Political Science

Published in Yonsei Journal of International Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Summer 2015): 140-141.

REVIEW: Blaine Harden, The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and the Young Lieutenant Who Stole His Way to Freedom (New York: Viking, 2015); 304 pages; $27.95.

In The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, Blaine Harden, the famed author of Escape from Camp 14, recounts the first years of the North Korean state through the experiences of Kim Il Sung and No Kum Sok.  The stories of the former, the founder of the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (DPRK) and the latter, a North Korean fighter pilot-turned-defector, remind us of the diverse individuals who sought to navigate the DPRK’s first tumultuous years.  As Kim triumphed in power struggles at the top and sought to remake North Korea in his own image, No, whose father had worked for the Japanese before August 1945, survived at the bottom by praising communism until he could escape to South Korea...

By all appearances, Janine Thomas should have been happy. Appearances, though, can be deceiving. The morning was bright and clear with just a hint of coming autumn. The air was cool and dry and the sun cast a gold tint off the large oaks that provided shade to her backyard. Janine was sitting on the back deck enjoying the quiet morning and trying to figure out why she wasn't happy. To the casual observer, she should have been. Outwardly, everything was going well. She and her husband were doing well financially. She loved the interior decorating business she owned. She kept her own hours and really didn't have to work at all had she not wanted to. She did so because she enjoyed it. The problem was her marriage. She and Steve had married three years earlier. There was no doubt about her love for him. The problem was his immaturity. She hadn't noticed it when they were dating. Or, if she did, she had thought it was cute, or she had thought she could change him, or some suc...

Il libro è frutto della volontà di alcuni ricercatori e ricercatrici di rischiarare le ombre attorno al tema oggi rilevante dei servizi ecosistemici, cercando di indagare in maniera approfondita la sua consistenza e – soprattutto – utilità nel campo delle scienze del territorio. Che i servizi ecosistemici siano un argomento decisivo e centrale in questo periodo storico per il governo del territorio, lo dimostra il susseguirsi di seminari scientifici e la presenza del termine in documenti e agende politiche nazionali e internazionali, dove questi vengono correlati agli strumenti di pianificazione territoriale. Il tema è però scivoloso e si presenta difficilmente ‘afferrabile’ per poter ambire a un’effettiva operatività. Con varie sfumature e accezioni diverse, le tante voci che animano questo volume sottolineano come contabilizzare le dotazioni ecosistemiche sia un passaggio basilare per progettare un sistema insediativo realmente resiliente, in grado di far fronte ai cambiamenti cli...

ABSTRACTThe public health crisis of COVID-19 has compounded preexisting crises of democratic stability and effective governance, spurring debate about the ability of developed democracies to respond effectively to emergencies confronting their citizens. These crises, much discussed in recent political science, are joined by a further crisis which complicates and reinforces them: A migration crisis. Widespread travel and immigration restrictions instigated the largest and fastest decline in global human mobility in modern history, and COVID-19 may fundamentally change immigration over the longer term.The migration crisis heightens three crucial and preexisting concerns within immigration policy: the role of visa design; the status of undocumented migrants and other migrants without recourse to public funds; and the interaction of immigration and the labor market policy. It could reinforce a rising tide of nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment, protectionist sentiment within labor-...

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) constitutes the Union’s first genuine instrument of direct democracy. The first experiences with regard to its deployment have however proved disappointing, criticism of the instrument is mounting, and suggestions for reform abound. This raises the question whether the ECI holds any genuine potential to enhance the legitimacy of the EU - or whether it should at least in this regard be considered an ineffective, misguided experiment instead. The current paper provides a response by triangulating three types of data: legal insight and argument, empirical information with regard to the functioning of the instrument in the first five years of its operation, and a rational assessment of the procedure, now and in the future. This allows for a comprehensive reflection on the impact the ECI has had, and what impact it may yet have in the long or medium term, on the overall legitimacy of the EU.

