Suchergebnisse

Describes the February 2008 Vienna Forum which brought together 2,000 representatives of governments, international organizations, & civil society groups to confront the reality of human trafficking, said to be the world's third largest illicit activity. Emphasis is placed on the need for a new paradigm that recognizes the victims of trafficking as also victims of the global economic order & prevailing social context. Steps to be taken for the development of an international structure to ensure cooperation/coordination between stakeholders & anti-human trafficking initiatives are discussed. Adapted from the source document.

Partial contents: Lessons from Latin America; Revolutionary guerrilla warfare; Mass mobilization and political culture; based on conference paper.

Are certain ethnic cleavages more conflict-prone than others? While only few scholars focus on the contents of ethnicity, most of those who do argue that political violence is more likely to occur along religious divisions than linguistic ones. We challenge this claim by analyzing the path from linguistic differences to ethnic civil war along three theoretical steps: (1) the perception of grievances by group members, (2) rebel mobilization, and (3) government accommodation of rebel demands. Our argument is tested with a new data set of ethnic cleavages that records multiple linguistic and religious segments for ethnic groups from 1946 to 2009. Adopting a relational perspective, we assess ethnic differences between potential challengers and the politically dominant group in each country. Our findings indicate that intrastate conflict is more likely within linguistic dyads than among religious ones. Moreover, we find no support for the thesis that Muslim groups are particularly conflict-prone.

We have long recognized technology as a driving force behind much historical and cultural change. The invention of the printing press initiated the Reformation. The development of the compass ushered in the Age of Exploration and the discovery of the New World. The cotton gin created the conditions that led to the Civil War. Now, in 'Beyond Engineering', science writer Robert Pool turns the question around to examine how society shapes technology. Drawing on such disparate fields as history, economics, risk analysis, management science, sociology and psychology, Pool illuminates the complex, often fascinating interplay between machines and society, in a book that will revolutionize how we think about technology.

Canada's policy towards Guatemala has historically been marked by two topics: human rights and business opportunities. Despite deteriorating relations with Canadian and transnational civil society on the issue of mining, the Harper government continues to promote human rights in Guatemala. This article proposes a theoretical reflection on the instrumentalization of human rights in Canadian foreign policy by analyzing the Guatemalan case since the 1980s. In fact the instrumentalization of human rights has always been part of the (re)definition process of the Canadian identity through Internationalism and now with Neoconservatism in foreign policy. Adapted from the source document.