bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pindar's Eyes
Authors: Fearn David
Published: August 2017

This book assesses the ways in which Pindar, as well as other epinician poets, investigates the theme of aesthetic, and specifically visual, experience in early classical Greece. Major case studies offer complete readings of Pindar’s Nemean 5, Nemean 8, and Pythian 1. These poems reveal Pindar’s deep interest in the relation between lyric poetry and the material and visual world of commemorative and religious sculpture and other significant visual phenomena. The book offers an account of the reception of Pindaric themes in the Aeginetan logoi of Herodotus’ Histories and also offers new insights into Simonides’ own material-cultural interests, a fresh treatment of narrative style and material culture in Bacchylides, and a visual and material-cultural reading of Pindar’s Nemean 10. Pindar uses the concept of vision within his poetry to assess the extent to which either encomiastic poetry or sculpture can achieve its commemorative or religious purposes; this book uses current theoretical methodologies to evaluate how this is done. New claims are made about the nature of classical Greek visuality and ritual subjectivity. Literary studies of Pindar’s evocation of cultural attitudes through elaborate use of the lyric first person are combined with art-historical treatments of ecphrasis, of image and text, and of art’s framing of ritual experience in ancient Greece. Pindar uses a particularly complex and alluring poetic language to create empowering and highly valued paradigms for social, cultural, and religious subjectivity.
Contact
Authors: Fearn David
Published: August 2017

This chapter offers a new reading of Pindar’s Nemean 8. It investigates the ways in which Pindar frames consciousness about art, cult, and the material world with the language and imagery of desire, vision, and physical contact. Discussion is built around the encounter with the Aeginetan cult hero Aiakos, and the potential for interfaces with contemporary art and ritual through contextual allusion to his Aeginetan shrine. This forms the basis for a broader treatment of the poem’s visual and haptic metaphors, and a wider-ranging musing on epinician poetry’s potential to grant special access: to the mythical; to ritual; to heroes; to the deceased and to the past; to context. These findings are then built upon to offer a fresh interpretation of the encounter with the hero Alcmaeon in Pindar’s Pythian 8.
From Latin to Modern French: A punctuated shift
Authors: Troberg Michelle , Burnett Heather
Published: August 2017

This chapter presents data that challenge the prevailing assumption that as Latin evolves into French, it passes gradually from a satellite-framed language to a verb-framed language. In fact, Medieval French presents an unexpected intermediate stage, a grammar that includes a number of satellite-framed constructions that are present neither in Latin nor in Modern French (verb particles, goal-of-motion constructions, complex adjectival resultative constructions). Moreover, there is evidence that these constructions disappear abruptly during the same period. We provide a micro-parametric account for the presence of verb particles and goal-of-motion constructions in Medieval French whereby both are made possible through the presence of a null Path morpheme having the meaning of TO, which arises as early as Late Latin, as the Latin telicizing prefixes become decreasingly salient.
Case in diachrony: Or, why Greek is not English
Authors: Lavidas Nikolaos
Published: August 2017

Greek demonstrates both a change from inner (Aktionsart) into outer (grammatical) aspect as well as a change from demonstratives into definite articles, as does English. Even though aspect and definiteness are connected with Case, we argue that the tendencies in Greek with regard to the Case system differ in several aspects from the development of the Case system in English. We consider changes in the Case system of Greek in relation to syntactic properties of the clause, and in particular the realization of +/-interpretable features in inner and outer aspect. We argue that the change that takes place in the history of Greek involves a transitional stage in Ancient Greek where the relevant features can appear on the Trans[itivity] head (outer aspect) or the (inner) Asp[ect] head. The completion of the change in Post-Koine Greek involves the loss of the interpretable feature on Asp; thus Case remains (uninterpretable) on the higher Trans head.
On the grammaticalization of temporal–aspectual heads: The case of Germanversprechen‘promise’
Authors: Jędrzejowski Łukasz
Published: August 2017

This chapter deals with the origin and the development of the functional use of the predicate versprechen ‘promise’ in the history of German. Synchronically, it illustrates that versprechen can be used in two different ways in Present-Day German: either as a lexical verbal head or as a functional verbal head. It also demonstrates to what extent these uses differ and accounts for where these differences come from. Diachronically, it shows that versprechen grammaticalized into a prospective aspect marker in Early New High German (1350–1650), and illustrates that grammaticalization is upward and leftward in the syntactic structure. Accordingly, it is argued that versprechen as a functional verbal head first started embedding DP complements and, as time went on, extended its usage to select infinitives as well, giving rise to a subject-to-subject raising analysis.
Traces of the Birth of the State of Finland in Jylhä’s Translation of Paradise Lost
Authors: Robertson David
Published: August 2017

