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The Impact of Regionalism on Democracy Building: An Examination of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
2017
Since the early 1990s, the world has witnessed a new wave of regionalism and a mushrooming of regional integration organizations, particularly in the global South. Focusing on Africa, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ranks among the most promising examples of regionalism on the continent. The SADC explicitly aims at building and advancing democracy in the region and its member states as part of its broader agenda on regional development. From a political science perspective, there is general agreement that regional integration and parallel institution building can be useful measures to promote and strengthen democratic rule, since an appropriate institutional “lock-in” impl…
The organization of the defense support system: an economic geography perspective
2017
In the context of restricted budgetary resources and the growing cost of maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) activities, a major issue for modern armed forces is to sustain defense platforms. A possible method consists of realizing economies of scale through the concentration of maintenance activities, which involves the spatial reorganization of existing industrial sites dedicated to MRO. This article provides a formalized framework to discuss the optimal organization for the MRO of defense platforms in space. The public planner organizes the maintenance of defense platforms with only two possible spatial configurations. In the dispersed configuration, two industrial production units i…
Can Gender Equality Be Institutionalized?
1999
Institutional innovation can be understood as launching an institution within an intact institutional and cultural context. Such attempts of guided institutionalization pose a crucial built-in problem. The goal of institutional innovation is to create new routine-reproduced, taken-for-granted behaviour patterns. The means to reach this goal is rational, purposive action, which is the very opposite of routinized enacting. This immanent contradiction of institutional innovation is discussed on the basis of a comparative study on the introduction of gender quotas in Norwegian and German political parties. The analysis draws on more than 50 qualitative interviews with parliamentarians from bot…
A Novel Intelligent Technique for Product Acceptance Process Optimization on the Basis of Misclassification Probability in the Case of Log-Location-S…
2019
In this paper, to determine the optimal parameters of the product acceptance process under parametric uncertainty of underlying models, a new intelligent technique for optimization of product acceptance process on the basis of misclassification probability is proposed. It allows one to take into account all possible situations that may occur when it is necessary to optimize the product acceptance process. The technique is based on the pivotal quantity averaging approach (PQAA) which allows one to eliminate the unknown parameters from the problem and to use available statistical information as completely as possible. It is conceptually simple and easy to use. One of the most important featur…
The role of social perception in disaster risk reduction: Beliefs, perception, and attitudes regarding flood disasters in communities along the Volta…
2017
Abstract People's perceptions of natural, spiritual, and social phenomena are socially constructed. Social perception is important because it helps people to make sense of the physical and social world and therein interact with it. Earlier research specializing in the study of human behaviour has emphasized a linkage between people's perceptions and their behaviour. In this article, the authors employ a similar theory with the intent of proposing a theoretical framework that examines the factors that influence people's perception and attitude (mitigation and response) towards the hazards they face. This discussion is done on the premise of “culture”, “experiences” and “disaster risk reducti…
Modelling load-transmission mechanisms in axially loaded RC columns retrofitted with steel jackets
2018
The use of steel jacketing technique is a common practice for retrofitting existing reinforced concrete (RC) columns, as it allows increasing load-carrying capacity and ductility of the member. When the external jacket has no-end connections – i.e. the jacket is indirectly loaded- the load sustained by the column is transferred from the inner RC core to the external jacket through shear stresses along the contact surface. The assessment of this mechanism is quite complex, due to the marked non-linear behaviour of constituent materials and to the calibration of a proper shear stress-relative slip constitutive law of the concrete-to-steel interface. In this paper, a step-by-step analytical ap…
Constitutionalism and the Presidency in the Russian Federation
2003
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has emphasized the idea that the state should be a leading actor in post-Communist reconstruction. This chapter argues that constitutionalism, in the narrow meaning of the rule of law in the political process, coexists with a mildly authoritarian, state-oriented presidential regime such as the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin. In Russian discourse, political reconstruction has been seen as cynical ‘political technology’ and Putin’s way to power is the primary example of such a kind of technology. The constitution and its interpretation by the Russian Constitutional Court give vast powers to the president. Under Yeltsin some attempts by the Duma …
The consequences of supply gaps in two‐dimensional policy spaces for voter turnout and political support: The case of economically left‐wing and cult…
2019
Parties with left-wing positions on economic issues and right-wing (i.e., authoritarian) positions on cultural issues have been historically largely absent from the supply side of the policy space of Western European democracies. Yet, many citizens hold such left-authoritarian issue attitudes. This article addresses the hypotheses that left-authoritarian citizens are less likely to vote, less satisfied with the democratic process and have lower levels of political trust when there is a left-authoritarian supply gap. Using data for 14 Western European countries from the European Social Survey 2008 in the main analysis, it is shown that left-authoritarians are less likely to vote and exhibit …
Language constraints in producing prefiguration posters for a scientific exhibition
1997
The museographic transposition of scientific knowledge leads notably to the preparation of exhibition posters. This is a delicate operation, on account of the constraints imposed by space, language, concepts and the text. These difficulties are even greater in the case of bovine reproduction biotechnologies, such as cloning, where knowledge is not yet stable. This paper deals with the choices made during the phase of museographic transposition. First of all, based on an epistemological approach, a historical analysis of knowledge-building underpins the choice of information to be presented. Language is then selected according to the linguistic analysis of a series of articles which popular…
Towards a Bangsamoro in Mindanao?
2017
Mindanao was already settled by Muslims when the Spanish colonization began. Today, the western part of the island and the Sulu archipelago are territories with a majority Muslim population, whereas the rest of the Philippines is predominantly Christian. Since the sixteenth century, the “Moros” of Mindanao have fought outsiders, Spaniards first, then the Americans, and throughout history the other Filipinos. The settlement migration policy of the Philippine government in the middle of the twentieth century has transformed the human landscape of the central and eastern parts of Mindanao, now predominantly Christian, and created a major area of commercial plantations. Political opposition to …