bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Between Sayyid Qutb and Malek Bennabi
Authors: Ghannouchi Rached , March Andrew F.
Published: August 2023

This essay discusses two very important influences on Ghannouchi’s thought: the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb and the Algerian historian Malek Bennabi. Given the notoriety of Qutb and the question of how Ghannouchi’s thought diverges from other Islamist trends, this is a very important discussion of two influential thinkers. Important themes include the legacy of fourteenth-century North African historian Ibn Khaldun and his influence on Bennabi and the question of what counts as “civilization.” Of particular importance is Bennabi’s rejection of the idea that Islam is synonymous with civilization itself, and his claim that non-Muslim societies can represent advances in civilization not antagonistic to Islam. This essay thus channels two central preoccupations of modern Islamic thought since the nineteenth century: the question of progress and development, on the one hand, and exclusive fidelity to revelation, on the other.
Islam and Citizenship
Authors: Ghannouchi Rached , March Andrew F.
Published: August 2023

This essay expounds an Islamic argument for equal citizenship by moving beyond the classical model of Muslims and dhimmis (non-Muslims). As in many of his later essays, Ghannouchi turns to the Prophet’s covenant of Medina (the Sahifa) as a model for granting equal political membership to non-Muslims while preserving distinct religious communities, arguing that the non-Muslim residents of Medina enjoyed citizenship rights, including the right to protection by the state, in return for fulfilling their obligation to defend the state. In addition to drawing on the tradition of granting non-Muslims protection as members of groups, Ghannouchi seeks to stress a deeper importance that human beings hold in the structure of Islam: that humans of every color, sect, ethnicity, and economic or social status enjoy divine respect and dignity. Importantly, a politics of equal respect and dignity requires not secularism, but rather a grounding in Islamic ethics.
Terms of Exclusion
Authors: Murib Zein
Published: August 2023

Terms of Exclusion uses intersectionality to develop a new theory of political identity construction that directs attention to the effects of within-group marginalization on what comes to be known of identity-based groups and their agendas. Examining social movement activism and interest group advocacy on behalf of LGBT people from 1968 to 2001, this book argues that “rightful citizenship claims”—or the contention that certain lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people are denied rights owed to them as citizens—created the conditions for recognizing White, gender-normative, and monogamously partnered gay men and lesbians in institutions of citizenship, such as marriage and the military. The in-depth historical analysis of social movement and interest group primary source documents and publications reveals that the inclusion of these groups was secured through countless decisions to foreclose representation of interests that are most pressing for those members of the LGBT group who are Black, Latine, Asian, Native, transgender, non-Christian, undocumented, incarcerated, and/or subjected to intensified forms of surveillance. Terms of Exclusion shows that the marginalization of these members is not an accident of political expediency, relatively fewer resources, or lack of political sophistication on the part of those excluded, but the result of discursive strategies to make the group palatable to lawmakers and the general public through the language of rights and citizenship.
Framing Unity
Authors: Murib Zein
Published: August 2023

Chapter 6 examines the period between 1996 and 2001, when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender political actors began to work in concert to develop a unified interest group presence in national politics. Through a detailed exploration of the conflicts that took place over these negotiations regarding what they variously described as coalition formation or identity construction, this chapter traces the ongoing emphasis on rightful citizenship claims from some political actors and the objections raised by those who repeatedly explained that such a political strategy would leave them behind. Over time, this latter group used “queer” to describe not only their sexuality and/or gender identities but also their views on political praxis. This chapter shows how the departure of queer-identified people and proponents of queer politics from the increasingly rights-based mobilizations of LGBT interest groups, such as the Human Rights Campaign, resulted in the construction of two interlinked identity groups and political agendas: LGBT and queer.
Rightful Citizenship Claims, Then and Now
Authors: Murib Zein
Published: August 2023

This chapter presents three case studies that show the persistent exclusionary effects of rightful citizenship claims. The first explores the meanings of Pride flags, specifically the 2017 introduction of black and brown stripes to the rainbow Pride flag to represent the contributions of Black and Brown people to the LGBT movement. The second turns to popular culture and representations of LGBT life in Taylor Swift’s 2019 music video You Need to Calm Down to examine the ways that rightful citizenship logic has infiltrated everyday understandings of political action and who is a member of the LGBT group. The third returns to formal politics and analyzes the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization alongside the corresponding uptick in political attacks against transgender people. The chapter uses these case studies to offer three alternatives to rightful citizenship claims for scholars and practitioners to consider as they develop political agendas.
Environmental Ethics
Authors: Niditch Susan
Published: August 2023

