scholarly journals Psychosocial Response to National Security

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
Jitendra Kumar Singh

National security is perhaps one of the key areas of research which receives continuous attention from the scholars of strategic studies, military science, and of course some of the disciplines of social science such as political science and international relation. One way of pursuing interest in national security is to delve the threat perception which emanates from across the border and is likely to influence socio-political sphere of the nation. On the other hand, the diversity in the socio-cultural landscape of the nation characterized by ethnicity and linguistic based sub-national identities is equally important so far as enriching one’s knowledge base in the domain of internal security is concerned. Within the realm of psychology, military psychology is possibly one sub-discipline which tries to address this gap. However, psychology is yet to receive a space in the intellectual terrain of studies on national security.

2021 ◽  
pp. 016344372110370
Author(s):  
Avi Marciano ◽  
Aya Yadlin

Israel, traditionally known as a nation-in-arms, has been undergoing processes of securitization and militarization from its inception to the present day. While several countries have employed surveillance technologies to tackle the spread of coronavirus, Israel was the only country in the world to authorize its internal security agency to track citizens’ cellphones to deal with this civil-medical crisis. Employing a reflexive thematic analysis to news media outlets, this study examined coverage of Israel Security Agency (ISA) surveillance by four leading Israeli news sites, inquiring into the socio-cultural imageries, and motifs that informed their reports. While two of the sites were mostly supportive and the other two were critical, the coverage as a whole was informed by national security imageries reminiscent of Israel’s nation-in-arms tradition. Our discussion contextualizes these findings within a three-decade tension that has prevailed in Israeli society and culture between securitization/militarization and democratization/demilitarization.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-95
Author(s):  
Brad Warren and Patrick West

Focusing on the cultural landscape of the mid-1980s, this paper explores the Australian experience of Bruce Springsteen. Australian author Peter Carey’s short story collection, The Fat Man in History, anticipates two phases of Australia’s relationship to the United States, phases expressed by responses to Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. (1984) and the 1986 blockbuster Crocodile Dundee. Springsteen’s album was received by an Australian audience who wanted to be like Americans; Crocodile Dundee, on the other hand, provided a representation of what Australians thought Americans wanted Australians to be. This paper argues that the first phase was driven by emergent technologies, in particular the Walkman, which allowed for personal and private listening practices. However, technological changes in the 1990s facilitated a more marked shift in listening space towards individualization, a change reflected in Springsteen’s lyrics.


2009 ◽  
pp. 18-31
Author(s):  
G. Rapoport ◽  
A. Guerts

In the article the global crisis of 2008-2009 is considered as superposition of a few regional crises that occurred simultaneously but for different reasons. However, they have something in common: developed countries tend to maintain a strong level of social security without increasing the real production output. On the one hand, this policy has resulted in trade deficit and partial destruction of market mechanisms. On the other hand, it has clashed with the desire of several oil and gas exporting countries to receive an exclusive price for their energy resources.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Michael Sonenscher

How can you know something that cannot be seen, heard, tasted, touched or smelled? The question applies most obviously to things like rights, justice or freedom because they do not seem be as easy to locate or describe as things that can be known by the senses. Part of the point of positivism was that under certain conditions they can. To Auguste Comte (1798–1857), the movement's founder, it was possible to have as positive a knowledge of rights, justice or freedom as whatever was needed to know a cat or a mat. Positivism could, therefore, have as much to do with morality as with epistemology and as strong a concern with values and beliefs as with facts and certainty. The resulting capacity to move seamlessly between the external and the internal and from the physical to the moral was one reason why, together with the word “sociology,” the other word that came to be associated most widely and durably with positivism was another of Comte's coinages, “altruism.” Positivism, in short, was the science—or knowledge—of altruism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (S1) ◽  
pp. 86-86
Author(s):  
Richard Macaulay ◽  
Lok Wan Liu ◽  
Cornelia Roibu ◽  
Andrea Berardi

IntroductionNICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) makes recommendations on the public reimbursement of medicines based on their clinical- and cost-effectiveness. The recommendation is made by an Appraisal Committee (comprising a multi-disciplinary group of independent experts) as part of a technology appraisal. There are four Appraisal Committees (A,B,C,D); this research investigates whether appraisal outcomes vary by committee.MethodsAll publicly-available Final Appraisal Determinations from NICE Single Technology Appraisals (STA) were screened (01/10/2009-14/11/2018) and key data were extracted. Homogeneity in rates of acceptance or rejection across the committees was assessed using Chi-squared tests.ResultsThe Appraisal Committee was identified for 298 technologies, 56% (168/298) of which were ‘recommended’. The number of technologies assessed by each committee was similar (A:79, B:62, C:91, D:66). However, STAs conducted by Committee D were significantly less likely to receive ‘recommended’ outcomes (A:68% [54/79], B:65% [40/62], C:53% [48/91], D:39% [26/66]; p < 0.01). STAs for oncology indications had higher ’not recommended’ outcomes than those for non-oncology indications (25% vs. 9%). The lower ‘recommendation’ rates for committee D persisted across oncology (A:60%, B:83%, C:50%, D:38%; p = 0.01) and non-oncology indications (A:73%, B:53%, C:55%, D:40%; p < 0.01). However, STAs conducted by Committee D were significantly more likely to receive ‘optimized’ recommendations (A:16%, B:21%, C:33%, D: 36%; p < 0.01) and when considering the rates of ‘recommended’ and ‘optimized’ outcomes compared to ‘only in research’ and ‘not recommended’ outcomes, no significant differences were found (A:85%, B: 85%, C:86%, D:76%; p = 0.27).ConclusionsSTAs undertaken by NICE Appraisal Committee D was associated with a significantly lower rate of ‘recommended’ outcomes but tended to an ‘optimized’ recommendation significantly more than the other committees. Further research is needed to determine if this reflects any deviation in uniform implementation of NICE methodology between Committees.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 255-273
Author(s):  
Pauline P. Buisch

While scholars have acknowledged the literary dependence of Jubilees 31 (the blessing of Levi and Judah) on Genesis 48 (the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh), little work has been done to understand the purpose of this intentional intertextuality. This article examines the literary influence of Genesis 48, the effect of its absence, and the altered roles of Levi, Judah, and Joseph in Jubilees in order to determine why the author made the literary decision to pattern one scene of blessing after the other. This article suggests that the author's decision to omit Genesis 48 and to present not one but two similar scenes of blessing in its place is part of a larger strategy to negotiate the interpretive problem of the prominent status given to Joseph's sons in Genesis 48. By replacing Ephraim and Manasseh with Levi and Judah, but allowing Joseph to receive the double portion of land, the author of Jubilees reflects an interpretive tradition, also found in the Targums, Genesis Rabbah, and the Testaments of the Patriarchs, that understands the inheritance of Jacob to be threefold and distributed three ways—the birthright to Joseph, the priesthood to Levi, and the kingship to Judah.


2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 457-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Lawrence Schrad

“Tell a man today to go and build a state,” Samuel Finer once stated, “and he will try to establish a definite and defensible boundary and compel those who live inside it to obey him.” While at best an oversimplification, Finer's insight illuminates an interesting aspect of state-society relations. Who is it that builds the state? How and where do they establish territorial boundaries, and how are those who live within that territory compelled to obey? Generally speaking, these are the questions that will be addressed here. Of more immediate concern is the fate of peoples located in regions where arbitrary land boundaries fall. Are they made loyal to the state through coercion or by their own compulsions? More importantly, how are their identities shaped by the efforts of the state to differentiate them from their compatriots on the other side of the borders? How is the shift from ethnic to national identities undertaken? A parallel elaboration of the national histories of the populations of Karelia and Moldova will shed light on these questions. The histories of each group are marked by a myriad of attempts to differentiate the identity of each ethnic community from their compatriots beyond the state's borders. The results of such overt, state-initiated efforts to differentiate borderland populations by encouraging a national identity at the expense of the ethnic, has ranged from the mundane to the tragic—from uneventful assimilation to persecution and even genocide. As an illustration of the range of possibilities and processes, I maintain that the tragedies of Karelia and Moldova are not exceptional, but rather are a consequence of their geographical straddling of arbitrary borders, and the need for the state to promote a distinctive national identity for these populations to differentiate them socially from their compatriots beyond the frontier.


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