Digital Commons Network^™

Predicting Genocide And Mass Atrocities, Ernesto Verdeja

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article examines several current risk assessment and early warning models to predict genocide and mass atrocities. Risk assessment (RA) concerns a country’s long­-term structural conditions (regime type, state-led discrimination, etc.) that determine overall risk for atrocities. Early warning (EW) focuses on short/midterm dynamics that can serve as triggers. The article evaluates contemporary RA and EW forecast modeling, and asks: How well can we predict mass atrocities and genocide? What are the strengths and limitations to current predictive modeling? Part I examines several quantitative (statistical) RA models and identifies several strengths and limitations in current research. Part II investigates a …

Why The U.S. Government Failed To Anticipate The Rwandan Genocide Of 1994: Lessons For Early Warning And Prevention, Matthew Levinger

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

During the months leading up to the Rwandan genocide of 1994, cognitive biases obstructed the capacity of U.S. government analysts and policymakers to anticipate mass violence against the country’s Tutsi minority. Drawing on recently declassified U.S. government documents and on interviews with key current and former officials, this essay shows that most U.S. government reporting on Rwanda before April 1994 utilized a faulty cognitive frame that failed to differentiate between threats of civil war and genocide. Because U.S. officials framed the crisis in Rwanda as a potential civil war, they underestimated the virulence of the threat to Tutsi civilians and …

Dangerous Speech And Dangerous Ideology: An Integrated Model For Monitoring And Prevention, Jonathan Leader Maynard, Susan Benesch

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

There is considerable agreement amongst scholars and international actors that ideologies and speech play a critical role in the path of escalation towards mass atrocity crimes. Speech features prominently in the jurisprudence of the U.N. war crimes tribunal for Rwanda, for example, and in historical accounts of the months and years preceding many other genocides. Nonetheless, this is one of the most underdeveloped components of genocide and atrocity prevention, in both theory and practice. This paper draws together the authors’ independent past work on dangerous speech and the ideological dynamics of mass atrocities by offering a new integrated model to …

Eliminating Rivals, Managing Rivalries: A Comparison Of Robert Mugabe And Kenneth Kaunda, Stephen Mcloughlin, Maartje Weerdesteijn

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article seeks to explore the role that leadership plays in both the perpetration and avoidance of mass atrocities. Many scholars have argued that leadership is pivotal to the outbreak of such violence but there is almost no scholarship which explores the role that political leaders play in mitigating or aggravating the risk of atrocities over time. Why is it that mass atrocities occur in some places but not in others, despite the existence of similar risk factors? By conducting a comparative analysis of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, this paper investigates the impact that the …

More Lessons Learned From The Holocaust - Towards A Complexity-Embracing Approach To Why Genocide Occurs, Timothy Williams

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Why do genocides occur? This paper applies qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to revisit this question, and analyses 139 cases of genocide and non-genocide. The paper demonstrates the importance of both priming, contextual conditions which provide a political opportunity structure conducive to genocide, as well as triggering, more proximate conditions which constitute immanent motivations. Most centrally, sufficiency is demonstrated for genocide occurrence when an autocratic regime and the salience of an elite's ethnicity are present, and are combined with either an exclusionary ideology or political upheaval. As such, the autocratic nature of the state provides an opportunity structure allowing genocide to …

“Don't Think But Look:” Using Wittgenstein's Notion Of Family Resemblances To Look At Genocide, James J. Snow

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article contributes to the ongoing and growing scholarly conversation concerning how best to define the term “genocide” following Raphael Lemkin’s coining of the term in 1944. The article first shows that the Convention definition ratified in Paris in 1948 was intended solely for juridical purposes and does not reflect Lemkin’s deeper understanding of genocide. It then surveys a range of scholarship after Lemkin that argues for alternative definitions of term or even calls for jettisoning the term altogether. While it is acknowledged that a clear definition is imperative in a juridical context, it is argued that there are problems …

The Italian Swiss Dna, Tony Quinn

Swiss American Historical Society Review

DNA testing is the new frontier in genealogical research. While the paper records of American and European churches and civil bodies are now generally available on line, DNA opens a new avenue of research into the period well before the advent of written records. And it is allowing people to make connections heretofore impossible to make.

Technical Speech: Patents, Expert Knowledge, And The First Amendment, Feroz Ali

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Reclassifying Geostationary Earth Orbit As Private Property: Why Natural Law And Utilitarian Theories Of Property Demand Privatization, Ian Blodger

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

The Hermeneutics Of International Trade Conflicts: U.S. Punitive Trade Policy Towards China And Japan, Barry F. Murdaco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes punitive trade conflicts between the U.S. and two trading partners: China and Japan. Punitive trade conflicts can be defined as trade wars between two states, retaliatory tariffs, or other forms of conflict, e.g. preventing the acquisition of foreign assets or sanctions for an undervalued exchange rate. I will examine several trade conflicts between the U.S. and Japan in the 1980s and several trade conflicts between the U.S. and China from 2001 to the present. This study is situated within a larger debate concerning the resolution of four theoretical "puzzles" in political science. The first concerns the dispute …