After an overview of contemporary scholarly attention to the Bible and ecology, this chapter provides several case studies from the Hebrew Bible including passages in Jonah, work with imagery of chaos and creation, and attention to motifs of apocalypticism, focusing finally on imagery of plagues. After an analysis of biblical material, the chapter turns to popular culture, exploring the 2002 British horror film “28 Days Later,” its treatment of the plagues motif, and its ecological implications, describing the insights that can be drawn of this sort of comparative work. The chapter concludes by examining the ways in which concerns with environmental ethics have come to inform contemporary Jewish practice, as well as reflections upon and the framing of traditional ritual celebrations.
Emerging Topics
Authors: Choi Thomas Y.
Published: August 2023

To help supply networks be more resilient, the chapter proposes a series of concepts that need to be considered further. The use of incomplete contracts and jury-rigging is brought to the fore. The chapter argues that buyer-supplier relationships may be defined not so much by what exists at the interface between two companies but by the supporting social networks that operate within each of the two companies. The digitization of supply chains and digital supply chains are compared. The chapter proposes the unique characteristics of tetrads that are instrumental in studying supply networks further. Introduced is the concept of supply chain financing to avail liquidity to suppliers and, in particular, to deep-tier suppliers. Discussed is how cybersecurity is a supply chain problem. It is pointed out how a focal company needs to scan across supply networks to find innovation. Moving forward, supply networks need to be modularized to operate more resiliently.
Policy Legacies, Welfare Regimes, and Social Policy Responses to COVID-19 in Europe
Authors: Béland Daniel , Cantillon Bea , Hick Rod , Greve Bent , Moreira Amílcar
Published: August 2023

Much has been written since the publication in 1990 of Esping-Andersen’s The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism on the concept of welfare regime as an analytical tool to study policy stability and change in Europe and beyond. As a concept, welfare regime emphasizes both stability over change and divergence between country clusters over convergence. Studying concrete policy instruments rather than spending patterns and focusing on policies introduced to protect workers against the risk of unemployment and the loss of income, this chapter explores potential patterns of convergence and divergence in the social policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in four distinct welfare regimes: the Bismarckian regime, the Nordic regime, the liberal regime, and the Southern European regime. The main conclusions of our analysis are twofold. First, we show that regardless of the regime in which they belong, countries have generally enacted emergency measures to expand and/or supplement existing policy instruments. Second, we show that existing national policy legacies help explain key differences in the design of the policies adopted as a consequence of this imperative.
Austerity and Adjustment from the Great Recession to the Pandemic—and Beyond
Authors: Armingeon Klaus , Sacchi Stefano
Published: August 2023

In 2010–2015 almost all democratic countries pursued austerity. Then countries exited austerity, although following different paths. The onset of the pandemic brought about a hike in public spending to cope with its social and economic consequences that does, however, plant the seeds of future economic adjustments. In this chapter we study the political strategies and options of governments during austerity periods using a new dataset for 30 democratic nations, from 2010 to 2019. We ask where and when democratic politics mattered for austerity policies from the Great Recession to the Covid-19 pandemic. Our main finding is that austerity policies were mostly driven by economic forces. Focusing on the process of exiting austerity, we show that such policies cannot be sufficiently explained by changed economic fundamentals. Rather, the longer governments pursue austerity the more likely they are to exit it, even if the economic fundamentals do not support it.
The Territorial Dynamic of Social Policies during COVID-19 Lockdowns
Authors: Saruis Tatiana , Barberis Eduardo , Kazepov Yuri
Published: August 2023

The territorial dimension of social policies is key in welfare policymaking. In recent decades, multilevel configurations saw relevant changes in multiple directions, e.g. decentralization, supranationalization, recentralization—changes that implied the involvement of a number of new welfare actors, raising questions about effective subsidiarization and coordination, and the management of spatial inequalities. The multilevel governance of measures aimed at tackling COVID-19 syndemic effects add a new sliding tile to this puzzle: shall emergency measures be implemented with usual configurations? Does the COVID-19 pandemic represent a critical juncture that reframes the multilevel governance of welfare? Does it contribute to path breaks or path continuity in the spatial organization of welfare policies? In this chapter we address how the territorial dimension of social policies intersects with the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a classification of long-term scalar arrangements in welfare policies in five countries (France, Italy, Germany, Norway, Poland), we discuss both the territorial impact and the policy implications of COVID-19 emergency policymaking.
The United Kingdom in Search of a New “Imagined Community”?
Authors: Donoghue Matthew
Published: August 2023

