CSS Blog Network
The ISN is happy to announce that the Group for Legal and Political Studies (GLPS) has joined the network as a partner.
Established in 2003, GLPS is a research institute based in Prishtina, Kosovo. It conducts academic research in the fields of political science, law and economics. The Group also aims to promote reform, democratization and development of Kosovo’s governing system.
Welcome to the ISN’s partner network, GLPS!
Petrospot Limited, a publishing, training and events organization focused on the maritime, energy and transport industries, has joined the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) as a partner.
Based in Oxfordshire, England, Petrospot was established in May 2003 by Llewellyn Bankes-Hughes (Managing Director). He is supported by Ian Taylor (Director – Publishing), Luci Llewellyn-Jones (Director – Events), Lesley Bankes-Hughes (Company Secretary – Associate Editor), Luke Hallam Evans (Sales Manager) and Alison Jane Cutler (Design & Marketing Manager).
Petrospot publishes two leading international magazines, Bunkerspot and Cargo Security International. Each is fully supported by 24/7 electronic news services. The company also organizes international conferences, conducts training courses and seminars and publishes books on marine fuels.
Welcome on board, Petrospot!
The World Bank is pouring old wine into new bottles in a publication on corruption in Africa. The insight that everyday corruption is detrimental to Africa’s development is old wine. The new bottle is “quiet corruption,” a term created “to indicate various types of malpractice of frontline providers (teachers, doctors, inspectors and other government representatives) that do not involve monetary exchange.”
To be fair, the World Bank’s communication strategy is to redirect the media focus from high-profile corruption involving politicians and business leaders to small corruption by civil servants. Such ‘quiet’ forms of corruption includes “absenteeism,” “lower level of effort than expected or the deliberate bending of rules.” However, the claim that “one of the main reasons Africa is lagging behind is the poor service delivery that is a consequence of quiet corruption” is hardly surprising.
Power and Moral Hypocrisy
When it comes to corruption, I find more insightful a recent research article entitled “Power Increases Hypocrisy.” Joris Lammers and Diedrik A Stapel (Tilburg University) along with Adam D Galinsky (Northwestern University) conducted a series of experiments in political psychology. They found that powerful people impose strict moral standards on others but practice less strict moral behavior themselves – a phenomena they call moral hypocrisy (note that the experiments were not conducted in Africa, but with students at a Dutch university).
We are happy to announce that the Centre for Security Economics and Technology (C SET) has joined the ISN’s partner network.
C SET is based at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. It possesses considerable expertise regarding economic aspects of security and defence. At the interface of the state, the economy, and the military C SET provides a unique forum for interdisciplinary research, consulting, and education.
The Centre was founded in 2007 as a cooperative endeavor between the Federal Department of Defense Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS) and the University of St. Gallen’s Institute for Political Science (IPW-HSG) under the direction of Professor James W. Davis, Ph.D.. C SET works in close cooperation with other research institutes of the University of St. Gallen including the Institute for Public Services and Tourism (IDT-HSG) and the Institute of Technology Management (TECTEM).
Welcome to the ISN, C SET!
I didn’t take it seriously when in 2007 foreign minister Taro Aso launched the International Manga Award. The media ridiculed Aso for not being able to read Japanese properly, which some said was due to him preferring cartoons to books. And indeed Aso liked to portray himself as a manga otaku, a freak.
I thus saw nothing else in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ initiative to actively use pop culture in public diplomacy than the minister’s personal obsession.
Even though it had never interested me much, I knew that many young people were attracted to Japan because of its manga and anime culture. But creating the post of an Anime Ambassador and filling it with Doraemon, the popular comic cat, didn’t seem like serious foreign policy to me.
However, recently, a couple of impressions have changed my mind. First, there was the article in Le monde diplomatique‘s Atlas. In “Japan’s innocent faces” Namihei Odaira argues that the government’s efforts in promoting anime and manga abroad have contributed to Japan being perceived favorably in the yearly BBC global attitudes survey.
He also mentions how the trucks of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in Iraq were painted with the image of Captain Tsubasa, another popular anime figure. The trucks were never attacked, which is attributed to Captain Tsubasas positive influence.