Other News

Staff members from here in the department have decided to take on this summer’s Race for Life, in order to raise funds for Myton Hospice. Some have even signed up for the adventurous ‘Pretty Muddy’ version!

All funds raised will go directly to Myton. Any donations, big or small, will be greatly appreciated.

Please visit their page here and show your support: www.mytonhospice.org/RaceForLife

Professor Matthew Watson has an article in The Conversation on widening participation.

This article was written following involvement in a Warwick workshop on social immobilities and access to university organised by Pro-Vice Chancellor Christina Hughes. It explores the relationship between higher education marketisation at the level of university income and attempts to enhance access to degree programmes for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It was published to coincide with the release of new figures by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, arguing that the current policy is inattentive to class differences in attitudes to holding debt and therefore has hidden costs that operate against the stated objectives of policy.

You can read the article on The Conversation here.

Dr Oz Hassan and Dr Elizabeth Iskander Monier's research has been cited in the newly released House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Report on The UK’s Response to Extremism in North Africa. Citing their written evidence no fewer than three times throughout the report, the committee tied their research to the following policy recommendations:

Addressing terrorism in the Western Sahel-Sahara region comprehensively means addressing the environmental conditions that are allowing it to grow: poverty and inequality, corruption and mis-governance, the pressure of fast-growing populations on depleting natural resources, insufficient cross-border co-operation, and the spread of extremist ideology. This is a huge task requiring international co-operation across a number of disciplines. We [the committee] see signs that development and investment challenges are beginning to be addressed, but are concerned that co-operation on security matters should not be neglected.

We [the Committee] recognise that the UK Government has sought to secure international co-operation, for instance through the communiqué agreed at the 2013 G8 summit. We recommend that the UK Government, in its response to this report, outlines how it proposes to maintain momentum on this issue over the remainder of this Parliament, particularly in relation to security and intelligence co-operation.

The UK's response to extremism and instability in North and West Africa - Volume 1

The UK's response to extremism and instability in North and West Africa - Volume 2

The UK's response to extremism and instability in North and West Africa - Volume 3

André Broome and Shaun Breslin are editing a new book series for Palgrave, entitled Global Reordering.

Global Reordering invites manuscript submissions based on innovative empirical research that is theoretically-informed and is relevant for contemporary policy debates. Key areas include: changing modes of global governance and multipolarity; global public policy networks; emerging powers and multipolar alternatives; regions and regionalism; as well as regional and global leadership.

Please see this flyer for more information.

The European Journal of International Relations (EJIR) have published Maria Koinova’s article "Why Do Conflict-generated Diasporas Pursue Sovereignty-based Claims through State-based or Transnational Channels? Armenian, Albanian, and Palestinian Diasporas Compared."

Over the past decade, diaspora mobilization has become of increasing interest to International Relations scholars who study terrorism, civil wars and transnational social movements and networks. Nevertheless, an important area remains under-researched: conditions, causal mechanisms and processes of diaspora mobilization vis-a-vis emerging states, especially in a comparative perspective. This article asks why diaspora entrepreneurs in liberal states pursue the sovereignty goals of their original homelands through the institutional channels of their host-states, through transnational channels or use a dual-pronged approach. Empirically, the article focuses on a comparison between the Albanian, Armenian and Palestinian diasporas in the UK and their links to the emerging states of Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh and Palestine.

The EJIR is a top journal in International Relations, the article can be read by clicking the following link:

http://ejt.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/03/14/1354066113509115.abstract