Liberal Democracy in Context of Pakistan And Bangladesh

The purpose of this paper is to understand the democracy and the challenges towards liberal democracy. Desk review and thorough document analysis have been used to dig out the challenges for liberal democracy. Politically liberal democracies are contextualized and more flexible, assure the freedom of speech and enable voters for alternatives in case of incapable governments. The central view of liberal democracy is that every citizen must be treated on an equal basis. Pakistan and Bangladesh (separated from Pakistan in 1971) are the democratic republic countries by constitutional arrangements. The political system of both countries is based upon the elected people and then the elected people generate further policies, rules, laws, and regulations for governing the system in states. Theoretically, both states consist of governments, political parties, and official apparatus of military and civil society organizations. However, historically both countries remained unable to continue the democratic systems due to recurrent involvement and intervention by the military, undemocratic institutions, terrorism and extremism, political disorder, and uncertainty from their inception.

Atomism in the Aeneid

This book examines the role of philosophical metaphor and allegory in the Aeneid, focusing on tendentious allusions to Lucretian atomism. It argues that Virgil, drawing upon a popular strain of anti-atomist and anti-Epicurean arguments in Greek philosophy, deploys atomic imagery as a symbol of cosmic and political disorder. The first chapter of this study investigates the development of metaphors and analogies in philosophical texts ranging from Aristotle to Cicero that equate atomism with cosmological caprice and instability. The following three chapters track how Virgil applies this interpretation of Epicurean physics to the Aeneid, in which chaotic atomic imagery is associated with various challenges to the poem’s dominant narrative of divine order and Roman power. For Aeneas, the specter of atomic disorder arises at moments of distress and hesitation, while the association of various non-Trojan characters with atomism characterizes them as agents of violent disorder needing to be contained or vanquished. The final chapter summarizes findings, showing how Virgilian allusion to Lucretian physics often conflates poetic, political, and cosmological narratives, blurring the boundaries between their respective modes of discourse and revealing a general preference for hierarchical, teleological models of order.

The Frontier Effect

This book challenges the notion that in Urabá, Colombia, the cause of the region's violent history and unruly contemporary condition is the absence of the state. Although the book takes this locally oft-repeated claim seriously, it demonstrates that Urabá is more than a case of Hobbesian political disorder. Through this exploration of war, paramilitary organizations, grassroots support and resistance, and drug-related violence, the book argues that Urabá, rather than existing in statelessness, has actually been an intense and persistent site of state-building projects. Indeed, these projects have thrust together an unlikely gathering of guerilla groups, drug-trafficking paramilitaries, military strategists, technocratic planners, local politicians, and development experts each seeking to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of “the state” in a space in which it supposedly does not exist. By untangling this odd mix, the book reveals how Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient, if not at all benevolent, regimes of rule.

Natural Disasters and Political Disorder: Why Urban Flooding Turns Violent. Applying a Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Under what circumstances does a flood contribute to political disorder in Sub-Saharan Africa? Why has Accra experienced post-flood disorder and Abidjan not? This paper sheds light on the question: Why do some cities in Sub-Saharan Africa experience post-flood disorder while others do not? Given the expected urban population growth across Africa, its implications for the local infrastructure and climate-related changes in precipitation, this paper assumes that patterns of urban political disorder respond to those conditions in times of disasters. This contribution makes the argument that it is the socio-economic and political context that matters in the development of post-flood-related disorder. A conceptual framework is introduced that includes the role of contextual factors on the pathway from disasters to post-flood disorder. Drawing on that model, a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 26 cases in Sub-Saharan Africa is used to test three scenarios. It suggests that a prompt post-flood response does not prevent the onset of disorder, but indeed proves to be a condition linked to the development of hostilities. The analysis found evidence that disorder occurred in cases that were marked by rapid political response to the flood. The study also unveiled the significant role of the areas that were flooded. If the flood predominantly hit marginalized neighborhoods, the likelihood of disorder increased. In contrast, the mere existence of a youth bulge or rapid urbanization per se seems to have a negligible impact on the development of unrest.

Spatio-temporal variations of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide in Turkey based on satellite remote sensing

The satellite observations of NO2 acquire the total tropospheric column over an area while the current ground observations lack spatial and temporal coverage. In this study the Dutch Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) NO2 (DOMINO) data product v2.0 for 2004 - 2019 period was used to analyze the spatial and temporal variations of NO2 in Turkey. Considering the seasonality characteristics of NO2, we have used pixel based Seasonal Kendall (S-K) test to investigate the trend of the change. The highest values of NO2 has been found at the metropolitan areas and perimeter of the high capacity power plants in the observed period. The monthly average concentrations of NO2 are higher in winter months due to the higher demand of heating and power usage. The S-K trend test results indicate a statistically negative trend at the largest cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. However statistically significant positive trend has been found in some areas and Syrian border provinces in particular. Our results show that there is an abrupt change by 2011 in the tropospheric NO2 concentrations, same period when the first Syrian refugees have arrived after the political disorder. The dramatic change at the emission landscape of the NO2 in the region can be explained by changes in population concentration due to political circumstances.

Violence and the Law in A Man of the People

Chapter Seven focuses on Chinua Achebe’s novel A Man of the People. In particular the chapter examines Achebe’s presentation of political disorder through scenes in which the law is suspended or displaced. The chapter argues that through these scenes Achebe points up the incoherence of the inheritance of colonialism, not least indirect rule, and the inevitability of the imposition of new states of exception as a response to this incoherence. Achebe directs our attention to the various ways in which the law and legal processes are sidestepped, dissipated and conflated in an era of political corruption through scenes of violence that stand in for, but are markedly not, the legal process of the trial. The chapter’s discussion is informed by reference to contemporary political and economic contexts.