State Failure Research Articles

Pembrolizumab and Enzalutamide in Patients with Abiraterone Acetate–Pretreated Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer: Cohort C of the Phase 1b/2 KEYNOTE-365 Study

BackgroundLimited responses have been observed in patients treated with enzalutamide after disease progression on abiraterone for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), but androgen receptor signaling impacts T-cell function. ObjectiveTo evaluate the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab plus enzalutamide in mCRPC. Design, setting, and participantsPatients in cohort C of the phase 1b/2 KEYNOTE-365 study, who received ≥4 wk of treatment with abiraterone acetate in the prechemotherapy mCRPC state and experienced treatment failure or became drug-intolerant, were included. InterventionPembrolizumab 200 mg intravenously every 3 wk plus enzalutamide 160 mg orally once daily. Outcome measurements and statistical analysisThe primary endpoints were safety, the confirmed prostate-specific antigen (PSA) response rate, and the objective response rate (ORR) according to Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1 on blinded independent central review (BICR). Secondary endpoints included radiographic progression-free survival (rPFS) on BICR and overall survival (OS). Results and limitationsA total of 102 patients received pembrolizumab plus enzalutamide. Median follow-up was 51 mo (interquartile range 37–56). The confirmed PSA response rate was 24% (95% confidence interval [CI] 16–33%). The confirmed ORR was 11% (95% CI 2.9–25%; 4/38 patients; two complete responses). Median rPFS was 6.0 mo (95% CI 4.1–6.3). Median OS was 20 mo (95% CI 17–24). Treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) occurred in 94 patients (92%); grade 3–5 TRAEs occurred in 44 patients (43%). The incidence of treatment-related rash was higher with combination therapy than expected from the safety profile of each drug. One patient (1.0%) died of a TRAE (cause unknown). Study limitations include the single-arm design. ConclusionsPembrolizumab plus enzalutamide had limited antitumor activity in patients who received prior abiraterone treatment without previous chemotherapy for mCRPC, with a safety profile consistent with the individual profiles of each agent. Patient summaryPembrolizumab plus enzalutamide showed limited antitumor activity and manageable safety in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.The KEYNOTE-365 trial is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT02861573.

On the Failed State, Artificial Arguments, and Artificial Intelligence

The narrative of a failed South African state has gained currency among some prominent prophets of Armageddon as well as shadowy influencers who have penned an assortment of articles and editorials in this regard. The idea is propounded as a certainty at the high tea gatherings of lightly shaded Afro-pessimists, oppositionists, and patrons of local barber shops. Transitory moments and anecdotal realities are theatrically played out to fit a propensity towards tabloid absurdity. When violent crimes are televised live, when we witness extended hours of load-shedding, we as the elite pursue all avenues to avoid assuming responsibility for some of the current excesses of capitalism and governance failures. Instead, our common refrain is that the state has failed. There is another emergent plot point in this narrative which we do not address here, namely that of the national political scene moving from Ramaphoria to Ramaphobia (when I told a colleague four years ago that we should guard against sliding into Ramaphobia, she/he found this really objectionable).

Is North Korea a Failed State?

Is North Korea a failed state? Through a case study of North Korea, this study tackles the meaning of defining a state as “failed” and highlights the theoretical and conceptual limitations of the failed state approach. This study presents a thorough literature review on the subject and aims to bridge a theoretical gap between academic discussions of failed states in the field of international development and the study of North Korea. By doing so, this study highlights the conceptual limitations of viewing North Korea as a failed state and suggests that that misconception has been one of the reasons for the failure to solve various puzzles about the country. In particular, this study underlines the conceptual problems and the Western‐dominant perspective in defining North Korea as a failed state for having weak political legitimacy and a lack of in‐depth understanding of contextual/historical factors and recent political‐economic changes that have affected state‐society relations in North Korea.

