Wilf Family Department of Politics

Excluding strict religious groups from political institutions is often considered a solution for religious extremism. We argue that sectarianism and persecution results if excluded groups have judicial authority. We examine a tumultuous period in Scottish history beginning from the Reformation in 1560 until a few years after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. During this period, the Crown repeatedly provoked political crises by attempting to impose an episcopal structure on the Church of Scotland. We find that the Scottish Presbyterians were substantially more active in persecuting alleged witches during periods when they were excluded from power. Although monopoly churches can be instruments of state-making and social order, our results show that the disciplinary instruments of an established church can be turned against the state. In polities divided by factional religious conflict the suppression of sectarian groups can lead them to impose religious discipline as a counterweight to...

Religious norms can undermine the effects of property rights institutions. Districts in colonial India that provided widows with rights to inherit the joint-family property of their deceased husband had significantly higher widow immolations than districts that did not. Religious elites (Brahmins) burnt disproportionately more widows, and widow immolations were higher in regions with a higher density of religious elites. The findings indicate that egalitarianism requires egalitarians. Elite norms embedded in religion can mediate the effects of property rights and lead to negative consequences.

This paper tries to understand whether importers in the North are able to push exporters in the South towards sustainable production, with the help of a case study of the Indian leather industry. After providing a short description of the global leather footwear industry, the first section provides insights into the competitive advantages of different countries, characteristics of developing country exporters and the difference between large and small European buyers of Indian leather footwear. The subsequent section provides an insight into the different chains of influence that exist in trying to make international trade more sustainable with the help of a broad understanding of the means, their effectiveness, their constraints and a few examples of such chains of influence. Section four studies whether ecolabels are in a position to be suitable indicators of sustainability. Further it delves into understanding the perspectives of consumers, producers and regulators on whether ecolabels are useful in promoting sustainable exports. The explanation of how ecolabels conflict with brand dynamics is quite interesting. The policy measures provide clear options for targeting sustainable production. Suggestions include use of eco-elasticity indicator, toolbox approach to environment policy, introducing comprehensive sustainability labels, maintaining a level of mandatory legislations as well as a constructive effort to increase transparency in supply chains. The annexure include the research methodology adopted for the paper, the reason for choosing Europe as destination for the research, a brief overview about types of ecolabels and a small description of integrated product policies.

In the past few years, the number of lenders adopting voluntary environmental codes, such as the Equator Principles, is increasing. The main reasons for this form of over-compliance include warm glow preferences of agents, credit risk and incentives arising from regulation. Empirical evidence suggests that lenders that over-comply are generally bigger than those that don't. In particular, they are likely to be MNCs. In addition, the behaviour of overcomplying lenders differs from other lenders, for instance they are more likely to incorporate environmental risks in their lending practises. In the context of developing countries, incentives that promote over-compliance exist to a much lesser degree. Analysing the regulatory environment in developing countries, we find no compelling reason for regulators to encourage voluntary initiatives such as the Equator Principles.

The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) is an international grant-making NGO promoting evidence-informed development policies and programmes. We are the global leader in funding, producing and synthesising high-quality evidence of what works, for whom, why and at what cost. We believe that better and policy-relevant evidence will make development more effective and improve people's lives. 3ie systematic reviews 3ie systematic reviews appraise and synthesise the available high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of social and economic development interventions in low-and middleincome countries. These reviews follow scientifically recognised review methods, and are peer-reviewed and quality assured according to internationally accepted standards. 3ie is providing leadership in demonstrating rigorous and innovative review methodologies, such as using theory-based approaches suited to inform policy and programming in the dynamic contexts and challenges of low-and middle-income countries. About this review Decentralised forest management for reducing deforestation and poverty in low-and middle-income countries: a systematic review, was submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of grant SR4.1173 issued under Systematic Review Window 4. This review is available on the 3ie website. 3ie is publishing this report as received from the authors; it has been formatted to 3ie style. This review has also been published in the Campbell Collaboration Library and is available here.

International Relations is often perceived as power-based and void of ethical considerations. Yet, when social and political choices are made, it is difficult to disregard the influence of values and morality. This course thus aims to examine and analyze the role of ethics in the conduct of international affairs. It will seek to answer the questions: Is ethical action possible given the realities of national interests and power politics? And how, in normative or ethical terms can international acts and institutions be evaluated?

