Aristocracy, Family, and Property

Chapter 3 describes the senatorial aristocracy of Rome and divisions within its ranks. Even after the seat of western government left the city for safer territory, its aristocrats retained their pride of place. When Constantine founded Constantinople as his capital in the East, an entire senatorial aristocracy was created for it, although its members could not claim the ancient lineage and traditions of their Roman counterparts. The chapter details senatorial wealth, including that of Melania and Pinian. It explores the diverse meanings of “family” in ancient Rome and relevant inheritance law. It traces the family trees of Melania and Pinian and their extensive real estate—mansions, villas, and agricultural properties, spread across eight Roman provinces. It analyzes the fraught question of whether an excavated palace on Rome’s Caelian Hill was Melania and Pinian’s, and its probable fate.

Lessons from the Cambridge Analytica Crisis

On November 27, 2020, Dr. Emma Briant presented Lessons from the Cambridge Analytica Crisis: Confronting Today's (Dis)information Challenges, at the 2020 CASIS West Coast Security Conference. The presentation was followed by a question and answer period with other speakers. The key points of the discussion focused on digital mercenaries, surveillance capitalism, and Western government/military responses to foreign influence campaigns.

The Simba Rebellion, the Cold War, and the Stanleyville Hostages in the Congo

In late October 1964, nearly 1,000 European and U.S. citizens were taken hostage by rebel forces in Stanleyville in northern Congo as part of an attempt to create the “People’s Republic of Congo,” an opposition regime designed to rival the pro-Western government in the capital Léopoldville (now Kinshasa). The hostages were captured to use as leverage against the advancing Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC), led by white mercenaries as part of a Western-backed military effort to crush the rebellion. In response, Belgium and the United States launched a military intervention to rescue their citizens on 24 November 1964, publicly justifying the incursion on humanitarian grounds. In reality, the main purpose was to crush the rebellion and secure Western interests in Congo. The intervention reflected a cavalier attitude toward sovereignty, international law, and the use of force in postcolonial Africa and had the adverse effect of discrediting humanitarian reasoning as a basis for military intervention until the end of the Cold War. The massacre of tens of thousands of Congolese in Stanleyville was a unique moment in which African countries united in their criticism of Western policies and demanded firmer sovereignty in the postcolonial world.

Cowardice and Military Security: Some Heuristic Reflections

While cowardice is sanctioned by military law in most countries, the impact of cowardice on modern warfare and security politics is low. This might be the reason why cowardice—as notion, phenomenon, and topic—has widely been neglected in security studies. However, for quite some time, we have witnessed a revival of the word as an accusation and pejorative term that is frequently applied by Western government representatives to describe the enemy in armed conflicts. The expression of a “cowardly attack” has become quite common in political communication after attacks against Western forces in violent confrontations. Thereby, cowardice is transformed from a possible weakness of the own forces to a particular strength of the enemy. This article aims at presenting some reflections on the notion, meaning, and functional role of cowardice in situations of violent international conflict, as well as on the use of the term as a speech act in recent governmental security communication. A particular focus will be put on the normative implications of the revival of the governmental cowardice-rhetoric.

How education did (and did not) accentuate partisan differences during the Ebola outbreak of 2014-15

Education exacerbates partisan gaps in scientific knowledge and attitudes. However, previous findings about the extent and symmetry of this moderation have been mixed. As a conceptual replication of previous research, this study examines whether education asymmetrically moderates the Democrat-Republican gap in attitudes about Ebola virus disease (EVD) and policies to combat EVD. Weighted data from a survey of 1,461 non-institutionalized adults drawn from a probability-based panel were collected during the 2015 EVD epidemic. The survey measured seven attitudes: fear of personal infection, estimated severity of Ebola, suspicion of exposed Africans, suspicion of exposed Americans, Western government preparedness, support for low-intensity interventions, and support for high-intensity interventions. Knowledge about EVD was also measured. As in prior studies, highly educated Democrats uniquely diverged from other respondents in some attitudes. However, in the other attitudes, there were main party and education effects but no evidence that education was a moderator of partisan differences. Overall, education moderated partisanship when attitudes were affect-laden and targeted toward immediate threats, but not when attitudes were policy-oriented.