#EndSARS Protests and the Search for Social Justice in Nigeria: Examining Activist Discourses on Police Brutality, Politics and Human Security

Abstract On October 3, 2020, members of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (sars) of the Nigerian Police Force arrested a young man at Wetland Hotel, Ughelli in Delta State, and later shot and killed him, and threw him out of a moving police van. In addition to eye witnesses of what happened, the video of this incident was also trending on social media. Again, on October 5, another video went viral of sars officers’ killing a young musician popularly known as “Sleek,” in unjustifiable circumstances. This was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. What initially began as spontaneous peaceful protests soon turned bloody and by October 8, the protests had spread to almost all Nigerian cities demanding the disbandment of sars. This empirical study examines the operational structure of sars, the formation of the EndSARS movement and its first main protests in 2020 in the search for social justice. Methods in qualitative discourse analysis and multimodality, are used to analyze representational strategies in the protest discourse of the #EndSARS protesters. Other issues bordering on police brutality, injustice, corruption and state failure, which form the main narratives of the protests are analyzed.

A new integrated modeling method for predicting low-velocity impact behavior and residual tensile failure of Z-pinned T-joints

Composite T-joints are highly susceptible to low-velocity impact, which can significantly affect their residual performance due to the primary working condition of bearing out-of-plane tensile loads. Currently, most methods that employ multiple models or analytical steps to sequentially assess the mechanical properties of composites generally exhibit certain limitations, leaving room for improvement. This study has developed a finite element (FE) model to simulate the low-velocity impact and post-impact tensile behaviors of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) T-joints using an integrated analysis method. The model is based on stress failure criteria and continuous stiffness degradation theory and incorporates corrections to the damage variables. Both the low-velocity impact and quasi-static tensile portions of the model are implemented using an explicit solver with the VUMAT subroutine for calculations in Abaqus. The element damage states are transferred between the two models via a Python script, mitigating the inefficiencies and uncontrollable errors associated with the traditional method of transferring element information between multiple models or analytical steps. Finally, the numerical results of mechanical response and damage states are compared with experimental findings from various perspectives, and the bridging mechanism of Z-pins is thoroughly investigated. The results show that the model exhibits a maximum error of 10.41 % in the main key parameters during low-velocity impact and a maximum error of 10.30 % in the ultimate load during post-impact tension. The model's delamination damage state and final tensile failure mode closely align with the experimental results. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis of the FE model indicates that the pull-out force of the Z-pin is unrelated to its implantation position or pull-out rate, and the reinforcing effect of the Z-pin becomes significantly apparent only after the CFRP T-joint reaches a certain degree of initial damage.

Militarized state-building interventions and the survival of fragile states

Militarized state-building interventions (MSIs) must fulfill two often conflicting goals. At the time of withdrawal the intervenor must leave in place a state able to survive on its own and govern its territory. States only intervene in other states, however, when they aspire to change the policy of the target in ways they prefer. In attempting to balance these objectives, the intervenor ‘pulls’ policy in its preferred direction by supporting a less popular leader at the cost of leaving behind a state that is no more likely to survive over time than its peers. We test our theory and find evidence for this trade-off by examining all MSIs by great powers and IOs in failed states from 1956 to 2006. Consistent with the theory, we find that MSIs do not on average have any significant effect on state survival. We also find that MSIs that move the target state’s policy closer to that of the external power have a negative effect on survival, but interventions that do not result in a change in policy do not. This argument and finding temper the optimism of much of the contemporary literature on international interventions. Potential intervenors face a stark trade-off. If they draw the policy of the failed state towards their own preferences, then that state will be more likely to fail again in the future.

