Suchergebnisse

There are many regions that meet the necessary conditions for sovereign governance in the world, but few secessionist conflicts. I argue that this relative paucity of secessionist violence is the result of government preemption of potential secessionist movements. Using cross-national geospatial data from 1992 to 2013, I find that governments invest more, measured via nighttime light emissions, in more secession-prone regions. The same factors that make territory attractive for secession, such as large populations and international borders, also make governments willing to work to retain control of that territory, contributing to the scarcity of separatist civil conflicts.

There are many regions that meet the necessary conditions for sovereign governance in the world, but few secessionist conflicts. I argue that this relative paucity of secessionist violence is the result of government preemption of potential secessionist movements. Using cross-national geospatial data from 1992 to 2013, I find that governments invest more, measured via nighttime light emissions, in more secession-prone regions. The same factors that make territory attractive for secession, such as large populations and international borders, also make governments willing to work to retain control of that territory, contributing to the scarcity of separatist civil conflicts.

This book is about the increasing significance of DNA profiling for crime investigation in modern society. It focuses on developments in the UK as the world-leader in the development and application of forensic DNA technology and in the construction of DNA databases as an essential element in the successful use of DNA for forensic purposes. The book uses data collected during the course of Welcome Trust funded research into police uses of the UK National DNA Database (NDNAD) to describe the rela

What explains right-wing radicalization in the United States? Existing research emphasizes demographic changes, economic insecurity, and elite polarization. This paper highlights an additional factor: the impact of foreign wars on society at home. We argue communities that bear the greatest costs of foreign wars are prone to higher rates of right-wing radicalization. To support this claim, we present robust correlations between activity on Parler, a predominantly right-wing social media platform, and fatalities among residents who served in U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at both the county and census tract level. The findings contribute to understanding right-wing radicalization in the US in two key respects. First, it examines widespread, nonviolent radical-right activity that, because it is less provocative than protest and violence, has eluded systematic measurement. Second, it highlights that U.S. foreign wars have important implications for domestic politics beyond partisanship and voting, to potentially include radicalization.

Abstract
Do rebels target civilians as part of the process of establishing control in their territories? This research note shows that transition periods after rebels gain territorial control are remarkably violent for civilians. Speaking to the civilian victimization and rebel governance literature, we investigate the immediate time period after rebels successfully capture and hold territory. We argue that rebels use violence to gain compliance in newly captured territories until they are able to build up local capacities and institutions for peaceful governance. To test this argument, we draw on methodological advances in integrating event data and combine multiple datasets to study patterns of violence perpetrated by the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone from 1997 to 2001. The findings of our spatiotemporal analysis show that civilian targeting increases in the period after rebels capture territory from the government compared to areas without territorial takeover, suggesting that life under the roof of rebels is initially more dangerous for civilians.

Do rebels target civilians as part of the process of establishing control in their territories? This research note shows that transition periods after rebels gain territorial control are remarkably violent for civilians. Speaking to the civilian victimization and rebel governance literature, we investigate the immediate time period after rebels successfully capture and hold territory. We argue that rebels use violence to gain compliance in newly captured territories until they are able to build up local capacities and institutions for peaceful governance. To test this argument, we draw on methodological advances in integrating event data and combine multiple datasets to study patterns of violence perpetrated by the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone from 1997 to 2001. The findings of our spatiotemporal analysis show that civilian targeting increases in the period after rebels capture territory from the government compared to areas without territorial takeover, suggesting that life under the roof of rebels is initially more dangerous for civilians.

The Ecodesign and Energy Labelling directives are key policy measures to increase energy efficiency in Europe. European industry has a crucial role during all phases of the legislative process: Industry stakeholders are involved in defining the levels the measures are set at in the policy making process. Industry is required to improve their product portfolio to comply with the regulations, and is directly influenced by the Ecodesign regulations for key technologies such as electric motors. The Ecodesign and Labelling directives have the potential to positively impact the innovation activities and competitiveness of manufacturers. It is therefore important to optimise the factors that influence the innovation friendliness of the regulation in the upcoming revision of the Ecodesign directive in 2014. Such factors include the level of ambition, industry participation in setting standards, the technical capabilities of regulators as well as the stability, speed and predictability of the regulatory process. The main goal of this study is to provide empirical evidence of the innovation impact of the Ecodesign and Labelling directives and to identify the factors that influence this. We choose a quantitative analysis of patent data combined with a qualitative analysis of primary data collected in a series of company case studies selected from different industry sectors. The results of our study indicate that while both Ecodesign and Labelling can have a positive impact on the deployment and diffusion of innovations, their impact on the R&D stages of the innovation process are rather limited. For Ecodesign, the level of ambition of the requirements plays an important role for the innovation impact. For Labelling, other factors such as the consumers' response to the label or the market position of the company are equally important. For both Ecodesign and Labelling, a long-term innovation impact can only be sustained if the enforcement of the regulation is guaranteed.

AbstractMuch of the peace agreement durability literature assumes that stronger peace agreements are more likely to survive the trials of the post-conflict environment. This work does an excellent job identifying which provisions indicate that agreements are more likely to endure. However, there is no widely accepted way to directly measure the strength of agreements, and existing measures suffer from a lack of nuance or reliance on subjective weighting. We use a Bayesian item response theory model to develop a principled measure of the latent strength of peace agreements in civil conflicts from 1975 to 2005. We illustrate the measure's utility by exploring how various international factors such as sanctions and mediation contribute to the strength or weakness of agreements.