SUMMARY Sections 34, 35 and 41 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999 CFRN) guarantee the rights to dignity of the person, personal liberty and freedom of movement. These rights connote that no one shall be arbitrarily arrested; anyone arrested shall be brought before a court of competent jurisdiction within a reasonable time, otherwise such detention is unlawful; where a person is lawfully detained, it shall be under humane conditions. Despite these constitutional safeguards, people continue to be detained in detention centres beyond the permissible periods without an order of court and in inhumane conditions. Thus, unlawful detention is one of the challenges confronting the administration of the criminal justice sector in Nigeria. In 2015 the National Assembly, in a bid to address the challenges in the sector, particularly unlawful and inhumane detention, enacted the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) which is generally perceived as revolution...

Précis
Africa faces the usual panoply of challenges endemic in developing countries with too few instruments and too few resources, while also grappling with the perennial problem of managing development. These are sequencing of policy reforms, all subject to the political constraints of containing the disruptive impacts of policy reforms to acceptable levels. This is a particularly important problem for Africa given the very narrow margins for manoeuvre imposed by fiscal and external deficits, subsistence levels of household income for much of the population and a complex political weave in the regions social fabric. Getting the priorities right and managing change are thus particularly vital issues for African integration. Hence, infrastructure development (energy, ICT, roads, railways, hydro dams, power transmission and industry – sugar factories, metallurgy, fertilizer plants…), a consumer goods revolution is just beginning in much of Africa. Emerging export industries—in mining, manufacturing and exportable services— are already making their mark as sources of growth in the economy and will soon overtake traditional foreign exchange earnings from minerals and agricultural goods. However, two overwhelming pressures in Africa's current economic climate—inflation and challenging new regulations—are putting strains on private business and could potentially dent the country's positive growth prospects. Hence, Africa should modify regulatory policies that inflate business costs and depress urban consumer incomes, go for bolder and more unconventional agricultural policies and put in place a smarter set of policies for the financial sector. Much of the public investment laid out in the two cases are needed, justified , and on the whole appropriate, but how such investment is to be financed remains only partially addressed and the issue of who should carry out the investments is—in at least three specific cases—quite questionable. The case for government investments in public goods such as roads and power infrastructure is undeniable, as it is laying the essential founda-tions—the necessary conduits and circuitry—of a modern economy.

What are the legacies of violence on gendered patterns of political representation? We examine the long-term effects of a watershed conflict of the twentieth century: the Khmer Rouge genocide, during which 50–70% of Cambodia’s working-age men were killed. Using original data on mass killings and economic and political conditions in Cambodian communes, we find that genocide exposure is positively associated with women’s economic advancement and present-day indicators of women’s representation in local-level elected office. We conduct in-depth, ethnographic interviews with genocide survivors to explore the mechanisms by which violence spurred women into elected office. A crucial finding emerges: In areas that suffered the genocide’s worst killings, widows obtained economic autonomy, providing a template for the economic advancement of women in households maintaining conventional gender roles. The shift in norms regarding the sexual division of labor created intra-communal and intergen...

Este artículo analiza de qué manera la institucionalidad internacional del ‘desarrollo’, a través de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sustentable y las políticas de erradicación de la pobreza global, ha respondido a la crisis del patrón civilizatorio moderno-occidental cuyos síntomas más visibles son el cambio climático y la extinción de especies. Desde una perspectiva crítica que se nutre tanto de los feminismos del Sur como del pensamiento decolonial, se muestran la continuidad y centralidad de lógicas patriarcales, coloniales y de clase que subyacen a la Agenda 2030 de Naciones Unidas y configuran el discurso hegemónico alrededor del ‘desarrollo’ en el siglo XXI. Asimismo, se analizan algunas de sus consecuencias específicas para las mujeres del Sur Global, quienes se movilizan en los últimos años en defensa del sostenimiento de la vida y se explora si esta Agenda plantea efectivamente un cambio de paradigma, como lo sugieren algunos autores, o si, en cambio, constituye más bien un ej...

