117 research outputs found
Blurring the Lines? International Humanitarian Non-Governmental Organisations and the Military use of Aid and Development in Afghanistan
No full textThis thesis explores the theory that International Humanitarian Non-governmental Organisations (IHNGOs) have increasingly become part of the world-ordering security agenda of developed western states since the end of the Cold War. It argues that the adoption of humanitarian aid and development activities by intervening military forces in Afghanistan, criticised by IHNGOs for blurring the boundaries between humanitarian and military actors, is a symptom of, rather than the central reason for, reduced humanitarian space in Afghanistan. This study contends that the central issue is the wider integration of political, military and humanitarian action into the process of state-building as a way to pacify areas of conflict and instability that otherwise present potential security threats to the developed world. This has become even more pronounced with the aims of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) since 2001.
The merging of humanitarian aid and development with security in the pursuit of stable states has occurred as an international response to the humanitarian crises and intra-state wars since the end of the Cold War. Military involvement of this kind is typified in Afghanistan by Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) that combine security and development action. During the 1990s humanitarianism also underwent a metamorphosis as concern about the role aid could have in fuelling conflict and a desire to ameliorate the underlying causes of poverty and conflict led many aid agencies to adopt a new vision of humanitarianism that had political and social goals beyond those of just meeting the immediate needs of populations in crisis. Another feature of humanitarian interventions of the 1990s was the ambitious expectations placed upon IHNGOs and intervening military forces from the international community to manage or resolve these crises without a corresponding level of long-term political, economic and military commitment. These issues are also present in post-2001 Afghanistan where IHNGOs initially supported an international intervention and a new government which has since been faced with a growing insurgency. Consequently, involvement with state-building, governance, rights and development have placed IHNGOs at odds with the insurgents.
A case study approach is used to examine five major IHNGOs and how they fit into the context of the international state-building project in post-2001 Afghanistan. The central finding of this study is that the integration of humanitarian aid and development into state-building as a means to enhance international security has seriously compromised the claims to the principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence central to the concept of humanitarian space and consequently the security of the IHNGOs in the ongoing Afghanistan conflict.
To overcome these problems this study suggests that IHNGOs should place their humanitarian aid activity under a separate umbrella organisation that operates under the neutral, impartial and independent principles adhered to by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the organisation in this study that has managed to maintain some acceptance and dialogue with all parties to conflict
Part of the problem and part of the solution? Non-state armed groups and humanitarian norms in Burma/Myanmar
No full textCivil wars involving non-state armed groups in Burma have been driven by a complex mix of historical socio-political grievances and economic factors. The central government and its armed forces have conducted counterinsurgency campaigns against myriad rebel groups in ethnic areas virtually since independence in 1948. Civilian populations caught in these conflicts have suffered immensely as a consequence. The government and army have never completely controlled all the territory and people of the internationally recognised state as it exists on the map. Instead, in some areas it has been armed groups and welfare actors associated with them that have been responsible for limited administration and service provision to conflict-affected populations. Despite tolerance or support for this non-state governance in some areas, armed groups still present threats to the security of the constituencies they also claim to represent.
This thesis assesses the factors that have facilitated or obstructed armed groups’ actions and the extent of their compliance (or not) in response to the norms against landmine use and the recruitment of children. While studies in other regions on armed groups and humanitarian norms have tended to consider policies of violence deliberately directed against civilians, the present study considers these less deliberate threats that armed groups in Burma present to the security of their own constituencies. It explores a set of theoretical propositions drawn from literature that has addressed armed groups from the perspectives of humanitarian engagement, sociology and political economy analysis of armed conflict. These contrasting approaches offer a more inclusive framework for analysis, considering the social, economic and coercive military and political structures influencing armed groups, affected populations and humanitarian actors engaging with them in relation to these issues.
