Suchergebnisse

Constructivism in the studies of international relations (IR) posits that international institutions have the power to induce a state's socialization into the norms and rules enshrined in these institutions. The study puts this hypothesis to an empirical test by analyzing China's views on intellectual property rights (IPR) since its WTO (World Trade Organization) accession in 2001. The article examines relevant People's Daily commentary articles published from 2001 to 2022 using Structural Topic Model (STM) and domestic scholarly debates. The study identifies four prevalent themes, including IPRs and international competition, strengthening IPR protection, developing indigenous IPRs, and achievements and barriers in IPR development. It finds that although China has increasingly realized the importance of IPRs, China's views on IPRs are predominantly oriented toward a realpolitik discourse on leveraging IPRs to enhance China's overall national power in international competition. While socialization is at best subordinate to China's domestic interests in shaping China's views on IPRs, as the country's worldview acts as a strong mediating force between international ideas and China's views on IPRs.

How do post-authoritarian legislatures craft police oversight? This article applies McCubbins and Schwartz's model of congressional oversight to Myanmar's inaugural post-junta legislature (2011–16). It aims to assess whether parliament began to play a role in police oversight following the end of the junta's rule in 2011. It draws on the analysis of official legislative proceedings and interviews with members of parliament from both the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and the opposition. The findings suggest that—echoing large swathes of scholarship on parliamentary scrutiny in fledgling democracies—an inchoate form of "fire alarm" oversight began to develop. The Union legislature under the USDP emerged as a site for occasionally shedding light on police (mis)behaviour, but failed to effectively act on, or sanction, misconduct. Police scrutiny was tentatively fostered by a handful of backbenchers who had a keen interest in police issues, a background in security affairs or were facing pressure from their constituents to ventilate their grievances against the police in parliament. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the practice of police oversight in new legislatures operating under praetorian settings. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)

Floods can be identified as one of the devastating natural phenomena, which resulted in a considerable amount of social, economic and environmental impacts. Sri Lanka is a country that is highly vulnerable to floods due to its unique geographical location and topography. Many flood management measures, which mainly include structural and nonstructural have implemented to reduce the impact of floods. Among them, structural measures play a vital role in flood management. However, the failures in achieving the expected performance of these existing structural measures urge the need to identify issues with them and overcome those issues to enhance the flood management process in Sri Lanka. Hence, this study focused to investigate the issues related to structural flood management measures in Sri Lanka to bridge this knowledge gap. Initially, a literature review was conducted to gain a theoretical understanding of the research area. The research approach was qualitative, which was followed by two in-depth case studies. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 industry experts to gather data. Collected data were analysed via content analysis. Empirical research findings revealed that structural measures play a prominent role in flood management. However, significant issues such as ageing of structural measures, leakages, construction faults, inadequate capacity, blocking of water flow and possibility of collapsing were identified in these existing structural flood management measures, which negatively impact the effectiveness of the overall flood management process within the country. The findings of this study will lead to gain a proper understanding of gaps and weaknesses in structural flood management measures in Sri Lanka and would influence the policymakers and other respective practitioners in disaster management to enhance structural flood management by using their novel ideas and concepts.