bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction
Authors: Gutzmann Daniel
Published: March 2019

The distinction between descriptive and expressive language is introduced in this chapter, and the main hypothesis of this book—the thesis of expressive syntax—is also introduced, according to which expressivity is a syntactic feature on a par with other features like tense or gender. While the descriptive function involves the relation of the linguistic sign to objects or state of affairs in the extra-linguistic world, the expressive function involve the relation between the sign to the speaker and what it conveys about him/her. The chapter also provides the basic idea of use-conditional semantics and an overview of the individual chapters, as well as guidance to readers on how to read this book, depending on whether they are semanticists, syntacticians, students, or just interested in the data on expressives.
Expressive intensifier
Authors: Gutzmann Daniel
Published: March 2019

Expressive intensifiers (EIs) are a special class of degree expressions found in informal variants of German. They are distinguished from ordinary degree intensifiers like ‘very’ by several special semantic and syntactic properties. Most importantly EIs can appear in what is called the external degree modification construction (EDCs), in which the EI precedes the determiner, but still intensifies an adjective or noun inside the determiner phrase. The main analysis of this EDC is that they are derived via movement, which in turn is triggered by an uninterpretable expressivity feature in D, which attracts the intensifier in order to establish an agreement relation. This also provides a possibility to analyse the form-meaning mismatches that can be observed with EDCs. The upshot of this chapter for the hypothesis of expressive syntax is that expressivity as a syntactic feature can trigger movement.
Between Geneva and Ottawa
Authors: Thackeray David
Published: March 2019

The interwar years marked the completion of attempts to establish a system of preferential trade within the British Empire, and the newly formed Imperial Economic Committee sought to present a modern vision of empire, in cooperation with the League of Nations. However, while Britannic sentiment remained strong in the Dominions, there was a new sense of scepticism regarding the British World’s cohesion and its future economic prospects. The League of Nations also provided new opportunities to challenge Britain’s economic leadership. Understandings of preferential trade were reshaped during the First World War and its aftermath, with increased attention focused on imperial modernization through ‘scientific’ management and the value of grading tariffs to aid relations with ‘friendly’ nations. During the 1930s it became increasingly clear that imperial cooperation could do little to solve key economic problems connected to production and food supplies, which needed to be tackled through broader international agreements.
‘What Are We Doing to Earn Dollars?’
Authors: Thackeray David
Published: March 2019

The Dominions, with the key exception of Canada, were members of the Sterling Area, which meant they continued to be connected to an economic system centred on London after 1945. However, this system was challenged by the disastrous economic effects of world war on the British economy, waves of decolonization, the development of trade liberalization with the emergence of GATT, and the declining importance of intra-Commonwealth trade. Chapter 4 focuses on how existing networks such as the Congresses of Chambers of the Commonwealth and Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conferences tried to move away from their earlier focus on ‘British World’ links to include Asians and Africans in policymaking. Such efforts had little success, and business associations increasingly focused on promoting regional rather than imperial trade, fuelled by the growing influence of the EEC and UN regional commissions.
We’re All Backing Britain?
Authors: Thackeray David
Published: March 2019

Chapter 5 considers the role that Britannic loyalism played in various facets of everyday life in the UK and the Dominions, exploring developments in the fields of advertising and market research, attempts to promote Commonwealth collaboration in non-fiction film production and distribution, and the politics of post-war patriotic trade campaigns. The dismantling of import controls in the late 1950s and early 1960s led to a revival in patriotic trade campaigns. However, such campaigns increasingly came to be seen as outmoded during these years, jeopardizing trade with growing foreign markets. Moreover, changes in the advertising and marketing industries, and the growth of market research, discouraged businesses from making undifferentiated appeals to national markets. Earlier ideas that consumers across the British World had broadly similar interests and tastes were comprehensively challenged with the expansion of segmented marketing.
Coda. 1886–1932–1973–2016
Authors: Thackeray David
Published: March 2019

The outcome of the 2016 EU referendum fits into a wider pattern of historical change. At various points since the 1880s, hopes placed in the economic future of regional blocs have reshaped Britain’s identity as a trading nation. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many people in the UK and its settler colonies argued that it was essential to invest resources into British World cooperation. The British World trade system slowly unravelled after 1945 as it became increasingly difficult to see the Commonwealth as a coherent and attractive economic bloc with a bright future. The triumph of the Leave campaign in 2016 resulted from their ability to overhaul this earlier perception that European Community membership was vital to Britain’s economic future, and to revitalize earlier narratives which presented the UK’s global trade role as key to its economic prosperity.
Gravity as geometry
Authors: Carlip Steven
Published: March 2019