This thesis contends that perceived legitimacy and the role of armed group associated welfare and civil society actors have been significant influences on attempts to ameliorate the impact of these issues. The perspectives and influences of legitimacy diverge, however, between international support for the prohibition of landmine use and underage recruitment, and local perceptions, from armed group constituencies and the government, of the groups as credible armed actors. Localised economic agendas combined with geographical dispersion and weak organisational cohesion have also been factors leading to less compliance with these protection norms. The findings indicate that there is also considerable divergence in the extent of compliance between the two norms. Whereas landmine use remains perceived as militarily necessary to most armed groups in Burma and related to their maintenance of local legitimacy, children involved with armed groups are seen as less vital militarily, and external engagement with armed groups to address this issue has met with more acceptance over time. In the light of bilateral ceasefires and ongoing negotiations since 2012, the willingness and capacity of the armed groups and their welfare wings to address these concerns for conflict-affected populations will be important for their future support and for lasting political settlements
Freedom and the 'creative act' in the writings of Nikolai Berdiaev : an evaluation in light of Jürgen Moltmann's theology of freedom
No full textThis project revisits the work of Nikolai Berdiaev, one of the first Russian Silver Age religious philosophers to be widely read in the West. The focus of this research is his thought on freedom and the ‘creative act’. We will argue that Berdiaev’s vision of freedom contains two types of freedom – a freedom understood within the created order and a freedom ‘outside’ of creation. It will be shown that in the former type, the reader finds a nuanced and insightful multi-layered conception of human freedom, which offers intriguing possibilities for exploring freedom and its implications for humanity. It will also be demonstrated that this type of freedom is closely related to his innovative view of creativity. Berdiaev conceives of freedom and creativity as distinct concepts, and yet so integrally related that they are interdependent. In the latter type of freedom, the reader will encounter a highly speculative and original metaphysical view that attempts to explain freedom as non-determination and answer the challenges of theodicy, which, this research will maintain, fails to do.
This research will contend (contrary to Berdiaev’s own statements) that his thought is most comprehensible from a broadly theological perspective. This perspective will underscore the significant tension within his work that arises from his speculative metaphysics. Unlike earlier works on Berdiaev that glossed over this tension, we will attempt to ameliorate it by engaging Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of freedom. Moltmann’s theology will provide a number of ideas and concepts for an analysis, critique, and reconfiguration of Berdiaev’s vision. This reconfiguration will seek to remain faithful to Berdiaev’s core concerns, while providing a new interpretation of his thought that is relevant for a contemporary dialogue concerning the significance of freedom and creativity for the person and community in relation to God
Anatomical basis of sun compass navigation II: The neuronal composition of the central complex of the monarch butterfly
No full textCo-author Jeremy Florman is a doctoral student in the Alkema Lab and the Neuroscience Program in the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) at UMass Medical School.Each fall, eastern North American monarch butterflies in their northern range undergo a long-distance migration south to their overwintering grounds in Mexico. Migrants use a time-compensated sun compass to determine directionality during the migration. This compass system uses information extracted from sun-derived skylight cues that is compensated for time of day and ultimately transformed into the appropriate motor commands. The central complex (CX) is likely the site of the actual sun compass, because neurons in this brain region are tuned to specific skylight cues. To help illuminate the neural basis of sun compass navigation, we examined the neuronal composition of the CX and its associated brain regions. We generated a standardized version of the sun compass neuropils, providing reference volumes, as well as a common frame of reference for the registration of neuron morphologies. Volumetric comparisons between migratory and nonmigratory monarchs substantiated the proposed involvement of the CX and related brain areas in migratory behavior. Through registration of more than 55 neurons of 34 cell types, we were able to delineate the major input pathways to the CX, output pathways, and intrinsic neurons. Comparison of these neural elements with those of other species, especially the desert locust, revealed a surprising degree of conservation. From these interspecies data, we have established key components of a conserved core network of the CX, likely complemented by species-specific neurons, which together may comprise the neural substrates underlying the computations performed by the CX. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Neuroscienc
Beneficial "firm runs"
No full textThe author argues that runs, which are generally considered undesirable, also have a beneficial effect--improving lenders' monitoring incentives. Lenders' ability to run on the firm helps control its moral hazard problem, while the first-come, first-served aspect of asset distribution keeps lenders from wanting to free ride on the monitoring efforts of others.Bankruptcy ; Bank loans
The sacred choral music of Francis Poulenc: a contextual and analytical study
