bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Hobbesian Sovereignty and the Denaturalization of Authority
Authors: Koganzon Rita
Published: June 2021

Hobbes embraced Bodinian sovereignty but rejected the naturalness of the family to preempt any threat that natural fathers could pose to the artificial sovereign. But Hobbes also introduced a new concern: the power of public opinion to undermine the sovereign’s authority. He sought to align public opinion behind the sovereign by using the logic of congruence to reject the competing patriarchal and natural models of the state. Children ought to be taught to regard their fathers as absolute authorities, not because they are model sovereigns but because this demonstrates how dangerously unstable “natural” authorities are and proves that only the artificial and impersonal office of the sovereign can adequately manage men’s passions to ensure the internal peace they sought in forming a commonwealth in the first place.
A Casebook on the Roman Law of Contracts
Authors: Frier Bruce W.
Published: June 2021

This Casebook explores the writings of Roman lawyers on the law of contracts, a rich and hugely influential area of Roman private law. The 235 “Cases” are actual texts deriving, for the most part, from the Digest of Justinian (535 ce), but written hundreds of years earlier during the Classical era of Roman law. These Cases give a fairly complete view of the concepts and methods used to create rules and judge contract cases in Roman courts. The Casebook concentrates especially on two central Roman contracts, stipulation and sale; but all other contracts and contract-related issues are discussed, as well as Roman legal thinking on unjustified enrichment.
Capacity to Contract
Authors: Frier Bruce W.
Published: June 2021

This brief chapter gives an overview of the diminished contractual capacity of some Romans: children, the insane, young adults, and women. The law is intended to protect them, but also those with whom they make contracts, some of whom may be unaware of their partners’ limited capacity. The role of guardians in authorizing transactions is emphasized. The material in this chapter is introductory, for students who have not previously studied the law of status; this law has important effects on the overall structure of Roman contract law. The subject matter is partially taken up again in Part A of Chapter VII, where the ability to acquire rights and duties through one’s dependents is examined.
Quasi-Contract
Authors: Frier Bruce W.
Published: June 2021

The jurists recognized that there were some situations in which a contract-like set of duties and obligations arose from circumstances involving no agreement between the parties. The two most influential forms of such “quasi-contract” are unauthorized administration of affairs (negotiorum gestio) and what is now called unjustified enrichment (actionable through the condictio). Although this body of law remained somewhat underdeveloped, it contains many important insights into Roman concepts of obligation. Particularly for unjustified enrichment, the jurists clarified when a benefit conferred upon one person at another’s expense can be reclaimed on the basis that the recipient has no legitimate basis for retaining the benefit.
Traumas and Tyranny?
Authors: Radnitz Scott
Published: June 2021

This chapter seeks out the origins of conspiracism in the former Soviet Union. It critiques arguments that conspiracism in Russia (and in other successor parts of the Russian Empire) is best explained by the region’s troubled historical development. It argues that history does matter, not by preordaining a country’s fate, but by providing a set of reference points and tropes that can be invoked under certain circumstances. It then examines challenges the region’s leaders faced in more recent times that might trigger a conspiratorial interpretation, focusing on two major preoccupations: political control and sovereignty. The chapter closes with a narrative account of the 42 critical events sampled to compile the database of conspiracy claims, laying the groundwork for the next chapter.
The Lay of the Land
Authors: Radnitz Scott
Published: June 2021

This chapter explores the database of conspiracy claims in order to lay the groundwork for the analysis in future chapters. It begins by describing how the database was created and presenting an overview of its contents, including simple graphs showing where conspiracies (supposedly) take place, the nationalities of the accusers, and the identities of the perpetrators. To give a sense of the stories the claims tell, it homes in on three narrative elements of conspiracy—goals, actions, and logics—and provides examples. Finally, it breaks down the data according to combinations of accusers and perpetrators. Perusing the conspiracy claims reveals how they emerge from quotidian political realities, but in a milieu pervaded by intrigue, insecurity, and uncertainty. These claims tell a story—actually, several—about politics, but revolve around two questions: Who is doing what to whom and what do the perpetrators hope to accomplish?
Disaffection, Disinformation, and Democracy
Authors: Radnitz Scott
Published: June 2021

This chapter reviews the main findings of the book and then shifts the focus beyond the post-Soviet region. It first discusses what the argument contributes to ongoing debates in political science about how regimes spread and manipulate information. It then considers the evolution of conspiracism in two imperfect democracies: Turkey, which bears a surface resemblance to cases covered in this book, and then the United States, a country with a venerable history of popular belief in conspiracy theories. Despite being a well-established democracy, recent developments indicate that conspiracy claims have moved fully into the political mainstream. It then discusses the implications of Russia’s export of conspiracy theories, a practice initially intended to influence opinion in the near abroad but then expanded globally. Finally, it considers the implications of this book’s arguments for democracy and governance today.
“You’ve got to do something radical”
Authors: Messner Michael A.
Published: June 2021

