Scott Walker

Does Cultural Diversity Affect Countries' Respect for Human Rights?

In the post-World War II era, international human rights standards have evolved, establishing in law a set of basic rights designed to guarantee an acceptable level of personal dignity for all people. A long list of human rights is presented in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights1 and later covenants and conventions. Increasingly, the degree to which these human rights are realized is considered an important standard of a regimes performance. In this paper we will examine the relationship between cultural diversity (which we also will call ethnic heterogeneity or fractionalization)

Potent inhibitors of a shikimate pathway enzyme from Mycobacterium tuberculosis: combining mechanism- and modeling-based design

Tuberculosis remains a serious global health threat, with the emergence of multidrug-resistant strains highlighting the urgent need for novel antituberculosis drugs. The enzyme 3-deoxy-d-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate synthase (DAH7PS) catalyzes the first step of the shikimate pathway for the biosynthesis of aromatic compounds. This pathway has been shown to be essential in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the pathogen responsible for tuberculosis. DAH7PS catalyzes a condensation reaction between P-enolpyruvate and erythrose 4-phosphate to give 3-deoxy-d-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate. The enzyme reaction mechanism is proposed to include a tetrahedral intermediate, which is formed by attack of an active site water on the central carbon of P-enolpyruvate during the course of the reaction. Molecular modeling of this intermediate into the active site reported in this study shows a configurational preference consistent with water attack from the re face of P-enolpyruvate. Based on this model, we designed and synthesized an inhibitor of DAH7PS that mimics this reaction intermediate. Both enantiomers of this intermediate mimic were potent inhibitors of M. tuberculosis DAH7PS, with inhibitory constants in the nanomolar range. The crystal structure of the DAH7PS-inhibitor complex was solved to 2.35 Å. Both the position of the inhibitor and the conformational changes of active site residues observed in this structure correspond closely to the predictions from the intermediate modeling. This structure also identifies a water molecule that is located in the appropriate position to attack the re face of P-enolpyruvate during the course of the reaction, allowing the catalytic mechanism for this enzyme to be clearly defined.

Rethinking Models of Civil War Settlement

The current study is a replication and expansion of an earlier piece by Hartzell, Hoddie, and Rothchild (2001) exploring civil war settlement characteristics and stability. Their research focused on the importance of territorial autonomy provisions and the role of third party guarantors in predicting settlement success and stability. They employed a model that controlled for such conflict characteristics as international system structure, nature of the previous regime, conflict duration, conflict issue, and conflict intensity. Our study replicates Hartzell et al. using the Regan (2001) civil war dataset, employing a broader definition of conflict and a more stringent definition of when a conflict has ended. The results presented here differ from the previous study to have find that the importance of territorial autonomy provisions as a predictor of settlement stability is greatly diluted when one examines only those conflict settlements that have lasted for six months or longer without reciprocated violence. Third-party guarantors, however, remain a strong factor determining conflict settlement stability in the revised dataset. We also expand the previous work by including cases where the conflict ended through military victories, as well as by adding a dimension to the negotiated settlement variable that separates settlements that were coerced due to external military presence from those that were not coerced.

Should We Really “Force Them to be Free?” An Empirical Examination of Peceny's Liberalizing Intervention Thesis

In his article, entitled “Forcing Them to be Free,” Peceny (1999) presents and empirically tests an argument that while most U.S. military interventions are not successful in bringing about democracy, those cases of intervention in which the U.S. also pushes for “free and fair elections” are likely to produce long-term democratic outcomes in target countries. Our research challenges Pecenys work in two ways. First, we replicate his analysis, finding that military interventions with democratizing intent are not necessarily as successful as his work suggests. Second, we investigate whether these interventions are likely to lead to a broader concept of democracy and good governance using a series of alternative measures of democratic performance and alternate statistical analyses. Again, we generally find that interventions that attempt to “force” free and fair elections do not have a particularly beneficial effect on long-term democratic outcomes. Our results suggest that more work needs to be done before a “forcing them to be free” hypothesis can be considered to be an advancement in the literature on democratization.

