The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) has been under negotiation in Geneva for more than two years now. When in force, it will be the first convention ever negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization. It constitutes a unique and innovative public health instrument that aims at curbing the escalation of smoking and other forms of tobacco use in order to prevent to...

A number of studies of crisis behavior—for example, the Butterworth, SHERFACS, and CASCON data sets—have assumed that political behavior goes through a series of clear "phases" characterized by distinct patterns of interactions. To date, these phases have been identified contextually by human coders rather than through any systematic procedures. This paper uses event data to analyze phases in t...

Like most theories of democracy, democratic republicanism has usually taken for granted who the demos is. However, precisely one frequent sources political conflicts in contemporary history is determination its boundaries, particularly –though not only– secession conflicts. This article aims to answer a related question: what kind right secede from modern state,1 if any, can be acknowledged rep...

The growing interest in public sociologies marks an increasing gap between the ethos of sociologists and social, political, and economic tendencies in the wider society. Public sociology aims to enrich public debate about moral and political issues by infusing them with sociological theory and research. It has to be distinguished from policy, professional, and critical sociologies. Together the...