General relativity describes gravity as a byproduct of the geometry of spacetime. This chapter explains why this notion makes sense, introducing the principle of equivalence and the universality of gravitational interactions.
Geodesics in the Solar System
Authors: Carlip Steven
Published: March 2019

Given the spacetime geometry of the Solar System, the geodesic equation can be used to derive the motion of massive objects and light. In this chapter, starting with the Schwarzschild metric, the four “classical tests” of general relativity are derived: the precession of perihelia, the bending of light, the time delay of light, and the gravitational red shift. As a generalization, the parametrized post-Newtonian formalism is briefly discussed.
Gravitational waves
Authors: Carlip Steven
Published: March 2019

In the weak field approximation, the Einstein field equations can be solved, and lead to the prediction of gravitational waves. After showing that gravitational radiation depends on changing quadrupole moments, this chapter describes the production, propagation, and detection of gravitational waves. It includes discussions of the speed of gravity, detectors, the “chirp” waveform for a compact binary system, and the nature of astrophysical sources.
Black holes
Authors: Carlip Steven
Published: March 2019

Chapter 3 used the Schwarzschild metric to obtain predictions for the Solar System. In this chapter, that metric is derived as the unique static, spherically symmetric solution of the vacuum Einstein field equations. For the Solar System, this vacuum solution must be joined to an “interior solution” describing the interior of the Sun. Such solutions are discussed briefly. If, on the other hand, one assumes “vacuum all the way down,” the solution describes a black hole. The chapter analyzes the geometry and physics of the nonrotating black hole: the event horizon, the Kruskal-Szekeres extension, the horizon as a trapped surface and as a Killing horizon. Penrose diagrams are introduced, and a short discussion is given of the four laws of black hole mechanics.
The Hamiltonian formalism
Authors: Carlip Steven
Published: March 2019

So far, general relativity has been viewed from the four-dimensional Lagrangian perspective. This chapter introduces the (3+1)-dimensional Hamiltonian formalism, starting with the ADM form of the metric and extrinsic curvature. The Hamiltonian form of the action is served, and the nature of the constraints—and, more generally, of constraints and gauge invariance in Hamiltonian systems—is discussed. The formalism is used to count the physical degrees of freedom of the gravitational field. The chapter ends with a discussion of boundary terms and the ADM energy.
Next steps
Authors: Carlip Steven
Published: March 2019

This final chapter consists of a brief discussion of where the reader can go from here: active research topics in general relativity and gravitation, open questions, and ideas for further study. Topics include exact and approximate solutions of the field equations, including numerical methods and perturbation theory; problems in mathematical relativity, including global geometric methods, singularity theorems, cosmic censorship, and asymptotic conditions; alternative models such as scalar-tensor models; approaches to quantum gravity; and experimental gravity. These topics are not discussed in any depth; rather, the chapter is meant as a “teaser” to encourage readers to look further.
Credibility
Authors: Bains Sunny
Published: March 2019

“Credibility” focuses on all the things that will help to clear the path for the reader. Even a well-structured piece can be alienating if written if an illogical, confusing, or noncredible way. This chapter goes over some basic rules for making an argument convincing and ensuring the readers remain favorable. These include presenting the right kind of evidence, being honest, ensuring accuracy, writing (or speaking) with an authoritative voice, and preparing for common objections to a given argument. It also discusses ways to make an article easy to read, from breaking the text up into digestible paragraphs and sections, to providing topic sentences and subheadings, to signposting where the argument is heading, to avoiding repetition, to using the active voice. Finally, it discusses how to make the most of a very important set of readers: those being asked for feedback.
Interperspectival Content
Authors: Ludlow Peter
Published: March 2019

Peter Ludlow argues that perspectival content, or what some call indexical content, is ineliminable and ubiquitous, running through our accounts of human action and emotions, perception, normative behavior, and even our theories of computation and information. While such content may be ineliminable, it also gives rise to philosophical puzzles—particularly those involving reporting these contents from different perspectival positions. Such puzzles have led some to try and abandon perspectival content, and others to despair of communication across perspectival positions. Ludlow argues that communication across diverse perspectival positions is not only possible, but routine, and develops a theory of interperspectival content to explain how it is accomplished.
Why We Need Interperspectival Content
Authors: Ludlow Peter
Published: March 2019

