bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Future Agenda for Crafting ‘Athena’s Treaties’ on Trade and Investment for Sustainable Development
Authors: Cordonier Segger Marie-Claire
Published: August 2021

This final chapter briefly discusses the volume’s key findings, including that many trade and investment agreements contain provisions with potential to contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It discusses the implications of the findings for international economic law more broadly, recognizing that no one single measure can provide ‘the solution’ to all trade- and investment-related sustainable development challenges and that many different provisions may be needed throughout the treaty, addressing potential impacts as they arise. It also highlights areas for further development, particularly in terms of ‘process’ innovations, such as sustainability impact assessments (SIAs). Further, the chapter canvasses areas of need for further legal research, which may be needed to monitor and propose improvements in State attempts to address regulatory elements in SIA and other processes. Finally, this chapter highlights the contribution of the volume to promoting sustainable development in trade and investment policy, serving as a useful tool for more sustainable international economic law and policy-making in the future.
Conclusion
Authors: Singh Shane P.
Published: August 2021

The concluding chapter reviews the findings and discusses their implications for academic research and for policymakers. It also discusses alternate ways of increasing turnout that may have fewer downstream consequences than a requirement to vote. These include: easing voter registration requirements; making it easier to vote with procedures such as early voting, online voting, and mail voting; and rewarding citizens for voting. It wraps up with reflections on the justifiability of compulsory voting in democracies.
Introduction
Authors: Del Sarto Raffaella A.
Published: August 2021

The chapter provides a general introduction to the topic of the book, namely the examination of the complex relationship between Europe—defined here as the European Union and its member states—and the states of the Mediterranean Middle East and North Africa (abbreviated as MENA) during the two decades between 1995 and 2015. It presents the conceptualization of these ties by explaining their basic features and the implications of studying them through a core-borderlands prism. It defines the specific focus of the book, namely trade relations and the cooperation on migration, security, and border controls. A brief description of each chapter within the book is also provided.
Conceptualizing Relations Between Europe and the Mediterranean Middle East
Authors: Del Sarto Raffaella A.
Published: August 2021

This chapter presents the conceptual framework of this study. It delves into the meaning and implications of adopting a borderlands approach to the study of the complex relationship between Europe and the Mediterranean Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Europe’s ‘southern neighbourhood’. Anchored in the conceptualization of the European Union and its member states as an empire of sorts, this approach highlights the extension of European rules and practices to Europe’s southern periphery and the dislocation of Europe’s borders, showing how interconnected the two regions have become as a result. The usefulness of this conceptual framework is also discussed in the context of various flaws and gaps in the existing literature.
Fragmentation and Information Access
Authors: Elgac Adam , Rayo Agustín
Published: August 2021

Is there an English word that ends in ‘MT’? (If you are stumped, think about it for a moment and then read the last word of this abstract.) Before you figured out (or read) the answer to that question, did you possess the information that the word that is the answer is an English word that ends in ‘MT’? In a sense, yes: the word was in your vocabulary. But in another sense, no: perhaps you weren’t able to immediately answer the puzzle question. For finite agents, this phenomenon is unavoidable. We often possess a piece of information for some purposes (or with respect to some elicitation conditions) but not for other purposes (or conditions). This suggests that a mental state be represented not by a single batch of information, but rather by an ‘access table’—a function from purposes to batches of information. This representation makes clear what happens during certain ‘aha!’ moments in reasoning. It also allows us to model agents who exhibit imperfect recall, confusion, and mental fragmentation. And it sheds light on the difference between propositional knowledge and knowledge-how. The upshot is that representing mental states using access tables is more fruitful than one might have dreamt.
Fragmented Models of Belief
Authors: Egan Andy
Published: August 2021

This chapter motivates a fragmentationist research program by identifying a cluster of problems that such a research program is better positioned to address or resolve than a unified model—all instances of the phenomenon of subjects having information that’s available to them for some behavior-guiding purposes but that isn’t available for every purpose. It also identifies some of the challenges and research questions that the fragmentationist program will need to address and where the space of possible answers is not yet well charted. One cluster of such problems is about how to construct fragmented models of belief, and another cluster is about normative questions that arise concerning the rational evaluation of fragmented beliefs and believers.
Rationality in Fragmented Belief Systems
Authors: Borgoni Cristina
Published: August 2021

