Political Threats Research Articles

Janko Silan as a Poet and Representative of Slovak Catholic Modernism

The paper aims to map the chronological development of the poetic work of Janko Silan, a representative of Slovak Catholic Modernism. It focuses on the development of his poetic method from his debut to posthumously published works. Literary scholarship in Slovakia regards his poetry timeless for its appealing subjectivism, authentic spirituality and humanity.Janko Silan’s debut Kuvici [Owls] displays distinct modernist tendencies. Silan adopted the motif of little owls from Slovak folklore, where they were known as harbingers of death. The lyrical subject too presents himself as one who is sad and aware of his mortality. The author also incorporated autobiographical motifs into his collection, especially the motif of eye disease and blindness.The poetry of Silan, the seminarian, includes three thematically distinct collections: the spiritual Rebrík do neba [Ladder to Heaven], the love poems in the Sonety májové [May Sonnets] and the commemorative poetic composition Slávme to spoločne [Let us Celebrate It Together]. The explicit spiritual theme in his seminarian’s poetry does not contain aesthetic value; it is baroquely patulous and sentimental. The love theme of Sonety májové [May Sonnets] is surprising to the reader coming from an author who is preparing for priestly celibacy. It seems that as an anthropological value, sexuality too is a gift from God and needs to be incorporated into the spiritual life. The book of poems, Slávme to spoločne [Let us Celebrate It Together] is dedicated to the author’s mother, Helena. Silan describes her as a “beautifully holy woman”.The poetry of the priest period, between 1942 and 1945, includes Silan’s collections Kým nebudeme doma [Until We Are Home] and Piesne z Javoriny [Songs from Javorina]. Literary critics and historians highly praise the second of Silan’s priestly collections. It is described as Franciscan because of many natural motifs that the author utilizes.Janko Silan is described as a “verbumist” because he was involved in a group of poets gathered around the magazine and publishing house Verbum (1946–1949). This period includes the collections Piesne zo Ždiaru [Songs from Ždiar] and Úbohá duša na zemi [Poor Soul on Earth]. In them, the author expresses his anxiety about the political situation and threat of Communist totalitarianism.Silan’s collection of poetry from the 1960s Oslnenie [Sun Blindness] corresponds with a relaxed political and social context. His poetry is “grounded”, human-centred, without explicit spiritualization. The smile that the author allows himself adds to the anthropological value.When Janko Silan was banned from publishing his poetry, he wrote “for the desk drawer”. The most famous from this period is the collection Katolícke piesne z Važca [The Catholic songs from Važec] and the novel Dom opustenosti [The House of Abandonment]. The prevalent themes are the violation of human rights in Czechoslovakia and the repressive impact of totalitarianism on an individual who, for reasons of conscience, is not willing to conform to Communist ideology. Of several works written in this period, Dom opustenosti [The House of Abandonment] has been particularly popular with readers and scholars.

Framing Migration Through the Crisis Era 2015–2022: A Content and Semantic Network Analysis of the Greek Press

Since the 2015 refugee crisis, when over 850,000 refugees and migrants reached European shores, migration has sparked intense political and social debates that dominate Europe’s political and media agenda. As a key entry point for refugees and migrants, Greece plays a central role in this ongoing crisis. This study examines how migration has been framed in three major Greek news outlets from 2015 to 2022. This study is groundbreaking as it goes beyond analyzing how mainstream media portray migration, migrants, and refugees. It also examines how the media frame the rhetoric and actions of far-right and right-wing populist parties in relation to migration, offering a more comprehensive and nuanced perspective. Analyzing 9840 opinion articles, it identifies two dominant frames: (a) a ‘political threat’ frame, reflecting concerns over the rise of the far-right in Europe driven by anti-migration rhetoric, and (b) a dual ‘security-humanitarianism’ frame, highlighting tensions between security needs and the imperative to uphold the human rights of refugees and immigrants, reflecting broader societal anxieties. The existence of a political threat frame and a dual-identity frame leads to question the prior conceptualization of security threats and strictly segregated frames in prior literature regarding established framing practices on migration.

