Mutual Distrust Research Articles

Beyond the binary

Urbanisation is an inevitable part of India’s growth, which places enormous strain on existing infrastructure and settlements. Although the need for urban renewal or urban regeneration (as contrasted with greenfield development) is clear, it seems current policy and institutional frameworks have yet to offer any significant results. Lack of financial resources is one of the most critical challenges being faced by governments at various levels, and despite sufficient financial means and instruments to develop new infrastructure (such as the FDI, PPP, TDR, and so on), funding channels for urban renewal projects remain almost non-existent within an environment of mutual distrust. Through a discussion of three ongoing projects, the need to explore outside of conventional models will be demonstrated. In essence, this article advocates for an intermediary working structure of PPPP (Public-Private Partnership with the fourth P standing for People), which can be situated between a strict / formal approach and an unregulated / informal one, often referred to in the Indian context to as Jugaad. Though jugaad is typically characterized by ‘ad-hoc-ism’ and informality, the outcomes still provide affordable solutions for stakeholders. Jugaad is notable for both its process-driven approach involving people-to-people collaboration, and its circumvention of the need for reform of the prevailing systemic environment. We suggest, therefore, that Jugaad in urbanism be reconceived as going beyond quick-fixes to serve as a possible model for resolving challenges in a participatory manner, without resorting to rule-bound contracting methods. *Jugaad is a term applied to a creative or innovative idea providing a quick, alternative way of solving or fixing a problem.

Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

Extreme polarization can undermine democracy by making compromise impossible and transforming politics into a zero-sum game. "Ideological polarization"-the extent to which political views are widely dispersed-is already strong among elites, but less so among the general public [N. McCarty, Polarization: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2019, pp. 50-68]. Strong mutual distrust and hostility between Democrats and Republicans in the United States, combined with the elites' already strong ideological polarization, could lead to increasing ideological polarization among the public. The paper addresses two questions: 1) Is there a level of ideological polarization above which polarization feeds upon itself to become a runaway process? 2) If so, what policy interventions could prevent such dangerous positive feedback loops? To explore these questions, we present an agent-based model of ideological polarization that differentiates between the tendency for two actors to interact ("exposure") and how they respond when interactions occur, positing that interaction between similar actors reduces their difference, while interaction between dissimilar actors increases their difference. Our analysis explores the effects on polarization of different levels of tolerance to other views, responsiveness to other views, exposure to dissimilar actors, multiple ideological dimensions, economic self-interest, and external shocks. The results suggest strategies for preventing, or at least slowing, the development of extreme polarization.

Systemic obstacles and possible solutions to crisis management between China and the US

As competition between China and the United States intensifies, crisis management is becoming a central issue between the two countries and their militaries. However, though both sides demonstrate strong will to strengthen crisis management, progress has been slow. As to the reason for this, previous academic studies mostly focus on the unit level and officials just engage in finger-pointing. This paper analyzes systemic obstacles to Sino–US crisis management and discusses the significance of these systemic factors for Sino–US crisis management approaches and methods. On this basis, this paper argues that the particularity of Sino–US military competition is unprecedented; the military competitions between other great power dyads in history, such as that between the United States and the Soviet Union, are not comparable. Thus, in the context of general peace among major powers, both China and the US must switch from building mutual confidence and removing mutual distrust to managing and controlling competition trends and surpass the efforts made by the US and the Soviet Union in the past.

The informalization of doctor-patient relations in a Finnish setting: New social figurations and emergent possibilities.

This article features data drawn from interviews with doctors working in the Finnish occupational health-care system. These are used to explore the value of an Eliasian approach towards interpreting and assessing the moral meanings and social dynamics of relationships between health practitioners and their patients. We attend to spiralling 'formalizing' and 'informalizing' processes and how these are operating to reconfigure doctor-patient relationships. We document some of the ways in which Finnish doctors are adapting to these processes. While data drawn from a British context suggest both doctor and patients are inclined to adopt positions of mutual distrust and hostility, by contrast we note that in this Finnish setting more concerted attempts are being made to renegotiate social roles, cultural meanings and individual responsibilities. We propose that this can be taken as an instance where informalization is accompanied by revitalized currents of formalization and new syntheses of moral codes and conduct.

