bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Kitsch
Authors: Schmelz Peter J.
Published: January 2021

Chapter 5 explores contemporary Soviet anxieties about mass media and popular culture by detailing Valentin Silvestrov’s shift in the 1970s from avant-garde cacophony to a quiet, nostalgic style that he unironically called “kitsch.” During this dark economic period, when he also was persona non grata in the Ukrainian Union of Composers, Silvestrov hoped to earn money by writing pop songs, a failed venture that resulted in his unpublished Kitsch Songs (1973), a cycle that sounds closer to Schubert and nineteenth-century Russian romances than the Beatles or contemporary Soviet pop. Silvestrov’s next works, including the important cycle Quiet Songs for voice and piano (1973–77), continued his resuscitation of earlier styles, usually involving texts by canonic Russian and Ukrainian poets (e.g., Pushkin, Lermontov, Mandelstam, and Shevchenko). In the preface to his 1977 Kitsch-Music for piano, Silvestrov claimed that he “regard[ed] the term ‘kitsch’ (weak, rejected, abortive) in an elegiac rather than an ironic sense.” In other words, he hoped that by taking “trivial,” overly familiar sources seriously, he might redeem them. His audiences often had other ideas, laughing at what they assumed was a parody. Others were captivated by his meditative evocations of the past.
Legacies of Polystylistic Tendencies (Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday)
Authors: Schmelz Peter J.
Published: January 2021

Chapter 11 takes account of Alfred Schnittke’s posthumous reception as well as of Valentin Silvestrov’s works from the late 1980s to the present. Schnittke’s death in 1998 marked, for many, the end of an era. Yet his polystylism in both theory and practice still influences many composers in Russia today. Silvestrov has continued composing, beginning around 2000 a new style he calls the bagatelle. The chapter ends by addressing the musical and sociocultural manifestations of polystylism today in the countries of the former USSR and in the global post-Soviet diaspora. Among them are the works of Vladimir Martynov and Lera Auerbach.
All the World’s a Stage
Authors: Atwal Priya
Published: January 2021

This chapter studies the diplomatic endeavours of Ranjit Singh and his family. It argues that the long-term development of a ‘friendship’ between the Punjabi royals and the East India Company formed another key aspect of the political strategy behind the making of the Sikh Empire forged by the former Sukerchakia misl. It examines how the nature of Anglo-Punjabi diplomacy was deeply influenced by the cultural norms of northern Indian politics, which placed notions of kinship and izzat (honour) at their heart, and which were in turn re-shaped by the new class of Sikh royalty that emerged from the eighteenth century onwards. This chapter discusses how Ranjit Singh ambitiously deployed his sons and wives as ambassadorial figures, and sought to bind senior British officials in close ties with his immediate family, to ensure that the strategic alliance he formed with the Company would remain steadfast for the future. The Maharajah’s goal was nothing short of projecting the name and fame of his kingdom onto a global royal stage.
After the Lion
Authors: Atwal Priya
Published: January 2021

This chapter begins delving into the politics surrounding and embedded into the historiography concerning the fall of the Sikh Empire. It particularly focuses on deconstructing narratives about Ranjit Singh’s death and how historically pivotal this event is thought to have been in leading to the internal problems and eventual collapse of the kingdom in the decade between 1839 and 1849. Instead, the chapter argues for greater attention to be paid to the gendered and colonial politics influencing the British and European writings on the Punjab’s royal elite and the kingdom’s affairs during this crucial period. Such sources have considerably constituted the basis of subsequent histories and biographies about Ranjit Singh and his family, but have rarely been critically interrogated for their internal debates and biases. This chapter instead attempts to piece together a political history of such colonial writings on the Punjab – together with drawing upon a range of less-studied Persian, Punjabi and Sanskrit courtly sources – to resurrect a vista of the world of Ranjit Singh’s heirs, as they sought to maintain the independence of their kingdom into the 1830s.
Norm Setting and Transparency and Confidence-Building in Space Governance
Authors: Hitchens Theresa
Published: January 2021

Governance of the use of space, both at the national and the international level, is complicated. Because most countries in the world have been reticent over the last thirty years to negotiate new legally binding commitments in space, ongoing multilateral work on space governance has concentrated primarily on voluntary measures. This chapter reviews and compares the two most salient of these initiatives: the normative recommendations of the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) and the Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities agreed by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Working Group. While the GGE was “top-down” focused on transparency and confidence-building to avoid conflict among States, the LTS Working Group was a “bottom-up” approach for safe and sustainable practices with regard to the use of space. The conclusion looks at how States can best implement the recommendations.
Groundwater Resources
Authors: Giordano Mark , Voss Katalyn , Stroming Signe
Published: January 2021

