Sociopolitical Scale Research Articles

Facilitators and barriers to the transition from outpatient clinic visits to home-based check-ups for children being treated with growth hormone: a mixed-methods study

Although the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic accelerated the adoption and expansion of telemedicine worldwide, little is known about the transition to home-based care for children. This study aims to investigate the facilitators and barriers to the transition from outpatient clinic visits to home-based check-ups (HBCU), for children being treated with growth hormone. A mixed-methods study was performed at Amalia Children’s Hospital (Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen), consisting of questionnaires and semi-structured and focus group interviews. For the quantitative part, the Measurement Instrument for Determinants of Innovation (MIDI) was utilised to investigate the facilitators and barriers for the 81 participants regarding the transition to HBCU. The MIDI questionnaire is comprised of four domains: the innovation-, user-, organisation-, and the socio-political scale. Descriptive statistics were performed for analysing the questionnaires. For the qualitative part, interviews with 10 participants derived from the questionnaire and the two focus group interviews were conducted, to gain more in-depth information about the research topic, until data saturation was reached. The interviews were analysed by using the reflective thematic approach, starting with deductive coding and followed by inductive coding. Several facilitators were recognised in our study: procedural clarity, self-efficacy, convenience, patient-centred care, increased accuracy in height measurements, social support, client/patient satisfaction/cooperation, patient-centred care, the flexibility and adaptivity of HBCU, physical start-up period of HBCU, and a potential decrease in healthcare costs. However, several barriers were also noted in our study: poor compatibility with current practice, lack of consultation within the team, feeling of being less controlled by physicians, unsettledness of the organisation, an increased workload for the staff, and insufficient information communication technology (ICT) facilities.Conclusion: This study revealed that HBCU have considerable benefits for both patients and healthcare professionals, from the standpoint of innovation, user, and socio-political points of view. The identified facilitators and barriers to HBCU should be taken into account when further steps of implementing HBCU are considered.What is Known:• The Corona-Virus-Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had an immense impact on health care worldwide. A substantial amount of the outpatient clinic visits for children treated with growth hormone was, as a result of the pandemic, transferred to online consultation. Transitioning paediatric growth hormone treatment to the home setting may be favorable for children and their parents/caregivers) as well for healthcare professionals.• Insights regarding facilitators and barriers is vital for the successful implementation and adoption of home-care technologies.What is New:• To our knowledge, we are first to report on and explicit the facilitators and barriers of the transition to home-based check-ups, via online consultation for children being treated with growth hormone.• Both children and healthcare professionals reported major facilitators and some minor barriers to the transition to home-based check-ups, illustrating their potential value. These facilitators and barriers should be considered while working towards implementation of home-based check-ups.

Shadows of the Enlightenment: Tragic Drama during Europe's Age of Reason ed. by Blair Hoxby

