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In recent years, there have been a growing number of online and offline attacks linked to a loosely connected network of misogynist and antifeminist online communities called ‘the manosphere’. Since 2016, the ideas spread among and by groups of the manosphere have also become more closely aligned with those of other Far-Right online networks. In this commentary, I explore the role of what I term ‘evidence-based misogyny’ for mobilization and radicalization into the antifeminist and misogynist subcultures of the manosphere. Evidence-based misogyny is a discursive strategy, whereby members of the manosphere refer to (and misinterpret) knowledge in the form of statistics, studies, news items and pop-culture and mimic accepted methods of knowledge presentation to support their essentializing, polarizing views about gender relations in society. Evidence-based misogyny is a core aspect for manosphere-related mobilization as it provides a false sense of authority and forges a collective identity, which is framed as a supposed ‘alternative’ to mainstream gender knowledge. Due to its core function to justify and confirm the misogynist sentiments of users, evidence-based misogyny serves as connector between the manosphere and both mainstream conservative as well as other Far-Right and conspiratorial discourses.
Gender at the crossroads
(2023)
Since the early 2000s, the United Nations (UN) global counterterrorism architecture has seen significant changes towards increased multilateralism, a focus on prevention, and inter-institutional coordination across the UN’s three pillars of work. Throughout this reform process, gender aspects have increasingly become presented as a “cross-cutting” theme. In this article, I investigate the role of gender in the UN’s counterterrorism reform process at the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, or “triple nexus”, from a feminist institutionalist perspective. I conduct a feminist discourse analysis of the counterterrorism discourses of three UN entities, which represent the different UN pillars of peace and security (DPO), development (UNDP), and humanitarianism and human rights (OHCHR). The article examines the role of gender in the inter-institutional reform process by focusing on the changes, overlaps and differences in the discursive production of gender in the entities’ counterterrorism agendas over time and in two recent UN counterterrorism conferences. I find that gendered dynamics of nested newness and institutional layering have played an essential role both as a justification for the involvement of individual entities in counterterrorism and as a vehicle for inter-institutional cooperation and struggle for discursive power.
This book brings together a variety of innovative perspectives on the inclusion of gender in the governance of (counter-)terrorism and violent extremism.
Several global governance initiatives launched in recent years have explicitly sought to integrate concern for gender equality and gendered harms into efforts to counter terrorism and violent extremism (CT/CVE). As a result, commitments to gender-sensitivity and gender equality in international and regional CT/CVE initiatives, in national action plans and at the level of civil society programming, ´have become a common aspect of the multilevel governance of terrorism and violent extremism. In light of these developments, there is a need for more systematic analysis of how concerns about gender are being incorporated in the governance of (counter-)terrorism and violent extremism and how it has affected (gendered) practices and power relations in counterterrorism policy-making and implementation.
Ranging from the processes of global and regional integration of gender into the governance of terrorism, via the impact of the shift on government responses to the return of foreign fighters, to state and civil society-led CVE programming and academic discussions, the essays engage with the origins and dynamics behind recent shifts which bring gender to the forefront of the governance of terrorism. This book will be of great value to researchers and scholars interested in gender, governance and terrorism.
The chapters in this book were originally published in Critical Studies on Terrorism.
A room full of ‘views’
(2023)
Quantitative research into the effectiveness of the UN human rights treaty bodies (UNTBs) in eliciting remedial responses from states is impeded by a lack of usable data on how states respond to their decisions. The new Treaty Body Views Dataset (TBVD) aims to fill this gap. It comprises details on all published decisions in individual complaints cases issued by the UNTBs between 1979 and 2019 and matches these with information on their state of compliance. The TBVD can be used for research on the activities of the treaty bodies, the nature of the decisions themselves, or state behavior following a decision. An empirical application illustrates how the TBVD can advance knowledge about the factors that correlate with compliance with adverse UNTB decisions. Results show that the likelihood of implementation hinges critically on decision-level characteristics, and reveal differences and similarities between compliance with UNTB decisions and regional human rights court judgments.
The EU and its member countries have been laggards in using forest carbon to reduce EU emissions. The European Green Deal aims to change this. As part of its long-term emissions reductions, the EU aims to offset this by creating land-based carbon sinks, especially forest carbon sinks as well as carbon capture and storage. This chapter focuses on the role of forest carbon as part of the EU's climate policies towards achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It furthermore examines the European Commission's proposed forest strategy and its proposal for a revised LULUCF Regulation. The chapter shows that the logic of appropriateness dominates the European Commission's forest policies. Finally, the chapter makes policy recommendations on how the EU could credibly use long-term carbon sinks to achieve climate neutrality.
Long-term environmental policy remains a vexing puzzle of environmental policy. Following its definition, the author reviews the methods suitable for the study of long-term environmental policy and develops a typology of policy instruments to cope with these challenges. The concluding section offers five central research challenges to advance the study of long-term environmental policy.
The impact of civilian harm on strategic outcomes in war has been the subject of persistent debate. However, the literature has primarily focused on civilian casualties, thereby overlooking the targeting of civilian infrastructure, which is a recurrent phenomenon during war. This study fills this gap by examining the targeting of healthcare, one of the most indispensable infrastructures during war and peace time. We contend that attacks on medical facilities are distinct from direct violence against civilians. Because they are typically unrelated to military dynamics, the targeting of hospitals is a highly visible form and powerful signal of civilian victimization. To assess its effects, we analyze newly collected data on such attacks by pro-government forces and event data on combat activities in Northwest Syria (2017-2020). Applying a new approach for panel data analysis that combines matching methods with a difference-in-differences estimation, we examine the causal effect of counterinsurgent bombings on subsequent violent events. Distinguishing between regime-initiated and insurgent-initiated combat activities and their associated fatalities, we find that the targeting of hospitals increases insurgent violence. We supplement the quantitative analysis with unique qualitative evidence derived from interviews, which demonstrates that hospital bombings induce rebels to resist more fiercely through two mechanisms: intrinsic motivations and civilian pressure. The results have important implications for the effects of state-led violence and the strength of legal norms that protect noncombatants.
Public opinion polls have become vital and increasingly visible parts of election campaigns. Previous research has frequently demonstrated that polls can influence both citizens' voting intentions and political parties' campaign strategies. However, they are also fraught with uncertainty. Margins of error can reflect (parts of) this uncertainty. This paper investigates how citizens' voting intentions change due to whether polling estimates are presented with or without margins of error.
Using a vignette experiment (N=3224), we examine this question based on a real-world example in which different election polls were shown to nationally representative respondents ahead of the 2021 federal election in Germany. We manipulated the display of the margins of error, the interpretation of polls and the closeness of the electoral race.
The results indicate that margins of error can influence citizens' voting intentions. This effect is dependent on the actual closeness of the race and additional interpretative guidance provided to voters. More concretely, the results consistently show that margins of error increase citizens' inclination to vote for one of the two largest contesting parties if the polling gap between these parties is small, and an interpretation underlines this closeness.
The findings of this study are important for three reasons. First, they help to determine whether margins of error can assist citizens in making more informed (strategic) vote decisions. They shed light on whether depicting opinion-poll uncertainty affects the key features of representative democracy, such as democratic accountability. Second, the results stress the responsibility of the media. The way polls are interpreted and contextualized influences the effect of margins of error on voting behaviour. Third, the findings of this paper underscore the significance of including methodological details when communicating scientific research findings to the broader public.