Acknowledging academic research on water and conflict is largely focused on surface waters in shared river basins, this chapter is to provides insights into some of the political dimensions of groundwater and its use and overuse in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. First, it provides an overview of current knowledge of groundwater resources, highlighting the rapid transformation in the way groundwater data and information is collected and shared outside of traditional official channels. Next, the chapter discusses the domestic political implications of groundwater overuse for food security and food price stability, and the additional challenges created when aquifers, or the rivers which feed them, are transboundary in nature. While the chapter recognizes the possibilities for technology to provide new data and information for groundwater decision making, it also acknowledges that groundwater governance and management is problematic worldwide. The chapter thus ends not with a vague call for “better” groundwater governance, policy, and management, but rather explores options for reducing the negative impacts of continued overuse.
Singapore: Technocracy and Transition
Authors: De Visser Maartje , Straughan Paulin
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes Singapore’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The government’s strategy revolved around the two poles of technocratic and expedient governance on the one hand and social solidarity, targeted at vulnerable or weaker segments of society, on the other. A crucial factor in implementing this dual strategy is Singapore’s smallness, in spatial and demographic terms, meaning that there are natural limits to emulation by others. At the same time, Singapore’s approach was not flawless. In particular, the wildfire-like spread of the virus in migrant workers’ dormitories emerged as an embarrassing blind spot. Other serious Covid-19-related challenges remain. The most significant of these are managing the narrative to preserve high levels of government trust and a further reckoning with the stark socio-economic disparity exacerbated by the crisis. The latter in particular may be a harbinger of wider socio-political change in Singapore which will continue to unfold long after the immediate health emergency has passed.
Introduction
Authors: Walters Lee
Published: January 2021

Dorothy Edgington’s work has been at the centre of a range of ongoing debates in philosophical logic, philosophy of mind and language, metaphysics, and epistemology. This work has focused, although by no means exclusively, on the overlapping areas of conditionals, probability, and paradox. This brief introduction outlines some themes from these three areas relevant to Edgington’s work, highlighting how some of her work and some of the contributions of this volume fit into these debates. Edgington’s work far outstrips these three topics and her contributions to the three debates mentioned are more numerous and offer more insight than can be discussed here. Nevertheless, from this brief overview, and from the essays contained in the rest of the volume, the ingenuity and breadth of Edgington’s work may be seen, as well as the difficulty of the problems that she has discussed, and how she has advanced our understanding of them.
The Stage
Authors: West-Harling Veronica
Published: January 2021

This chapter sets out the stage on which the actors evolve and their ‘props’: places of power and instruments of control. Places studied are the residences of the rulers and the elites (palaces), and those of the saints (churches and monasteries), with their founders, patrons, relics, and liturgy. Instruments of control are firstly through manifestations of power: charity and assistance, art and architecture. Statements of power are made through titulature, the dating of documents, coinage, and objects of power such as emblems, symbols, and gifts
Introduction to k·p Theory
Authors: Vurgaftman Igor , Lumb Matthew P. , Meyer Jerry R.
Published: January 2021

The so-called k·p theory provides an effective framework for modeling the band structures of III–V semiconductors. This approach starts with a handful of bands that are coupled in accordance with the crystal symmetry discussed in Chapter 1. This chapter describes the k·p theory and lays out the assumptions that underlie its most common versions, including Kane’s model. It also shows how the spin–orbit coupling affects the band structure of semiconductors.
Detailed k·p Theory for Bulk III–V Semiconductors
Authors: Vurgaftman Igor , Lumb Matthew P. , Meyer Jerry R.
Published: January 2021

The chapter discusses a full implementation of k·p theory for the eight bands near the energy gap in a III–V semiconductor. This model can precisely calculate the band structure for both conduction and valence bands near the energy gap. Even though only eight bands are explicitly included, the terms due to interactions with “remote” bands are present in the complete version of the theory. The chapter consider the physical meaning of the results and the effect that strain has on the semiconductor band structure. The Hamiltonians for both zinc-blende and wurtzite crystals are introduced.
Other Techniques for Calculating Semiconductor Band Structure
Authors: Igor Vurgaftman
Published: January 2021

This chapter will expand our toolbox to include a few other techniques for calculating the band structure of a III–V semiconductor: the empirical tight-binding method, its effective bond-orbital form for zinc-blende materials, and the pseudopotential method. These methods allow the band structure over the full Brillouin zone to be described quantitatively using a limited set of parameters. It also answers the question of how easy it is to relate the parameters for each of the computational approaches to measurable quantities such as the gaps and effective masses.
Alloys and Exotic Materials
Authors: Igor Vurgaftman
Published: January 2021