Effect of water environment on mechanical behavior of coral aggregate concrete

The complex marine environment often exposes concrete to seawater and acidic conditions during its service life. To investigate the effect and mechanism of special water environments on coral sand concrete, forty-five Φ50 mm × 100 mm cylindrical coral concrete specimens were prepared and cured in freshwater, seawater and oxalic acid in this study. The specimens were cured for 7, 14, 28, 60 and 90 days, respectively. The physical and mechanical properties of the specimens under the lossless state and static failure state were tested through piezoelectric transducer (PZT) test and uniaxial compression test. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were employed for analyzing the mineral composition and microstructure of the specimens. The results show that the compressive strength of the specimens in seawater and freshwater initially increased and then stabilized with the curing age, whereas in oxalic acid it initially increased and then decreased. The compressive strength of the specimens at 90 days in freshwater, seawater and oxalic acid solution have increased by 54%, 18% and 21%, respectively, compared to that at 7 days. A combination analysis using microscopic and macroscopic test indicated that the completion time required for hydration in freshwater, seawater and oxalic acid solution was 28, 28 and 60 days, respectively. This study suggests that Cl− in seawater accelerates the cement hydration process, improving the early mechanical properties of specimens. During the later hydration process, the soluble CaCl2 and expansile Mg(OH)2 generated during the later hydration process which reduces the strength. In oxalic acid solution, a dense calcium oxalate coating produced through the reaction between oxalic acid and CaCO3 would reduce the degree of hydration. The formation of CO2 would increase the porosity of specimens, thereby weakening the mechanical strength of the concrete.

Türkiye'nin Kriz Yönetimine Yaklaşımı: Suriye Örneği

This study aims to shed light on Türkiye's crisis management approach and comprehensively analyze Türkiye's cross-border operations in the Syrian theater. It focuses on the practical side of crisis management and highlights Türkiye's success in managing the Syrian Civil War, which poses an existential threat to Türkiye. Despite facing significant challenges, such as the July 15 coup attempt, Türkiye has managed crises effectively, as evidenced by its successive cross-border operations in the Syrian theater as part of the fight against terrorism. The reason for choosing the operations in Syria after the July 15 coup attempt as the sample is that both crises occurred back-to-back, and the Syrian Civil War is Türkiye's most crucial crisis in the 21st century. As a result of the spread of the Arab Spring process to Türkiye's southern neighbor with a 911 km land border, Syria has become a failed state, its state apparatus has gradually disappeared, and its public structure has ceased to exist. During this process, various terrorist organizations and non-state armed groups emerged in the country. These organizations found extensive areas of operation, extended their initial local influence to a regional level, and significantly strengthened their influence in political, economic, and social circles. DAESH and YPG/PKK are among the most prominent of these organizations, not to mention various other groups linked to Al-Qaeda. The post-2011 political, military, and economic turmoil in Syria, the emerging power vacuum in the region, and the states, non-state armed actors, and terrorist organizations trying to fill this vacuum have caused severe ruptures in Türkiye's security approaches. However, it has faced significant challenges in tackling crises stemming from terrorism and migration. The approach of providing security behind the borders and meeting terrorism on the country's territory has deepened the security crisis stemming from terrorism in Türkiye in the five years.

Experimental study on effect of assembly process on seismic performance of modular precast composite shear wall structures

Modular buildings utilize prefabricated volumetric modules to resist gravity and lateral loads and can achieve a high prefabrication level. Different from cast-on-site reinforced concrete structures, the seismic performance of precast structures is affected by the construction process. This study investigated the effect of assembly process on the seismic performance of an innovative modular precast composite shear wall structure. Contrastive shaking table tests were carried out on two 1/4-scaled modular models, one by the fully modular precast method and the other by the modular cast-on-site method. Test results showed that the bottom vertical joints were the most critical components and dominated the failure patterns for both modular models. The weakening of screw threads induced by the small model size and assembly process decreased the ultimate capacity of the modular precast model. The modular precast model showed up to a 6.7 % lower initial frequency and 17.6 % lower initial damping ratio than the modular cast-on-site model. The assembly process had no essential influence on the displacement and acceleration responses before vertical joint failure but significantly increased the displacements as the joints approached failure in the limit state. The test work highlights the importance of ensuring bolt strength and protecting bolt threads in practical engineering applications.

