bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Climate Change Scenarios and African Climate Change
Authors: Cook Kerry H.
Published: January 2018

Accurate projections of climate change under increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels are needed to evaluate the environmental cost of anthropogenic emissions, and to guide mitigation efforts. These projections are nowhere more important than Africa, with its high dependence on rain-fed agriculture and, in many regions, limited resources for adaptation. Climate models provide our best method for climate prediction but there are uncertainties in projections, especially on regional space scale. In Africa, limitations of observational networks add to this uncertainty since a crucial step in improving model projections is comparisons with observations. Exceeding uncertainties associated with climate model simulation are uncertainties due to projections of future emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Humanity’s choices in emissions pathways will have profound effects on climate, especially after the mid-century.

The African Sahel is a transition zone characterized by strong meridional precipitation and temperature gradients. Over West Africa, the Sahel marks the northernmost extent of the West African monsoon system. The region’s climate is known to be sensitive to sea surface temperatures, both regional and global, as well as to land surface conditions. Increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases are already causing amplified warming over the Sahara Desert and, consequently, increased rainfall in parts of the Sahel. Climate model projections indicate that much of this increased rainfall will be delivered in the form of more intense storm systems.

The complicated and highly regional precipitation regimes of East Africa present a challenge for climate modeling. Within roughly 5º of latitude of the equator, rainfall is delivered in two seasons—the long rains in the spring, and the short rains in the fall. Regional climate model projections suggest that the long rains will weaken under greenhouse gas forcing, and the short rains season will extend farther into the winter months. Observations indicate that the long rains are already weakening.

Changes in seasonal rainfall over parts of subtropical southern Africa are observed, with repercussions and challenges for agriculture and water availability. Some elements of these observed changes are captured in model simulations of greenhouse gas-induced climate change, especially an early demise of the rainy season. The projected changes are quite regional, however, and more high-resolution study is needed. In addition, there has been very limited study of climate change in the Congo Basin and across northern Africa. Continued efforts to understand and predict climate using higher-resolution simulation must be sustained to better understand observed and projected changes in the physical processes that support African precipitation systems as well as the teleconnections that communicate remote forcings into the continent.
Internet-Based Methods in Managing Alcohol Misuse
Authors: Linke Stuart , Murray Elizabeth
Published: January 2018

Alcohol-use disorders are widespread and associated with a greatly increased risk of health-related and societal harms. The majority of harms associated with consumption are experienced by those who drink above recommended guidelines, rather than those who are alcohol dependent. Brief interventions and treatments based on screening questionnaires and feedback have been developed for this group, which are effective tools for reducing consumption in primary care and in other settings. Most people who drink excessively do not receive help to reduce the risks associated with excessive consumption. Digital versions of brief and extended interventions have the potential to reach populations that might derive benefit from them. Digital interventions utilize the same principles as do traditional face-to-face versions, but they have the advantages of availability, confidentiality, flexibility, low marginal costs, and treatment integrity. The evidence for the feasibility, acceptability, costs, and effectiveness of digital interventions is encouraging, and the evidence for effectiveness is particularly strong in studies of student populations. There are, however, a number of unresolved questions. It is not clear which components of interventions are required to maximize effectiveness, whether digital versions are enhanced by the addition of personal contact from a facilitator or a health professional, or how to increase take up of the offer of a digital intervention and reduce attrition from a program. These questions are common to many online behavior-change interventions and there are opportunities for cross-disciplinary learning between psychologists, health professionals, computer scientists, and e-health researchers.
Trust and Social Dilemmas
Authors: Parks Craig D.
Published: January 2018

A social dilemma is a situation of interdependence between people in which there is conflict between doing what is best for oneself, and doing what is best for the group: Trying to produce the best personal outcome (selfishness) hurts the group effort, and contributing to the group effort (cooperation) leads to a less-than-optimal personal outcome. The best personal outcome is realized by acting for oneself when everyone else acts for the group. Because of this, if each group member does what is best for him or herself, the group will fail, and each person will end up with a poor outcome. Solution of a social dilemma thus requires that at least some people forgo selfish interest in favor of the collective. Research into social dilemmas is primarily oriented around identifying the influences on a person’s willingness to cooperate and designing interventions that will encourage more frequent cooperation. There are many real examples of social dilemmas: clean air, charities, public broadcasting, and groundwater, to name a few.
The Theory and Practice of Situational Crime Prevention
Authors: Clarke Ronald V.
Published: January 2018