The chapter describes how the band parameters of ternary and quaternary alloys can be interpolated over the entire range of compositions, and tabulate the non-vanishing bowing parameters for most of the common alloys with both zinc-blende and wurtzite lattice structure. It also describes ordering in some of the ternary alloys, and how ordering affects the energy gap. The band parameters of dilute nitrides, dilute bismides, and hexagonal boron nitride are also examined. Finally, the chapter presents schemes for interpolating the optical parameters of III–V alloys, i.e., the real and imaginary parts of the permittivity or dielectric function.
Absorption and Emission of Light in Quantum Structures
Authors: Igor Vurgaftman
Published: January 2021

This chapter shows how to calculate the absorption coefficient, optical gain, and radiative recombination rates in quantum wells and superlattices. A detailed treatment of both interband and intersubband transitions is presented, and their differences and similarities are considered in detail. The optical properties of wurtzite quantum wells and zinc-blende quantum wires and dots are also discussed. Finally, the interaction of excitonic transitions with incident light in quantum wells is considered as a model for other two-dimensional materials.
Quantum Cascade Lasers
Authors: Igor Vurgaftman
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes the most commonly used approaches for computing the band structure of active materials with intersubband optical transitions. The physics of quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) is discussed in detail, including the mechanisms that limit the threshold current density, threshold voltage, wall-plug efficiency, and temperature sensitivity of state-of-the-art devices. The important roles of phonon and interface roughness scattering in determining threshold are emphasized. The chapter also compares the performance of QCLs to other mid-IR lasers in considerable detail and makes some conclusions as to which sources are preferred depending on the emission wavelength and application. Finally, the physical principles of laser-based frequency combs, including self-starting frequency-modulated QCL combs, are discussed.
Semiconductor Photodetectors
Authors: Igor Vurgaftman
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes the operating principles of photoconductive and photovoltaic detectors based on III–V semiconductors. The electrical characteristics of both photodiodes and majority carrier barrier structures are discussed starting with the diffusion equation. The chapter outlines the figures of merit used to evaluate the performance of infrared photodetectors including the responsivity, dark current density, and normalized detectivity. It discusses bulk-like and type II superlattice photodetectors and how the multistage arrangement of interband cascade detectors (ICDs) can reduce the dark current density at the expense of a lower responsivity. Detectors that employ intersubband optical transitions, namely, quantum-well infrared photodetectors and quantum cascade detectors, are also discussed. The chapter considers how the dark-current density can be suppressed in resonant-cavity and thin waveguide-based detectors. It concludes with a discussion of the requirements for high-speed operation and an overview of novel types of detectors that draw their inspiration from III–V semiconductor devices.
Analytic Theology in the Religious Studies Academy
Authors: Wood William
Published: January 2021

The book begins with three very brief chapters that collectively introduce the work as a whole. Chapter 3 turns to the academic study of religion. Many contemporary scholars of religion do not regard theology as a genuine form of academic inquiry. Yet contemporary analytic philosophy shows that theology need not confine itself to historicist or empiricist methods in order to count as a genuine form of academic inquiry. The methods of analytic epistemology and metaphysics—which flourish in every philosophy department—are also appropriate tools with which to investigate questions about the divine. Analytic theology draws on these same tools. I outline the argument of Part IV, which considers three ongoing debates within the academic study of religion: naturalism, critique, and normativity.
What Is Analytic Theology?
Authors: Wood William
Published: January 2021

Chapter 5 considers the still open question “What is Analytic Theology?” In dialogue with Timothy Pawl and William Hasker, I argue that analytic theology is a form of faith seeking understanding and a form of constructive theology. I then consider some efforts to push analytic theology into comparatively neglected areas, including topics related to social justice. I focus especially on Sameer Yadav’s call for analytic liberation theology. I conclude the chapter with a bit of additional reflection on why analytic theology is valuable. Christians should agree that it is good to try to answer rational objections to key Christian doctrines, and similarly good to try to give positive models for how to understand them in a way that coheres with other things we take ourselves to know. Those tasks are perennial, and analytic theology is one way that Christians today can pursue them fruitfully. At the same time, however, I also think that there are non-Christian reasons for valuing analytic theology, reasons that anyone might accept. Intellectual inquiry is good. Focused thinking about terrifically difficult problems is good. Watching very intelligent people think as deeply and carefully as they can about things that matter to them more than anything else—that too is good.77 Analytic theology displays all of these goods, something that anyone can recognize, even without accepting the underlying Christian framework.
How to Avoid Idolatry
Authors: Wood William
Published: January 2021

