Boomerang Effects

The United States has emerged as a pivotal actor in the governance of water insecurity and climate-related risks in the twenty-first century. Through its foreign policy, development assistance, security partnerships, and influence over multilateral institutions, the U.S. plays a decisive role in shaping how water scarcity, climate stress, and migration are framed and managed across regions. In an era increasingly defined by the Anthropocene, U.S. engagement with water security extends beyond humanitarian concern, intersecting directly with strategic interests, alliance politics, and global power competition [1, 2]. As a result, American policy choices exert profound consequences for both hydrological governance and human security in climate-vulnerable regions.

The "boomerang thesis" enjoys widespread currency in contemporary scholarship: that the means and ends of colonial domination would "spin back" to the metropole is an idea with intuitive grip. This article extrapolates the depth of meaning this metaphor contains, as well as what it conceals. It first considers the "boomerang" as it appears in Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism, a poetic work that captures the moral and experiential return-effects of imperial violence. Turning to Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism-the only articulation of the thesis that uses the word "boomerang"-the article disaggregates the teleological, ideological, and institutional elements that spun back from European colonies in the imperial era. Finally, it traces the development of the thesis in Michel Foucault's "Society Must Be Defended," where it is transformed into a more general explanatory mechanism. Each theorist indicates how distance operates to transform dubious, even hateful ideas into acceptable practices.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

This essay argues that while censorship has undoubtedly impacted Chinese studies in American universities, it has also produced and will continue to produce unexpected positive effects. The essay is divided into two main sections. The first section focuses on the impact of the National Security Law (NSL) on American studies and the image of China as a dangerous enemy fostered by America in its own Academia. To support my main argument, in the second section, the essay applies the "Censorship Boomerang Effect" theory as a framework, offering scientific insight into how censorship can contribute to the growth of Chinese studies in unexpected ways.

Become a necessary strategy for curbing a fast rise in infections because of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) social pandemic distance. However, the government's strategy has had an effect on the life and socioeconomic activities of citizens because the pandemic had to be coping with new adaptive measures. The study therefore explores the links between the existing COVID-19 hydropower pandemic and the reduction of CO2 emissions in the power sector. This paper examines the COVID-19 pandemic trend in the hydropower and energy sector in relation to reduction of CO2 emissions by systematically reviewing secondary information from document reports and existing literatures. Findings from this article provide empirical evidence for the COVID-19 effect of a CO2 emission reduction during a pandemic on the hydroelectric and energy sectors. More importantly, the findings of the study examine COVID-19's energy relations, its influence on the hydroelectricity sectors as compared to other renewables, COVID-19's impact on energy and oil demand as well as COVID-19's lock-up relationship on CO2 emissions reduction. Finally, policymakers are led to choose to produce sustainable energy and to reduce CO2 emissions.

Background: Sexual assault is a serious public health problem in the U.S. Although colleges and universities receiving federal funding are required to provide sexual violence prevention and awareness programs, initiatives aimed specifically at college men remain relatively uncommon. Furthermore, assessments of the effectiveness of such programs suggest that most do not contribute to the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses. Aim: This study investigates the prevalence and malleability of attitudes that underlie sexually violent behaviors perpetrated by self-identified heterosexual, cisgender male college students against college women. Methods: Seventy-one self-identified heterosexual, cisgender, full-time undergraduate male students, all at low risk for committing sexual assault, participated in a pretest-posttest online experiment. They were randomly assigned to one control condition and two experimental sexual-assault-prevention interventions featuring a female or a male speaker. Results: The experimental conditions did not have the intended effects of eliciting attitudes that would further the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses. The experimental conditions were, in fact, less effective on some measures than the control condition. Conclusions: The findings suggest a boomerang effect, which refers to a persuasive outcome opposite to the desired one. Previous research has pointed to boomerang effects of sexual-assault prevention programs among high-risk men. The results of this study suggest a boomerang effect is also evident among college men at low risk for committing sexual assault.

