Suchergebnisse

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this record. ; What are the roles of government institutions in the design and implementation of effective national security policy? Using the case of post-2010 reform to Britain's central government security policy machinery, we find that formal institutions can help the informal strategy-making institutions on their periphery to function better. Through interviews with 25 senior officials, we find that Britain's National Security Council and quinquennial Strategic Defence and Security Reviews – both instituted in 2010 with the intention of improving UK security policymaking – remain limited as formal makers of national strategy. But the networks of individuals and ideas they support, by absolving some decision-makers of audience costs while immersing others in creative yet coherent strategy-development communities, have improved the overall quality of UK security policymaking compared to its pre-2010 condition. This finding also carries implications for other contexts and thus represents a promising avenue for future research.

This open access edited volume shines new light on the history of propaganda and persuasion during the Nordic welfare epoch. A common analytical framework is developed that highlights transnational and transmedial perspectives rather than national or monomedial histories. The return of propaganda in contemporary debate underlines the need to historically contextualize the role and function of persuasive communication activities in the Nordic region and beyond. Building on an empirically situated approach, the chapters in this volume break new ground by covering a range of themes, from cultural diplomacy and nation branding to media materiality and information infrastructures. In doing so, the book stresses that the Nordic welfare epoch, with its associated epithet the "Nordic Model", was built not only on governance, social security and economic productivity, but also on propaganda and persuasion.

The question of the form that academic freedom takes and how it can be maintained in the context of the internationalisation of universities has become prominent in the UK in recent years. Both governmental and societal voices have raised concerns about perceived threats; however, much of the existing evidence is scattered and anecdotal. In October 2020, we distributed a survey in order to assess these issues. In this paper we report three main findings. First, UK social scientists express high levels of concern across a number of dimensions, from the effects of funding on research, to teaching content, to freedom of expression, and risks created by the online environment. Second, these concerns are somewhat greater in Politics, IR and Area Studies, suggesting that those disciplines which are most international in their content report greater risk. Finally, there appears to be demand for greater support. A majority of respondents did not know if guidelines existed in their department, and state that academic freedom was discussed infrequently or not at all. This suggests that institutional guidance and professional discourse have not kept pace with heightened concern. We find majority support for new legislation and even stronger support for a code of conduct.

Context. Vaccination of brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) has been proposed as a cost-effective alternative to lethal control for preventing potentially bovine tuberculosis (Tb)-infected possums from crossing forested buffer zones that abut farmland.
Aim. Evaluation of these two management option requires an estimation of the buffer width required to reduce the risk of disease spread to an acceptable level.
Methods. The movements of two groups of adult and subadult possums were monitored for up to 12 months in the Kaimanawa Range, North Island of New Zealand, using GPS technology. One group was in untreated forest immediately adjacent to a recently poisoned forest buffer, and the second group was 2 km further into untreated forest, which mimicked a vaccinated buffer with no reduction in possum abundance.
Key results. Close to the poisoned buffer, where the initial population density was 0.49–1.45 ha–1, adult possum home ranges averaged 10.2 ha in the summer immediately after control and 9.5 ha in the following winter. Two kilometres into the untreated forest, where the density was >3 ha–1, the corresponding values were only 3.5 ha and 2.8 ha. Over the first 6 months of monitoring, a ~350-m wide poisoned buffer would have contained 95% of movements by adult possums, as well as movements by most individuals, but a ~150-m wide vaccinated buffer would have been as effective. Equivalent results for the subsequent 6-month period were ~450 m and ~200 m for poisoned and vaccinated buffers, respectively. Movements by possums were not biased in the direction of the population 'vacuum' created by the poisoning operation. When subadult possums were included in the analysis, buffer widths of ~500–600 m for both poisoning and vaccination would be required to contain 95% of new den site locations.
Conclusions and implications. Detailed data on possum movements provide a means for agencies managing Tb to specify the width of a buffer, subject to an acceptable level of risk that it could be breached by a potentially infected possum. As well as depending on the width of a treated buffer, the final cost-effectiveness of vaccination compared with poisoning will depend on the relative cost of applying the two control techniques, and the frequency of application required either to prevent Tb from establishing (in the case of vaccination) or to suppress possum density (in the case of lethal control).