It remains unclear whether the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is having an impact on suicide rates (SR). Economic insecurity and mental disorders are risk factors for suicide, which may ...increase during the pandemic.
Data on suicide events in a major city in Germany, and the corresponding life years (LY) were provided by the local authorities. For the year 2020, periods without restrictions on freedom of movement and social contact were compared with periods of moderate and severe COVID-19 restrictions. To avoid distortions due to seasonal fluctuations and linear time trends, suicide risk during the COVID-19 pandemic was compared with data from 2010 to 2019 using an interrupted time series analysis.
A total of 643 suicides were registered and 6 032 690 LY were spent between 2010 and 2020. Of these, 53 suicides and 450 429 LY accounted for the year 2020.In 2020, SR (suicides per 100 000 LY) were lower in periods with severe COVID-19 restrictions (SR = 7.2, χ2 = 4.033, p = 0.045) compared with periods without restrictions (SR = 16.8). A comparison with previous years showed that this difference was caused by unusually high SR before the imposition of restrictions, while SR during the pandemic were within the trend corridor of previous years (expected suicides = 32.3, observed suicides = 35; IRR = 1.084, p = 0.682).
SR during COVID-19 pandemic are in line with the trend in previous years. Careful monitoring of SR in the further course of the COVID-19 crisis is urgently needed. The findings have regional reference and should not be over-generalised.
This article deals with the role that different rationalities of power play in current authoritarian and right-wing populist governance. Referring to Foucauldian power theory, I will argue that power ...rationalities and practices in current authoritarian and right-wing populist rule are diverse and variable. I intend to show that various aspects of the sovereign, disciplinary, governmental, and pastoral types of power as outlined by Foucault play an important role in contemporary authoritarianism and right-wing populism. Thereby, this article pursues a twofold aim. On the one hand, the Foucauldian discussion of power in authoritarian and populist rationalities and practices should contribute to better understand current phenomena of new authoritarianism and right-wing populism. On the other hand, the following considerations should also provide a more detailed theoretical insight into the relation between, and compatibilities as well as incompatibilities of, the different types of power described by Foucault.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Trotz der intensiven Diskussion poststrukturalistischer Ansätze in den Internationalen Beziehungen (IB) hat das sogenannte radikaldemokratische Denken bislang nur wenig Aufmerksamkeit erfahren. ...Radikaldemokratische Theoretiker*innen haben sich zugleich kaum mit Themen der internationalen Politik auseinandergesetzt. Eine Ausnahme bildet hier Chantal Mouffe, die sich in jüngerer Zeit unmittelbar mit Fragen der internationalen Politik befasst hat. Der vorliegende Artikel hat eine Bestandsaufnahme und Diskussion der Überlegungen Mouffes zur internationalen Politik zum Ziel. Mouffes diesbezügliche Reflexionen bauen im Wesentlichen auf ihrer Theorie des Politischen auf. Daher werden zunächst jene Aspekte ihrer Theorie dargelegt, auf die Mouffe in ihren internationalen Überlegungen rekurriert. Danach wird ihr auf dem Modell der agonistischen Politik fußender Vorschlag einer multipolaren Weltordnung besprochen. Hieran anschließend soll Mouffes Plädoyer für einen Pluralismus politischer Systeme und auch kulturspezifischer Menschenrechtsauffassungen thematisiert werden. In einem weiteren Schritt sind Mouffes Diagnose und Kritik einer Moralisierung der Politik zu erörtern, bevor ihre Skepsis gegenüber einer Ächtung des Krieges diskutiert wird. Der Artikel endet mit einigen einordnenden und ausblickhaften Bemerkungen zu Mouffes Ansatz in der internationalen Politik.
Full text
Available for:
EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
There is broad interest in both analytics and politics of governmentality in international security studies. Going beyond sovereignty-focussed perspectives, governmentality approaches contribute to a ...better understanding of security rationalities, strategies, and practices as well as provide important new insights into trans-border security issues. However, because the rejection of traditional, sovereign understandings of security is a constitutive trait of governmentality, governmentality-focussed approaches in general ignore the security logics and practices in non-liberal settings as well as the persistence of sovereign security patterns besides and within governmental security rationalities. Such blind spots are even more problematic in light of universalist analytical tendencies in governmentality IR. This paper aims at highlighting these blind spots of governmental security studies and argues for a more inclusive perspective that takes into account the ongoing relevance of sovereign security logics and practices. As a result, I suggest a linear conceptual model of a sovereignty-governmentality continuum that is able to grasp the complex and adjustable configurations of sovereign and governmental politics in empirical research, while sovereign and governmental patterns still remain distinguishable.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
While cowardice is sanctioned by military law in most countries, the impact of cowardice on modern warfare and security politics is low. This might be the reason why cowardice—as notion, phenomenon, ...and topic—has widely been neglected in security studies. However, for quite some time, we have witnessed a revival of the word as an accusation and pejorative term that is frequently applied by Western government representatives to describe the enemy in armed conflicts. The expression of a “cowardly attack” has become quite common in political communication after attacks against Western forces in violent confrontations. Thereby, cowardice is transformed from a possible weakness of the own forces to a particular strength of the enemy. This article aims at presenting some reflections on the notion, meaning, and functional role of cowardice in situations of violent international conflict, as well as on the use of the term as a speech act in recent governmental security communication. A particular focus will be put on the normative implications of the revival of the governmental cowardice-rhetoric.
Full text
Available for:
EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
In January 2012, the US administration released new strategic guidance for the Department of Defense entitled ‘Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense’. Two different ...security approaches seem to coincide in this document. By providing a governmental reading of the new strategic guidance, the aim of this article is to discuss if and how the guidance links a sovereign security understanding of great power politics on one side to governmental rationalities on the other. First, the guidance is discussed with regard to its main aims and strategies; then, second, the impact of governmentality in the guidance is revealed and systematized. Finally, the function that governmental logics have in the document, and the conceptual and political role that the minimally mediated encounter of sovereign (military) power politics with governmental rationalities plays, are considered.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Linked to the image of a wild and still-to-be-explored territory, as well as to images of the region as one of new economic opportunities, discourses on the Arctic also tie in with issues of climate ...change, cooperation and conflict, Arctic governance, international law and the situation and rights of indigenous people, as well as Great Power politics. Taken together, these aspects characterize a region whose formation is different from regionalization processes in other parts of the world. As the regional peculiarity of the Arctic is reflected by a variety and plurality of representations, discourses, perceptions and imaginaries, it can usefully be analyzed as a region of unfolding governmentality. The present article argues that the prospects for the Arctic are strongly intertwined with perceptions and depictions of it as an international region subject to emerging practices of governmentality. By drawing on both Foucault’s texts and governmentality studies in international relations (IR), we discuss how the Arctic is affected by governmental security rationalities, by specific logics of political economy and order-building, as well as becoming a subject for biopolitical rationalizations and imaginaries. The discourses and practices of governmentality that permeate the Arctic contribute to its spatial, figurative and political reframing and are aimed at making it a governable region that can be addressed by, and accessible for, ordering rationalities and measures.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
