University Centre Saint-Ignatius Antwerp

This chapter describes the ‘dark mood’ among the experts of peacebuilding and draws attention to the paradoxical nature of that mood. Of the various domains of contemporary peace research and peace practice, ‘peacebuilding’ has by far access to the most institutional resources and yet ‘peacebuilding,’ sometimes appears as if in mourning. The comparison with such scholarship as that on ‘pacifism’ or even on ‘nuclear elimination’ is glaring. Although one might argue that these latter projects are more fanciful, that their champions are fighting a losing battle, the optimistic mood that marks those endeavors must strike any observer, especially in comparison with the ‘dark mood’ among a large part of the peacebuilding experts. This introductory chapter will describe this dark mood as it transpires in recent scholarship, identifies the causes of that mood, and reflects on the future of peacebuilding. It predicts the perseverance of peacebuilding and recommends that it adopts a more restrained posture.

The willingness to migrate in search of employment is in itself insufficient to compel anyone to move. The dynamics of labour mobility are heavily influenced by the opportunities perceived and the imaginaries held by both employers and regulating authorities in relation to migrant labour. This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the structures and imaginaries underlying various forms of mobility. Based on research conducted in different geographical contexts, including the European Union, Turkey, and South Africa, and tackling the experiences and aspirations of migrants from various parts of the globe, the chapters comprised in this volume analyse labour-related mobilities from two distinct yet intertwined vantage points: the role of structures and regimes of mobility on the one hand, and aspirations as well as migrant imaginaries on the other. Migration at Work thus aims to draw cross-contextual parallels by addressing the role played by opportunities in mobilizing people, how structures enable, sustain, and change different forms of mobility, and how imaginaries fuel labour migration and vice versa. In doing so, this volume also aims to tackle the interrelationships between imaginaries driving migration and shaping “regimes of mobility”, as well as how the former play out in different contexts, shaping internal and cross-border migration. Based on empirical research in various fields, this collection provides valuable scholarship and evidence on current processes of migration and mobility.

Pacifism is often charged with singing a siren song. In their defence, pacifists insist that the idea that pacifism captures a moral intuition. They also deny the (false) accusation that pacifism equates passivism. And they argue that pacifists have a sounder grasp of the problem of war and the war system than their opponents do. Another feature of twenty-first-century pacifism is that it presents itself in a subdued tone. Twenty-first-century pacifism is a chastened pacifism. A not unappealing picture of pacifism emerges. And yet it has all the appearance that also today’s pacifism will remain a minority position. Pacifism’s limited appeal probably results from its inconvenient nature: the ideas of pacifism place a demand on people that many of us experience as overwhelming.

Creating a positive customer experience enables a company to differentiate itself from the competition. This is particularly true in the highly fragmented road freight business, where the offering has become highly commoditized and price driven. DHL Freight, a leading provider of international road transportation solutions, set out to enhance the customer experience by bringing the voice of the customer into the organization, improving customer interactions, and developing an organization‐wide customer‐driven vision, common purpose, and value proposition. The need to engage the whole organization, across multiple locations and countries, in delivering an excellent customer experience was critical to the success of the initiative. Within 12 months of implementation, DHL Freight is seeing a major change in the culture and operations of the company. Encouraged by this success, each country in which DHL Freight operates is taking steps to appoint a dedicated customer experience leader in their respective senior management teams. The company's experiences point the way for implementing an effective customer management approach in other operations‐driven businesses. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Many individual Roman Catholics — I am a Roman Catholic myself and address my subject primarily from that perspective — as well as Roman Catholic Church leadership have frequently spoken and acted to protect the victims of genocide and participated as well in processes towards healing people and societies traumatised by genocidal violence. Nevertheless, given the fact that in the course of history Roman Catholics and members of other religions have also often been accomplices to genocide, some critical questions should be raised. Are there structural and institutional features of Roman Catholicism, and in a more general way of the many existing religions, that may lead to such extreme violence as seen in genocide? How can it be that Christian religions — as well as other religions — may end up lending support to genocidal acts instead of stopping or preventing them? What are the conditions for this to happen: ideological and theological convictions, collective fears and resentment, bad leadership, association with existing authoritarian regimes or strong identification with parties involved in the conflict?

Tidal waiting (for random arrivals and a sinusoidal tide pattern) can be approximated by simple formulae. Such formulae may be useful for estimating the benefits of dredging programmes carried out to reduce tidal waiting. Even if no economies of size are expected, a dredging programme may still be justified by time savings as they are especially important for the larger and most time-expensive vessels.