Reviewed by: Shadows of the Enlightenment: Tragic Drama during Europe's Age of Reason ed. by Blair Hoxby Jeffery Moser Blair Hoxby, editor. Shadows of the Enlightenment: Tragic Drama during Europe's Age of Reason. Ohio State UP, 2022. 328 p. Stanford professor Blair Hoxby's newest editorial production is a multi-author volume that considers the theory and practice of tragedy produced during Europe's Age of Reason, that intellectual and philosophical period promulgated during the late-seventeenth century and early- to mid-eighteenth century. Hoxby has an impressive record of research and publishing about European literature and culture. This text continues his theoretical approach to refigure and reassess traditional views about tragedy's power, versification, and imparts from classical beginnings during the Enlightenment, between 1685 and 1815, and beyond. For any student of history and literature, it is worth remembering that plays written and performed in the late-seventeenth century and after were post-Shakespeare's lifetime, post-Civil War, and post-Interregnum for England. With the public staging of plays licensed to reopen in 1660 after eighteen years of closure, not only did English theatre undergo a restoration, but so did England and the whole British Isles on an expansive socio-political scale, leading up to the Act of Union, which went into effect in the spring of 1707. The act created the Kingdom of Great Britain. Right on these heels followed political restoration and reform afoot in Europe, too, resulting in changes and adjustments. With Napoleon Bonaparte's dethronement in 1814, most of Europe was challenged to determine a new path forward. Events like another French Revolution or Russian conquest occurring again suddenly seemed to be impossibilities. The boundaries of European countries were renegotiated and seemingly settled, and the United States was well on its way to dominating Western ideals about democracy and sovereignty, while Imperial England's colonial grasp around the globe began to wane and fade. So it was, in many ways, that literature and culture during the late seventeenth-century and early- to mid-eighteenth century found itself in the crosshairs of optimism and pessimism. This is a particular prong that Hoxby stresses about tragedy, arguing in the introduction [End Page 333] that tragedy found itself at a "crossroads of the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment" (1). In other words, tragedies of the time were caught between the expectations of doom and gloom of classical Greek and Roman tragedy traditions and the "optimism, reason, and a faith in human progress and productivity" still regarded today as the majority assessment that scholars associate with the Enlightenment. Hence, for Hoxby, and others who have contributed to this volume, the tragedy of this time must be seen to "teeter on the brink of paradox" (1). In this accord, the essays affirm that the scope of tragedy written and performed during this time was both expansive and transitional. It should not be easily categorized as stale or a noncontroversial accoutrement to the period, nor a genre that was subjugated to something less and not as entertaining, edgy, or discursive as its counterpart of comedy that rose in popularity among the masses during the Restoration. Instead, tragedy of this time must be newly seen and understood as "dynamic" and "paradoxical," experimenting and juggling classical, early modern, romantic, and emerging modern ideals and expectations about the genre. In addition to Hoxby, scholars contributing to this worthwhile academic collection include: Alex Eric Hernandez, Logan J. Connors, James Harriman-Smith, Russ Leo, Cecile Dudouyt, Adrian Daub, Stefan Tilg, Larry F. Norman, Joseph Harris, and Joshua Billings. Their essays are categorized into three relevant sections: Part 1-- Ancient Forms, Modern Affects; Part II – Philosophy, Religion, and the Institutions of Tragedy, and Part III – Ancients, Moderns, and the Historical Turn. Hoxby's own essay, "Joanna Baillie, the Gothic Bard, and Her Tragedies of Fear," concludes the first section. The Scottish poet and dramatist's books of verse and plays reveal her extensive study and critical appreciation of Shakespeare, especially the Bard's proficiency in the passions. Baillie's (1762-1851) tragedy of fear, Orra, is set "in the context of the critical reinvention of Shakespeare as a primitive genius whose mastery of the...

Covert Hegemonic Masculinities and other Androcracies

The objective of this essay is to document how hegemonic masculinity is socially reproduced through almost imperceptible processes of androcracy, and concomitantly, to demonstrate how androcracy strategically influences the professional development of Mexico's social capital, since meritocracy from androcracy is a simulation game of female promotion. All these androcratic processes exclude men and women of the high academic profile from high and mid-high positions, thus originating alterations in daily politics. To document this androcratic process, the text is divided into three sections: the first part presents the state of the art of masculinity; in the next section, using qualitative techniques and participant observation methods, three examples of androcracy are described, in different geographical and socio-political scales: the international example analyzes the case of the NXIVM sect, the national example analyzes the case of the National System of Researchers of Mexico, and the local example analyzes the case of the Universidad Veracruzana. The most relevant results, which indicate that psychological control continues to be an androcratic mechanism used to try to manipulate women with a high academic profile.

Multiscale Quantification of Tsunami Hazard Exposure in a Pacific Small Island Developing State: The Case of Samoa

This study presents a scenario-based approach for identifying and comparing tsunami exposure across different sociopolitical scales. In Samoa, a country with a high threat to local tsunamis, we apply scenarios for the 2009 South Pacific tsunami inundation at different grid resolutions (50 and 10 m) to quantify building and road exposure at the national, district and village levels. We show that while the coarser 50 m model is adequate for use in the rapid identification of exposure at the national and district levels, it can overestimate exposure by up to three times more at the village level. Overestimation typically occurs in areas characterized by flat, low-lying, gentle-rising terrain. Overall, a 35% increase in buildings exposed to the 50 m model is observed compared with the 10 m scenario on southeast Upolu island. Similarly, a 31% increase in road exposure is observed for the 50 m scenario. These observations are discussed within the context of tsunami evacuation planning and logistics. Notwithstanding the variability in exposure, a precautionary approach leads us to conclude that while higher-resolution models are recommended where available data and/or financial resources permit, the absence of such datasets should not preclude the use of coarser hazard datasets in risk assessments. Finer-resolution models provide more credence in detailed local-level exposure evaluation. While the results of this study are specific to the Samoan context, the results can be applied to the multiscale assessment of tsunami risk exposure in similar hazard contexts.

