This study examines the first two years of a tactical innovation that emerged in 2012 in Egypt, which involved activist groups organizing patrol-type "intervention teams" to combat sexual violence against women in public spaces. Findings reveal that the new tactic took different forms in the two places in which it was deployed, even though the same actors employed it. I argue that the place in which a new tactic emerges shapes the form it takes. When coming up with a new (...) collective action tactic, activists elaborate visions about how to carry out their actions based on their collective identities and taste in tactics. But as they start experimenting with the new tactic on the ground, they learn about the places' material affordances, symbolic valence, and power relations, as well as the constraints and opportunities that they represent. The material properties of places shape activists' possibilities of movement, patterns of communication, field of vision, and capacity to escape repression or reach safe spaces. The configuration of actors in a place shapes the nature of their interactions with others on the ground, possible alliances, and sources of conflict. The symbolic meanings of places shape the resonance of a group’s actions and the degree of resistance that actors face. Place in part determines the ability of activists to develop a tactic in the form that best fits their preferences. (shrink)

C’est à la filiation que Jacques Rueff entretient avec les conventionnalistes français que cet article est consacré. Son premier écrit académique, Des sciences physiques aux sciences morales (1922) est un ouvrage épistémologique qui prévoit l’unification des sciences physiques et morales à partir d’une méthodologie unique et scientifique tirée des principes conventionnalistes. En effet, Rueff les prolonge et les complète en sortant du champ exclusif des sciences physiques ; son but est alors de rapprocher les sciences morales des sciences physiques, considérant (...) que « toutes les sciences [y compris morales] sont des sciences rationnelles » (Rueff 1922, 4).Codes JEL : B22, B23, B41. (shrink)

In face of unprecedented awareness of religious diversity, as well as the dangers of conflict, interreligious dialogue has become vital. Yet, these authors maintain, it is the commitment to think together about religious faith and our inherited traditions that genuinely moves mutual understanding to new levels. Here is such a religious experiment, an interreligious theological quest, framed in the interests of peacemaking." -- Publisher.

One of the most important facts that the Second Vatican Council has revealed is that the point of the Church is not itself, but to go beyond itself, to be a community that preaches, serves, celebrates, and witnesses to the reign of God with due respect to the text and context. During the past century, the Church of the Middle East experienced the absence of an authentic missionary enthusiasm and the lack of a clear and pertinent theology with which it (...) could face the challenge presented to Christianity by Islam. This challenge resides in its special role and mission before the Muslims, which this paper will further discuss and, in doing so, answer the question, How can the Church of the Middle East try to approach the Muslims in a time of violent Islamic fundamentalism and persecutions, in a region where most of the Christians are opting to remain distant or to emigrate? (shrink)

Current research suggests that stressful life experiences and situations create a substantive effect in the development of the initial manifestations of psychotic disorders and may influence temporo-limbic epileptic-like activity manifesting as cognitive and affective seizure-like symptoms in non-epileptic conditions. The current study assessed trauma history, hair cortisol levels, epileptic-like manifestations and other psychopathological symptoms in 56 drug naive adult young women experiencing their initial occurrence of psychosis. Hair cortisol levels among patients experiencing their initial episode of psychosis, were significantly correlated (...) with stress symptoms measured by Trauma Symptom Checklist-40, and complex partial seizure-like symptoms measured by the Complex Partial Seizure-Like Symptoms Inventory and LSCL-33. Hair cortisol levels were not found to be significantly correlated with symptoms of anxiety and depression measured by Beck depression Inventory and Zung Anxiety Scale. These findings suggest a significant relationship between epileptic-like symptoms and stress responses demonstrated by patients in their first psychotic episode. These findings may suggest the potential for research to explore usefulness of anticonvulsant treatment in patients who do not respond to usual psychotropic medication. (shrink)