Climate change, counter-terrorism and capitalist development in Somalia

ABSTRACT Somalia is often referred to as a ‘failed state’. In addition to ineffective governance, feeble economic development, and a large anti-government insurgency, it faces increasingly severe climate change-induced devastation. This article offers a critical discussion of the role of capitalist interests and ideology as a factor in the climate crisis. It explores interlocking issues of (1) the relationship between the ruling political class of Somalia and capitalist mining interests; (2) the largely covert US-backed ‘war on terror’ in Somalia; and (3) the ongoing, capitalism-induced climate crisis. The article analyses current US and Somali proposals to address these issues. Many of these proposals remain trapped in the politico-ideological deadlock of capitalist developmentalism, oriented towards fossil fuel extraction and militarised accumulation. The trajectory of this current path in Somalia is leading to immiseration, oppression, displacement for millions of people, and the destruction of an already deteriorating environment. Alternative paths to avert these catastrophes require transnational solidarity, cooperation and assistance.

Taking One for the Team? Some Reflections on the Trial of Malawi's Hyena-man

AbstractFollowing a public outcry about Eric Aniva being hired to have sex with children, he was arrested, tried and convicted of attempting to engage in a harmful practice and also of engaging in a harmful practice, contrary to Malawi's Gender Equality Act. Aniva's trial attracted significant public attention and highlighted kulowa kufa, the cultural practice at the centre of his trial. This article revisits Aniva's trial. By focusing on the operation of the law in judicial processes as well as the dynamics of judicial decision-making, it demonstrates and concludes that Aniva's trial may have been compromised. Specifically, the article analyses the state's failure to identify and parade material witnesses notwithstanding the alleged multiplicity of Aniva's victims, the role of the media in the trial as well as the probable effects of the trial court's selective recourse to international human rights standards.

Framing Kegagalan Pemerintah Pada Media Sosial Partai Keadilan Sejahtera Jelang Pemilu 2024

The 2024 Indonesian election campaign time has not officially started, but the fight for public sympathy and votes has already begun long before it. Candidates and Parties, already busy performing, either positive publicity for themselves, or negative campaign for the opposing party. This research aims to observe framing strategies that already appear on social media, ahead of the 2024 elections. The topic chosen was the framing of government failure, with the social media studied is the Instagram account of the Keadilan Sejahtera Party (PKS), which can be considered the government's opposition party. The data that will be discussed is content in June to July 2023 which is considered relevant enough to show PKS's political communication ahead of the 2024 elections. This article uses a descriptive qualitative research methodology with Entman model framing analysis. The focus of the research is problem identification, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, treatment recommendation, which appear in the Instagram content. The research conclusion states that there is indeed a framing of state failure in the content studied. PKS carried out framing which essentially explained that the government did not side with its citizens, and the government betrayed the community's mandate. This framing was also accompanied by strengthening the PKS political brand; “PKS is always with the People”.

Nigeria: Failed State and the State of the Nation

Every failed or collapsed state in the world has a history. Such history is often laden with indices of practices abhorred in other progressive and relatively peaceful states. Nigeria has become infamous for her retarded growth when placed side by side with other developing countries. The reasons for these are not in the blues rather are seen in the day to day activities of an average Nigerian not to mention the seeming institutionalization of decadence in the political structure and polity. This article is anchored on the elite theory so as to plausibly explain this precarious situation. The methodology employed is mainly the analysis of secondary data from journals, literature and documentaries, while also carrying out relevant empirical review. Findings revealed that Nigeria as an entity has experienced in good measure and at a very high rate the characteristics of a failed state some of which include lack of adequate security, corruption, human rights violation, lack of development, weak governance, poor administration, enduring social tensions, violent conflicts, ruins or memories of a civil war, lack of respect for rule of law and loss of legitimacy. The study recommends among others that there should be National Action Plan to guide development strategies, reformation of electoral laws, respect for rule of law, public participation in decision making and a fiscal federalism.