This chapter deals with the question of which notion of rationality best fits with a fragmentation picture of belief that holds that we are mostly rational. According to this picture, coherence is not a requirement of rationality for the entire belief system. Coherence is only rationally required within belief fragments. The chapter argues, however, that fragmentation still needs to offer a different rationality criterion across belief fragments to account for a variety of cases in which we would intuitively ascribe irrationality to the subject. It proposes that the requirement of evidence responsiveness is a good candidate for making sense of the idea that there are certain normative relations in place among beliefs from different belief fragments.
Fragmentation and Singular Propositions
Authors: Stalnaker Robert
Published: August 2021

Two puzzles are described: a problem about necessary a posteriori truths and a problem about propositional attitudes with singular propositions as their contents. Two strategies for solving them are compared. The first is the diagonalization strategy, which distinguishes possible worlds that are compatible with what is actually expressed by a given sentential clause from possible worlds that are compatible with what would be expressed by the clause if that possible world were actual. The second strategy is the fragmentation strategy, which represents the intentional states described by sentential clauses as separate nonintegrated representational states. It is argued that these are complementary, not competing, strategies. Both play a role in the solutions to the problems. In conclusion, it is suggested that these strategies can also help to clarify a number of further problems—about self-locating attitudes, about the nature of computation, and about knowledge of phenomenal experience.
On the Availability of Presuppositions in Conversation
Authors: Kindermann Dirk
Published: August 2021

Presuppositions—information speakers mutually take for granted in conversation—play important explanatory roles in pragmatics and semantics. This chapter argues that not all presuppositions in a conversation are equally available, or accessible, to speakers at a given stage in a conversation. Contrary to common assumption, some pieces of information may be presupposed yet not be available to speakers for conversational actions. Standard conceptions of the conversation’s common ground—the set of presuppositions—cannot account for such differences in availability. This chapter presents an account of the common ground that makes room for a notion of availability of presuppositions relative to a conversational task. The notion is implemented in a conception of a Fragmented Common Ground that draws on three independently motivated ideas: the notion of context as common ground, mental fragmentation, and questions as guiding and structuring discourse.
Do Mental Files Obey Strawson’s Constraint?
Authors: Recanati François
Published: August 2021

This chapter argues that the mental file approach makes it possible to treat so-called Frege cases as an instance of fragmentation; that is, as cases in which conflicting pieces of information are stored in the subject’s mind but remain insulated from each other in such a way that the inconsistency cannot be detected. The argument rests on a constraint on files which derives from Strawson’s work, to the effect that two coreferential files should be merged. The linking model, widely accepted in the mental file literature as a substitute for Strawson’s merge model, is shown to rest on the mistaken construal of recognition as a state, where in fact it is a transition between states.
Implicit Attitudes Are (Probably) Beliefs
Authors: Bendaña Joseph
Published: August 2021

Most psychologists and philosophers maintain that implicit attitudes are not beliefs. This chapter argues that they are by presenting a dilemma for criteria of belief that are supposed to distinguish implicit attitudes from beliefs. It then argues that if we adopt an independently motivated, fragmented model of the human mind, we can explain frequently cited and prima facie puzzling empirical data that can appear to distinguish implicit attitudes from beliefs. Finally, the chapter sketches some simple predictions that fall out of the combination of a fragmented model of the mind and the view that implicit attitudes are beliefs, hopefully opening the door for empirical investigations into novel strategies for altering implicit attitudes.
Implicit Bias and the Fragmented Mind
Authors: Toribio Josefa
Published: August 2021

This chapter discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the belief fragmentation thesis vis-à-vis the attitudinal dissonance illustrated by implicit biases. It argues that, depending on the notion of belief at hand, the fragmentation strategy faces a dilemma: either it is a mere restatement of the phenomena it is intended to explain (when belief is understood in non-reductive, dispositional terms) or, when apparently successful, the explanatory grip on the dissonance comes from the notion of access, not fragmentation (when beliefs are understood as representations stored in the mind). More positively, it argues that a representational, contextualist, non-fragmentationalist, and affect-laden account of the dissonance between implicit and explicit biases provides a more plausible and parsimonious explanation of the target phenomenon than fragmentationalism.
Body schema dynamics in Merleau-Ponty
Authors: Halák Jan
Published: August 2021

