Territory, Contentious Issues, and International Relations

Author(s):  
Paul R. Hensel

Territorial issues have been prominent causes of armed conflict and war in the modern era. This observation has led to a rapidly growing body of academic literature on the sources, management, and consequences of such issues. Although territory has gotten most of the scholarly attention, this literature has its roots in research on contentious issues that began in the 1960s. Academic research on contentious issues began with studies on issue areas in foreign policy analysis, focusing on such questions as how the foreign policy process differs from more traditional domestic policy processes. This line of research struggled to find mainstream acceptance until scholars began adopting a more substantive conception of issues, focusing on the nature of the values at stake. General patterns of foreign policy conflict and cooperation have been found to differ substantially across different issues. Importantly, territorial issues are the most frequent and most dangerous issues in armed conflict and war, leading scholars to focus much of their issue-related research on the dynamics of territorial contention. Research on territory has stemmed from the main elements of issues theory that were developed earlier: issue salience, or the importance of the issue under contention; issue context, or recent interactions over the same issue; and institutional context, or the extent to which other actors and institutions are able to influence contention over this type of issue. Armed conflict is much more likely when the issue at stake is more salient, particularly when this salience involves intangible dimensions such as the presence of a state’s ethnic kin in the claimed territory. Greater issue salience also increases the likelihood of peaceful negotiations and nonbinding conflict management techniques like mediation. A recent history of armed conflict or failed negotiations over an issue increases the likelihood of armed conflict, bilateral negotiations, and nonbinding management. The normative and institutional context also appears to affect the likelihood of conflict and peaceful management over issues, although more remains to be done in this area. The issues literature is beginning to make important strides beyond this initial work on territorial claim management. Scholars are beginning to geocode data on international borders, raising important potential benefits for the study of territory and perhaps other issues. International legal arguments appear to affect the management of territorial claims in systematic ways, and ending territorial claims seems to produce substantial improvements in relations between the former adversaries. The same general patterns seem to hold for river and maritime issues, as well as territorial issues, and these other issue types have more promising institutional contexts. Future research could benefit from considering additional issue types (including a recent effort to collect data on identity claims), as well as studying domestic and interstate issues.

1997 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 106-109
Author(s):  
U.A.B. Razia Akter Banu

The book Pakistan Chronicle--authored by Morrice James, who had twentyyears of experience in South Asia, of which nine years were in Pakistan asdeputy and head of the United Kingdom's diplomatic mission-may not be anexcellent academic research document, but it deserves credit for certain merits.The psychoanalyses and behavioral studies of some Pakistani military and politicalelite, especially Ayub, Bhutto, and Zia, are some of the book's outstandingcontributions. The book contains excellent discussions on different pacts andtreaties Pakistan conducted, such as the Mutual Assistance Pact with the UnitedStates (1954), the Indus Water Treaty (1960), the Tashkent Declaration (1966);the crises Pakistan faced, such as the anti-Qadiani Riots in 1953, the Kashmir dispute, and the Bangladesh War in 1971; and the Afghan conflict that involvedthe two superpowers. In the 1960s. the author observed that India consideredKashmir an integral part of itself and nonnegotiable, and that position has notyet changed.As the British high commissioner, the author could give a firsthand descriptionof national and international forces that strained Pakistan’s relationship withthe West, especially Britain and America, and of how Pakistan gradually developeda pro-Chinese foreign policy ...


2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Bédard ◽  
Paul Coram ◽  
Reza Espahbodi ◽  
Theodore J. Mock

SYNOPSIS The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), and the U.K. Financial Reporting Council (FRC) have proposed or approved standards that significantly change the independent auditor's report. These initiatives require the auditor to make additional disclosures intended to close the information gap; that is, the gap between the information users desire and the information available through the audited financial statements, other corporate disclosures, and the auditor's report. They are also intended to improve the relevancy of the auditor's report. We augment prior academic research by providing standard setters with an updated synthesis of relevant research. More importantly, we provide an assessment of whether the changes are likely to close the information gap, which is important to financial market participants and other stakeholders in the audit reporting process. Also, we identify areas where there seems to be a lack of sufficient research. These results are of interest to all stakeholders in the audit reporting process, as the changes to the auditor's report are fundamental. Additionally, our summaries of research on the auditor's report highlight where there is limited research or inconsistent results, which will help academics identify important opportunities for future research.