The final chapter touches back on the stories of veteran activists Wendy Barranco, Phoenix Johnson, Monique Salhab, Monisha Ríos, Stephen Funk, and Brittany Ramos DeBarros to consider the future of Veterans For Peace and About Face within the larger field of national and international movements for peace and social justice. The chapter touches on the state of the current intergenerational dialogue taking place in these organizations, and ends with a critical analysis of how the intersectional praxis of a new generation of progressive activists holds the promise of bridging the struggle against militarism and war with other large issues of the day, including climate change, global pandemics, and the continuing violence of economic, racial, gender, and sexual injustice.
Introduction
Authors: Parker Emily Anne
Published: June 2021

The introduction explains that both philosophers of performativity and philosophers of political ecology ultimately dissociate what is considered political from what is considered ecological. What is needed is an exposition of the tradition of the polis. This book argues that the distinction between political and ecological is rooted in the concept of the polis: the leaders of the city, those bodies exemplary of the promise of the polis, were those capable of disembodied, eternal, immaterial thought. It is the dynamics of the polis that both performativity and political ecology aim to critique, but they cannot do so as long as they distinguish themselves from each other.
Sylvia Wynter and the Climate of Biocentric Man
Authors: Parker Emily Anne
Published: June 2021

Chapter 4 discusses the philosophy of climate change of Sylvia Wynter. Wynter’s work extends that of Fanon into a philosophy of genre. Wynter argues that the inspiration for the sciences of sex, madness, illness, indigence, and sexual classification of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries in Western Europe is the science of racial anatomy. And this science of racial anatomy is what creates the current genre of biocentrism that is also responsible for climate change. This chapter examines the gesture of hybridity in the work of both Bruno Latour and Sylvia Wynter.
Immediate Causes
Authors: Jaffrelot Christophe , Anil Pratinav
Published: June 2021

This chapter examines the two major developments that led Mrs Gandhi to declare the Emergency: the JP Movement and the Allahabad judgment. It analyses how both these challenges to her regime emanated from structural issues, many of which were a decade old. The chapter delineates the role of the Sangh Parivar and social discontent due to a serious socio-economic crisis in making the nation-wide JP movement. Similarly, the Allahabad judgment came after Mrs Gandhi side-lined the judiciary for years, thereby increasing the power of the executive. Therefore, the Allahabad judgment, like the JP movement, was a result of deep-seated resentment from the judiciary and the people.
Mrs Gandhi’s Personalisation of Power, 1966–1975
Authors: Jaffrelot Christophe , Anil Pratinav
Published: June 2021

This chapter focuses on the internal factors that led to the declaration of the Emergency. It primarily explores Mrs Gandhi’s authoritarian personality and the deinstitutionalisation of the Congress Party. The power structure within the Congress, especially after Mrs Gandhi split the party in 1969, meant that checks and balances ceased to exist. This factionalism enabled her to impose her authoritarian tendencies on the government as safeguards were dismantled. The chapter further explores the relation between authoritarianism and populism. It uses the political situation in India from the late 1960s to the early 1970s as an illustration. Mrs Gandhi, like other populist leaders, was convinced that she was the people of India. This idea was epitomised by D. K. Barooah’s slogan: ‘Indira is India and India is Indira.’
An Uneven Resistance
Authors: Jaffrelot Christophe , Anil Pratinav
Published: June 2021

This chapter deals with the regime’s few opponents. The resistance came from sections of the press, judiciary, political class and civil society—albeit in a feeble manner. The deficient performance of the media, in particular, was highlighted by Advani’s phrase: ‘When you were merely asked to bend, you chose to crawl.’ The political opposition was comprised of socialists, Hindu nationalists, Akali Dal and CPI(M) cadres, and revolutionaries were among the many who went underground and resisted the regime. The chapter describes the resistance as uneven and unimpressive, plagued by factionalism and tokenistic gestures. The chapter goes on to characterise the Emergency as a dictatorship by consent.
Enraged, Rattled, and Wronged
Authors: Anderson Kristin J.
Published: June 2021