Part III calls for a more theological analytic theology and defends analytic theology from some common theological objections. Many theologians regard any form of theistic metaphysics as idolatrous, and worries about “conceptual idolatry” are especially prominent in contemporary theology. In Chapter 7, I try to uncover what idolatry really is. Because idolatry involves false worship, it cannot be assimilated to mistaken believing: idolatry is more than a cognitive error. I first discuss standard and extended senses of “idolatry,” before turning to the tricky problem of conceptual idolatry. While idolatry requires more than false believing, I argue that analytic theologians can (and usually do) avoid idolatry by preserving the creator/creature distinction and theorizing with an attitude of worship.
Naturalism as Metaphysics, Reduction without Fears
Authors: Wood William
Published: January 2021

Part IV turns to an extended engagement with the academic study of religion, which is often constitutively hostile to any form of theology. Chapter 12 considers the place of “naturalism” and “reductionism” in the academic study of religion. While individual scholars of religion can—and often should—practice methodological naturalism, attempts to justify methodological naturalism as a global, field-defining norm inevitably presuppose controversial metaphysical claims, and thereby collapse into ontological naturalism—a position that I call “ontological naturalism on the cheap.” The chapter concludes that any barriers to including analytic theology in the wider field of religious studies are local and prudential, not global and methodological.
Unbounded Dependency Constructions
Authors: Chaves Rui P. , Putnam Michael T.
Published: January 2021

This book is about one of the most intriguing features of human communication systems: the fact that words which go together in meaning can occur arbitrarily far away from each other. The kind of long-distance dependency that this volume is concerned with has been the subject of intense linguistic and psycholinguistic research for the last half century, and offers a unique insight into the nature of grammatical structures and their interaction with cognition. The constructions in which these unbounded dependencies arise are difficult to model and come with a rather puzzling array of constraints which have defied characterization and a proper explanation. For example, there are filler-gap dependencies in which the filler phrase is a plural phrase formed from the combination of each of the extracted phrases, and there are filler-gap constructions in which the filler phrase itself contains a gap that is linked to another filler phrase. What is more, different types of filler-gap dependency can compound, in the same sentence. Conversely, not all kinds of filler-gap dependencies are equally licit; some are robustly ruled out by the grammar whereas others have a less clear status because they have graded acceptability and can be made to improve in ideal contexts and conditions. This work provides a detailed survey of these linguistic phenomena and extant accounts, while also incorporating new experimental evidence to shed light on why the phenomena are the way they are and what important research on this topic lies ahead.
The Right to Education
Authors: Fenton-Glynn Claire
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines the approach of the European Court of Human Rights to cases concerning children’s education, and the interaction between parental rights and state obligations in this respect. It starts by looking at the jurisprudence concerning state versus private schooling, as well as the compatibility of prohibitions on home schooling with the Convention. It then goes on to consider specialised and segregated schooling, focusing on children with disabilities, migrant children, and ethnic minorities, and in particular the treatment of Roma children. The chapter further analyses the ability of parents to object to the content of education provided by the state, in the context of education in a chosen language, sexual education, and religious education. Finally, this chapter considers how Article 2, Protocol 1 of the Convention has been applied to higher education.
Family Formation and Parenthood
Authors: Fenton-Glynn Claire
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines the interpretation of ‘family life’ under Article 8 and the way that this has evolved throughout the Court’s history. It contrasts the approach of the Court to ‘family life’ between children and mothers, with ‘family life’ between fathers and children, noting the focus of the Court on function over form. It then turns to the establishment of parenthood, both in terms of maternity and paternity, as well as the right of the child to establish information concerning their origins. Finally, the chapter examines the changing face of the family, considering new family forms, including same-sex couples and transgender parents, as well as new methods of reproduction, such as artificial reproductive techniques and surrogacy.
Child Protection
Authors: Fenton-Glynn Claire
Published: January 2021

This chapter analyses the obligations placed on domestic authorities in the field of child protection. It starts by examining the way in which the Court has attempted to balance the rights of parents and children in this area, and in particular, the place of the ‘best interests’ principle in the Court’s jurisprudence. The chapter then goes on to consider the substantive rights in this area, including emergency measures, the removal of the child from the family, and their placement in alternative care, before examining the extensive procedural rights for parents and children under Articles 6 and 8. Finally, it details the jurisprudence of the Court concerning family reunification and the positive obligations placed on states to facilitate this.
Puzzles of Party Politics
Authors: Haughton Tim , Deegan-Krause Kevin
Published: January 2021

