Angels versus Devils: The Portrayal of Characters in the Gun Policy Debate

This research examines the role of the devil shift and angel shift in interest group rhetoric using the case of gun policy. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) suggests that the devil shift—whereby political actors characterize their opponents as more malicious and powerful than they actually are—is common in intractable policy debates. Through an analysis of e‐mails and press releases by two gun control organizations and two gun rights organizations, I examine how groups portray themselves and their opponents. I identify two dimensions relevant to these portrayals: (1) whether a character in a policy narrative is portrayed as good or evil, and (2) whether a character is portrayed as strong or weak. The findings indicate that while the devil shift is present, the angel shift—that is, the glorification of one's own coalition—is more common in gun policy groups' communications. Two alternative characterizations, which I call the angel in distress and the devil diminished, are also present. The use of these character portrayals varies significantly across political coalitions and as a function of communication purposes. The results suggest a need to reconceptualize character portrayals to better understand how they operate as narrative strategies in the NPF.     

Quantum Cultures during the Prehistory of Quantum Gravity: Léon Rosenfeld's Early Contributions to Quantum Gravity

In this paper we consider the prehistory of quantum gravity (1916–1930) from two perspectives. First, we investigate how this research field constituted itself and we propose for the first time a red thread to trace its evolution in this earliest period. Second, we focus on a case study: the earliest work of Léon Rosenfeld. In 1927 he tried to merge wave mechanics with general relativity in the context of a five‐dimensional universe. We describe how Oskar Klein, Louis de Broglie, and Théophile De Donder influenced Rosenfeld's work and analyze how and why Rosenfeld attempted to reconcile Einstein's theory with quantum phenomena. We argue that Rosenfeld investigated for the first time the corrections to a classical space‐time metric generated by a quantum source. As far as we know, Rosenfeld's approach has been largely ignored until today: he himself considered it “an accident.” After having reconsidered its connection with de Broglie's ideas and Rosenfeld's interpretation of the wave function in 1927, we argue that Rosenfeld's work can be interpreted as a first attempt to introduce the pilot‐wave theory in the context of quantum gravity and we infer that this was one of the reasons that ruled it out.     

The Trade Goes,and the Flag Follows? British State Intervention and Natural Resource Extraction in Colombia, 1989–2010

During the 1960s, agents of the Colombian state began carrying out a counterinsurgency campaign against elements of the domestic population considered ‘subversive’. Subversion, according to US counterinsurgency manuals, largely translated to involvement in social organisation. As a result, trade unionists, political activists and human rights defenders in Colombia became aggressively targeted. While violence in Colombia's past has been widely documented, recent British involvement has not. The official justification for British military and police assistance, beginning in 1989, was within the context of the drug war. By drawing on a wide range of sources including newly declassified documents from the UK National Archives in Kew, this article posits that British counter-narcotics assistance was contentious in nature and ineffective in outcome. Meanwhile, this assistance lent structural and active support to the counterinsurgency conflict. In this light, the protection of British capital interest in Colombia – specifically that of British Petroleum – is analysed as a persuasive underlying motive for British military and police assistance. Finally, British Petroleum's private security strategy in Colombia is investigated as a case study in the utilisation of counterinsurgency, with the result of the near-total elimination of social organisation within its areas of operations.     

The Beginnings of Word Order Change in the Arabic Dialects of Southern Iran in Contact with Persian: A Preliminary Study of Data from Four Villages in Bushehr and Hormozgan

This preliminary study explores the hypothesis that Arabic dialects spoken on the Iranian side of the Persian Gulf exhibit the beginnings of contact-induced shift in word order from VO to OV. Although the basic VO order is still stable, there is some variation even in this very limited data set. Specifically two phenomena point to a change in progress: clause-final copulae and auxiliaries that are placed after the lexical verb, lending further evidence to the observation that a clause-final copula is an areal feature of western Asia. The study also investigates semantic and pragmatic factors that influence word order choice, pointing to a strong effect of information structure in terms of narrow focus and theme-rheme partition. Furthermore, the study also reveals an effect of semantic role, specifically as far as the preferred placement of goals and recipients in post-verbal position is concerned.     

