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Preface. The Study of War
No full textStarting with Thucydides during the last decades of the fifth century B.C and reaching all the way to the present, there have been many excellent military historians. Their contribution to our understanding of war is immense and growing still. Yet history and theory are not the same. History focuses on the specific, the non-repeatable, and the ephemeral. Its objective is to record what events took place, understand why they took place, and, perhaps where they may be leading. Theory, on which more later, seeks to understand patterns and, if possible, use them to draw generalisations that will be valid for more than one time and one place. It both describes and, at times, prescribes the nature of the subject matter; what its causes and purpose are; into what parts it should be divided; how it relates to all sorts of other things; and how to cope with it and manage it
Introduction. Envisioning Future Wars
No full textThis introductory paper begins by briefly surveying the history of military thought, focusing on the introduction of change as an immutable element in the character of war – from the Clausewitzian emphasis on the social and the political to the later emphasis on technology. The idea of the transformation of war’s nature was the basis of all modern era efforts of imagining and preparing for future war. In other words, throughout the history of warfare, generals had done well preparing for the last war and learning the eternal laws of their profession, but now this was seen as a handicap rather than an advantage. Next the introduction will examine the theoretical foundations of thinking about future war and its importance to theories of military change and innovation, and continues by reviewing the historiography on war planning in the past
Digitaalse kirjanduse defineerimisest ja periodiseerimisest [On the definition and periodisation of digital literature]
No full textThe article examines the links between digital literature and digital humanities, as well as various definitions and periodisation of digital literature. Digital literature is ‘digitally born’ literature, created and studied since the end of the 1980s and largely defined as a work with an important literary aspect that takes advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by computer technology (e.g. hypertext literature, multimedia poetry, interactive literature, etc.). In the periodisation of digital literature, two generations have so far been differentiated (late 1980s until 1995 and from 1995 until today). The article adds a third generation to this periodisation, starting from2006–2007 and linked with the development and spread of social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr) and smart gadgets.
The article defines the third generation of digital literature as literature created via social media (including so-called Alt Lit literature), characterised by its democracy, dialogue between participants, textual and narrative dynamics, and mixing of various forms of media. In addition, it is suggested that this type of literature can be associated with post-postmodernist literary trends. A closer look is taken at the work of Estonian authors Kaur Riismaa, Liina Tammiste and Keiti Vilms, who have all used social media platforms (Facebook,Twitter). The article discusses whether these authors can be associated with the term ‘Alt Lit’. The conclusion reached is that several of the features of Alt Lit can be ascribed to the texts and activity of Riismaa, Tammiste and Vilms; Alt Lit features seem to correspond best to Vilms.
The overall conclusion of the article is, however, that the content and essence of digital literature does not so much depend on the will of the authors, creative impulses or inner-literature movements, but instead on the development of computer technology. Thus the definitions of digital literature are dynamic in time and depend on the technological solutions that are emerging in a given period and the types and works of digital literature these new technologies can inspire
Book Review: Path Dependency and Communal Tolerance in Indonesia
No full textMenchik, Jeremy (2016). Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism. Cambridge University Press
Book Review: Politics and Legitimacy in Post-Soviet Eurasia
No full textPolitics and Legitimacy in Post-Soviet Eurasia edited by Martin Brusis, Joachim Ahrens and Martin Schulze Wessel, 2016, London and New York: Palgrave Macmilla
The Role of Institutional Trust in Estonians’ Privacy Concerns
No full textIn this study, we attempted to contribute to previous discussions of the importance of emerging novel data sources in shaping new forms of inequalities and trust culture related to perceived privacy concerns. Our study was based on a representative survey data collected in Estonia in 2014 (n=1503). Two underlying dimensions of privacy were revealed in the analysis: (1) perceived dangers to personal privacy and, (2) perceived dangers to institutional privacy. The analysis of associations only partially confirms the assumption of structural differences in privacy concerns, social groups being somewhat more divided regarding their concerns about institutional rather than personal privacy. Groups more concerned about regarding privacy issues had more frequent social media use as well as higher social activity. The analysis also showed that trust in institutions was related to privacy concerns of different groups and may be one of the key variables explaining the adoption of new technology in Estonia. Thus, besides new structural inequalities related to data practices online, new forms of data activisms are about to emerge, based on perceptions of personal and institutional privacy
The Doctrine of Total People´s Defence ‒ what Yugoslav armed forces learned from their past
No full textThe article presents the development of the Yugoslav Military Doctrine and the Yugoslav Armed Forces from 1945 to the 1980s. The Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia developed the concept of General People’s Resistance and Social Self-Protection which was defending the freedom, national independence, sovereignity, and the self-managing socio-political system. The new doctrine also formed two defence components, the Yugoslav People’s Army as the operational army, and the Territorial Defence as the highest organisational form of defence and armed combat under the authority of republics and regions. Despite the well-conceived concept of the General People’s Defence and Social SelfProtection, the latter failed to find answers on how to defy the “internal enemy” and how to solve internal political, economic, and national problems, which amassed in Yugoslavia of the 1970s and the 1980s. Slovenian Territorial Defence was something positive, which derived from the Doctrine of Total People’s Defence. Since its establishment in 1968, the Slovenian Territorial Defence developed differently from the other federal republics and was increasingly considered as the Slovenian armed forces.