The political context producing the Donald Trump presidency put into stark relief the confusion, feelings of victimization, and rage of some constituencies that voted for him. Enraged, Rattled, and Wronged: Entitlement’s Response to Social Progress explores the role of entitlement in fostering inequality in the United States. Scholars and activists in recent decades have correctly incorporated the topic of privilege into discussions of prejudice and discrimination. White privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, and class privilege exemplify the unearned advantages given to socially preferred groups—advantages not enjoyed by marginalized groups. As a result, activists and scholars of prejudice integrate an examination of discrimination against target groups, alongside the corresponding benefits that come to those viewed as the societal norm and ideal (e.g., Whites, heterosexuals, and men). Enraged, Rattled, and Wronged examines psychological entitlement as an overlooked but essential feature of persistent inequality. Psychological entitlement refers to one’s sense of deservingness. In understanding resistance to social progress we must understand how members of advantaged groups come to understand their belief in their own worthiness relative to those in disadvantaged groups. The task of this project is an urgent inquiry given our current political context: What happens to entitled people when they feel pushed aside? What are they willing to tear down as they scramble to keep their grip on relative status and power? This book explores the predictable and unpredictable ways in which entitlement preserves and perpetuates inequality.
Power
Authors: Lally Jagjeet
Published: June 2021

By introducing the idea of economies of violence, this chapter explains the connection of seasonal movements from the dry zone of mercenaries, horse traders, and nomadic pastoralists and their herds to the production and exercise of hard power in monsoon south Asia. Zooming in, it then examines the rise of the Durrani Empire in the northwest borderlands of the Mughal Empire in the eighteenth century. It shows how this process of expansion—alongside the expansion of the Qing and Romanov empires deeper into Eurasia around the same time—brought into this space more of the liquid wealth derived from the increasingly globalised economy which was emerging along the continental seaboards. This wealth was used to bolster a different form of power: that deriving from the management of the state’s material resources (the land and its productivity, not least) and the expansion of the state’s fiscal base.
The past and future of human rights
Authors: de Búrca Gráinne
Published: June 2021

This chapter reflects on the lessons to be derived from the advocacy campaigns in Pakistan, Argentina, and Ireland discussed in earlier chapters. Insights drawn from those campaigns are used to refine the experimentalist account of human rights advanced in Chapter 2, particularly as regards the importance of social movements and of building broad social support for human rights campaigns. The remainder of the chapter describes five major challenges of the current era—illiberalism, climate change, digitalization, pandemics, and inequality—and considers the difficulties they pose for the experimentalist account of human rights advocacy. It argues that the experimentalist practice of human rights advocacy is reasonably resilient and adaptive, and that internal contestation from within the human rights movement as well as external critiques have already helped to catalyze reform and to push activists and advocates to think more innovatively about the changes needed to strengthen the ability of the movement to engage with these major challenges in the future. It concludes that in a turbulent era, rather than abandon human rights, we should redouble our efforts to bolster, renew, and reinvigorate a movement that has galvanized constituencies and communities around the globe to mobilize for a better world.
Protection of Personal Data in Clouds and Rights of Individuals
Authors: Kamarinou Dimitra , Millard Christopher , Turton Felicity
Published: June 2021

This chapter focuses on the rights and remedies that individual users of cloud computing services may enjoy under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It begins by considering the concept of the individual as 'data subject', which is inextricably linked to the concept of 'personal data'. The term 'data subject' is not defined explicitly in the GDPR. Instead, it is referenced in parenthesis within the definition of personal data. The definition of personal data is purposefully broad so as to include the vast range of information from which an individual may be identified. The chapter then explores the rights afforded to data subjects, including the right to be informed; the rights of access, rectification, and erasure; the right to data portability; the right to object to processing; and the right not to be subject to automated decision making, including profiling. Finally, it looks at the remedies and compensation available to data subjects. One of the biggest challenges to data subjects knowing and being able to exercise their rights is a potential lack of transparency with regard to how and by whom their personal data are collected and further processed in the cloud.
Placing the State in the Cloud
Authors: Gleeson Niamh , Walden Ian
Published: June 2021

This chapter highlights issues of data governance and public procurement. It first examines some of the unique data governance considerations applicable to public sector decisions about cloud adoption; while acknowledging that data governance is only one element in a decision to move to cloud. The chapter then identifies potential obstacles in the EU procurement framework that is not adapted to, or creates de facto barriers to, public sector cloud adoption and considers how these barriers could be addressed. The first potential legal barrier to public sector take-up of cloud concerns public sector data governance and the legal requirements concerning the security of, and access to, public sector data. The second potential legal barrier concerns EU public procurement legislation and the extent to which it is not adapted to the cloud environment.
Space, time, and the world
Authors: Kempshall Matthew
Published: June 2021