No full textPoulenc is perhaps best known for his instrumental works, for his adherence to the aesthetics of Neo-classicism, and his place among the Parisian intellectual circles in tJie 1920s and 1930s in which his friend, Jean Cocteau, played a central role. This essentially secular side of Poulenc's creativity was, after the composer's return to Roman Catholicism in 1936, challenged by a need to express a newly-found religious conviction in sacred music. Consequently Poulenc, who had been accustomed to the secular aesthetics of Neo-classicism of Parisian artistic life and the French capital's concert halls, found it necessary to 'rediscover' and assimilate the language of French church music and its history (notably through the filter of the Cecilian Movement, Niedermeyer and the pkinchant of Solesmes) in order to create for himself an appropriate 'sacred style’ that could also incorporate those essential elements of his characteristically playful and sensual, 'secular' language. This study aims to explore this confrontation of styles and how Poulenc successfully forged a cohesive and congruent language for his sacred works. The opening chapters have several distinct perspectives: chapter one outlines the tortuous history of the Church's relationship with the State in France dating back to the pivotal effects of the 1789 Revolution, in an attempt to provide a necessary context for the importance that Poulenc and his predecessors and contemporaries (most significantly Debussy) attached to the past; chapter two, by contrast, discusses some of the principal issues at the heart of Parisian artistic society in the early decades of the twentieth century and focuses on the lively artistic community which existed in Paris with the influx of large numbers of foreign musicians (particularly Americans and Russians) and artists, the emergence of 'Les Six' (of which Poulenc was a member) and the artistic leadership and inspiration given by figures such as Jean Cocteau, Serge Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky. Cocteau and Stravinsky, indeed, had a huge impact on the young Poulenc. The second part of the thesis is an analytical study of Poulenc's sacred works (putting aside the Gloria, Stabat Mater and Sept Repais de Tetibres which are unmistakably concert works) and connects these analyses with the issues presented in the earlier chapters, beginning with the emotionally powerful Litanies a la vierge noire for women’s voices, composed soon after his Catholic faith returned in 1936, and ending with the decidedly hard-edged, Stravinskian Neo-classicism, yet relative placidity, of the Laudes de Saint Antoine de Padoue for men's voices, completed in Cannes in 1959. Central to the analytical discussion are the well known eclectic Mass in G (1937), the dramatic Quatre motets pour un temps de penitence (1939) and the stylistically distilled Quatre petite prieres de Saint Francois d'Assise which display the greatest variety of style and form and which combine to present significant examples of Poulenc's skilful unification of sacred and secular, ancient and modem sound worlds
Royalist Reclamation of Psalmic Song in 1650s England
No full textAbstractThis article brings into focus the royalist experience of political defeat and cultural recovery in mid-seventeenth-century England. It shows how royalist writers developed a polemically charged psalmic poetics that allowed them to appropriate the discursive authority of their Puritan enemies, reestablish their own cultural standing, and prepare the way for religious and political return. Several writers who found common cause in 1650s royalist poetics appear in these pages, including Izaak Walton, Thomas Stanley, Jeremy Taylor, Henry King, and the author(s) of the 1649 Eikon Basilike. Royalist writers with more divided responses to psalmic polemics appear here as well, including the episcopal divine, Henry Hammond, and the Davidic poet, Abraham Cowley. The poet, psalmist, and polemicist John Milton is an important presence throughout: his Eikonoklastes seems aware of his opponents’ polemical project, as do his 1653 psalms, and Paradise Lost itself may respond to what he once derided as royalist “Psalmistry.”</jats:p
Emerging Financial Markets and Early U.S. Growth
No full textStudies of early U.S. growth traditionally have emphasized real-sector explanations for an acceleration that by many accounts became detectable between 1815 and 1840. Interestingly, the establishment of the nation's basic financial structure predated by three decades the canals, railroads, and widespread use of water and steam-powered machinery that are thought to have triggered modernization. We argue that this innovative and expanding financial system, by providing debt and equity financing to businesses and governments as new technologies emerged, was central to the nation's early growth and modernization. The analysis includes a set of multivariate time series models that relate measures of banking and equity market activity to measures of investment, imports and business incorporations from 1790 to 1850. The findings offer support for our hypothesis of "finance-led" growth in the U.S. case. By implication, the interest today in improving financial systems as a means of fostering sustainable growth is not misplaced.
Emerging Financial Markets and Early U.S. Growth
No full textStudies of early U.S. growth traditionally have emphasized real-sector explanations for an acceleration that by many accounts became detectable between 1815 and 1840. Interestingly, the establishment of the nation's basic financial structure predated by three decades the canals, railroads, and widespread use of water and steam-powered machinery that are thought to have triggered modernization. We argue that this innovative and expanding financial system, by providing debt and equity financing to businesses and governments as new technologies emerged, was central to the nation's early growth and modernization. The analysis includes a set of multivariate time series models that relate measures of banking and equity market activity to measures of investment, imports and business incorporations from 1790 to 1850. The findings offer support for our hypothesis of finance-led' growth in the U.S. case. By implication, the interest today in improving financial systems as a means of fostering sustainable growth is not misplaced.
Landscape-painter as landscape-gardener : the case of Alfred Parsons R.A.
No full textIn 2 vols.Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN016830 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo
- …