Stakeholder engagement in the health policy process in a low income country: a qualitative study of stakeholder perceptions of the challenges to effective inclusion in Malawi

BackgroundInclusive engagement in healthcare policies and decision-making is essential to address the needs of patients and communities, reduce health inequities and increase the accountability of the government. In low income countries such as Malawi, with significant health challenges, stakeholder inclusion is particularly important to improve performance and service delivery. The 2017 National Health Plan II (NHP II) and accompanying Health Sector Strategic Plan II (HSSP II) aimed to improve the functioning of the healthcare system. The Ministry of Health for Malawi intended to involve all key health sector stakeholders in their development. This study explores the extent of stakeholder engagement in the health policy process through local level stakeholders’ perceptions of their involvement in the NHP II and HSSP II.MethodsA qualitative study design was used. Interviews were conducted with 19 representatives of organisations operating at the local level, such as CSOs and local government. Open questions were asked about experiences and perceptions of the development of the NHP II and HSSP II. Inductive content analysis was performed.ResultsStakeholders perceived barriers to inclusive and meaningful engagement in the health policy process. Five categories were identified: tokenistic involvement; stakeholder hierarchy; mutual distrust; preferred stakeholders; no culture of engagement.ConclusionsSerious challenges to the meaningful and equitable engagement of local level stakeholder groups in the health policy process were identified. Issues of trust, accountability and hierarchy in donor-citizen-government relations must be addressed to support stakeholder engagement. Engagement must go beyond tokenism to embed a range of stakeholders in the process with feedback mechanisms to ensure impact from their contributions. Local level stakeholders can be empowered to advocate for and participate in consultation exercises alongside greater top-down efforts to engage stakeholders via diverse and inclusive methods. These issues are not unique to Malawi or to health policy-making.

Гражданский сектор государственного управления: новые формы самоорганизации и участия населения в условиях цифровизации публичного пространства

As digital technologies develop, a new form of relations between the state and the public is developing as well. Additional opportunities for the expression of public interests and the establishment of values preferred by the society arise, new mechanisms of political mobilization develop, new forms of public organization and self-organization emerge, the social media gain more power, and local and general public narrative develop on a number of online platforms. With the digitization of the public space, the state is forced to change its communication strategies and improve the dialogue between the government and the society based on deliberative democracy principles. After analysing the architecture of public communication emerging in new conditions the paper concludes that Russia is making certain efforts to adapt for the new digitized reality. However, current state priorities are shifting towards e-government and the digital economy. On the one hand, it seems justified, as it allows to bring the public services to a completely new level, reduce corruption risks, and simplify state management of economic processes. On the other hand, the lack of due attention to the issues of openness of public administration and involvement of citizens in making public decisions results in accumulation of contradictions in the public area of public administration, as well as increasing mutual misunderstanding and distrust between the state bodies and the civil society, which may entail bursts of social discontent and protests.

COUNTER-TERRORISM COOPERATION IN THE ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM (ARF) FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF INDONESIA DEFENSE DIPLOMACY

<p>Terrorism is a threat that not only jeopardizes a country's security, but also the survival of ASEAN as a regional organization, the security of peace and stability, and the region's overall economic possibilities. This research aimed to examine the implementation of Counter-terrorism (CT) cooperation in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) from the perspective of Indonesia's defense diplomacy. The research method used was the qualitative method which is based on the combination of interviews and literature review regarding ASEAN’s or ARF’s Counter-terrorism cooperation and Indonesia’s defense diplomacy from the year 2015-2019. The findings showed that CT cooperation is less discussed in the mechanism of the ARF since the current focus of ARF is on Trafficking in Person (TIP) and threats of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN). Meanwhile, from the perspective of defense diplomacy, Indonesia has successfully initiated ARF Statement on Preventing and Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism (VECT) with Australia and New Zealand in 2019. However, it is undeniable that CT cooperation through the ARF mechanism remains difficult to achieve due to several obstacles, including the differences of national interests and legal framework, the principle of non-interference, and the existence of mutual distrust between participating countries.</p>

