bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Eternity Clauses in Democratic Constitutionalism
Authors: Suteu Silvia
Published: September 2021

This book makes a critical contribution to the growing literature on constitutional unamendability, as well as to the broader scholarship in the field of comparative constitutional change. It represents a unique analysis of unamendability in democratic constitutionalism that engages critically and systematically with its perils, offering a much-needed corrective to existing understandings of this phenomenon. This book takes seriously the democratic challenge that eternity clauses pose and argues that this goes beyond the old tension between constitutionalism and democracy. It adopts a contextual approach that allows for more nuanced understandings of constitutional amendment rules and substantive limits on amendments. It also looks beyond the usual suspects typically discussed in this literature and brings to the fore a variety of case studies from non-traditional jurisdictions. Together, these insights illuminate the prospects of unamendability fulfilling its main intended aim, that of protecting constitutional democracy.
Noise Processes in Discrete Communication Systems
Authors: Berber Stevan
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on noise processes in discrete communication systems. The problem with white Gaussian noise process discretization is that a strict definition implies that the noise has theoretically infinite power. Thus, it would be impossible to generate discrete noise, because the sampling theorem requires that the sampled signal must be physically realizable, that is, the sampled noise needs to have a finite power. To overcome this problem, noise entropy is defined as an additional measure of noise properties, and a truncated Gaussian probability density function is used. Adding entropy and truncated density to the definition of the noise autocorrelation and power spectral density functions allows mathematical modelling of the discrete noise source for both baseband and bandpass noise generators and regenerators. Noise theory and noise generators are essential for a theoretical explanation of the operation of digital and discrete communications systems and their design, simulation, emulation, and testing.
Information Theory and Channel Coding
Authors: Berber Stevan
Published: September 2021

Chapter 9 presents the fundamentals of information theory and coding, which are required for understanding of the information measure, entropy and limits in signal transmission including the definition and derivative of the communication channel capacity. The coding theorem is separtelly presented. The chapter contains a part that defines the entropy of continuous and discrete Gaussian and uniform stochastic processes. The results of this unique analysis is essential to understand the notion of the continuous and discrete white Gaussian noise process. The block and convolutional codes, including hard decision Viterbi algorihthm are presented. The theory of iterative and turbo coding is presented in a form of a Project in the supplementary material, where several topics are defined and the related solutions are offered.
Continuous-Time Stochastic Processes
Authors: Berber Stevan
Published: September 2021

Chapter 19 contains the theory of continuous-time stochastic processes, including their mathematical presentation in the time and frequency domains. The typical processes, including Gaussian, white noise, binary, and harmonic processes, are presented. A comprehensive analysis of stationary and ergodic processes and linear-time-invariant systems with stochastic inputs is presented. The processes are analysed in terms of their autocorrelation functions and power spectral densities, which are related via the Wiener–Khintchine theorem. This chapter is important for understanding the theory of digital communication systems. The notation used in this chapter complies with the notation used in other chapters of the book, which makes the book self-sufficient. For readers who are not familiar with continuous-time stochastic processes, it is highly advisable to read this chapter and become familiar with its notation, due to its importance for understanding the content of Chapters 3 to 9.
Gradability and modality
Authors: Hohaus Vera
Published: September 2021

This chapter investigates the relationship between gradability and modality in a case study from Samoan (Austronesian, Oceanic; ISO 639-3: smo). It develops a compositionally transparent semantic analysis of the SILI (ONA) construction that is used both for weak priority modality and for the superlative. The chapter argues against a quantificational-modal and in favor of a degree-based analysis of the construction that relies on an underspecified and type-polymorphic measure of VALUE. Under such an analysis, several other core properties of the construction then fall out from general properties of the grammar of gradable predicates in Samoan, notably the pragmatic strengthening of the positive form to a superlative interpretation if contextually licensed.
Preverbal subjects and preverbal particles
Authors: Pearce Elizabeth
Published: September 2021

Basic sentences in Maōri have VSO constituent ordering, but the nominative argument can precede the verb in constructions that have sentence-initial Topics, Focused constituents, or negatives. In the constructions with pre-verbal nominatives there are restrictions on the tense-denoting particles that may be present. This chapter proposes that, except in the case of subject Topics, when a nominative expression precedes the verb of which it is an argument, it has raised to Spec, Fin/T within a CP domain where it is c-commanded by higher Tense. The structural analysis is developed in the terms of a cartographic approach, drawing in particular on proposals of Belletti (2015) as to reduced forms of cleft CPs and separating out distinctions in the locations of splits and hybrids involving Force and Finiteness in the left periphery.
Life on the margins
Authors: Grene Nicholas
Published: September 2021