Scholars seeking to explain the patterns of party politics in Central Europe since 1989 have drawn on accounts that stress the role of cleavages, economic performance, legacies, populism, and European Union accession and membership. Although they offer insights, these accounts in themselves do not provide a compelling explanation. More attention needs to be focused on individual parties and the choices they make, and the raw materials at their disposal. New parties make much of their newness, while their success is also fuelled by appeals of celebrity and promises of anti-corruption. Existing accounts of party formation and breakthrough, however, overlook the increasingly strong institutional links between party birth and party death. A more nuanced understanding of today’s party politics must also attend to the role of time, both diachronically and synchronically, in shaping the organizational choices made by parties and the appeals they use to win voter support.
The Old and the New
Authors: Haughton Tim , Deegan-Krause Kevin
Published: January 2021

New parties are different from the more established parties in terms of their organization, appeals, and leadership. Not only do they often take the cosmetic step of avoiding the word ‘party’ in their names, but they also usually choose very different organizational structures, with far fewer members and party branches. Furthermore, in contrast to the more established parties whose pitch is based on left–right economic positioning or their socially conservative or socially liberal stances, new parties make a pitch to the electorate based around their novelty, the personality and celebrity of their leader, and an anti-corruption appeal. Finally, many of these new parties are much more leader-dominated vehicles than the longer-established parties. These choices made by the new parties may have positive impacts on their chances of initial success, but have negative impacts on their chances of longer-term survival.
Böckenförde on the Relation of the Catholic Church and Christians to Democracy and Authoritarianism
Authors: Künkler Mirjam , Stein Tine
Published: January 2021

Part I of the volume brings together Böckenförde’s earliest writings from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. They cover his democratic theory (Chapter I), his documentation of the failure of German Catholicism during the rise of the Nazi regime (Chapter II), Böckenförde’s reflections on the possibilities and limits of Christian conduct in authoritarian and totalitarian contexts (...
Types of Christian Conduct in the World during the Nazi Regime [1965/2004]
Authors: Böckenförde Ernst-Wolfgang , Künkler Mirjam , Stein Tine
Published: January 2021

This article is based on a talk Böckenförde gave to the Catholic Student Society in East Berlin in 1965, asking what kind of comportment Christians exhibited during the Nazi regime. He lays out six types of behaviour drawing on individual examples, ranging from opportunism to underground partisanism. Böckenförde is clear from the outset that no type of conduct is immune from incurring guilt. He notes that weighing between different kinds of evil was a key consideration in choosing between these types of conduct and criticizes that Christian moral doctrine had very little to offer a believer in search of orientation. The Staatssicherheitsdienst Stasi documented Böckenförde’s speech and, as became clear decades later, understood his talk to implicitly raise the question of Christian comportment in the GDR.
The Rise of the State as a Process of Secularization [1967]
Authors: Böckenförde Ernst-Wolfgang , Künkler Mirjam , Stein Tine
Published: January 2021

Böckenförde shows how and why the modern state is a product of the historical process of secularization. Three key conflicts between papacy and European kings led to the establishment of administrative, political, and later legal structures independent from the Catholic Church: the Investiture Controversy (1087–1122), the confessional wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the declarations of rights as universal rather than based on religion in the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 and the French constitution of 1789. The modern state emerged from this process independent from the Church, without claims on the religious lives of its citizens or questions of sin and salvation. Böckenförde regards the constitutional recognition of freedom of religion as the bedrock of modernity. In the article, Böckenförde identifies what he regards as the core challenge facing the liberal democratic state, formulated in his most prominently cited sentence: ‘The liberal secularized state is sustained by conditions it cannot itself secure.’ Böckenförde argues that the modern state relies on a moral substance, thriving only under conditions of solidarity and cohesion that need to emanate from within society. Religiosity is one potential source of this moral substance. At the same time, one of the goals of the liberal state is the promotion and safeguarding of pluralism: If the modern state were to promote a given worldview or a sense of morality, it would violate the very liberalism on which it is founded. This dilemma has become known in the literature as the ‘Böckenförde dictum’.
Abolition of Section 218 of the Criminal Code?
Authors: Böckenförde Ernst-Wolfgang , Künkler Mirjam , Stein Tine
Published: January 2021

