bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Empire of the Black Sea
Authors: Roller Duane W.
Published: April 2020

Existing from the early third century bc to 63 bc, the Mithridatic kingdom of Pontos was one of the most powerful entities in the Mediterranean world. Under a series of vigorous kings and queens, it expanded from a fortress in the mountainous territory of northern Asia Minor to rule almost all the Black Sea perimeter. This is the first study in English of this kingdom in its entirety, from its origins under King Mithridates I around 280 bc until its last and greatest king, the erudite and cultured Mithridates VI the Great, fell victim to the expanding ambitions of the Roman Republic in 63 bc. Through a series of astute marriage alliances (one of which produced the ancestors of Cleopatra of Egypt), political acumen, and military ability, the Pontic rulers (most of whom were named Mithridates) dominated the culture and politics of the Black Sea region for over two hundred years. This book is a thorough exploration of the internal dynamics of the kingdom as well as its relations with the rest of the Mediterranean world, especially the ever-expanding Roman Republic.
Pontos
Authors: Roller Duane W.
Published: April 2020

The territory of Pontos was the northern coastal regions of Asia Minor, a rugged region that was a mixture of coastal Greek cities, Hittite and Assyrian outposts, and an indigenous population, noted for the unusual phenomenon of elaborate temple states. The region had long been known to the Greeks: Jason and the Argonauts were said to have passed along its coast. Its economy was primarily agricultural. It was also famous in Greek myth as the home of the Amazons. It was here that the Mithridatic kingdom has its origins, eventually coming to dominate the territory and its people.
The Founder
Authors: Roller Duane W.
Published: April 2020

The Pontic state began with the ambitions of Mithridates I, known as “the Founder,” a refugee from the unforgiving politics of the generation after Alexander the Great. He sought refuge in the rugged country of northern Asia Minor and declared himself king in the early third century bc, establishing what came to be called the kingdom of Pontos, creating its first capital, the fortress city of Amaseia on the Iris River. He also established a foothold on the Black Sea coast at Amastris. By the time of his death in 266 bc, Pontos had begun to emerge as one of the new states of the Hellenistic world.
The Gathering Storm
Authors: Roller Duane W.
Published: April 2020

In 95 bc, a new king came to the throne of Armenia, southeast of Pontos. Tigranes II and Mithridates VI quickly became allies, with the former marrying the latter’s daughter. In a joint operation, both kings attacked Cappadocia, in southern Asia Minor on the Mediterranean. But the Romans, in the person of L. Cornelius Sulla, already had a presence in the region, and this led to the first clash between Pontos and the Roman Republic. Yet Mithridates was commemorated in Greece on the island of Delos, where a Mithridateion was built in his honor. But the Romans became ever more concerned about the king and sent a Roman commission to investigate his actions, which ordered the king to act with more restraint. He was totally offended, and events slipped toward war between Rome and Pontos.
The Eruption of Hostilities
Authors: Roller Duane W.
Published: April 2020

In the late summer of 89 bc, the first war between Pontos and Rome began. Mithridates was able to exploit rising resentment against the Roman presence in Asia Minor, near his kingdom, especially due to the predatory actions of officials and tax collectors. Mithridates gradually defeated various Roman armies and their commander, Aquillius. But in 88 bc he ordered the massacre of all Romans in Asia. While this move was not without local support, it was a disastrous case of overreach by the king and turned public opinion against him. An invasion of Greece, especially Athens, by his senior commander, Archelaos, was successful at first, but a Roman force under Sulla eventually defeated the Pontic forces, and the king was forced to withdraw from Greece. The Romans carried the war to Asia Minor, and in 86 bc Mithridates was forced to accept peace terms.
The Royal Court
Authors: Roller Duane W.
Published: April 2020

Despite the vigorous military profile of Mithridates VI, he presided over a court that was typical of the era, with a large extended family and an emphasis on the arts and scholarship. About eighty personalities are known who were members of the court, including poets, artists, physicians, and scholars. The best known is the historian Metrodoros of Skepsis, who was not only his ambassador to Armenia but a polymath writing on a wide variety of subjects. The king himself was a scholar, writing on medical research and botany. He was a noted pharmacologist, and his name is still attached to certain plants and medicines. He was also a scientific gardener. Numerous artworks are known from his environment, some of which survive.
Hitchcock’s Interlocutors
Authors: Isaacs Bruce
Published: April 2020

