Suchergebnisse

It has long been observed that centralized social control requires some level of cooperation from the populace. Without such assistance, control agents are unable to acquire the local knowledge necessary to locate and prosecute deviants. Yet why citizens cooperate with authorities, especially in the most repressive regimes, remains a puzzle. This article develops two models of such cooperation: in the first, authorities actively use incentives to elicit denunciations from the populace, through either coercion or the promise of rewards. In the second, authorities passively gain access to local negative networks, as individuals denounce to harm others whom they dislike and to gain relative to them. Using internal variation in the early years of the Spanish Inquisition (1486 to 1502) and Romanov Russia (1613 to 1649), I demonstrate the differing effects of each model on patterns of denunciations. Paradoxically, social control is most effective when authorities provide individuals maximum freedom to direct its coercive power.

The primacy of territorial control in theories of civil war has advanced our understanding of war dynamics, most notably lethal violence, but has hindered our understanding of the distinct ways in which armed groups seek control over people. We propose to complement territorial control by separately conceptualising social control, which we define as the extent to which armed groups have access to people and their resources. Access to people requires different tactics compared to access to territory, because people are mobile. We develop a framework in which state and non-state armed groups choose whether to prioritise territorial or social control first in order to gain sovereignty, which requires both territorial and social control. Alternatively, armed groups choose to pursue territorial control or social control only, resulting in corridors or social networks, respectively. We illustrate the advantages of the framework by showing how it allows us to analyse armed groups' tactics to control access to people, to connect research agendas on armed group violence, governance, and civilian displacement, and to better conceptualise armed group power and strength.

Human culture develops as a means for man to control his environment. Primitive cultures rely to a large extent on magical means. The whimiscal and incalculable forces which govern nature are personified, and rituals are developed which are intended to control the actions of the gods. Such cultures tend to be fatalistic. The magical controls are limited and uncertain. One must endure and accept what comes.As culture develops, men turn increasingly to rational control of the environment. Technology arises, and, what is more fundamental, attitudes arise which enable the progressive development and utilization of technological resources. In our culture, full rational control over the environment appears not far from accomplishment.As the forces of nature give way to the development of culture, however, it becomes evident that the culture itself exhibits "forces" or "laws of development" which seem themselves to be beyond control. It has become a commonplace to say that while man has established rational control over nature, he has not done so over his culture, and that this is the next and imperative task. What is too commonly overlooked is the radically different nature of the second problem.It is through culture that rational control of nature is possible. By analogy, it would seem that culture itself must supply the resources to control itself: that is, that rational control over culture must in some sense be reflexive. This raises a set of problems that, even after two thousand years, have not as yet been thought through. The methods and techniques used to control nature may have to be profoundly transformed before they can be used to subject culture to rational control—indeed, the very meaning of the term "rational control" is called into question.

Drinking during pregnancy is not a good predictor of fetal alcohol disorders. Yet, public health campaigns urge women to stay alcohol-free before, during, and after pregnancy, and burden mothers with the responsibility of delivering a healthy child.