This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

International frameworks and agreements to reduce anthropogenic environmental disasters rely on international pressure driving local action. Although environmental catastrophes can occasionally capture international attention, it is unclear if focused media and increased public outcry can reduce environmental damage. We study the unusual and concentrated increase in international scrutiny on forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon in August 2019. Comparing active fires in the Brazilian Amazon versus those in the Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon before and after a surge in public attention on the Brazilian Amazon, we find that increased public attention reduced fires by 22% (93,607 avoided pixel-days of active fire) avoiding 24.81 million MtCO2 in emissions. Our results highlight the power of international pressure to compel governments to act on pressing environmental issues, even in political contexts hostile to environmental priorities.

Just transition tackles the consequences of a transition to a zero-carbon economy while addressing the issues of equity and justice so that nobody is left behind. It is a roadmap that informs the action of states towards sustainable development. The paper focuses on how Argentina and Chile, with a high percentage of informality in their economies and their labour markets, have embedded just transition into their legal orders through the submission of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The analysis of both experiences to protect workers is based upon three aspects: the Global South perspective; the 2015 ILO guidelines; the historical step that Argentina and Chile have reached in the submission of their second NDCs since these are the first Latin American countries to have expressly included just transition and work in their NDCs. After a thorough analysis, the paper concludes that this seems to be a promising first step that requires, nonetheless, a global approach in order ...

In this article, we examine the establishment of the Brazilian biofuels policy (RenovaBio). We identify whether there was participation of stakeholders, and efforts of interest groups (associations, sugar refineries, and fuel distributors) to send technical notes and comments in order to have their perspectives heard and demands met, mainly regarding the definition of individual targets for reducing greenhouse gases (GHG). Government documents and stakeholder comments were consulted. For this purpose, we used the social network analysis technique. We argue that the capacity for social participation in these hearings can increase the influence of specific groups on political decisions. The results of the study show the predominant participation of trade associations and companies linked to the energy and biofuels sector. RenovaBio reaffirms the argument in favor of decarbonization, energy security, and the contribution of biofuels to reducing GHG, as motivating and legitimizing facto...

Background: Sexual assault is a serious public health problem in the U.S. Although colleges and universities receiving federal funding are required to provide sexual violence prevention and awareness programs, initiatives aimed specifically at college men remain relatively uncommon. Furthermore, assessments of the effectiveness of such programs suggest that most do not contribute to the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses.Aim: This study investigates the prevalence and malleability of attitudes that underlie sexually violent behaviors perpetrated by self-identified heterosexual, cisgender male college students against college women.Methods: Seventy-one self-identified heterosexual, cisgender, full-time undergraduate male students, all at low risk for committing sexual assault, participated in a pretest-posttest online experiment. They were randomly assigned to one control condition and two experimental sexual-assault-prevention interventions featuring a female or a mal...

The availability of water resources has a direct impact on the economy of a country and the development of the main production processes, from agriculture, irrigation, and food production, to energy generation and water supply. The regional economic and social development is influenced by an adequate management of water resources because it stimulates the economy by expanding and ability to provide water for multiple uses, directly impacting on the generation of employment the improving the quality of life of the population. Venezuela has abundant surface water resources in the large basins. The northern part of Venezuela, where the highest percentage of the population and the main economic activities are based, face a severe water scarcity. Irrigation systems under public sector administration are characterized by large budgetary restrictions, with works for rehabilitation, operation, and maintenance generally carried out with inefficient results, due to lack of adequate technical supervision. There is a gap of official information that allows highlight the crisis that the agricultural sector has faced in the last decade. Another, very important aspect is Venezuela's severe energy crisis which began to present a deficit of electric power generation that has been alarmingly evident since 2009, which has worsened for more than a decade, causing the lack of electricity supply in large regions of the country for periods of time exceeding 100 h, contributing to aggravate the country's economic crisis. Due to the situation described, Venezuelan food systems have been seriously affected mainly by the advanced deterioration of irrigation infrastructure and the water availability on production processes. This paper explores and analyses the influence of water management on production Venezuelan economics and society, focus in three pillars representing the qualitative and quantitative relationships of water management and its impact on the system considering the aspects related to the sustainability of Venezuelan agri-food systems, analyzing the fundamental aspects for food production, main indicators related to the national economy, addressing the challenges to ensure food security.