Conceptions of space and time have conventionally lent themselves to characterizations of late medieval Europe as an ‘Age of Discovery’. These characterizations underpin an account of historical ‘progress’ which is technological, intellectual, and social. Coupled with other retrospective ‘modern’ projections—Renaissance humanism and the rise of ‘the state’—they present a teleological narrative of empirical, rational, and scientific discovery at the waning, even the end, of ‘the Middle Ages’. By qualifying and revising such a narrative, this chapter invites appreciation of a more complex historical reality, a necessarily plural and fragmented picture of socially and culturally conditioned ways of seeing space, measuring time, and understanding the connections between them. The discoveries of the fifteenth century emerge, as a result, not as the reflection of a brave new vision of the world, a shift from ‘religion’ to ‘science’ or from ‘medieval’ to ‘modern’, but rather as a reconfiguration of representations of what was already known. This was certainly an age of conceptual change and development but one which was characterized as much by refining, re-ordering, and reconnection as it was by innovation and discovery.
Epistêmê and Doxa, Knowledge and Belief, in the Phaedo
Authors: Fine Gail
Published: June 2021

Chapter 5 asks how the Phaedo conceives of epistêmê and doxa. In particular, it asks whether the Phaedo uses doxa for belief, and whether it uses epistêmê for knowledge. In discussing this, I distinguish a concept from a conception; the former is an abstract account, the latter a more determinate way of filling it in. The chapter argues that what the Phaedo says about epistêmê and doxa is closer to some modern views of knowledge and belief than has sometimes been thought. It also argues that the dialogue doesn’t individuate epistêmê and doxa by their objects; in particular, and contrary to the Two Worlds Theory, both epistêmê and doxa range over both sensibles and forms.
Recollection and Innatism in the Phaedo
Authors: Fine Gail
Published: June 2021

It’s often thought that the theory of recollection posits innate knowledge. Chapter 6 asks whether the Phaedo’s account of recollection does so. It also asks whether the argument for the claim that what we think of as learning is really just recollecting is as bad as it has sometimes been thought to be: it has been argued that it is invalid, that it is circular, and that it begs the question. The chapter argues that the argument is not as bad as it has been taken to be. It also argues that the Phaedo, so far from countenancing innate knowledge, rejects its existence. Indeed, Plato’s argument for recollection depends on rejecting it. The chapter also distinguishes among varieties of innatism.
Meno’s Paradox and the Sisyphus
Authors: Fine Gail
Published: June 2021

Chapter 8 explores the unjustly neglected spurious dialogue, the Sisyphus. It focuses on the Paradox of Deliberation, which neatly mirrors Meno’s Paradox as described in Plato’s Meno. According to the Paradox of Deliberation, deliberation either involves knowledge or is mere guesswork; either way, deliberation is impossible. According to Meno’s Paradox, one either knows or doesn’t know what one is inquiring into; either way, inquiry is impossible. Chapter 8 compares the two paradoxes, and asks what if any solution the two dialogues suggest to the paradox each considers. Here it’s relevant to note that knowing and guess work don’t seem exhaustive; there are also true beliefs that aren’t mere guesses. On some ways of understanding knowing and not knowing, they are exhaustive; but on other ways of understanding them, they aren’t.
Aristotle on Knowledge
Authors: Fine Gail
Published: June 2021

This chapter considers Aristotle’s epistemology, focusing on issues explored in Part I. It asks how he conceives of epistêmê in the Posterior Analytics. In particular, is it knowledge and, if so, is it knowledge as such or just a kind of knowledge? In considering this question, the chapter compares Aristotle’s account of epistêmê in the Posterior Analytics with Plato’s account of it in the Meno. It argues that, in defining epistêmê, Aristotle is defining knowledge—but just one kind of knowledge, not knowledge as such. Epistêmê counts as knowledge because it is a truth-entailing cognitive condition that is appropriately cognitively superior to mere true belief. But it isn’t knowledge as such, because Aristotle recognizes other cognitive conditions that also fall under the concept of knowledge but that do not count as epistêmê as it is defined in 1.2
Reasons for State Action
Authors: Hatzis Nicholas
Published: June 2021

The claim that the government ought to prohibit offensive speech is a form of practical reasoning. It tells us what an agent has reason to do under certain circumstances. The first part of the chapter explores in more detail the structure of that claim and the underlying idea that respect for religious feelings is a value which is realized when insults are censored. The second part explores the types of reasons which can be legitimately invoked to justify the exercise of state coercion. We expect restrictions of liberty to be based on reasons which all citizens can be expected to accept, regardless of their own view about what kind of life is worth living (i.e. a public reason requirement). The fact that an act is incompatible with the teachings of a religion is never an adequate reason for its prohibition. After discussing different versions of public reason theory, I suggest that even those which allow for some reliance on religious justifications cannot support the use of coercion against speakers who hurt their listeners’ religious feelings.
Divine Agency and Divine Action, Volume IV
Authors: Abraham William J.
Published: June 2021