This chapter presents an account of Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the body schema as an operative intentionality that is not only opposed to, but also complexly intermingled with, the representation-like grasp of the world and one’s own body, or the body image. The chapter reconstructs Merleau-Ponty’s position primarily based on his preparatory notes for his 1953 lecture ‘The Sensible World and the World of Expression’. Here, Merleau-Ponty elaborates his earlier efforts to show that the body schema is a perceptual ground against which the perceived world stands out as a complex of perceptual figures. The chapter clarifies how Merleau-Ponty’s renewed interpretation of the figure-ground structure makes it possible for him to describe the relationship between body schema and perceptual (body) image as a strictly systematic phenomenon. Subsequently, the chapter shows how Merleau-Ponty understands apraxia, sleep, and perceptual orientation as examples of dedifferentiation and subtler differentiation of the body-schematic system. The last section clarifies how such body-schematic differentiating processes give rise to relatively independent superstructures of vision and symbolic cognition which constitute our body image. It, moreover, explains how, according to Merleau-Ponty, the cognitive superstructures always need to be supported by praxic operative intentionality to maintain their full sense, even though, in some cases, they have the power to compensate for praxic deficiencies.
Monetary Policy Instruments
Authors: Morales Juan Antonio , Reding Paul
Published: August 2021

This chapter presents and discusses the instruments of monetary policy that are used by LFDCs’ central banks. The trend towards market-based monetary policies has been followed by LFDCs’ central banks, which have increasingly resorted to indirect instruments, though direct instruments that are, like exchange controls, of a more administrative nature are still common. The chapter surveys the particular features of reserve requirements, refinancing facilities, open market operations and foreign exchange interventions of LFDCs’ central banks. Each instrument is discussed in detail: its specific purpose, the context, mechanisms and modalities of its use, its advantages but also its possible drawbacks. The way central banks in LFDCs combine these instruments to achieve their operating and intermediate targets is also examined. The discussion is illustrated by examples taken from selected countries.
Monetary Policy Trade-Offs and Monetary Policy Credibility
Authors: Morales Juan Antonio , Reding Paul
Published: August 2021

This chapter focuses on two key aspects of the monetary policy process: the trade-offs between the three goals that fall into the purview of central banks, price stability, output stabilization, and financial stability; and the role of central bank independence and transparency in enhancing the credibility and the efficacy of monetary policy. The chapter presents the theoretical background for each issue and discusses related empirical studies. The emphasis is on how the specific features of LFDCs impact the nature of the policy trade-offs, like informality in the labour market for the Phillips curve and the inflation–output trade-off, or the unsophisticated financial markets for financial stability concerns. In the discussion on central bank independence and transparency, the situation in LFDCs is compared with that in advanced and emerging market countries.
The Choice of Nominal Targets in an Open Economy
Authors: Morales Juan Antonio , Reding Paul
Published: August 2021

Monetary anchors play a central role in the practice of monetary policy in LFDCs. Not all LFDCs have an explicit monetary anchor, but if so they rely on three alternative frameworks: exchange rate targeting, monetary targeting, and inflation targeting. This chapter discusses, for each nominal anchor, the advantages, drawbacks, and prerequisites for adopting it, the modalities of implementing it, strictly or flexibly, and the various challenges it raises. The presentation combines theoretical arguments, discussions of empirical evidence, and analysis of selected experiences of LFDCs. The special case of anchors in dollarized economies is examined in depth. The chapter contains two appendices. The first deals with international reserves and their international borrowing arrangements. The second is a case study of monetary unions in sub-Saharan Africa.
Modelling Monetary Policy
Authors: Morales Juan Antonio , Reding Paul
Published: August 2021

This last chapter deals with the toolbox that central banks use to design and implement their monetary policy strategy. Central banks develop various types of model, both for forecasting and for policy analysis. The chapter discusses the main characteristics of the models used, their strengths and limitations. It assesses how dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are used for monetary policy analysis. Examples are provided on how they contribute to explore fundamental, long-term policy issues specific to LFDCs. The chapter also discusses the contribution of small semi-structural models which, though less strongly theory grounded than DSGE models, can be brought closer to the available data and are therefore possibly better suited to the context of LFDCs. Attention is also drawn to the key role of judgement as the indispensable complement, in monetary policy decision-making, to model-based policy analysis.
Afterword
Authors: Morales Juan Antonio , Reding Paul
Published: August 2021

While we were finalizing this book, the corona virus pandemic struck. It affected all countries around the world, causing heavy human suffering everywhere.

Its economic consequences can probably be expected to be dire for many LFDCs, of which most are low-income countries.