The Congested Districts Board was set up in 1891 to ameliorate the living conditions of some of the poorest people in Ireland living on the western seaboard. A remarkable number of writers emerged from these areas to create first-hand accounts of life on the margins. The fiction of Patrick McGill, Seamus Ó Grianna, and Peadar O’Donnell graphically evokes the politics of poverty in Donegal. The romantic image of the Aran Islands, cultivated by Synge, is somewhat surprisingly echoed by the Irish language poet Máirtín Ó Direáin and the fiction writer Liam O’Flaherty, both of whom came from Aran. The life of fishing and farming just above subsistence level is graphically evoked in the Blasket Island autobiographers, Tomás O’Crohan, Maurice O’Sullivan, and Peig Sayers.
Seamus Heaney
Authors: Grene Nicholas
Published: September 2021

Heaney left home for boarding-school at the age of twelve and was never to live again full-time on a farm, yet memories of his childhood experience in Mossbawn were to animate the poetry for the rest of his career. In the early poems of Death of a Naturalist, images of land and home grounded the poems in a resonant textured reality. From Wintering Out on, the exploration of language allowed him to drill down into historical formations figured in his local terrain, and to release a free play of meaning around places and things. A different imagination of landscape was required in the time of political violence from 1969, including the sombre elegies of Field Work. Seeing Things brought a new visionary dimension to his work, in which the figures and images of a long-gone past were re-created as a luminous recovered presence.
The Worldhood of Ethics
Authors: Swanton Christine
Published: September 2021

This chapter discusses the question what is the nature of the distinctively ethical mode of access to entities such that they have ethical being and there are ethical facts. In answering this question the chapter discusses the basic properties of ethical facts, the domain of the ethical, the nature of the ethical logos in relation to ethical orientation, the nature of reasons and relations of fittingness, the point and function of the thick evaluative concepts, and their relation to virtue and vice concepts. In the course of the latter discussion we show how the view proposed is naturalistic without being scientistic.
Thick Concept Centralism and Objectivity
Authors: Swanton Christine
Published: September 2021

This chapter defends the objectivity of ethics against Bernard Williams’ claim to the contrary. According to Williams, understandings of ethics through the thick concepts (such as patience, humility, justice) are relative to “insider perspectives.” A form of relativism threatens. This defence is illustrated by an interpretation of Nietzsche who transcends the insider perspective in his attack on “slave morality.” On the interpretation offered, Nietzsche can be read as an objectivist (suitably understood) about virtue and vice. Much vice in particular is, for example, expressive of resentment, psychoanalytically understood; is reactive and weak and in the service of a morality that is altruistic in a highly problematic sense. My interpretation of Nietzsche, I argue, has implications for the Williams’ critique. It allows for a way of transcending the “insider perspective” by appeal to the human sciences, an appeal that Nietzsche’s own form of naturalism in ethics itself makes.
The Place of Expert Intuition in Philosophy
Authors: Chudnoff Elijah
Published: September 2021

The Standard Picture of philosophical methodology includes the following claims: (A) Intuitive judgments form an epistemically distinctive kind; (B) Intuitive judgments play an epistemically privileged role in philosophical methodology; (C) If intuitive judgments play an epistemically privileged role in philosophical methodology, then their role is to be taken as given inputs into generally accepted forms of reasoning; (D) Philosophical methodology is reasonable. Negative experimental philosophers accept claims (A), (B), and (C), but challenge (D). This chapter develops a variant on the expertise defense of traditional philosophy. The defense hinges on denying (C) in the Standard Picture: philosophers do not treat their intuitions as data; they treat their intuitions as observations that can be improved through reasoning. The chapter explores both historical antecedents in the rationalist tradition, and descriptive accuracy with respect to current practice.
Economization of the Law Applicable to Fresh Water
Authors: Boisson de Chazournes Laurence
Published: September 2021

Economic activities have long been associated with fresh water and legal rules have been developed to govern the use and exploitation of water as a potential source of profit in this context. The various economic utilizations of water range from navigation, irrigation, the generation of hydroelectric power, and its supply for industrial and domestic use. It is notable that the economic uses of water have evolved over time. A particular focus is placed on the contemporary regimes of international trade and investment law as they relate to fresh water in this chapter. Moreover, consideration is given to the international law relating to international transfers of bulk water, as well as the emerging practice of virtual water transfers.
Environmentalization of the Law Applicable to Fresh Water
Authors: Boisson de Chazournes Laurence
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines how international environmental law contributes to the protection and effective management of fresh water. There has been, over time, a growing awareness of the linkages between water and the environment. Principles and norms of international environmental law have emerged and are incorporated in many treaties dealing with transboundary water resources. Moreover, a number of multilateral environmental agreements are concerned with the protection of these water resources and their institutional mechanisms assist with implementation. International environmental law instruments and those instruments dealing with fresh water complement each other in enhancing the protection and management of fresh water overall.
Institutionalization Trends in Fresh Water Governance
Authors: Boisson de Chazournes Laurence
Published: September 2021