Pure cinema is read as an aesthetic philosophy and stylistic practice that synthesizes an art cinema sensibility and a mainstream studio aesthetic design Hitchcock observed and further developed in his American films. Pure cinema thus incorporates both the radical self-awareness of the European auteur cinema and the generic narrative and image form of the American studio system. This synthetic style is then situated within a larger historical narrative that incorporates B-grade cinema traditions and styles (the Italian giallo cinema of Mario Bava and Dario Argento) and Brian De Palma’s self-conscious reconstruction of the B-grade thriller form. The chapter argues that the pure cinema ethos of these films and their filmmakers makes explicit a “visual vernacular” in mise en scène and montage construction that is then traced through Brian De Palma’s formal visual experimentation in Carlito’s Way.
The Part Is Greater Than the Whole
Authors: Isaacs Bruce
Published: April 2020

Pure cinema is defined in terms of the interrelationship of formal “fragments” that subtend an infinite array of formal systems within the work. In this model, the aesthetic philosophy of the fragment is developed through the seminal work of Raymond Bellour, one of the most astute of the classical Hitchcockian theorists. The fragment structures aesthetic form across mise en scène, montage, sound design, and narrative. The philosophy of the fragment is read in further detail and greater philosophical specificity through the historical tension between Eisenstein’s montage as whole and Deleuze’s attempts to read montage through the itinerary of the part. The resonance or vibration of the part is read as intensity, structuring the “excessive affect” that underpins the aesthetic of the fragment in film form. The aesthetic of the fragment is revealed in close formal analyses in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, Argento’s Suspiria, and De Palma’s Union Station sequence in The Untouchables.
Intensified Schematics
Authors: Isaacs Bruce
Published: April 2020

The affect of the fragmented frame is intensified within the visual and aural mechanics of the Italian giallo. Line, pattern, color, and movement are intensified within a regime of the fragmented image that builds within the complex of visual, aural, and narrative form. The frame is a discretized set of shapes overwhelming the representational image of the diegesis, and is revealed in a number of giallo films, including Bava’s A Bay of Blood, Blood and Black Lace, and Lisa and the Devil and Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. The fragmented frame is interrogated as an interrelated configuration of form, pattern, and movement in De Palma’s Beverly Hills mall scene in Body Double.
Initiating the Millennium
Authors: Collis Robert , Bayer Natalie
Published: April 2020

This book, the first of its kind in English, examines an initiatic society known by various names—Illuminés d’Avignon, the Avignon Society, the Union, the New Israel Society—that flourished in Berlin, Avignon, Rome, and St. Petersburg, between 1779 and 1807. The founding members of this society forged a group that embraced strands of Western esotericism (particularly alchemy and arithmancy) within an all-pervading millenarian worldview. Whilst the society incorporated aspects of high-degree Freemasonry, it was never merely a para-masonic fraternity. Instead, it offered entry into a religious community of the elect for men, women, and children who anticipated the imminent onset of the millennium. Consecrates were also able to seek divine advice from the so-called Holy Word, partake in alchemical operations to perfect the philosophers’ stone, and invoke guardian angels. As this study demonstrates, the group retained its millenarian worldview and belief in prophetic mediation with Heaven throughout its existence. But it also experienced pronounced doctrinal shifts. Notably, the early espousal of Swedenborgianism was jettisoned in late 1788 and replaced by an embrace of Marianism. This change reflected a contested turn away from a more ecumenical outlook to a more conventional Catholic society. Further, although the society ceased to function in 1807, this study examines the enduring legacy of the group in Russia and its direct influence on Emperor Alexander through the prophetess Madame Bouche, who spent two years at the imperial court (1819 to 1821). It draws on a wealth of archival material from across Europe, which reflects the pan-European composition of the society itself.
Conclusion
Authors: Collis Robert , Bayer Natalie
Published: April 2020

The conclusion to this book emphasises the important legacy of the Avignon Society in terms of its role in disseminating millenarian doctrine, in particular, throughout Europe for nearly half a century, between 1779 and 1822. It shows the lasting impact of the society by highlighting the remarkable impact of Madame Bouche on Emperor Alexander at a crucial moment in the history of Russia and Europe as a whole. At the same time, the conclusion also reminds the reader about the hostility shown towards the society by government authorities in Russia, the papal territories, and in revolutionary France. This opposition was based on disdain for heretical strands of religious enthusiasm, as well as a fear of the millenarian dynamic of the society, which was often viewed as undermining the pillars of authority. This anxiety about the revolutionary dynamic of the Avignon Society was exacerbated by a profound confusion about the supposed radical agenda of the group, which was often conflated with the atheistic doctrine of the Bavarian Illuminati.
The Dynamics of Dementia Communication
Authors: Wray Alison
Published: April 2020