Perspectival content, or what is sometimes called indexical content, is critical to the proper understanding of human action and emotion, perception, consciousness, normative behavior and attitudes, and even linguistic rule following. Recent attempts to eliminate such contents are shown to be unsuccessful. Philosophers have disagreed about whether perspectival content is really a feature of the world, and they have disagreed about whether it is eliminable, but they have more or less been on the same page about one thing: Perspectival content, at least understood in a very weak sense of ‘content’ that includes narrow psychological states, is necessary for the explanation of human action, emotion, etc.
Interperspectival Content and Physical Theory
Authors: Ludlow Peter
Published: March 2019

The book has made the case that linguistic tense and other perspectival language are used to express interperspectival contents and that such contents are needed to explain and understand a number of phenomena, ranging from human action and emotion, to perception, consciousness, normative behavior (understood broadly enough to include the behavior of computers), etc. The fact that physics may not need perspectival contents does not undermine the case for such contents. Indeed, as this chapter argues, perspectival content is critical to the practice of scientific investigation (particularly in the context of scientific experimentation), and may well need to be a component in our base-level descriptions of the world. It is further argued that perspectival contents like tense are compatible with the Special Theory of Relativity, given our theory of the expression of interperspectival contents.
World Hunger, the Global Food System, and (International) Law
Authors: Chadwick Anna
Published: March 2019

This chapter seeks to explain why it is that in spite of long-standing and concerted interventions to address world hunger the efforts of the international community have consistently fallen short. The chapter begins by locating the origins of the contemporary global food system in the period of European colonialism, and it then explores the place of law in creating conditions of food insecurity through the establishment of new market relations between colonial powers and colonized peoples. Particular attention is paid to the special role of public international law in enabling the perpetuation of colonial dynamics even after the period of decolonization through neocolonial practices of ‘economic development’. After examining the operations of regimes of international economic law and their interaction with private law norms, the chapter concludes that international law has been a key mechanism whereby the food security of populations of the Global South has been subordinated to the economic interests of wealthier market actors in the Global North.
Neoliberalism and the Financialization of Agriculture
Authors: Chadwick Anna
Published: March 2019

Chapter 2 explores the progressive financialization of the food system since the 1980s and relates this phenomenon to the Neoliberal policy agenda. In addition, the chapter carries out some important theoretical work that informs the analysis throughout the remainder of the book. The author argues that the financialization of the food system can only be understood in the context of broader trends in the financialization of the global economy, which has to be linked to the Neoliberal policy agenda and its relationship to Neoclassical economic theory in order to be fully appreciated. The chapter analyses three additional developments that, together with practices of food commodity speculation, are significant in the financialization of agriculture: the growing importance of finance in shaping the operations of global value chains; the global land grab that has seen financial investors gaining control over large tracts of agricultural land; and the rise of microcredit as a mechanism that is incorporating populations in the Global South into the logics of financial markets.
Regulation
Authors: Chadwick Anna
Published: March 2019

Chapter 4 analyses the new regulations introduced in the US and in the EU to respond to ‘excessive’ levels of speculation in commodity derivative markets. First, the chapter recalls the events of the global financial crisis and relates how concerns about the role that derivatives played in bringing it about have motivated reform. The chapter then outlines the new US and European regulations for over-the-counter derivatives focusing on those provisions with the potential to address concerns about food commodity speculation. After discussing a number of challenges that threaten the regulatory project, the author exposes a number of deeper, structural limitations of the Dodd Frank Act and EMIR-MiFID II reforms. The regulations are revealed to be predicated on a problematic ‘Neoliberal-Neoclassical’ understanding of how financial markets function that fundamentally fails to account for dynamics of price formation in contemporary markets.
Bandage Wallahs and St John’s Men
Authors: Meyer Jessica
Published: March 2019

This chapter surveys the formation and reformation of the British Army Medical Services in the period from the Crimean War to the outbreak of the First World War. It locates the social and political debates around the nature and make-up of the unit in the context of wider reforms to the military and the medical profession. It further identifies the ways in which these debates were shaped by the development of the humanitarian voluntary-aid movement in Europe. It argues that the reforms to both the military and medicine as gender-demarcated professions constructed medical caregiving in the context of military conflict as a socially and culturally ambiguous role for men to undertake.
From No Man’s Land to Auxiliary Hospital
Authors: Meyer Jessica
Published: March 2019

This chapter revisits the chain of evacuation from the perspective of how RAMC Other Ranks’ work was influenced by strategic and technological changes in practice, both military and medical, as they developed over the course of the war. By exploring how such change over time affected the working practices of the men of the RAMC, it interrogates the question of whether the war was good for medicine from the perspective of the non-professional male medical care provider. In doing so, it contributes to wider debates over the relationship between war, medicine, and modernity, suggesting that many of the aspects of change associated with progression had a more ambiguous impact on the lived experiences of the men whose practice they shaped. This ambiguity was reflected in the impact that such developments had on the status of the ranks of the RAMC as both care providers and servicemen throughout the war.
Introduction
Authors: Ingram Norman
Published: March 2019