Fear of a cannibal island: Colonial fear, everyday life, and event landscapes in the Erromango missions of Vanuatu

Archaeological landscapes of colonial encounter were shaped to varying degrees by mutual mistrust, misunderstanding, anxiety, and the inherent terror of frontier violence. In the mission encounters of Island Melanesia, the colonial trope of “cannibalism” added a particular tinge to these fears of the colonized other. Mythologies of cannibalism both repulsed and motivated Christian missionaries who were led to places such as Erromango in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). Cannibalism as a practice was rare or even non-existent in these encounters, but it remained part of the European imaginary of the region. Several highly-publicized missionary martyrdoms on Erromango between 1839–1872 remain important to local social memories enacted in place. At the same time, there is a backdrop of relatively peaceful everyday life for missionary families as revealed by the archaeological record of mission houses. The structural and actual violence perpetrated by Europeans in missions and other colonial encounters are historically and currently underemphasized.

The defied spirit. Subjective stupidity and objective intelligence

The present article analyses the different forms of stupidity as they are presented in the two renowned lectures held by Musil in 1937, in particular by trying to connect them to some passages from The Man Without Qualities. Stupidity cannot be reduced to a simple “inability to understand”. It becomes the symptom of a wider crisis involving the whole European tradition: a crisis of trust in human nature that ends up compromising every possible overall vision about culture and life. Valéry arrived to a similar outcome in his The Crisis of The Mind. Significantly, both Musil and Valéry attempted to explain this kind of crisis through the analogy with economic processes: by combining their theses, and taking into account some passages of Simmel’s Philosophy of Money, we could say that money has concentrated intelligence and trust within itself, reducing individuals to a condition of stupidity and mutual distrust.

The Unbearable Lightness of Trust: Trade, conviviality, and the life-world of Indian export agents in Yiwu, China

AbstractDrawing on ethnographic data collected in China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and India, this article explores the life-world and practices of small-scale Indian export agents based in Yiwu, China, the world centre for the export of small commodities. It shows that in a market overdetermined by fast-moving goods, short-term gains, and low margins, export agents have to steer their way between acting with extreme caution or taking risks with their clients and suppliers. These apparently contradictory dispositions or orientations are negotiated by the judicious exercise of mistrust and suspicion. The article suggests not only that mistrust is valued and cultivated as an indispensable practical resource for success in Yiwu's export trade, but that contingent relations of trust between market players emerge at the interstices of a generalized mutual mistrust, via the mobilization of practices of hospitality, commensality, and masculine conviviality. Indeed, feelings of amity and mutuality elicited by the performance of modalities of social intimacy become the affective terrain upon which divergent economic interests might be reconciled and taken forward. That is, mistrust might not lead to generalized distrust, instead a situational or contingent trust might actually emerge through the judicious exercise of mistrust.

Multigenerational Experiences of Flight: The Case of Jewish Refugees from Galicia and Bukovina in Vienna and Lower Austria, 1918–1941

ABSTRACT Although in the focus of antisemitic and National Socialistic propaganda, our level of knowledge about the ‘Ostjuden’ (Eastern Jews) relates almost to the time before World War I, it was precisely the war that drove Galician and Bukovinian Jews from their homeland and reshaped this group. Because of the collapsed bureaucracy, increasing antisemitism, and mutual mistrust, it is difficult to identify this group within the city: ordinary registration forms were often not completed. This contribution defines the Viennese ‘Ostjuden’ on basic of the birth registers of the Jewish Community. The given information about the parents provides a more comprehensive picture of origin, social status, place of residence, and so on. Most of them – neither the refugees, nor those who had left the successor states of the former Austrian monarchy – were denied Austrian citizenship and were not seeking to return to their ‘homelands.’ The status of designated statelessness posed an existential risk for those affected after the National Socialists came to power. Therefore, this article explores the extent of the effect of the Nazis’ murder machinery and whether they managed to escape.