This chapter explores the ways in which the social and political conditions prevailing in the two decades after Finland had gained independence from Russia in December 1917 can be traced in Jylhä’s translation of Paradise Lost, Kadotettu paratiisi (1933). Jylhä was too young to participate in the civil war of 1918, but he was caught up in some of the fiercest fighting of the brief conflict. In the 1920s and 1930s many young artists consciously worked to move Finnish culture and politics away from Russian influence, towards Western Europe. Jylhä, a rising poet, was one of the youngest writers of this group, and his translations of European poetry are part of this effort. This chapter traces how lexical choices in his monumental translation of Milton’s epic, especially the War in Heaven, reveal his experience of his social and political milieu.
Either in Prose or Rhyme
Authors: Murgia Mario
Published: August 2017

This chapter explores how the importation of Milton’s Protestant discourse answered Hispano-America’s post-Independence need to disseminate a notion of the modern epic and its libertarian principles. The first Latin American translations of Paradise Lost developed in surprising succession: a verse El Paraíso perdido in 1858 from Mexico, followed by a prose version in 1868 and another verse translation in 1896 from Colombia. The texts and translators’ prefaces of these versions display their clear intentionality and postcolonial stakes. While these translations cooperate to affirm a regional and cultural statement, they are distinctive. Murgia demonstrates the cultural and aesthetic aims of the Mexican translator and his intellectual milieu, as well as the pious objectives of the Colombian translators.
Pre-Eminent among Gentiles
Authors: Reisner Noam
Published: August 2017

This chapter examines the various extant Hebrew translations of Milton’s Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes. Both poems were first translated into elaborate biblical and midrashic Hebrew in the nineteenth century by interested Jewish readers with widely differing religious, spiritual, and literary agendas. As this chapter argues, a close examination of these translations, and their implicit and explicit aims, reveals much about the vexed, fertile relationship between Jewish and Christian consciousness. Even more interestingly, this discussion ultimately sheds fresh and important light on the peculiar Hebraic integrity of Milton’s English verse. This chapter proposes that, when viewed in light of these translations, many previous questions raised with respect to Milton’s putative anti-Semitism and his ambivalent Hebraism may be rethought and readdressed from the outside in, as it were, with startling results.
Milton in China ‘Yet Once More’
Authors: Yan Bing
Published: August 2017

This chapter overviews Chinese reception of Milton, with an emphasis on some of the most well-known Chinese translations of Paradise Lost. Close readings of these translations against Milton’s original demonstrate the difficulties of and resolutions for rendering Milton’s verse specific to Chinese. The subsequent discussion of the paratexts accompanying Chinese translations and of ‘introduction to world literature’ series gives a sense of the collaborative context that has shaped and continues to shape today’s general reception of Milton in China. That politically charged reception, eager to view Milton’s Satan as the embodiment of the poet’s revolutionary spirit, also dominates some recent works of Chinese literary criticism. The chapter ends by conceding that, while Milton scholarship in China has been relatively univocal and is still young, recent developments in world literature promise that innovative and intriguing work on Milton can be expected from China in the near future.
Translating Milton’s Poetry into Japanese with a Case Study of Samson Agonistes
Authors: Sano Hiroko
Published: August 2017

This chapter examines translation theory and practice in the context of the specific linguistic and cultural challenges that arise when translating Milton’s poetry into accessible Japanese. Milton has been known in Japan as being as important as Shakespeare, but his works have a limited readership while Shakespeare has had a strong presence. Elements that account for Milton’s reception are Milton scholarship in Japan, characteristics of the Japanese language, the archaic sound of Milton’s grand English style especially given Japanese translational choices, and a Christianity articulated too immediately and profoundly for a culture in which Christian training and history are almost absent. This chapter then provides a personal account and the theoretical underpinnings of Sano’s recent Japanese translation of Samson Agonistes and her participation in a well-received production in 2012 of poet Takahashi’s adaptation of Milton’s tragedy in the Noh style.
Phenomena and devices at the quantum scale and the mesoscale
Authors: Tiwari Sandip
Published: August 2017

Unique nanoscale phenomena arise in quantum and mesoscale properties and there are additional intriguing twists from effects that are classical in origin. In this chapter, these are brought forth through an exploration of quantum computation with the important notions of superposition, entanglement, non-locality, cryptography and secure communication. The quantum mesoscale and implications of nonlocality of potential are discussed through Aharonov-Bohm effect, the quantum Hall effect in its various forms including spin, and these are unified through a topological discussion. Single electron effect as a classical phenomenon with Coulomb blockade including in multiple dot systems where charge stability diagrams may be drawn as phase diagram is discussed, and is also extended to explore the even-odd and Kondo consequences for quantum-dot transport. This brings up the self-energy discussion important to nanoscale device understanding.
Introduction to quantum information
Authors: Barnett Stephen M.
Published: August 2017

