Chinese Military-Related Think Tanks and Research Institutions

2002 ◽  
Vol 171 ◽  
pp. 617-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bates Gill ◽  
James Mulvenon

The national security research community in Beijing is dominated by think tanks and other research institutes affiliated with specific governmental institutions. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) maintains its own set of internal and affiliated research institutions, performing a variety of intelligence, exchange and research functions. The growth and professionalization of the Chinese military think tank community, combined with the widening degree of interaction between PLA researchers and foreigners presents a new set of challenges and opportunities for scholarly research. On the one hand, the new environment complicates the task of outside scholars as they seek to understand the biases and reliability of new sources of information. At the same time, it offers foreign scholars an unprecedented opportunity to test theories, delve into new research and improve understanding of the PLA. This article examines the roles, missions and composition of the units in this system, assesses the influence, authoritativeness and utility of the output from these organs, and offers some preliminary implications for Western study of the Chinese military.

Author(s):  
Andreea Paul

This chapter is the sketch of a possible pattern of the future world in which any kind of business will be developed in a completely new human, technological, agricultural, and commercial context, heavily and quickly changed from the one we live in now. The first objective of this chapter is to scout for the mega-technology trends that will reshape completely the future business and jobs, focusing on the agrifood industry. The second objective is to tackle the main challenges to patent inventions in terms of costs and timing in Romania, relative to other countries, and raise pragmatic recommendations. The third objective is to describe the institutional innovation called INACO (the Initiative for Competitiveness), a think-tank dedicated to tackle the challenges and opportunities of the future economy and how can a country such as Romania stay competitive in a more and more competitive world.


Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  

This chapter analyses the role of think tanks in generating a distinctive mode of policy knowledge, pragmatically orientated to inform and shape issues of importance to civil society. Drawing on political science literature, we argue that think tanks exploit niche areas of expertise and influence to actively mobilize policy analyses and recommendations across diverse stakeholders. Through our exploratory mapping of think tanks, geographically concentrated within London, we characterize their influence as significantly boosting knowledge intensity across the regional ecosystem. In particular, we study the empirical case of one London-based think tank which powerfully mobilized policy knowledge through its formal and informal networks to build influential expert consensus amongst key stakeholders. We conclude that such organizations act as key knowledge producers and mobilizers, with significant potential to influence policy discourses and implementation.


Author(s):  
Steffi Haag ◽  
Mikko Siponen ◽  
Fufan Liu

Protection motivation theory (PMT) is one of the most commonly used theories to examine information security behaviors. Our systematic review of the application of PMT in information systems (IS) security and the comparison with its application for decades in psychology identified five categories of important issues that have not yet been examined in IS security research. Discussing these issues in terms of why they are relevant and important for IS security, and to what extent IS research has not considered them, offers new research opportunities associated with the study of PMT and IS security threats. We suggest how future studies can approach each of the open issues to provide a new road map for quantitative and qualitative IS scholars.


Author(s):  
Ryan Mullins ◽  
Deirdre Kelliher ◽  
Ben Nargi ◽  
Mike Keeney ◽  
Nathan Schurr

Recently, cyber reasoning systems demonstrated near-human performance characteristics when they autonomously identified, proved, and mitigated vulnerabilities in software during a competitive event. New research seeks to augment human vulnerability research teams with cyber reasoning system teammates in collaborative work environments. However, the literature lacks a concrete understanding of vulnerability research workflows and practices, limiting designers’, engineers’, and researchers’ ability to successfully integrate these artificially intelligent entities into teams. This paper contributes a general workflow model of the vulnerability research process, and identifies specific collaboration challenges and opportunities anchored in this model. Contributions were derived from a qualitative field study of work habits, behaviors, and practices of human vulnerability research teams. These contributions will inform future work in the vulnerability research domain by establishing an empirically-driven workflow model that can be adapted to specific organizational and functional constraints placed on individual and teams.


Author(s):  
Dong Jung Kim

Abstract In contrast to growing public attention to geoeconomics as the new mode of conducting great power competition, the IR discipline has not actively engaged in conceptual and theoretical analysis from the geoeconomic viewpoint. This article examines issues that geoeconomics needs to solve to become a new theoretical framework in the positivist “American” IR scholarship that dominates research on great power competition. On the one hand, the concept of geoeconomics needs to be redefined and account for a phenomenon that is not already covered in extant IR scholarship. Thus, geoeconomics should be considered as a form of grand strategy and defined as the use of economic instruments to advance mid- to long-term strategic interests in a geographical region of the world. On the other hand, geoeconomics in positivist IR should take into account international economic structure and domestic politics in developing a parsimonious explanation for the conditions to employ geoeconomic grand strategy. In this process, the theorist needs to make an analytical choice to concentrate on certain factors and mechanisms to assure theoretical parsimony. This article concludes that addressing the issues of conceptual clarity and parsimonious theorization would potentially allow geoeconomics to become a new research program in positivist IR.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (S1) ◽  
pp. 10-10
Author(s):  
Vigdis Lauvrak ◽  
Kelly Farrah ◽  
Rosmin Esmail ◽  
Anna Lien Espeland ◽  
Elisabet Hafstad ◽  
...  