Background: Sexual assault is a serious public health problem in the U.S. Although colleges and universities receiving federal funding are required to provide sexual violence prevention and awareness programs, initiatives aimed specifically at college men remain relatively uncommon. Furthermore, assessments of the effectiveness of such programs suggest that most do not contribute to the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses.Aim: This study investigates the prevalence and malleability of attitudes that underlie sexually violent behaviors perpetrated by self-identified heterosexual, cisgender male college students against college women.Methods: Seventy-one self-identified heterosexual, cisgender, full-time undergraduate male students, all at low risk for committing sexual assault, participated in a pretest-posttest online experiment. They were randomly assigned to one control condition and two experimental sexual-assault-prevention interventions featuring a female or a mal...

This paper analyses direct management of COVID-19 in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, the three largest countries in the Western Amazon region. Using information gathered from different sources and analysing them through comparative case studies and content analysis, this study reveals the scale of disruption endured by Indigenous communities living in the region caused by COVID-19. While findings identify several shortcomings and failures in policies adopted by national and local governments in dealing with the pandemic, they also highlight how some Latin American countries used the crisis to introduce reforms to deepen neoliberal New Public Management (NPM) policies and practices.

Background Descriptive norms messaging interventions are used to motivate people to adopt or maintain desirable behaviors. Such interventions provide people with information that describes an undesirable behavior as uncommon or a desirable behavior as prevalent within a relevant social group. Descriptive norms messaging interventions have shown promise in increasing individual and social benefit for a broad range of health and sustainability programs. However, evidence suggests that people who have adopted desirable behaviors sometimes regress to undesirable behaviors after receiving descriptive norms messages due to the type of information provided in the messages. This phenomenon is called the boomerang effect. We aim to conduct a systematic review of boomerang effects on health and environmental sustainability behaviors resulting from exposure to descriptive norms messaging interventions.Methods We will employ our search strategy to identify studies of descriptive norms messaging...

Descriptive norms messaging interventions are used to motivate people to adopt or maintain desirable behaviors. Such interventions provide people with information that describes an undesirable behavior as uncommon or a desirable behavior as prevalent within a relevant social group. Descriptive norms messaging interventions have shown promise in increasing individual and social benefit for a broad range of health and sustainability programs. However, evidence suggests that people who have adopted desirable behaviors sometimes regress to undesirable behaviors after receiving descriptive norms messages due to the type of information provided in the messages. This phenomenon is called the boomerang effect. We aim to conduct a systematic review of boomerang effects on health and environmental sustainability behaviors resulting from exposure to descriptive norms messaging interventions.

In this article, we test whether emotions mediate the effect of international development appeals on cosmopolitanism and donation behavior. Methods. We design and conduct a lab experiment to test the impact of representations of global poverty on participants' cosmopolitan sentiments and their likelihood to donate to development charities. We use multiple mediation analysis to test the intervening role of six emotional responses-anger, guilt, solidarity, hope, repulsion, and pity-as causal pathways to our two outcomes of interest: cosmopolitanism and donations. Results. Hope is the most consistent and powerful pathway through which appeals affect respondents' sense of cosmopolitanism and willingness to donate. Negative imagery and text erode people's sense of hope, but drive donations, particularly via guilt. Conclusions. Our findings suggest we should move away from a mono-causal view of emotional responses to disaster and development imagery, and provide a cautionary tale for practitioners: using negative imagery can undermine the public's sense of hope and cosmopolitanism. On December 26, 2004, pictures of the Asian tsunami disaster were transmitted around the world. As a result of the largest earthquake for 40 years, an estimated 227,898 people were killed, missing, or presumed dead, and a further 1.7 million people were displaced (USGS, 2004; Downman, 2006; Osborne, 2014). The magnitude of the humanitarian response matched the size of the tsunami. Globally, a total of 14 billion U.S. dollars were donated, nearly half of which were from private individuals (Hutchison, 2014). In the United Kingdom alone, the Disaster Emergency Committee's (DEC) appeal raised £392 million from the British public (DEC, 2016). The "graphic and intensely emotional" nature of media broadcasts of the tsunami and its aftermath highlights the centrality of emotions-such as pity, compassion, and solidarity-in how the disaster was understood and responded to. As Hutchison (2014:6) argues: "Recognizing that emotions are bound up