This chapter gives a short introduction to the field of quantum information. Although the chapter is self-contained, it cannot hope to cover the totality of what is now a large and active field of research. Rather, the aim is to give a taster of the subject to whet the appetite of the reader. More complete introductions may be found in any of a now large collection of books and review papers devoted to the topic.
Introduction to near-field optics and plasmonics
Authors: Greffet Jean-Jacques
Published: August 2017

A striking difference between near-field optics and far-field optics is the possibility of breaking the so-called diffraction limit, namely of confining light to subwavelength spots. The first section of this chapter introduces the concept of evanescent waves to discuss the subwavelength confinement of light. One of the key ideas put forward is that the presence of charges is required to generate highly localized fields. It is thus necessary to have a tool to compute fields in the presence of these charges. With this aim, the concept of the Green tensor is introduced in the second section. This is a powerful tool for computing electromagnetic fields in inhomogeneous environments. It is also a key quantity for discussing the local density of states and therefore controlling spontaneous emission. The final section is devoted to an introduction to surface plasmons, which are very useful for manipulating electromagnetic fields at the nanoscale.
Transformation optics
Authors: Leonhardt Ulf
Published: August 2017

Transformation optics applies ideas from Einstein’s general theory of relativity to optical and electrical engineering with the aim of designing devices that can do the (almost) impossible: invisibility cloaking, perfect imaging, levitation, and the creation of analogues of the event horizon. This chapter gives an introduction to this field requiring minimal prerequisites.
Temporal and spectral properties of quantum light
Authors: Stiller Birgit , Seyfarth Ulrich , Leuchs Gerd
Published: August 2017

This chapter starts from the classical optics description of a light field and its spectral densities, their measurement, and their interpretation, and discusses how these aspects are related to the quantum properties of a single light mode. It reviews ways to measure these quantum properties. Emphasis is placed on Gaussian states of a light mode, i.e. states for which the Wigner function has a two-dimensional Gaussian shape. The discussion continues with a description of more than one mode, and a unifying approach to quadratic Hamiltonians is presented, including phase conjugation, which is related to time reversal.
Quantum optics with nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond
Authors: Chu Yiwen , Lukin Mikhail D.
Published: August 2017

A common theme in the implementation of quantum technologies involves addressing the seemingly contradictory needs for controllability and isolation from external effects. Undesirable effects of the environment must be minimized, while at the same time techniques and tools must be developed that enable interaction with the system in a controllable and well-defined manner. This chapter addresses several aspects of this theme with regard to a particularly promising candidate for developing applications in both metrology and quantum information, namely the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre in diamond. The chapter describes how the quantum states of NV centres can be manipulated, probed, and efficiently coupled with optical photons. It also discusses ways of tackling the challenges of controlling the optical properties of these emitters inside a complex solid state environment.
Single-molecule spectroscopy
Authors: Orrit Michel
Published: August 2017

This chapter gives an overview of the main optical methods used to detect and study single molecules and other small objects (nano-objects). Much of the work so far has exploited the excellent sensitivity and selectivity of fluorescence, but several new techniques, mostly based on nonlinear optics, have recently reached the single-molecule or single-nanoparticle regime. The chapter briefly discusses some results with reference to published reviews. Single-molecule techniques have now been incorporated into the arsenal of the physico-chemist and the cell biologist. However, the recent development of super-resolution techniques and of new labels suggests that further progress can be expected from measurements on single nano-objects in the next few years.
Microcavities
Authors: Kavokin Alexey V. , Baumberg Jeremy J. , Malpuech Guillaume , Laussy Fabrice P.
Published: August 2017

Both rich fundamental physics of microcavities and their intriguing potential applications are addressed in this book, oriented to undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as to physicists and engineers. We describe the essential steps of development of the physics of microcavities in their chronological order. We show how different types of structures combining optical and electronic confinement have come into play and were used to realize first weak and later strong light–matter coupling regimes. We discuss photonic crystals, microspheres, pillars and other types of artificial optical cavities with embedded semiconductor quantum wells, wires and dots. We present the most striking experimental findings of the recent two decades in the optics of semiconductor quantum structures. We address the fundamental physics and applications of superposition light-matter quasiparticles: exciton-polaritons and describe the most essential phenomena of modern Polaritonics: Physics of the Liquid Light. The book is intended as a working manual for advanced or graduate students and new researchers in the field.
Strong Coupling: Polariton Bose Condensation
Authors: Kavokin Alexey V. , Baumberg Jeremy J. , Malpuech Guillaume , Laussy Fabrice P.
Published: August 2017