ORGANIZATIONAL AND FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF DISTRIBUTION MANAGEMENT OF DIGITAL CONTENT

In today's crisis conditions caused by military, financial, economic, social, environmental political upheavals and threats, the role of innovative technologies in trade is growing significantly. First of all, this applies to digital distribution in the book trade. Compared to traditional forms of trade, it does not require extensive infrastructure, large production facilities, or numerous staff. This helps to reduce transaction costs, respond more quickly to changing market conditions and simplify access to international trading platforms. However, the further development of digital distribution requires constant monitoring and analysis of global trends, and implementation of the best domestic and foreign practices to ensure efficient management of trading operations.The purpose of the study is to formulate the main financial and organizational measures to improve the management of digital distribution and increase its efficiency. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were solved: based on scientific publications and statistical data, the author monitored the trends in the development of digital distribution and the e-book market in Ukraine and in the world; analyzed the rank and level of visits to the websites of leading online e-book and audiobook stores in Ukraine; identified external and internal factors that affect the efficiency of digital distribution, in particular, e-books and audiobooks in the current conditions of military aggression and other risks; developed a model for generating revenue for a digital distribution platform.Financial, economic and organizational measures to improve the company's distribution management of digital content are proposed. These include areas of customer incentives and rewards, improved communication with digital goods manufacturers, priority funding for projects to improve the platform interface and mobile application, improved accounting, reporting, operational and strategic planning, and the introduction of artificial intelligence.

Climate change and environmental degradation in Yanomami People’s Land: Intersectional threats and the need for improved policy-making

The Yanomami are an Amazonian Indigenous people in northern Brazil and southern Venezuela. The Yanomami are considered a ‘recent contact Indigenous People’, with the first contacts with non-indigenous recorded between 1910 and 1940 and with some groups in voluntary isolation. They are one of the resilient peoples that practise their traditional way of life, which involves a strong connection to the land and the environment. Following an expert-driven literature review based on a set of available documentation on the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples, focusing on the overlapping threats that affect Indigenous Lands and triangulating the information collected with data produced on Brazilian Amazon Rainforest Monitoring Program by Satellite (PRODES) within the Space Research National Institute (INPE), this communication presents a case analysis of the main pressures and threats Yanomami People faces. The overlapped threats manifest in structural and cyclical issues, linked to the environmental crisis arising from extractives’ illegal activities, such as logging, and mining invasions, the recurrent attacks, mercury contamination of the river water, malnutrition caused by contaminated fish, scarcity of hunting, and violence committed against the people, especially women and children. Added to these multiple social, political, and environmental threats are the impacts of climate change, which disproportionately affect forest peoples. Deforestation, fires, drought, and other extreme events that are linked to climate change effects are analysed, leading to reflections on Brazilian government policies' influence and on the urgency to implement policies in defence of Indigenous Lands, the Amazon Forest, and its guardians.

The Return of the Repressed: Political Deportation in the 
Indian Ocean during the Age 
of Revolutions

Abstract Between the second half of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Indian Ocean became a theatre of the global war waged by European imperial states. This article compares how three colonial powers, in French, Danish, and British colonial territories, dealt with interconnected political threats, in a region where the limits of imperial sovereignty and jurisdictions were often blurred and frequently renegotiated. Rather than a formally sanctioned doctrine and legal category, deportation should be understood as a crude tool for solving a variety of problems. Although the forced removal of criminals, religious minorities or political opponents was not a new instrument to the late eighteenth century, it is often ignored that political deportation was also a widely used legal practice in the Indian Ocean during the ‘age of revolutions’. In this region, deportation was used by imperial centres to get rid of political enemies, but also by regional authorities, without referring to metropolitan orders. It was usually not a judicial punishment, but an administrative measure justified in the name of political necessity. This article focuses on three small colonial enclaves, French Reunion, Danish Tranquebar, and British Pondicherry, where a siege mentality and fear of political sedition were omnipresent in this period. Contemporaries believed, with some justifications, that a single conspiracy linked these three colonial theatres, involving the same set of protagonists, who redeployed their projects as they were removed from one place to the next. But in these three sites and societies, deportation raises different issues. Dumping radicals on a foreign shore might have been a short-term fix, but it rarely solved problems in the long term: deportees often returned after some time, which was a direct consequence of the colonial authorities’ reluctance to take irreparable decisions, and of the entanglement of empires and polities in the Indian Ocean.

Climate Change Advocacy and Engagement on Social Media

This study examines how 21 leading environmental organizations framed climate change on Facebook and how these frames were associated with public engagement through reactions (e.g., likes), shares, and comments on the posts. We find that environmental nongovernmental organizations’ (NGOs) posts about climate change tend to emphasize the environmental impacts of climate change, political actions that are being taken by individuals and groups to address climate change, and political threats to climate progress. The results tentatively suggest that Facebook posts with an affective component—either positive or threat-based—are most likely to be associated with greater levels of engagement.

