“Every death matters?”: Combat casualties, role conception, and civilian control

How do combat missions, defined as an armed confrontation that causes casualties, shape civil-military relations and military’s role conception? This article argues that militaries that incur combat casualties gain a stronger hand in the civil-military equilibrium. This is because casualties affect domestic political opinion and give prominence to the views expressed by military officials. Civilians are then more deferential to professional military advice. In turn, the military obtains considerable operational freedom, and can pick and choose missions which they find desirable. Second, the military’s role conception – an important determinant of military missions, is shaped most prominently by its combat experience. Militaries sustaining casualties obtain leverage vis-à-vis civilians and based on their institutional preference, they either prioritise or avoid non-traditional missions. While making these arguments, this article examines combat casualties, role conception, and civilian control in India. These concepts as a whole and, the Indian case study especially are surprisingly understudied considering it is among the few non-Western democracies with firm civilian control, a record of overseas intervention operations and a military with varying roles and missions. Analysing India’s experience therefore adds to the literature and illuminates the mechanism through which casualties affect civil-military relations.

What role conceptions do multi-healthcare professionals have of physicians and what role expectation do they have of physicians in a community?

Background To create an effective community-based integrated care system, interprofessional collaboration based on healthcare professionals’ mutual understanding of their respective roles must be promoted. This study aimed to identify the role conception and role expectation that other healthcare professionals have towards physicians in the context of a community-based integrated care system. Methods We organized focus groups and adopted ‘Role Theory’ as a theoretical framework. We collected data from healthcare professionals attending a conference on community-based integrated care systems in Japan. Fifty-four non-physician healthcare professionals consented to participate in 7 focus groups. Theme analysis based on the verbatim recorded transcripts was conducted in accordance with the framework of “Role Theory”. Results The role conception of physicians is as a figure of intellectual authority positioned at the top of a traditional hierarchy, with a personal character of criticism/autonomy/closedness, not accommodative of interference from others, and upholding the Biomedical Model as an absolute standard. In response to this, the role expectation of physicians in the community is that they undertake actions that only physicians can undertake to ensure that a flat organization functions properly in providing medical explanations during patient transitions, and to offer healthcare support for patients who are difficult to access. This role expectation also includes the perception of patients as human beings, with physicians adapting to the Bio-Psycho-Social Model, explaining to patients about their disease as an authoritative voice based on an understanding of psychosocial circumstances, and sharing the prognosis of disease or disability. The expected personal character is a person with an open mind who allows others to seek advice, as well as a sense of approachableness which facilitates such seeking of advice. Conclusion In the context of a community-based integrated care system, physicians should consider the understanding of their role conception and role expectation that other professionals have of them, and endeavor to create an open relationship with all healthcare professionals while giving careful consideration to their own role.

Indonesia’s Self Identity in the Development Assistance Policy through South South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC)

This article aims to examine the link between self-identity and foreign policy, particularly focusing on how state’s self-identity is built and sustained through policy. Using Indonesian development assistance policy through South South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) as a case study, this article finds that Indonesia self-identifies as a middle power country with strong affiliation towards developing countries as a result of national role conception processes. This self-identity in turn are built and sustained through SSTC development assistance policy, due to the suitability of role obligations as a middle power country with the values carried by the act of providing development assistance, as well as the deeply rooted historical dynamics of SSTC development policy with developing country status.