In this 1971 article, Böckenförde investigates German abortion law in the light of contemporaneous public debates about the reform of the at this time almost 100-year-old Section 218 of the German Criminal Code banning abortion. In his view, the constitutional recognition of a right to life must also include unborn human life, since there is otherwise no non-arbitrary criterion for determining the period at which human life begins to be worthy of legal protection. As a consequence, Böckenförde sees all unborn life as protected by Article 2 Basic Law, an interpretation that would render the legalization of abortion unconstitutional. At the same time, Böckenförde also acknowledges that a great number of abortions are undertaken clandestinely despite the ban, with often disastrous social and medical consequences. Besides, the evident lack of social respect for legal norms has a negative effect on the legal system as a whole. Böckenförde concludes that there can be no good solution to the issue of abortion, only a least unsatisfactory one. While he rejects the term-solution, he proposes to combine the prohibition of abortion with an exemption for punishment for both doctor and mother if certain indications apply (rape, medical risks to the life of mother or child, and situations of ‘extreme helplessness’ such as severe existential insecurity).
Biographical Interview with Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde [2011]
Authors: Böckenförde Ernst-Wolfgang , Künkler Mirjam , Stein Tine
Published: January 2021

The chapter consists of excerpts of an interview historian and legal scholar Dieter Gosewinkel conducted with Böckenförde in 2009/2010. The selected sections discuss Böckenförde’s critique of Catholic natural law thinking and the Catholic Church’s position on democracy; his analysis of the failure of Catholic leadership during the Nazi seizure of power in 1933; his famous dictum and how he himself interprets the sentence according to which ‘the liberal secularized state is sustained by conditions it cannot itself secure’; the place of religion in the public sphere; his notion of political theology (which he contrasts with that of Carl Schmitt); and what he considers to be the key breakthroughs of Vatican II, namely the acceptance of the secular state, religious freedom, and the differentiation between morality and state law. Some personal reflections regarding his understanding of the ethos of a constitutional judge and the very idea of the Rechtsstaat conclude the chapter. Twenty extensive annotations provide the reader with crucial background information. Additional excerpts of the interview are included in Volume I of this edition (Constitutional and Political Theory, OUP 2017).
World Trade Organization and BRICS
Authors: Daunton Martin
Published: January 2021

The World Trade Organization emerged from the Uruguay Round of 1986 to 1994 and covered development as well as trade—an ambition that had been attempted after the Second World War and the abortive attempt to create an International Trade Organization. Instead, a narrower General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade emerged. The failure of the International Trade Organization arose in part from the different ambitions of less developed or primary producing countries that were not acceptable to advanced industrial countries. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade faced continued pressure from the less developed countries, in particular from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development which put forward a different approach to the global economy and issues of distributive justice. This chapter explains the different approaches and the responses of the more advanced countries.
BRICS, emerging markets, and the world economy
Authors: Nayyar Deepak
Published: January 2021

The object of this chapter is to analyse the global implications of the economic rise of BRICS and a larger set of emerging markets (Next-14) among developing countries. It sets the stage by outlining the broad contours of change in the world economy during the past sixty years and highlighting the discernible shift in the balance of economic power. It then examines the growing significance of BRICS and Next-14, since 1980, in terms of their economic size, engagement with the world economy, and industrialization. It analyses the possible economic impact of rapid growth in BRICS on the world economy, on industrialized countries, and on developing countries, to show that this could be either positive or negative, so that the balance would shape outcomes. Going beyond economics into politics, it considers the factors underlying the evolution of BRICS as a formation, to discuss their potential influence on international institutions and global governance.
Growth, employment, and social protection in BRICS
Authors: Mahmood Moazam , Bonnet Florence
Published: January 2021

This chapter sets out to search for evidence of three possible growth and social development paths pursued by BRICS. It finds one group of countries, say G1, to be good at growth, with another group of countries, G2, not so much. China and India stand out as a group labelled G1 high flyers. Brazil, Russia, and South Africa rank as a group of G2 low flyers. It remains a puzzle that the G1 good growth countries are not all good at social development, and many of the weak growth G2 countries turn out to be much better. Key indicators that are reviewed to understand the paths are the macro-prudential environment, employment and social protection, poverty and vulnerability, human capital, pension coverage, and poverty reduction to understand the challenges for ensuring both growth and social development.
Extractive economies, institutions, and development
Authors: Anand P. B.
Published: January 2021

Extractive economies can use the natural resource dividend for infrastructure and sustainable development, which involves overcoming many challenges. This chapter sees the BRICS countries as natural resource rich economies that have not yet signed up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Analysis of the relationship between resource dependence and the Human Development Index for the period 1990–2015 is reported, suggesting that non-resource rich countries tend to have higher values than resource rich countries. Using as case studies two countries that have joined the initiative (Norway and Mongolia) and two emerging economies that have not (Botswana and Chile), as well as one of the BRICS countries (Brazil), some successes and challenges in using natural resource wealth are highlighted. Governance indicators suggest that transparency initiatives can be helpful. Links between extractive economies, policies, institutions, and human development outcomes are complex, requiring long-term policies and commitment. Three specific policy issues for BRICS are identified.
Building BRICS in Africa?
Authors: Carmody Pádraig
Published: January 2021