Collective Memory and Nation-Building in Africa

Based on documentary analysis, this article argues that lessons of violent conflicts are rarely appropriated positively for nation-building in the context of post-conflict African societies. The article further stresses that the reasons often projected as causes of ineffective nation-building, such as multiple ethnicity and neo-colonialism, are unjustifiably projected as causal factors. It argues that diverse ethnicity remains a dormant destructive force until operationalised for political gains through misappropriation and deployment of collective memories. In the African context, post-conflict societies adopt the mixed approach of selective amnesia which emphasises amnesty, reconciliation, rehabilitation and reintegration as necessary for nation-building. Experience, however, suggests that the operationalisation of this approach is always marred by inconsistencies and repression. Consequently, repressive mechanisms suppress violence and achieve relative stability. True reconciliation which is critical for nation-building is never achieved. Among loser ethnic groups (hereafter loser groups), resistance to selective amnesia and simultaneous preoccupation with collective memory of victimisation, discrimination and injustice continue to reinforce sentiments of group exceptionality and separatist impulses rather than national consciousness. Therefore, cautious expression of citizenship among segments of the loser groups continues to attract mutual suspicion and distrust from leadership of post-conflict states. It is concluded that the challenge of social contradictions in post-conflict societies is serious because neither the state nor loser groups positively deploy memory of conflict for nation-building. A new reconciliatory approach drawn largely from lessons of history is recommended for post-conflict nation-building efforts in post-conflict African states. Positive appropriation and deployment of memory for nation-building ensures amnesty and restoration without repercussions; and remembrance without resentment.

The Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons and the Challenges of National Security in Nigeria: A Case Study of Adamawa State

The proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) is a major national security challenge in Nigeria. The insecurity resulting from insurgency, banditry, militancy, kidnapping, armed robbery, ethno-religious and communal conflicts have become worrisome in Nigeria. All this, are perpetrated with small arms and light weapons, which are easily concealed and used to unleash violence in the society. There is hardly any week that passes by, without a report of one attack or the other somewhere in Nigeria. Adamawa state is not different as security challenges perpetrated with SALWs have destroyed lives and properties, and displaced a lot of people many of whom are farmers thereby, threatening food security. Again, Boko-Haram insurgency has over the years increased the availability of SALWs in the state. Porosity of Nigerian borders in Adamawa state axis has equally made it much easier for criminals to smuggle in SALWs into the state from neighboring Cameroon. The security agencies that are saddled with the responsibility to check this are complicit, as the bad ones facilitate the smuggling or are themselves sources of SALWs. Today, there is mutual distrust and deep seated grievances among the various ethnic groups co-habiting the state due to injustice. The deep seated grievances have made groups to acquire SALWs for self-help and retaliation. Furthermore, suspicion is commonplace and many people have lost trust and faith in the security architecture of the state government. Thus, people have resorted to the acquisition of SALWs for self-defense. Above all, politicians procure arms for the youths during elections. These arms are never returned as they are used to make ends meet due to poverty and unemployment ravaging the country. It is within the context of this broad narrative that the proliferation of SALWs is situated in Adamawa state nay Nigeria. Therefore, to check this menace, there is need to rejig the security architecture of Adamawa state and indeed Nigeria. Border security must be strengthened through cross-border security arrangement with Nigeria neighbors. The culture of violence in politics must be de-emphasized and the premium attached to political office should be reduced. Poverty and unemployment should be reduced and Justice should be served to all who deserve it. Finally, mutual trust should be encouraged by the government to foster inter-ethnic and religious co-existence and harmony among the diverse people in the state.