Warlike Heroines and Anglo-German Drama in an Age of Europhobia

The Anglo-German drama, which comes to proliferate in London's patent theatres at the turn of the nineteenth century, renders ubiquitous an arms-bearing heroine whose foreign character and perceived ideological inferences render her a chief object of attack among British Europhobic commentators. Redressing the limited scholarship devoted to this pervasive Anglo-German figure, this essay foregrounds the remarkable extent to which she is implicated in the perceived social and political threats with which the German drama is freighted. The essay uses theatrical commentaries to spotlight three recurring, though not quite harmonious flaws, for which the violent German heroine is contemporaneously berated. Then, analysing performances of Joseph George Holman's The Red-Cross Knights (Haymarket, 1799) and Richard Cumberland's Joanna of Montfaucon (Covent Garden, 1800), the essay illustrates the meticulous methods employed by dramatists to mollify the subversive implications embodied by the Anglo-German Amazon and to uphold supposedly inherent distinctions between male and female conduct, and British and European females, at a moment when the blurring of such gendered and national boundaries portends the social anarchy witnessed across the Channel.

Latino Tú Latino Yo: Group Threat and Group Consciousness in California

This paper examines the rise of group consciousness in California during the 1990s. Many scholars have studied the increase in political participation in California and have alluded to an increase in group consciousness, but studies have not captured whether or not this actually exists. In this paper, I use seven surveys conducted between 1989 and 2004 and leverage the timing of these surveys to examine the role of perceived discrimination on Latino group consciousness in California. I hypothesize that the impact of political threat motivated an increase in group consciousness, which is driven by Latinos who perceived the discriminatory nature of California’s proposition politics in the 1990s. I find support for the hypothesis that perceived discrimination is positively associated with group consciousness during this time. However, the relationship between perceived group discrimination and group consciousness weakens after the threatening time period, even though reported levels of group consciousness continued to increase. This finding suggests that group threat may activate group consciousness even after feelings of threat have subsided.

Re-Proportioning, Re-Framing, Re-Purposing: Foreign Experience in Russian Disability Organising After the Retreat of Foreign Funding

Russian civil society has experienced a retreat of foreign funding and NGOs. However, where foreign, formal organisations leave, Russian individuals remain. Exploring the pathways of these individuals shows how they navigate a shifting organising environment. Foreign experience is recognised as formational; it continues to inform action and moves into new spheres. However, some actors perceive overt publicisation of foreign connections and experience as heightening risk, and may disavow or obscure these experiences. Where foreign experience is associated with political threat, actors respond with strategies of apparent depoliticisation. Investigating how foreign experience is obscured thus provides a route into examining the political question of who, or what, is perceived as belonging.

Romania and the International Sanitary Conferences of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

This paper traces Romania’s participation in the International Sanitary Conferences of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Romania’s interest in international sanitary diplomacy was directly linked to the country’s geographical location and the role of the Danube in the spread of epidemics. The cholera outbreak that reached the Lower Danube in 1865 demonstrated that the river, which connected the Levant to Central Europe via steamship companies, was one of the main gateways through which epidemics spread to the continent. With their busy commercial links to other Black Sea ports, Sulina, Galați and Brăila were equally vulnerable to the importation of diseases that reached Ottoman or imperial Russian ports by land, i.e., via Persia or Central Asia. Such serious health concerns became even more important to the Romanian government after the Danube Delta and Dobrudja became part of independent Romania in 1878. The text follows the various interests that Romania had during these decades, defended by diplomats and doctors who worked together to protect public health from various epidemic, political or economic threats.

Media debates about China’s role as a global public goods supplier: frame contestation in reporting on the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine

This study examines different and even conflicting media frames for the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine as a global public good. Through a standardised content analysis approach examining media frames for the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine across three media outlets, the study reveals that Chinese media emphasise the safety and efficacy of their vaccines, highlighting their benefits for the international community. Conversely, the US and German media express apprehensions about China’s ‘vaccine diplomacy’ and perceive it as a political threat. Notably, Germany exhibits a relatively softer stance in this context, implying the existence of various attitudes and behaviours within the US and Europe in terms of coping with China’s rising influence. This case reflects the ongoing competition between superpowers, with the ‘China Threat Theory’ and the ‘China Responsibility Theory’ representing two major ideas dominating international discourse about China. China’s identity as a global public goods supplier in the context of the global pandemic may not make it more acceptable as a responsible great power, but rather, create more Western anxieties over China’s threat to the liberal international order.