At the time of writing, the severity of the longer-term consequences of the pandemic for these countries is difficult to gauge. We nevertheless feel it necessary to briefly assess how the environment in which monetary policy is deployed in LFDCs could be affected, and discuss the new challenges that are raised....
Paul Muldoon in America
Authors: Alonso Alex
Published: August 2021

Paul Muldoon was looking west long before he left Ireland for the United States in 1987, and his transatlantic departure would prove to be a turning point in his life and work. In America, where he now lives as a US citizen, Muldoon’s creative repertoire has extended into song writing, libretti, and literary criticism, while his poetry collections have themselves extended to outlandish proportions, typified in recent years by a level of formal intensity that is unique in modern poetry. To leave Northern Ireland, though, is not necessarily to leave it behind. Muldoon has spoken of his ‘sense of belonging to several places at once’, and in the United States his work has found another creative gear, new modes of performance facilitated by his Irish émigré status. This book approaches the protean work of his American period, focusing on Muldoon’s expansive structural imagination, his investment in Eros and errors, the nimbleness of his allusive practice as both a reader and writer, and the mobility of his transatlantic position. It draws on archival research to produce provocative new readings of Muldoon’s later works. Exploring the poetic and literary-critical ‘long forms’ that are now his hallmark, this book places the most significant works of Muldoon’s American period under the microscope, and opens up the intricate formal schemes of a poet Mick Imlah credits as having ‘reinvented the possibilities of rhyme for our time’.
Coda
Authors: Alonso Alex
Published: August 2021

The Coda looks at the relationship between poetic and nautical craft, voyages and returns, and considers a seafaring poem from Muldoon’s One Thousand Things Worth Knowing as paradigmatic of the questing and questioning imagination behind the poet’s later American works.
Ireland
Authors: Devitt Camilla
Published: August 2021

This chapter provides an extended look at health politics and the largely tax-financed health system in Ireland. It traces the historical development of the Irish healthcare system, characterized by the institutionalization of a health service that obliged and incentivized the middle classes to pay for their healthcare, out-of-pocket or through voluntary private health insurance. Since the late 1980s, the hospital sector has become more privatized, while universal coverage has been partially introduced to the primary sector. While center-right government legislation which institutionalized the treatment of private patients in public hospitals elicited strong parliamentary opposition from across the political spectrum, the fiscal incentivization of private hospital development, introduced by a center-right coalition, was subject to little debate. The most significant turning point in healthcare policy since 1989 has been the removal of means-testing and provision of free general practitioner care to the under-6s and the over-70s. Cross-party consensus on a plan to move towards a universal tax-based healthcare system was reached in 2017.
Regional OutlookSouthern Europe
Authors: Chuliá Elisa , Anderson Karen M.
Published: August 2021

The Southern Europe regional outlook presents a comparative assessment of the historical development of the healthcare system, health politics, and selected health-related indicators for Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. The politics of democratic consolidation has influenced the development of healthcare systems; in some periods, healthcare policies have been central to the institutional consolidation and legitimation of existing regimes, but they have also been negatively affected by the political, administrative, and financial shortcomings of these governments. All of these countries have witnessed late transitions from social insurance healthcare systems based on occupation (with fairly developed means-tested programs) to universal and mostly tax-financed national health services: Italy and Portugal made this shift in the 1970s, Spain and Greece in the 1980s, and Cyprus after 2000. As the chapter argues, the central issue in Southern Europe concerns expanding healthcare access in the context of economic vulnerability. According to indicators such as infant mortality, life expectancy, and declines in treatable mortality, health outcomes in Southern Europe are largely favorable, but austerity politics have taken their toll.
Portugal
Authors: Asensio Maria
Published: August 2021

This chapter provides an extended look at health politics and the health system in Portugal, characterized by overlapping tiers of coverage including a national health service. The chapter traces the historical development of the Portuguese healthcare system through a series of regime changes, particularly the transition from conservative dictatorship to democracy beginning in 1974. Since the 1979 foundation of the National Health Service, the main issues facing the health system have been the relationship between public and private provision of services and the system’s fiscal solvency. A 1989 constitutional revision, which redefined healthcare from being a constitutional right to universal free healthcare to one which “tended towards” no cost at the time of treatment and was based on individuals’ particular social and economic situation, shifted the system away from universalism, removed obstacles to privatization, and allowed the introduction of other forms of market mechanisms. As the chapter argues, though left and right political parties have differed in their approaches, actors in health politics seem to have largely agreed to move in the direction of a public–private mix of service providers.
Spain
Authors: Chuliá Elisa
Published: August 2021