Following the first three volumes in the series on divine action, this fourth and final volume seeks a prescriptive account of God as an agent. Christian systematic theology raises deep metaphysical questions about the central concepts we use in our thinking about God. One of these central concepts bequeathed by the Christian tradition is that God is an agent. While volumes 2 and 3 offered a wide range of specific divine actions offered in the canonical Christian tradition, the question of how to articulate this basic conviction arises. In this volume, Abraham expounds the concept of God as agent by applying it to various traditional problems in Christian doctrine like the relation of freedom and grace, divine action in liberation theology, the presence of God in the Eucharist, divine providence, the relationship of Christianity and Islam, the relation of the natural sciences to theology and apparent design, and the realm of the demonic. In keeping with the argument of the tetralogy as a whole, specific divine actions are the points of departure for reflection on these topics. The book aims not only to clarify the concept of God as an agent but also to articulate solutions to these traditional problems. It is designed to be the launchpad for further research in divine agency and divine action and how an account of God as an agent can throw fresh light on old theological and philosophical problems.
Divine Action, Grace, and Human Agency
Authors: Abraham William J.
Published: June 2021

This chapter illumines the old problem of the relation of human freedom to divine grace by looking at it from the perspective of God as an agent. The traditional problem of freedom and grace is this: if we allow room for human action in the economy of salvation, then we are committed to justification by works. But if salvation is all of grace and therefore does not allow for any serious causal role of the human will in salvation, then we are committed to determinism. The chapter throws light on this problem by looking at causation in in different respects, particularly how it bears on divine and human action, drawing on the work of J. R. Lucas, Paul Helm, and St. Augustine.
Divine Action in the Eucharist
Authors: Abraham William J.
Published: June 2021

Thomas Aquinas has long been the gold standard for theology of divine action in the Eucharist. Yet his account raises a number of difficulties. His position rests on a literal reading of scripture, a network of concomitant miracles that are dubious, and the danger of multiple incarnations, and a metaphysical apparatus that lacks credibility. This chapter argues that we should look for a better way to think about the Eucharist. First, it engages the proposal of Michael Dummett, a Roman Catholic philosopher, and second, it offers its own alternative sketch of divine action in the Eucharist which avoids the problems associated with Aquinas’s account.
Divine Action and Skepticism in the Book of Exodus
Authors: Abraham William J.
Published: June 2021

This chapter provides a reading of the book of Exodus in conversation with modern epistemological skepticism. Exodus speaks often of the knowledge of God. At its beginning, the Israelites are seriously doubtful about the account of God they inherited from their forefathers. At the end, they no longer have doubts and construct a tabernacle to express their devotion and worship to God. The chapter argues that the text provides significant epistemic clues that explain this shift from unbelief to belief. It also argues that much of this explanation has to do with divine action, that is, God’s own action on his people.
Divine Action, Design, and Natural Theology
Authors: Abraham William J.
Published: June 2021

This chapter reviews the debate about intelligent design as it emerged within biology. Then it treats the argument from design as represented by various features of the universe, like temporal and spatial order. The chapter argues that divine agency and divine action inform this debate by highlighting the identity of the agent who is the designer, by exposing how far one can specify the intentions and purposes of God in arguments from design, and by bringing to light two radically different ways of construing the place of natural theology in theology proper. It suggests further work is needed on this issue.
Mind Shift
Authors: Parrington John
Published: June 2021

This book draws on the latest research on the human brain to show how it differs strikingly from those of other animals in its structure and function at molecular and cellular level. It argues that this ‘shift’, enlarging the brain, giving it greater flexibility and enabling higher functions such as imagination, was driven by tool use, but especially by the development of one remarkable tool—language. The complex social interaction brought by language opened up the possibility of shared conceptual worlds, enriched with rhythmic sounds and images that could be drawn on cave walls. This transformation enabled modern humans to generate an exceptional human consciousness, a sense of self that arises as a product of our brain biology and the social interactions we experience. Linking early work by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky to the findings of modern neuroscience, the book also explores how language, culture, and society mediate brain function, and what this view of the human mind may bring to our understanding and treatment of mental illness.
Introduction
Authors: Pattison George
Published: June 2021

The Introduction sums up the outcomes of Parts 1 and 2 of the philosophy of Christian life in terms of the possibility of a mutual call to love that is evidenced both in the messianic invocation to ‘Come!’ and in the foundational naming ritual of baptism. The silent witness of feeling and the heart therefore requires the further testimony of language, understood as the medium of such a call. Reflecting on the meaning and implications of the call will involve engagement with philosophers (including Plato, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Solovyov), a broad range of theologians, and poets and artists such as Dante, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Dostoevsky, and Edwin Muir. The overall approach is defined as phenomenological and conversational.
Love and Language
Authors: Pattison George
Published: June 2021