Despite a plethora of good advice, it can be hard to sustain effective communicative behaviours when someone is living with a dementia. This book asks why that is. Part 1 explores how various dementia-causing diseases affect the linguistic, pragmatic (reasoning), and memory systems; how social perceptions and practices exacerbate the underlying biological problems; how people living with a dementia describe their experiences; and how dementia care currently addresses the challenges of communication. Part 2 asks why people communicate and what shapes how they communicate. The Communicative Impact model of communication is introduced and theoretically justified. It is argued that all communication is driven by people’s desire to make beneficial changes to their experiential world by getting the hearer to do, say, think, or feel something. Part 3 applies the model from part 2 to the range of considerations explored in part 1, helping readers see how and why communication is undermined and reshaped by the various biological, social, and emotional factors underlying the dementia experience. The model is used to shed light on how people living with a dementia are perceived and, as a result, treated, with particular attention to the acceptability of (well-intentioned) deception. The final chapter asks what needs to change if communication and well-being are to be optimized for people living with a dementia. In pursuit of truly person- and relationship-centred care, proposals for advanced skills in communication with a person living with a dementia are presented and explained, helping anchor the ubiquitous dos and don’ts in a deeper understanding of why interaction is difficult.
The Experience of Dementia Communication
Authors: Wray Alison
Published: April 2020

Communication is an early casualty of dementia symptoms on account of the loss of confidence and agency arising from reduced expressive ability, plus the challenges to identity associated with memory impairment. Drawing on first-hand accounts, this chapter explores how people living with a dementia and their carers perceive the role of communication problems in shaping their experiences, and what they say they need for their lives to be easier. The emotional experience of being a family or professional carer is considered. The concept of emotional reserve is introduced, as a means of accounting for individual differences in personal resilience to the many challenges associated with living with a dementia or caring for someone who is.
Introduction
Authors: Medie Peace A.
Published: April 2020

This chapter provides an overview of the book. It begins with a brief discussion of the problem of violence against women and of the implementation deficit within the criminal justice sector in most African countries. It then introduces the international women’s justice norm and provides an outline of the central argument, explaining how international and domestic factors interact to influence the implementation of this norm. Next, it lays out the central argument before situating the discussion in the literature on the implementation of international norms. This section is followed by a discussion of the methodology and scope and a definition of key terms used in the book. The chapter concludes with an outline of the book.
Violence against Women and Law Enforcement in Africa
Authors: Medie Peace A.
Published: April 2020

Chapter 1 builds on several themes in the Introduction by providing an overview of violence against women in Africa and a background on the creation of specialized criminal justice sector mechanisms. It identifies commonalities in the types of violence experienced in most countries and in the causes of this violence, as well as in what states have done in response. It highlights the role of patriarchal gender norms in causing this violence and in shaping the criminal justice sector’s response. The chapter also identifies the international women’s justice norm and shows how it has constituted and has been constituted by various international instruments. It discusses the emergence of specialized criminal justice mechanisms and draws on secondary sources to develop a typology of these mechanisms and to document their spread across the continent.
The Making of a Soviet War Photographer and the German Occupation of Kerch
Authors: Shneer David
Published: April 2020

This chapter introduces the reader to Dmitri Baltermants, beginning with his birth to a Warsaw-based Jewish family and then describing his development as a Soviet photographer in the 1930s. A second-generation Soviet photographer and master of the horizontal, Baltermants was trained in socialist realist aesthetics, which documented and elevated the revolutionary experiment that was Stalin’s Soviet Union. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Baltermants’s world turned upside down. The second half of the chapter focuses on the German invasion and its rapid advance through Soviet territory until its occupation of Kerch in November. The chapter walks the reader through the unfolding process of Kerch under German occupation. In a matter of two weeks, German authorities rounded up the entire population of Jews, drove them to an antitank trench in nearby Bagerovo, and then murdered them in a Holocaust by bullets. It concludes with Kerch’s liberation in late December.
Witnessing Grief: The First Reports of Genocide
Authors: Shneer David
Published: April 2020

This chapter takes up the question of bearing witness to atrocity in words and images. After it discovered mass atrocities on the outskirts of Kerch, the Red Army commissioned investigators to determine what took place. Shneer contrasts official Soviet reports with the German administration’s own memoranda to Berlin describing what took place at Kerch. The writer Ilya Selvinsky also came to report for the Soviet press, but he could only respond to German atrocities with poetry. Several photographers documented the Kerch mass atrocities, including Mark Redkin, Yevgeny Khaldei, and Dmitri Baltermants. The author introduces the reader to the concepts of voyeurism, necropornography, and Aby Warburg’s pathos formula as ways to interpret atrocity images. Finally, this chapter describes the publication and circulation of atrocity photographs from Kerch to Moscow and from Moscow around the world.
Producing and Displaying Grief
Authors: Shneer David
Published: April 2020