Author(s):  
Takeuchi Ayano

AbstractPublic participation has become increasingly necessary to connect a wide range of knowledge and various values to agenda setting, decision-making and policymaking. In this context, deliberative democratic concepts, especially “mini-publics,” are gaining attention. Generally, mini-publics are conducted with randomly selected lay citizens who provide sufficient information to deliberate on issues and form final recommendations. Evaluations are conducted by practitioner researchers and independent researchers, but the results are not standardized. In this study, a systematic review of existing research regarding practices and outcomes of mini-publics was conducted. To analyze 29 papers, the evaluation methodologies were divided into 4 categories of a matrix between the evaluator and evaluated data. The evaluated cases mainly focused on the following two points: (1) how to maintain deliberation quality, and (2) the feasibility of mini-publics. To create a new path to the political decision-making process through mini-publics, it must be demonstrated that mini-publics can contribute to the decision-making process and good-quality deliberations are of concern to policy-makers and experts. Mini-publics are feasible if they can contribute to the political decision-making process and practitioners can evaluate and understand the advantages of mini-publics for each case. For future research, it is important to combine practical case studies and academic research, because few studies have been evaluated by independent researchers.


Author(s):  
Livio Cricelli ◽  
Michele Grimaldi ◽  
Silvia Vermicelli

AbstractIn recent years, Open Innovation (OI) and crowdsourcing have been very popular topics in the innovation management literature, attracting significant interest and attention, and inspiring a rich production of publications. Although these two topics share common themes and address similar managerial challenges, to the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic literature review that digs deep into the intersection of both fields. To fill in this gap a joint review of crowdsourcing and OI topics is both timely and of interest. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to carry out a comprehensive, systematic, and objective review of academic research to help shed light on the relationship between OI and crowdsourcing. For this purpose, we reviewed the literature published on these two topics between 2008 and 2019, applying two bibliometric techniques, co-citation and co-word analysis. We obtained the following results: (i) we provide a qualitative analysis of the emerging and trending themes, (ii) we discuss a characterization of the intersection between OI and crowdsourcing, identifying four dimensions (strategic, managerial, behavioral, and technological), (iii) we present a schematic reconceptualization of the thematic clusters, proposing an integrated view. We conclude by suggesting promising opportunities for future research.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (14) ◽  
pp. 4710
Author(s):  
Mariusz Kostrzewski ◽  
Rafał Melnik

Condition monitoring of rail transport systems has become a phenomenon of global interest over the past half a century. The approaches to condition monitoring of various rail transport systems—especially in the context of rail vehicle subsystem and track subsystem monitoring—have been evolving, and have become equally significant and challenging. The evolution of the approaches applied to rail systems’ condition monitoring has followed manual maintenance, through methods connected to the application of sensors, up to the currently discussed methods and techniques focused on the mutual use of automation, data processing, and exchange. The aim of this paper is to provide an essential overview of the academic research on the condition monitoring of rail transport systems. This paper reviews existing literature in order to present an up-to-date, content-based analysis based on a coupled methodology consisting of bibliometric performance analysis and systematic literature review. This combination of literature review approaches allows the authors to focus on the identification of the most influential contributors to the advances in research in the analyzed area of interest, and the most influential and prominent researchers, journals, and papers. These findings have led the authors to specify research trends related to the analyzed area, and additionally identify future research agendas in the investigation from engineering perspectives.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110164
Author(s):  
Lian Tang ◽  
Siti Zobidah Omar ◽  
Jusang Bolong ◽  
Julia Wirza Mohd Zawawi

The widespread use of social media has promoted extensive academic research on this channel. The present study conducts a systematic analysis of extant research on social media use among young people in China. This systematic literature review aims to identify and bridge gaps in topics, theories, variables, and conceptual frameworks in studies of social media usage among young people in China. The study aims to develop a cause–effect framework that shows the causal relationships among research structures. The PRISMA method is used to review 20 articles drawn from the Scopus and Google Scholar databases. From the analysis, 10 major research topics, eight theories or models, and a complete framework of causal relations emerge. It is recommended that future research on social media should include a greater diversity of types of social media, investigate a wider range of research topics, and adopt different theories or models. Researchers should also implement a more complete and detailed systematic method for reviewing literature on social media research in China.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 686-707
Author(s):  
Marcus Conlé

