead in technology and energy, the more impactful its tenure as the world economy’s lead economy. These leads, nonetheless, do not make their principal beneficiaries into dominant dictators of world politics. Instead, they focus on policing long-distance commercial routes and the global commons, as well as organizing coalitions to suppress perceived threats to the continued functioning of the world economy. Whether this process, which emerged slowly only in the second millennium ce, will continue into the future remains to be seen. It hinges on the prospects for abandoning carbon-based fuels, adapting renewable energy sources, and retaining the ability of one state to maintain a political-economic lead over its rivals for decades as in the past.
Empirical Analyses of Deterrence
Authors: Quackenbush Stephen L.
Published: September 2017

Deterrence is an important subject, and its study has spanned more than seven decades. Much research on deterrence has focused on a theoretical understanding of the subject. Particularly important is the distinction between classical deterrence theory and perfect deterrence theory. Other studies have employed empirical analyses. The empirical literature on deterrence developed at different times and took different approaches. The early empirical deterrence literature was highly limited for varying reasons. Much of the early case study literature did not seek to test deterrence theory. Early quantitative studies did seek to do so, but they were hampered by rudimentary methods, poor research design, and/or a disconnect between quantitative studies and formal theories of deterrence. Modern empirical research on deterrence has made great strides toward bridging the formal-quantitative divide in the study of deterrence and conducting theoretically driven case studies. Further, researchers have explored the effect of specific variables on deterrence, such as alliances, reputations and credibility, and nuclear weapons. Future empirical studies of deterrence should build on these modern developments. In addition, they should build on perfect deterrence theory, given its logical consistency and empirical support.
Natural Resources, Climate Change, and Conflict
Authors: Koubi Vally , Spilker Gabriele
Published: September 2017

What is the relationship between resource scarcity and abundance, on the one hand, and intrastate conflict, on the other? Under what conditions do natural resources cause conflict? Which types of resources can better predict the onset, intensity, and duration of intrastate conflict? These questions and other related questions are needed to discuss how renewable as well as non-renewable resources influence the onset, intensity, and duration of intrastate conflict. In particular, there are two strands of the literature: the first strand deals with renewable resources, such as water, cropland, forests, fish stocks, etc., and examines how the scarcity of such resources leads to resource completion and subsequently to a greater risk of conflict. In this context, it also discusses the more recent literature on climate change and conflict. The second strand deals with non-renewable resources that tend to have a high value-to-weight ratio, such as fossil fuels and minerals, and evaluates how abundance of such resources affects potential “greed” and “grievance” motives of rebels to take up arms as well as a state’s capacity to put down a rebellion, both of which can lead to civil conflicts.

Overall, with the exception of the very recent empirical work on climate change as a “threat multiplier,” the bulk of the empirical evidence provides non-robust and often even contradictory results and thus does not allow for a clear-cut conclusion: while some studies support the link between resource scarcity/abundance and armed conflict, others find no or only weak links. The inconclusiveness of the results might be due to various factors, such as the inability/failure of the extant literature to adequately address the mechanisms via which resource scarcity and abundance could lead to conflict as well as which types of natural resources, including climatic changes, matter most. Moreover, empirical studies differ with regard to the type of conflict under study, ranging from violence against the government (civil wars [1,000 deaths], civil conflict [25 deaths], and low-intensity conflict [protests and riots]) to intercommunal violence (conflict that occurs between competing groups within a state), the operationalization and/or measurement of the types of resource scarcity and abundance, and the appropriate level of analysis (individual, household, subnational, national).
Environmental Policy and Foreign Policy
Authors: Barkdull John
Published: September 2017

International agreements on environmental issues are the result of the coordination of states’ foreign policies. To understand the international politics of the environment requires attention to the institutional, social, economic, and cognitive factors that determine foreign policies. Although nearly every foreign policy bears on environmental concerns, the focus is on the policies that states adopt centered on humanity’s relationship to the natural world and ecology. Scholarship on environmental policy and foreign policy has not developed distinctive schools of thought. However, organizing scholarship according to a theoretically grounded typology reveals affinities among various scholarly works: systemic, societal, and state-centric approaches can be grouped according to whether they emphasize power, interests, or cognitive factors. Most studies of environmental foreign policy are oriented toward problem solving—identifying discrete problems in existing institutional arrangements and pointing toward solutions to these problems that do not question the institutions fundamentally. This orientation may not be adequate if crossing planetary boundaries leads to environmental challenges so severe that current institutions cannot cope. Climate change poses just such a challenge, and the rising concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means a future crisis is predictable. Thus, scholars might be best advised to orient toward critical theory, which seeks feasible alternatives to existing arrangements. The study of foreign policy toward the environment would be most useful in helping scholars and policy makers to identify and surmount barriers to transformational changes that would enable humanity to cope with future environmental crisis.
Ontological Security and Foreign Policy
Authors: Mitzen Jennifer , Larson Kyle
Published: September 2017