In this Chapter we address the physics of Bose-Einstein condensation and its implications to a driven-dissipative system such as the polariton laser. We discuss the dynamics of exciton-polaritons non-resonantly pumped within a microcavity in the strong coupling regime. It is shown how the stimulated scattering of exciton-polaritons leads to formation of bosonic condensates that may be stable at elevated temperatures, including room temperature.
Quantum Fluids of Light
Authors: Kavokin Alexey V. , Baumberg Jeremy J. , Malpuech Guillaume , Laussy Fabrice P.
Published: August 2017

In this chapter, we deal with polaritons as a “quantum fluid of light”, described by variants of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. We discuss how interactions between flowing polaritons and a defect allow to study their superfluid regime and generate topological defects. Including spin gives rise to an effective magnetic field (polariton spin-orbit coupling) that acts on the topological defects—half-solitons and half-vortices—behaving as effective magnetic monopoles. We describe various techniques to create periodic potentials, that can lead to the formation of polaritonic bands and gaps with a unique flexibility. Special focus is given to topologically nontrivial bands, leading to a polariton topological insulator, based on a polariton graphene analog.
Employment Services
Authors: Greer Ian , Breidahl Karen , Knuth Matthias , Larsen Flemming
Published: August 2017

Denmark, Germany, and Britain have marketized their employment services in different ways. This chapter introduces the tasks involved in moving jobless people into, or closer to, paid work (assessment, advice, training, job placement, and the organization of make-work schemes). In Denmark New Public Management and municipalization trends have combined to produce dramatic fluctuations in the volume of work and the rules of the market; marketization has proceeded in three waves since 2005. In Germany, there are diverse market segments reflecting the persistence of three different transaction modes in the wake of the Hartz reforms; marketization was implemented in 2002–5. In Britain, a series of privatization experiments led to the creation of a highly concentrated, centralized, and uncompetitive market, with several multinational firms managing the bulk of the market as Work Programme prime contractors; this market structure was created in 2008–11.
Marketization and Transaction Modes
Authors: Greer Ian , Breidahl Karen , Knuth Matthias , Larsen Flemming
Published: August 2017

Marketization in this book is conceptualized in terms of the features of transactions that produce competition between providers. The organization of competition between providers is an important feature of policymaking because it affects the way that public policy is articulated in front-line public services. This chapter distinguishes among three transaction modes under which marketization proceeds along very different lines: grants (which are prior to marketization), purchasing (which is the subject of public procurement law), and vouchers (which rely on customer choice of clients). The chapter then analyzes these in terms of four features of the transaction that determine the intensity of competition between providers: the price mechanism, openness, prescription, and frequency.
Governance Implications
Authors: Greer Ian , Breidahl Karen , Knuth Matthias , Larsen Flemming
Published: August 2017

Marketization creates four dilemmas that lead to change in governance. (1) Cost versus quality: squeezing prices siphons resources out of services that could be used to employ qualified workers on the front line, and the prescription of services that price-based competition requires drains the capacity of providers to innovate. (2) Payment by results versus equal access to services: while payment by results is consistent with the ethos of market governance it bears the risk of “creaming and parking.” (3) User choice versus user compulsion: NPM principles of consumerism are difficult to reconcile with the principles of compulsion built into the work-first welfare state. (4) Openness/transparency and transaction costs: openness, transparency, and equal treatment require costly administrative capacity. Insourcing provides one solution by taking services out of the market, but it is not a panacea.
Conclusion
Authors: Greer Ian , Breidahl Karen , Knuth Matthias , Larsen Flemming
Published: August 2017

The failures of the work-first welfare state are in large part the failures of marketization. This book has discussed the specific practices of market making at the level of the transaction and their consequences for managers and front-line workers and for governance overall in the three countries. But it leaves additional questions about the effects of marketization—as we define it—on the performance of services, the effects of choices related to the four dilemmas, the international spread of marketization, resistance to marketization, the relationship between austerity and marketization, the incremental reversal of marketization, and the insourcing phenomenon. We conclude with broader lessons beyond employment services and reflections on the future of marketization.
What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