Education can help secure inclusive and resilient development around water resources. However, it is difficult to provide the latest science to those managing water resources (both now and in the future). Collectively, we hypothesize that dissemination and promotion of scientific knowledge using students as central agents to transfer theoretical knowledge into practice is an efficient way to address this difficulty. In this study, we test this hypothesis in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region as a representative case study region. First, we use a literature review to map a potential gap in research on education around water resources across the LAC region. We then review potential best practices to address this gap and to better translate water resources education techniques into the LAC region. Integral to these efforts is adopting students as agents for information transfer to help bridge the gap between the global state-of-the science and local water resources management...

In this research, we investigated the social influence of newspaper headlines on beliefs on various social, political, and economic issues, including belief in conspiracy theories. Building on the seminal study by Gruenfeld and Wyer (1992), we examined how denials and affirmations printed in a credible source (e.g., a newspaper considered to be serious) versus a less credible source (e.g., a free newspaper) affected readers' beliefs. In this computer-based study, participants were asked to rate the plausibility of 24 newspaper statements (eight of which were related to conspiracy theories), first without any mention of a newspaper and then with the newspapers mentioned as sources. The results showed the general effects associated with the degree of informativeness of the statements. We discuss these effects in terms of the boomerang effect (i.e., opinion change in the direction opposite to that of the opinion given in the headline). We also found that the participants judged the official versions of various events to be more plausible than the conspiracy theory versions of the same events.

This paper concerns the “boomerang effect”, defined as the largely unanticipated and unintended negative consequences of climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and programs on domestic nonstate actors that result in negative feedbacks on the state. Questioning the drivers, the decision-making process, and the negative feedbacks on local and state levels, this article presents a preliminary assessment of Brazil’s actions undertaken at its neighboring countries – Peru and Bolivia – within Amazon river basin in order to produce hydropower.
In Peru, dam projects are already in operation, while in Bolivia there are ongoing projects where Brazilian actors (state or non-state) intervene by finance, construction and management of hydropower plants,. Although dam building projects started as development enterprises, during the first decade of 21st century, they were “greenwashed” by technological changes and redefined as suitable alternative to fossil-fuels, hence presented as climate actions. Amazon’s dams have negative feedbacks
on local level that threaten environmental, food and water security of affected population, which spread along the river basin. Moreover, in Peru, the misconduct of diplomatic, business and political ties among non-state and state actors imperil state legitimacy and security. Finally, some attentive elements for future actions in Bolivia are presented.

Background: Sexual assault is a serious public health problem in the U.S. Although colleges and universities receiving federal funding are required to provide sexual violence prevention and awareness programs, initiatives aimed specifically at college men remain relatively uncommon. Furthermore, assessments of the effectiveness of such programs suggest that most do not contribute to the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses.
Aim: This study investigates the prevalence and malleability of attitudes that underlie sexually violent behaviors perpetrated by self-identified heterosexual, cisgender male college students against college women.
Methods: Seventy-one self-identified heterosexual, cisgender, full-time undergraduate male students, all at low risk for committing sexual assault, participated in a pretest-posttest online experiment. They were randomly assigned to one control condition and two experimental sexual-assault-prevention interventions featuring a female or a male speaker.
Results: The experimental conditions did not have the intended effects of eliciting attitudes that would further the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses. The experimental conditions were, in fact, less effective on some measures than the control condition.
Conclusions: The findings suggest a boomerang effect, which refers to a persuasive outcome opposite to the desired one. Previous research has pointed to boomerang effects of sexual-assault prevention programs among high-risk men. The results of this study suggest a boomerang effect is also evident among college men at low risk for committing sexual assault.