In the early 21st century, a stream of international relations (IR) scholarship has emerged that interprets states’ foreign policy processes, decisions, and international outcomes through the lens of a distinctive type of security, ontological as opposed to “physical” or “material” security. It is a concept that helps us think about how the ability to make choices and take action depends critically on our sense of self, which is itself produced in our actions, albeit often at the level of routines and background narratives. Bringing ontological security into the study of foreign policy in some cases points to different explanations for choices, while in others it adds causal depth and generates new implications. This article reviews the literature that treats foreign policy as an outgrowth of the pursuit of a multifaceted understanding of security, ontological and physical, and raises questions for further research.
Power and National Capability
Authors: Crisher Brian
Published: September 2017

Power is a crucial concept for international relations scholars. Of particular importance for those interested in understanding foreign policy is knowing how power manifests as national capabilities. Understanding the relationship between power and capabilities allows for comparison and contrast of the various foreign policy tools leaders have at their disposal as they attempt to achieve their goals. Despite the importance of power, scholars still debate the best means for conceptualizing and operationalizing the concept. The all-encompassing nature of power makes it difficult to focus on a single characteristic. This article focuses on three main aspects of power: military, economic, and soft power. Each section gives an overview into the current state of research into the various aspects of power. The discussion on military power emphasizes operationalizing military might and issues with innovation. The section on economics focuses on economics as a source of power and a tool for coercion. Finally, the last section focuses on noncoercive aspects of power, better known as soft power. The article ends with some suggestions for future research.
Public Opinion and Foreign Policy
Authors: Foyle Douglas
Published: September 2017

Dramatic changes in the way the public acquires information and formulates its attitudes have potentially altered the opinion and foreign policy relationship. While traditional approaches have treated public opinion on domestic and foreign matters as largely distinct, the culmination of a series of changes may eliminate the effective distinction between foreign and domestic policy, at least in terms of how the American political system operates. All the factors central to the opinion and foreign policy process, such as information acquisition, attitude formation, media effects, the effect of opinion on policy, and presidential leadership now appear to mirror the processes observed at the domestic level.

This analysis reviews historical trends in the literature on public opinion and foreign policy that has focused on the rationality of the public’s opinions, the structure of its attitudes, and its influence on foreign policymaking. The traditional Almond-Lippmann consensus portrayed an emotional public with unstructured attitudes and little influence on foreign policy; however, revisionist views have described a reasonable public with largely structured views on foreign policy that can, at times, constrain and even drive those policies. More recently, the rise of “intermestic” issues, contain both domestic and international elements, such as globalization, inequality, terrorism, immigration, and climate change, have interacted to transform the domestic and international context.

The bulk of this analysis highlights emerging new research directions that should be pursued in light of the changes. First, scholars should continue to evaluate the “who thinks what and why” questions with particular attention to differences between high- and low-information individuals, the effect of misinformation, and information sources. In doing so, research should build on research from non-American contexts that points to the important influences of societal and institutional factors. In addition to continued examination of traditional demographic factors such as partisanship and ideology, additional attention should turn to consider potential genetic and biological foundations of attitudes. Finally, researchers should continue to evaluate how the new media environment, including social media, affects how the public accesses information, how the media provides information, and how political elites attempt to shape both. Given these changes, scholars should consider whether it continues to make sense to treat public opinion dynamics regarding foreign policy as distinct from domestic policy and its implications.
Social Media and Foreign Policy
Authors: Rubenzer Trevor
Published: September 2017

Social media refer to websites and other Internet applications that enable users to create and share content with other users, as well as to react to such content in various ways. As social media have become more accessible, in terms of both Internet access and ease of use, it has become one means by which people, nonstate actors, and governments can share their foreign policy priorities in an effort to receive feedback, engage in diplomacy, educate people, and attempt to influence foreign policy outcomes. Foreign policy practitioners and scholars have rushed to describe and begin to analyze the ways in which social media has become part of the foreign policy process. The social and political upheaval associated with the Arab Spring, some of which has been traced to both foreign and domestic use of social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, created a greater sense of urgency among those who seek a greater understanding of the impact of social media on foreign policy.