This chapter considers how the framing of the UK’s social policy response reflects an active change in the UK’s “imagined community,” contextualized by the UK’s new position as an “independent” nation state outside of the European Union. It argues that the COVID-19 pandemic presents the government with an opportunity to renew and bolster a sense of nation, not only in terms of the UK reasserting its position in the international order but also in terms of reasserting what it means to be a British citizen in the post-Brexit era. In doing so the chapter makes a contribution to the literature on social policy and nation building, as well as literatures on the territorial politics of social policy. The chapter draws on an analysis of speeches, media reports, and policy literature focused on the pandemic response, particularly in health care and social protection.
From Crisis to Opportunity?
Authors: Pavolini Emmanuele , Petmesidou Maria , Branco Rui , Guillén Ana M.
Published: August 2023

Since the mid-2000s Southern European welfare states had to face two major challenges: (a) the financial crisis of 2007–2008, followed by austerity policies and a “Great Recession,” and (b) the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter focuses on the health care sector in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. At the outbreak of the pandemic, the public per capita expenditure in health care was lower in Southern Europe than in North-Western Europe. The chapter analyzes whether the public health crisis brought about by the pandemic and the recovery prospects—particularly under the Next Generation EU (NGEU) plan—represent a “critical juncture” for health care policy change. Our main findings indicate a variegated picture of piecemeal recalibration trends that, however, fall short of addressing some long-overdue challenges in a comprehensive way.
Is the Recession a “Shecession”? Gender Inequality in the Employment Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany
Authors: Möhring Katja , Reifenscheid Maximiliane , Weiland Andreas , Kuhn Klara
Published: August 2023

This chapter evaluates gender inequality in employment risks during the first and the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. We use individual-level panel data collected weekly between 20th March and 9th July 2020, and again in September 2020 and January 2021, to examine the risks of short-time work, job loss, and unpaid furlough, as well as having to work on-site by means of growth curve modelling. The results reveal no particularly high exposure of women to pandemic-related labor market risks. Access to crisis measures, which serve as buffer against risks of income loss and job loss, does not differ between genders during the observed period. Furthermore, we did not find an increased likelihood of job loss and unpaid furlough among women, and women did not show a significantly higher probability of working on-site during the early phase of the pandemic than men. Regarding the risk of unemployment in the first and second wave of the pandemic, our results rather suggest that individual characteristics such as low income and education are important drivers. This also applies to the likelihood of short-time work during the second wave of the pandemic.
Toward a Real Green Transition?
Authors: Im Zhen Jie , de la Porte Caroline , Heins Elke , Prontera Andrea , Szelewa Dorota
Published: August 2023

37% of the post-pandemic NextGenerationEU (NGEU) is earmarked for projects that tackle climate change. Thus, the NGEU is an opportunity for EU Member States to achieve the EU’s goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Yet, it remains uncertain whether Member States would devote much of this funding to contentious but net zero–critical decarbonization reforms to carbon-polluting industries, or they would allocate more to popular and uncontentious reforms like improving energy efficiency. We develop a conceptual framework that elaborates the conditions under which Member States will adopt industrial decarbonization—reforms that present substantial political risks to governments. These conditions are countries’ macroeconomic vulnerability, reliance on carbon-polluting industries, and social policy institutions’ readiness to help displaced workers adapt to the demands of the green economy. We test this framework first with comparative data and then four case studies to show the necessity of these conditions for Member States to pursue such reforms.
COVID-19: An Accelerating Force for EU Activity in Health?
Authors: Guy Mary
Published: August 2023

Prior to COVID-19, EU-level activity in health appeared limited. While the pandemic raised the EU’s health profile, it also questioned future development: crisis response, or a fundamental change in EU Member State health competence? This chapter examines whether COVID-19 can be said to accelerate EU-level activity in health by reference to implementing a European Health Union (EHU) and proposals for Treaty change between May 2020 and September 2021. Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework and “windows of opportunity” model is used to explore the chances for success for the EHU proposals. This frames confluence of the problem stream (COVID-19 crisis response and wider concerns about EU–national competence interaction), the politics stream (the European Commission and national politicians), and the policy stream (Commission proposals, the EHU initiative manifesto, and the Conference on the Future of Europe). This exploration helps shape understanding of how EU health policy evolves, and more specifically whether COVID-19 accelerated change.
The Gold Plates Imaginary
Authors: Bushman Richard Lyman
Published: August 2023

The earliest names and stories attached to the plates revealed the complexities of their meaning from the beginning. The name “Golden Bible” given to the plates in 1829 embodied a fundamental tension running through American culture. Were Americans a godly people devoted to the Bible or one crassly devoted to wealth and the pursuit of gold? The same tension ran through the Book of Mormon. The Nephites were promised prosperity if they followed God, but that same prosperity corrupted them and led to their downfall. In addition to this polarity, another tension grew out of the story of the plates’ recovery. The plates were both heavenly and earthly. An angel from heaven led Smith to the plates, but he had to clear away the dirt and pry up a rock to get them. This heaven-earth hybridity had its uses in an age that was questioning religion. Like the work of other writers and artists of the time who dealt with the mysterious and the sublime, the plates offered access to another sphere through a material object.
Rationalism
Authors: Bushman Richard Lyman
Published: August 2023