REZIM KEAMANAN MARITIM DALAM PENANGANAN PEMBAJAKAN KAPAL DI SELAT MALAKA

Abstract
 This article describes the form and performance of the Malacca Straits Patrol (MSP) cooperation as a maritime security regime in dealing with maritime piracy in the Straits of Malacca in the year 2008-2020. It is explored and analyzed using a theoretical approach of maritime security regimes, with the concept of maritime piracy, and the concept of maritime security. The research method used is qualitative based on case study and descriptive analysis. Sources of data were obtained from interviews and documentation with validated through triangulation of data sources and negative case analysis. The results of the study found the maritime piracy in the Straits of Malacca led to the development of dynamic threat perspective between littoral states and non-littoral user states depending on the priority of each states maritime interests to the strategic value of the Malacca Strait. This prompted the establishment of the Malacca Straits Patrol (MSP) cooperation as a form of maritime security regime with a cooperative security mechanism that has principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures aimed at dealing with maritime piracy of Malacca Strait through four programs: (1) Malacca Straits Sea Patrol (MSSP); (2) Eyes in the Sky Combined Maritime Air Patrols (EiS-CMAP); (3) Malacca Straits Patrol Intelligence Exchange Group (MSP-IEG); and (4) the Malacca Straits Patrol Joint Coordination Committee (MSP-JCC). It has a low level of effectiveness performance as the output product of the regime make outcome changes in the collective behavior of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand that optimum comply with a few rules of the game in the implementation of the MSSP, EiS CMAP, MSP-IEG, and MSP-JCC programs, because hampered by lack of capability and mutual mistrust. The results of these performances made the operationalization of the MSP regime to minimum, resulting in the unresolved problem of maritime piracy of the Malacca Strait according to the objectives MSP regime. Recommends for extending MSP to Strait of Singapore; increased capability of MSSP and EiS-CMAP; review the transparency information exchange of MSP-IEG; and increasing awareness and financial support, equipment, and training from interested non-littoral actors to littoral actors to make MSP more effective in dealing with piracy in the Straits of Malacca.
 
 Keywords : Straits of Malacca; Maritime Piracy; Maritime Security; Malacca Straits Patrol; Maritime Security Regime

Ecumenical Convergences: Romanian Evangelicals Exploring Orthodoxy

Historically, in Romania, the relations between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the evangelical communities have been characterized by tension and mutual distrust. That is why, unfortunately, there has been no official dialogue between the two communities so far. The present article investigates the theoretical possibility for such an ecumenical dialogue to occur by analysing the contributions of several evangelical theologians who published research studies on theological topics specific to Eastern orthodox theology. Their positions were analysed from the perspective of an inclusive theology which allowed us to identify some common themes for both traditions: the authority in interpreting the Scriptures, salvation as a process, and the Church understood through the application of a perichoretic model. All these convergent themes could constitute the basis for a future official ecumenical dialogue between the evangelicals and the orthodox from Romania.

'Life communication' after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster: what experts need to learn from residential non-scientific rationality.

ABSTRACTAfter chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or explosive (CBRNE) disasters, trepidation and infodemics about invisible hazards may cause indirect casualties in the affected society. Effective communication regarding technical issues between disaster experts and the residents is key to averting such secondary impacts. However, misconceptions about scientific issues and mistrust in experts frequently occur even with intensive and sincere communications. This miscommunication is usually attributed to residents’ conflicts with illiteracy, emotion, value depositions and ideologies. However, considering that communication is an interactive process, there are likely to be additional factors attributable to experts. This article aims to summarize the gaps in rationality between experts and residents observed after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster to describe how residents perceived experts. There were discrepancies in the perception of ‘facts’, the perception of probability, the interpretation of risk comparison, what were included as risk trade-offs, the view of the disaster, whose behavior would be changed by the communication and whether risk should be considered a science. These findings suggest that there was a non-scientific rationality among residents, which often exercised a potent influence on everyday decision-making. It might not be residents but experts who need to change their behavior. The discrepancies described in this article are likely to apply to communications following any CBRNE disasters that affect people’s lives, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, our experiences in Fukushima may provide clues to averting mutual mistrust between experts and achieving better public health outcomes during and after a crisis.

