Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Peace referendums can be exploited by political actors who may gain politically from opposing a peace process. This article explores how political opposition affects peace negotiations, particularly when a referendum is used to ratify an agreement, through the study of the Colombian peace negotiations between the government of President Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It finds that the exclusive character of the negotiations, coupled with their confidentiality, contributed to the political opposition's capacity to influence public opinion against the peace process and to reject the peace agreement in the 2016 referendum. This qualitative study is based on the content analysis of reports, memoirs and interviews with key negotiation delegates, journalists and representatives of the referendum campaigns. It argues that political inclusion in peace negotiations can help prevent referendum spoiling, while public information and education during the negotiations can reduce the impact of disinformation and manipulation campaigns.

This reflexive analysis of two sports ethnographers' studies of an aerobics class and a swimming pool explores the effects of doing fieldwork on a physical activity that one loves. While using our bodies as phenomenological sites of perception initially created an epistemological advantage, researching the familiarly beloved not only 'took the fun out of' the activity, but also more profoundly challenged our 'exercise identities'. Emulating poor technique, enduring interactional awkwardness, and deep acting role performances, combined to take their toll, so that 'going native' became a matter not just of intellectual disadvantage but of ontological destabilisation. Doing activity-based ethnography on something personally special is a double-edged sword: on the one hand elucidating awareness, but on the other depriving the researcher of pleasure and 'spoiling' aspects of their identity.

This thesis deals with the role of opium as a conflict resource in the Myanmar civil war. It poses the question whether some actors have developed an interest in deliberately prolonging the conflict because they perceive war as more profitable than peace. The topic has been chosen because there is little to be found in the literature which influence opium has had on the longevity and intensity of the conflicts in Myanmar. The thesis therefore aims to shed light on some of the actors and structures which are connected to the narcotics trade and investigates whether some actors sabotage or have incentives to sabotage the Nationwide Ceasefire Process (NCA) that is still ongoing. The thesis uses the concept of spoilers in peace processes to analyze the conflict. The method is framed by using theories on the role of natural resources on civil wars and on shadow and war economies and black markets. The thesis also makes references to peace and conflict research concepts such as structural violence. The data used comes from five expert interviews, reports by for example the UNODC and the Transnational Institute (TNI), academic literature and news resources. The study found that currently nobody engaged in the narcotics trade has an interest ins sabotaging the NCA for several reasons, one is that a potential ceasefire is unlikely to affect the opium business at all. On the contrary, many former insurgent groups' drug trade activities have started to thrive since they agreed to a ceasefire with the government. This means that a ceasefire, understood as a form of negative peace in this thesis, is perceived more profitable than continued warfare. The NCA might be still threatened by actors because of other reasons, especially political ones. Spoilers might still emerge in the future. The study results point towards other areas, especially the conflict potential of other natural resources such as gemstones and timber as well as to the political reasons for spoiling.

Large proportions of spoilt ballots may lead to a distortion of election results. While invalid votes are sometimes meaningful political acts, reflecting political protest, spoilt ballot papers may also be a consequence of voter error, which can be attributed to the poor design of a ballot paper. In this study, we focus on the widely publicized case of the Polish local elections of 2014. These elections saw unprecedentedly large proportions of spoilt votes, and ballot paper format was often mentioned as a potential culprit. Yet it remains largely unclear whether or not there indeed does exist a cause-and-effect relationship between ballot card format and the tendency of voters to cast invalid votes. We argue that what we deliver here is the first methodologically refined test of the aforementioned hypothesis. We apply the generalized synthetic control comparative method, proposed by Yiquing Xu (in 2017), and show that the implementation of a complex or ambiguous ballot design can result in a substantial increase in the rate of spoilt votes. We thus demonstrate that ballot paper design matters. Specifically, the results of this study corroborate the existence of a cause-and-effect relationship between ballot paper format and the fraction of invalid votes in the 2014 municipal elections in Poland.

Driven by structural theories of international relations, some scholars have described China as either spoiling or shirking the rules-based liberal international order (RBLIO). The convergence of the relative US decline since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and China's assertive diplomacy has aggravated this anxiety. This paper examines the theoretical and empirical validity of this argument by utilizing competing theories of social constructivism and issue–path dependence. Specifically, this paper conducts a brief empirical analysis of China's stances on four core issues of global governance, including (1) voting patterns in the United Nations General Assembly, (2) trade and the World Trade Organization (WTO), (3) South China Sea disputes and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), and (4) the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The results indicate that China has been passive toward the restructuring of legal norms, merely invoking them when a specific dispute arises. Concurrently, China occasionally pursues an alternative institutional platform if the functional concentration of a target institution is diffused and fragmented. In short, the empirical analysis demonstrates the salience of claims for China's issue–path dependence. The paper concludes with theoretical and policy implications, concluding that as China holds no predetermined, concrete stance on all components of the rules-based liberal international order, disintegrating the country from it could be a fatal mistake.

It is not here contended that any portion of the South African races are on the same mental level as the Aryan-speaking white races; but that education, the drawing out of such germinative gifts of nature as now lie dormant, will affect beneficially both the subject race ruled and the race that rules. New thoughtful persons hold the opinion that the African is the equal of the European; but that he is capable under European hegemony of making rapid progress in the arts of civilisation, and of adding his own peculiar gifts to the world's treasures of knowledge and desirable things - is certain. It is true there are those in South Africa who have the most un-British idea that the exploitation of the Native should be carried on in the interests only of the white man, they would in fact make them helots. A higher conception of our relation to them is now, happily, gaining ground. Slowly but surely public opinion is becoming imbued with a sense of responsibility, and the leavening process has begun with the rulers. It has however, but just commenced and there is much prejudice and ignorance to overcome.