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Can Drug Addiction be Cured by Manipulating the Memory?: A Literature Review of Memory-Based Treatments
No full textDrug addiction constitutes a major health problem in modern society. Most of the current treatments have demonstrated limited effectiveness in long-lasting treatment results because of focusing on acute symptoms of the illness while neglecting important factors that maintain addiction. Memory manipulation therapies appear to be a promising alternative that act on maintaining mechanisms. This review paper first investigates memory-related processes that cause substance dependence. Additionally, several findings regarding the effects of memory manipulation are summarized. The reviewed studies suggest that targeting maladaptive drug memories is a promising therapy approach that seems to prevent relapse. Three types of memory manipulation treatment are reviewed; namely extinction training, reconsolidation therapy and eye movement desensitization reprocessing. Finally, the paper concludes with the implications for the treatment of addiction using the described approaches to adapt drug-related memories
Transforming Society for the Better? Why China’s Social Credit Systems are Surprisingly Popular
Get PDFIn 2014, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China released a document that called for the construction of a nationwide Social Credit System (SCS) with the goal to encourage sincerity and punish insincerity. The system uses blacklists that citizens land on for various cases of misbehavior, ranging from failing to pay a fine to being caught Jaywalking. This research explains the design process behind the SCS and in particular why many Chinese citizens are embracing this form of surveillance. It focuses on three topics to answer this question: the historical roots underlying the system, the perceived lack of trust in Chinese society and the comparison with concepts from surveillance theories developed in the West. From the analysis, following conclusions could be drawn: Historically, the state has often acted as a promoter and enforcer of moral virtue. The SCS fits perfectly into this tradition. The most prominent reason for the positive Chinese reaction is the lack of institutions in China that promote trust between citizens and businesses. There is a severe trust deficit which the government had to find a solution for. Regarding surveillance theory, Foucault’s concept of ‘panopticism’ shows similarities with the SCS and underlines its effectiveness in changing and steering people’s behavior while Lyon’s notion of ‘social sorting’ is used to demonstrate the potential dangers of the Chinese system
Populism and Media in Germany: How different newspapers report about the AfD
Get PDFIt has generally been established that the media has an effect on populism and can either help or hinder it. However, there is a lack of research on how populist parties are portrayed in the media. In this paper, I investigate four German newspapers and the way in which they cover the German populist party “Alternative für Deutschland”. The German case is special, as the past German experiences with right-wing radicalism, have led the media in Germany to develop fear of contact or “Berührungsangst” with populism. By conducting a qualitative discourse analysis, I find that all newspapers try to contain the AfD and show signs of “Berührungsangst”. However, it becomes clear that the traditional categories, established through quantitative content analyses, are inadequate to accurately cover all possible responses of the newspapers. Thus, I argue that more qualitative discourse analyses are needed in this field, in order to establish more nuanced categories, upon which future quantitative and qualitative research can build
Imaginary systems? Conceptualizing hippocampal function beyond memory
No full textViewing the hippocampus as a structure specifically dedicated to memory is no longer viable. However, functional characterization of its structure and its involvement in learning and memory is still necessary. This review argues that the hippocampus principally processes specific spatial contexts. It highlights the hippocampal involvement in thinking about the future, rather than the past by discussing its role in episodic prospection and navigational planning. Finally, it argues that the hippocampus might also process non-spatial information by representing its components in a pseudo-Euclidean memory space.