Situational crime prevention is radically different from other forms of crime prevention as it seeks only to reduce opportunities for crime, not bring about lasting change in criminal or delinquent dispositions. Proceeding from an analysis of the circumstances giving rise to very specific kinds of crime and disorder, it introduces discrete managerial and environmental modifications to change the opportunity structure for those crimes to occur—not just the immediate physical and social settings in which the crimes occur, but also the wider societal arrangements that make the crimes possible. It is therefore focused on the settings for crime, not on delinquents or criminals. Rather than punishing them or seeking to eliminate criminal dispositions through improvement of society or its institutions, it tries to make criminal action less attractive. It does this in five main ways: (1) by increasing the difficulties of crime, (2) by increasing the immediate risks of getting caught, (3) by reducing the rewards of offending, (4) by removing excuses for offending, and (5) by reducing temptations and provocations. It accomplishes these ends by employing an action research methodology to identify design and management changes that can be introduced with minimum social and economic costs. Central to this enterprise is not the criminal justice system but a host of public and private organizations and agencies—schools, hospitals, transit systems, shops and malls, manufacturing businesses and phone companies, local parks and entertainment facilities, pubs and parking lots—whose products, services, and operations spawn opportunities for a vast range of different crimes. Some criminologists believe that the efforts that these organizations and agencies have made in the past 20 or 30 years to protect themselves from crime are responsible for the recorded crime drops in many countries.

Situational crime prevention rests on a sound foundation of criminological theories—routine activity theory, crime pattern theory, and the rational choice perspective—all of which hold that opportunity plays a part in every form of crime or disorder. There is therefore no form of crime that cannot be addressed by situational crime prevention. To date, more than 250 evaluated successes of situational crime prevention have been reported, covering an increasingly wide array of crimes including terrorism and organized crimes. Many of the studies have found little evidence that situational interventions have resulted in the “displacement” of crime to other places, times, targets, methods, or forms of crime. Indeed, it is commonly found that the benefits of situational crime prevention diffuse beyond the immediately targeted crimes. Despite these successes, situational crime prevention continues to attract much criticism for its supposed social and ethical costs.
Sentencing Guideline Departures
Authors: Kaiser Kimberly
Published: January 2018

Sentencing guidelines were created with the goal of reducing unwarranted disparities in sentencing outcomes based on race, gender, and other legally irrelevant characteristics in order to establish a uniform sentencing system. In the 21st century, approximately 21 states and the federal courts use sentencing guidelines, although the types of guidelines used vary, with some more restrictive than others. With the quest to create more uniform sentences, scholars have examined whether the guidelines have actually reduced unwarranted disparities in sentencing outcomes. One area that has received attention from sentencing scholars as an avenue for the potential reintroduction of disparity into the sentencing process is the ability to sentence offenders outside of the guideline range, a practice otherwise known as “sentencing departures.”

Departures from guideline sentences are either below or above the suggested guideline range for a particular offense, with most departures resulting in below guideline sentences. Both judges and prosecutors have the authority to issue departures. Within the federal sentencing guideline system, prosecutors have the sole discretion to offer substantial assistance and other types of government-sponsored downward departures. The amount of discretion given to federal judges to depart from the guidelines has changed dramatically over the years, and the use of departures has subsequently increased in recent years. Research has examined whether this increase in departures has resulted in an increase in unwarranted disparity once again. This research has primarily focused on two related questions: (1) Have departures increased disparities in sentencing outcomes based on race, ethnicity, gender, or other factors? (2) Who is most likely to receive a departure sentence? Several studies have found there to be differences in likelihood of receiving departures; with African Americans, males, and offenders charged with specific types of crimes less likely to receive downward departures. Other research, however, has further suggested that the increased use of departures may not have increased sentencing disparities based on race or ethnicity. Additionally, a new scope of research has emerged which takes a more nuanced examination of sentencing departures; looking at variations among districts, policy disagreement departures, and other considerations. Ultimately, the current body of research on the use, consequences, and implications of sentencing departures has provided some mixed findings and many questions remain unresolved. As research on departures continues, our understanding of the complex nature of sentencing decisions under guideline based systems will continue to grow.
Pathways to Crime
Authors: Boppre Breanna , Salisbury Emily J. , Parker Jaclyn
Published: January 2018

Scholarship in criminology has focused on individuals’ pathways to crime—how life experiences, often beginning during childhood, lead to criminality in adolescence or adulthood. General frameworks for this research include life-course, developmental, and biosocial criminology. However, because the vast majority of the general pathways research literature was developed using samples of boys and men, scholars with a feminist theoretical background argue that such research is not truly representative of girls and women’s pathways to crime. While general theories of crime have been applied broadly, gender-specific pathways to crime account for important distinctions between male and female experiences.