Envisioning radical food geographies: shared learning and praxis through the Food Justice Scholar-Activist/Activist-Scholar Community of Practice

Food justice scholarship and activism have coevolved and at times been intertwined over past decades. In some instances, there are clear distinctions between “scholarly” and “activist” activities. However, individuals, groups, and actions often take on characteristics of both, producing knowledge at multiple sociopolitical scales. Recognizing and building upon these dynamics is important for strengthening food justice work. This is especially salient in an era in which academia, including geography, seeks more public engagement, yet has a complicated history of appropriating and/or dismissing experience-based knowledge, exacerbating uneven power-knowledge dynamics. These topics are of direct relevance to geography and intersect with radical geography traditions through engagement in social and political action and putting socio-spatial justice theory into practice. Since 2014, a small-but-growing group of individuals interested in the intersections between scholarship, activism, and geography have cultivated a Food Justice Scholar-Activist/Activist-Scholar Community of Practice (FJSAAS). This article examines the evolution and praxes of FJSAAS focusing on power-knowledge and radical geographies. Based on an analysis of FJSAAS records and recollections of participants since its founding, we discuss challenges encountered, the broader relevance for similarly positioned communities of practice, and offer recommendations for those engaging in food justice scholarship, activism, and/or radical geography. We conclude that radical geographies, concepts of radical food geographies, and scholar-activist/activist-scholar praxis are mutually reinforcing in recognizing experience-based knowledge as part of envisioning and putting into place a more just food system.

Improving site assessment tools in emerging technologies: The case of highway vertical-axis wind turbines in the United States

Despite the benefits of renewable energy—including mitigation of climate change, emission-free electricity generation, and public health benefits—technology siting is plagued by social, political, and cultural challenges. These non-technical challenges often remain outside the scope and responsibility of engineers’ assessments. This study uses early-stage stakeholder engagement to examine the non-technical barriers to siting of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) along traffic corridors throughout the United States. Stakeholder feedback is analyzed in terms of Niklas Luhmann's social system theory via the Socio-Political Evaluation of Energy Deployment (SPEED) framework to assess broader, system-wide feasibility. By identifying points of resonance—situations in which the logics of different systems overlap, allowing interaction—the knowledge and capacities of different stakeholder groups can support development of new technologies. This method of stakeholder engagement occurs at earlier stages of project development and includes larger socio-political scales than typical site-level analysis. Stakeholder feedback—from a variety of fields, including engineering, transportation, project management, and law—is incorporated into a multi-criteria and analytic hierarchy tool to aid in turbine siting. This paper argues that early stakeholder engagement beyond a strictly technical focus creates a more robust account of project feasibility, shown through the potential for right-of-way VAWT arrays.

Transformation is what you expect, models are what you get: REDD+ and models in conservation and development

Models increasingly pervade conservation and development practice – model policies, model countries, model regions, model states, model projects, model villages, model communities and so on. These are idealized, bounded, miniature entities that seek to demonstrate the efficacy of a more substantive policy, scheme or intervention. Although political ecologists and critical scholars have analyzed models in specific interventions, there has been relatively little reflection on the common logics central to models more generally. Drawing on critical conservation and development literature and in-depth case studies of REDD+ in Tanzania and Nigeria, we identify and elaborate three core model logics: 1) problematization of the field of intervention and valorization of microcosms within it; 2) isolation and bounding which seek to order complexity and etch microcosms in space and time; 3) enrolment of actors. Although ambitious and transformational in its claims and aspirations, REDD+ has thus far manifested as an extensive network of models across socio-political scales. We argue that idealized REDD+ models enable proponents to demonstrate and 'sell' REDD+ as a 'successful' intervention, thereby allowing the scheme to persist in policy circles in spite of its failures on the ground and its lack of viability at scale. We therefore argue that models often become an end in themselves, paradoxically failing to herald the transformational intervention they were originally meant to epitomize.Keywords: Conservation, development, models, Nigeria, Tanzania, REDD+