Under Khrushchev, Baltermants returned to his wartime archive and produced art photographs for exhibition of some of his best work that he had taken during the war for publications. This chapter describes the process by which he produced Grief. This photograph, named for an emotion of the living, became a defining image of the Soviet experience of war. Given the horrors the photograph depicts, Baltermants hoped that it might also be used to position the Soviet Union as the global advocate for world peace. To that end, Baltermants curated his solo exhibitions, first in Moscow and then in London, in which he explored the tension between the commonalities of human experience and the differences in the wartime experience of the Soviet people. The chapter shows how in the 1960s, Baltermants made Grief both a powerful photograph and a useful weapon in Soviet cultural diplomacy during the Cold War.
All Animals Use Things, Specifically Food
Authors: Wilson Bart J.
Published: April 2020

All animals use things, specifically food, but food is unlikely to be the original object of property in humans. Tools have potential to be the original objects of property because of how we make and use them. Many nonhuman animals use tools, but there is a gulf between their uses of tools and ours. Symbolic thought makes meaning possible, and meaning makes composite tools possible. This chapter contends that symbolic thought explains this discontinuity with the rest of the animal kingdom. The connection humans make between a person and a thing originate in the symbolic thought of a symbolic species.
Agriculture and Foodways
Authors: Chittick Andrew
Published: April 2020

Chapter 3, “Agriculture and Foodways,” undertakes the first of two case studies in the ethnicization of particular cultural features of the Wuren by the peoples of the Central Plains of the Yellow River. It contrasts the millet-, wheat-, meat-, and milk-based foodways and agricultural systems of the Zhongren and Sarbi of the Central Plains with the rice-, fish-, and tea-based foodways of the Wuren and Churen of the Huai and Yangzi valleys and regions further south. By the fifth and sixth centuries the Central Plains discourse had ethnicized these differences, seeing them as both physiologically inherent and politically salient. Migration of some Central Plains people (Zhongren) into the south did not appreciably change this discourse.
The Sinitic Repertoire
Authors: Chittick Andrew
Published: April 2020

Chapter 9, “The Sinitic Repertoire,” offers the second of three studies in various repertoires of political legitimation. Sinitic universalism, based on Sinitic classical philosophy and the model of the Han Empire, is well studied and understood. This chapter emphasizes the tensions within the Sinitic repertoire in the Jiankang regime: between military and suasive approaches to building a Sinitic universal empire; between frugal and ostentatious approaches; and between the traditional Central Plains–centered political geography and one that was transposed to the Yangzi delta, an effort that was undertaken in earnest beginning in the fifth century. Daoist approaches, both huahu (conversion of the barbarians) and millenarian, are also considered as a variant of Sinitic universalism. The concluding analysis argues that the adoption of Sinitic universalism posed numerous intractable difficulties for the imperial throne, especially following the rise of an assertive Central Plains–based regime in the late fifth century.
The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 2
Authors: Chittick Andrew
Published: April 2020

Chapter 11, “The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 2: Jiankang as Theater State,” is the second half of the third study of various repertoires of political legitimation. This chapter argues that the Liang and Chen regimes in the sixth century built on the developments of the late fifth century and responded to the crisis of the Sinitic repertoire by making the Buddhist repertoire paramount instead. The chapter assesses the politics of bodhisattva ordination and the increasingly public rituals, such as Boundless Gatherings and relic worship, that turned Buddhist legend and ideology into well-established political performances. Jiankang in the sixth century can be understood as an example of a Buddhist “theater state,” a model scholars have used to understand political regimes in non-Sinitic parts of Southeast Asia. Especially when combined with elements of vernacular culture, the Buddhist repertoire proved a more successful fit for Jiankang’s political culture than the Sinitic repertoire had been.
The Social Pedagogy of Youth Policies in Latin America
Authors: Antonio Pérez Islas José , Mata Zúñiga Luis Antonio
Published: April 2020

This chapter reviews the institutional actions and discourses linked with public policies affecting young people in Latin America, highlighting three large institutions that have impacted this sector in the region: the army, the justice system, and schools, which view young people as a group at risk who must be helped. Next, the chapter discusses youth within the framework of their interactions and well-being, as part of one of the distinctive aspects of social pedagogy—placing it at the center of public policy. Finally, the chapter discusses the relevance of a dialogue between adults and young people that channels the demands, conflicts, and concerns of both in order to produce new youth policies, starting from the recognition of young people through a generational perspective that must be present in all government actions.
Seeing, Knowing, and Doing
Authors: Audi Robert
Published: April 2020