It is widely believed that love cannot be limited to language and has a more natural affinity with silence than with speech. In this chapter it is argued that although there is no exact fit between love and language, love needs language (and not just ‘looks’) if it is to be humanly meaningful. Following Kierkegaard, it is proposed that love is a response to the love commandment, understood not as an abstract ought but as a concrete word of personal address in the mode of what has been called vocativity. In this perspective we see that love is grounded in the call and involves the kind of promise that language makes possible. The Christian marriage service is read phenomenologically as revealing what the word of love requires, abstracted from its doctrinal content. The interrelationship of love and language is further explored with reference again to Dante.
Love Came Down at Christmas
Authors: Pattison George
Published: June 2021

Even if we can envisage the social forms that a Kingdom of Love might require, is such a kingdom a pure ideal? Can love become a reality in a world such as ours, where even love itself is a source of human suffering and mutual affliction? Kant postulates an archetypal life of love that is humanly imaginable, but it seems it would take a near-miracle to realize the ideal. This is the miracle Christian theologians such as Karl Barth see in Christmas. The Christmas event, Barth argues is incomprehensible to human reason and we can only bear witness to it. Against this view, it is argued that the new beginning that Christians see in the Incarnation coheres with human experience, as in the ‘novelty’ of a new birth and the possibility of forgiveness. Yet, as the Christian Eucharist shows, this new beginning in history remains also a focus of eschatological hope.
Currently Functioning European Party Systems
Authors: Casal Bértoa Fernando , Enyedi Zsolt
Published: June 2021

This chapter presents the profile and the condensed history of the 41 currently functioning party systems. Here we discuss the dynamics of the changes, and relate them to the ideological configurations and alliance structures. We show that the changes in closure figures indicate well the transformations of party politics, we link developments in the governmental arena to the conflicts in the party system in general, and we associate each party system with a specific trajectory of closure development and a specific party system type. We show how the plurality of currently functioning party systems fit into a bipolar configuration that puts them on track towards a robust path of continuous stabilization until reaching full systemic institutionalization.
The Whole Is More than the Sum of the Parts
Authors: Casal Bértoa Fernando , Enyedi Zsolt
Published: June 2021

The seventh chapter establishes a theoretical distinction between the party- and the systemic-level analysis of party politics. We introduce new measures of party institutionalization, describe cross-temporal and cross-regional trends, and establish the degree of covariance between closure and party institutionalization. Even though there are many indications that high closure presupposes continuously existing, well-organized parties, we identify countries in which parties are highly institutionalized but the system is not, and cases where parties are relatively weak, but the system can be considered to be strong. The chapter shows how party institutionalization and closure (party system institutionalization) differ from each other. For the recent period, the former shows a steeply declining trend in Europe, while the latter is decreasing only marginally.
Liver disorders
Authors: Marjot Thomas , Ambrose Tim , McGregor Colleen
Published: June 2021

This chapter covers core curriculum topics relating to liver disorders including the anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry of the liver as it relates to disease processes. There is a focus on the investigation and management of acute hepatitis including viral, drug- and toxin-induced, and the risk stratification of patients with acute liver failure. All major chronic liver diseases are discussed including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, autoimmune liver disease, alcohol related liver disease and chronic viral hepatitis. There is also education on managing the complications of cirrhosis including renal dysfunction, hepatic encephalopathy, variceal haemorrhage, and spontaneous bacterial peritonitis. Additional important topics covered include nutrition in liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, liver transplantation indications and assessment, and complications following liver transplantation. Additional curriculum material regarding liver disorders will also be covered in the mock examination chapter.
Nutrition
Authors: Marjot Thomas
Published: June 2021

This chapter covers core curriculum topics relating to nutrition including assessment of nutritional risk. Specific micronutrient deficiencies are largely covered in the ‘Small Intestine’ chapter but, where appropriate, additional information is provided in this chapter. Decision making about enteral feeding routes and complications of longer-term feeding tubes such as percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomies, and their management, is discussed. Key aspects of intestinal failure requiring parenteral nutrition, including short bowel syndrome, are presented including management of types 2 and 3 intestinal failure. Education is provided on electrolyte content of key intravenous fluids. Coverage of bariatric surgical techniques and their complications round off this chapter. Additional curriculum material regarding nutrition will also be covered in the mock examination chapter.
Mock examination
Authors: Marjot Thomas
Published: June 2021

