Open Research Repository

Recent Submissions

  • Item
    Liars, Skeptics, Cheerleaders : Human Rights Implications of Post-Truth Disinformation from State Officials and Politicians
    (2023-08-07) Deluggi, Nicky; Ashraf, Cameran; Department of Public Policy
    The purpose of this paper is to philosophically examine how disinformation from state officials and politicians affects the right to access to information and political participation. Next to the more straightforward implications for political self-determination, the paper examines how active dissemination of lies by figures of epistemic authority can be framed as a human rights issue and affects trust patterns between citizens, increases polarization, impedes dialogue, and obstructs access to politically relevant information by gatekeeping knowledge. Analyzing European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) case law, the paper argues that human rights law provides some argumentative basis for extending individuals’ rights as epistemic and political agents towards a “right to truth spoken by politicians”. However, challenges in balancing a possible restriction of lies and assessing the real effective harm that comes from them remain, potentially leading to a vacuum of rights protection for less visible long-term harm to individuals and public discourse. In order to have a real chance at tackling the harmful consequences of publicly told lies from a human rights perspective, it is necessary to rethink the notion of harm to encompass more complex and abstract forms of politico-epistemic damage to individuals and the public.
  • Item
    A preliminary engagement with the spatiality of power in cyberwar
    (2023-08-22) Ashraf, Cameran; Department of Public Policy
    The growing prevalence of cyberwar highlights rapidly shifting conceptions of geopolitical space in global politics. However, critical geographical engagement with the topic remains limited, leaving the geopolitical spaces of cyberwar critically unexamined. To facilitate greater geographical engagement with cyberwar, this paper proposes a spatiality of power model to examine how political space and power might manifest in cyberwar. The model proposes four ways in which political space and power manifest offline and how the model can be applied towards cyberwar. The utility of the model is then applied as a framework for examining three well-known cyberwar case studies: the Estonia–Russia 2007 cyberwar, the Georgia–Russia cyber and kinetic war in 2008, and the U.S.-Iran cyberwar from 2010 to 2013 with a focus on the Stuxnet malware.
  • Item
    Defining cyberwar : towards a definitional framework
    (2021) Ashraf, Cameran; Department of Public Policy
    For nearly thirty years scholars have offered changing definitions of cyberwar. The continued ambiguity demonstrates that efforts at establishing definitional clarity have not been successful. As a result, there are many different and contradictory definitions, ranging from cyberwar’s non-existence to cyberwar as an imminent threat. Ongoing definitional ambiguity makes interdisciplinary research and policy communications challenging in this diverse field. Instead of offering a new definition, this paper proposes that cyberwar can be understood through a fluid framework anchored in three themes and five variables identified in a broad interdisciplinary survey of literature. This framework's applicability is demonstrated by constructing an example definition of cyberwar utilising these themes and variables.
  • Item
    Contrastive Linguistic and Cultural Backgrounds of the Two Latin Translators of the Life of Antony
    (2021-12-24) Anđelović, Aleksandar; Geréby, György; Department of Medieval Studies
    The paper focuses on the direct Bible quotations that the anonymous translator and Evagrius of Antioch rendered from Greek into Latin as part of their versions of the Life of Antony, each in his own way. Did the anonymous translator use any of the existing fourth-century Latin translations of the Bible to translate the biblical quotations he found in the Greek original, or did he translate them himself, without recourse to translations already available? Which version of the Bible did he use when translating the biblical quotations, in Latin or in Greek? What does the anonymous translator’s “literal” and “low-register” style tell us about the translator? Was his non-idiomatic Latin a choice, “Christian” Latin, or rather a limitation in translating into Latin as his target language? On the other hand, what does Evagrius’ “high” and stylistically sophisticated and improved Latin tell us about Evagrius? Whom does he write for, and what do his readers expect from him? This paper aims at answering these questions.
  • Item
    Theology of Carl Schmitt
    (2021) Geréby, György jr; Department of Medieval Studies
    The paper addresses the theology of Carl Schmitt. Schmitt often stresses his ‘natural born Catholicism.’ At the same time he also claims repeatedly not to be a theologian in the professional sense. On the other hand, his main ideas like the concept of the political (Der Begriff des Politischen), the public character of the church (Römischer Katholizimus und politische Form), and finally, his Politische Theologie II in reaction to Erik Peterson’s refutation of Politische Theologie I show that Schmitt’s ideas imply deep and problematic theological positions. The role of the katechon, or the Grand Inquisitor and his criticism of Peterson’s patristic arguments, especially the rejection of the anti-Arian reasoning of Gregory Nazianzen show a markedly unorthodox theological stance reminiscent of Charles Maurras’ political Catholicism. Schmitt’s transcends patristic orthodoxy in order to apply his historically conditioned 19th-century theology to sacralizing his idea of the political.

Communities in ORR

Select a community to browse its collections.