ABSTRACT Since the signing of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement of 1998, Northern Ireland has made significant progress towards a postcolonising transformation of its political culture and its major political and social institutions, as it has shifted away from violence and the dominance of political ideologies structured by the friend–enemy distinction. These ideological formations and the practices of social and political antagonism that they prescribed have been challenged by adversary–neighbour ideological formations that construct identities and relations through more inclusive norms of recognition and that support a more complex emotional constellation. However, as this cultural transformation has been neither thoroughgoing nor universal, Northern Ireland finds itself in the somewhat counter-intuitive situation in which the shift away from the violence of the past has increased, rather than reduced, the ontological insecurity of its citizens. Moreover, as ontological security may be supported by either friend–enemy or adversary–neighbour ideological formations, two distinct ways in which ontological security may collapse or re-configure have emerged in Northern Ireland.

The state-making of Somaliland has been borne out of the experiences gained from the aborted union between the British Protectorate of Somaliland and Italian Somalia. The driving aim behind the proclamation of statehood was to reinstate Somaliland's sovereignty and independence that was lost in 1960. Somalilanders were galvanized by the euphoria of Somali nationalism in the pursuit of the greater Somali Republic in the Horn of Africa that all five Somali territories unite into one nation-state. Their zeal merely earned them destruction. Such destruction includes the tyranny and genocide which was inflicted upon the land and people for over the thirty years whilst the failed union lasted. Therefore, this article reexamines historical mistakes in the post-colonial period and the negative consequences of the union of thirty years with Somalia. It explores Somaliland's experiences of this failed merger, and Somaliland's achievements and challenges over the past thirty years since Somaliland regained its sovereignty. The article compares and contrasts how Somaliland fared during each of the thirtyyear periods. The article also analyses the challenges posed by the non-recognition on political grounds that prevented Somaliland to attain its sovereign rights. Despite the critical and difficult conditions that confronted the state-making process of Somaliland, the interplay between state and non-state actors had become the means and methods to create durable peace and political stability which prevented vengeful acts, anarchy, and political turmoil in Somaliland. The historical backdrop of the unsuccessful merger, too, has become a salient factor and thriving agenda for Somaliland to prove its internal sovereignty, statehood, and a workable political system based on multiparty, competitive elections, and a check and balance of the state organs. The Republic of Somaliland has likewise become a potent regional and international player for the fate of peace, security, and regional economic integration.

ABSTRACT Many people point to high profile failures like 9/11 and Iraq as indicators that CIA's analytic performance is inadequate or flawed. Flawed by design.1 A legacy of ashes.2 A culture of failure.3 Or so goes the conventional wisdom. Fortunately this conventional wisdom is wrong. These so-called failures more accurately represent the perennial dilemmas and tradeoffs associated with the analytic function and, most importantly, the inappropriate expectation that these observers hold of CIA's ability to prevent surprises. As a matter of fact, there is much that people do not fully understand about the CIA.

The UK is in a critical juncture with regard to the process of negotiations to leave the European Union. Important discussions are taking place during 2018 which will shape the future relation between Britain and the EU. The economic analyses published on the issue have, so far, largely failed to grasp the attention of the general public. Most of the discussions about Brexit take place in what could be described as elite circles and tend to be London based; there has been very little evidence-based discussion at local levels. Moreover, one of the obstacles to local level evidence based discussions is a distrust of expert evidence.

Waarschuwingen dat de sociale wetenschappen verschralen door de dominantie van survey-onderzoek en kwantitatieve methoden, zijn de afgelopen jaren herhaaldelijk voorbij gekomen (Boomkens 2008, Houtman 2009, Blommaert 2012). Daar tegenover staan auteurs die de opmars van kwantitatieve methoden juist positief waarderen en stellen dat deze heeft bijgedragen aan de professionele status van de sociale wetenschappen (Wilterdink 2011). In dit commentaar wordt de discussie wat geconcretiseerd aan de hand van een reactie op het artikel ‘Nieuw rechts en de verzorgingsstaat’ van Willem de Koster, Peter Achterberg en Jeroen van der Waal (De Koster et al. 2013), overigens zonder het artikel te willen beladen met al teveel symbolisch gewicht.

