As the field of peace history awakens to its provincializing moment, scholars are increasingly demonstrating how activists and networks from across the global South opposed war and violence... Show moreAs the field of peace history awakens to its provincializing moment, scholars are increasingly demonstrating how activists and networks from across the global South opposed war and violence throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Arguably, historians are moving beyond expressions of peace from postcolonial nations, like the idea of ‘moral violence’ by Indonesian President Sukarno at the 1955 Bandung Conference. This paper assesses the work of historians seeking to overcome Eurocentric models and chronologies of peace activism and peace movements. It has three aims. First, it briefly sketches the broader historiography of peace history by demonstrating how Eurocentric perspectives slowly give way to more global ones. I then touch upon three key aspects that global peace history historians grapple with: scale, definitions, and fault lines. Finally, I assess the potential of global peace history for the fields of global history and peace studies. I argue that peace activism in the decolonizing world cannot simply be added to ‘canons’ of peace history, nor can concepts from peace studies be bluntly applied to global peace history. Instead, definitions of and engagements with peace must be historicized and localized worldwide to build new approaches that take the global South as a starting point. Show less
Quantum-enhanced data science, also known as quantum machine learning (QML), is of growing interest as an application of near-term quantum computers. Variational QML algorithms have the potential... Show moreQuantum-enhanced data science, also known as quantum machine learning (QML), is of growing interest as an application of near-term quantum computers. Variational QML algorithms have the potential to solve practical problems on real hardware, particularly when involving quantum data. However, training these algorithms can be challenging and calls for tailored optimization procedures. Specifically, QML applications can require a large shot-count overhead due to the large datasets involved. In this work, we advocate for simultaneous random sampling over both the dataset as well as the measurement operators that define the loss function. We consider a highly general loss function that encompasses many QML applications, and we show how to construct an unbiased estimator of its gradient. This allows us to propose a shot-frugal gradient descent optimizer called Refoqus (REsource Frugal Optimizer for QUantum Stochastic gradient descent). Our numerics indicate that Refoqus can save several orders of magnitude in shot cost, even relative to optimizers that sample over measurement operators alone. Show less
The United Nations (UN) sanctions against North Korea are weakened by structural evasion techniques and weak enforcement. The African continent is a crucial node in the global illicit networks of... Show moreThe United Nations (UN) sanctions against North Korea are weakened by structural evasion techniques and weak enforcement. The African continent is a crucial node in the global illicit networks of North Korea. This paper examines three motives for African states to cooperate with North Korea, with a particular focus on the context of southern Africa: historical affinity (reciprocity), the practical issue of maintenance dependency (necessity), and the presence of weak enforcement regimes (opportunity). Based on a deep reading of UN Panel of Experts reports, academic literature and policy papers, novel archival material, and an interview with a defected North Korean diplomat, this paper argues that solutions to strengthen the sanctions regime can be successful only if they are grounded in African initiatives. Show less
A key strategic measure of the international community needed over the next decade is the enhancement of the international rule of law in order to reinforce multilateralism and enhance global... Show moreA key strategic measure of the international community needed over the next decade is the enhancement of the international rule of law in order to reinforce multilateralism and enhance global governance capabilities. A project to significantly upgrade the existing international legal architecture should be launched upon the occasion of the UN’s 75th anniversary, making good on core UN Charter and related international commitments. In this paper, we propose an ambitious, yet realizable “International Rule of Law Package” of reforms meant to substantially enhance the integrity of the international governance system. Key international justice institutions the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and the UN’s Human Rights architecture should be strengthened in terms of both their jurisdiction and effectiveness. In addition, the UN75 anniversary represents an opportunity to pave the way for new bodies to fill existing institutional gaps. Hence, we support the creation of an international anti-corruption court as well as an international judicial training institute to ensure the requisite capacity, skills, and knowledge across international courts. The international community, on this historic occasion, should begin focused discussion on such an international rule of law reform package with the goal of modernizing and making more robust and legitimate the core international governance architecture, fit for the range of global challenges it now confronts. Show less
RECOMMENDATION: Increase the universal acceptance of international justice institutions, in particular the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Moreover,... Show moreRECOMMENDATION: Increase the universal acceptance of international justice institutions, in particular the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Moreover, increase their enforcement powers, preserve their independence, and enhance their resilience against political pressures. Show less
Smits J., Permanyer I., Wildeman J., Dietz A.J. 2020
This study examines the reasons why northern Burkina has been engulfed by endemic violence since the mid-2010s, in an effort to understand future evolutions and recommend coping and preventive... Show moreThis study examines the reasons why northern Burkina has been engulfed by endemic violence since the mid-2010s, in an effort to understand future evolutions and recommend coping and preventive action. The causes of the violence, the study asserts, are external to Burkina and are found in the contest between militant Salafism and the Western “War on Terror,” but the reasons why the conflicts have become entrenched are related to structural issues in Burkina’s internal geopolitics, political economy, and state formation.To demonstrate these claims, the study describes a “Conflict Zone” that emerged in northern Mali following the fall of the regime of Col. Kaddafi of Libya, and that extended into northern Burkina a few years later; it analyzes the internal geopolitics of the country and the peculiar position of the north and the east in relation to the center and the west – described as the twin pillars of the state; it contrasts the impacts of policies of national development under Sankarism in the 1980s and of the neoliberal orientations followed under Blaise Compaoré; it shows how these structures and histories played into tensions and conflicts in northern and eastern Burkina; and how, in turn, these issues made of the region a propitious ground for the extension of the Conflict Zone.The study ends with technical and political recommendations regarding, on the one hand, the revitalization of the regalian state (justice, security, administration), and, on the other hand, the framing of a new blueprint for society. These recommendations also take into account the fact that the Burkina conflicts are part of a Conflict Zone that has a transnational and international life of its own. Show less
We introduce MSO graph storage types, and call a storage type MSO- expressible if it is isomorphic to some MSO graph storage type. An MSO graph storage type has MSO-definable sets of graphs as... Show moreWe introduce MSO graph storage types, and call a storage type MSO- expressible if it is isomorphic to some MSO graph storage type. An MSO graph storage type has MSO-definable sets of graphs as storage configurations and as storage transformations. We consider sequential automata with MSO graph storage and associate with each such automaton a string language (in the usual way) and a graph language; a graph is accepted by the automaton if it represents a correct sequence of storage configurations for a given input string. For each MSO graph storage type, we define an MSO logic which is a subset of the usual MSO logic on graphs. We prove a Büchi-Elgot-Trakhtenbrot theorem, both for the string case and the graph case. Moreover, we prove that (i) each MSO graph transduction can be used as storage transformation in an MSO graph storage type, (ii) every automatic storage type is MSO-expressible, and (iii) the pushdown operator on storage types preserves the property of MSO-expressibility. Thus, the iterated pushdown storage types are MSO-expressible. Show less