This chapter sets up three main arguments that are developed in the book: first, that the debate on war origins and war guilt in the First World War nearly destroyed the Ligue des droits de l’homme well before the Second World War; secondly, that this debate lay at the heart of a dissenting, new style of pacifism which emerged in France near the end of the 1920s; and thirdly, that both of these phenomena catalysed the emergence of pro-Vichy sentiments during the Second World War. This latter development was not the result of philo-fascism but rather of an overriding commitment to peace which had its origin in the belief that the Great War had been fought by France under false pretences.
Turning the Page?
Authors: Ingram Norman
Published: March 2019

The years immediately following the signature of the Locarno treaties in October 1925 are usually seen as an era of détente in European, particularly Franco-German, politics. There seemed to be a lull in the Ligue’s fixation on the problem of war origins, but it was only an appearance. Other issues briefly took centre stage, but even they were discussed in terms redolent of concerns from the Great War. Some members of the minority began to publish in a new journal, Evolution. An event of signal importance was the publication of a book by René Gerin and Raymond Poincaré on war responsibilities. There was huge debate over the Pierre Renouvin/Camille Bloch thesis which sought to limit the importance of Article 231. On the eve of the Nazi seizure of power, the Ligue devoted its 1932 Congress to the controversy over the peace treaties of 1919. It was too little, too late.
In the Shadow of the Swastika
Authors: Ingram Norman
Published: March 2019

The Nazi seizure of power in January 1933 caught the Ligue des droits de l’homme by surprise. The Ligue debate on how to respond to Nazism breathed new life into the war guilt debate. Increasingly, the Ligue’s gaze was directed forward to how to deal with Nazism, rather than backwards to a debate on the Great War, but its political analysis continued to be inspired by a reading of the meaning of the Great War. Both minority and majority initially failed to understand the sea change that Nazism represented, but the minority was transfixed by the idea that resistance to Nazism was going to require a new Union sacrée and the division of Europe into antagonistic blocs. Much of the minority’s opposition to this was the belief that France was complicit in the rise of Nazism. The threat of domestic French fascism was also a major preoccupation.
Once More with Feeling?
Authors: Ingram Norman
Published: March 2019

The Ligue des droits de l’homme went into freefall after 1937. It was not the Nazis who killed the Ligue, but rather the crisis which came to a head in 1937. In 1938 and 1939, the Ligue underwent a financial and membership crisis. The last two pre-war Congresses were rather tired affairs. The Munich crisis, the invasion of Prague, the question of Danzig, and the fall of France did not change the political/historical analysis of the minority which continued to explain the crises of 1938–40 through the lens of the Great War. The collaboration of some members of the minority during the Second World War was due to their dissenting position on the origins of the Great War. The Ligue’s papers were seized by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg shortly after the Germans reached Paris in June 1940, eventually to be transported back to Berlin for analysis.
When All Is Said and Done …
Authors: Ingram Norman
Published: March 2019

This book has been about the decline and fall of a great French republican institution, the Ligue des droits de l’homme (LDH). The LDH was torn apart by the war guilt question over the course of the entire period from 1914 to the fall of France in 1940. This debate was the catalyst for the emergence of a new style of pacifism in France which was hardly like its ‘placid’ interwar British cousin. The war guilt question was also the progenitor of a uniquely French suspicion, first of Russian, and ultimately of Soviet intentions. This led under Vichy to the appearance of collaboration and philo-fascism, but it was more a case of peace becoming an ‘ethic of ultimate ends’ for the minority within the LDH.
Introduction
Authors: Rommerskirchen Charlotte
Published: March 2019

The economic and financial fallout of the Great Recession upended the belief that advanced economies enjoyed some kind of superior inoculation against deep crises. It presented EU states with the unanticipated and unprecedented challenge of coordinating fiscal crisis responses. The EU crisis framework laid out in the European Economic Recovery Plan (EERP) represented an attempt to coordinate not fiscal constraint but, for the first time, fiscal expansion. This chapter places this study within two intertwined crises, the international economic and financial crises and the European Debt Crisis, before going on to present the main empirical puzzle and research questions of the book.
Theorizing Fiscal Policy Coordination
Authors: Rommerskirchen Charlotte
Published: March 2019