This book provides an overall theory of perception and an account of knowledge and justification concerning the physical, the abstract, and the normative. It has the rigor appropriate for professionals but explains its main points using concrete examples. It accounts for two important aspects of perception on which philosophers have said too little: its relevance to a priori knowledge—traditionally conceived as independent of perception—and its role in human action. Overall, the book provides a full-scale account of perception, presents a theory of the a priori, and explains how perception guides action. It also clarifies the relation between action and practical reasoning; the notion of rational action; and the relation between propositional and practical knowledge. Part One develops a theory of perception as experiential, representational, and causally connected with its objects: as a discriminative response to those objects, embodying phenomenally distinctive elements; and as yielding rich information that underlies human knowledge. Part Two presents a theory of self-evidence and the a priori. The theory is perceptualist in explicating the apprehension of a priori truths by articulating its parallels to perception. The theory unifies empirical and a priori knowledge by clarifying their reliable connections with their objects—connections many have thought impossible for a priori knowledge as about the abstract. Part Three explores how perception guides action; the relation between knowing how and knowing that; the nature of reasons for action; the role of inference in determining action; and the overall conditions for rational action.
Perceptual Levels and Their Action-Theoretic Counterparts
Authors: Audi Robert
Published: April 2020

Chapter 3 explains how perceptions are like actions in that some are, for a given perceiver at a given time, basic and others not. In neither case are the relevant by-relations—seeing x by seeing y and doing one thing by doing another—inferential. It is shown, however, that these points allow for our concepts and theories to influence perception. Several interpretations of theory-ladenness are described, and the chapter argues that perception itself is not inferential or, necessarily, theory-laden in depending on a theory or theoretical concepts. Our theories can influence what we perceive, particularly by leading us to see something as a theory says it is; but much as action constitutes a direct way in which, however complicated the causal underpinnings, we intervene in the world, perception constitutes a direct way in which, however long and complicated the causal conditions for it, the world intervenes in the mind.
Perception, Intuition, and Apprehension
Authors: Audi Robert
Published: April 2020

This chapter brings the theory of perception developed in Chapters 1 to 6 to bear on clarifying intuition, especially regarding abstract elements. Intuitive apprehension of these elements has much in common with perception. Such intuition is structurally parallel to perception, and it is experientially representational in a way that enables it to confer, as does perception, (prima facie) justification on beliefs. Moreover, both perception and intuitive apprehension are non-inferential, hence not premise-based. Both, given their status as embodying sensory or intuitive seemings, yield (and can explain) inclinations to believe and can explain belief-formation. Like perceptions, intuitions (in their occurrent forms) are direct responses to something one considers or otherwise experiences; they are not inferential responses to a premise. As experiential, non-inferential, and phenomenally representational, intuitions can confer justification on beliefs. This ascription of directness to intuitive apprehensions goes well with their role in explicating the self-evident—which, in certain cases, is paradigmatically intuitive—and thereby in accounting for a priori justification and knowledge.
The Crimes of Seditious Libel and Seditious Speech
Authors: Bird Wendell
Published: April 2020

This chapter provides the legal context for these discussions of eighteenth-century freedoms of press and speech and seditious publishing and speaking. The common law crimes of seditious libel and seditious words arose in England to criminalize dissent toward the king or government officials that could not successfully be suppressed as treason. The seventeenth-century crime of seditious libel was created by the Star Chamber’s Case of Libellis Famosis and other cases, and quickly attracted criticism for the Star Chamber’s prosecutions of such dissidents as Dr. Alexander Leighton, William Prynne, Dr. John Bastwick, Rev. Henry Burton, and John Lilburne. After the Revolution of 1688, that and other Star Chamber precedents were adopted by Lord Chief Justice John Holt, and an eighteenth-century framework of unique rules for prosecuting seditious libel was assembled by Holt in a series of cases, and was revised by Lord Chief Justice Mansfield.
The Emerging Broad British View of Freedoms of Press and Speech, Before the Colonial Crisis
Authors: Bird Wendell
Published: April 2020

For a time after licensing expired in England in 1695, some people identified freedom of press narrowly as freedom from licensing, but a broader concept was spreading. For example, Young Gentleman in 1712 said that one side sought restraint “either by reviving the [Licensing] Act . . . or by some other law” (like taxes), while the other side advocated “unrestrain’d freedom of the press” based on “the liberty and property of the subject, which all Britains are so tender of” and which “no act of Parliament . . . can infringe.” Increasingly, freedoms of press and speech were described as something more than freedom from prior restraint, such as “freedom . . . to communicate his sentiments to the public,” a right to publish, liberty of inquiry, freedom from any restraint, or security from prosecution. Cato’s Letters in 1720 stressed that if officials were trustees for the people, discussion and criticism of their trusteeship was a right.
The Dominant British View of Freedoms of Press and Speech, in the Decade Before Fox’s Libel Act and America’s Bill of Rights
Authors: Bird Wendell
Published: April 2020