State Policy in the Sphere of Ensuring Economic Security: Management Aspect

"It is shown that the problem of forming the policy of economic security requires study in connection with the need to improve the theory and practice of the formation of state economic policy, as well as the study of certain problems related to the peculiarities of the functioning of the mechanism for ensuring economic security. Modern economic policy, guided in most cases by the provisions of neoclassical economic theory, in particular the monetarist theory of state influence on the economy, is not always effective enough, and state failures are becoming increasingly more frequent when various deviations of the actual conditions of economic development from classical models occur, which is especially obvious at present, with the increasing influence of the factor of geopolitics and geoeconomics on the economic security of states."

Role of ferroptosis in fibrosis: From mechanism to potential therapy.

Fibrosis, which is a manifestation of the physiological response to injury characterized by excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix components, is a ubiquitous outcome of the repair process. However, in cases of repetitive or severe injury, fibrosis may become dysregulated, leading to a pathological state and organ failure. In recent years, a novel form of regulated cell death, referred to as ferroptosis, has been identified as a possible contributor to fibrosis; it is characterized by iron-mediated lipid peroxidation. It has garnered attention due to the growing body of evidence linking ferroptosis and fibrogenesis, which is believed to be driven by underlying inflammation and immune responses. Despite the increasing interest in the relationship between ferroptosis and fibrosis, a comprehensive understanding of the precise role that ferroptosis plays in the formation of fibrotic tissue remains limited. This review seeks to synthesize previous research related to the topic. We categorized the different direct and indirect mechanisms by which ferroptosis may contribute to fibrosis into three categories: (1) iron overload toxicity; (2) ferroptosis-evoked necroinflammation, with a focus on ferroptosis and macrophage interplay; and (3) ferroptosis-associated pro-fibrotic factors and pathways. Furthermore, the review considers the potential implications of these findings and highlights the utilization of ferroptosis-targeted therapies as a promising strategy for mitigating the progression of fibrosis. In conclusion, novel anti-fibrotic treatments targeting ferroptosis could be an effective treatment for fibrosis.

Managing Ethnic Conflicts: A Critical Analysis of the Orthodox Solutions and the Specificity of the African Situation

Africa’s ethnic conflicts and crises have embedded in them catastrophic consequences and effects, especially with particular regard to the loss of lives and properties and the disruptions of governmental and political arrangements. The discourse in which the conflicts are embedded is further enveloped in all kinds of proposals such as outright dismemberment of some of the existing political and administrative units, the implementation of political reforms, and fundamental restructuring of the entire social settings in favour of accommodation of the minorities in particular. Against the backdrop that these conflicts and crises require management as a way of averting the aforementioned consequences, the article seeks to undertake a critical evaluation of the existing ethnic management models, theories and solutions in extant literature within the context of the prevailing African circumstances and conditions. Its central goal is to determine the extent to which these solutions and the contained technicalities in which they are expressed can indeed provide the much-needed frameworks for permanent political stabilities in the continent. The qualitative methodology seeks to question the existing assumptions in which these ethnic solutions are defined and their theoretical properties further amplified. With the additional use of critical analytical tools, the article finally seeks the re-formulations and refinements of the ethnic solutions as being referred to in extant literature. The findings revolve around the inappropriateness and lack of applicability of some of the embedded concepts and solutions to the perennial crises as a result of the lack of focus on the uniqueness in which the crises remain defined. The conclusion is hence that the solutions to the crises in the continent should not be wholly generalistic but rather situated within the local peculiarities of the divergent political systems of Africa.