Thus, gender (and sex), through biological differences, social norms, and expectations, shapes individual life experiences that result in distinct pathways to crime for men and women. Consequently, understanding criminality requires a full consideration of gendered experiences. Even though similar life events may occur with both men and women, individual responses and effects can vary greatly and lead to different pathways to criminal behavior. Accordingly, this article discusses pathways to crime though a gendered lens. First, men’s pathways to crime are presented, which have been traditionally represented through general criminological research. Next, women’s specific pathways to crime are discussed, developed primarily through the gendered pathways literature. Finally, future directions in pathways research are outlined.
Caenorhabditis elegans Olfaction
Authors: Reilly Douglas K. , Srinivasan Jagan
Published: January 2018

To survive, animals must properly sense their surrounding environment. The types of sensation that allow for detecting these changes can be categorized as tactile, thermal, aural, or olfactory. Olfaction is one of the most primitive senses, involving the detection of environmental chemical cues. Organisms must sense and discriminate between abiotic and biogenic cues, necessitating a system that can react and respond to changes quickly. The nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, offers a unique set of tools for studying the biology of olfactory sensation.

The olfactory system in C. elegans is comprised of 14 pairs of amphid neurons in the head and two pairs of phasmid neurons in the tail. The male nervous system contains an additional 89 neurons, many of which are exposed to the environment and contribute to olfaction. The cues sensed by these olfactory neurons initiate a multitude of responses, ranging from developmental changes to behavioral responses. Environmental cues might initiate entry into or exit from a long-lived alternative larval developmental stage (dauer), or pheromonal stimuli may attract sexually mature mates, or repel conspecifics in crowded environments. C. elegans are also capable of sensing abiotic stimuli, exhibiting attraction and repulsion to diverse classes of chemicals. Unlike canonical mammalian olfactory neurons, C. elegans chemosensory neurons express more than one receptor per cell. This enables detection of hundreds of chemical structures and concentrations by a chemosensory nervous system with few cells. However, each neuron detects certain classes of olfactory cues, and, combined with their synaptic pathways, elicit similar responses (i.e., aversive behaviors). The functional architecture of this chemosensory system is capable of supporting the development and behavior of nematodes in a manner efficient enough to allow for the genus to have a cosmopolitan distribution.
Christian History and Historiography
Authors: Cabrita Joel
Published: January 2018

Christian presence in Africa has a long and varied history. African congregations represented some of the world’s earliest churches, with lively Coptic and Orthodox communities in both North Africa and present-day Ethiopia. But wide-scale Christian expansion truly began during the proselytization efforts of the 19th-century missionary movement. Success in gaining converts was initially limited, a fact not aided by the perceived ties of missionaries to Western colonial powers. But through the translation and intermediation of a dedicated strata of African evangelists, proselytizers, and preachers, Christianity rapidly became one of the continent’s most popular faiths. The independent church movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries exemplified the determination of Christians across the continent to make the faith a local religion: throwing off white missionary control, thousands of Africans formed their own independent churches that experimented with new modes of Protestant Holiness theology. Transnational links have always been key to the development of Christianity in Africa, with connections to North American African American churches sustaining many of these independent churches. More recently, international networks have also influenced the large charismatic revivals that swept the continent from the 1970s onward. Inspired by itinerant evangelists from both North America and Europe, Africans have formed new churches that stress the “Prosperity Gospel,” deliverance from witchcraft, and the equation of “modernity” with Christianity. Underlying many of these diverse developments has been an ongoing debate regarding the intrinsically African qualities of Christianity: scholars continue to wrestle with understanding the extent and nature of indigenous versus exogenous elements that go into making Christianity—along with Islam—one of the most widely practiced religions on the African continent.
Energy and Security
Authors: Duffield John S.
Published: January 2018