This chapter contains 50 questions, which exactly match the proportions of topic areas found in the European Specialty Examination in Gastroenterology and Hepatology (ESEGH), and is designed to act as a mock-examination for use in the final stages of preparation. The questions are unique to this chapter and therefore add to the coverage of the curriculum over and above that in preceding sections.
Euclidean path integrals and quantum mechanics (QM)
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

Functional integrals are basic tools to study first quantum mechanics (QM), and quantum field theory (QFT). The path integral formulation of QM is well suited to the study of systems with an arbitrary number of degrees of freedom. It makes a smooth transition between nonrelativistic QM and QFT possible. The Euclidean functional integral also emphasizes the deep connection between QFT and the statistical physics of systems with short-range interactions near a continuous phase transition. The path integral representation of the matrix elements of the quantum statistical operator e-β H for Hamiltonians of the simple separable form p2/2m +V(q) is derived. To the path integral corresponds a functional measure and expectation values called correlation functions, which are generalized moments, and related to quantum observables, after an analytic continuation in time. The path integral corresponding to the Euclidean action of a harmonic oscillator, to which is added a time-dependent external force, is calculated explicitly. The result is used to generate Gaussian correlation functions and also to reduce the evaluation of path integrals to perturbation theory. The path integral also provides a convenient tool to derive semi-classical approximations.
Critical phenomena: Corrections to scaling behaviour
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

In preceding chapters, while deriving the scaling behaviour of correlation functions, we have always kept only the leading term in the critical region. We examine now the different corrections to the leading behaviour. For instance, when we have solved the renormalizaton group (RG) equations, so far, we have neglected the small deviation of the effective coupling constant from its fixed-point value. Moreover, to establish RG equations, we have neglected corrections subleading by powers of the cut-off, and effects of other couplings of higher canonical dimensions. Subleading terms related to the value of the effective coupling constant which give the leading corrections, at least near four dimensions, can easily be derived from the solutions of the renormalization group (RG) equations and are discussed first. The situations below and at four dimensions (the upper-critical dimension) have to be examined separately. The second type of corrections involves additional considerations and is examined in the second part of the chapter. The last section is devoted to one physics application, provided by systems with strong dipolar forces, which have 3 as upper-critical dimension.
The Standard Model (SM) of fundamental interactions
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

The Standard Model (SM) 2020 of weak, electromagnetic and strong interactions, based on gauge symmetry and spontaneous symmetry breaking, describes all known fundamental interactions at the microscopic scale except gravity and, perhaps, interactions with dark matter. The SM model has been tested systematically in collider experiments, and in the case of strong interactions (quantum chromodynamics) also with numerical simulations. With the discovery in 2012 of the Higgs particle at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN), all particles of the SM have been identified, and most parameters have been measured. Still, the Higgs particle remains the most mysterious particle of the SM, since it is responsible for all the parameters of the SM except gauge couplings and since it leads to the fine-tuning problem. The discovery of its origin, and the precise study of its properties should be, in the future, one of the most important field of research in particle physics. Since we know now that the neutrinos have masses, the simplest extension of the SM implies Dirac neutrinos. With such a minimal modification, consistent so far (2020) with experimental data, the lepton and quark sectors have analogous structures: the lepton sector involves a mixing matrix, like the quark sector (three angles have been determined, the fourth charge conjugation parity (CP) violating angle is still unknown).
Lattice gauge theories: Introduction
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

Lattice gauge theories are based on the notion of parallel transport. They can be considered as non-perturbative regularizations of the continuum gauge theories in the sense of a low-temperature expansion. The chapter is mainly devoted on a study of matterless lattice gauge theories from the point of view of phase transitions. This means many properties of a realistic theory like quantum chromodynamics (QC) cannot be investigated, but the important question of confinement can still be studied: does the theory generate a force between charged particles increasing at large distances, so that heavy quarks in the fundamental representation cannot be separated? More generally, can one find charged asymptotic states like massless vector particles in the theory? Lattice gauge theories have properties quite different from the ferromagnetic systems. In particular the absence of a local order parameter requires a study of the behaviour of a non-local quantity, a functional of loops generally called Wilson's loop, to distinguish between the confined and deconfined phases, characterized by an area or perimeter law, respectively.
Elements of classical and quantum gravity
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