This chapter offers an in-depth look at health politics and the tax-financed, universal health system in Spain. It traces the development of the Spanish healthcare system, focusing in particular on its double transition in the 1980s and 1990s from a centralized social insurance system, mostly funded through workers’ and employers’ contributions, to a decentralized universal model financed by general taxation. The new national health system aimed at covering all residents and transferred healthcare competences to the regions, i.e. the seventeen Autonomous Communities, a process completed in 2001. Key issues include rationalization, harmonization, and territorial equity-building of the decentralized healthcare system; efficiency improvement through the introduction of private management elements; and cost containment to bolster the system’s financial sustainability in the context of growing demand and scarce resources. As the chapter argues, these challenges along with the remarkable changes in the political party system have increased the political salience of healthcare in public debate in the 2010s, but the prospects for developing consensual healthcare policies have worsened, such that structural problems are likely to persist.
Cyprus
Authors: Theodorou Mamas , Athanasakis Kostas
Published: August 2021

This chapter offers an in-depth look at health politics and the health system in Cyprus. It traces the development of Cyprus’s healthcare system, which underwent only minor incremental change from its founding in 1957 until 2019, despite numerous studies and proposals. Though calls for universal coverage and free-at-the-point-of-service care had become louder in the early 1990s, it took until 2001 for Parliament to establish the legal foundation for a new national health system. Still, full implementation was repeatedly postponed for many reasons, from concerns about the new system’s cost to resistance from important stakeholders, especially those that benefitted from the shortcomings of the earlier system. As the chapter explains, economic crisis ultimately created the momentum for reform, resulting in the actual full launch of the new system in 2019 and 2020.
Regional Outlook
Authors: Ainsaar Mare , Roots Ave
Published: August 2021

The regional outlook for the Baltic countries presents a comparative assessment of the historical development of the healthcare system, health politics, and selected health-related indicators for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, each of which pursued a different path to establishing a new health system after independence in 1991. In terms of health financing, out-of-pocket payments are relatively high, especially in Latvia and Lithuania. But while, as might be expected, unmet need due to cost is quite high in Latvia, it is rather low in Lithuania. Though the political saliency of healthcare has been rather low in the Baltics, it appears to be moving up the political agenda. High health inequalities, low satisfaction with healthcare services, and access are among the problems that have persisted.
Estonia
Authors: Ainsaar Mare , Roots Ave , Kõre Jüri
Published: August 2021

This chapter provides an extended look at health politics and the social health insurance system in Estonia. The chapter traces the historical development of the Estonian healthcare system through a series of regime changes, all of which affected healthcare. The post-1991 transformation of Estonia’s health system went rapidly and was marked by relatively high consensus and professionalism. Consequently, stable financing and a large tax component allowed Estonia’s national health fund to avoid the heavy dependence on out-of-pocket payments characteristic of many other transition countries. Despite plans for decentralized social insurance, by 2000 the decision was made to centralize the social insurance system, which has become essentially a single-payer system. This has allowed quite a bit of leverage for setting healthcare priorities. But, as the chapter argues, given the pressure for austerity after the 2008 financial crisis, reduced capacity has led to longer waiting times.
Latvia
Authors: Eihmanis Edgars
Published: August 2021

This chapter offers an in-depth look at health politics and the tax-financed health system in Latvia. It traces the development of the Latvian healthcare system, characterized by tension between central and local government, increasing commercialization, and chronic public underfinancing. Since independence in 1991, Latvia first decentralized then recentralized health financing. The state has taken the back seat in provision of health services and allotted larger roles to private providers and to solutions such as out-of-pocket payments that emphasize individual responsibility. In Latvia, life expectancy is among the lowest, and unmet needs are high. As the chapter argues, because of the country’s cultural politics, healthcare rarely tops the political agenda.
Germany
Authors: Immergut Ellen M. , Wendt Claus
Published: August 2021

This chapter provides an extended look at health politics and the compulsory health insurance system in Germany. It traces the historical development of the German healthcare system, characterized by its stability through a series of major regime shifts, including National Socialism, the post-World War II return to democracy, and the re-unification of Germany. Corporatist self-regulation has been a defining characteristic of the German system, but since 1989 elements of market and state-led governance have been enhanced, such as with the introduction of free choice of health insurance fund and elements of market competition among the funds, the pooling of insurance contributions into a central fund, and the introduction of substantial risk-sharing instruments. Despite the polarized left–right debate about introducing a universal citizens’ insurance versus a premium-based system, “grand coalition” politics have prevailed, with the broad contours of the German healthcare system being generally accepted and political competition focused on improving the already high quality of healthcare services.
France
Authors: Brunn Matthias , Hassenteufel Patrick
Published: August 2021