IntroductionIn 2019, the Norwegian Institute for Public Health and Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) received support from HTAi to produce a quarterly current awareness alert for the HTAi Disinvestment and Early Awareness Interest Group in collaboration with the HTAi Information Retrieval Interest Group. The alert focuses on methods and topical issues, and broader forecasts of potentially disruptive technologies that may be of interest to those involved in horizon scanning and disinvestment initiatives in health technology assessment (HTA).MethodsInformation specialists at both agencies developed search strategies for disinvestment and for horizon scanning in PubMed and Google. The template for the alert was based on an e-newsletter developed by the Information Retrieval Interest Group. Information specialists and researchers reviewed the monthly (PubMed) and weekly (Google) search results and selected potentially relevant publications. Additional sources were also identified through regular HTA and horizon scanning work.ResultsAlerts are posted quarterly on the HTAi Interest Group website; members receive an email notice when new alerts are available. While the revised PubMed searches are identifying relevant information, Google alerts have been disappointing, and this search may need to be revised further or dropped. When the one-year pilot project ends, in Fall 2020, interest group members will be surveyed to see if the alerts were useful, and whether they have suggestions for improving them.ConclusionsCollaborating on this alert service reduces duplication of effort between agencies, and makes new research in horizon scanning and disinvestment more accessible to colleagues in other agencies working in these areas.


Author(s):  
Natalia G. Krivulya ◽  

Animated documentary is becoming one of the fastest growing phenomena of modern screen art in the post-truth era. The review and analysis of scientific works devoted to animated documentary is seen as relevant both for the further development of scientific thought and the search for new research strategies that expand the problem field, and for the practical sphere. The research was conducted on the basis of a review and analysis of scientific literature (monographs and articles in international journals included in electronic research system international databases Scopus, Web of Science, eLibrary.ru) in English, Spanish and Russian for the period 1997-2019. The novelty of the review article is not only an attempt to present a systematic view of animated documentary as a phenomenon of screen art, but also to identify and systematize the areas in which scientific discussions are conducted. It introduces the reader to theoretical views on the terminology, Genesis, specifics, nature, and classification systems of documentary animation. Animated documentary appeared when the cinema was just taking first steps but its development began in the 1980s. At this time, animation begins to take an interest in reality, inner peace, and socially taboo topics. Since the 1990s, the foundations of animated documentary are laid, narrative strategies are developed, and a new language are actively sought. Interest in animated documentary from the scientific community arose only in the 2000s. On the one hand, it has been manifested by the increasing role of documentation in the art, which has taken on an attraction character since the advent of digital technology; on the other hand, and as a consequence of the convergence of screen arts and the emergence of hybridization trends. The academic community has focused around developing definitions and understanding what can be attributed to the field of documentary animation. By 2010, the scientific literature focused on issues related to the specifics of animated documentary, ways of presenting reality, and indexing. By the mid-2010s, animation is becoming the subject of interdisciplinary study. At this time, there are develop tools for analyzing works of animated documentaries, and its genre system begins to build. One of the main features of animated documentaries is hybridity. Its dual nature is born of fluctuations between the certainty of facts and artistic embodiment. The problems of authenticity and representation of reality become one of the most controversial topics in an animated film. The work provides an overview of theoretical studies on the genesis, history and particularities of animadoc. The theoretical texts identify three approaches that form the main directions in the analysis of animated documentary. The first group of researchers analyzes this phenomenon and its nature based on the theories of documentaries and the transformation with the advent of digital technologies, of the concepts of reality, authenticity and fact (document). The second group of authors considers animation as a phenomenon of modern animation that arose as a result of technological renewal and changes in its role as a socio-cultural practice. A third group of scientists believes that animadoc is a post-postmodern phenomenon that arose as a means of presenting a world in which there is mobility of borders and cyberspace becomes a new reality. The review allows us to conclude that animated documentary is a manifestation of a new mode of postphotographic vision of a reflexive nature, in which the imagination that refracts images of reality becomes of primary importance. Despite the interest in it from the academic community and the emergence of theoretical works, the study of this phenomenon is only at the initial stage. Despite the interest in it from the academic community, there is a small number of deep theoretical works caused by the hybrid nature of the phenomenon itself, the imperfection of working models and methods for analyzing representational strategies, and the problems of forming a conceptual apparatus.


Author(s):  
Stuti Bhatnagar

The role of think tanks as policy actors has developed over time and created significant global scholarship. Widely understood as non-state policy actors, think tanks established either with or without the support of government have evolved in various political contexts with varied characteristics. They are avenues for the discussion of new policy ideas as well as used for the consolidation of existing understandings of global and national political issues. As ideational actors think tanks interact with policy frameworks at different levels, either in the framing stage or at the stage of consensus building towards certain policies. Intellectual elites at think tanks allow for the introduction of think tank ideas into the policy frames as well as the creation of public opinion towards foreign policy decisions. Think tank deliberations involve an interaction with policymakers, academic experts, business and social actors, as well as the media to disseminate ideas. Institutionally, think tanks in a wide variety of political contexts play a critical role in the making of foreign policy and bring closer attention to processes of state–society interactions in different political environments.


Author(s):  
Clary Krekula ◽  
Sarah Vickerstaff

The policy debate on older people's extended participation in working life is not based on a social movement, such as the one putting forward demands on job opportunities for women, and has, by means of categorical stereotypes, mostly characterised older people as the problem. This narrative of individual choices and decisions presents older workers as de-gendered, de-classed individuals, shorn of their individual biographies and social contexts. It also treats the issue of extending working life as a phenomenon disconnected from surrounding society and trends. This line of reasoning points to the need for more sophisticated theoretical foundations. This chapter therefore provides a more encompassing framework for the discussion of extending working lives and outlines a new research agenda, including a power perspective with potential to shed light on age-based inequality, an intersectional perspective and a masculinity perspective which challenges the homogenous descriptions of older workers, a feminist understanding of work and a life course perspective which provides a framework which links the previous three.


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