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Abstract
The comparative study of political polarization has been central to current debates on the global crisis of democracy. It has been built on uncertain conceptual foundations, though. Established uses of the concept lack a distinctive semantic core as multiple meanings compete against each other. On the basis of a broad reading of the comparative literature, I seek to circumscribe the use and reconstruct the core of political polarization as an instance of extraordinary democratic conflict. In a first step, I delineate the basic parameters of debate by distinguishing between cluster-analytic and conflict-analytic approaches and by specifying the generic type of political conflict that characterizes the polarization of democratic polities. In a second step, I argue for political intolerance as the defining trait of both ideological and social polarization. In a final step, I introduce a third, democratic dimension into the debate: the breakdown of basic democratic trust that leads actors to view their adversaries as "enemies of democracy." Such perceptions spell the end of democratic consolidation. When played among "democratic enemies," democracy stops being "the only game in town."

Abstract
Compared with the traditional diplomacy based on the behavior of national leaders and professional diplomats, non-traditional diplomacy relies on more diverse actors such as political officials, well-known scholars, academic institutions, business elites, ethnic groups, and media organizations to carry out strategic communication, policy interpretation, agenda setting and other practices with the people of other countries, so as to achieve the purpose of guiding public opinion and influencing government decision-making. During the development of relations between China and Arab countries, non-traditional diplomatic practices carried out in the form of government public relations, international communication, people-to-people exchanges, cultural and educational exchanges, which has effectively promoted policy communication, people-to-people and conceptual exchanges between China and Arab states. With the continuous deepening of the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative, non-traditional diplomacy will play a positive role in enhancing political trust, promoting economic and trade benefits, and fostering mutual appreciation of civilization, to expand the practical path, innovate the institutional mechanism and consolidate the foundation of public opinion for the construction of China-Arab community with a shared future.

Terrorist acts, which aim to disrupt the political trust environment in the social structure, negatively affect all systems, such as social, psychological, economic, etc. The devastating effects that occur on the systems of those who directly experience these actions become chronic when the actions take place in the media for a long time. The aim of this study is to reveal the destructive effects of terrorism, which is a type of social violence and a concept whose definition could not be reached. In order to achieve the aim, first of all, the definition, elements, sources and reasons of terrorism are given and the relationship between terrorism and terrorism is mentioned. In the next part of the study, the women who were exposed to terrorist acts; The secondary traumas that he has been experiencing due to the news of terrorism have been examined from the perspective of social work. This study, in which the psychosocial effects of social violence on women are given, was compiled from the existing literature using secondary data. Keywords: Women, Social work, Terrorism-Terrorism, Social violence, Trauma

Despite the increasing popularity of wellness on social media, there islittle empirical study of its content or audiences. This study providesdescriptive information of prevalent themes in wellness content and thecomposition and views of its audiences. Using structural topic modeling toidentify central themes #wellness content on Instagram (N = 544,377posts), we find that while much content appears to promote desired healthbehaviors (e.g., quality sleep), other topics concern unsubstantiated claimsthat are often driven by commercial incentives. Nationally representativesurvey data of U.S. adults (N = 970) further reveals that women, moreliberal, and younger people are more likely to seek and see wellnesscontent. Those who actively seek wellness content are both more trustingof science institutions and have less accurate health beliefs compared withthose who are inadvertently exposed to wellness content. Though wellnesshas not received a great deal of scholarly attention, this description shedslight on the relevance of wellness to central questions in communicationdisciplines concerning expertise, (mis)information, and institutional trust. The popularity of wellness content in social media merits further empiricalexamination as such content may have important benefits and harms thatdisproportionately affect women and young people.

Education is no longer the responsibility of education policy as public policy. Instead the provision of and access to school places has been relocated away from the desk of publicly elected representatives and appointed accredited professionals, to a range of private sites controlled
by oligarchic club interests engaged in market exchanges: first, little monarchies, such as the Harris family; second, little representatives, such as the Confederation of School Trusts (CST); and third, little contractors, such as grammar schools. We use these three examples to examine the
restoration of private provision, access and control as an example of depoliticisation. This trend is evident in a shift in decision-making about the purposes of education, away from public policy funded by the public, in the name of the public and accountable to the public, and towards providers
and consumers, and towards nowhere in particular. Debates about and for educational issues are on no-one's agenda. We argue that these trends validate the analytical judgment that education is no longer a matter for public policy but instead has been relocated to corporate market exchanges
within and beyond the nation state.

The enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan has been manifold due to the trust deficit, threat perception, and non-resolving nature of their disputes. The hostile nature of the two neighbours demands a deep understanding of their relationship, and focus isrequired on how a particular crisis management approach has helped them manage their conflict and avoid war during the Pulwama crisis. The paper applies Michael Brecher's four-stage model to explain the Pulwama crisis and describe how the situation between India and Pakistan has shifted from a perception of nuclear war to de-escalation after the attack. Crisis management helped the two states to retaliate back from their position and avoid the war-like scenario anticipated at that time. The various dimensions and underpinnings of crisis management entail that the synthesis of traditional and modern concepts of crisis management will better explain the theoretical contours of crisis management.


Bibliography Entry
Khurshid, Tayyaba (2023) "From Crisis Onset to De-Escalation: Examining Role of Crisis Management in the Pulwama Crisis" NDU Journal. 37: 25-33.

The present study explored implicit and explicit honesty perceptions of White and Black children and whether these perceptions predicted legal decisions in a child abuse case. Participants consisted of 186 younger and 189 older adults from the online Prolific participant pool. Implicit racial bias was measured via a modified Implicit Association Test and explicit perceptions through self-reports. Participants read a simulated legal case where either a Black or White child alleged physical abuse against their sports coach, and they rated the honesty of the child's testimony and rendered a verdict. Participants were implicitly biased to associate honesty with White children over Black children, and this bias was stronger among older adults. In the legal vignette, for participants who read about a Black child victim, greater implicit racial bias predicted less trust in the child's testimony and a lower likelihood of convicting the coach of abusing the child. In contrast to their implicit bias, participants self-reported Black children as being more honest than White children, suggesting a divergence in racial attitudes across implicit and explicit measures. Implications for child abuse victims are discussed.

During highly uncertain times such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it is vital to understand and predict individuals' responses to governments' crisis and risk communication. This study draws on the Orientation-Stimulus-Orientation-Response (O-S-O-R) model to examine (1) whether uncertainty reduction motivation (a pre-orientation factor) drove Americans to turn to traditional news media and/or social media (stimuli) to obtain COVID-19 information; (2) if these media preferences shaped their COVID-19 knowledge, cognitive information vetting, and trust in government communication (post-orientation factors); and finally (3) whether these factors contributed to their intended and actual behaviors (responses), such as getting vaccinated. Thus, this study explores how multiple communicative and cognitive mechanisms contribute to public compliance with government health recommendations during a pandemic. Mediation analyses showed positive indirect effects between uncertainty reduction motivation and behavioral outcomes via use of social media (in relation to traditional news media) and COVID-19 knowledge and cognitive information vetting. This study discusses theoretical and practical health communication implications of these findings.

Abstract
The transition to a sustainable economy currently involves a fundamental transformation of markets and market actors. This paper makes the case for investor empowerment as the main tool towards achieving greater sustainability in capital markets. This trust in institutional investors is grounded in various recent developments both on the supply side and the demand side of financial markets, and also in the increasing tendency of institutional investors to engage in common ownership. The need to build coalitions among different types of asset managers or institutional investors, and to convince fellow investors of any given initiative, can then act as an in-built filter helping to overcome the pursuit of idiosyncratic motives and supporting only those campaigns that are seconded by a majority of investors. In particular, institutionalized investor platforms have emerged over recent years as a force for investor empowerment, serving to coordinate investor campaigns and to share the costs of engagement. ESG engagement has the potential to become a very powerful driver towards a more sustainability-oriented future. Any regulatory activity should then be limited to a facilitative and supportive role.

AbstractIntegrity and trust in that integrity are fundamental to academic research. However, procedures for monitoring the trustworthiness of research, and for investigating cases where concern about possible data fraud have been raised are not well established. Here we suggest a practical approach for the investigation of work suspected of fraudulent data manipulation using Benford's Law. This should be of value to both individual peer-reviewers and academic institutions and journals. In this, we draw inspiration from well-established practices of financial auditing. We provide synthesis of the literature on tests of adherence to Benford's Law, culminating in advice of a single initial test for digits in each position of numerical strings within a dataset. We also recommend further tests which may prove useful in the event that specific hypotheses regarding the nature of data manipulation can be justified. Importantly, our advice differs from the most common current implementations of tests of Benford's Law. Furthermore, we apply the approach to previously-published data, highlighting the efficacy of these tests in detecting known irregularities. Finally, we discuss the results of these tests, with reference to their strengths and limitations.