In the 1780s in Britain, a broad view of freedoms of press and speech had become the dominant one, outside crown-appointed judges and Parliament. In response, Lord Mansfield reiterated his view that “liberty of the press consists in printing without any previous license.” Defense counsel in that leading libel prosecution questioned “how can it be said that the press is free because every thing may be published without a previous license, if the publisher of the most meritorious work . . . may be prosecuted” after publishing and with heavily biased rules? A large chorus of other writers said more categorically that criminal “trials for libels . . . are Star-Chamber law, which this country should not countenance,” and were inconsistent with “liberty of the press.” That broad understanding of freedoms of press and speech, which had become dominant in the 1780s, was the context in which Fox’s Libel Act became law in 1792.
The Dominant American View of Freedoms of Press and Speech, in the Decade Leading Up to Ratification of the Federal Bill of Rights
Authors: Bird Wendell
Published: April 2020

In the 1780s in America, the advocates of broad understandings of freedom of press and freedom of speech continued to argue, as “Junius Wilkes” did in 1782, that “[i]f a printer is liable to prosecution and restraint, for publishing pieces on public measures, conceived libellous, the liberty of the press is annihilated and ruined. . . . The danger is precisely the same to liberty, in punishing a person after the performance appears to the world, as in preventing its publication in the first instance. The doctrine of libels, is of pernicious consequence to the freedom of the press.” Many other essays in the 1780s showed the dominance of an expansive understanding of freedoms of press and speech, as did the declarations of rights of nine states. That was the context in which the First Amendment was adopted and ratified in 1789–1791. These conclusions about the prevalent and dominant understanding after the mid-1760s are flatly contrary to the narrow view of freedoms of press and speech stated by Blackstone and Mansfield, and restated by the neo-Blackstonians, who claim that the narrow understanding was not only predominant but exclusive through the ratification of the First Amendment and onward until 1798. This book’s conclusions are based on far more original source material than the neo-Blackstonians’ conclusions.
Who Gets Heard? Permission to Appeal Decisions
Authors: Hanretty Chris
Published: April 2020

This chapter examines the “permission to appeal” (PTA) process at the Supreme Court. Each year more than two hundred litigants seek permission to appeal from the Supreme Court. Around one-third of these applications are successful. This chapter tries to explain rates of success. The key factors are the importance of the case the litigants are appealing, and the number of judges the appellants have convinced in lower courts. This matches the court’s own description of the cases it selects (“cases that raise arguable points of law of general importance”). However, the chapter also finds that governmental actors are more likely to gain permission to appeal even when controlling for importance and the balance of judicial opinion in lower courts.
Panel Formation
Authors: Hanretty Chris
Published: April 2020

This chapter looks at the identity of the judges chosen to hear each case. The Supreme Court is unlike other courts: it does not sit en banc, and the five-, seven-, or nine-judge panels are not chosen randomly, but are drawn up by court officials working together with senior judges. This chapter looks at explanations of how these panels are chosen. The key finding is that specialists in the relevant area of law are prohibitive favorites to be chosen to hear cases in those areas of law—and this effect is stronger the more important the case is. There is no evidence of political factors playing a role—if anything, judges who agree with senior judges are less likely to be picked for important cases.
Conclusions: Specialism and the Primacy of the Legal
Authors: Hanretty Chris
Published: April 2020

This final chapter draws out some of the key messages of the book—how the behavior of judges on the Supreme Court can be best characterized using legal factors; and that among these, specialization in areas of law plays a key role. A review of the different models presented in the book shows that legal factors predominate when explaining the initial selection of cases, the size of the panel, the identity of the lead opinion author(s), and the final outcome. The conclusion identifies the key findings for different audiences, and sets out directions for future research on judges in common law systems.
A Theory of Recognition
Authors: King Elisabeth
Published: April 2020

This chapter presents a theoretical framework for analyzing the adoption of ethnic recognition and its effects in conflict-affected contexts. It explains the book’s focus on leaders and the important decisions they face in managing ethnic divisions. It then presents possible explanations for the adoption of recognition, grouped into domestic and international explanations, and highlights what is missing from these accounts—namely, a focus on ethnic power configurations and how they influence leaders’ strategic concerns. The chapter then details the assuring effects of recognition on one hand and mobilization effects on the other, illustrating the mechanisms underlying each and the way these effects may influence the adoption or non-adoption of recognition as well as the effects of recognition on peace. The chapter also introduces the concept of “the dilemma of recognition” that arises for minority leaders and theorizes the implications for peace of recognition under different ethnic power configurations.
Ethnic Recognition Under Minority Rule in Ethiopia
Authors: King Elisabeth
Published: April 2020