Imagining the Third World War: Discussions about NATO´s conventional defence in the 1970s
No full textDuring the 1970s, military planners east and west of the “Iron Curtain” continued to prepare for a potential “hot” conflict between the two opposing military alliances, the Warsaw Treaty Organization and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Then-divided Germany – called the Central Region by NATO – would have been the main battleground of such a conflict. But how would that Third World War, and especially its conventional side, be fought? In NATO’s realm, this question not only occupied the thinking of military headquarters and national defence ministries, but also that of other military “experts.” The resulting often international textual discourse ranged from military doctrine to newspaper articles to future histories, that mirrored not only the change of strategy from “massive retaliation” to “flexible response” but also intraalliance issues such as equitable sharing of the military burden and the influence of latest weapons technology on strategy and tactics. And while World War III between the Warsaw Pact and the Atlantic Alliance never materialized, both sides spent billions on materiel and stationed millions of soldiers in preparations for a war that never happened and that continues to stimulate imaginations of war up to this day.
To Whom Is Contact Use Beneficial? The Impacts of Self-Selected Contact Use on Gender Income Differentials in the Transitional Economy of Urban China
No full textIn this study, we examined the effect of contact use on the gender earnings gap in urban China, by taking into account the existence of self-selection effect. We theorised two sources of individuals’ self-selected job obtainment behaviour; namely, the structuralised gender-segregated employment environment and one’s internalisation of the structural constraints. Based on data collected from the highly marketized Chinese city Xiamen, our estimations from the Endogenous Switching Regression model show that there is indeed a significant tendency, in which women with marketable qualifications use social contacts to find jobs, even though their obtained income would have increased significantly had they chosen not to rely on contacts to find jobs. Men enjoyed premiums from their job search strategies, whether they relied on contact use or not
Institutional Change and Gender Inequalities at Labour Market Entry: A Comparison of Estonia, Russia, and East and West Germany
No full textOur study investigates how gender inequalities in job opportunities evolved during communist and post-communist times in former state-socialist countries. Theoretical arguments (mainly based on studies referring to Western countries) led to the expectation of a surge in gender inequalities in these countries after the collapse of communism. Empirically, we explore the gender gap in job authority upon labour market entry by using life-history data from Russia, Estonia, and East Germany, with West Germany serving as a control case. The selection of countries was motivated primarily by the availability of rich life-history data, covering four decades of (post-) state socialism but also by divergences in institutional set-ups in the course of transition from state socialism to a liberalised market economy. Our findings yield four major results. First, accounting for education and the branch of economy, women were not disadvantaged during Soviet times; instead, we have even found evidence of a slight female advantage in Estonia and East Germany. Thus, our findings mirror the communist regime’s effectiveness in equalising women’s and men’s opportunities at work. Second, in the pre-collapse decade, the advantage of women in terms of job authority decreased in East Germany and Estonia, whereas in Russia, women fell behind men. Third, with the Soviet Union collapse, a remarkable female disadvantage emerged in all formerly state socialist countries under scrutiny. In addition, we observe a growing gender gap in West Germany in the same period. The latter result strengthens the conclusion that times of economic liberalisation may go hand-in-hand with increasing gender inequalities