Purpose The paper aims to take stock of China’s recent biopharmaceutical industry development by analyzing product innovation and changes in the firms’ product portfolios during the five-year period between 2012 and 2017. Design/methodology/approach The paper introduces a classification of biopharmaceutical products. By applying the classification to the product data of China’s drug regulator, the CFDA, it becomes possible to trace the developments within the sector by looking at changes in the number of firms within each subgroup and changes in the number of subgroups in which each firm is involved. The classification allows an evaluation of the latest product innovation achievements. Findings The paper demonstrates a mild shakeout of firms in the relatively long-existing domestic market segments, a trend toward more specialized product portfolios and an enduring prevalence of innovation strategies aimed at exploiting relatively unpopulated domestic market niches instead of pioneering entirely new products. Especially the capability of upgrading to second-generation protein therapeutics has become a key criterion for separating the wheat and the chaff in China’s domestic sector. The paper moreover points out the relevance of acquisitions as a corporate growth strategy. Research limitations/implications The research does not consider complementary indicators, product pipelines in particular. Future research should compare patterns across emerging economies. Originality/value The paper is unique in using the CFDA database for systematic academic research on (bio)pharmaceutical innovation and in introducing a biopharmaceutical product classification to trace innovative activities and changes in corporate product portfolios over time.


2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baris Kesgin

Scholars and policymakers have long used the shorthand of hawks and doves to characterize leader personalities that correspond to a particular political inclination, whereby hawks are considered right-wing and more aggressive in foreign policy, and doves are left-wing and more peaceful. This article posits that a sound discussion of who hawks and doves in foreign policy are requires an engagement with research on political leadership. It promises a less superficial understanding of the dichotomy of hawks and doves, and uses leadership trait analysis to explore hawkish and dovish leaders’ qualities. The article profiles Israel’s prime ministers since the end of the Cold War, where in a high security environment, these words are most often used to describe its domestic and foreign matters and its cooperative and conflictual actions. This article’s findings encourage an unpacking of these commonly used shorthand labels with political leadership approaches. They are also useful to highlight, most notably, the significance of complexity and distrust in understanding hawkish and dovish leaders. Hawks think simpler and are more doubtful of others than doves, this article finds. Future research, the article suggests, will benefit from looking deeper than simple, dichotomous use of this analogy, and exploring ways to operationalize individual-level measurements of hawks and doves in foreign policy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5956
Author(s):  
Jelena Končar ◽  
Radenko Marić ◽  
Goran Vukmirović ◽  
Sonja Vučenović

This work aims to define the impact of different indicators on the sustainability of food placement in the retail sector, during periods of crisis and emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. An empirical survey conducted in the Western Balkans (WB) region showed that indicators such as developed infrastructure, consistency, and transparency of the supply chain, skilled workers, costs, food safety, food prices, energy consumption, and changes in consumer needs are statistically significant since they affect the sustainability of food placement in the retail sector. As food placement and the retail sector itself are inseparable from other participants in the food supply chain (FSC), an analysis was conducted at the level of all FSC sectors. The results showed some deviations viewed individually in the sectors of production, physical distribution, wholesale, and retail, and in selected Western Balkan countries. Based on the results obtained, the sustainability model of food placement in the retail sector has been defined. The model will serve as the basis for defining the set of measures and incentives that competent institutions and FSC management need to undertake, to minimize the impact of indicators that endanger sustainability. The originality of the study lies in the fact that it fills the research gap that exists in this subject matter in academic research and studies in the WB region. In addition, some indicators important for food placement have been precisely isolated, with the definition of the intensity of their impact, observed overall at the level of the entire FSC as well as by individual sectors. Guidelines and suggestions for future research are listed in the paper.


Author(s):  
Florentine U. Salmony ◽  
Dominik K. Kanbach

AbstractThe personality traits that define entrepreneurs have been of significant interest to academic research for several decades. However, previous studies have used vastly different definitions of the term “entrepreneur”, meaning their subjects have ranged from rural farmers to tech-industry start-up founders. Consequently, most research has investigated disparate sub-types of entrepreneurs, which may not allow for inferences to be made regarding the general entrepreneurial population. Despite this, studies have frequently extrapolated results from narrow sub-types to entrepreneurs in general. This variation in entrepreneur samples reduces the comparability of empirical studies and calls into question the reviews that pool results without systematic differentiation between sub-types. The present study offers a novel account by differentiating between the definitions of “entrepreneur” used in studies on entrepreneurs’ personality traits. We conduct a systematic literature review across 95 studies from 1985 to 2020. We uncover three main themes across the previous studies. First, previous research applied a wide range of definitions of the term “entrepreneur”. Second, we identify several inconsistent findings across studies, which may at least partially be due to the use of heterogeneous entrepreneur samples. Third, the few studies that distinguished between various types of entrepreneurs revealed differences between them. Our systematic differentiation between entrepreneur sub-types and our research integration offer a novel perspective that has, to date, been widely neglected in academic research. Future research should use clearly defined entrepreneurial samples and conduct more systematic investigations into the differences between entrepreneur sub-types.


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