This chapter offers an in-depth look at health politics and the national health insurance system in France. It traces the development of the French healthcare system through its series of political regimes, characterized by its unusual combination of statism and corporatism. Since the 1990s, a technocratic consensus emerged that has led to new public management reforms, tighter parliamentary control of social security budgets, and efforts to improve coverage by subsidizing supplementary voluntary health insurance coverage for low-income persons and increasing tax-financing. Other healthcare issues have been regional health inequalities, reimbursement of medical professionals, and individuals’ responsibility for their health.
Belgium
Authors: Lynch Julia , Vermorken Christiaan
Published: August 2021

This chapter offers an in-depth look at health politics and the mutualism-based compulsory health insurance system in Belgium. It traces the development of the Belgian healthcare system, characterized by its very generous coverage and few restrictions on patient choice. Since 1980, the process of federalization of the Belgian state—which has been propelled by the divide between the Flemish-speaking North and the French-speaking South—has increasingly challenged the national basis of the Belgian health insurance system. Other healthcare issues have been cost containment and the privileged position of the mutual aid societies in health insurance provision which was subject to a European Court of Justice challenge.
The Czech Republic
Authors: Popic Tamara
Published: August 2021

This chapter provides an extended look at health politics and the universal health system based on a compulsory social health insurance in the Czech Republic. It traces the historical development of the Czech healthcare system, characterized by a systemic shift from an insurance system to a fully state-run Soviet Semashko model of healthcare provision. Since the fall of communism in 1989, the Czech healthcare system has undergone significant reforms, including a return to a Bismarckian insurance system and market-oriented reforms in delivery and financing of health services. The post-communist reforms were characterized by the crystallization of the left–right political divide in healthcare policymaking. As the chapter argues, this division became particularly pronounced in the context of reforms introducing user fees for medical services and hospital privatization, both of which were controversial issues, with critics arguing that these reforms posed a major threat to the system’s solidarity.
Slovenia
Authors: Popic Tamara
Published: August 2021

This chapter offers an in-depth look at health politics and the universal health system in Slovenia based on compulsory social health insurance. It traces the development of the Slovenian healthcare system from the first health insurance schemes to the more established insurance system with universal coverage and focus on social medicine under communism. Since its independence in 1992, Slovenian politics has been marked by a pragmatic model of party competition with an important role in healthcare policymaking played by neo-corporatist structures. The major post-communist reform was the introduction of complementary private health insurance in 1993, which covers the majority of the population. Several unsuccessful reform proposals sought the abolition of complementary private insurance, the fairness of which remains the most controversial question regarding the system. Other healthcare issues outlined in the chapter include large hospital debt and uneven distribution of primary care physicians.
Regional Outlook
Authors: Popic Tamara , Stolarov-Demuth Guergana
Published: August 2021

The Southern Eastern Europe regional outlook presents a comparative assessment of the historical development of the healthcare system, health politics, and selected health-related indicators for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia. Despite variations in their healthcare systems during communism, since 1989 the countries of the region have all undertaken efforts to introduce or consolidate social health insurance and combine it with a mix of public and private provision. In most of the countries at least half of healthcare financing originates from compulsory contributory health insurance, but in many of them, out-of-pocket payments constitute an extremely large share. Given this financial burden, satisfaction in the region is very low. Health outcomes are unsatisfactory, with low average life expectancy, very high infant mortality, and relatively high levels of health inequality. Unmet need is high, especially in Romania, mainly due to costs. Since at least 2004, healthcare has tended to be a moderately salient issue in Southern Eastern Europe. The key healthcare issues in the region have been incomplete or ineffective social health insurance coverage, privatization, insufficient financing, and high out-of-pocket payments, especially for pharmaceuticals and private services.
Bulgaria
Authors: Stolarov-Demuth Guergana
Published: August 2021