A substantial amount of scholarly literature about the relationship between energy and security, and how it has changed over time, has been produced before the early 1970s through the 2000s. Relatively few scholarly works were written on energy and security prior to the 1970s, and few scholars paid attention to the growing dependence of the United States and its allies on oil, whether imported or not, and its potential political, economic, and security ramifications. During the 1970s, two major oil shocks prompted two overlapping waves of scholarship on energy and security. The first oil shock began in 1973, when the Arab members of OPEC cut back production and embargoed exports to the United States and several other countries that were deemed too sympathetic to Israel during the October War. A closely related theme was Western cooperation on energy security. In the late 1980s and 1990s, there was a notable decline in the amount of scholarship published on the theme of energy and security, probably due to an overall improvement in the oil security situation. The 2000s witnessed a renewed interest in the relationship between energy and security owing to a variety of factors, such as the run up in oil prices that occurred in 1999 and 2000, and the reemergence of resource nationalism. Despite the significant volume of scholarship on energy and security, it could be argued that the important relationship between them has yet to be fully explored and deserves more research.
Ethnic Lobbying in Foreign Policy
Authors: Haney Patrick J.
Published: January 2018

Much of the literature on ethnic lobby groups comes from either research on interest groups or ethnicity that looks to foreign policy cases, or foreign policy analysis studies that focus on the role of interest groups or ethnic groups. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a burst of scholarly activity regarding ethnic interest group activism in US foreign policy, following the changes in American society and in the US Congress that emerged from the wake of Watergate, Vietnam, and the civil rights movement. Later, the end of the Cold War brought a new burst of ethnic lobbying on foreign policy, and a new wave of scholarly attention to these issues. During both of these bursts of attention, studies predominantly focused on the activities of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which was often seen as an exception to the rule that interest groups are not very significant forces in the foreign policy sphere. Another source of research on ethnic issues and foreign policy is the emerging literature on ethnicity, the construction thereof, and the political development of ethnic communities over time. The three basic issues that stand out in the literature about ethnic lobbying on foreign policy include the formation of ethnic interest groups, the roots of ethnic interest group success, and whether ethnic lobbies actually capture policy in their respective areas, at least in the context of US foreign policy. Meanwhile, the two level game perspective and the competition among ethnic groups needs further exploration.
Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration in China, Korea, and Japan
Authors: Kang Eunice Y. , Lynn Hyung-Gu , Shipper Apichai W.
Published: January 2018

East Asian countries have varying levels of ethnic homogeneity. North and South Korea have long been considered among the most ethnically homogeneous nation-states in the world. Yet, since the mid-1990s, the amount of immigration to the country as well as transnational marriages have transformed South Korea into a multiethnic state. The Japanese also view themselves as a racially distinct and homogeneous people, despite the historical presence of foreigners and ethnic minorities. China is composed of a patchwork of ethnicities with around 55 state-recognized minority groups. However, according to the 2010 census, minorities accounted for only 8.49% of the overall population or 114 million people. Despite different levels of ethnic homogeneity, China, Korea, and Japan are witnessing a rise in international (and internal) migration, which started in the late 20th century and has continued into the early 21st century. The increase of foreign migrant workers and spouses has challenged the dominant perceptions of ethnic homogeneity in Korea and Japan, while further strengthening the bonds of ethnic heterogeneity in China. These changes have not only forced a reshaping of the notions of identity and citizenship, but have also helped fuel the rise of various “reactive” forms of neo-nationalism, such as “state nationalism,” “ethnic nationalism,” and “cultural nationalism,” that attempt to fortify or recuperate ethnic or race-based definitions of national identity.
Explaining Why People Move: Intra and Interdisciplinary Debates about the Causes of International Migration
Authors: Sert Deniz
Published: January 2018

International migration is widening, deepening, and speeding up as described within a set of theories that have been developed by different disciplines of science. The sociological theories of migration go back to the concept of intervening opportunities, which suggests that the number of migratory movements to a destination is directly proportional to the number of opportunities at that distance and inversely proportional to the number of intervening opportunities. Economic theories of migration, meanwhile, generally focus on international labor migration, while the geographical theories of migration concentrate on the role of distance in explaining spatial movements. Finally, socioeconomic theories of international migration are derived from a Marxist political economy emphasizing the unequal distribution of economic and political power in the global economy in a world where the rich are getting richer by exploiting the poor. Taken together, these theories explain the causes of proactive migration. However, the literature on the opposite scenario—reactive or forced migration—is also quite extensive, linking the issue to international security and human vulnerability, humanitarian intervention, and to the so-called “root causes” that underline the social and international forces that generated refugees. But these theories only tell part of the story, as migration is a dynamic phenomenon. Once it begins, international movement of people perpetuates across time and space, and the causes of these perpetual movements can be rather different from those that initiate them. As it evolves, it creates new conditions that become both the means and the ends of new migrations.
Identity, Difference, and Development
Authors: Dressler Wolfram , Babidge Sally
Published: January 2018