Higher-order misinformation

Experts are sharply divided concerning the prevalence and influence of misinformation. Some have emphasized the severe epistemic and political threats posed by misinformation and have argued that some such threats have been realized in the real world. Others have argued that such concerns overstate the prevalence of misinformation and the gullibility of ordinary persons. Rather than taking a stand on this issue, I consider what would follow from the supposition that this latter perspective is correct. I argue that, if the prevalence and influence of misinformation are indeed overstated, then many reports as to the prevalence and influence of misinformation constitute a kind of higher-order misinformation. I argue that higher-order misinformation presents its own challenges. In particular, higher-order misinformation, ironically, would lend credibility to the very misinformation whose influence it exaggerates. Additionally, higher-order misinformation would lead to underestimations of the reasons favoring opposing views. In short, higher-order misinformation constitutes misleading higher-order evidence concerning the quality of the evidence on which individuals form their beliefs.

Agrarian Elites, Wealth Inequality, and State Capacity: Evidence from Early Twentieth-Century Brazil

abstract: Traditional agrarian elites have often been portrayed as obstacles to the expansion of the state. Because landed actors are particularly exposed to taxation, inequality is expected to exacerbate their resistance to the development of fiscal capacity. This article argues that when propertied actors are politically dominant and obtain benefits from public spending that are proportional to their capital endowments, wealth inequality is associated with greater elite support for capacity investments. Using early twentieth-century Brazilian data, the author shows that where landed elites faced fewer political threats, higher levels of landholding concentration were associated with increased fiscal and administrative capacity. Tests of mechanisms corroborate the idea that this relationship results from elite demands for specific types of public spending. These findings contribute to the broader literature on state-building by providing new insights into the interaction between economic interests and political dominance in shaping subnational variation in the reach of the state.

A Review on Deep Learning Approaches and Optimization Techniques For Political Security Threat Prediction

In an era of complex geopolitical dynamics and evolving security threats, the accurate prediction and proactive management of political security risks are imperative. This article provides a comprehensive review of the application of deep learning methodologies and optimization techniques to enhance political security threat prediction. Beginning with analyzing the dynamic landscape of political security threats, the paper emphasizes the necessity for adaptive, data-driven predictive tools. It then delves into the fundamentals of deep learning, elucidating core principles, notable architectural frameworks, and their diverse applications across domains. Expanding upon this foundation, the study evaluates the suitability of deep learning models for addressing the multifaceted challenges associated with political security threat prediction. To maximize the utility of these models, the article explores optimization techniques encompassing hyperparameter tuning, transfer learning, and ensemble strategies, assessing their effectiveness in fine-tuning predictions and bolstering the resilience of threat prediction systems. This review involved the utilization of four journal databases: IEEE, Science Direct, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and SpringerLink. We analyzed and examined 39 articles, paying close attention to the different patterns and techniques found within the chosen research framework. Through a critical synthesis of existing research, this review offers insights into the strengths, limitations, and future directions of deep learning-based political security threat prediction, contributing to the ongoing discourse on leveraging artificial intelligence for safeguarding global stability and security.

Легитимность насилия в техногенном обществе

The author examines the transformation of violence as a way of survival into “violence of power”, characteristic of modern civilization, the legitimacy of its legitimization, the use of resources of the information network society, technogenic civilization to regulate internal and external state relations, and new management perspectives. The legitimacy of the activities of states that claim the right to identify weak, dying or failed states as the source of modern political violence, instability and threats, and to carry out "humanitarian missions" against them, is called into question. The types of violence that are logically built into the development system of modern technogenic society, such as economic, institutional, and informational, are considered. Attention is drawn to the effectiveness of new technologies for the introduction of military innovations and the development of military potential in support of external legitimate state violence. The inability of modern society to control and regulate increasingly complex information systems and the tendency of the authorities to proactively assess negative consequences and prevent the possibility of their occurrence are emphasized. The mechanisms of a technogenic society contribute both to the control of the legitimacy of power and provide the power with the opportunity to control society. Therefore, a culture of peace can serve as a new trend in the development of humanity.

Suara dalam Keheningan: Membaca Ulang Kisah Elia dalam 1 Raja-Raja 19:1-18 sebagai Dampak dari Trauma Psikologis

The story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19:1-18 is often understood as a narrative about disappointment and escape. This article aims to analyze the psychological trauma experienced by Elijah. The research focuses on Elijah's experiences following his battle against the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Despite achieving victory, Elijah falls into depression and a desire to die due to the political threats from Jezebel. This article explores the parallels between Elijah's story and the characteristics of psychological trauma, such as feelings of threat, flashbacks, and avoidance. The journey from the wilderness to Mount Horeb brings Elijah to encounter God in a gentle voice and the whisper of a soft breeze, renewing his strength and giving him the confidence to continue his mission. This research employs qualitative methods with a literature review on psychological trauma and narrative text analysis to gain deeper understanding. Reading Elijah's story through the lens of psychological trauma offers several important lessons: first, trauma can be experienced by anyone, including those who seem strong; second, God is always present and provides healing for the wounded; and third, God's voice can come in silence and gentleness to guide us toward resilience.

