Articles

Many energy consumers, and even analysts and policymakers, confront and frame energy and climate risks in a moral vacuum, rarely incorporating broader social justice concerns. Here, to remedy this gap, we investigate how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making by reframing five energy problems — nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change — as pressing justice concerns.

When and why do rebel groups conduct diplomacy during civil wars? The groups that are most likely to engage in diplomacy are those seeking to secede and to acquire domestic political backing. Diplomacy is crucial to securing international legitimacy for secessionist groups, which in turn increases rebels’ support at home.

Many accounts suggest that the United States did little to prevent Israel, Pakistan, and South Africa from developing nuclear weapons. These accounts are flawed, however. The United States did attempt to stop all three countries from acquiring the bomb and, when those efforts failed, to halt additional proliferation measures such as further testing and weaponization.

When and why do national movements succeed? What explains variation in the use and effectiveness of political violence employed by nationalist groups? Analysis of seventeen campaigns involving sixteen groups within the Palestinian and Algerian national movements suggests that hegemonic movements with one significant group are most likely to succeed.

Recent national trends in investments in global energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) are inconsistent around the world. Public RD&D investments in energy are the metric most commonly used in international comparative assessments of energy-technology innovation, and the metric employed in this article. Overall, the data indicate that International Energy Agency (IEA) member country government investments have been volatile: they peaked in the late 1970s, declined during the subsequent two decades, bottomed out in 1997, and then began to gradually grow again during the 2000s.

Currently there seems to be an increasing interest in and demand for China's mediation in resolving conflict. To certain extent, such a phenomenon is associated with China's re-emerging power. But more importantly, it is probably the style and skills of China's mediation that matter, which represents the emerging of a unique mediation culture, with China being its messenger. The paper examines key elements of such a mediation culture, using examples of China's mediation in regional and international affairs. The shaping of such a culture offers good lessons for mediators around the world who strive for effective conflict resolution.

Since 1990, negotiated settlements have been the preferred method for ending civil wars. A new analysis of all civil war endings since 1940, however, shows that military victory can be more effective than negotiated settlements in establishing lasting peace. The case of Uganda illustrates how peace eludes negotiated settlements and how rebels might be more likely to allow democratization. If stability, democracy, and development are valued objectives, then policymakers should examine victories as well as negotiated settlements to understand the conditions most likely to achieve durable outcomes.