The changes in anthropological theory and perspectives on identity and difference can be explored in the context of three major periods of development: the colonial, postcolonial, and postdevelopment periods. In the colonial era, anthropologists drew heavily on the idea of social evolution located in the works of Herbert Spencer, Lewis Henry Morgan, and E.B. Tylor. In their work, lower-order “savages” (i.e., indigenous people) were thought to evolve socioculturally into higher-order, “civilized” Europeans. In the postcolonical period, the wave of independence throughout much of the developing world led social anthropologists to interpret how different groups came to self-identify with people and situations in a relational sense in an emerging postcolonial context. Ethnographers considered how people identified with certain social and cultural characteristics as being contingent upon their shared understanding of these features in relation to group membership and how others perceived such characteristics. Since the 1990s, social anthropologists have considered conceptions of indigeneity and other identity work with greater nuance, focusing on the layered processes that constitute identity. Recent scholarly contributions have considered how and why people have socially constructed their identities through reflections of self, sociopolitical positions, and culture relative to individual and group experiences in society. In particular, three intellectual streams have begun to reconceptualize identity formation: social positioning, articulation, and transnational identity building.
Population Movements and Security
Authors: Goldstone Jack A.
Published: January 2018

Population movements can affect security in a variety of ways. Aside from altering a society’s overall balance of population and physical resources, they exert a considerable influence on the institutions of society—the state, elite recruitment and social status, the military, labor organizations and peasant villages—in a way that undermines political and social order. The consequences of population movements for security can also be seen in differential population growth and migration, differential aging of different populations, and issues of resource allocation and climate change. The work of T. R. Malthus in the early nineteenth century advanced the argument that more people would put an undesirable burden on societies, and weaken them. Julian Simon turned the Malthusian argument on its head with his claim that people were the “ultimate resource,” and that the more people were around to work on solving the globe’s problems, the more likely it was that powerful solutions would be found. The debate between Malthusians, represented by Paul Ehrlich, and Cornucopians, represented by Simon, from the 1960s to the 1990s was primarily about the impact of population on economic growth. In the 1990s, a new direction emerged in the debate on population and security. This was the argument that population growth would lead to local shortages of critical resources such as farmland, water, and timber, and that these could trigger internal conflicts and even civil wars. These conflicts arise only where states and economies are relatively weak and unable to respond to population growth.
Poststructuralism and Security
Authors: Hansen Lene
Published: January 2018

Poststructuralism is an International Relations (IR) theory that entered the domain of Security Studies during the Second Cold War. During this period, poststructuralists engaged with power, security, the militarization of the superpower relationship, and the dangers that the nuclear condition was believed to entail. Poststructuralism’s concern with power, structures, and the disciplining effects of knowledge seemed to resonate well with the main themes of classical realist Security Studies. At the same time, the discursive ontology and epistemology of poststructuralism set it apart not only from Strategic Studies, but from traditional peace researchers who insisted on “real world” material referents and objective conceptions of security. The unexpected end of the Cold War brought challenges as well as opportunities for poststructuralism. The most important challenge that arose was whether states needed enemies. The terrorist attacks of September 11 and “The War on Terror” also had a profound impact on poststructuralist discourse. First, poststructuralists held that “terrorism” and “terrorists” had no objective, material referent, but were signs that constituted a radical Other. They viewed the actions on September 11 as “terror,” “acts of war,” and “orchestrated,” rather than “accidents” committed by a few individuals. The construction of “terrorists” as “irrational” intersected with poststructuralist deconstructions of rational–irrational dichotomies that had also been central to Cold War discourse. These responses to “the War on Terror” demonstrated that poststructuralist theory still informs important work in Security Studies and that there are also crucial intersections between poststructuralism and other approaches in IR.
Public Goods in International Politics
Authors: Urlacher Brian
Published: January 2018

Public goods represent a particular challenge in international politics that has been linked to problems as diverse as alliance politics, environmental governance, and global currency systems. In many situations, some form of coordinated collective action is needed to produce public goods. Consequently, provision of public good often serves as a stand-in for theoretical questions related to cooperation in an anarchic system.

