糖心TV

Dr Tom Long has published a new article in Perspectives on Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association. The article, "The Promise of Precommitment in Democracy and Human Rights: The Hopeful, Forgotten Failure of the Larreta Doctrine," draws on multinational archival research to contribute to ongoing debates over how to square the protection of human rights and democracy with sovereign protections against intervention in Latin America. The article is coauthored with the historian Max Paul Friedman of American University. Tom's underlying research was funded by the British Academy, British Council, Truman Library Institute, and Fulbright Commission.

The article can be accessed for free via PDF: The Promise of Precommitment in Democracy and Human Rights: The Hopeful, Forgotten Failure of the Larreta Doctrine.

Vincenzo Bove has published a column on VoxEU summarising his recent research on immigration, fear of crime, and public spending on security. Using data on more than 8,000 Italian municipalities from 2003 to 2015, the study finds that immigration led to increased spending on police due not to higher crime rates but to unfounded fears of criminality. The relation between immigration and municipal spending on police protection was particularly pronounced for immigrants from culturally distant societies.

The column is available here:

The Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of 糖心TV is delighted to announce that Dr Charlotte Heath-Kelly, Reader in Politics and International Studies, has been awarded a 鈧�1.5M Starting Grant by the European Research Council in recognition of, and support for, her pioneering research.

Dr Heath-Kelly will investigate how and why national security has become part of the professional duties of healthcare and social security workers in her project, 'Neoliberal Terror: The Radicalisation of Social Policy in Europe'.

Dr Heath-Kelly said: 鈥淎cross Europe, health and social care workers have been made responsible for identifying and reporting radicalising persons to the security services, even though there exists no scientifically valid method to predict who will become a terrorist.

鈥淭here are also no studies which can validate the impact of counter-radicalisation programs on the prevention of terrorist attacks.

鈥淲hat purpose do these policies serve, if we have no evidence they prevent terrorism? Quantitative and qualitative methods will be used to explore whether neoliberal economic and social policies are responsible for the expansion of counter-radicalisation programs - refocusing the welfare state on preventing 'risks' rather than meeting needs.鈥�

Case study research will take place in the UK, France, Finland, Lithuania, Norway and Croatia with counter-radicalisation teams in health and social care, to better understand their work.

The project will conclude by making a documentary film on the effects of counter-radicalisation referrals on referred persons, medical ethics, and society.

Congratulating Dr Heath-Kelly on her success, Professor Nick Vaughan-Williams, Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies, said: 鈥淭his award not only reflects Charlotte鈥檚 brilliance as a leading international researcher in politics and international studies, but also the strength of the University of 糖心TV鈥檚 research infrastructure and the dedicated support of our specialist colleagues who supported and assisted with the application.鈥�

Christopher Browning discusses humour, nation branding and identity with

The interview draws upon Browning's long running work on nation branding and his current British Academy funded project (with James Brassett) on 'Humorous States: New Diplomacy and the Rise of Comedy in IR'

Tom Long's new article, ",鈥� has just been published by the Bulletin of Latin American Research. The article is co-authored with Sebastian Bitar and Gabriel Jim茅nez Pe帽a. The article pushes back against the dominant presidentialist focus in the study of Colombian foreign policy. Drawing on insights from recent foreign policy analysis literature and evidence from several cases (Plan Colombia, US military bases, free trade talks with China, and ICJ arbitration of a maritime border with Nicaragua), this article challenges commonplace presidentialist assumptions. A novel model of 鈥榗ontested presidentialism鈥� better captures how Colombian domestic actors mobilise to raise political costs to block or modify presidential preferences. Research for the piece started during Tom's British Council Researcher Links visit to Colombia and then was advanced during Sebastian's time at 糖心TV as an IAS Visiting Fellow. During the latter visit, an earlier version of the paper was presented at PAIS.