Studies In The Creation And Implementation Of School Cultures: Two New York City Stand-Alone Charter Schools, Olivia-Beate A. Franzini

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the last thirty years the United States has seen a rise in charter school education and with that an influx of discussion over the best way to successfully educate college and career ready students. Many of these charter schools have their own unique philosophy on education and disciplinary codes to aid in the attainment of their success. The following case studies were conducted through participant observation in two start-up charter schools. At the time of study both institutions were in their second year of creation. These schools have opposing philosophies on education; the first School “A” is an independent …

Dying To Learn, Learning To Die, The Craft Of Dying In Early Modern English Drama And The Cultivation Of Dying-Voice Literacy, Simon Gaston Fortin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

DYING TO LEARN, LEARNING TO DIE

THE CRAFT OF DYING IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA

AND THE CULTIVATION OF DYING-VOICE LITERACY

by

SIMON G. FORTIN

Adviser: Professor Mario DiGangi

This dissertation contends that, through their relentless dramatization of agonies, the early modern English dramatists taught their audiences how to die. Attending a play where characters devised, discussed, prepared for, plotted, inflicted, endured and witnessed death, constituted an apprenticeship I demonstrate, akin to going to school, though informal it may have been, where audiences learned about mortality, death as an event, and dying as a process. Thus, this study points to …

Examining The Experiences And Perspectives Of Leaders And Missionaries Who Host Short-Term Mission Teams In Jamaica, Jeremy Beecher Griffin

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Military Contractors And International Law, Ali Deif

Theses and Dissertations

In the modern world, regulation is a necessity, especially on an international scale. PMSCs or Private Military Security Contractors are groups that are involved with militaries, and in conflict zones around the world. Due to their unique functions and place in international law, they essentially fall into a regulatory gap. PMSCs are non- state actors , but perform a series of roles and functions historically associated with the state. They can be used in multitudes of situations and have even been recruited in the war against drugs. Some see military contractors as, or similar to mercenaries, while others disagree. Many, …

Hm 23: New Interpretations In Naval History, Marcus O. Jones

Historical Monographs

Selected Papers from the Seventeenth McMullen Naval History Symposium Held at the United States Naval Academy, 15–16 September 2011.

Rodent Testing Device Surrogate For Shockwave Blast Testing, Anthony C. Misistia

Theses

Many laboratories around the world are conduct shockwave blast injury tests on rodents to simulate blast traumatic brain injury (TBI). Each of these laboratories has different techniques for creating the shockwave blasts as well as positioning the rats. There is no device to determine whether or not the rodent animal models actually experiences a true blast wave in a given set up. This device was developed as a method for verifying rodents undergoing true shockwave blasts through biometrics, instrumentation and the basic biomechanical responses a rodent experiences during such tests. Since the goal of shockwave blast testing is to replicate …

Hm 22: Major Fleet-Versus-Fleet Operations In The Pacific War, 1941–1945, Milan Vego

Historical Monographs

Major naval operations represent an area of study of operational art that Western naval theoreticians and planners have generally neglected. Too much emphasis is given instead to advanced technologies and tactics of weapons, at the expense of combined-arms tactics. The absence of an immediate and serious threat at sea today should not be allowed to prevent the development of sound naval theory and doctrine and the training of naval forces to prepare, plan, and execute major naval/joint operations as part of land campaigns in the littorals or a maritime campaign.

False Prophets In Ancient Israelite Religion, Joshua Michael Sears

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

A Defensive Offense: Infantry Tactics Of The Early Byzantine Army, Grant Harward

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

The Strength Of Rhodes And The Cilician Pirate Crisis, Keith Fairbank

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

The Battle Of Thermopylae: Principles Of War On The Ancient Battlefield, Joseph Kleist

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Exempla Augusto: Allusions And Warnings In Ab Urbe Condita, I, Dustin Simmons

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

“Have Ye Inquired Of The Lord?” Inquiry Patterns In The Bible And The Book Of Mormon, Scott Preston Sukhan Nibley

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

The Battle Of Marathon: The Stunning Victory And Its Contribution To The Rise Of Athens, Doug Marsh

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

The Image Of The Maize God In Classic Maya Art: The Ideal Aesthetic Of Gods And Royalty, Cynthia Richards Carroll

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Bibliography Of Hebrew Law In The Book Of Mormon, John W. Welch

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Introduction, John W. Welch

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Slave Systems Of The Old Testament And The American South: A Study In Contrasts, Nathan Andersen

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

The Historical Setting For The Forming Of Neo-Confucianism In Classical China, Tyson J. Yost

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Obama's National Security Exceptionalism, Sudha Setty

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The label of national security exceptionalism fits the Obama administration in two ways: first, although the administration has actively sought to address and improve the protection of human rights and civil rights of racial minorities suffering disparate negative treatment in a variety of contexts, those moves toward rights protection generally do not extend to the realm of counterterrorism abuses, although almost all of those who have suffered from violations of human and civil rights in the post-9/11 counterterrorism context are racial and/or religious minorities. One of the justifications for this exceptionalism is based on the widespread view that national security …