A Race We Can Win

A Race We Can Win

Developing an intersectionally-informed, multi-sited, critical policy ethnography to examine power and procedural justice in multiscalar energy and climate change decisionmaking processes

Historically, energy and climate research have failed to fully integrate research from the social sciences. This is problematic as the development of energy systems and the rapid acceleration of climate change are directly tied to human activity. When the social sciences are incorporated in energy and climate research, their scope is frequently economically oriented. Methodological approaches remain frequently quantitative in nature. While important, these approaches cannot fully capture the nuances of power, inequality, and justice within decisionmaking processes that create and constitute our energy systems and subsequent climate change impacts and outcomes. As energy decisions and policies continue to increasingly shape the extent to which the world is impacted by climate change, we must think precisely about the complexity of identity and who is involved in energy decisions; who benefits from, and who is burdened by particular sets of energy decisions and the impacts of climate change. In addition, we must examine how these burdens and benefits manifest differently based on individual and group identities. To ignore these questions creates a research field where social actors and organizations remain decoupled from their role and responsibilities in the construction of and participation in these energy systems; where the embeddedness of a system is taken for granted, remains unscrutinized and unchallenged, and acts as a path-dependent barrier to the envisioning and building of an alternative energy future. In order to strengthen energy and climate change research and policy we must engage in research methods that can better account for underlying issues of power and justice within the decisionmaking processes across multiple socio-political scales. More specifically in this paper, I argue that using qualitative methodological tools rooted in intersectional feminist theory, such as a multi-sited critical policy ehtnography, are a crucial way to do so.

Megaprojects, the Environment and Sustainability in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo

This paper proposes a set of conditions for the governance of megaprojects in order to ensure their sustainability. We focus on several sustainable strategies: environmental, socio-economic, institutional, as well as those associated with the design, planning and management aspects of megaprojects. Our assessment of environmental challenges and sustainability in megaprojects of four key global cities (New York, London, Paris, Tokyo) focuses on controversies triggered by the planning and construction of megaprojects in these cities. From the viewpoint of sustainability, what specific controversies do megaprojects trigger at various socio-political scales? What are the challenges, and what are the most suitable governance arrangements that can be key for supporting sustainable cities and regions? An exploration into the conditions for sustainability in megaprojects will help to critically evaluate the urban megaproject phenomenon and it will contribute to an understanding of the mutual relationships between globalization, infrastructure development and sustainability. To be sure, suggesting that megaprojects could foster sustainability in cities and regions is a counter-intuitive idea, but the growing importance of megaprojects in the sustainable development agenda warrants a careful analysis in order to critically assess to what extent urban leaders foster sustainable urban practices, even as they face pressures from investors and promoters to keep building, and how those practices could be improved. Our aim is to be able to provide governance criteria for sustainable megaprojects development in policy discourses and practices.

Greater post-Neolithic wealth disparities in Eurasia than in North America and Mesoamerica.

How wealth is distributed among households provides insight into the fundamental characters of societies and the opportunities they afford for social mobility. However, economic inequality has been hard to study in ancient societies for which we do not have written records, which adds to the challenge of placing current wealth disparities into a long-term perspective. Although various archaeological proxies for wealth, such as burial goods or exotic or expensive-to-manufacture goods in household assemblages, have been proposed, the first is not clearly connected with households, and the second is confounded by abandonment mode and other factors. As a result, numerous questions remain concerning the growth of wealth disparities, including their connection to the development of domesticated plants and animals and to increases in sociopolitical scale. Here we show that wealth disparities generally increased with the domestication of plants and animals and with increased sociopolitical scale, using Gini coefficients computed over the single consistent proxy of house-size distributions. However, unexpected differences in the responses of societies to these factors in North America and Mesoamerica, and in Eurasia, became evident after the end of the Neolithic period. We argue that the generally higher wealth disparities identified in post-Neolithic Eurasia were initially due to the greater availability of large mammals that could be domesticated, because they allowed more profitable agricultural extensification, and also eventually led to the development of a mounted warrior elite able to expand polities (political units that cohere via identity, ability to mobilize resources, or governance) to sizes that were not possible in North America and Mesoamerica before the arrival of Europeans. We anticipate that this analysis will stimulate other work to enlarge this sample to include societies in South America, Africa, South Asia and Oceania that were under-sampled or not included in this study.

