Eternal peace, perpetual war? A critical investigation into Kant's conceptualisations of war

Most discussions of Immanuel Kant's political theory of international politics focus on his work on Eternal Peace and its normative and empirical relevance for contemporary international relations and international law. Yet for all his concern with peace, Kant's work is characterised by a fascinating preoccupation with the concept of war and its role in human history. The purpose of this essay is to investigate critically Kant's different conceptualisations of war and to evaluate his writing as a critique against contemporary versions of Liberal war and peace, as well as recent attempts to reduce war to an immanent logic of biopolitics.

Evidence of dispersion relations for the nonlinear response of the Lorenz 63 system

Along the lines of the nonlinear response theory developed by Ruelle, in a previous paper we have proved under rather general conditions that Kramers-Kronig dispersion relations and sum rules apply for a class of susceptibilities describing at any order of perturbation the response of Axiom A non equilibrium steady state systems to weak monochromatic forcings. We present here the first evidence of the validity of these integral relations for the linear and the second harmonic response for the perturbed Lorenz 63 system, by showing that numerical simulations agree up to high degree of accuracy with the theoretical predictions. Some new theoretical results, showing how to derive asymptotic behaviors and how to obtain recursively harmonic generation susceptibilities for general observables, are also presented. Our findings confirm the conceptual validity of the nonlinear response theory, suggest that the theory can be extended for more general non equilibrium steady state systems, and shed new light on the applicability of very general tools, based only upon the principle of causality, for diagnosing the behavior of perturbed chaotic systems and reconstructing their output signals, in situations where the fluctuation-dissipation relation is not of great help.

Haunted by History: Myths in International Relations

A series of studies on interpretations of history and their use in political debates. Includes: Beatrice Heuser & Cyril Buffet: ‘Michel and Marianne’ Beatrice Heuser & Cyril Buffet: ‘Of Myths and Men’, Beatrice Heuser & Cyril Buffet: ‘Historical Myths and the Denial of Change’, Beatrice Heuser: ‘Dunkirk, Dien Bien Phu, and Suez, or why France doesn't trust allies and has learned to love the bomb’.

Economic analysis of international supply chains: an internalization perspective

Offshoring and outsourcing in global value chains have been extensively analyzed from a strategic management perspective (Gereffi & Li, 2012; Gereffi, Humphrey & Sturgeon, 2005; Mudambi & Venzin, 2010). This paper examines these issues from an internalization theory perspective by summarizing the contribution of internalization theory to supply chain analysis; considering how a division of labor is coordinated and comparing coordination by management with coordination by the market; and discussing the formal models of supply chains developed by economists. Supply chain researchers possessing an interest in economic principles and good mathematical skills can make an important contribution to internalization theory, and it is hoped that this paper will encourage them to do so.

Workaround motivation model (WAMM): an adaptation of the Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour

The study of workarounds (WA) has increased in importance due to their impact on patient safety and efficiency. However, there are no adequate theories to explain the motivation to create and use a workaround in a healthcare sitting. Although theories of technology acceptance help to understand the reasons to accept or reject technology, they fail to explain drivers for alternatives. Also workarounds involve creators and performers that have different motivations. Models such as Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) or Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) can help to explain the role of workaround users, but lack explanation of workaround creators’ dynamics. Our aim is to develop a theoretical foundation to explain workaround motivation behaviour models with norms that relate to sanctions to provide an integrated Workaround Motivation Model; WAMM. The development of WAMM model is explained in this paper based on workaround cases as part of further research to establish the model.

Information strategies and the theory of the Firm

Information costs play a key role in determining the relative efficiency of alternative organisational structures. The choice of locations at which information is stored in a firm is an important determinant of its information costs. A specific example of information use is modelled in order to explore what factors determine whether information should be stored centrally or locally and if it should be replicated at different sites. This provides insights into why firms are structured hierarchically, with some decisions and tasks being performed centrally and others at different levels of decentralisation. The effects of new information technologies are also discussed. These can radically alter the patterns and levels of information costs within a firm and so can cause substantial changes in organisational structure.

GM food purchase intentions: linking the theory of planned behaviour with consumer trust and stated choice

After the “European” experience of BSE and further food safety crises consumer trust is playing an increasingly important role in political and marketing decision making. This also relates to the area of consumer acceptance of GM food. This paper integrates consumer trust with the theory of planned behavior and a stated choice model to gain a more complete picture of consumer decision making. Preliminary results indicate that when GM products offer practical benefits to consumers acceptance may increase considerably. Furthermore, both trust and perceived benefits contribute significantly to explaining the level of acceptance.