This chapter examines the adoption and effects on peace of past non-recognition and contemporary ethnic recognition under minority rule in Ethiopia. On the question of adopting ethnic federalism, it shows that the ruling Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had a keen understanding of its minority position and appreciated the assuring benefits of recognition. While the TPLF acknowledged the mobilization risks of recognition, the nature of Ethiopia’s war-to-peace transition made it such that the new minority leadership needed to recognize ethnic groups in order to win power. On the question of effects on peace, the chapter assesses the assuring effects of ethnic federalism, the authoritarian strategies that the minority-led regime used to compensate against the mobilization risks, and the mixed implications for peace. The chapter concludes by considering future prospects after the 2018 change in leadership to a plurality Oromo leader for the first time in Ethiopian history.
The Illusion of Clinical Success
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter discusses how clinicians struggle to identify and treat illnesses whose sources often lie outside the medical system. That is what makes root causes so powerful: they escape ready treatment and underlie a multiplicity of medical presentations. The same root cause can be responsible for a gastrointestinal or a respiratory problem, for an injury or a hepatic problem. This is why, when one thinks of the causes of medical problems strictly from an organ-based perspective, it is never enough. Because medical problems often do not arise in their end organs; they are bodily manifestations of underlying issues. These issues—such as inadequate housing, limited access to addiction treatment, poverty, and terrible neighborhoods—are medical challenges. As such, aside from being responsible for solving the immediate problem—the disease in front of them—clinicians must also grapple with the underlying causes. They can choose to become advocates, voices for public health outside of the hospital or clinic, or they can work within their day-to-day system, encouraging their hospital or clinic to embrace improving the underlying conditions that shape the health of patients.
Water Quality Violations
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter focuses on water quality violations in America. Most Americans have access to safe drinking water. However, there are pockets of American communities that are afflicted with high levels of contaminated water. In 2015, almost 10% of Americans were drinking contaminated water that violated water quality standards. The chapter then evaluates research at the University of California, Irvine, which examined water quality violations across the United States from 1982 to 2015. Researchers analyzed geographic and temporal patterns, with the goal of helping state enforcement agencies focus their attention on areas at high risk of contamination. The researchers cite decreasing population size and incomes as common obstacles faced by rural populations trying to follow water purification standards. Indeed, rural towns often rely on outside funding and low-interest government loans to support infrastructure to correct water quality violations. However, as of June 2017, over $600 million in grant funding was cut from Environmental Protection Agency drinking water programs. Such cuts, coupled with attempted environmental deregulation, threaten the public’s health.
Immigration and the Health of the Public
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter highlights the importance of the health of immigrants. The health of immigrants in their adopted home is strongly shaped by social, economic, and political conditions in that country. Legal status in the host country, for example, is associated with access to a broad range of health services and resultant better health. Perhaps unsurprisingly, aggressive anti-immigration policies create poor health for the population they target. For example, family separation and detention at the borders traumatize families, deepening the mental health needs of this vulnerable group. Moreover, federal raids can affect the birthweight of babies born to US-born Latina women, following immigration authority raids in search of undocumented Latinos. Ultimately, creating the conditions for immigrants to stay healthy helps everyone. Rather than listen to voices that rail against the imagined evils of immigration, people should do everything they can to maximize the health of immigrants, by working to include them in the fabric of American life and providing them with the basic social services they need in order to be well.
Out of School, out of Luck
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter explores the health of students. Out-of-school suspension is linked to lower grades, increased expulsions, and increased risk of incarceration. Disciplinary action through suspension is centered on a student’s behavior, which is often influenced by complex social challenges such as poverty, mental illness, and lack of parental support. Indeed, most suspensions result from multiple school absences and tardy reports, which are commonly linked to difficult family situations. Moreover, teachers’ implicit biases also contribute to the harshness of the punishment they dispense. Research shows that students of color suffer from harsher disciplinary outcomes from white teachers than from teachers of the same race. And boys and black students make up the majority of suspension cases. There are ways people can address this unfairness. Schools in Massachusetts have attempted to collaborate with mental health professionals and social workers to support students undergoing traumatic experiences. Districts in Texas have introduced “personal break rooms” where children can calm down and redirect their emotions after a frustrating incident. These are examples of how people can address students’ behavior, while reducing the inequalities that can influence disciplinary actions. Such steps can help create better learning environments, with the aim of producing healthier students.
The Health of the Poorest 50%