Fiscal policy coordination is marred by a classic collective action problem; it pays to be egoistical. Member states have an incentive to under- or over-stimulate their economies (what this chapter terms growth and stability free riding), despite a common interest in coordinated policies. Building on Mancur Olson’s premise on collective action failure, the chapter develops three research questions that guide the empirical investigation. These relate to the group latency of EU membership, the evidence for collective action, and finally the provision of incentives to keep free riding at bay. The theme running through this chapter is that the interdependence of EU economies requires cooperative solutions to common problems.
Preliminaries
Authors: McGowan Mary Kate
Published: March 2019

This chapter presents the material in the philosophy of language that is required to follow the arguments in the book. A general introduction to an intentionalist neo-Gricean framework for understanding language use is presented. General information about speech act theory and the felicity conditions for successful speech acts is covered. Since the book focuses on exercitive speech, that is, speech that enacts permissibility facts, additional information is given about exercitives and their felicity conditions. This chapter also clarifies some of the key concepts used throughout the book. The nature of enactment, different kinds of enactment, the important distinction between constituting and merely causing harm, and the nature of social norms are all presented.
On Differences Between Standard and Conversational Exercitives
Authors: McGowan Mary Kate
Published: March 2019

This chapter explores differences between conversational exercitives and standard exercitives. Although both enact norms, standard exercitives do so via an exercise of speaker authority. Moreover, with standard exercitives, the speaker intends to enact a norm and intends for the hearer to recognize that intention. Standard exercitives are communicative. Conversational exercitives work differently. The speaker does not need to have or exercise authority; the speaker need not consciously intend to enact a norm and participants need not consciously recognize that a norm is enacted. With conversational exercitives, norms are enacted simply in virtue of contributing to the norm-governed activity of conversation.
The General Phenomenon
Authors: McGowan Mary Kate
Published: March 2019

This chapter argues that the phenomenon of conversational exercitives generalizes. It is not just verbal contributions to conversations that enact norms; verbal contributions to other norm-governed activities also do so. Such covert exercitives are developed and the complex role of intention is clarified and explored. It is also argued that the covert enacting of a permissibility fact (by a covert or conversational exercitive) does not depend on the communication of the intention to enact that permissibility fact. As a result, such exercitives are not a communicative (illocutionary) phenomenon. Rather, they constitute what is here called a parallel act.
Speech and Oppression
Authors: McGowan Mary Kate
Published: March 2019

This chapter applies our understanding of covert exercitives to an example of sexist speech. The nature of oppression is clarified. Two models of oppressive speech are identified. The first model is authoritative and involves a standard exercitive speech act. Instances of this sort of oppressive speech must satisfy the felicity conditions of standard exercitives. The second model of oppressive speech involves a covert exercitive. With the second model, it is shown that an offhand sexist remark can be oppressive even though the speaker does not intend to oppress, the speaker does not have any particular authority, and the remark is not aimed at the persons oppressed by it. The chapter concludes with an exploration of various objections to the model of covertly oppressive speech developed here.
Race, Speech, and Free Speech Law
Authors: McGowan Mary Kate
Published: March 2019

This chapter applies the phenomenon of covert exercitives to free speech issues. The main goal is to show that because racist speech in public places enacts discriminatory norms, there is a harm prevention justification for its legal actionability. In the process, the philosophical foundations of a free speech principle are presented. Various justifications for extending special protections to speech are discussed; issues about the scope of a free speech principle are identified, and the conditions for legitimate regulation are presented. Several argumentative strategies for speech regulation are discussed and one is shown to be preferable. The actionability of some racist speech in some public spaces is supported using that strategy.
A Novel Refutation of Eliminative Materialism
Authors: Lycan William G.
Published: March 2019

Moore’s method as developed in Chapter 1 is applied against the doctrine of Eliminative Materialism in the philosophy of mind. It resists all defenses of that view that are based on the “Theory” theory of mental discourse and the vulnerability of folk psychology. It also differs from all the standard objections to the doctrine. Two sophisticated replies are considered and rebutted: that there might be empirical linguistic evidence for an elimination-supporting entailment claim, and that my Moorean objection proves too much in that it makes an empirical proposition irrefutable. However, a possible halfway house is conceded: an everyday term sometimes divides its sense as between a scientifically naïve reading and a slightly neologized one compatible with a scientific account.
Philosophical Knowledge
Authors: Lycan William G.
Published: March 2019

Gary Gutting has contended that philosophical method by itself can yield knowledge of certain sorts. This chapter offers four reasons for doubting that philosophical beliefs can ever be counted as items of knowledge. It then turns to Gutting’s candidates and argues that he has exaggerated the yield; what survive are only the recognizing of possible positions (admittedly important), and just possibly a few nonlinguistic intuitions—certainly no significant philosophical claims or doctrines. The chapter goes on to examine the ways in which there is and is not progress in philosophy—a fortiori not in the accretion of knowledge. There has been one kind of progress: methodological; we now understand dialectical and investigative procedures better than did our predecessors.
Agreement with the post-verbal DP in Polish dual copula clauses
Authors: Bondaruk Anna
Published: March 2019