《水经·浊漳水注》“桃水”辨

《水经·浊漳水注》所载桃水,前人多以今桃河当之;严耕望则提出故关水说。二说与郦注原文或传世文献间均有无法融通之处。细绎桃水经行诸地,或可确定古桃水实指今甘陶河、冶河至冶河故道一线。而今桃河之所以转承古桃水之名,源于金代蔡珪《晋阳志》误解郦注桃水之文。     

新见女性册命金文[女受]鼎及相关史实考论

新近刊布的[女受]鼎是一篇稀见的女性册命金文,其内容主要记载了西周时期两名女性贵族之间的一次改命,属于罕见的周代贵族女性职务性册命金文。与一般册命铭文书写不同的是,[女受]鼎中不见册命地点、史官、右者等册命礼仪的记载,更在篇首多出"退事于内宫"的特殊句式。[女受]鼎相关铭文特点不仅是早期册命金文的时代共性,也是女性贵族受命特殊性的反映。而"退事于内宫"句来源于铭辞中贵族女性"妫"对"[女受]"的褒奖之辞,妫称赞[女受]"唯汝聿型",即[女受]较好地效法了其先人的德行,[女受]因此在铭文篇首特意强调其在内宫之旧职。不唯如此,[女受]鼎的铭文书写还为周代贵族女性职务性册命提供了佐证,是一篇弥足珍贵的西周册命金文,具有重要的史料价值。     

Measuring the performance of planning: the conformance of Italian landscape planning practices with the European Landscape Convention

The assessment of the performance of planning is debated. The evaluation of the conformance of a given national planning system with a set of principles is similarly received with critical and favourable remarks. A relevant case study consists of the conformance of European landscape planning practice with the principles of the European Landscape Convention (ELC). Italy incorporated in 2004 the principles of the ELC with the Code on Cultural Assets and Landscape (CL), which opened the way for new laws, tools, observatories and atlases. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the usefulness of an assessment exercise concerning the conformance with the ELC of planning practice in Italy. We scrutinize planning systems and tools established by peripheral administrations, according to a qualitative and comparative framework. We refine our analysis by focusing on 10 most recent cases and identifying critical issues in current landscape planning practice. The results are promising and show that landscape planning in Italy is increasingly in line with the ELC.     

The South China Sea dispute and the Philippines Arbitration Tribunal: China's policy options

The Philippines Arbitration Tribunal separately dealing with the jurisdiction over the South China Sea dispute is the continuance of the set practice by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea's Annex VII arbitral tribunals of bifurcation of proceedings, and was the best option for it to deal with China's objections to its jurisdiction in the circumstance of China's non-acceptance of and non-participation in the arbitral proceedings. Such a measure has potentially important implications for the tribunal itself and for China. The tribunal's decision to have jurisdiction over some parts of the Philippines’ submissions resumed the merits proceedings of the dispute. This development of the proceedings would force China to reconsider its current policy of non-participation. Participation in the subsequent merits proceedings might be the right choice for China.     

Mining,morality and the obligations of fossil fuel exporting countries

In this article I argue that countries exporting fossil fuels, such as Australia, have an obligation to bear some of the costs of the harms caused by the use of those fuels. I argue that there is an analogy between other harmful exports – medical waste, tobacco, unsafe jobs, uranium – and fossil fuels. If this is the case, then current methods for allocating emissions and responsibilities for their harms are inadequate and more complex than they appear. I consider several counter-arguments to this claim, such as that it does not recognise the benefits of coal and that exporters are not really responsible. Finally, I consider some of the consequences of this argument and claim that Australia and other fossil fuel exporters ought to have a higher ‘carbon budget’ if this argument is true and that exporters ought to bear a higher share of the costs of climate harms.