Early Church members tried to defend their faith rationally, but the testimonies of the three and eight witnesses, seemingly the best evidence they had, figured very little in their arguments. Nor did critics emphasize the absence of the plates in their attacks. The critics focused more on the Mormons’ poverty and low morals and bemoaned the fact that the poor and ignorant were always susceptible to religious fantasies. Other critics tried to trick Joseph Smith into translating bogus plates but, though he took an interest, the schemes never worked out. James J. Strang, a pretender to Joseph Smith’s prophethood, presented his followers with two sets of plates as proof of his divine calling but was successful only temporarily. Evidentiary tests and proofs repeatedly fell short. Instead, the flurry of supposedly ancient texts around Smith points to a problem of a prophet-translator: how was he to know which texts to focus on?
Making the Supreme Court
Authors: Cameron Charles M. , Kastellec Jonathan P.
Published: August 2023

Making the Supreme Court: The Politics of Appointments 1930—2020 tells the story of 90 years of Supreme Court appointments. It examines what happened, why it happened, the consequences for the Supreme Court, the future of appointments, and the prospects for reform. In a nutshell, the growth of federal judicial power created a multitude of groups struggling over judicial policy. The activists penetrated the national party system so presidential candidates increasingly pledged to select nominees who conformed to policy litmus tests. Presidents reshaped the executive selection system from casual and haphazard to meticulous and effective. The public face of appointments evolved from a brief and usually closed affair to a highly visible political campaign mobilizing public opinion via intensive media coverage fueled by controversy. Voting in the Senate gained an engaged and attentive audience, pressuring senators into party line votes. The result is a new politics aimed squarely at confirming judicial ideologues and only judicial ideologues, despite public wishes to the contrary. Critically, the events of 2016 locked in place a conservative majority, probably for decades. But, reforms might alter this future. Based on massive data combined with rich qualitative evidence, Making the Supreme Court employs new theories, cutting-edge techniques, and a novel perspective on political institutions. Finally, it provides a sharp lens on the social and political transformations that created a new American politics. It will appeal not only to students of the Supreme Court but to anyone concerned with the future of American politics.
Then and Now
Authors: Cameron Charles M. , Kastellec Jonathan P.
Published: August 2023

The politics of Supreme Court appointments changed dramatically over the past 90 years—as did American politics in general. The chapter documents these shifts by presenting data on the growth of the federal government, as well as the rise of interest groups and activists who have pushed American politics to the extremes. It also documents shifts in public opinion over time; the public is now well sorted by party and ideology. Against the backdrop of these changes, the chapter outlines a general theoretical account and provides a roadmap for the rest of the book.
Interest Groups
Authors: Cameron Charles M. , Kastellec Jonathan P.
Published: August 2023

This chapter examines the growth of interest groups participating in Supreme Court nominations. From 1930 to 1970, there was relatively little mobilization, with zero groups mobilizing in many nominations. After 1970, and in particular after Robert Bork’s nomination in 1987, mobilization became routine. Early on, most mobilization was done in opposition to a nominee; now mobilization occurs in roughly equal numbers on both sides. The chapter finds that the calculus of interest groups appears to have changed significantly over time, shifting from ‘opportunistic mobilization’ based on a nominee’s qualifications for the high court to routine mobilization based on the ideological extremity of the nominee. Today, the groups that participate in Supreme Court nominations universe are highly ideologically polarized and quite ideologically extreme. The current state of interest group involvement is characterized by ‘hyper-pluralism,’ which has significant implications for both nomination politics and what the Supreme Court decides.
Public Opinion
Authors: Cameron Charles M. , Kastellec Jonathan P.
Published: August 2023

This chapter examines changes in public opinion on Supreme Court nominees over time. It shows that polling on nominees did not become a regular occurrence until the 1980s. When polling did exist, nominees generally had high approval among opinion-holders, unless they suffered some sort of personal scandal. Today, public opinion on nominees is sharply polarized by party, with members of the public from the president’s party likely to support a nominee and members of the opposite party likely to favor rejection of a nominee. The chapter also examines so-called ‘campaign effects”—e.g. did hearings and scandals impact public opinion? Excepting the Bork nomination, campaign effects were usually modest. However, scandal did have a palpable impact in the Kavanaugh and Thomas nominations, but mediated by citizens’ party affiliation. All told, the chapter provides the most comprehensive look at public opinion on Supreme Court nominees to date.
The Logic of Presidential Selection
Authors: Cameron Charles M. , Kastellec Jonathan P. , Mattioli Lauren
Published: August 2023