The chapter examines agreement in Polish dual copula clauses, hosting both the verbal and the pronominal copula. The focus is on predicational and specificational dual copula clauses, in which the verbal copula agrees in φ‎-features with the post-verbal item, not with the pre-verbal one, when both nominal expressions are 3rd person. T in Polish dual copula clauses is taken to be a multiple probe, which has its φ‎-features valued by one of the goals it undergoes Agree with, while T’s EPP-feature is eliminated by the other goal. Divorcing the satisfaction of the EPP-feature of T from its φ‎-feature valuation accounts for the agreement with the post-verbal DP in both types of clauses analysed. The person hierarchy, in which 3rd person is subordinate to 1st and 2nd person, explains why in dual copula clauses with the 1st or 2nd person pronoun, the 1st or 2nd person pronoun always determines verbal agreement.
Aspects of the syntax of ce in French copular sentences
Authors: Roy Isabelle , Shlonsky Ur
Published: March 2019

This chapter offers a syntactic analysis of French ce in copular constructions. It is argued that the distribution of ce is best understood in terms of the conditions on the agree operation inside the copular sentence. The proform ce, an expletive, is inserted whenever an agreement relationship cannot be established between an element in the subject position and an element from the PredP (Bowers 1993). Two sources of agreement failure are considered. In one case, agreement failure results from syntactic constraints on movement (Relativized Minimality, criterial freezing) together with focalization. In the other case, agreement failure results from the absence of accessible phi-features on the subject, possibly as the result of a grammatical shift taking place at the interface. This chapter further highlights the relevance of two subject positions (Subj1 and Subj2) each with their own interpretational properties.
Variation in Bantu copula constructions
Authors: Gibson Hannah , Guérois Rozenn , Marten Lutz
Published: March 2019

This chapter provides an overview of variation in Bantu non-verbal predication and copula constructions. These constructions exhibit a wide range of fine-grained micro-variation against a backdrop of broad typological similarity across the Bantu family. Variation is seen in the function of copulas, in their morphosyntactic properties, and with respect to the elements with which they combine. A key feature of Bantu copula constructions is the presence of several morphologically distinct copulas in many languages, often with different interpretations and restricted distribution. After surveying copulas found in Bantu, the chapter focuses on five languages—Mongo, Rangi, Digo, Swahili, and Cuwabo—and shows differences in complementation for the different copula forms, with tighter restrictions on locative, existential, and possessive interpretations across the sample, as compared to identificational and attributive interpretations. The data presented in the chapter are relevant for theoretical studies of copulas and the study of language change and language contact.
Civil Society Approach
Authors: Ekiert Grzegorz
Published: March 2019

The idea of civil society resurrected in the 1970s has been one of the most important concepts guiding reflection on political transformations of contemporary societies. This chapter discusses various understandings of the concept and the asserted role civil society has in shaping political and economic outcomes. It points to established consensus on the beneficial role of civil society as a political project and a set of normative principles, but it emphasizes disagreements about how civil society is defined and measured, how it evolves over time, what dimensions of politics and public policy it shapes, and what are the mechanisms through which it affects the quality of democracy and resistance to authoritarianism. It also explores the idea of the civil society strategy as a distinct mode of political transformations as opposed to the revolutionary strategy. Finally, it suggests that civil society can be construed as a discrete analytical optics for analysing political change.
Quantitative Methods in Transformation Research
Authors: Pickel Gert , Pickel Susanne
Published: March 2019

Quantitative methods used in research on transformation are based on categorizations and translation of information into figures. We can distinguish analyses of basic statistical data and survey data, which use representative samples to characterize populations. Quantitative macro analyses of measures of democracy, and analyses of quantitative micro data of political attitudes, provide the most important findings for transformation research. For future research, it is desirable to expand existing time series (providing macro and micro quantitative data), and to analyse interdependencies (in a chronologically comparative perspective, too). A convergence of approaches that are influenced by area research and macro approaches would also be useful. An increase in use of multilevel analyses and multi-method designs may support this development. It would also highlight the capacity of the field and cases covered by transformation research—namely, the greater variance of outputs and outcomes within transformation countries compared to the variance within Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.
Ethnographic Methods
Authors: Thelen Tatjana
Published: March 2019