Cyber conflict between states is a growing trend. There is a large body of research on cyber conflict, but there is very little quantitative analysis to support the theories or to assist in predicting future use of cyber operations. Using a logistic regression analysis, this thesis studies cyber conflicts between dyadic rivals from 2001 to 2011 to answer under what conditions cyber incidents occur between dyadic rivals in the past in the hopes to better analyze and predict future cyber incidents. The data demonstrate that the geographic proximity between dyads increases the probability of a cyber incident occurring while any or both of the dyads holds membership in NATO causes a decrease in the probability that cyber operations occur between dyadic rivals. The share of military personnel, military expenditure, and energy consumption is not enough to explain cyber incident trends. The results also show that many of my variables are conditional upon each other for their significance. It is imperative that states address the issues surrounding cyber conflict as the trend is increasing. At the present, the fear of retaliation will always be present as some argue that cyber defensive capabilities will never overtake cyber offensive capabilities as the latter is constantly transforming and evolving while the former is constantly playing “catch up.”

The first independent career related decisions are made during the ninth grade of the elementary school when the further educational institution is selected. The concept of possible selves can be used in career education to help students increase self-awareness, explore and generate options, and formulate plans to achieve future goals. The aim of the article is to examine rural adolescents’ ability to generate career-related possible selves and plausible strategies to attain these possible selves. On the basis of the Possible Selves Theory, the open-ended measure was developed by the author. The pilot research was carried out in Latvia in January 2013. Forty six nine-graders from two rural elementary schools and two rural secondary schools participated in the research. Next year and adult possible selves generated by rural adolescents include such domains as education, employment, leisure activities, physical and personal development, as well as interpersonal relationships and lifes...

n his 1976 dedication of the Connecticut College library, Kurt Vonnegut compared a library to a noodle factory, noting that in a society where many people do not really enjoy reading,"Noodles are okay. Libraries are okay. They are rather neutral good news." It was an indifference, however, that could be tolerated three decades ago when libraries still maintained primacy as central repositories of information. In contrast, in this era of existential crisis and as libraries scramble for "relevance," in face of a crisis of definition and mission, the urgent question then arises: What new paradigms must be formulated to define the mission of the 21st-century library and delineate how that mission can better support both education and culture?

With the increase of refugee movements since 2014 in Europe and the Near East, the debate of how to plan appropriate shelters and emergency accommodation has gained a new momentum. Established techno-managerial approaches have been criticised as inappropriate and the professional community of planners and architects was increasingly drawn into debates for alternative solutions. This article traces the “innovations” that promise better, more effective, and more humane emergency shelters using the examples of the “Tempohomes” in Berlin as well as the Jordanian refugee camps of Zaatari and Azraq. In both cases, planners were employed to address the ambivalent reality of protracted refugee camps and include “lessons” from failures of earlier solutions. While the article acknowledges the genuine attempt of planners to engage with the more complex needs and expectations of refugees, a careful look at the results of the planning for better camps reveals ambivalent outcomes. As camps acquir...

The fall of the Muslim civilization resulted from the rejection of reason. The rejection of reason was a result of the characterization of the use of reason to know revelation as kufr. The rejection of reason became explicit in the shutting of the gates to ijtihad and was reinforced by al-Ghazali’s attack on philosophers. The rejection of reason found political expression in the repression of the rationalists by Musa al-Hadi in 786. The slaughter of five-thousand philosophers was an event analogous to the Reign of Terror of the Jacobins, under Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. Sixteen thousand followers of “tradition” were beheaded at the guillotine with the emergence of the Age of Reason, touted by the European Enlightenment, a millennium afterwards. In Islam, the rejection of reason made it harder to understand and follow revelation. The perception that “all knowledge is in the Quran” did not help matters. This was an example of perfunctory thought. For it automatically withheld the designation of “knowledge” from all knowledge not in the Quran. This perception was based on a problematic understanding of epistemology or what constitutes knowledge. It was a reflection of hubris. In response to the bewilderment caused the prohibition of the use of reason, exegetes alleged that revelation features “ambiguous” passages. The rejection of reason made it hard to know and follow revelation. It also made it hard to understand key terms as “mutashabihat,” “hikma,” and “hawa.” As a result, Muslims turned to tradition, which replaced reason for the purpose of explaining revelation. But to “explain” revelation, tradition had to be elevated to an “equal” of revelation and subsequently even “above” revelation.
For the expectation that it would “explain” revelation placed tradition in the position of a “judge” of revelation. The elevation of tradition above revelation reversed the relation of revelation and tradition. The word of God was subordinated to the words of persons. The reversal of the relationship between revelation and tradition facilitated the adoption of the teaching of abrogation. The abrogation of the peace verses by the ayah as-sayf transformed Islam into “political Islam.” The abrogation of revelation by tradition transformed Islam into “traditional Islam.” The application of the teaching of abrogation warped penal law. The abrogation of revelation by tradition subjugated revelation to tradition. Hence, the process that led to this requires attention. It is necessary to restore revelation to its pre-eminence in relation to tradition, to rehabilitate reason, and to ensure that all laws are in agreement with revelation rather than based on inclination. (4 pages)