Integrating internal branding antecedents, customer and job satisfaction in the public sector

Purpose The implementation of marketing concepts to the public sector is still a relatively new topic for researchers and practitioners. Moreover, although branding has become more prominent in the public sector, its role with employees is under explored. Following a review of internal branding and marketing literature in the private sector, the purpose of this study is enrich and contribute to the internal branding concept and the literature by expanding its insightful knowledge beyond that of the Western school of thought to the UAE government sector. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a quantitative survey conducted among 304 public sector employees. These were measured on a five-point Likert scale. To test the model and the hypothesized relationships among the constructs of the model, structural equation modeling was used. Findings The strength of the relationship between the constructs indicates that features of the suggested internal branding model are crucial to achieving both employee and customer satisfaction in the public sector. Originality/value This study provides new theoretical grounds for studying internal branding in the public sector. It also supplies public sector organizations with a number of operative factors that may be essential if they are to provide enhanced satisfaction to public needs. It further contributes to the existing body of knowledge by expanding its knowledge beyond the Western school of thoughts as the study is about a non-Western government culture. Finally, it is probably the first to provide an integrative perspective of internal branding constructs in the public sector.

Austrian Neutrality of 1955: A Model for Germanyor the Phenomenon of the Cold War?

Introduction. The article considers the problem of solving the Austrian issue by consolidating the country’s neutrality in 1955 in the context of a possible modeling of the situation on the German issue. The consolidation of a neutral non-aligned status with Austria was the result of a broad domestic and foreign policy compromise. At the same time, the main features of the Austrian path to the neutrality of 1945–1955 are highlighted, making this one of the most well-known compromise precedents of the Cold War possible. Methods and materials. The research of the model character of the “Austrian solution” of 1955 is possible only with regard to the intertwining historical contexts in which the development of the German and Austrian issues took place from 1945 to 1949. The author uses the comparative historical method in the article while comparing historical features of the development of the German and Austrian issues between 1945 and 1955 and comparing different views and concepts of historians. The information base of the article consists of narrative and documentary sources, as well as a wide range of scientific research works of Austrian, German and Russian researchers. Analysis. The main internal reasons for the successful resolution of the Austrian issue are the existence of the pro-Western government elected in 1945, the unity of the main political forces of Austria in the matter of restoring sovereignty, and the personal role of Chancellor Julius Raab. The main international reasons are the change in the course of the USSR within the framework of the peaceful coexistence policy, as well as the reciprocal cooperation policy of the Western Allies. The author considers the problem both in historical and in historiographical perspectives. Results. The possibility of applying the “Austrian solution” to the situation with the divided Germany became the subject of a sharp historiographical dispute, which was called “Model Debate” in Austria. Two famous historians, Rolf Steininger and Michael Gehler, developed a concept confirming the model character of the Austrian solution to the situation with Germany. Most of Austrian historians tend to view the successful resolution of the Austrian issue as a single precedent, or phenomenon, of the Cold War. When comparing the situation with Germany and the attempts to model the Austrian version of it, they point to the different potential and significance of the countries for the Western Allies and the USSR, different goals of foreign policy of victorious powers in the German and Austrian issues.

Communism and anti-Communism in early Cold War Italy

The struggle in projects, ideas and symbols between the strongest Communist Party in the West and an anti-Communist and pro-Western government coalition was the most peculiar founding element of the Italian democratic political system after World War II. Until now, most historians have focused their attention on political parties as the only players in the competition for the making of political orientations and civic identities in Italian public opinion. Others have considered Italian political struggle in the 1940s and 1950s in terms of the polarisation between Communism and organized Catholicism, due to the undoubted importance of the Church in Italian culture and social relations. This book enlarges the view, looking at new aspects and players of the anti-Communist ‘front’. It takes into account the role of cultural associations, newspapers and the popular press in the selection and diffusion of critical judgements and images of Communism, highlighting a dimension that explains the force of anti-communist opinions in Italy after 1989 and the crisis of traditional parties. The author also places the case of Italian Cold War anti-Communism in an international context for the first time.

Pastoral care of mental illness and the accommodation of African Christian beliefs and practices by UK clergy

Faith-based organisations, especially those related to specific ethnic or migrant groups, are increasingly viewed by secular Western government agencies as potential collaborators in community health and welfare programmes. Although clergy are often called upon to provide mental health pastoral care, their response to such problems remains relatively unexamined. This paper examines how clergy working in multiethnic settings do not always have the answers that people want, or perhaps need, to problems of misfortune and suffering. In the UK these barriers can be attributed, generally, to a lack of training on mental health problems and minimal collaboration with health services. The current paper attempts to highlight the dilemmas of the established churches’ involvement in mental health care in the context of diversity. We explore the inability of established churches to accommodate African and other spiritual beliefs and practices related to the etiology and treatment of mental health problems.