This chapter returns to why presidents’ select particular nominees. It develops, tests, and uses a new theory of presidential selection of nominees, the ‘characteristics approach.’ It focuses on four of the characteristics that were highlighted in Chapter 4: ideology, policy reliability, race, and gender. At various times and to various degrees, presidents value these characteristics. But beyond a minimal level, none comes for free. If presidents desire characteristics, they must ‘pay’ for them by searching for nominees, vetting them carefully, and perhaps overcoming political opposition. For each characteristic, presidents must weigh benefits against costs. The chapter then marshals a variety of empirical evidence that provides a great deal of support for the characteristics theory. The theory and data show that presidents care deeply about the characteristics of their nominees and the ‘cost’ of obtaining these characteristics declined dramatically over the past decades.
What the Public Wanted
Authors: Cameron Charles M. , Kastellec Jonathan P.
Published: August 2023

This chapter seeks to explain the changes in public opinion documented in Chapter 7. It develops a theory that allows analysts to parse public opinion polls to examine how party and ideology affected public evaluations of nominees over time. It also allows estimates of what citizens wanted in nominees. It shows that citizens are capable of evaluating nominees from an ideological perspective, and do so. Because of the increased extremity of nominees over time and the mass partisan sort, ideological assessments play a larger role in the calculus of citizens than before. At the same time, partisan attachments have also increased, meaning both party and ideology play key roles in shaping public approval and disapproval of nominees. The result of these shifts in partisan evaluations, combined with presidents selecting relatively more extreme nominees over time, is that presidential co-partisans were well served by the selection of such nominees—but others much less so.
New Politics, New Justices, New Policies
Authors: Cameron Charles M. , Kastellec Jonathan P.
Published: August 2023

This chapter examines how the changes in judicial selection documented in the earlier chapters changed policy making on the Supreme Court. First, it documents how the new politics of Supreme Court appointments led to a partisan sort on the court: Republican justices increasingly were conservatives and Democratic justices increasingly liberals. Second, it shows how the judicial partisan sort resulted from presidents’ increased interest in choosing justices with greater policy reliability. Third, it shows that the policy litmus tests introduced in Chapter 2 actually produced justices who voted in accordance with them—the litmus tests worked. Finally, it shows how the steady appointments of more conservative justices in recent decades shifted the court’s policies to the right. In a nutshell: the new politics of Supreme Court nominations brought new types of justices, who made new courts, which then enacted new policies in a predictable and understandable way.
What Future Do We Want? Evaluating Judicial Independence
Authors: Cameron Charles M. , Kastellec Jonathan P.
Published: August 2023

This chapter builds off the simulations in Chapter 13 to normatively evaluate potential institutional reforms. It develops a simple framework to evaluate the tradeoffs implicit in different judicial selection and retention institutions. These tradeoffs arise because different degrees of judicial independence, as embodied by lower responsiveness to election results and longer tenures on the court, create both costs and benefits to society. To gauge the tradeoffs implied in the policy experiments of the last chapter, it focuses on four measurable quantities. Several analyses show that the introduction of 18-year term limits would reduce the maximal independence that the justices currently enjoy by increasing democratic responsiveness and judicial turnover; term limits would also reduce the intensity of conflict over appointments by increasing their regularity. Readers can use the framework and the simulation results to consider the best path forward for selecting and replacing Supreme Court justices.
Conclusion
Authors: Cameron Charles M. , Kastellec Jonathan P.
Published: August 2023

This chapter concludes the book. Its review the major findings of the book and discusses their implications for American politics more generally.
Criticism and the Gift
Authors: Coles Elizabeth Sarah
Published: August 2023

This chapter is a study of the interpretive “conversation” at the center of Carson’s acclaimed (though not uncontroversial) comparative critical essay, Economy of the Unlost: (Reading Simonides of Keos with Paul Celan). Out of the Simonides/Celan exchange comes an inquiry into what is at risk for the poet writing poetry, but also, in Carson’s strong confessional identification with Celan, for the poet reading poetry and writing criticism. The chapter close-reads Carson’s richly imitative prosody in an essay whose interpretations are voiced, Coles argues, in a parallel exchange of poetic “gifts” between Carson and Celan. An adapted version of her Martin Classical Lectures, Carson’s extended essay is a complex case of performed reading, fusing personal aesthetic declaration, direct reader address, a reciprocal critical style, and one of the most striking confessions of what is at stake for Carson herself in the psychic economies of poetry.
On Not Being Emily Brontë
Authors: Coles Elizabeth Sarah
Published: August 2023