Thematically, much of the academic work concerning social media and foreign policy is conducted as part of the broader public diplomacy literature. Public diplomacy, which relates to efforts by international actors to engage with foreign publics in the pursuit of policy goals, can be advanced along a number of paths. However, given their accessibility, low cost, and ease of use, social media has become a critical tool for a wide variety of international actors running the gamut from governments to portions of civil society to terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq Syria (ISIS, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIS based in part on the group’s territorial claims). Social media and foreign policy work can also be found in the political communication literature, in working papers and articles generated by foreign policy think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations, and in academic journals dedicated to area studies that often concentrate on specific episodes of social media used to influence foreign policy.

Theoretical development in the area of social media and foreign policy is fragmented across disciplines and approaches. Network theories focus on interactions between parts of a network (in this case a social network); network analysis methods are sometimes employed as part of this theoretical framework. Other theories in this area focus on traditional problems associated with collective action and how these problems can be overcome by removing barriers to communication and lowering the cost of some types of political action. Different theoretical perspectives are often accompanied by different empirical results. Results vary from findings of a profound impact of social media on foreign policy outcomes to skepticism of the role played by social media in the face of other, potentially confounding, factors.
Special Relationships in Foreign Policy
Authors: Harnisch Sebastian
Published: September 2017

Special relationships are durable and exclusive bilateral relations between autonomous polities that are based on mutual expectations of preferential treatment by its members and outsiders as well as regular entanglement of some (external) governance functions. The concept has become more prominent over the past three decades in part because of recent changes in international relations and foreign policy analysis theory (the constructivist and relational turn) and long-term shifts in the social structure of international relations, that is, decolonization, international criminal and humanitarian law, which have posed questions of solidarity, reconciliation, and responsibility of current and past special relationships.

The term special relationship has a long and diverse history. After World War II, it was used mainly to depict the Anglo-American security relationship as special. Today, well over 50 international relationships are deemed special. Despite this trend, no common theoretical framework has been developed to explain their emergence, variation, persistence and demise. Realism interprets special relationships as asymmetrical power relations, in which presupposed counterbalancing behavior does not occur because shared ideas or institutions mitigate autonomy concerns. Liberalism postulates that the special relatedness occurs when policy interdependence due to shared commercial interests or ideas allows deep cooperation and trust building. Social constructivism, in turn, assumes self-assertion but does not presuppose with or against whom the self, usually a polity, identifies itself. It follows that special relations may occur between dyads with positive identification (Germany-Israel after reconciliation) or negative identification, such as in the enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan.

As a relational term, special relationships do not sit easily with the first generation of foreign policy analysis focusing on decision making processes rather than the policies themselves. As a consequence, special relationships have been primarily conceptualized either as a tool of foreign policy or as one context factor influencing foreign policy choices. In relational theories, such as social constructivism, special relations, such as solidarity relations, are not causally independent from actors, as these relations also define the actors themselves.
Analytical Liberalism, Neoclassical Realism, and the Need for Empirical Analyses
Authors: Brawley Mark R.
Published: September 2017

Two approaches currently enjoy widespread popularity among foreign policy analysts: Analytical Liberalism and Neoclassical Realism. On the surface, they seem remarkably similar. Both emphasize domestic factors, yet each claims to employ domestic variables in a distinct fashion. How do they differ? To answer that question, it would be helpful to reflect upon examples where scholars applying each approach have addressed the same case, allowing us to contrast their descriptions directly. Few such comparisons exist, however. Instead, as is apparent to even the casual observer, each approach fits neatly into its own niche. Neoclassical Realism appeals to scholars addressing security policy, whereas Analytical Liberalism dominates research in international political economy. Why would both approaches enjoy limited applicability? Here too, a direct comparison of their arguments might illuminate their comparative strengths and weaknesses. A review of how each approach works provides insight into their respective strengths and weaknesses. Under certain conditions, the key traits of the approaches can be revealed. These conditions identify a series of cases deserving closer empirical analysis, which would provide evidence concerning the relative utility of each approach.