Institutions of a varied nature and with diverse mandates are involved with the protection and management of fresh water. Indeed, there has been an ever-increasing institutionalization trend in fresh water governance since the nineteenth century. As some of the first international institutions to be established, basin organizations and commissions have helped—and continue to help—strengthen cooperation among riparian countries, as well as to facilitate other concerned actors’ involvement in this endeavour. Since the early 1970s, the mandates of international organizations have increasingly included a variety of issues related to water protection and management. Among these issues is the provision of technical and financial assistance, which now serves as a key governance tool. Moreover, partnerships among various stakeholders have also been established and these are explored in this chapter.
Economic Development, Upgrading, and Coordination
Authors: Garcia Calvo Angela
Published: September 2021

This chapter sets the stage for the remainder of the book by presenting in detail the contours of industrial upgrading in Spain and Korea, the problems with competing explanations, and the alternative explanation adopted in this study. It consists of four sections. The first assesses the change in Spanish and Korean industries by comparing two stylized images: one of Spain and Korea in 1985, at a time when they were starting to upgrade, and another in 2011, when they had already reached advanced country status. The second takes stock of the broader debates on industrial upgrading and economic transformation and their implications for how we understand the transformation of the two countries. The third proposes nonhierarchical coordination as an alternative explanation and discusses how it helps understand the Spanish and Korean cases. The final section concludes by presenting a preview of the rest of the book.
Rethinking Spain and Korea through a State–Firm Coordination Perspective
Authors: Garcia Calvo Angela
Published: September 2021

This chapter retells the story of Spain’s and Korea’s upgrading from the perspective of state–firm coordination. The larger purpose is to showcase the book’s argument and its explanatory power. The chapter consists of six sections. After the chapter’s introduction, section 2.2 situates large Spanish and Korean firms and discusses their limitations. Section 2.3 defines upgrading as a coordination problem and explains why states were necessary for upgrading. Section 2.4 characterizes Spain’s and Korea’s pathways to upgrading and analyzes the factors that led each country to choose a particular strategy. Section 2.5 evaluates the outcomes of upgrading and discusses their broader socioeconomic implications. The final section concludes and makes a transition to the case studies discussed in the next chapters.
A′ constructions
Authors: Culicover Peter W.
Published: September 2021

This chapter applies the theory of the preceding chapters to A’ constructions, such as wh-questions and relative clauses. The main result of this chapter is that there is a range of ways in which the conceptual ‘work’ associated with these constructions can be expressed in the correspondence between syntax, phonology, and meaning. None of them involve ‘movement’ in the classical sense, although some constructional devices do express links between constituents not in canonical position relative to their governing heads, giving the illusion of movement.
Constructional change in Germanic
Authors: Culicover Peter W.
Published: September 2021

This chapter tracks several of the major changes in English and German word order and accounts for them in terms of constructional change as formulated in Chapter 3. It argues that the changes are relatively simple in constructional terms, although the superficial results are quite dramatic. Topics include clause-initial position, V2, VP-initial and VP-final verb position, the loss of V2 and case marking in English, and verb clusters in Continental West Germanic.
Constructional economy and analogy
Authors: Culicover Peter W.
Published: September 2021

This chapter looks more deeply into what constitutes constructional economy, and why it plays a role in shaping the form of grammars. It argues that constructional economy is the consequence of what has been called ‘analogy’ in the traditional linguistics literature. Specifically, the chapter suggests that economy in constructions derives from placing a high value on the use and reuse of the components of the processing routines associated with constructional correspondences. This general approach is used to seek explanations for a range of typological patterns, referred to generally as ‘style’.
Assets and Domestic Units
Authors: Brockington Dan , Coast Ernestina , Mdee Anna , Howland Olivia , Randall Sara
Published: September 2021