Design and Implementation of Decentralized Swarm Intelligence E-Commerce Model Based on Regional Chain and Edge Computing

In this paper, we investigate the model of decentralized groupwise e-commerce through regional chains combined with edge computing algorithms and design and implement it. A blockchain-based architecture for remote sensing resource and service transactions is proposed. The architecture utilizes the characteristics of nontamperable and traceable data on the blockchain to solve the problem of mutual distrust between the transaction parties, uses MongoDB for data retrieval and filtering to solve the problem that it is difficult to query flexibly on the blockchain, uses the file platform to save public resources to solve the problem that it is very expensive or even infeasible to store images or large texts in the blockchain, and ensures remote sensing resources and services related to the effective storage of images and description texts. The Ethernet features are described and analyzed to assess their suitability as a technical basis for the corresponding solutions. To assess the ability of the Ethernet-based system to solve solvable problems, its practical use cases are analyzed. The results of the analysis show that five main issues need to be addressed when applying Ethernet to e-commerce, namely, low scalability, lack of distributed storage, lack of convenience, reliability, and functional integrity. To exploit the idea of using blockchain technology to solve complex problems and to overcome the challenges identified in the existing Ethernet-based implementation solutions, an optimization idea is proposed by creating a multiblockchain architecture based multimodule solution in the Ethernet framework. Finally, the application prospects of the proposed information system are discussed.

Genesis of the Russia-Japan Conundrum in Northeast Asian Security: The Anatomy of Mutual Distrust and the China Factor

This paper examines the potential and limits of Russo-Japanese bilateral relations across the Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin periods, exploring the roots of the mutual distrust between the two countries, Gorbachev’s “new thinking” with respect to Japan, how Yeltsin’s policy differed from Gorbachev’s, what Putin’s policy priorities were with Abe, and the limits of Russo-Japanese relations. I also analyze important external elements in bilateral relations such as the China factor, predict how Russian relations with Japan will affect Russia’s future role in Northeast Asia, and discuss policy implications for Republic of Korea as well. The main argument of this paper is that Japan and Russia will continue to remain as immiscible in the end even before economic relations fully heated. Kuril Island dispute along with inherent mistrust between the two sides will continue to obstruct bilateral relations for the indefinite period unless there is a shocking event such as Russia’s decision to yield the four islands in contention to Japan.

Dynamics of Trust and Mistrust in the Afghanistan–Pakistan Relationship

ABSTRACT Following its independence from Britain in 1947, Pakistan inherited territorial disputes with Afghanistan and India. The conflicts over the Durand Line demarcation and Pashtunistan became guiding factors in Afghanistan’s opposition to Pakistan’s membership of the United Nations. Since then, relations have been more conflictual than cooperative. The nature of the bilateral relationship has been overshadowed by mutual mistrust, despite the two nations’ cultural links and Pakistan being home to the world’s largest number of Afghan refugees. This article employs trust theory to explain why the two states continue to have less cooperative, more conflictual relations. Based on the analysis, this paper accepts that bilateral interactions between the two states are dominated more by the long legacy of mistrust than by a perceived need for cooperation, but argues that they act more “rationally” when they interact with each other in negotiations involving other countries (e.g., trustworthy hegemons), whether in connection with trade or security matters. This article argues that the manifestations of strategic trust in multi-party negotiations are largely due to the fear of losing enormous economic and geopolitical benefits from other actors, such as China and India, in case of non-cooperation.

The fragility of opinion formation in a complex world

How does the complexity of the world around us affect the reliability of our opinions? Motivated by this question, we quantitatively study an opinion formation mechanism whereby an uninformed observer gradually forms opinions about a world composed of subjects interrelated by a signed network of mutual trust and distrust. We show numerically and analytically that the observer’s resulting opinions are highly inconsistent (they tend to be independent of the observer’s initial opinions) and unstable (they exhibit wide stochastic variations). Opinion inconsistency and instability increase with the world’s complexity, intended as the number of subjects and their interactions. This increase can be prevented by suitably expanding the observer’s initial amount of information. Our findings imply that an individual who initially trusts a few credible information sources may end up trusting the deceptive ones even if only a small number of trust relations exist between the credible and deceptive sources.