Public goods, which have elements of non-rivalness and non-excludability, are often desired by states but can be difficult to produce in the absence of a powerful state willing to provide public goods unilaterally. Non-rivalness refers to the ability of many actors to consume a good. Closely related to the concept of non-rivalness in public goods is the concept of jointness of supply. Jointness of supply means that all parties can enjoy the benefits of consumption with no additional cost required to provide the good to additional individuals.

By contrast, non-excludability implies that once a good has been produced, there are no efficient means of preventing consumption of a good. If both of these conditions are true, then a public good, such as asteroid defense or the elimination of smallpox, could be a benefit to all of humanity once produced. On the other hand, pure public goods are relatively rare. There are variations in which non-rivalness or non-excludability is imperfectly met. Club goods, such as security in alliances, offer viable mechanisms for excluding states from the benefits of a good but may produce goods that are non-rival within the club. Common-pool resources, such as ocean fish populations, are non-excludable but are rival, in that overfishing can reduce fish populations.
Risk and Security in International Relations
Authors: Rasmussen Mikkel Vedby
Published: January 2018

Considerations of risk are pervasive in the contemporary security environment. A risk is a scenario followed by a policy proposal for how to prevent the scenario from becoming real. When policy makers approach security questions in terms of risk, they no longer seek to address specific and calculable threats like the Red Army during the Cold War. Instead, they focus on trends that give a future significance to present challenges—trends that give future significance to present challenges include (a) the personalization of risk, (b) the establishment of political community based on risk, and (c) existential risk where the fate of humanity is at stake.

In his 1958 book War and Industrial Society, Raymond Aron claimed that industrial society had shaped not only the way in which war was fought in the 20th century, but also the expectations of what force could achieve and how peace could be made. A number of sociologists argue that the industrial society described by Aron is changing into what Ulrich Beck terms a risk society.

Risks are associated with a decision. Risk is inside politics, not outside—both internationally and domestically. Risk studies therefore often focus on the difficulties and dilemmas confronting policy makers as they struggle to provide security in a post-secure society. Risks are continuously identified by scenarios pre-empted by military actions or other acts of security—only for the results of these actions to produce, in turn, new risks.

The article seeks to explain why risk studies have never coalesced into a coherent research program, as perhaps some of the scholars engaging with risk theory hoped it would. Having concluded that risk theories remain fragmented and more engaged with particular subfields than with each other, it makes sense to deal with the substantial contribution of risk theory by focusing on particular trends in security policy in which the risk perspective has something important to say.
Sea Power
Authors: Grove Eric
Published: January 2018

“Sea power” refers to the power exerted by a state through its capacity to use the sea for both military and civilian purposes. The ability to use the seas for transport and other civilian purposes such as fishing and, more recently, exploitation of resources on or under the sea bed has generated considerable debate. This has resulted in the notion that military power deployed at or from the sea is the key component of a state’s sea power. It was Alfred Thayer Mahan who first coined the term “sea power.” In his 1980 book “Influence,” Mahan outlined six “principal conditions affecting the sea power of nations”: geographical position, physical conformation, extent of territory, number of population, national character, and character of government. After Mahan, other writers advanced a variety of ideas regarding the concept of sea power, including Philip Colomb, who emphasized the importance of “command of the sea”; Sir Julian Corbett, who discussed the importance of maritime “lines of passage and communication” as “the preoccupation of naval strategy,” and control of such lines as the essence of “command of the sea”; and Sir Herbert Richmond, whose definition of sea power can be summed up as the “power to control movements at sea.” Others who have contributed to the scholarly literature on sea power include Raoul Castex, Bernard Brodie, Stephen Roskill, Sir Peter Gretton, Sir James Cable, Sergei G. Gorshkov, Paul Kennedy, Ken Booth, Richard Hill, and Geoffrey Till.
Small Group Effects on Foreign Policy Decision Making
Authors: Garrison Jean A.
Published: January 2018

