西部农村贫困少数民族子女的教育公平问题探析

教育公平是社会公平的重要基础,加快推进西部农村少数民族地区的教育平等化进程是实现教育公平的关键环节.对西部农村贫困少数民族子女的教育状况研究发现,他们的教育获得受阻,精神文化缺失;职业选择受限,社会地位下降.分析得出断裂社会的教育利益供需困境和目标群体被动的教育诉求成为阻碍西部农村贫困少数民族子女教育公平问题的主要原因.进而,在科学发展观指引下,调整反贫困战略,推进扶贫现代化,加快教育均衡化发展.     

Keeping an eye on South Asian skies: America’s pivotal deterrence in nuclearized India–Pakistan crises

Since declaring their nuclear weapons capabilities in 1998, India and Pakistan have engaged in three major crises that each threatened to escalate into war. In each crisis, the USA engaged in active diplomacy to dissuade the South Asian rivals from taking escalatory actions. Previous literature on the crises has described the American role, but has not theorized third-party involvement in a nuclearized regional rivalry. We apply Timothy Crawford’s pivotal deterrence theory to the nuclearized India–Pakistan conflict, and extend the original theory to cover the novel condition of a non-superpower nuclear dyad, in the context of a single-superpower international system. We find that America’s pivotal deterrence generally enhanced stability in the India–Pakistan crises, and unlike in pre-nuclear South Asia, other great powers supported American diplomacy. However, we suggest that future regional crises between nuclear rivals, in South Asia or elsewhere, may present greater challenges for pivotal deterrence.     

Growth recovery after civil conflict: a fractional integration approach

Using recent econometric techniques based on fractional integration, we find that developing countries recover their economic growth faster than developed countries in response to a shock. Following this methodology, we find that longer civil conflicts are associated with a faster recovery process. We further investigate this issue by exploring correlations with components of GDP, military spending, institutions and aid and find heterogeneous effects of these channels by duration of conflict. Higher government spending is correlated with faster recoveries post longer conflicts, and higher consumption spending is linked to faster recoveries following shorter conflicts. Military spending appears to be driving the government expenditure that makes countries recover from longer conflicts. More democratic institutions are associated with faster recoveries post short wars but slower recoveries following long wars.     

The lobbies’ network at the EU policy level: the case of security and defense

Lobbyists may not share the same interests, but they usually agree to form a link in a network which could eventually be used to spread information, to search for potential partners, to speak with one voice to decision makers. In other words, social links represent value for lobbyists because they may ultimately facilitate access. In this article, we explore the network of the Security and Defense lobbies in the EU and we describe its structure.     

‘Responsibility to protect’ and the African Union: Assessing the AU’s capacity to respond to regional complex humanitarian and political emergencies

Despite its many institutional and political weaknesses and limitations, the African Union (AU) has been developing a variety of tools and mechanisms to respond effectively to complex disasters and emergencies (both natural and manmade) by building up a comprehensive regional security architecture. Furthermore, it has become the first and only regional or international organisation to enshrine the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) in its Constitutive Act. This regional approach to and formal endorsement of the R2P principle allowed it to assume a particular place in the promotion of peace and security in its area. This article aims to critically assess the effectiveness of the AU on the African continent by exploring its real capacity in preventing and responding to emergencies and violent conflicts, and therefore in rendering the principle of R2P operational. The article argues that the formalisation of principles does not necessarily mean their effective implementation. The organisation's use of the R2P principle is also greatly conditioned by internal and external factors.     

Security sector reform,ethnic representation and perceptions of safety: evidence from Kosovo

This article explores the relationship between ethnic representation in security sector institutions and perceptions of safety. While most studies on post-conflict institutional reform focus on national institutions and outcomes, this article argues that a more nuanced view on ethnic representation is fruitful in order to account for the everyday perceptions of local people. Drawing on post-conflict Kosovo, the article analyzes how the representation of ethnic minorities in security institutions affects perceptions of safety among individuals across Kosovo’s municipalities. It also analyzes original interview data collected in the Pristina and Mitrovica municipalities that are typical cases of our sample. Both approaches validate that those municipalities that have ethnically representative security institutions also have higher levels of perceived safety.     

Military support and transnational terrorism

Analysing the relationship between the provision of military support and the probability of becoming the target of a terrorist attack, this paper contributes to the literature on the causes of transnational terrorism. We find that deployment of military troops of country X in country Y increases the probability of a terrorist attack on citizens of country X by a terrorist group located in country Y. Exporting weapons to country Y seems to increase the probability of being attacked by the terrorists of this country Y as well. Deploying materials, however, does not seem to significantly influence the probability of attack. Including lagged values for our military support variables ensures that the causality direction is from military support to terrorist attacks. Moreover, these results indicate that while the effect of military deployment on the probability of attack lasts for more than 1 year, the effect is rather short-lived.     

Reserve forces and the transformation of British military organisation: soldiers,citizens and society

In recent years, there has been a sharp growth in political and sociological interest in the British military. Set against the backdrop of the armed forces’ increasing presence in everyday life, alongside the organizations’ ongoing restructuring, the current paper focuses on the MoD’s problematic attempts to recruit 30,000 reservists by 2020; what has become known as the Future Reserves 2020 programme (FR2020). We argue that these changes are driven in part by the need to cut costs in defence. However, we also suggest that they are a reflection of the changing nature of modern military organisation, and the manner in which armed forces engage with the societies of which they are a part, and with the citizens that make up that society. We locate FR2020 programme in the context of a wider narrative about the changing nature of military organisation in contemporary western democracies, identifying structural, circumstantial and normative reasons for change. We also examine the specific challenges of implementing FR2020 in practice, including issues of recruitment and retention, integration and support, and relations with families and employers, drawing on the experience of comparator countries to do so. We conclude by considering the implications of these changes, both for the future of UK armed forces, and for the evolving nature of military-society relations in Britain.     

The cyber conceptual framework for developing military doctrine

Militaries rely on secure communications. Despite the permeation of cyber-systems throughout the operational environment, there is little readily available doctrine on cyber-warfare. Doctrine that does exist has not been coherently integrated. This paper introduces a Cyber Conceptual Framework, consisting of five questions pertinent to the future use of cyberspace. The authors enunciate a definition of cyberspace, expand on existing military doctrine to reject the conceptualisation of cyberspace as a domain, define cyber-conflict, define cyber-attack and describe the four components and five levels of a cyber-attack. This work develops a common framework from available doctrine and a lexicon for future discussion.     

Stolen trauma: why some veterans elaborate their psychological experience of military service

The embellishment of a warrior biography has a long history but examples of veteran elaboration of traumatic experience have become increasingly apparent. Although legislative change in the UK has removed the penalties for fabrication and a progressive decline in the military footprint may have increased the likelihood of such false trauma narratives, a paradigm shift in explanations for mental illness underpins this phenomenon. The recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 1980, followed by studies to identify risk factors, led to a greater appreciation of psychological vulnerability. As a result, the use of shame to discourage acts formerly labelled as “cowardly” or “lacking in morale fibre” is no longer considered appropriate. Recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan generated popular sympathy for service personnel, whilst media focus on PTSD has led the UK public to believe that most veterans have been traumatised by their tours of duty.