The first of two chapters on Carson’s most famous poem-essays, Chapter 3 approaches the formal, citational, and affective bonds formed and performed in “The Glass Essay” around a reading of Emily Brontë. “The Glass Essay” introduces a form of transparency that surfaces in later works such as The Beauty of the Husband, Decreation, and Nox that reproduce the processes, sites, and emotions of their composition. Parsing Brontë’s biography and close-reading her oeuvre, the narrator’s strong critique of Brontë’s reception and editorial regularization doubles as a story of the narrator’s own, personal vindication. Brontë’s story of subjection and liberty serves as her confessional double; the reading and its emotional valence are seamless. Yet Coles argues that close-reading Brontë is also where the doubling comes to an end. Carson’s narrative inquiry into equivalences of literature and personal need is a study, too, of their stubborn non-equivalence.
Fake Women
Authors: Coles Elizabeth Sarah
Published: August 2023

This chapter is an inquiry into the idea of the “fake” that emerges in Carson’s essay, “Decreation: How Women Like Sappho, Marguerite Porete and Simone Weil Tell God,” and its companion piece, the libretto “Decreation: An Opera in Three Parts.” The chapter explores Carson’s striking gloss of the term “fake woman” (pseudo-mulier), which reorients it from a term of indictment—in the inquisitorial case against the mystic Marguerite Porete—to a descriptor of radical psychological insight. Carson’s twin interpretive forms, essay and opera, reprise the contradictions of these “fake women,” first by describing them, and second, by performing their strong consequences for writing and re-telling. The chapter closes with a discussion of “fake women” from across the Carson oeuvre, and confronts one of the most well-known critiques of Carson herself to date: the charge of imitator, phony, fraud.
Analytic Philosophy and Human Life
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: August 2023

This chapter introduces philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century, the period that saw complex activity and growth in a number of areas. What is most conspicuous in the analytic tradition in which philosophy was formed is the focus on language, both as a subject of great philosophical importance in itself, and as a path into the philosophical understanding of other topics, from metaphysics to ethics. The chapter points out how the attention to language brought with it standards of conceptual clarity and an insistence on careful testing of philosophical hypotheses by argument and counterargument. The chapter explores the close connection of analytic philosophy with the natural sciences and mathematics, which is characteristic of the logical empiricist branch, and addresses why the mind cannot be adequately understood by means of the types of theory that have been so successful in explaining the physical world.
Tony Judt: Life and Memory
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: August 2023

This chapter discusses the book The Memory Chalet, which revisits Tony Judt’s past after he is stricken with A.L.S. The articulate recreation of the active life that Judt has lost is his answer to his imprisonment and impending death, giving him a more personal posthumous existence than his historical and critical writings. It points out how Judt’s eloquent personal recollections are infused with historical consciousness that explain and reflect the strong opinions and attitudes that marked him as a distinctive presence. The chapter looks at Judt’s dominant identification with the values of Western liberalism in its social democratic form, noting his ruefulness about the failure of Western radicals of his generation. It highlights the fitting legacy of an extraordinary man who wanted everyone to know who he was.
Modular Morality
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: August 2023

This chapter discusses books by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and political theorist Michael Rosen. Haidt’s empirical theory, which he calls moral foundations theory, is an example of evolutionary psychology. It is the hypothesis that a set of innate “modules” of moral response were fixed in humans by natural selection, and that these responses, further shaped by cultural evolution in various more specific forms and combinations, underlie the widely divergent moralities that we observe not only across the globe but within pluralistic cultures like that of the United States. Specifically, Haidt argues that group selection—selection for genetic traits whose presence benefited social groups of early humans in competition with other groups, rather than individual selection for traits that enhanced the reproductive success of individuals in competition with other individuals—is responsible for the main moral dispositions. He then distinguishes six basic types of moral response: care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Haidt’s general point is that functioning moralities must draw on these intuitive emotional responses to control behavior, and that reason plays a relatively minor role in morality. Rosen discusses the importance of dignity in moral thought, and its place in Kant’s philosophy.
John Rawls 1921–2002
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: August 2023

This is a eulogy for the philosopher John Rawls, who died in 2002.
Bernard Williams 1929–2003
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: August 2023

This is a eulogy for the philosopher Bernard Williams, who died in 2003.
Donald Davidson 1917–2003
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: August 2023

This is a eulogy for the philosopher Donald Davidson, who died in 2003.
Introduction
Authors: Herzog Lisa
Published: August 2023