Effects of threat sensitivity and issue concern on candidate preference

ABSTRACT There is extensive debate in the literature over the link between threat and political attitudes – while some find evidence that threat and threat sensitivity lead to political conservatism, others find that the effect of threat is more contextual. We contribute to this debate by theorizing that the link between threat and politics is based on both individual differences and political rhetoric. First, sensitivity about personal threats predicts greater concern about political threats as well. This issue concern may in turn be directed toward either conservatism or liberalism through political rhetoric and elite positioning. Using one observational and one experimental survey of American adults conducted in 2018 and 2023, we find consistent evidence that personal threat sensitivity increases issue concern regardless of the specific issue or its partisan ownership, and independent of partisanship or ideology. This increased issue concern does not produce a uniformly conservative shift – rather, an increase in concern about “Republican” issues leads to greater preference for Republican candidates, and vice versa for Democrats. The relationship between threat sensitivity and political attitudes is thus best understood as a contextual one.

Diagnosing Shosha: literature as a lens to view disease and history

In recent decades, physicians have diagnosed fictional and non-fictional characters through portraits, biographies and writing. We argue that such an exercise can be beneficial for a uniquely health humanities reason—better...

조선시대 조선과 명의 국경인식과 조명관계

After the founding of the country, Joseon actively established foreign relations in order to stabilize the legitimacy of the dynasty and the ruling system. Joseon established friendly diplomatic relations with the Ming and established diplomatic relations with the Jurchen and Japan. The external relations of the Joseon were shaped by the international situation, and it formulated and implemented an active foreign policy to eliminate political and military threats. The Ming, which replaced the Yuan as the central state in East Asia, sought to establish a unified governance system centered on the emperor domestically during the reign of the Hongwu Emperor(洪武帝) and externally to form an international order centered on the Ming. The Ming recognized Joseon in the northeast as a neighboring country and implemented an active policy of conciliation in order to bring the Jurchen, who lived in Liaodong and the northern part of the Korean peninsula, under the influence of the Ming. Specifically, the Ming established a military government system to actively govern Liaodong and set up a loose rein policy(羈縻政策) for the surrounding Jurchen. The Ming wanted to establish a border with Joseon along the Yalu river(압록강) and Tumen river(두만강) to create a stable relationship. Joseon emerged as a state on the Korean peninsula, replacing Goryeo, and continued to have stable diplomatic relations with the Ming. In addition, Joseon wanted to keep the Jurchen, who lived in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, under Joseon's sphere of influence in case the northern ethnic groups, including the Jurchen, were invaded by the international situation. As such, the Joseon and Ming clashed over influence over the Liaodong and the Jurchen. Basically, however, Joseon and Ming maintained mutually recognized borders and sought a stable international order. However, the concept of Joseon's borders was complicated by the consolidation of the Jurchen in the 16th century and their emergence as a new power. As the Jurchen expanded their power, Joseon, in conjunction with the Ming, actively sought to control them. However, due to the rapidly changing conditions of the Imjin War, the Joseon and Ming were unable to curb the growth of the Jurchen. The unified Jurchen founded the Later Jin(後金) and went to war with the Ming in earnest, renamed the Qing, and defeated the Ming, emerging as the center of power in East Asia. The border problems of the Joseon and Qing were both continuous and distinct from the border problems of the Joseon and Ming.

How expected party affiliation influences attitudes toward immigrants? Experimental evidence from the United States

AbstractWhat explains natives' attitudes towards immigrants in host countries? This paper argues that not only economic and cultural but also political threat perceptions influence attitude formation. Natives consider the political balance of power and calculate the potential political benefits of admitting immigrants. This is because expected in‐party members will affect the balance of power in their favour. Leveraging a conjoint experiment in the United States, this study explores whether an immigrant's expected party affiliation shapes native attitudes. The findings indicate that immigrants with defined party affiliations are favoured compared to non‐affiliated ones. Moreover, respondents favoured immigrants perceived as political allies and penalized those seen as rivals. Expected party affiliation is even a strong predictor of attitudes for natives with existing anti‐immigrant attitudes as they curbed their negativities and favoured certain party identities. Overall, results suggest the pivotal role of political considerations as well as the importance of studying unexplored factors in attitude formation on immigration.