The core decision-making literature argues that leaders and their advisors operate within a political and social context that determines when and how they matter to foreign policy decision making. Small groups and powerful leaders become important when they have an active interest in and involvement with the issue under discussion; when the problem is perceived to be a crisis and important to the future of the regime; in novel situations requiring more than simple application of existing standard operating procedures; and when high-level diplomacy is involved. Irving Janis’s groupthink and Graham Allison’s bureaucratic politics serve as the starting point in the study of small groups and foreign policy decision making. There are three distinct structural arrangements of decision groups: formalistic/hierarchical, competitive, and collegial advisory structures, which vary based on their centralization and how open they are to the input of various members of the decision group. Considering the leader, group members, and influence patterns, it is possible to see that decision making within a group rests on the symbiotic relationship between the leader and members of the group or among group members themselves. Indeed, the interaction among group members creates particular patterns of behavior that affect how the group functions and how the policy process will evolve and likely influence policy outcomes. Ultimately, small group decision making must overcome the consistent challenge to differentiate its role in foreign policy analysis from other decision units and expand further beyond the American context.
Sovereign Debt Default
Authors: Datz Giselle
Published: January 2018

Sovereign borrowing and debt default have long been a part of a nation’s existence. Sovereign debt defaults (that is, the suspension of interest or principal payment on due debt) were common from the sixteenth century, when Edward III declared a default after military defeat in 1340, to the nineteenth century, when Latin American countries defaulted on some of their debts. Early loans were made in the form of repayable taxes until the system evolved to allow for sovereign loans, transparent enough that secondary markets for these debts were soon developed. A government may default on its debt due to unwillingness or inability to pay. In both cases, default is a difficult political decision whose real costs remain somewhat ambiguous from a theoretical standpoint. The costs of default are often contingent on the type of debt restructuring deal reached between the debtor and the creditor. The scholarly literature on sovereign debt crises is substantial, particularly with respect to the economic, legal, and political costs of default. More recent theoretical work has focused on the trend toward increased domestic debt, which is expected to help reduce the probability of a debt crisis. However, domestically issued sovereign debt can lead to other types of risk. While relying on domestic institutional investors in local economies can help smooth cycles of liquidity shortages, over-reliance on those investors (particularly pension funds) can undermine the solvency of domestic banks and social security arrangements.
Civil Wars
Authors: Kalyvas Stathis N. , Kenny Paul D.
Published: January 2018

A civil war, also known as intrastate war, is a war between organized groups within the same state or country. It is a high-intensity conflict that often involves regular armed forces. One of the reasons for the lack of consensus in the study of civil war is disagreement over what exactly civil war means. Theoretically, civil war overlaps with other categories of armed conflict, particularly revolution, political violence, ethnic conflict, and terrorism. Civil wars since the end of World War II have lasted for over four years on average, a considerable rise from the one-and-a-half-year average of the 1900–1944 period. While the rate of emergence of new civil wars has been relatively steady since the mid-19th century, the increasing length of those wars has resulted in increasing numbers of wars ongoing at any one time. Since 1945, civil wars have resulted in the deaths of over 25 million people, as well as the forced displacement of millions more, along with economic collapse. According to scholars of civil war research, the causes of civil war include economic motivations or greed, and political or social grievances. Greed-based explanations focus on individuals’ desire to maximize their profits, while grievance-based explanations center on conflict as a response to socioeconomic or political injustice. A third concept, opportunity-based explanations, talks about factors that make it easier to engage in violent mobilization.
Sovereignty as a Problematic Conceptual Core
Authors: Shinko Rosemary E.
Published: January 2018

The concept of sovereignty has been the subject of vigorous debate among scholars. Sovereignty presents the discipline of international law with a host of theoretical and material problems regarding what it, as a concept, signifies; how it relates to the power of the state; questions about its origins; and whether sovereignty is declining, being strengthened, or being reconfigured. The troublesome aspects of sovereignty can be analyzed in relation to constructivist, feminist, critical theory, and postmodern approaches to the concept. The most problematic aspects of sovereignty have to do with its relationship to the rise and power of the modern state, and how to link the state’s material reality to philosophical discussions about the concept of sovereignty. The paradoxical quandary located at the heart of sovereignty arises from the question of what establishes law as constitutive of sovereign authority absent the presumption or exercise of sovereign power. Philosophical debates over sovereignty have attempted to account for the evolving structures of the state while also attempting to legitimate these emergent forms of rule as represented in the writings of Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. These writers document attempts to grapple with the problem of legitimacy and the so-called “structural and ideological contradictions of the modern state.” International law finds itself grappling with ever more nuanced and contradictory views of sovereignty’s continued conceptual relevance, which are partially reflective and partially constitutive of an ever more complex and paradoxical world.
Spatial and Temporal Interdependence
Authors: Colaresi Michael , Hays Jude C.
Published: January 2018