The introduction explains the importance and relevance of the topic by starting with some case studies (e.g., engineered climate change denialism, ag-gag laws). It discusses why political-economic causes, above and beyond explanations that point to “the internet,” need to be taken into account, situates the book within the field of “political epistemology,” an emerging field of enquiry that brings together arguments from epistemology and philosophy of science, as well as political philosophy, to address problems in the relation between politics and knowledge. It also describes the book’s interdisciplinary approach and methodology, and summarizes the main points by means of a chapter preview.
What’s Wrong with the “Marketplace of Ideas”?
Authors: Herzog Lisa
Published: August 2023

This chapter explores the metaphor of the “marketplace of ideas,” focusing on arguments that compare the nature of knowledge to the nature of tradeable goods or services. It argues that in the most benevolent reading of this metaphor, it describes the exchange of ideas and arguments in settings that are comparable to sports tournaments, but with participants being truth-oriented rather than being competitive all the way down. The basic, and correct, impulse against state censorship that is expressed in the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor can and should be grounded in other normative principles, notably freedom of speech. But this leaves questions about other forms of regulation, for example, when it comes to speech by corporations, widely open. The chapter argues that these need to be decided on a case-by-case basis, depending on the functions of different forums of speech, rather than by drawing on a misguided metaphor.
The Epistemic Infrastructure of Democracy
Authors: Herzog Lisa
Published: August 2023

How can the epistemic capacities of democracies and, in particular, of processes of democratic deliberation be strengthened? This chapter argues that proposals to replace representative by lottocratic institutions are unlikely to address the epistemic deficits of democracies that we currently see, and instead emphasizes the need for rebuilding existing institutions, not least by pushing back against the influence of money on politics. To illustrate this claim, the chapter discusses three sets of institutions—schools, the media, and civil society organizations and unions—with regard to their epistemic roles in democracies. It also discusses proposals for how the online public sphere could be made more amenable to deliberative processes, arguing that a key epistemic challenge (the lack of clarity about the sources and status of content) could be addressed by regulation that requires more metainformation for online content.
The Epistemic Benefits of Social Justice
Authors: Herzog Lisa
Published: August 2023

This chapter argues that questions of social justice have an epistemic dimension: societies marred by high levels of inequality are more likely to lack the trust that is needed for successful epistemic processes in the democratic realm. They are more likely to be polarized and to let epistemic institutions decline for lack of public support. The chapter also discusses the nexus with a social sphere that has, arguably, a particularly strong influence on social trust: the workplace. More egalitarian and more participative social practices, in which individuals encounter each other at eye level and can develop bonds of trust with each other, have a greater likelihood of enabling individuals to “live in truth,” which is such a crucial precondition for democracy.
Counteractual Subjectivity
Authors: Zagzebski Linda Trinkaus
Published: August 2023

This chapter addresses the issues of whether God perfectly grasps subjective states that are possible but not actual, whether there can be such states, and how those states are related to actual subjective states and actual and counterfactual objective events. God grasps all possible subjective states in his imagination. That makes the empathy model of omnisubjectivity preferable to the other models. The difference between actual and counteractual subjective states is vague, and there are connections between them that makes it impossible to explain them fully in possible worlds discourse. Possible worlds discourse is at best redundant if God has an imagination.
The Starving Empire
Authors: Azarieva Janetta , Brudny Yitzhak M. , Finkel Eugene
Published: August 2023

This chapter focuses on the political role of food and food supply in the USSR. The authors show how food was inherently and closely linked to, or essentially the catalyst of, key events of Soviet history, from the state’s birth to its demise. The chapter argues that despite the widespread perceptions of Soviet technological power and industrial prowess, at its core, the USSR was dominated by a primal and premodern quest to feed the growing and increasingly urban population. Soviet history was a constant and ultimately failed struggle to overcome, adapt to, and survive the chronic and often acute food shortages that more than once escalated into widespread famines. The chapter also discusses the critical role of food shortages in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Farmers Will Not Feed Russia
Authors: Azarieva Janetta , Brudny Yitzhak M. , Finkel Eugene
Published: August 2023

This chapter focuses on the failure of the open market approach to Russia’s food production and the failure of the Yeltsin government to establish small- and medium-scale private farming as the backbone of Russian agriculture. The authors focus on the communist and nationalist opposition’s resistance to the liberal reformers’ agricultural policies and the alternative plans to restructure Russian agriculture. The authors also document the persistence of post-Soviet large farms and finish the chapter with the 1998 financial crisis, the food shortages associated with it, and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The authors also discuss how the 1998 financial crisis allowed the subsequent growth of Russia’s domestic food production.
The COVID-19 Food Crisis, 2020–2021
Authors: Azarieva Janetta , Brudny Yitzhak M. , Finkel Eugene
Published: August 2023