Political Empowerment of Women through Literacy Education Programmes in EDO and Delta States, Nigeria

The study examined the political empowerment of women through literacy education programmes in Edo and Delta States in the South-South Geopolitical zone of Nigeria. A sample of 1022 women was randomly drawn from the different levels of literacy classes organised by the Agency of Adult and Nonformal Education and non-governmental and private organisations in the area under investigation. Psychological empowerment scale and socio-political scale were used for data collection. These were complemented by four sessions of Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The results of the study revealed that literacy education programmes correlated with women participation in political activities and leadership roles. Women were able to participate more actively in decision-making processes and social interactions at home, in a public gathering and in the community at large. The FGD result showed that women gained self-esteem and self-confidence as a result of their participation in literacy programmes.

Seeing the forest and the trees: Facilitating participatory network planning in environmental governance

Governance processes to address environmental change involve many different actors from multiple spatial, temporal and socio-political scales, not all of whom are connected by hierarchy and whose actions cannot always be mandated. In the environmental governance literature, Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been found useful in understanding complex governance arrangements. In this paper we present and reflect on our experience with the Net-Map tool for participatory network mapping. The Net-Map tool was applied in three transdisciplinary case studies for three different purposes: (a) to contribute to an improved understanding of biodiversity knowledge flows in Europe, (b) to explore the interplay between actors with influence on water, agriculture, and energy developments at the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, and (c) to understand the challenges facing stakeholders engaged in conservation and economic development in a Southeast Asian mountain range. The case studies explore how network maps can serve as boundary objects to engage stakeholders of diverse points of view and jointly design strategies to address governance challenges. More specifically they show how network maps are used to gain a better understanding of governance situations, to help stakeholders identify strategies for navigation of the complex networks in which they are embedded and to support transdisciplinary research processes. We close with some reflections on the potential and limitations of the Net-Map tool in facilitating multi-stakeholder processes and disentangling complex governance arrangements.

C'est dégueulasse!: Matters of Taste and “La Grande bouffe” (1973)

C'est dégueulasse!: Matters of Taste and “La Grande bouffe” (1973)

Economic and Social Impacts of Wildfires and Invasive Plants in American Deserts: Lessons From the Great Basin

Research on the impacts of wildfire and invasive plants in rangelands has focused on biophysical rather than human dimensions of these environmental processes. We offer a synthetic perspective on economic and social aspects of wildfire and invasive plants in American deserts, focusing on the Great Basin because greater research attention has been given to the effects of cheatgrass expansion than to other desert wildfire/invasion cycles. We focus first on impacts at the level of the individual decision-maker, then on impacts experienced at the human community or larger socio-political scales. Economic impacts of wildfire differ from those of invasive grasses because although fire typically reduces forage availability and thus ranch profit opportunities, invasive grasses can also be used as a forage source and ranchers have adapted their grazing systems to take advantage of that circumstance. To reduce the threat of increased ranch bankruptcies, strategies are needed that can increase access to alternative early-season forage sources and/or promote diversification of ranch income streams by capturing value from ranch ecosystem services other than forage. The growth of low-density, exurban subdivisions in Western deserts influences not only the pattern and frequency of wildfire and plant invasions but also affects prevailing public opinion toward potential management options, and thereby the capacity of land management agencies to use those options. Outreach efforts can influence public opinion, but must be rooted in new knowledge about multiple impacts of invasion and increased wildfire in American deserts. La investigación se ha centrado en el impacto biofísico del los incendios naturales y las plantas invasoras en los pastizales, en lugar de la dimensión humana en esos procesos medioambientales. Ofrecemos una perspectiva sintética sobre aspectos económicos y sociales de los incendios naturales y las plantas invasoras en los desiertos de América, enfocándonos a la región de la Grean Basin debido a la importancia de las investigaciones sobre el efecto de la expansión del zacate cheatgrass que a otros incendios/ciclos de invasión en los otros desiertos. Nos enfocamos primero, en los impactos a nivel individual de toma de decisiones después, en los impactos experimentados a nivel comunidades humanas o escalas socio-políticas mayores. El impacto económico de los incendios naturales difiere de aquel provocado por la invasión de pastos porque, mientras el fuego reduce la disponibilidad de forraje y la oportunidad de un ingreso en el rancho, pastos invasores también pueden ser usados como fuente de forraje y los rancheros han adaptado sus sistemas de pastoreo para sacar ventaja de esta circunstancia. Para reducir el riesgo de bancarrota en el rancho, se requieren estrategias que incrementen el acceso a fuentes de alternativas de forraje al principio de la temporada y/o promover la diversificación del ingreso del rancho valorando los servicios medioambientales de éste, en lugar de solo el forraje. El crecimiento de subdivisiones ex-urbanas de baja densidad en los desiertos del Oeste, influencian no solo el patrón y frecuencia de incendios naturales e invasión de plantas sino también, afectan la opinión pública actual hacia opciones potencial de manejo y como consecuencia la capacidad de las agencias que manejan las tierras de aplicar esas opiniones. Los esfuerzos para influenciar la opinión pública tienen que estar basados en conocimiento nuevo a cerca del impacto múltiple de las invasiones y aumento de incendios naturales en los desierto de América.