This chapter has two purposes; to describe a few elements of differential geometry that are required in different places in this work, and to provide, for completeness, a short introduction to general relativity (GR) and the problem of its quantization. A few concepts related to reparametrization (more accurately, diffeomorphism) of Riemannian manifolds, like parallel transport, affine connection, or curvature, are recalled. To define fermions on Riemannian manifolds, additional mathematical objects are required, the vielbein and the spin connection. Einstein–Hilbert's action for classical gravity GR is defined and the field equations derived. Some formal aspects of the quantization of GR, following the lines of the quantization of non-Abelian gauge theories, are described. Because GR is not renormalizable in four dimensions (even in its extended forms like supersymmetric gravity), at present time, a reasonable assumption is that GR is the low-energy, large-distance remnant of a more complete theory that probably no longer has the form of a quantum field theory (QFT) (strings, non-commutative geometry?). In the terminology of critical phenomena, GR belongs to the class of irrelevant interactions: due to the presence of the massless graviton, GR can be compared with an interacting theory of Goldstone modes at low temperature, in the ordered phase. The scale of this new physics seems to be of the order of 1019 GeV (Planck's mass). Still, because the equations of GR follow from varying Einstein–Hilbert action, some regularized form is expected to be relevant to quantum gravity. In the framework of GR, the presence of a cosmological constant, generated by the quantum vacuum energy, is expected, but it is extremely difficult to account for its extremely small, measured value.
Generalized non-linear σ-models in two dimensions
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

This chapter describes the formal properties, and discusses the renormalization, of quantum field theories (QFT) based on homogeneous spaces: coset spaces of the form G/H, where G is a compact Lie group and H a Lie subgroup. In physics, they appear naturally in the case of spontaneous symmetry breaking, and describe the interaction between Goldstone modes. Homogeneous spaces are associated with non-linear realizations of group representations. There exist natural ways to embed these manifolds in flat Euclidean spaces, spaces in which the symmetry group acts linearly. As in the example of the non-linear σ-model, this embedding is first used, because the renormalization properties are simpler, and the physical interpretation of the more direct correlation functions. Then, in a generic parametrization, the renormalization problem is solved by the introduction of a Becchi–Rouet–Stora–Tyutin (BRST)-like symmetry with anticommuting (Grassmann) parameters, which also plays an essential role in quantized gauge theories. The more specific properties of models corresponding to a special class of homogeneous spaces, symmetric spaces (like the non-linear σ-model), are studied. These models are characterized by the uniqueness of the metric and thus, of the classical action. In two dimensions, from the classical field equations an infinite number of non-local conservation laws can be derived. The field and the unique coupling renormalization group (RG) functions are calculated at one-loop order, in two dimensions, and shown to imply asymptotic freedom.
Instantons in quantum mechanics (QM)
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

Perturbative expansion can be generated by calculating Euclidean functional integrals by the steepest descent method always looking, in the absence of external sources, for saddle points in the form of constant solutions to the classical field equations. However, classical field equations may have non-constant solutions. In Euclidean stable field theories, non-constant solutions have always a larger action than minimal constant solutions, because the gradient term gives an additional positive contribution. The non-constant solutions whose action is finite, are called instanton solutions and are the saddle points relevant for a calculation, by the steepest descent method, of barrier penetration effects. This chapter is devoted to simple examples of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (QM), where instanton calculus is an alternative to the semi-classical Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB) method. The role of instantons in some metastable systems in QM is explained. In particular, instantons determine the decay rate of metastable states in the semi-classical limit initially confined in a relative minimum of a potential and decaying through barrier penetration. The contributions of instantons at leading order for the quartic anharmonic oscillator with negative coupling are calculate explicitly. The method is generalized to a large class of analytic potentials, and explicit expressions, at leading order, for one-dimensional systems are obtained.
Multi-instantons in quantum mechanics (QM)
Authors: Zinn-Justin Jean
Published: June 2021

In general, a linear combination of instanton solutions is not a solution of the imaginary-time equations of motion, because the equations not linear. Moreover, in quantum mechanics (QM), all solutions of the classical equations can depend only on one time collective coordinate (in this respect, in field theory, the situation is different). However, a linear combination of largely separated instantons (a multi-instanton configuration) renders the action almost stationary, because each instanton solution differs, at large distances, from a constant solution by only exponentially small corrections (in field theory this is only true if the theory is massive). A situation where multi-instantons play a role is provided by large order behaviour estimates of perturbation theory for potentials with degenerate minima. When one starts from a situation in which the minima are almost degenerate, one obtains, in the degenerate limit, a contribution of the superposition of two, infinitely separated, instantons, but with an infinite multiplicative coefficient. Indeed, in this limit, the fluctuations which tend to change the distance between the instanton and the anti-instanton induce a vanishingly small variation of the action. To correctly determine the limit, one has to introduce a second collective coordinate which describes these fluctuations. The determination, at leading order, of all many-instanton contributions has led to conjecture the exact form of the semi-classical expansion for potentials with degenerate minima, generalizing the exact Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization condition.