This chapter consists of a brief intellectual history setting the context for the following chapters. It describes the author’s journey from traditional public administration to policy networks to governance and the development of the author’s career as political scientist. Along the way there were various diversions and the author briefly describes his work on the ESRC’s Whitehall Programme, comparative government, and the study of the British executive. The chapter concludes that the discipline of public administration has survived and even thrived because some of its leading players mastered the ‘trick’ of linking policy to academic theory. We may specialize in central–local relationships, public service delivery, or other topics of the day, but we must link such topics to broader agendas in the social and human sciences. Otherwise we become either mere technicians or loyal servants of power or, of course, both.
Policy Networks in Britain
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

In an assessment of the distinctive British contribution to the study of policy networks, the chapter reviews, first, the micro-level of analysis: group dynamics, and social network analysis. Second, it examines the meso-level of analysis: interorganizational analysis, subgovernments, and intergovernmental relations. Third, it looks at the macro-level of analysis: political economy, and neo-pluralism. It assesses the British contributions looking at the Rhodes model, the ESRC’s government–industry relations initiative. The chapter suggests that we disaggregate and explore subsectoral variations, extend the analysis to the EU, and provide more case studies of networks ‘in action’. The article was written in 1990. The Afterword reflects on the success of the concept, which has become the standard fare of textbooks.
Policy Networks and Policy-making in the European Union
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

Policy networks travel well and help us to understand EU policy-making. The chapter reviews the literature up to 1996 and identifies the main objections to using the concept to study the EU: explanation, level of analysis, institutions, boundaries, and policy. The chapter discusses the limits to policy networks and the conditions under which they work. The factors sustaining EU policy networks include: the national style of policy-making, degree of resource/power dependence, characteristics of the policy area, stage of the policy process, degree of aggregation, and functional representation. The Afterword assesses the record and concludes that policy networks became part of the conceptual vocabulary of studies of EU policy.
The Hollowing Out of the State
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

The chapter asks if the British state is being hollowed out. It identifies four trends that are redrawing the boundaries of the state: privatization; alternative service delivery systems; the impact of the EU; and the new public management. The resulting problems include: fragmentation; accountability; catastrophe; central capability. It discusses the case for a return to bureaucracy. The Afterword shows the trends in public spending and public employment, the emergence of the ‘franchise state’, and austerity narrative mean that the pressures redrawing the boundaries of the state persist. Over the past twenty years the state has been rolled back to create the minimalist state and rolled out to extend its influence by outsourcing and incorporating others in public governance. The original version of hollowing out did not allow for both these trends
The New Governance
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

The chapter reviews the several definitions of governance: the minimal state; corporate governance; the new public management, ‘good’ governance; a socio-cybernetic system. It then stipulates a definition of governance as self-organizing, inter-organizational networks. It argues there is a trend from government to governance in British government because of the hollowing-out pressures and the tools for intergovernmental management are integral to effective steering. Policy networks are already widespread. This trend is not widely recognized and has important implications not only for the practice of British government but also for democratic accountability. Governance as self-organizing networks is a challenge to governability because the networks can become autonomous and resist central guidance. They are set fair to become the prime example of governing without government.
What Is New about ‘Network Governance’ and Why Does It Matter?
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

This chapter replies to key criticisms about policy networks, the core executive, and governance. On networks, the chapter discusses the context of networks, and the ability of the theory to explain change. On the core executive, it discusses a shift away from a focus on the prime minister to court politics. On governance, the chapter returns to redefining the state, steering networks, metagovernance, and storytelling. It restates the case for the idea of the differentiated polity. This is edifying because it provides a vocabulary for a more accurate description of British government. Finally, the chapter provides a link to Volume II by summarizing the decentred approach to the differentiated polity.
Further on Down the Road, Blurring Genres
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

Chapter 1 is a short biographical exercise describing the author’s journey from policy networks and governance (see Volume I) to the interpretive turn and ethnography. It tells the story of how the author sought to work out the implications of anti-foundational philosophy for the study of politics, especially British government and public administration. It also introduces the notion of blurring genres or drawing on the genres of thought and presentation common in the humanities. The chapter argues, following Richard Rorty, that an interpretive approach grounded in observational fieldwork is about edification—a way of finding new, better, more interesting, fruitful ways of speaking about politics and government (Rorty 1980: 360). The author believes an interpretive approach provides a new and better way of speaking about political science and public administration. The author is also convinced that observation continues to be an underused but vital part of the political scientists’ toolkit.
On Interpretation
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

An interpretive approach to political science provides accounts of actions and practices that are interpretations of interpretations. It is distinctive because of the extent to which it privileges meanings as ways to grasp actions. This chapter develops this argument using the idea of ‘situated agency’. It focuses on eight criticisms of this approach: an interpretive approach is mere common sense; it focuses on beliefs or discourses, not actions or practices; it ignores concepts of social structure; it seeks to understand actions and practices, not explain them; it is concerned exclusively with qualitative techniques of data generation; it must accept actors’ own accounts of their beliefs; is insensitive to the ways in which power constitutes beliefs; and is incapable of producing policy relevant knowledge. It shows that the criticisms rest on misconceptions about an interpretive approach and misplaced beliefs in the false idols of hard data and rigorous methods.
On Ethnography
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