Tracking change in assets access and ownership in longitudinal research is difficult. Assets are rarely assigned to individuals. Their benefit and management are spread across domestic units which morph over time. And this dynamism means that any claim about changing prosperity must also include other important claims about how prosperity should be measured and the stability of the social units which experience that prosperity. The chapter reviews the challenges of using assets to understand poverty dynamics, and tracking the domestic units that own and manage assets. It argues that changing asset ownership can be tracked, but who owns them and how their benefits are distributed—and how those distributions change—remains key.
Exploring Long-Term Changes in People’s Welfare on the Uporoto Highlands, Mbeya District, Tanzania
Authors: Sokoni Cosmas , Tilumanywa Verdiana
Published: September 2021

Changes to villages near to Mbeya in the Uporoto Highlands show a mixture of changing fortunes. New cash crops such as potatoes and trees have arrived. But there has been a decline in pyretheum. And some stands of planted trees make neighbouring lots less productive. There have also been restrictions on access to land in state farms and new conservation areas. Herd growth, whilst there are indications of an improved standard of living in some instances, is patchy. Other domestic units are losing capabilities particular as they age. Poorer households have not been able to build assets easily.
Administrative Procedure and Judicial Review: A ‘Common Core’ Research
Authors: Cananea Giacinto della , Andenas Mads
Published: September 2021

This chapter begins by explaining why judicial review of administration is interesting terrain for a comparative analysis, also in the light of European and international principles. It is helpful to bear in mind that, for a long period of time, a strand of thought in public law has contested not just the usefulness, but even the possibility of a meaningful comparison between national systems of judicial review. It is important, however, to take cognisance of two fundamental dimensions of change: one is the increasing specialization of the courts that exercise control over administrative power and the other is the emergence of common principles at European and international level. The chapter then highlights the importance of procedural fairness and propriety, although the legal relevance and significance of these principles will differ depending upon the history of any society and its political choices. It also addresses some methodological issues, including the nature of the 'factual analysis' and the choice of legal systems.
Administrative Procedure and Judicial Review in Belgium
Authors: Renders David , Ceci Luca , Koval Sarah
Published: September 2021

This chapter evaluates administrative procedure and judicial review in Belgium. The Belgian Constitution embodies, in particular, two constitutional provisions for the judicial oversight of unilateral administrative measures. A Council of State was established pursuant to Article 160 of the Constitution. Under the Act adopted on the basis of this provision, the Council of State is responsible for judicial review, on condition that such review has not been attributed to another ordinary or administrative court. Moreover, Article 159 requires judges not to apply any unilateral administrative measure that would be unlawful in the context of a dispute that they are called upon to settle. All unilateral administrative provisions, whether regulatory or individual, may be reviewed. A procedural error does not necessarily lead to the censure of the unilateral administrative provision in question. However, the breach of a requirement that the administration has to fulfil leads not only to the censure of the provision but can, as the case may be, give rise to compensation.
Administrative Procedure and Judicial Review in France
Authors: Costa Delphine
Published: September 2021

This chapter describes administrative procedure and judicial review in France. In French public law, no constitutional provision provides for judicial review of administrative measures. Nor is there a convention providing for judicial review of administrative measures. This is only envisaged by the laws and regulations, in particular the Administrative Justice Code and the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration. The administrative courts exercise extensive control over the acts or measures of the public administration, including both individual decisions and regulatory acts, but some are nonetheless beyond judicial review. Where an act or measure is contested on procedural grounds, judicial review takes place only under certain conditions: the procedural defect must have deprived the applicant of a guarantee or it must have influenced the meaning of the decision taken. Two types of judicial remedy exist in administrative law: it is therefore up to the applicant to limit their application before the administrative judge.
Administrative Procedure and Judicial Review in Hungary
Authors: Varga András Zs.
Published: September 2021

This chapter studies administrative procedure and judicial review in Hungary. Section (1) of Article XXVIII of the Basic Law of Hungary (the Constitution of 2011) regulates the right to a fair trial reproducing the text almost word-for-word as found in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Consequently, anyone effected by an administrative measure has the (constitutional) right to judicial review. Section (7) guarantees the right to legal remedy against decisions of the courts, the public administration, or other authorities that infringe their rights or demonstrable interests. The two regulations are effective even separately, but their combined effect is that the judicial review of administrative action is an incontestable constitutional right. Administrative courts decide on the legality of the administrative action from the point of view of substantive and procedural administrative law, the judicial review is regulated by Act I of 2017 on the Code on Judicial Review of Administrative Actions, while a lawsuit for damages is heard by the ordinary court in a civil law procedure regulated by Act CXXX of 2016 of the Code of Civil Judicial Procedures.
Administrative Procedure and Judicial Review in Italy
Authors: Galetta Diana-Urania , Provenzano Paolo
Published: September 2021

