This is the first sustained comparative examination of the importance of media attention on the provision of economic assistance, suggesting that the news media is an important medium for policy makers to gauge potential domestic political pressures and thus the need to be responsive and even anticipatory in addressing problems real or perceived. Particular attention is paid to the responsiveness of bureaucracies, long held to among the most insulated institutions of government. Cross-national in scope, this book looks at the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Japan, facilitating a nuanced understanding of the interaction of international and domestic politics as mediated by the media.

In Between Science and Society: Charting the Space of Science Fiction, Douglas A. Van Belle uses interviews with 24 science fiction authors to analyze the conceptual space that science fiction occupies between science and society. Using these interviews, Van Belle studies the similarities and differences between the academic and professional understandings of the genre. Between Science and Society argues that, for authors, all of the aspects of the genre that are emphasized by academics, such as science communication and depictions of scientists, are secondary to the artistic effort to entertain through storytelling. Through his interviews, Van Belle explores both the genre’s place in relation to science and society and key elements to surviving as a professional science fiction author. Van Belle creates a definition of science fiction based on the creative ideals expressed by these authors and compared to those that arise from the academic perspective, showing that academics are struggling to engage one of the two central ideals of the genre.

Van Belle provides the first systematic analysis of the effects that press freedom has on the conduct of international politics. The institutionalization of press freedoms within a state and the free flow of information between the free presses of different nations creates a foreign policy decision making environment that systematically limits policy options, generates domestic political imperatives, and provides specific benefits to a leader. This shapes some aspects of foreign policy in a consistent and empirically identifiable manner, most notably by limiting international conflicts. When social-psychological propositions regarding dehumanization and the acceptance of killing in war are introduced to Van Belle's model, shared press freedom is shown to provide a mechanism that prevents lethal conflicts. The effects of press freedom on international conflict, particularly on hypotheses related to escalating conflicts beyond the threshold of casualties, are quite robust. However, Van Belle indicates there is no evidence of a complimentary effect on cooperation. The combination of findings from the empirical analyses suggest that the key to the effects of press freedom center on the creation of images, such as the dehumanized image of an enemy. A thoughtful analysis that scholars and researchers of foreign policy and international relations as well as journalism and mass communication will find particularly useful.

This is the first sustained comparative examination of the importance of media attention on the provision of economic assistance, suggesting that the news media is an important medium for policy makers to gauge potential domestic political pressures and thus the need to be responsive and even anticipatory in addressing problems real or perceived. Particular attention is paid to the responsiveness of bureaucracies, long held to be among the most insulated institutions of government. Cross-national in scope, this book looks at the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Japan, facilitating a nuanced understanding of the interaction of international and domestic politics as mediated by the media.

In a far distant future, humans have become the rodents of the galaxy. Infesting the walls of nearly every ship that trades across the stars, thriving at the bottom of gravity wells that are too deep for the massive predatory species that rule the sky, they occupy a precarious niche as neither predator nor prey. But the place of humans in galactic civilization is the furthest thing from Constance's mind. Driven to the point of despair by a crusty old boss who is so infuriating he might very well be the embodiment of the universe's perfect jackass, she is overwhelmed by the demands of her engineering apprenticeship. She has no reason to think that the aliens on incoming ship want anything more than to barter some cheap machine parts from the vermin they derisively call barking squirrels. None of the big uglies would ever subject themselves to the discomfort of a full G. At least... they never had before. Barking Death Squirrels is a remarkable first novel from one of New Zealand's hottest SF writers, winner of Best New Talent in the 2007 Sir Julius Vogel Awards for his short stories and shortlisted for SJV Awards every year since. ..".it is a pleasure to read a book that has been so deeply and intelligently thought through... Barking Death Squirrels is a complex, thoughtful novel which will leave the reader pondering our future." - Phillip Mann (Master of Paxwax, A Land Fit for Heroes) "At first glance, Barking Death Squirrels appears to be old-fashioned 'problem solving' science fiction. But Douglas Van Belle's attention to - and affection for - his characters transcends the familiar paradigm... The result is more engaging than most of its predecessors in the genre." - Stephen R. Donaldson (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Gap series)