This chapter describes the impact of ethnographic methods on the study of transformation. Ethnographic methods comprise a bundle of tools, the most important of which remains participant observation. In general, ethnographic methods aim at insights into processes of meaning making by actors in everyday life. They focus on the plurality of experiences within processes of change and ambivalences in specific contexts, as well as on historical depth. The openness of ethnographic research design allows for unexpected results and critical questioning of taken-for-granted theoretical concepts. The chapter starts with a short overview of the historical development of ethnographic methods in relation to shifting paradigms of transformation. Examples of ethnographic research of (post-)socialist transformations substantiate the potential (and pitfalls) of ethnographic methods. One important insight is that the great diversity of socialist as well as post-socialist transformations do not follow a modernization blueprint, demonstrating the potential of ethnography in generating innovative theoretical approaches.
Post-absolutist Transformations in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Authors: Kollmorgen Raj
Published: March 2019

Post-absolutist transformations are disruptive, accelerated, radical, and politically controlled modernization projects in Asian and Eastern European societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with reference to successful social models in the context of global hegemonies. After delineating the world-societal context, this chapter deals with the so-called Meiji Ishin, i.e., the social restoration and renewal under Emperor Mutsuhito in Japan (1868–1912), that represents the earliest and in a way paradigmatic case of this historical wave and subtype of imitative societal transformations. Then four further post-absolutist transformation ventures are briefly described and discussed: the Iranian case (1907–41), the Russian Revolution (1905–7), the Turkish transformation (1908–38/46), and the short Chinese upheaval (1911–12). The chapter concludes with a comparative and typological summary discussing key dimensions and factors in shaping post-absolutist transformations and their long-term outcomes.
China’s Transformations in the Twentieth Century: Economic, Political, and Cultural Interdependencies
Authors: Herrmann-Pillath Carsten
Published: March 2019

This chapter approaches China’s sequence of transformations in the ‘short’ twentieth century between the collapse of empire 1911 and World Trade Organization entry in 2001 against the background of discussing the nature of the Imperial from which this arduous and violent process started out. During that period, immense political efforts were directed at tackling the perceived legacy of social and cultural impediments to economic modernization and building national strength, though with radically different means, such as switching from Maoism to reform policies in 1978. The chapter analyses core features of change such as the role of the rural sector, the weak penetration of society by formal bureaucratic institutions of the state, and the interaction between institutional change and transformation of social structure. After detailing major aspects of recent economic reforms, the key conclusion is that throughout the twentieth century until present times, economic transformation remains inextricably intertwined with the secular process of modern state building.
Islamist Transformations: From Utopian Vision to Dystopian Reality
Authors: Ghobadzadeh Naser
Published: March 2019

The range of inhumane acts of violence committed by contemporary militant Islamists are far more depraved than those perpetrated by earlier Islamists. This has led to pessimism about the current surge in Islamic extremism and fear of future developments. This chapter seeks to determine if there is any latent ground for optimism beneath the surface of what appears to be a trend towards increasing violence. Scrutinizing the theological and practical transformations of militant Islamists, the chapter suggests that there is a direct correlation between the theological evolution of militant Islamist thought, shifts in the extent of their use of violence, and the ability of militants to mobilize mainstream Muslims. This chapter shows that the radical strand of Islamism has now shrunk to a dwindling minority for whom destruction is their raison d’être. It also explores how the focus of radical Islamism has shifted away from utopianism to visions of apocalyptic dystopia.
Post-socialist Transformations in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Authors: Kollmorgen Raj
Published: March 2019

This chapter considers post-socialist or postcommunist transformations as a subtype and historical wave of imitative societal transformations, i.e., system changes taking the form of disruptive, accelerated, and politically steered modernization projects which follow successful models of society in the framework of global hegemonies. Focusing on an international comparative overview of post-socialist change in the Second World system, i.e., the countries and union republics within the Soviet Empire, the chapter begins with a discussion of dynamics and factors of state socialism’s decline. Subsequently, it problematizes key dimensions, actors, and dilemmatic processes of the transitional phase in the narrow sense, concentrating on the political and economic spheres. Finally, the chapter deals with the long-term period of structuration and its ambivalent character, which includes a discussion of varieties and innovative aspects of postcommunism as well as post-transformative challenges.
Corporate Actors: Parties and Associations
Authors: Weßels Bernhard
Published: March 2019