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter focuses on the health of the poorest 50% of Americans. Pretax income for the poorest 50% of Americans has remained the same over the past 40 years, while their after-tax income has dropped as taxes have increased for this same group. Regressive taxation has deepened wealth gaps, virtually assuring a continuing cycle of low income earning. The national share of income owned by the richest 50% of Americans has grown commensurately during this period, and the health indicators have responded accordingly. The slope of the income–health relationship has grown even steeper since 2000; the health advantage that those with higher incomes have over those with lower incomes is greater than it has been in the past four or more decades. Why is this? Americans continue to invest less in the social resources that can mitigate the challenges that come with a lower income, even as they spend ever more on high-end medicine that is accessed principally by those who can afford it. Social institutions like education that traditionally have led to social mobility and better health have become increasingly the provenance of the well-off.
Names Matter in the Opioid Epidemic
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter discusses the stigma attached to those who use drugs. We are accustomed to using language to distance ourselves from those with substance use problems, making sure we mark those who use drugs as “the other,” as not like us. Indeed, we have used nouns to label those who use drugs so that they are discredited; this has consequences for their self-identity. Part of the challenge of the opioid epidemic is the ongoing stigmatization of persons who use drugs. We have shown ourselves to be comfortable letting the problems of persons who use drugs remain their business, deluding ourselves into thinking the health of drug users is not intimately tied to our own. The current epidemic has taught us that we all know someone who has developed a drug problem. In the face of this crisis, quibbling over words may seem like a distraction, a minor issue, but, in fact, using the right language to talk about drug use is a step toward ending this epidemic. It helps us remember drug use is not just a problem for “them,” but for everyone, and that only through compassion and collective effort can we effectively address the disease of addiction.
Invest in Health, Not Death
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter assesses the inevitability of death and the need to think about how people can live healthy lives, without ignoring how they end. Once people accept that they are going to die, how they spend their money and their time on health begins to shift. Perhaps death can help people focus on living better, on the conditions people need to create in order to generate health. Of course, people should not neglect the experience of dying. Two out of three Americans do not have advance directives that guide what treatments they receive if they are sick, and they cannot communicate the end-of-life care that they want. Engaging in a dialogue about how people manage the dying process can help correct this oversight. It is also important to remember those who are left. The dead leave behind the grieving, who can experience a burden of poor health that is directly linked to loss of their loved one. Ultimately, recognizing the inevitability of death can guide people toward ways in which they can live healthier, die with dignity, and ensure their loved ones are supported when they pass on.
Direct-to-Docs Opioid Marketing
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter addresses the pharmaceutical industry’s direct-to-physician marketing of opioids, a factor that has fueled the current addiction epidemic. A 2019 study sought to understand the relationship between mortality from opioid overdose and the pharmaceutical industry’s direct marketing of opioids to physicians. The study analyzed the association between three factors in every US county: the amount of marketing payments pharmaceutical companies made to physicians, opioid prescribing rates, and the number of overdose deaths. Researchers found that direct marketing of opioids to physicians was associated with increased opioid prescribing rates and increased overdose mortality 1 year after marketing engagements. As such, the national response to the opioid epidemic has focused in part on reducing the number of opioids prescribed by physicians. Additionally, the Physician Payments Sunshine Act promotes financial transparency between pharmaceutical companies and health care providers. By increasing regulation around pharmaceutical direct-to-physician marketing, and by making reports of pharmaceutical company payments to physicians available to the public, states have the potential to reduce overdose mortality.
Housing and the Public’s Health
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter explores the importance of housing for public health. There are ample data linking poor housing conditions to a broad range of infectious diseases, chronic diseases, injuries, childhood development and nutrition issues, and mental health concerns. In addition, the burden of poor housing is not distributed evenly across populations. Families with fewer resources are likelier to live in unhealthy homes, and they are less likely to be able to improve the condition of their living situations. Moreover, high housing costs often put families and individuals in the position of having to trade between healthy housing and other basic necessities, such as food or medication. Structural forces perpetuate housing inequities. Landlords and real estate agents have contributed to racial/ethnic segregation by blocking minorities from moving to predominately white neighborhoods, which often leads to the exclusion of minorities from high-quality housing, schools, and other public services. Further, predominantly minority communities receive less investment from lenders to improve housing quality and neighborhood environments. Thus, improving housing must mean improving housing equity, so that all can access the benefits of having a safe, healthy place to live.
Making Aging Healthier
Authors: Stein Michael D. , Galea Sandro
Published: April 2020

This chapter studies four new realities which need to be considered in addressing the needs of the aging population. First, healthy aging is the ultimate example of prevention in action. To age in a healthy way, we have to prevent disease from taking hold, suggesting a redoubled effort in preventing some of the conditions—such as obesity and substance use—that result in unhealthy older life. Second, we must take steps such as creating more accessible built environments, and ensuring older adults have volunteer opportunities, to make sure populations remain integrated in communities as they age. Third, we must close health gaps that exist among aging populations. These include gaps created by race, LGBTQ status, and socioeconomic status. Finally, we need to intensify our efforts to tackle the health challenges that older people face, such as Alzheimer’s disease.