Narratives of identity: Saami identity in the Swedish cultural memory
Get PDFSweden portrays itself as a champion of human rights. Simultaneously, it violates the rights of its indigenous Saami population. To understand the dynamics of this duplicity, this interdisciplinary study explores how Saami identity is constructed and perceived in Swedish cultural memory. Avril Bell’s (2014) theory of thesettler imaginary is applied to analyse the narrative on Saami identity in Swedish school textbooks, legislation, political debates, and its historical context. The findings indicate that Saami identity, in Swedish cultural memory, has been constructed by Swedish settlers as authentic, static and incompatible with the majority of society. This image is perpetuated in the present day’s educational and political institutions. Implications of such an image are reflected in discrimination against the Saami
Becoming \u27damaged goods\u27: A qualitative study on sex education and its effects on sexuality
Get PDFThis study examines how sex education performed at a Christian private school in Oregon (USA) affects female students’ sexuality. The study collected data through the use of qualitative semi-structured interviews which were then analysed using a thematic data analysis. The results show a handful of detrimental effects on sexuality caused by abstinence-based sex education including sex guilt, shame and fear. Additionally, findings demonstrate evidence of homophobic feelings perpetuated by abstinence-based sex education. Although abstinence-based sex education propagated many of the aforementioned harmful effects, it was not the only instigator. Institutionalised religion and religious pressure play a large role in one’s perception of abstinence as well. For further research, it is suggested to continue research on one’s development of sexuality in a hyper-religious context
Blowing the Whistle in the EU: A Policy Analysis of the Agenda-Setting of the Proposal for a Whistleblowers Protection Directive
Get PDFScandals concerning wrongdoings of multinational corporations and governments are inescapable in the news. “Blowing the whistle” on these is often constrained out of fear of retaliation, which is why in April 2018, a Directive to assure protection to whistleblowers was proposed. Tracing the origins of the process is complicated because there are several actors operating in a multilevel polity. Hence, Kingdon’s multiple-streams model is applied to legislative texts and several news outlets, and inferences are drawn to describe the facets of the rise of whistleblowers protection on the EU agenda. This paper finds that the Greens Parliamentary group became a policy initiator after being urged by Transparency International to act. The Greens justified the need to act with old arguments, which however acquired momentum only when the political climate soothed after the scandals of LuxLeaks and Panama Papers
The survival of the ‘Anti-Party Party Paradox’: Evidence from the Five Stars Movement
Get PDFAs of June 1, 2018, Italy is governed by two populist factions: the Five Stars Movement (5SM) and the League. The former, being an anti-party party, has become the first political force in only nine years of existence by advocating for a desired change of Italian politics. The latter is instead an extreme-right wing populist faction that has previously ruled with Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party and was heavily involved in corruption scandals. At first sight, this governmental coalition seems antithetical with the proclaimed purity and difference of the 5SM from its ordinary political competitors. What is more, not only the 5SM has recently adopted internal rules which resemble those of established parties, but it has also performed behaviours which are in sharp contradiction with its ideology and values. In light of this contrast, this paper extends Cas Mudde’s (1996) anti-party party paradox to the 5SM by examining how anti-party parties behave in power with other populist factions. It adopts party routinisation theory to analyse how changes of internal organisation within the movement have effectively translated into external behaviours which are ‘party-like’. What emerges is that the Five Stars Movement, despite governing with another populist faction, has become internally and externally routinised as a normal party in the necessary limitations of the Italian political reality. As such, the anti-party party paradox survives even when compromise is achieved at the national level with another populist party
Strategies of Climate Change Denial: The case of Thierry Baudet
Get PDFThis paper discusses different strategies of climate change denial and focusses on the specific case of Dutch politician Thierry Baudet. Much of the literature concerning climate change denial focusses on Anglo-American cases, therefore more research non-English speaking countries is necessary. The theoretical framework describes the state of the art concerning climate change denialism and its links to occurring phenomena in Western societies and politics such as post-truth and populism. Afterwards, by conducting a deductive analysis of Thierry Baudet’s climate denialism in the Netherlands, a more thorough understanding of the different strategies proposed by Stefan Rahmstorf and Engels et al. is reached. Although all four categories are detected in Baudet’s denialism, consensus denial seems to be the most prevalent. The analysis of his usage of the notion of a climate apocalypse, combined with the analysis of his specific focus on consensus denial, broadens the understanding of how climate change denial can relate to populism.