Part II of the book turns to the genres of thought in the humanities and explores their relevance to political science. It asks the simple question ‘what can we learn?’ This chapter provides a basic introduction to ethnography for political scientists. It begins by distinguishing between naturalist and interpretive ethnography and between studying-down and studying-up, providing an example of each. Second, the chapter reviews the shared toolkit, focusing on fieldwork, participant observation, and ethnographic interviewing. Third, and at the heart of the chapter, it surveys the defining debates surrounding ethnographic methods arising from the ‘culture wars’ of the 1980s in cultural anthropology: the problems of representation, generalization, objectivity, explanation, and reflexivity. Finally, the chapter offers some comments on future trends in political ethnography, focusing on, for example, hit-and-run ethnography, and ‘new’ methods for recovering data.
On Being There?
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

What do we learn from observing public elites up close that we would not learn using more conventional methods? This chapter answers the ‘so what’ question, enumerating the benefits of observation and reflecting on lessons learnt about observing, surveying the strengths and weaknesses of the approach and describing the fun of observing elites. The author recounts the surprise findings and explores the mistakes made and problems encountered. Secondary sources are not relied on to identify the problems but mistakes are recounted to give the lessons both immediacy and relevance to the study of government elites. The chapter reflects on the pitfalls of observing politicians and bureaucrats at work, focusing on eight issues: speaking truth to power; secrecy; building and keeping trust; maintaining standards of reliability and validity; listening; going native; generalizing; and telling the tale. It closes with the author’s rules of thumb for observation.
On Local Knowledge
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

This chapter decentres the normative arguments favouring local knowledge suggesting the notion is more elusive than many recognize. It summarizes the mainstream political science and the interpretive views of local knowledge; unpacks the family of ideas that constitute local knowledge; identifies ten family resemblances, suggesting that local knowledge is: situated, embedded, ever-changing, contested, contingent and generative, performative practice, experiential, specialized, and comprised of folk theories that are authentic, natural, and accessible. It distinguishes between recovering local knowledge as advice to decision makers and as inscription. It describes four ways of collecting stories about local knowledge; observation, questionnaire, focus group, and Most Significant Change. Finally it decentres local knowledge, highlighting its complex specificity, contingency, and generative characteristics. Throughout, the chapter plays with such genres of presentation as telling tales from the field and aphorisms in the philosophical style as well as describing the various ways in which others tell their stories.
What is New About the ‘Interpretive Turn’ and Why Does it Matter?
Authors: Rhodes R. A. W.
Published: August 2017

This chapter summarizes what is new or edifying about the interpretive turn, and why this approach matters. It restates the case for drawing on the genres of thought and presentation common in the humanities, making the bold, contentious claim that the interpretive approach encourages creativity because puzzle-solving encourages imagination, even intuition, and a search for new connections. It replies to some of the more common criticisms of the interpretive approach, revisiting the claims that the author caricatures the political science discipline in Britain; accords too much importance to agency and not enough to structure; ignores the dominant political tradition in Britain; and omits institutions. Finally, it looks at the future of interpretivism in political science, focusing on the aesthetics of political science; and the importance of a tradition of scholarship free from the demands of relevance and impact. It argues that empathy, enabling conversations and edification, are equally worthy goals.
Stretching the Limits of Solidarity
Authors: Heuer Jan-Ocko , Mau Steffen
Published: August 2017

Germany had already made major reforms to social policy before the Great Recession. It had moved away from the traditional corporatist breadwinner welfare state model towards greater individual responsibility (private pensions and workfarist reforms, with sharp benefit cuts), and much more extensive support for childcare. Social investment and training measures have been much strengthened. These measures, carried out within a general framework of austerity and retrenchment, had increased employment, although the expansion in work since the early 2000s was mainly in low-skilled precarious jobs. The country weathered the recession successfully. New pressures are from the deepening divisions between those advantaged by the new regime (highly skilled middle-class people in secure jobs) and outsiders in an increasingly dualized labour market. Very high levels of immigration have led to further tensions. Germany has successfully transformed its welfare state, but faces further challenges from the social and political consequences of those reforms.
Where Next for the UK Welfare State?
Authors: Taylor-Gooby Peter , Leruth Benjamin , Chung Heejung
Published: August 2017