This chapter explores the nature of BRICS engagement in Africa and whether or not it opens up policy space for national governments to pursue more interventionist approaches to economic development. It argues that different members of BRICS have different temporalities, spatialities, and sectoral emphases in their engagements in Africa. While in theory greater BRICS engagement in Africa does open up policy space, in practice much of this is latent rather than actualized as current extractive economic relations suit many African political elites who benefit from them. Nonetheless there are counter movements to current arrangements which struggle for greater accountability, even as the influence of the BRICS on the continent is likely to continue to grow.
Education in BRICS
Authors: Dalcin Aline K. , Kang Thomas H. , Zanon Daiane , Bellé Felipe A. , Betti Luana P. , Rasche Fábio A. , Comim Flavio
Published: January 2021

Education is one of the most challenging development issues for BRICS. The objective of this chapter is to compare education systems in BRICS. The method chosen to undertake this task is cluster analysis in order to verify the degree of homogeneity among educational systems in those countries. Our results suggest that the Russian Federation presents educational outcomes closer to the ones found in developed countries, while India is on the opposite side. Applying different criteria, Brazil, China, and South Africa are at the same intermediate cluster. The main argument of this chapter is that education systems, despite their historical differences and circumstances, have common elements of differentiation that place these systems at different stages with specific education agendas to face.
Minimum wages and inequality in Mexico
Authors: Krozer Alice , Garry Stefanie , Moreno-Brid Juan Carlos
Published: January 2021

The literature on minimum wages in Mexico has focused largely on their impact on poverty, and poverty reduction, while their relationship with inequality has not been fully explored. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the status and dynamics of the minimum wage in Mexico and its relation with income inequality from a Latin American comparative perspective. In this context, we are mostly interested in juxtaposing the Mexican experience with the cases of Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, as three countries of roughly comparable economic development in the region pursuing labour policies diametrically opposing those of Mexico. In light of this Mexican exceptionality, we analyse the relationship between minimum wages and inequality in the country, and what Mexico could learn from the diverging experience of the other countries, with the aim of providing some recommendations to policymakers.
Women, law, and collective action
Authors: Fennell Shailaja
Published: January 2021

This chapter makes significant headway in advancing our current thinking on gender rights in BRICS countries. It examines the strategic decisions made by women’s organizations to further their goal of advancing gender equality. Analysing gender negotiation using the lens of a second order collective action problem, the first part evaluates the costs and benefits for women’s organizations in negotiating how to overcome dominant social norms. Tracing how women’s organizations in China and India undertake strategic negotiations to overcome discrimination indicates that what is deemed to be appropriate behaviour for women, both as participants in the labour force as well as contributors to the household, provides a promising way to engage the economics of identity. The latter part of the chapter goes on to examine the role played by public interest litigation in ensuring gender equality in spheres of the household/community as well as the labour market.
Violence and BRICS
Authors: McMahon Lucy
Published: January 2021

After criticism that the Millennium Development Goals overlooked violence, the fourth of the twelve goals proposed by the High Level Panel on the Post 2015 Development Agenda was to ‘build peace’. Despite the vague understanding of what ‘peace’ would actually mean within this agenda, the argument laid out is clear: the only types of violence prevention that have a significant role in the post-2015 agenda are those that are also instrumental to economic growth. This chapter explores the place of violence in the development stories of the BRICS countries. I highlight the kinds of violence that appear to be essential in order for current patterns of economic growth to continue.
Happiness in BRICS
Authors: Hirai Tadashi
Published: January 2021

Happiness has gained prominence worldwide in assessing well-being. In this context, the investigation of happiness seems particularly relevant to BRICS not only because economic growth tends to be underscored at the risk of other important aspects of our living as with developed nations, but also because its impact on happiness would be represented more revealingly in its transition. As much as economic growth does not move together with happiness, it is essential to examine how happiness has been affected in the emerging economies. This chapter will as a result review the past publications on happiness in BRICS comprehensively and elicit some lessons. Although each country has unique features and determinants of happiness, some commonality will be found in the similar stage of economic development. More broadly, some convergence will be also found between the determinants of happiness over time (subjective assessments) and the requirements typically set for a good living (objective assessments).
Urban economic development
Authors: Obeng-Odoom Franklin
Published: January 2021