This chapter provides an extended look at health politics and the compulsory health insurance system in Bulgaria. It traces the historical development of the Bulgarian healthcare system characterized by the introduction of social health insurance, which after the establishment of communist rule in Bulgaria after World War II was replaced with a state-run healthcare system. Starting in 1989, Bulgaria underwent a transition to democracy and free market economy. This triggered structural healthcare reforms, including the re-introduction of social health insurance with both public and private provision. However, as privatization was permitted without effective price control mechanisms and conditions for entry into the public insurance system, out-of-pocket payments became extensive, especially for pharmaceuticals. The main reform challenges have been to close the coverage gaps and secure sufficient financing by stipulating selective contracting with hospitals, strengthening the control on pharmaceuticals, and tightening the collection of insurance contributions. While political debates were initially structured along traditional left–right political party lines, since 2001 new center-right parties have shaped Bulgarian health politics. Nevertheless, the reform process still suffered from lack of continuity, and private interest groups have successfully blocked cost-containment policies.
Former Yugoslavia
Authors: Popic Tamara , Perišić Natalija
Published: August 2021

This chapter traces the common past of the healthcare systems of seven countries that formerly were part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY): Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. Due to their common state histories, these countries witnessed similar health policy developments, marked by the introduction of a social insurance system under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and establishment of universal healthcare during the communist period. After the break-up of the SFRY in 1992, the countries departed on independent policy trajectories, which were protracted and disrupted by conflicts over state-building and nationalism, and in some countries also by civil war.
North Macedonia
Authors: Kacarska Simonida , Kostova Neda Milevska
Published: August 2021

This chapter offers an in-depth look at health politics and the compulsory health insurance system in North Macedonia. It traces the development of the North Macedonian healthcare system, characterized by the establishment of decentralized free-for-all-at-point-of-delivery health system during communism, which served as a basis for the current system. Since the early 1990s, when North Macedonia declared independence and started a transition towards democracy and a free market economy, North Macedonian health politics focused on permitting private provision, establishing a compulsory health insurance system, and integrating private services in the public insurance. Despite support from international organizations, the reform process was hampered by economic difficulties, inter-ethnic conflict, and the conflict with Greece regarding North Macedonia. As highlighted in the chapter, the main healthcare challenges have been to ensure the insurance system’s fiscal solvency, the conversion of primary care provision from local public health centers into private practices, and, since 2012, the integration of higher level private hospital services into the public system in order to reduce out-of-pocket payments and ensure equal geographical access.
Kosovo
Authors: Uka Arta
Published: August 2021

This chapter offers an in-depth look at health politics and the tax-financed health system in Kosovo, a system which is in a process of transition towards social health insurance. It traces the development of Kosovo’s healthcare system, characterized by the establishment of a decentralized free-for-all-at-point-of-delivery health system during communism. After the end of the Kosovo War in 1999, Kosovo started actively seeking independence. Until the declaration of independence in 2008, politics in the country was mainly focused on the state-building process, while health policy was not a priority. Although facilitated by international organizations, legislation for establishing a social health insurance has been passed, the social health insurance system has not been implemented yet. Thus, healthcare services still remain financed by state and municipal budgets, medical professionals are public employees, and the private sector is not integrated into the public insurance system. Key healthcare issues have been high out-of-pocket payments, mainly for pharmaceuticals and private services, inequalities in health access, and high unemployment rates, which are likely to undermine the collection of social insurance contributions in the future.
Historical Origins
Authors: Ågren J. Arvid
Published: August 2021

This chapter traces the origins of the gene’s-eye view through three sections of evolutionary biology. The first is adaptationism, the tradition that takes the appearance of design in living world to be the cardinal problem a theory of evolution needs to explain. The chapter shows how this view has been especially prominent in British biology, owing the strong standing of natural theology and the writings of William Paley. The second is the emergence of population genetics during the modern synthesis. Here, the work of R.A. Fisher was particularly important. The third and final section was the levels selection debate and the rejection of group selection. G.C. Williams led the way the way and the origin of the gene’s-eye view culminated with the publication of The Selfish Gene.
Defining and Refining Selfish Genes
Authors: Ågren J. Arvid
Published: August 2021

This chapter navigates through the rather confusing vocabulary surrounding the gene’s-eye view. It explains how the gene’s-eye view defines the word gene in an unusual way, differently from molecular biologists, and how this leads to the central claim that evolution requires two entities, replicators and vehicles. The chapter evaluates the success of the replicator–vehicle distinction compared to other general accounts, such as Lewontin’s principles, and how the debate has changed in light of the growing interests in major transitions. Finally, the chapter outlines the application of the gene’s-eye view to cultural evolution—the concept of memetics—and why it has failed to have the same influence there as it has on the study of organic evolution.
Spontaneous Communicative Conventions through Virtual Bargaining
Authors: Chater Nick , Misyak Jennifer
Published: August 2021