The liberal-leaning UK welfare state is contracting due to a sharp austerity programme. It is failing to address the challenges of population ageing and globalized competition. Increasingly provision is divided between maintained benefits for pensioners (rising in real terms) and those for working age people (harshly cut back). This gap has been exploited by the Conservative Party for political advantage, leading to a deepening of social divisions. At the same time concerns about immigration are leading to popular demands for a protectionist stance by government. In the 2016 referendum, these culminated in a vote to leave the EU. Brexit is currently being implemented, with damaging consequences for the UK economy, possibly triggering further EU fragmentation.
France at a Crossroads
Authors: Leruth Benjamin
Published: August 2017

France has established itself as one of the most ‘generous’ welfare states in the world. The Great Recession of 2007–8 confronted French social policy with escalating unemployment and deepening inequalities. Combined with major pension reforms, these led to strong levels of dissatisfaction across the country, exacerbated by tensions over immigration, Euroscepticism, and internal security problems. This chapter examines how these issues developed in political context and uses material from attitude surveys to analyse existing and future challenges for the welfare state in France. It assesses recent reforms: governments of right and left offered contrasting programmes but failed to win public trust. France now stands at a cross-roads, facing a strong presidential challenge from the anti-immigrant, anti-EU right.
Changing Scandinavian Welfare States
Authors: Andersen Jørgen Goul , Schoyen Mi Ah , Hvinden Bjørn
Published: August 2017

The Scandinavian welfare model is characterized by high spending, strong universal public services, high social investment, and relatively high equality in gender roles. The three main Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) have successfully reformed their welfare systems to contain costs and manage population ageing. They have reformed unemployment and disability benefits to increase labour force participation and have cut spending on activation, although it remains relatively high. They have maintained strong employment levels. There are real differences in development pathways: Denmark has experienced the most stringent financial pressures, has cut spending, and moved towards work-first benefits most strongly; oil revenues have sustained the tax base in Norway and permitted the country to make relatively few changes; Sweden has cut the rates of unemployment benefits sharply and moved furthest in expanding the private-market delivery of services. Immigration is a major political challenge in Denmark and is emerging as such in Norway, but not in Sweden.
Liberalism, Social Investment, Protectionism, and Chauvinism
Authors: Taylor-Gooby Peter , Leruth Benjamin , Chung Heejung
Published: August 2017

This concluding chapter summarizes the country chapters, examining pressures on state welfare and the new directions which policy has taken. We then analyse differences and similarities in national policies and discuss the implications for theories of the welfare state. The dominant direction in policy is neo-liberal, leading to austerity and a transfer of responsibility from state to individual, although social investment is also important. Left attempts at fightback against austerity have had little success, but protectionism and chauvinist responses to immigration are emerging as influential. At the national level, we do not anticipate a simple convergence on neo-liberalism or a divergence based on regime type, but expect policy directions to be driven much more by national politics. A crucial issue is how far different countries successfully pursue social investment and neo-Keynesian strategies successfully to integrate the more vulnerable and more dissatisfied groups or instead retreat to protectionism.
The Intellectual Struggle for Florence
Authors: Field Arthur
Published: August 2017

The book is an analysis of the ideology that developed in Florence with the rise of the Medici during the early fifteenth century, a period long recognized as the most formative of the early Renaissance. Instead of simply describing early Renaissance ideas, it attempts to relate them to specific social and political conflicts of the fifteenth century and to the development of the Medici regime. It first shows how, as a party, the Medici came to be viewed as fundamentally different from their opponents (the “oligarchs”). Then it explores the intellectual world of these oligarchs (the “traditional culture”). As political conflicts sharpened, some humanists—Leonardo Bruni and Francesco Filelfo—were closely tied to oligarchy, yet attempted to enrich traditional culture with classical learning. Others, such as Niccolò Niccoli and Poggio, rejected tradition outright and created a new ideology for the Medici. Two elements are striking: the extent to which Niccoli and Poggio were able to turn a Latin or a classical culture into a “popular culture”; and how a culture of the vernacular remained traditional and oligarchic.
Leonardo Bruni and Civic Humanism
Authors: Field Arthur
Published: August 2017

This chapter describes how Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444), early identified as a radical (as he describes himself in an early dialogue), came to endorse many traditional values, while enriching them with elements of classical antiquity. The chapter contains an analysis of civic humanism and attempts to explain why Bruni came to be estranged from all the major Medicean humanists— Niccolò Niccoli, Carlo Marsuppini, Ambrogio Traversari, and finally Poggio. Also examined is the complicated question of Bruni’s relationship with the Medici after the latter came to power in 1434. Against most recent scholarship, it argues that Bruni retained an earlier endorsement of oligarchy and tradition and either opposed the Medici regime (the evidence here is complicated) or went into a state of intellectual isolation.
Niccolò Niccoli, the Man Who Was Nothing
Authors: Field Arthur
Published: August 2017