Solely equating terrorism with criminality discounts the social, political, cultural, and historical motivations that drive people to employ violence as a strategy for collective action. Using the multi-institutional politics approach to social movements (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008), this study explores the choice of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines to employ terror and violence as the primary social movement tactic to pursue their Islamic separatist cause. Analysis of archival and open-source data, together with original interviews, reveal that the problem is multi-institutional-developmental, cultural, historical, social and political all at the same time. The choice of violence results from a distinctive combination of context-specific conditions rather than from pure fundamentalist ideology or political opportunities. The culture of "warlordism," history of Muslim oppression, weak governance and law enforcement, and the lack of economic opportunities in the southern Philippines, has largely directed the strategy of the ASG over time. Specific tactics of kidnap for ransom, extortion, and small-scale (nonsuicide) bombings currently point to a wavering and superficial Islamic fundamentalist ideological indoctrination among its members and supporters. Strategic choices thus depend on the struggle for material and symbolic power in Mindanao. This suggests that the tactics of the ASG arise not from purely political or secessionist motivations, but rather emerge as a consequence of a multi-layered structure of dominance, and a complex power struggle in Mindanao. Consequently, a purely militaristic approach to eliminate the ASG that disregards the multi-institutional nature of the problem will simply be a cause of perennial frustration. ! ""! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Literary genius Dennis R. Miller once declared, "Life is what happens to a writer between drafts." And indeed, as a wife, mother, daughter and scholar, it was in those spaces sandwiched between long hours of putting this thesis together on paper that ʻlifeʼ happened. I am thus greatly indebted to so many people who have made it possible for me to live fully in those spaces between drafts and likewise write (and complete) this thesis with passion. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to my friends who were instrumental in helping me establish interview contacts for this study:

The absence of a comprehensive, universal and legally binding definition of terrorism has characterized the international terrorism discourse for decades. Scholarship on the interplay between states, discourse, and power in shaping this dilemma has been largely absent. This project attempts to sociologically examine this theoretical relationship by primarily looking at the role of the state in producing, framing, and otherwise manipulating the definition of terrorism, and consequently, the global terrorism discourse within the United Nations. Applying the sociological concepts of states, discourse, and power, while drawing on the theoretical lens of Bob Jessop’s (1990) strategic-relational approach to examining states, this study assesses the strategic political processes engaged in by UN member-states over the last two decades to define and frame the discourse of terrorism. At the very core of the political impasse to define terrorism is a confluence of three tightly linked factors...

By taking to the streets in mass numbers, Algerians have unseated Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the country's president since 1999. Can they take those protests further? In April 2018, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) made a poor bet. On February 10, the bet was realized. Responding to the FLN's call last year, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria's president since 1999, announced his official candidacy for a fifth term in the now-postponed April elections, triggering a fall-of-the-regime kind of uprising in the country.

Some commentators have criticized Bernie Sanders for not going far enough on Palestine. But his denunciation of Israeli land grabs in the West Bank, plus his agenda for transformative policies at home, constituted the most meaningful challenge to the status quo of USbacked Israeli colonialism.

Tunisia su(ers from high unemployment,[1] high inequality, informality and precariousness[2] just as the rest of the Arab World. Yet, scholars give a leading role to the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT), Tunisia's general trade union federation in explaining the success of Tunisia's transitional democracy compared with its Arab Spring counterparts. The UGTT sheltered the protestors against Ben Ali during the uprising and allowed them the breathing room they needed to organize.[3] It shaped the political dialogue and early negotiations with remnants of the Ben Ali regime in the transitional process by forcing the election of a constituent assembly.[4] It pressured the government over wage issues and hiring in the public sector.[5] It has been a power broker between political parties,[6] and played

The IMF, last-resort creditor for economically failing sovereigns, attached about 26 conditions on average to each of its loans in 2016-2017, up from an average of 19 conditions in 2011-2013, according to this review. This is despite the IMF's own guidelines review in the interim that makes "parsimony in program-related conditions," a principal. What makes the IMF and its conditionality the standard answer to the question of who are our overlords is that it enforces the politically contentious agenda of public sector wage cuts, removal of subsidies, restructuring retirement funds, and broad austerity in current and capital spending across the board, in the Global South and in distressed economies of the Eurozone alike. Even remaining in the good graces of the fund would entail some dosage of the general prescription to unlock developmental assistance, aid, and credit ratings in the hopes of eventually succeeding at the global policy olympics of luring international investors out of their safe havens. In short, anyone knocking at the IMF's door can always quench their thirst, but only from a poisoned chalice.