Η εργασία περιλαμβάνει την περιγραφή αρχικά της έννοιας των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων, δίνονται μοντέλα προώθησης αυτών, και αναλύεται η σχέση δημοκρατικού πολιτεύματος και ο σεβασμό των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων. Στη συνέχεια περιγράφεται η κατάσταση των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων στην Αλγερία από το 1962 έως σήμερα και ο ρόλος των διεθνών οργανισμών. Τέλος αντλούνται συμπεράσματα για την κατάσταση των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων και της δημοκρατίας στην Αλγερία και σχολιάζονται τα μοντέλα προώθησης των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων που χρησιμοποιήθηκαν.

A climate crime is an output of climate change. And climate change results from anthropogenic emission of a suite of gases (called GHG's) due to fossil fuel use. Certain agricultural and industrial activities and deforestation leading to their increasing concentration in atmosphere, has a potential, over the next few generations to significantly alter global climate. This would result in large change in ecosystems, leading to possible catastrophic disruptions' of livelihood, economic activity, living conditions and human health. Thus an increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters, climate change is also likely to increase crimes. An increase in climate change reduces the social control and subsequently amounts to fostering of climate crimes that creates a social conflict. The climate crimes relates to problems like population density and crowding a great emphasis is laid down upon the urbanization, city size and population density. A climate has an independent impact on the variation of crime rates among various places. According to Social Sciences Research Network, " the results show that the temperature has a strong positive effect on a criminal behavior. " Thus the projections based on the premise that violent crimes are more prevalent in warmer temperature. Thus climate is just one of many factors that influence the frequency of conflict. Climate and conflict share a link between themselves, i.e. climatic conditions are directly proportional to the social conflict. Therefore of we could come up with policies that could decouple climate and conflict, might help society in availing the important resources and thus reducing the crime rate subsequently.

This article reviews literature since 1980 on college men as perpetrators of acquaintance rape and other forms of sexual assault. Topics include (1) the definition and incidence of acquaintance rape and sexual assault; (2) perpetrator characteristics; (3) situations associated with sexual assault; and (4) men's misperception of women's sexual intent. An integrated theory of sexual assault is proposed, along with implications for the development of effective rape-prevention programs for men.

We are living at a time when the distinction between the domestic and foreign realms of politics has not merely blurred, but has abolished altogether. While Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s harsh critique of Israel on its existential Palestinian issue on a global platform led to an immediate rise in the domestic support base of Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Turkey’s explicit support for the oppositional groups in the ongoing Syrian civil war has sparked an intensification in attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) within Turkey.

No other political actor can be more aware of this direct correlation between domestic and foreign realms of politics than the AK Party, which legitimizes its domestic political power through a foreign policy discourse of “Turkey as a rising global power”. In other words, this new foreign policy discourse — whether realistic or not — serves to legitimize the domestic power of the ruling party. As Yüksel Taskın wrote in 2011, the opposition parties are yet to grasp this overlap between Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy spheres, and have thus far failed to present any alternative foreign policy discourse.

Using the case study of an internet protest video The French Democracy, this article demonstrates the process by which a counter-narrative of current events, though almost completely excluded from its broader national mainstream news, can in fact appear on a global mainstream news agenda, as well as produce cyber publics and counterpublics. It further demonstrates the difficulties of keeping a narrative or account of an event in tact once it starts broadly circulating and becomes re-presented, re-framed in various fragmentary ways, which in effect, rehearses some of the same criticisms of relations between sources and traditional media’s representation of them.  Thus, while new media cultural production allows technological access and agency, it certainly does not guarantee inter-media narrative fidelity; nor does it guarantee distribution or attention. Indeed, it demonstrates such DIY productions’ fragile and contingent conditions of appearance in a field of political and economic structures and information warfare.