"Uncrewed Reaper drones were used to protect the crew member once he had been located, by “striking Iranian military-aged males believed to be a threat who got within three kilometers”"
Sounds like even more US war crimes – murders – to me.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
I don't see this said enough: the widespread use of generative AI is not only making our jobs as educators harder logistically, but also emotionally. It is genuinely sad to be suspicious of students when you have spent so much time building a pedagogy based on trust and not being a cop. It sucks.
Big thanks to everyone who supported this research, especially the communities in Sumapaz who shared their stories.
It’s not just about governance. Instead, it’s about how interactions between competing armed actors (in my case, the FARC and the Colombian Army).
Civilians make comparative assessments and contestations of authority shape their evaluations. It takes three, not two, to tango!
When we think of wartime #legitimacy, we often think about it in this way: if the rebels offer good governance, then people consider it legitimate.
Based on my #fieldwork with the communities of two villages in Sumapaz, #Colombia, I propose a new explanation for why rebel legitimacy varies locally.
It takes three to tango: contested authority, violence, and rebel legitimacy in Colombia Wolfgang Minatti Why do civilians’ perceptions of the legitimacy of armed actors vary locally during civil war? Existing scholarship grounds legitimacy in the resonance between armed actors’ justifications and civilians’ beliefs, but struggles to explain why legitimacy frequently diverges across villages facing similar actors and conditions. This article argues that understanding wartime legitimacy requires attention to how legitimation processes are shaped by armed actors’ contestations of authority. I theorise two mechanistic logics of legitimation under contested authority: intra-actions between armed actors and civilians, and inter-actions between competing armed actors. Drawing on fieldwork and process tracing, the article tests these mechanisms in a most-similar case study of two Colombian villages contested by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian army between 1990 and 2010. The analysis indicates that intra-actions between armed actors and civilians cannot fully capture variation in the legitimacy of armed actors. Rather, inter-actions between the FARC and the army influenced civilian beliefs and gave credence to the FARC’s justifications in one case but not the other. These findings illustrate the role of contested authority within the literature on rebel governance and legitimacy while also informing policy debates on how to build efficient and legitimate authority during conflict.
The first results of my research on rebel legitimacy in #Colombia are now available in the Journal of Peace Research.
The link to the paper "It takes three to tango: contested authority, violence, and rebel legitimacy in Colombia" is in the first comment!
ayatollah is supposed to be an academic position and you can tell this is true because after an extensive search they went with an internal candidate
Widespread panic in #Beirut after Israel issues unprecedented evacuation order for southern suburbs. Traffic is choked, people rushing to leave & head north. Drones in the air. WhatsApp messages urging ppl to crack windows open to avoid shattering from expected blasts #lebanon
US used Anthropic’s AI tool Claude, along with Maven Smart, another AI system built by Palantir, to choose 100s of targets in the opening day of airstrikes against Iran
Claude + Maven Smart were used to suggest "hundreds of targets, issue precise location coordinates, and prioritize" those targets
Here we go again
www.bbc.com/news/live/cn...
Dear colleagues,
If any of you know the members of the
@europeanisa.bsky.social EISA Governing Board, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share this with them.
There is a very unfair system in the application for mobility funds, and I believe it requires the attention of senior members.
My colleague @anavelasco.bsky.social raises an important issue, especially for doctoral scholars applying for mobility funds attend the conferences and workshops of @europeanisa.bsky.social. Hopefully, this will be taken up and triggers some debate and critical reflection on the matter!
📣 Are you an early- or mid-career scholar or practitioner passionate about #Democracy and the #RuleofLaw in #Europe? Apply now for the re:constitution Fellowship 2026/2027!
@democracyreporting.bsky.social
@stiftungmercator.bsky.social
Within the next decade the radical right is going to be the main force on the right in Europe (national and EU level). This includes far-right parties and formerly centre-right parties shifting their position. Moderate conservatism and Christian democracy will largely disappear on the right. 1/
It's officially publication day for our book, The Way Out. Sam and I have worked on this since we first put our heads together in 2019, and it's fair to say that the context shifted under our feet as we were writing and thinking.
www.ucpress.edu/books/the-wa...
A good review of where we are as a discipline of conflict studies!
In the new @dissentmag.bsky.social issue, out today, @yguichaoua.bsky.social and I diagnose the crisis of conflict studies in a piece that is part intellectual history, part personal experience.
What was conflict studies for? And what can its travails tell us about how wars have changed?
Join us next Monday for our hybrid event on the USA, Venezuela and the Politics of Force @interactfu.bsky.social. We look forward to discussing with @heikekrieger.bsky.social, @lyskulamadayil.bsky.social, Lora Viola and @lawaisbich.bsky.social! More info: www.interact.fu-berlin.de/en/News/conv...
BREAKING: Donald Trump, on his Truth Social account, claims that the US has captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as part of an operation that involved "large scale strikes" on Caracas
I'm not sure if people realize the murder strikes are taking place across a large region. It's quite staggering.
www.newsweek.com/map-us-strik...
🚨 Call for Special Issue Papers for Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, please share widely! @ginavale.bsky.social and I are excited to announce the call for papers for our upcoming special issue on insurgent-run education.
Proposal deadline is 8 January 2026, and full details are below👇🏼
📣 out now, with @argohdes.bsky.social and Mark Gibney - and in honour of the wonderful Steve Poe, who motivated the 1st edition with @universitypress.cambridge.org
tinyurl.com/2s4kh6z3. If you enjoy reading this even a fraction as much as I enjoyed creating it, you’re in for a ride 🤩
Handing back student work that’s been written by ChatGPT with a 0 followed by the comment “This essay will never stand in authentic wonder before the Beauty of God’s creation.”
Upcoming deadlines to apply to Syracuse U's great Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 2-week summer program! Fellowships available to cover the costs! Pls circulate widely!
www.maxwell.syr.edu/research/cen...
⏰ Only 7️⃣ days left to apply for the #PreDoc and #PostDoc positions in the VARICRIS project❗
#PoliSky #PoliSkyJobs #polsci 🌐
„Die Begriffe „Krieg“ und „Genozid“ sollten nicht gegeneinander ausgespielt werden“ - @amenzel.bsky.social und ich haben als Friedens- und Konfliktforscherinnen ein Plädoyer für diskursive Mehrgleisigkeit geschrieben
debatte.krisol-wissenschaft.org/die-begriffe...
Tobias Lenz & Fredrik Söderbaum's article in our latest issue demonstrates the significant changes in comparative realism over the past decade. It's free to read now!
📘 👉 buff.ly/XREtDrU
