Pre-Hispanic Warfare in the Northern Andes: Evaluating the Existence of Conflict in a Carib Group Territory through Settlement Pattern Analysis

This study evaluates war’s existence in a region where the Panche, a Carib-affiliated group, settled during pre-Hispanic times through a study of regional settlement patterns. Like most Carib people, the Panche were described by the Spanish in the 16th century a.d. as a warrior group. This study shows that in the absence of strong evidence, such as defensive constructions, iconography, and trauma in human skeletal remains, settlement patterns are useful tools for assessing the existence of warfare in prehistoric societies. This method is relevant for analyzing conflict in societies with small populations or those without much sociopolitical complexity, where conflict was not intense or frequent and therefore did not leave a significant archaeological signature. Archaeological indicators of warfare are discussed, and the existence of war evaluated. Some dimensions of war (e.g., social distancing, scale of society, tactics, goals, frequency, and duration) are considered, and the possible causes of war are evaluated.

Journalism Studies in the Shadow of Authoritarianism: The Genealogy of the Shallowness of Indonesian Journalism Scholarship and Research

This study offers a critical analysis of the enduring limitations within Indonesian journalism scholarship and research, tracing their genealogy to the authoritarian legacy of the New Order regime. This regime, which ruled Indonesia from 1966 to 1998, imposed strict controls on the academic sphere, using social sciences as tools to legitimize and promote its developmental and state-centric narratives. Under the New Order’s authoritarian regime, communication and journalism studies were instrumentalized to promote state propaganda and modernization theories aligned with Western interests during the Cold War. The regime’s control over universities and the press forged a discursive formation that suppressed oppositional knowledge, depoliticized intellectual life, and narrowed journalism education into a technocratic and vocational enterprise. The article also discusses the Malari Incident, which intensified the suppression of the press and reinforced state control over journalism scholarship. The persistence of shallowness in Indonesian journalism scholarship and research is deeply rooted in historical authoritarian influence and perpetuated by ongoing structural and epistemological constraints. Despite the political reforms and the advent of the reformation era, the legacy of authoritarianism continues to shape the contours of journalism scholarship, necessitating a critical reassessment of its epistemological foundations.

At the brink: How Moscow’s “dirty bomb” disinformation campaign risked a NATO-Russia war in October 2022

In October 2022, Russian forces were on the brink of collapse in Ukraine, and it was unclear if major Russian army units could even evacuate back across the Dnipro River to safety. Discontent was rising, Putin’s regime was at risk, and he started talking of using a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield—which he tried to justify by saying that it would only be in response to the exploding of a dirty bomb by Ukraine (although there was no evidence for the existence of such a Ukrainian dirty bomb). The world was very close to a second Cuban Missile Crisis. Examining the role of nuclear weapons in this crisis may prove crucial for understanding the growing role of nuclear deterrence and disinformation in future conflicts. A strong nuclear component has characterized Russia’s war on Ukraine. Deconstructing it, we can track two dimensions: nuclear deterrence/compellence and nuclear disinformation. Initially separate tracks, these phenomena were united into a single strategy of nuclear coercion by the autumn of 2022, when the world was closest to the nuclear brink.

From crisis governance to electoral normality and the longest coalition negotiations: the 2024 Austrian parliamentary election

The 2024 Austrian parliament election reflects both continuity and transformation within the political landscape of the country. Following a turbulent inter-election period marked by multiple crises, the campaign and its outcome echoed patterns from the 2017 election, with migration regaining prominence as a key voter priority and the populist radical right FPÖ reclaiming its voter base previously lost in the 2019 snap election. This time, however, the FPÖ emerged as the largest party for the first time, though it failed to translate this historic success into government participation. Following the longest and most complex government formation in Austrian history, the Christian democratic ÖVP, social democratic SPÖ, and liberal NEOS formed the nation’s first three-party coalition since the immediate post-war period. Overall, the election showed the persistence of familiar political patterns, while also highlighting the growing difficulty of coalition building in an increasingly polarised party system.

Cleavage size and stability in turbulent times: introducing the bloc volatility and fragmentation dataset

Twenty-first century West European politics is more volatile than in any period since the end of World War II. A new transnational cleavage increasingly structures party competition and voter behaviour. To what extent does this new cleavage provide electoral stability and fragment traditional camps ? This article answers these questions by introducing the Bloc Volatility and Fragmentation Dataset (BVFD) including metrics of volatility and fragmentation for party blocs, cleavage types and left-right party camps in 15 West European countries from 1951 to 2023. In general, these data show that the transnational cleavage has become larger and more stable in the last 30 years while the traditional cleavages have declined. The left and right party camps have also both become more fragmented. The findings of this article and the BVFD contribute to recent advances in the study of party system and cleavage change in Western Europe.

Same old, same old? The return of the (not so) Grand Coalition after the 2025 German Bundestag election

After the implosion of the traffic-light coalition in the face of the consequences of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and budgetary limitations that exacerbated its internal contradictions, Germany experienced a short but harsh election campaign. Economic and fiscal policy were quickly overshadowed by the issue of immigration (yet again) and the related question of how hermetic the cordon sanitaire should be. The elections allowed for the return of the classic Grand Coalition format (Christian Democrats and Social Democrats) but its current edition is seemingly quite different, both in size and in functioning. Contrary to some campaign proclamations, the new government will have to continue working with the Greens (and sometimes also the Socialists) if it wants to get many kinds of legislation done given the set-up of the political system. All the while, the spectre of cooperation between Christian Democrats and the populist radical right looms large.

Toward a global history of bombing in the Second World War: Taking Japan seriously

Toxic water, toxic system: environmental racism and Michigan’s water war by Michael Mascarenhas, Oakland, University of California Press, 2024, 334 pp., $27.95 (paperback), ISBN 9780520343870

Drawing past displacement in Cabo Delgado: from cognitive maps to durable solutions

Over one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been accounted for during the course of the guerilla war in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. As they await for durable solutions to their displacement, women IDPs retain their traditional roles, which are contingent on their spatial practices and must be negotiated with their new community and environment. Pursuant to feminist, poststructuralist and postcolonial objectives and methodologies, this article engages women IDPs through the co-production of cognitive maps to develop an embodied and multisensory understanding of how their socio-spatial practices are related to their socioeconomic integration. By examining their embodied experiences and multisensory narratives, study participants reveal how a combination of structural, cultural and individual factors shape their responsibilities, daily practices and emotions within a context of internal displacement. This article then argues that women should have a central role in the development of policies and interventions supporting durable solutions in Cabo Delgado.

Medical education and the 12-day Iran war: Emphasizing the impact of resilience and medical training