This chapter illustrates administrative procedure and judicial review in Italy. According to article 113 of the Italian Constitution, 'the judicial safeguarding of rights and legitimate interests before the organs of ordinary or administrative justice is always permitted towards acts of the public administration'. In Italy, judicial review of administrative action is performed by specific courts: a court of first instance, called Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale (TAR), which is established in every Region, and the Consiglio di Stato (Council of State), which acts as an appeal court. The judicial process before these courts is now regulated by the Code of Administrative Process (CAP). Article 7 CAP provides that the administrative courts have jurisdiction over all acts that the public administrations and legal entities equivalent to them adopt in the exercise of their administrative authority. Since 1889, the Italian system of administrative justice has centred on the provision that administrative acts can be annulled by the administrative courts only in cases of 'breach of law', 'misuse or abuses of power', and/or 'lack of competence'.
Administrative Procedure and Judicial Review in Latin America
Authors: Brewer-Carias Allan
Published: September 2021

This chapter explains administrative procedure and judicial review in Latin America. Judicial review of administrative action has been constitutionalised in many Latin American countries, like Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, and has been the object of special laws regulating the jurisdiction. According to the Constitutions and to the laws regulating the contentious administrative jurisdiction in Latin America, all administrative provisions are subjected to judicial review as it is not possible for any administrative act to escape judicial control. Therefore, the principle applicable is the universal character of the judicial oversight of constitutionality and unlawfulness regarding regulations and administrative acts, which is exercised by the Courts without exception. In almost all Latin American countries, the rules of administrative procedure are regulated through special Administrative Procedure Lasw (APLs), which began to be sanctioned in 1972 (Argentina). In all cases where the courts find that a challenged administrative act infringes the fundamental rights of an individual or corporation, or does not meet the fundamental standards of administrative propriety and fairness, the courts of the contentious administrative jurisdiction in all Latin American countries have the power not only to annul the challenged act but, depending on the nature of the claim filed by the plaintiff, the courts can also award damages for the administrative action.
Administrative Procedure and Judicial Review in Lithuania
Authors: Andrijauskaitė Agnė
Published: September 2021

This chapter reviews administrative procedure and judicial review in Lithuania. The introduction of administrative justice into the Lithuanian legal system happened against the backdrop of Lithuania's 'unflinching' desire to join the European Union and was meant to strengthen the protection of individual rights and administrative accountability. Two cornerstone acts in this regard, the Law on Public Administration and the Law on Administrative Proceedings (APA), were adopted in 1999. Administrative courts were also established in the same year. Article 3 (1) APA spells out the general rule that administrative courts settle disputes arising in the domain of the public administration. All the acts and measures excluded from the competence of administrative courts are listed in Article 18 APA, which establishes the so-called negative competence of administrative courts. Meanwhile, Article 91 (1) (3) APA provides that the impugned administrative decision may be quashed if 'essential procedural rules intended to ensure objective and reasonable adoption of an administrative decision were breached'.
Administrative Procedure and Judicial Review in Ukraine
Authors: Dovhan Halyna
Published: September 2021

This chapter evaluates administrative procedure and judicial review in Ukraine. The Constitution of Ukraine provides that 'Administrative courts function in order to protect the rights, freedoms, and interests of a person in the sphere of public relations'. According to the Code of Administrative Proceedings (CAP), all persons have the right to bring a case before the administrative court if they consider that their rights, freedoms, or legal interests have been infringed by the decision, action, or inaction of the empowered authority. While the Constitution states that the jurisdiction of courts covers any legal dispute, the CAP entrusts administrative courts with jurisdiction over all public-law disputes. Absent a law on administrative procedure or administrative acts, in such cases the courts use the provisions of the special law that regulates the concrete sphere. They examine the administrative act or measure from the viewpoint of its conformity with the criteria set forth in the CAP. If the court finds that there has been a breach of fundamental standards of administrative propriety and fairness, it is entitled to quash the contested act or measure and also to award damages.
European Union Member States and Other European Countries
Authors: Ziller Jacques
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on the relevance of a distinction between European Union (EU) Member States on the one hand and non-EU member states on the other when trying to identify the common core of the law regarding judicial review of administrations in Europe. It begins by looking at how EU membership impacts on the issues of substance and process in the Member States' laws of judicial review of administration. The chapter then considers how the differences and similarities between EU Member States can be interpreted. It also studies the cases of Switzerland and Ukraine in greater detail. There is very little commonality between Ukraine and Switzerland, apart from the fact that both countries are Members of the Council of Europe (CoE) and thus parties to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and that they are not members of the EU, which might be an especially good reason to compare them.
Administrative Law and the Chinese Legal System: Some Issues on Judicial Review of Administration Activity
Authors: Pappano Danilo
Published: September 2021