This chapter examines how Niccolò Niccoli (1364–1437), the humanist closest to Cosimo de’ Medici and hated by many scholars from his time to our own, represented a negation of contemporary culture—a negation not only of traditionalism but of those, such as Leonardo Bruni, who made compromises with it. Included here is a discussion of the origins of the humanist script, humanist orthography, and book hunting. For Niccoli, the intellectual legacy of the late Middle Ages had to be rejected upfront; then a new society could be created on the model of classical antiquity. The chapter argues that Niccoli’s notorious aversion to politics was simply an aversion to oligarchic politics and culture. He was always “political,” as a critic of the oligarchs, and as soon as the Medici took power he was more than happy to take political office.
Introduction
Authors: Ringe Don
Published: August 2017

This introductory chapter explains the rationale of the book and its intended audience. It indicates briefly the author’s positions on the uniformitarian principle, linguistic descent, the regularity of sound change, linguistic reconstruction, and the comparative method. It also outlines the changes made in this new revised edition.
The development of Proto-Germanic
Authors: Ringe Don
Published: August 2017

This chapter discusses the reconstructable linguistic changes that occurred in the development from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic. The first half of the chapter discusses regular sound changes, especially prominent changes including the elimination of laryngeals, Grimm’s Law, Verner’s Law, the remodelling of Sievers’ Law, the loss of intervocalic *j, and several changes of vowels. The second half discusses morphological changes. A long initial section deals with the wholesale morphological restructuring of the verb system, concentrating on preterite-present verbs, strong and weak past tense stems, and participles. Subsequent sections discuss less sweeping changes in the inflection of verbs and nominals.
Proto-Germanic
Authors: Ringe Don
Published: August 2017

This chapter is a grammatical sketch of Proto-Germanic, parallel to the sketch of Proto-Indo-European in Chapter 2. The section on phonology discusses the Verner’s Law alternation; automatic vocalic alternations; and the ablaut system at length. The section on inflectional morphology discusses the classes of strong, weak, preterite-present, and anomalous verbs, as well as the various classes of nominals. Short sections on derivational morphology, syntax, and the lexicon are included; the last concentrates on loanwords in Proto-Germanic.
Institutions and Political Support
Authors: Bowler Shaun
Published: August 2017

This chapter analyzes to what extent variation in political institutions affects political support. The chapter observes that the existing research is not always clear on which institutions should produce what kind of effect, although a general expectation is that institutional arrangements improve political support when they give citizens an increased sense of connection to the political process. In general then, we should expect institutions that strengthen the quality of representation to strengthen political support. This general expectation is specified in six hypotheses that are tested using data from the ESS 2012. The chapter demonstrates that electoral systems that provide voters with more choice about candidates, multiparty governments, and “responsive” legislatures, correlate positively with political support. However, compared to other macro-level factors and individual characteristics, the effects of political institutions on political support are modest. The chapter concludes that the prospects for institutional reform to strengthen political support are limited.
Enactive Intentionality
Authors: Gallagher Shaun
Published: August 2017

This chapter offers an in-depth discussion of the concept of intentionality from neo-behaviorist, neo-pragmatist, and enactivist perspectives. It argues that intentionality need not be conceived in representationalist terms, and that both phenomenology and pragmatism point to a more basic form of non-derived intentionality—the notion of operative intentionality, which is embodied in motoric, action-related processes, and embedded in socially situated behavior. Concepts of intentionality also reflect specific conceptions of social cognition. The enactive, neo-pragmatic, operative concept of intentionality turns out to be the relevant concept needed to support enactivist and extended mind approaches to understanding mind. Operative (embodied, motoric) intentionality is shown to be the real original or non-derived intentionality generated in our interactions with others.
Perception without Inferences
Authors: Gallagher Shaun
Published: August 2017

This chapter examines inference models of perception, including predictive coding models, and offers an enactivist alternative. It explores how the enactivist approach can respond to issues related to cognitive penetration and the effects of culture on perception. The enactivist view appeals to an account of the co-variant coupling of brain–body–environment, structured by the physical aspects of neuronal processes, bodily movements, affects, anatomy and function, and environmental regularities. Changes in any of these factors mean that perception changes. Processes involved in neural plasticity (where the brain is ‘set up to be set off’), and metaplasticity, where material and cultural practices define environmental regularities, mitigate the need to think that subpersonal perceptual processes are inferential.