In this article, I focus on a set of collectively stitched handkerchiefs commemorating victims of Mexico’s “war on drugs.” I propose that these embroideries completed in relays can be conceived as the tangible manifestation of work done by collaboration networks articulated by the response of the participants to the call for a critical exercise of citizenship. I posit that the word “citizenship” can be read either as domestic citizenry, that is, as exhorting Mexican nationals to commit to the political struggle against violence and impunity; or as global citizenship, that is, as promoting a responsibility towards and a sense of interconnectedness with a common humanity. In both cases, the call for a critical exercise of citizenship expresses a concern to promote and act in accordance with an ethics of nonviolence, informed by the principles of indigenous communal polities and by the longstanding connection between embroidery and feminine moral virtue imported into New Spain during t...

Mentality is defined as an assembly of manners of acting or thinking about someone or something. Related to the history of mentalities in the 19th century the core elements were the building of the nation and the constitutional law and only at the beginning of the 20th century the economic development and the relations between social classes. Mentalities change hard

Human need and related concepts such as basic needs have long been part of the implicit conceptual foundation for social work theory, practice, and research. However, while the published literature in social work has long stressed social justice, and has incorporated discussion of human rights, human need has long been both a neglected and contested concept. In recent years, the explicit use of human needs theory has begun to have a significant influence on the literature in social work.

Today’s young people in Central and Eastern Europe are the first cohort with­out direct experience of the socialist system. For those in Poland, the opportu­nities of the free market, free movement within the EU, and democratic stand­ards have become the norm. Thousands of young Poles regularly take to the streets, not only to demand higher wages and improved working conditions for doctors or teachers, but also to protest against the judicial reforms that the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party undertook in 2017. At the same time, more Polish youth than expected voted for PiS in local elections in 2018.

A ZOiS survey conducted in February 2019 provides insights into the political attitudes of young Poles, their political engagement, and their views on and experiences with other countries in the run-up to two important elections: the parliamentary vote on 13 October 2019 and the presidential election due by May 2020 at the latest.

How do leaders' idiosyncrasies are developed, and how do these, in turn, impact their political behaviour? This study traces the idiosyncratic behaviour of Presidents Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump. It details four historical traditions-Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, and Jacksonian. The study expands upon Jacksonian tradition and sees that how Trump pursued this tradition and how is his political behaviour remained similar to that of Andrew Jackson. Three specific areas in which these variables are determined are personal lives, narcissism and authoritarian behaviour, and populism and corruption. The paper also charts out the ways and means through which Donald Trump's administration is termed as Jacksonian in nature.

https://journalistethics.com/
Free book available in PDF at this link

This book lifts the veil to identify the puppet masters behind the MK Ultra Mind Control shills that front the New World Disorder Dystopia. The usual suspects are named: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Benjamin Netanyahu, Fake religious Patriarchs and a list of celebrities from Hollywood and other MK Ultra mind control realms.

The EURAM annual conference is approaching fast. The general programme is now out: www.euram2010.org.
I hope you will attend the Public Management track; 37 papers have been double-blind reviewed and selected among 100! The programme is attached.
We have also organized a plenary symposium “If public governance means everything, is it possible that it means nothing? Exploring boundaries and manifestations of a blurred concept” with the participation of Stephen Osborne (University of Edinburgh & President of the IRSPM), Myrna Mandell (California State University), Reto Steiner (University of Bern & EURAM Public Management SIG), Les Metcalfe (Durham University Business School), Christoph Reichard (University of Potsdam).