This chapter focuses on Russia’s food system during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ultimate goal of Putin’s nutritional independence program was to protect Russia from food shortages during a major geopolitical crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic was a major test of Putin’s system. As the Russians’ incomes declined because of the pandemic, domestic consumption dropped. To compensate for losses, retailers increased prices, thus decreasing consumption even further. The food prices crisis became a serious political concern for the Kremlin and led to unprecedented levels of state intervention in the food market that took the form of export bans, tariffs, and price freezes. Yet the system held and Russia did not experience food shortages or food-related protests. In this chapter, the authors show the causes of the food prices crisis, the government’s reaction, and the long-term lessons of the pandemic for Russia’s nutritional independence program.
Introduction
Authors: Kadercan Burak
Published: August 2023

In IR research, we often take territory as a given, a synonym for physical geography or a mute object. Territories, however, are social and political constructs. In other words, territory is what states and societies make of it. Accordingly, territorial ideas and associated practices show great variation across time and space. It follows that while states and societies have been fighting over territory since time immemorial, they have not been fighting over the same thing, simply because the meaning attributed to territory is not a constant, but a variable. This observation has two direct implications. First, different territorial ideas lead to different motives and methods to fight over territory. Second, wars themselves can also transform territorial ideas. This chapter conveys these core ideas through two distinct narratives, both of which revolve around the following questions: What and where is Germany/Turkey now, and what and where was Germany/Turkey in the past? The relevant brief “territorial histories” then provide some insights into the shifting, and shifty, nature of territories.
Decolonizing Diaspora Studies
Authors: Demir Ipek
Published: August 2023

This chapter makes a case for decolonizing diaspora studies, a field which has been trapped in discourses that explain diaspora as emerging out of “ethno-political” struggles within nation-states. This has brought spatial and temporal limitations to understandings of diaspora. The chapter analyzes and reveals these limitations, paying attention to how such conceptualizations have erased links between the “empires” and diasporas using nationalist perspectives which have also curbed the transnational dimensions of diaspora. It argues that these limitations have created Eurocentric understandings of migration, diasporas, and ethnic diversity in the Global North. The chapter concludes that cultural plurality has been woven into the fabric of European history and society due to colonialism and empire. It makes a case for a decolonial perspective to diaspora and how diasporas need to be seen as agents of decolonizing the Global North.
Regulating Without Redistributing?
Authors: Longhini Anna , Torelli Stefano M.
Published: August 2023

This chapter examines the EU response to the “migration crisis,” which ran from 2015, when more than 1.8 million migrants reached the European Union, to 2019, before the outbreak of COVID-19, when an unprecedented number crossed the Mediterranean from North Africa. The chapter evaluates the main legal instruments and agreements that the European Union introduced to deal with both migration and asylum seeking. These include the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), directives and regulations such as the so-called Dublin III, the Valletta Declaration, the European Agenda on Migration, and the EU Relocation Scheme. An important part of the discussion is the European Union’s response to externalized border control, as represented by the 2016 EU–Turkey agreement and agreements with transit and origin countries like Niger and Libya, and the reluctance of Member States to transfer more asylum policy power to the European Union.
Overcoming Barriers to Informal Enterprising
Authors: Tati Gabriel
Published: August 2023

This chapter utilizes an intersectional and transnational approach to examine the entrepreneurial trajectories of Congolese self-settled refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo in the informal urban economy of Eswatini, in Southern Africa. The chapter also interrogates their perseverance and resilience toward overcoming systemic barriers in the processes of enterprising and achieving business sustainability in the major cities of Mbabane and Manzini. It also analyzes the extent to which informal entrepreneurship contributes to the well-being of their households in the host society. The results from data collected from these women suggest that business development among self-settled refugee women is riddled with numerous setbacks ranging from locational factors to competition with locals and more established traders and that their ability to persevere and negotiate around these barriers depends on personal circumstances, social investments, and social networks.
Language Training and Humanitarian Migrants’ Host Language Skills
Authors: Cheng Zhiming , Tani Bertuol Massimiliano , Wang Ben Zhe
Published: August 2023

This chapter discusses language instruction as an important step to help integrate refugees, socially and economically, to improve their host country language proficiency. It also highlights the relationship between the acquisition of English-language skills and subsequent socioeconomic, health, and well-being outcomes of humanitarian migrants using panel data from the Building a New Life in Australia survey. The chapter argues that language skills are a critical manifestation of a migrant’s capacity to adapt to and integrate into the host culture and society. It further contends that migrants and refugees with competent local language skills tend to be culturally resilient and equipped with elevated levels of psychological resources to increase their self-efficacy and self-esteem. The chapter concludes that the benefits of government support for programs targeting migrants, especially refugees, are often downplayed relative to the costs of such programs.