This chapter explains how, in the current phase of development in the Chinese legal system, administrative law has emerged. China is undergoing a process of subjecting power to the rules which, for administrative law, concern the relationship between state and citizen, and more generally that between state and society. The current evolution is particularly rapid and favoured by changes to the economic structure in recent years, and this explains the fact that administrative law in China is on the eve of great expansion. The chapter examines some theoretical issues relating to judicial review of the exercise of administrative activity, an area which has seen the manifestation of the process of legalization of administrative power, as has happened in Western legal systems. Over the last few years, the development and interpretation of the instruments available has progressed while the availability of instruments has tended to broaden, even if currently legal protection is still in its early stages. However, all this will naturally require a long period of settling, as in Western countries; hence the evident need for gradual change as the fruit of a realistic approach.
Greece: From Coalitions as a ‘State of Exception’ to the New Normal?
Authors: Tsakatika Myrto
Published: September 2021

Coalition government has been exceptional in Greece since the consolidation of democracy in 1974 but in the aftermath of the global financial crisis its occurrence has become more frequent. Most Greek government coalitions are surplus connected coalitions assembled to address an economic or national crisis and do not involve formal coalition agreements. Their formation takes place after a brief bargaining phase strictly circumscribed by precise constitutional rules under the aegis of the president of the republic. Greek coalitions are governed primarily by ad hoc fora of party leaders that make key decisions and resolve inter-coalitional conflict. The prime minister and key ministers dominate policy arguments, albeit taking into account the wishes of party leaders. The termination of coalitions is by and large due to party leaders’ strategic considerations, though the importance of policy disagreement among the partners is becoming a more significant consideration. While the post-crisis overhaul of the Greek party system has not greatly affected the main characteristics of the coalition life cycle, there is evidence that greater experience with coalition government may be leading to some tentative institutionalization of power-sharing practices and greater acceptance of such practices among political elites.
Ireland: Coalition Politics in a Fragmenting Party System
Authors: Mitchell Paul
Published: September 2021

Ireland is a parliamentary democracy created as a result of a revolutionary secession from the United Kingdom. While Ireland has many institutional and administrative features that are quite similar to the Westminster model, there are also some important departures, most notably the adoption of limited government via a written constitution, and the adoption of PR-STV which has facilitated the formation of coalition governments. For most of the twentieth century (up until 1989 at least) a Fianna Fáil single-party government was the default outcome of the government-formation process, though many of these cabinets were ‘large’ minority administrations. The only method of ejecting Fianna Fáil was for the second- and third-largest parties (Fine Gael and Labour) to form a coalition government, which they did on a number of occasions. The bargaining environment permanently changed in 1989 when Fianna Fáil broke the habit of a lifetime and entered its first coalition with the Progressive Democrats. Since then almost all governments have been coalitions. This chapter examines the life cycle of coalition government in Ireland: formation, governance, and dissolution. Coalition agreements have evolved over the decades and have become much more important, detailed, and hence more lengthy. The coalition programme plays a key role in the work of the cabinet and the relations between the parties. The increasingly detailed coalition agreements are a very important commitment device during the life cycle of coalition governments. The increasing fragmentation of the party system has meant that coalition formation bargaining has become more challenging.
Croatia: Strong Prime Ministers and Weak Coalitions
Authors: Čakar Dario Nikic
Published: September 2021

Since regaining its independence in 1991, Croatia experienced major transformation of constitutional and political system in 2000, when illiberal semi-presidential rule was replaced with functional parliamentary democracy. These changes also established a new pattern of executive politics, with coalition governments as a norm. Furthermore, in the post-2000 period the prime ministerial government was established as the dominant governance model, with prime ministers taking over the leading role in coalition politics. Building on this notion, this chapter identifies several major features of coalition governance in Croatia: very general and rather brief coalition agreements without written rules on cabinet decision-making and on how to resolve internal conflicts; an informal and personalized way of handling conflicts between coalition parties; the dominant position of the prime minister and limited ministerial autonomy; and the policy and personnel conflicts between coalition parties as the main reason for cabinet termination. Thus, similarly to some other countries in Central Eastern Europe region, all three stages of coalition governance in Croatia are heavily dominated by top party leaders and particularly prime ministers, thus creating the patterns of informal and personalized coalition decision-making. The prime ministerial dominance is reflected in weak coalition arrangements, with very limited coordination established between coalition parties and the lack of broader conflict resolution mechanisms, which makes coalition cabinets especially fragile and unstable, particularly when challenged by the inclusion of new parties in government.
Introduction: Centering Intersectionality
Authors: Bond Johanna
Published: September 2021