Being “Woman” and Zimbabwean in Zimbabwe: Reading the (Un)Mournable Bodies in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s This Mournable Body

There is a growing interest in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s last sequel that critiques Zimbabwe as a failed state. In this article, I analyse the representation of black female bodies in postcolonial/neoliberal Zimbabwe. My argument centres on the effects of the second-person narrative perspective and explores how this narrative perspective as Dangarembga’s preferred storytelling method recalibrates with the idea of shared urgency in Zimbabwe. In my reading, I argue that the narrative perspective prioritises the idea of being humane as a need to re-make Zimbabwe’s homeliness, particularly for “women.” In this way, I explore Dangarembga’s other modes of being human/woman that identify with the concept of unhu/ubuntu. I argue that the idea of being humane, or a new world-sensing, and the narrative strategy create urgency in being Zimbabwean, and being a “woman” in Zimbabwe. I argue that Dangarembga’s writing about pain, betrayal, and false hopes in This Mournable Body is her way of simultaneously writing against the Empire and neoliberal Zimbabwe—a way of pushing back and resisting Zimbabwe’s sociopolitical and patriarchal capitalistic order.

The Revolution of the Black Diamond Republic: Negotiating Socialism and Autonomy in the Jiu Valley, 1918-1919

Abstract Scholars frequently portray the end of the Habsburg Monarchy as driven by nationalist revolutions in the provinces. The experience of the Jiu Valley, Transylvania’s largest coal basin, demonstrates that nationalism was neither the only basis for revolution nor the most popular in all parts of the province. The multiethnic working class of Jiu embraced revolution as a response to state failures to provide basic services in a worsening wartime economy, even as state demand for coal rose. The miners created the Black Diamond Republic in October 1918 as Austro-Hungarian armies collapsed in an effort to actively negotiate their status after the war. The miners embraced revolution not as a bid for independence or ethnic secession but as a means to maintain local union power and negotiate the conditions of their inclusion in either Romania or Hungary. While “Romanian” and “Hungarian” councils were formed, such identities in Jiu were also linked to occupation (worker, peasant, or intellectual) rather than clear definitions of ethnicity.

Animalising International Relations

This article explores what it means to ‘animalise’ International Relations (IR). The posthuman move in the social sciences has involved the process of de-centring the human, replacing an anthropocentric focus with a view of the human as embedded within a complex network of inter-species relations. In a previous work we drew attention to the lack of analysis within International Relations of the key role played by more-than human animals in situations of conflict. The current COVID-19 pandemic again indicates that an analysis of international relations that does not have at its core an understanding of a more than human world is always going to be an incomplete account. The paper argues for the animalising of International Relations in order to enhance inclusivity, and suggests five ways in which this might be approached. As it becomes increasingly clear that a climate-related collapse is imminent, we argue for a transformative approach to the discipline, stressing interlinked networks and a shared vulnerability as a political project which challenges capitalism (advanced/late/carboniferous/genocidal) and the failure of states to address the concatenation of crises that life on the planet confronts.

“I do not consent”: political legitimacy, misinformation, and the compliance challenge in Australia’s Covid-19 policy response

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between policy compliance, the emergence of alternate epistemes and authorities in online spaces, and the decline of trust and legitimacy in democratic institutions. Drawing on insights from public policy, regulation theory, and political theory, the paper critically engages with scholarship on “policy-takers” to illuminate the tensions of compliance and legitimacy in liberal states. It proposes a compliance–legitimacy matrix that identifies the features of policy compliance—including consent, legitimacy, expertise, and trust—and their relationship to the disaggregation of policy knowledge. The article applies this framework to a case study of social media posts that respond to policy information during the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia. Through analysis of these posts, the study reveals the distrust in “the science” and experts advocated by government and the calls from skeptic groups for noncompliance with public health measures. The paper argues that public policy faces an epistemic crisis of public confidence, with significant downstream consequences for compliance with public policy initiatives that has been brought on both by the failures of states to cultivate trust in science and the government. The compliance–legitimacy matrix offers a useful tool for policymakers to anticipate and address objections from policy-takers and to preempt and diffuse their fears.