South African Foreign Policy

In its foreign policy posture and ambitions, post-apartheid South Africa is like no other country on the continent, having earned the reputation of punching above its weight. Upon rejoining the international community in the mid-1990s based on a new democratic and African identity, it laid out and invested considerable material and intellectual resources in pursuing a vision of the world that was consistent with the ideals and aspirations of the indigenous anti-apartheid movement. This translated into a commitment to foreground the ideals of human rights, democratic governance, and socioeconomic justice in its foreign relations, which had been reoriented away from their Western focus during the apartheid period, to give expression to post-apartheid South Africa’s new role conception as a champion of the marginalized interests for Africa and rest of the Global South. Since the start of the 21st century, this new foreign policy orientation and its underlying principles have passed through various gradations, reflecting not only the personal idiosyncrasies of successive presidents but also changes in the domestic environment as well as lessons learned by the new crop of leaders in Pretoria, as they sought to navigate a complex and fluid continental and global environment. From a rather naive attempt to domesticate international politics by projecting its constitutional values onto the world stage during the presidency of Nelson Mandela, South Africa would be socialized into, and embrace gradually, the logic of realpolitik, even as it continued to espouse an ethical foreign policy, much to the chagrin of the detractors of the government of the African National Congress within and outside the country. With the fading away of the global liberal democratic consensus into which post-apartheid South Africa was born, coupled with a crumbling of the material and moral base that had at some point inspired a sense of South African exceptionalism, Pretoria’s irreversible march into an unashamedly pragmatic and interest-driven foreign policy posture is near complete.

What Role Conceptions Do Multi-Healthcare Professionals Have of Physicians and What Role Expectation Do They Have of Physicians in a Community?

Background: To create an effective community-based integrated care system, interprofessional collaboration based on the healthcare professionals’ mutual understanding of their respective roles must be promoted. This study aimed to identify the role conception and role expectation that other healthcare professionals have towards physicians in the context of community-based integrated care system.Methods: We organized focus groups and adopted ‘Role Theory’ as a theoretical framework. We collected data for healthcare professionals attending a conference on community-based integrated care systems in Japan. Fifty-four healthcare professionals other than physicians consented to participating in 7 focus groups. Theme analysis based on the recorded and verbatim transcripts was conducted on collation with the research questions.Results: The role conception of physicians is as a figure of intellectual authority positioned at the top of a traditional hierarchy, with a personal character of criticism/autonomy/closedness, not accommodating any interference from others, and upholding the Biomedical Model as an absolute standard. In response to it, the role expectation of physicians in a community is that they undertake actions that only physicians can undertake to ensure that a flat organization functions properly to provide medical explanations during transitions and to offer healthcare support for patients who are difficult to access. The role expectation also includes a perception of patients as human beings, with physicians adapting to the Bio-Psycho-Social Model, explaining to patients about their disease as an authoritative voice based on an understanding of psychosocial circumstances, and sharing the prognosis of disease or disability. The personal character expected was for someone with an open mind who allows others to seek advice, as well as a sense of approachableness which makes it easier for others to seek advice. Conclusion: In the context of a community-based integrated care system, physicians should consider understanding of the role conception and role expectation that other professionals have of them, and need to endeavor to create an open relationship with all healthcare professionals and give careful thought to their own roles.

Change or Consistency? A Historical Overview of South Africa's Post-apartheid Foreign Policy

This study examines the trajectory of South Africa's post-apartheid foreign policy by establishing the extent of change or consistency in its implementation since 1994. Under the ruling African National Congress (ANC), South Africa has emerged as a promising international actor, particularly within the Southern African region and on the African continent in general. The authors provide a historical analysis of the major trajectories of foreign policy articulation under the administrations of Presidents Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma spanning the period 1994 to 2018. In investigating the conception and execution of foreign policy under these dispensations, the authors unravel a consistent but skewed pattern of national role conception that underscores Pretoria’s vision to be a major actor in international affairs, both regionally and globally. We conclude that South Africa’s foreign policy during this period was marked by Mandela’s altruism, Mbeki’s Afrocentrism and the antediluvian signature of Zuma.

Whether Japan has Realized its National Interests through the ODA to China: A Study on Japan’s ODA to China

<div><div><div><div><p>This paper introduces the history of Japan’s ODA to China, and examines the realisation of national interests through both quantitative and qualitative methods. Even though most scholars acknowledged that providing foreign aid is always connected to the national interests of the donor countries, it should be further discussed what those national interests are and how those interests are realised. This paper therefore summarised the national role conception and categories of national interests of Japan regarding the ODA policy to China through narrative analysis based on the role theory. In general, Japan’s ODA to China has achieved some of the diplomatic objectives successfully, but failed to achieve all.</p></div></div></div></div>