Intersectionality theory posits that aspects of identity, such as race and gender, are mutually constitutive and intersect to create unique experiences of discrimination and subordination. Perpetrators of sexual violence in armed conflict, for example, often target women on the basis of both gender and ethnicity. When human rights actors intervene on behalf of those harmed by sexual violence in armed conflict, they must understand the intersectional complexity of those violations. Global Intersectionality and Contemporary Human Rights examines the influence of intersectionality theory on human rights law in the modern era and its evolution as a theoretical framework in the United States and around the world. This volume draws on feminist theory, critical race theory, and human rights jurisprudence to argue that scholars and activists have underutilized intersectionality theory in the global discourse of human rights. This chapter introduces readers to the book’s argument that the United Nations and other human rights organizations must do more to actively embrace intersectionality as an analytical framework for the promotion of human rights around the world.
Evolution of Intersectionality in the UN Treaty Bodies
Authors: Bond Johanna
Published: September 2021

This chapter details the increasing attention to intersectionality theory within the work of the UN human rights treaty bodies, committees of experts who oversee implementation of the human rights treaties. Although scholars and activists have explored and advocated for intersectionality theory in the international human rights context for almost twenty years, the UN has been slow to incorporate and make use of intersectionality’s insights. Since approximately 2000, UN treaty bodies have cautiously begun to explore intersectionality as a theoretical framework for examining rights violations. The results of this trend are encouraging. When the treaty bodies embrace intersectionality, they are better able to reflect and remedy the complexity of human rights violations. Remedies focused only on one axis of discrimination, in contrast, provide only limited relief for victims and stymie a full and nuanced understanding of the violations at issue.
Intersectionality and Human Rights within Regional Human Rights Systems
Authors: Bond Johanna
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores the ways in which regional human rights systems, which operate alongside the UN human rights system, have increasingly embraced intersectionality in their analysis of complex human rights violations. After a review of each system’s basic structure and primary human rights treaties, the chapter briefly examines the ways in which the treaty language itself includes, or does not include, intersectional principles. The chapter then reviews the “soft law” related to intersectionality within each regional system: the non-binding law or policy reflected in regional recommendations, guidelines, or programs. Although it is impossible to comprehensively cover the regional human rights jurisprudence given the scope of the chapter, each section offers a generalized overview of the regional system’s approach to intersectionality in its non-discrimination jurisprudence. Finally, each section provides an example of intersectional discrimination and a more detailed description of how the relevant judicial bodies have approached intersectionality. The chapter uses an intersectional lens to explore LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, and intersex) rights in the African region, the rights of poor and Indigenous women to be free from violence in the Americas, and the equality rights of Roma women in the European system.
Intersectionality in Treaty Body Decisions
Authors: Bond Johanna
Published: September 2021

This chapter uses the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as a case study to explore the extent to which the UN treaty bodies have embraced intersectionality in their examination of individual complaints. In many cases, the UN treaty body system allows human rights victims to seek justice for rights violations by submitting a human rights complaint to one of the treaty bodies. The ability to bring a complaint to an international body offers victims a chance at compensation, remedies that may prevent future violations, and an acknowledgment that the state violated their rights. Although the complaint process cannot bring back a family member who was, for example, murdered by representatives of the state, holding the government accountable for its actions can be a powerful remedy for many victims. This chapter probes for evidence of intersectional analysis in one Committee’s consideration of individual complaints. The Committee’s jurisprudence reveals that it is moving toward an intersectional approach, which will enhance available remedies and lead to stronger human rights protection.
Putting Intersectionality to Work: Non-governmental Organizations
Authors: Bond Johanna
Published: September 2021

Just as the UN treaty bodies have been increasingly willing to consider intersectionality in the international human rights context, many nongovernmental organizations have also incorporated an intersectional approach into their human rights advocacy. NGOs enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the treaty bodies, holding the treaty bodies accountable for their human rights work while also accepting guidance from the treaty bodies as to how best to engage with the UN system. This reciprocal dynamic makes NGOs a fruitful source for exploring their potential to advocate for intersectional approaches within the United Nations and for examining ways in which the treaty bodies might also encourage NGOs to use intersectional frameworks in their own advocacy work. The growing acceptance of intersectionality within the United Nations and within the civil society sector is mutually reinforcing and holds the promise of more comprehensive remedies for human rights victims.
Ressentiment
Authors: Reginster Bernard
Published: September 2021