Human-like computing will require machines to communicate interactively with people, to take in human knowledge and preferences, to explain the machine’s actions, and to generally coordinate human and machine behaviour. But even the simplest communicative interactions raise deep theoretical challenges. Human and machine spontaneously have to “agree” on the mapping between possible signals and messages. Such mappings are extremely flexible and influenced by large numbers of contextual factors in real-world interactions. Typically, there are many candidate signal-message mappings. Successful communication requires that both parties agree on the same mapping. We outline experimental and theoretical work exploring an approach to these problems based on “virtual bargaining,” according to which each communicative party attempts to infer which mapping would be agreed were prior communication possible. This chapter explores how such problems are solved by humans, and suggests directions for building computational models of these processes.
Explanation in AI systems
Authors: Tesic Marko , Hahn Ulrike
Published: August 2021

As AI systems come to permeate human society, there is an increasing need for such systems to explain their actions, conclusions, or decisions. This is presently fuelling a surge in interest in machine-generated explanation in the field of explainable AI. In this chapter, we examine work on explanations in areas ranging from AI to philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. We point to different notions of explanation that are at play in these areas. We further discuss the theoretical work in philosophy and psychology on (good) explanation and its implications for the research on machine-generated explanations. Lastly, we consider the pragmatic nature of explanations and showcase its importance in the context of trust and fidelity. Throughout the chapter we suggest paths for further research on explanation in AI, psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science.
Human–Machine Scientific Discovery
Authors: Tamaddoni-Nezhad Alireza , Bohan David , Milani Ghazal Afroozi , Raybould Alan , Muggleton Stephen
Published: August 2021

Humanity is facing existential, societal challenges related to food security, ecosystem conservation, antimicrobial resistance, etc, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already playing an important role in tackling these new challenges. Most current AI approaches are limited when it comes to ‘knowledge transfer’ with humans, i.e. it is difficult to incorporate existing human knowledge and also the output knowledge is not human comprehensible. In this chapter we demonstrate how a combination of comprehensible machine learning, text-mining and domain knowledge could enhance human-machine collaboration for the purpose of automated scientific discovery where humans and computers jointly develop and evaluate scientific theories. As a case study, we describe a combination of logic-based machine learning (which included human-encoded ecological background knowledge) and text-mining from scientific publications (to verify machine-learned hypotheses) for the purpose of automated discovery of ecological interaction networks (food-webs) to detect change in agricultural ecosystems using the Farm Scale Evaluations (FSEs) of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant (GMHT) crops dataset. The results included novel food-web hypotheses, some confirmed by subsequent experimental studies (e.g. DNA analysis) and published in scientific journals. These machine-leaned food-webs were also used as the basis of a recent study revealing resilience of agro-ecosystems to changes in farming management using GMHT crops.
Automated Common-sense Spatial Reasoning: Still a Huge Challenge
Authors: Bennett Brandon , Cohn Anthony G.
Published: August 2021

Achieving “commonsense reasoning” capabilities has been one of the goals of AI since its inception. However, as Marcus and Davis have recently argued, “Common sense is not just the hardest problem for AI; in the long run, it’s also the most important problem”. Moreover, it is generally accepted that space (and time) underlie much of what we regard as commonsense reasoning. Despite many successes in dealing with particular restricted types of spatial information, the development of a system capable of carrying out automated spatial reasoning of similar diversity to what one finds in ordinary natural language descriptions, seems to be a long way off. The chapter gives a general (though not comprehensive) overview of the goal of automating commonsense spatial reasoning by means of symbolic representations and reasoning. Existing work is surveyed, the nature of the goal clarified, and the problem analysed into seven interacting sub-problems.
Sampling as the Human Approximation to Probabilistic Inference
Authors: Sanborn Adam , Zhu Jian-Qiao , Spicer Jake , Sundh Joakim , León-Villagrá Pablo , Chater Nick
Published: August 2021

Human beings perform well in uncertain environments, matching the performance of complex probabilistic models in complex tasks such as language or physical system prediction. Yet people’s judgments about probabilities also display well-known biases. How can this be? Recently cognitive scientists have explored the possibility that the same sampling algorithms that are used in computer science to approximate complex probabilistic models are also used in the mind and the brain. We the review experimental evidence that characterises the human sampling algorithm, and discuss how such an algorithm could potentially explain apects of the movement of asset prices in financial markets. We also discuss how many of the biases that people display may be the direct result of using only a small number of samples, but using them efficiently. As human beings make successful real-time decisions using only rough estimates of uncertainty, this suggests that machine intelligence could do the same.