How do domestic trials addressing wartime violence affect public opinion of government? The legitimation functions of national courts are well studied in liberal democracies, but less is known about the effects of trials that address abuses committed during large-scale conflict. This article investigates how the extent to which such trials achieve procedural justice (fairness in process) and retributive justice (allocation of punishment) affects perceptions of political legitimacy. I provide survey-experimental evidence from post-conflict El Salvador that leverages the repeal of a longstanding amnesty law. Although a trial in general improves citizen evaluations of state competence, fairness and punishment serve crucial – and distinct – legitimation functions. Procedural fairness significantly increased citizens' willingness to comply with state authorities, regardless of trial outcome. Yet, an unfair trial, when coupled with punishment, bolstered trust in politicians and the judiciary. This suggests a trade-off between public preferences for fairness and an 'iron fist' approach to violence. The findings reveal the limits of procedural justice in a post-conflict environment and furnish new insights on the multifaceted functions of human rights trials.

LAY SUMMARY Both moral injury (MI) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can result from adverse experiences (potentially morally injurious events [PMIEs] for the former and Criterion A events for the latter) and may lead to similar symptoms. Thus, debate is ongoing as to whether MI and PTSD are distinct. Depressive symptoms can also follow these events and may also overlap with symptoms of MI and PTSD. This study investigated how distinct MI is from PTSD and depression by examining networks composed of MI-related outcomes (trust violation, shame, functioning), PTSD symptom clusters, and depression for participants who reported experiencing a PMIE and those who did not. This study is the first of its kind to use MI outcomes with PTSD and depression in a network analysis. The results suggest that MI, PTSD, and depression are distinct but related phenomena, with more connections between these phenomena present particularly among those who experienced a PMIE. Moreover, the negative alterations in cognition and mood cluster of PTSD and MI-related functioning appears to explain some of the co-occurrence among constructs.

Political and media polarization has had a detrimental impact on democratic principles and democratic processes on a global scale. In Europe, such polarization has eroded the trust in national and European institutions and has challenged the basic values that stand at the heart of the European integration project. The aim of this study is to analyze Spanish media discourses on Europeanization, with an attempt to identify key areas in which polarizing narratives related to Europeanization are more prevalent. To conduct our study, six national media outlets were selected based on four criteria: media format, ownership, ideology, and consumption. A final sample of 540 news items collected between July 2021 to March 2022 was selected for analysis. Using a qualitative methodological approach, the study was carried out in two stages. In the first phase, we conducted a content analysis to identify the main topics discussed in relation to the European Union and the actors represented in them. This led to the identification of polarizing narratives and discourses emerging in the context of the discussed topics. In the second phase, we used critical discourse analysis to analyze polarizing discourses.

Writing off the beaten track requires confidence, courage, and chutzpah. Collaborating off the beaten track requires something more: trust, for a start, not to mention flexibility, respect, a robust sense of humour, and an appetite for intellectual risk-taking. Join us as we revisit some memorable moments from the off-piste collaboration of a book author (Helen) and an illustrator (Selina) who also happen to be colleagues, co-mentors, and friends. The title and topic of Helen's book, Writing with Pleasure, became the modus operandi of our collaborative process as we negotiated the challenges and rewards of venturing into new territory together. Like the forty illustrated panels that we co-produced for the book, these storyboarded scenes confound academic conventions and resist easy explication. Instead, they "gesture toward, lean into, sport with, learn from, dance around, and laugh about" (Sword, 2023, p. ii) the themes that they address: from shadowy sharks to unexpected treasures; from structural designs to serendipitous discovery; from imposter syndrome to creative confidence; and from surprise to delight.

Empowerment and participation are promoted as critical factors in meaningful development processes; however, action-oriented researchers face challenges in fostering genuine empowerment and meaningful participation within traditional funding cycles and research timelines. This case study illustrates a participatory methodology employed by researchers in partnership with one Honduran non-governmental organization (NGO) to conduct 'practical' participatory evaluation with rural Honduran youth. Through collaborative autoethnography, two components of this methodology are identified and described. The first component – 'foundational elements'- includes the NGO's culture of transformative participation and the organization's attention to synergies in the insider/outsider identities of research partners. The second component includes the ability of the research team to leverage this foundation for the participatory evaluation with rural youth. Importantly, this ability was grounded in and shaped by long-term, trust-based relationships between research partners. These relationships were the catalyst for success in this participatory initiative, connecting the 'foundational elements' identified to the collaborative outcomes experienced. Overall, this case study contributes to current and ongoing scholarly discussions on how to facilitate meaningful participation and capability expansion in research and evaluation contexts.