Ghana’s national economic transformation has been widely celebrated, but the role of its cities in this transformation is poorly understood. Typically, the contribution of cities in Ghana to the country’s transformation is seen as negative, or non-existent to negligible, at best. This characterization is quite common for cities in Africa for which The State of Africa Cities reports mostly brand as rural poverty-driven settlements. None of these claims, however, is based on a systemic analysis of urban economic development. It is this gap that the present chapter seeks to fill. By developing a particular spatial political economy approach and drawing on a wide range of data, this chapter argues that most urban residents are either born in cities or are attracted to them from the countryside, but urbanization cannot be explained as ‘poverty driven’, especially when rural poverty in the country has been falling and the urban economies of many cities are booming.
Emerging food and nutrition security challenges in Central Asia—implications for BRICS and emerging economies
Authors: Babu Suresh Chandra , Akramov Kamiljon
Published: January 2021

In the last two decades, Central Asia has gone through several transitions in institutions and governance, each with consequences for the agricultural sectors in the region. Since their independence, the five countries Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, have made considerable progress towards increasing domestic food production. However, food security in the region is still threatened by major geopolitical and socio-economic challenges. Lack of support from institutions to advance farming has resulted in the low level of food security in the region. Lack of research and extension of support to farmers and low capacity for designing evidence-based policies are major challenges to the region’s food security. This chapter identifies critical issues and challenges faced by Central Asian countries for attaining short-term and long-term food and nutrition security, and the implications for BRICS and other emerging economies.
The Palette of Elements
Authors: Evans John
Published: January 2021

The supply of the known 118 elements is considered in terms of their abundance in the universe and in the Earth?’s crust, the availability of minerals and their formation of elements from natural and induced transmutation. The blocks of the elements of the Periodic Table are analysed to consider whether their availability is such that can allow them to participate in solutions of the pressure on resources on the Earth. The roles of the elementary properties, radii, ionisation energies and electronegativities in affording the characteristics of the elements, including conductivity properties, are explained. The factors influencing the properties of compounds that affect their modes of extraction, such as their energetics, solubility and oxidation state stability are also discussed.
Air
Authors: Evans John
Published: January 2021

The chemical properties of the volatile elements in groups 15 to 18 are outlined, showing how the the periodicicty of the properties of the elements shapes their chemistry. The manufacture of hydrogen and chlorine is described, showing how mercury-free methods have been developed for the latter. The effect of the formation of atmospheric CO2 on atmospheric oxygen content is explained in terms of dissolution in the oceans. Remediation of the exhaust gases from internal combustion engines by catalysts to remove CO2, NOx and carbonaceous particulates is explained. Options for carbon capture and storage by physical and chemical processes are evaluated, and examples provided of these processes in operation. Exploitation of the atmosphere for energy capture using wind turbines has been aided by the development of high performance magnets. The basis of these magnets and the role of rare earth elements is explained.
Water
Authors: Evans John
Published: January 2021

The physical properties of water provide a framework for many day-to-day experiences: including the energy intrinsic to the melting and boiling of water, and in the increase in vapour density with temperature. The availability of freshwater is sequestered mainly in ice caps and groundwater and most readily acquired water emanates from the rainwater that falls on land. The demands of water for processing (Virtual water) are substantial. Extension fo water supply by desalination of seawater by reverse osmosis is explained. Options for extraction of minerals from seawater are also developed. The challenges posed by heavy elements, pharmaceuticals and plastics on wastewater treatment and drinking water supplies are elaborated
Survival analysis
Authors: Carstensen Bendix
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes survival analysis. Survival analysis concerns data where the outcome is a length of time, namely the time from inclusion in the study (such as diagnosis of some disease) till death or some other event — hence the term 'time to event analysis', which is also used. There are two primary targets normally addressed in survival analysis: survival probabilities and event rates. The chapter then looks at the life table estimator of survival function and the Kaplan–Meier estimator of survival. It also considers the Cox model and its relationship with Poisson models, as well as the Fine–Gray approach to competing risks.
The Kill Chain (II)
Authors: Jones Craig
Published: January 2021

This chapter is the second of two chapters that analyse the role of military lawyers in the contemporary US kill chain. It focuses on dynamic (unplanned) targeting and shows how its ontology of violence necessitates rapid forms of decision making that affects both the possibility of legal advice and its content. An examination of close air support (CAS) and troops in contact (TIC) targeting operations reveals the rapid legal and operational interpretations that military actors form as they attempt to make sense of highly mobile targets and fast-moving events. These involve issues of self-defence, imminence of threats, and proportionality. It is argued that dynamic and time-sensitive targeting create their own unique military ‘necessities’ and governing legalities. The chapter shows that the latitude given to interpretational work has real-world consequences for both troops on the ground and civilians: dynamic targeting accounts for a high proportion of fratricides and civilian casualties.