Substrate and reaction intermediate mimics as inhibitors of 3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate synthase

3-Deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate (DAH7P) synthase catalyses the aldol-like addition of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) to D-erythrose 4-phosphate in the first step of the shikimate pathway to aromatic amino acids. A series of compounds, designed to mimic intermediates in the enzyme-catalysed reaction, have been synthesised and tested as inhibitors for the DAH7P synthase from Escherichia coli. The most potent inhibitor was the vinyl phosphonate, (E)-2-methyl-3-phosphonoacrylic acid, with a Ki of 4.7 µM.

Are Regimes in Diverse Societies More Repressive? a Crosstemporal, Crossnational Analysis

Are governments in highly diverse societies more likely to use political repression against their citizens? A notable dialogue occurred between Lord Acton and John Stuart Mill, with Mill arguing that government institutions in relatively homogeneous states are more likely to be free and effective, and thus less prone to violating individual rights. Conversely, Lord Acton argued that the presence of a diverse range of social groups in a polity necessitates a high degree of political tolerance. A number of current scholars are engaged in this debate as well. In recent decades, researchers have identified a number of factors that may lead to higher levels of state-sponsored repression, including population size and growth rate, economic development, the presence of formal guarantees of rights, regime type, and the presence of civil or international war. However, only a small number of works have focused on the role of ethnic and religious diversity as a potential determinant of the level of government respect for basic human rights. Most research thus far has focused on the relationship between diversity and genocide or mass killing. Researchers have generally failed to address the relationship more broadly. This study examines the effect of cultural diversity in the developing world. Are regimes in more diverse societies more likely to use political terror against their citizens than governments in more homogeneous settings? To empirically address the contribution of cultural diversity, the study employs multivariate analytical techniques to pooled cross-sectional time series data in order to assess the relative impact of ethnic and religious diversity on political repression on a global sample of developing countries. The findings lend a modest degree of support to the argument that cultural diversity is associated with lower levels of state terror.

Does Forced Democratization Work

Over the past seven decades, democratic powers, led by the United States, have attempted to bring about democracy through external military imposition. While research to date has generally pointed toward the conclusion that such efforts are often not successful in effecting full-fledged democracy, studies almost exclusively have focused on how interventions have affected institutional measures of democracy in target countries (as opposed to political rights or political competitiveness). In addition, such studies have not recognized that there is more than one way to denote a democratizing intervention. I find that, regardless of what measure of democracy one uses, attempts to force democracy are generally not successful. However, ”success” also depends to a degree upon how one chooses to define attempts at forced democratization. This research reinforces existing research, indicating that democratizing interventions are rarely found to result in healthy consolidated democracies over the long term.

The Contingent Nature of Democracy Promotion

The set of works reviewed here suggest that the problems inherent in post-Cold War democracy promotion cannot be explained solely by policy failures. Attempts to push for democracy have been met with resistance, whether in response to the imposition of democracy or to ‘softer’ approaches. Collectively, the research in these volumes suggests that if democratization efforts are to succeed, those who hope to promote them must be more reflective about their own role in the process and cognizant of the fact that democracy promotion efforts are subject to political forces at the domestic, global and intermestic levels.

Human rights in the South Pacific: A comparative analysis

To date, no research has attempted to evaluate human rights in the Pacific region in comparative perspective. Employing commonly used cross-national measures of basic human rights, the author examines how well regimes in the region respect political and civil rights as well as the right to physical integrity. The results reveal that, as regards political and civil rights, the region appears to resemble parts of the developing world more than the developed world. In contrast, the region performs relatively well with regard to available measures of personal integrity rights. Moreover, the results reveal that levels of respect for certain key individual human rights in different states across the region are far from uniform. The author subsequently poses questions for future research based on these findings.

Human Rights and the South Pacific: A New Voice in the Global Dialogue

Over the past several decades, there has been a disconnect between the international community and the South Pacific region in terms of human rights. Countries in the region have been slow to adapt international declarations and conventions and slow to implement those they do ratify. Is this lack of agreement between the global human rights movement and local leaders due to the fact that human rights are perceived differently in the South Pacific region? This article suggests some possible points of difference between the South Pacific region and the dominant vision of human rights as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related treaties.