The Challenge of Regulating Private Wildlife Ranches for Conservation in South Africa

We address the new attempts at regulating wildlife ranches on private land in South Africa. Although positive conservation impacts can be attributed to private wildlife ranching, there are a number of ecological consequences that often arise as a result of economic priorities. We present and analyze new national regulations aimed at coordinating provincial legislation and guiding the wildlife industry in a more conservationist direction, and examine tensions that have arisen between different sociopolitical scales as a result. Data were obtained through a desk-based study of legal documents and interviews with key stakeholders. The new regulations begin to address international obligations and national policy on biodiversity conservation by potentially combating a number of specific ecological problems associated with wildlife ranching. However, in practice, the regulations are a significant source of tension among stakeholders and will be challenging to implement. A key issue is competing agendas between incentivedriven ranchers and conservationist aims. It may be that in addressing the ecological problems at the margin, the new regulations will encourage some ranchers to convert their land away from conservation friendly land use.

Relationship of Patriotism Measures to Critical Thinking and Emphasis on Civil Liberties versus National Security

Students in a large undergraduate course (N = 236) at a major state university in the Southeastern United States took a standardized critical thinking test and four short sociopolitical scales (constructive patriotism, blind patriotism, respect for civil liberties, and emphasis on national security) at the beginning of the fall semester 2007. Although numerous published studies have addressed relationships between types of patriotism and various sociopolitical variables, these studies typically have not targeted respect for civil liberties and emphasis on national security. Also, negligible attention has been given to the relationships between types of patriotism and cognitive variables (e.g., critical thinking, problem solving). The current study found that both constructive and blind patriotism were significantly related to measures of critical thinking, respect for civil liberties, and emphasis on national security but in opposing directions. The article concludes with implications of the findings for public policy and practice.

The Geography of the Commons: The Role of Scale and Space

The “tragedy of the commons” is a concept familiar to students of resource management, and many academic disciplines have devoted considerable attention to its understanding and solution. Despite a long tradition of concern with issues directly related to the problem, the field of geography has been relatively silent in the commons literature, especially on the theoretic front. The present article attempts to address this shortcoming by applying geographic methodologies—particularly as related to scale and space—to an understanding of the phenomenon. The article first demonstrates the role of sociopolitical scale in defining the commons problem and then develops a typology classifying common resources into one of three categories—open access, fugitive, and migratory—based on spatial relationships between resources and resource users. The article shows that the geographic nature of the commons problem for any particular resource depends on the sociopolitical scale at which it is assessed, and suggests that solutions to commons problems should vary both by scale and by spatial nature.

Sociodrama

This article defines sociodrama as an experiential group-as-a-whole procedure for social exploration and inter-group conflict trans-formation. As such, sociodrama can be regarded as an action-oriented and structured counterpart to group analysis with large groups. After a brief description of its history, practice and theory, three different applications of sociodrama are described which alternatively focus on actual traumatic events and social crises, on political change and social disintegration, and on social diversity which leads to inter-group conflict and prejudice. The various goals of sociodrama, towards more homeostasis, equality and tolerance in society, may prepare the ground for inter-group conflict resolution and peace promotion on a more global socio-political scale.