Suchergebnisse

Existing work seeks explanations for state repression mainly in domestic factors such as ethnic/religious cleavages, poverty and inequality, struggle for power, regime type and quality of state institutions, lack of loyalty, demand for scapegoats, and cultural or psychological traits of perpetrators. How foreign influences shape state repression has been given less attention. Furthermore, the focus of the empirical literature has been largely cross-country, leaving much local variation unexplained. In this article, I examine how far foreign interests can explain the local (spatial) variation of deportations and massacres during the Armenian genocide. Between 1915 and 1917 the Ottoman Empire carried out a massive campaign of state repression (deportations and massacres) against its Armenian population. There was meaningful variation across Ottoman provinces in the intensity of this campaign, that is, some provinces experienced more repression than others. I investigate the determinants of this spatial variation. My empirical analysis is guided by a rationalist (economic) model where deportation is a tool to stifle Armenian calls for independence, but the benefit and cost of deportation vary spatially. For example, deportation is costlier (i.e. the risk of foreign intervention is greater) in locations where foreign economic and military interests are threatened by the departure of Armenians. In line with the model's predictions, my empirical analysis indicates that there were fewer deportations in places where Armenians worked for the German-owned railway.

This article examines whether refugees are prime candidates for recruitment into armed groups and whether humanitarian aid to refugees impacts their choice to join armed groups. First, our original survey data of 1,358 Syrian households in Lebanon provide evidence that mobilization among the refugee population is low at baseline—the first empirical estimates of the magnitude of the rate of Syrian refugees returning home to fight. Second, leveraging as-if random assignment around a strict altitude cutoff for a United Nations cash transfer program for Syrian refugees, we find little evidence that the aid program had a large effect on mobilization. If anything, our estimates indicate a small decrease in mobilization. Our results stand in contrast to published literature arguing that refugees are prime candidates to join armed groups and humanitarian aid to refugees may support armed groups and fuel recruitment.

This study was aimed at evaluating aspects of a publicly owned corporation 'sperformance in terms of process rather than in terms of financial outcomes. An episode was chosen where performance in dealing with relatively well-defined problems might be appraised through specifying the task environment and identifying the problem representation and search processes employed. The use made of formal systems modeling and analysis in the study is to specify a task environment against which performance can be appraised. Criteria are introduced for identifying better or worse search processes, varying degrees of problem difficulty, and more or less comprehensive representations of task environment. The evidence is used to support evaluative statements on managers' problem-solving performance. Further work which would strengthen such evaluation is indicated together with lines for future comparative research.

Anti-refugee violence often accompanies refugee migration, but the factors that fuel or mitigate that violence remain poorly understood, including the common policy response in such settings of humanitarian aid. Existing theory and policy debates predict that aid to refugees exacerbates anti-refugee violence by increasing hosts' resentment toward refugees. In contrast, however, aid may reduce violence in ways such as increasing host communities' well-being through more demand for local goods and services and refugees sharing aid. We test for the sign and mechanisms of this relationship. Evidence from original survey data and a regression discontinuity design suggests that cash transfers to Syrian refugees in Lebanon did not increase anti-refugee violence, and if anything they reduced violence. Exploring why aid does not increase hostility, we find evidence that aid allows recipients to indirectly compensate locals through higher demand for local goods and services, directly benefit locals by offering help and sharing aid, and reduce contact with potential aggressors.

The technically recoverable global wave energy resource is estimated to be between 2 PWh/year and 5.5 PWh/year, approximately 12% and 32% of global electricity consumption. Despite wave energy's vast global potential, there has been relatively little commercial deployment to date. There is large variation in both the current estimated and future expected electricity generation costs associated with wave technologies. This paper quantifies a forecasted levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for wave energy by performing a two-stage Monte Carlo simulation, considering both the variability in current LCOE estimates and uncertainty in the one-factor learning rate. We compare the forecasted LCOE to wave energy targets of the European Union and U.S. Department of Energy and show the criticality of support mechanisms to achieve learning rates that lead to economic competitiveness in the utility-scale markets.

© 2017 IEEE. The technically recoverable global wave energy resource is estimated to be between 2 PWh/year and 5.5 PWh/year, approximately 12% and 32% of global electricity consumption. Despite wave energy's vast global potential, there has been relatively little commercial deployment to date. There is large variation in both the current estimated and future expected electricity generation costs associated with wave technologies. This paper quantifies a forecasted levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for wave energy by performing a two-stage Monte Carlo simulation, considering both the variability in current LCOE estimates and uncertainty in the one-factor learning rate. We compare the forecasted LCOE to wave energy targets of the European Union and U.S. Department of Energy and show the criticality of support mechanisms to achieve learning rates that lead to economic competitiveness in the utility-scale markets.