This chapter attempts to circumscribe the character of ressentiment, the affect that plays a prominent role in Nietzsche’s genealogical account of Christian morality. This affect, and the revengefulness that is closely associated with it, is a response to suffering when it is construed as challenging the agent’s standing, understood in a fundamental non-moral sense of having the world reflect her will, or having her presence in the world make a difference in it. Suffering is so construed when it is experienced from the perspective of a special drive, the will to power, or the drive toward bending the world to one’s will. Revenge aims to bolster or restore power when it is threatened, and the adoption of the conceptual apparatus of Christian morality, including its new values, is a particular way to do so: by altering the agent’s will (her values), it alters what counts as power for her.
Asceticism
Authors: Reginster Bernard
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines the idealization of asceticism, itself motivated by an extreme form of ressentiment motivated by the construal of all human suffering as a threat to the agent’s power. I circumscribe the “priestly” (or moral) asceticism that poses problem for Nietzsche and discuss the ways in which it is a paradoxical phenomenon. The ascetic solution to the problem of suffering consists in “interpreting it under the perspective of guilt,” or as punishment. I attempt to determine both the nature of the problem of suffering and how this ascetic strategy is meant to address it. I then describe Nietzsche’s functional critique of this ascetic strategy: it is “ruinous” to the health of the agent. Drawing on his conception of health and sickness, I suggest that, when ascetic morality functions in service to the will to power of the agent, it undermines it. Its functionality is self-undermining.
Random Thoughts
Authors: Elliott Andrew C. A.
Published: September 2021

A discussion of randomness: what it is, and where it comes from. We mention randomness originating from quantum effects, from chaos, and from noise. A distinction is made between epistemic and aleatoric uncertainty. Automatic generation of random numbers is needed in many contexts, an example of which is the device ERNIE used for Premium Bonds. Discussion of the generation and use of pseudo-random numbers.
Isn’t That a Coincidence?
Authors: Elliott Andrew C. A.
Published: September 2021

Coincidences are often so striking that they tempt us into trying to find meaning in what is random. But because any coincidence is only observed after the fact, they are subject to hindsight bias, and are very difficult to properly analyse in a rigorous way. Jung and Koestler embraced the idea of synchronicity, an idea that is now discredited. This chapter presents an approach to analysing coincidences, and concludes with the idea of the law of very large numbers, which says that, given enough opportunities, even the most improbable events will eventually happen.
The Weight of Evidence
Authors: Elliott Andrew C. A.
Published: September 2021

Courts of law must weigh evidence to determine the likelihood of competing interpretations of past events, and different legal contexts require different standards of proof, but this falls short of a quantification of probability. Bayes’s theorem and the associated formula provide a way of combining multiple elements of evidence and using them to refine prior assessments of probability. The prosecutor’s fallacy involves an incorrect reversal of the logic of evidence. The ecological fallacy involves incorrectly attributing proportions derived from large groups to smaller groups or individuals.
The Crisis (Musical Staves)
Authors: Eisner Martin
Published: September 2021

This chapter begins with the musical stages that accompany Dante’s ballata in an early twentieth-century English translation. Although the music is a modern fabrication, it calls attention to the distinctive form of the ballata which Dante considers defective in the De vulgari eloquentia because it requires the kind of musical accompaniment these staves provide. This chapter examines how this formal defect also encodes a thematic problem of relying on Beatrice’s greeting. This chapter shows how Dante deals with this crisis through the praise style expressed in the self-sufficient (not defective) form of the canzone Donne ch’avete intelletto. While the canzone’s significance has been widely recognized, this chapter shows how Dante’s expression of this new idea of love by plotting these different poetic forms draws on the two books he read after Beatrice’s death, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and Cicero’s De amicitia. The final section discusses how several later readers transformed and even erased Dante’s innovative idea of love.
The Interruption (Picture Frame)
Authors: Eisner Martin
Published: September 2021

This chapter uses Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s reframing of his painting The Salutation of Beatrice to consider the significance of Dante’s decision to present Beatrice’s death as an interruption that cuts off his composition of a canzone with the beginning of Jeremiah’s Lamentations. Exploring the adaptations of Dante’s fracture in Barthes, Glück, and Goodman, this chapter highlights Dante’s formal innovation which also interrupts the rhythm of reading that Dante uses the divisions to establish and then upset after Beatrice’s death. The chapter also explores the larger political implications of Dante’s quotation of Lamentations, which were controversially elaborated by Gabriele Rossetti, but anticipate Dante’s bold presentation of Beatrice in Earthly Paradise, where he overcomes his personal mourning by situating Beatrice in a broad political procession of world history.