Corporate actors, like parties and associations, are the organized expression of collective interests in a society. By integrating interests (aggregation) and mediating them (articulation), they figure as a key element of a living democracy. Corporate actors can be distinguished in terms of the territorial and functional dimensions of their representative function. As free societal associations, independent of the state, they operate ideally between citizens and the state. The development of a voluntarily organized intermediary zone between citizens and the state is of vital importance for democratic transformation and consolidation. However, the emergence of voluntarily organized collective actors as a requisite for ‘representative consolidation’ is highly contingent. Whether associations and interest groups form in a political system depends to a high degree on institutional structures. In transformation processes, clear governmental control and sanctioning capacities are conducive to the development of corporate actors.
Elites
Authors: Kaltwasser Cristóbal Rovira
Published: March 2019

Although it is obvious that elites play a key role in the guidance of society, there is an open debate about how elites should be defined and studied. This chapter offers a brief conceptualization of elites and argues that this notion should not be conflated with the concept of social class. At the same time, it spells out two perspectives that rely on the elite concept to explain processes of social change: research on transitions (sometimes called ‘transitology’) and comparative historical analysis. While the former tends to analyse shorter time spans, the latter is inclined to examine large periods of time. Despite this difference, both perspectives are very useful when it comes to understanding politics and social transformation.
Hybrid Regimes
Authors: Schmotz Alexander
Published: March 2019

Most political regimes in the world today display some form of mixture of democratic and autocratic institutional features—they are hybrid regimes. This chapter distils from the literature the defining characteristics, commonly discussed types, and causes of transformations of hybrid regimes. It demonstrates how all hybrid regime concepts can be sorted into either one of the two categories of defective democracy and electoral authoritarianism; how all hybrid regime concepts are constructed along the two institutional dimensions of electoralism and constitutionalism; and how explanations of hybrid regime persistence and change fall into four categories: electoralist, nested game approaches, neo-institutional, and non-electoral explanations.
Legitimacy
Authors: Lambach Daniel
Published: March 2019

Legitimacy is closely, if somewhat imperfectly tied to political stability which makes legitimization a persistent challenge for all political systems. However, it would be unwise to characterize autocratic regimes as illegitimate per se—these regimes use a variety of legitimation strategies which they adapt to changing circumstances. This chapter distinguishes between normative and empirical understandings of legitimacy. It discusses the role of empirical legitimacy in upholding political systems and contrasts different taxonomies of legitimation, highlighting the manifold ways through which regimes can generate public support. It shows how a legitimacy crisis can precipitate political transformation but also how new regimes are faced with the same challenge of legitimizing and consolidating their rule.
Macroeconomic Stabilization
Authors: Dabrowski Marek
Published: March 2019

The aim of macroeconomic stabilization is restoring price stability and reducing monetary, fiscal, and balance-of-payment imbalances. Macroeconomic stabilization is particularly needed when a country suffers from high inflation or hyperinflation. To stop such an inflation one can choose between three types of anti-inflationary programmes: orthodox money-based, orthodox exchange rate-based, and heterodox. Other cases of macrostabilization policy include reducing excessive fiscal deficit and public debt before they become monetized, dealing with the deflationary consequences of the systemic banking crisis, reducing the excessive current account deficit, dealing with the consequences of a sudden stop in capital flows, and fighting chronic moderate inflation. Fiscal rules, and the independence of monetary and fiscal institutions such as central banks, play an important role in preventing macroeconomic instability. National macroeconomic policies are also monitored from outside, for example by the International Monetary Fund and European Commission (in the case of EU member states).
Social Capital
Authors: Newton Kenneth
Published: March 2019

Social capital, which is built upon trust, social networks, and the coordination of collective action, is said to be the glue binding society together and the lubricant that facilitates frictionless democratic government. General social trust—trust in strangers and people unlike ourselves—helps to breed political trust and vice versa, and together they help to build and maintain democratic government, the norms of civic engagement, and confidence in government institutions. This chapter examines the theoretical and practical problems to be resolved. Do the causal arrows run upwards from individuals to institutions or downwards from institutions to individuals? If the bottom-up approach is accepted, then social engineering must concentrate on raising levels of education and wealth. The top-down approach requires building state institutions that are impartial, corruption-free, and transparent. Either way, the intractable problems of bootstraps and social traps must be solved.
Stateness
Authors: Beichelt Timm
Published: March 2019

The chapter sketches the history of concepts of stateness in political science and transition studies from Dankwart Rustow to the seminal works of Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan. After discussing conceptual and typological aspects, the text deals with pertinent cases where stateness played a decisive role in post-socialist transition, in particular on the territory of the successor states of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Different types of countries have evolved: states that had been dissolved in the 1940s like the Baltic states, cases with weak state traditions like Moldova or Montenegro, countries that look back to a long tradition as a cultural nation like Georgia, and the previously dominating titular nations like Russia or Serbia. Because of these different configurations, problems of stateness arise in different forms during transition.