Time and space are two dimensions that are likely to provide the paths—either singly or in tandem—by which international policy decisions are interdependent. There are several reasons to expect international relations processes to be interdependent across space, time, or both dimensions. Theoretical approaches such as rational expectations models, bureaucratic models of decision-making, and psychological explanations of international phenomena at least implicitly assume—and in many cases explicitly predict—dependence structures within data. One approach that researchers can use to test whether their international processes of interest are marked by dependence across time, space, or both time and space, is to explicitly model and interpret the hypothesized underlying dependence structures. There are two areas of spatial modeling at the research frontier: spatial models with qualitative and limited dependent variables, an co-evolution models of structure and behavior. These models have theoretical implications that are likely to be useful for international relations research. However, a gap remains between the kinds of empirical models demanded by international relations data and theory and the supply of time series and spatial econometric models that are available to those doing applied research. There is a need to develop appropriate models of temporal and spatial interdependence for qualitative and limited dependent variables, and for better models in which outcomes and structures of interdependence are jointly endogenous.
Statebuilding and Nationbuilding
Authors: Goetze Catherine , Guzina Dejan
Published: January 2018

Since the early 1990s, the number of statebuilding projects has multiplied, often ending several years or even decades of violent conflict. The objectives of these missions have been formulated ad hoc, driven by the geopolitical contexts in which the mandates of statebuilding missions were established. However, after initial success in establishing a sense of physical security, the empirical evidence shows that most statebuilding efforts have failed, or achieved only moderate success. In some countries, violence has resumed after the initial end of hostilities. In others, the best results were authoritarian regimes based on fragile stalemates between warring parties. A review of the literature on statebuilding indicates a vast number of theories and approaches that often collide with each other, claim the exact opposite, and mount (contradictory) evidence in support of their mutually exclusive claims. Still they are united by their inquiry into the general structural and policy-making conditions that nurture or impede statebuilding processes. A problematic characteristic of the statebuilding literature is a lack of dialogue across the various disciplines. Many of the claims in the international relations literature on external statebuilding are a mirror image of the previous ones made on democratization. Another problem is the propensity to repeat the same mistakes of the previous generations.
Sustainable Development
Authors: Brown M. Leann
Published: January 2018

Sustainable development (SD) is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This definition is articulated in Our Common Future, a political manifesto published in 1987 by the United Nations’ World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). SD promises to resolve in a positive-sum manner the most daunting economic, environmental, political, and social challenges the world is currently facing. However, it has also become a much contested concept, mainly due to the comprehensiveness, ambiguity, and optimism inherent in its underlying assumptions. Ongoing debates within the literature deal with how to define, operationalize, and measure SD; how economic development and environmental protection are conceptualized as mutually supportive; how “nature” is treated in the literature; equity and overconsumption challenges to SD; and the governance, social learning, and normative transformations required to achieve SD. Reaching some consensus on definitions and operationalization of the multiple aspects of SD will lead to standards by which to assess development and environmental policies. Among the most urgent issues that must be addressed in future research are the roles and influence of the relatively new participants in governance, such as intergovernmental/nongovernmental organizations and corporations; the new modes of governance including public-private and private-private partnerships and network governance; and the impacts of implementing compatible and contradictory policies on the various levels and across policy areas.
Teaching International Organization
Authors: Karns Margaret P.
Published: January 2018

The teaching of international organization (IO) poses unique challenges. One is deciding whether to take a broad global governance-IO approach dealing with the creation, revision, and enforcement of rules that mark different governance arrangements, the roles of formal, informal, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental IOs, and the politics, dynamics, and processes of problem-solving and governance in various issue areas, a theory-driven approach, or an IOs approach focusing primarily on select formal intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and possibly nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), emphasizing structures, charters, mandates, and functions. Either choice could lead one to utilize recent literature on IGOs (and to a lesser extent NGOs) as organizations and bureaucracies, examining their design, functions, and performance or behavior. Another is the extent to which various international relations as well as IO-related theories such as theories of cooperation, regime and institution formation and evolution, functionalism, constructivism, and others are integrated into an IO course. To what extent are students introduced to currents of critical theory such as postmodernism, Marxism, feminism, and postcolonialism in relationship to IOs? There is also the question of which IGOs—global and/or regional—to include given the range of possibilities. How all the abovementioned issues are addressed will strongly influence choices with regard to textbooks, other readings, and various types of electronically available materials.