bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
2 The field-theoretical approach to GWs
Authors: Maggiore Michele
Published: January 2008

General relativity can also be seen as a classical field theory of a spin-2 field living in a flat background, to which all standard field-theoretical methods can be applied. The fact that the beautiful geometric interpretation of general relativity is hidden is compensated by the fact that the conceptual issues discussed in Chapter 1 can be put into the broader theoretical framework of classical field theory. The geometric and the field-theoretical perspectives are indeed complementary; some aspects of GW physics can be better understood from the former perspective, some from the latter. A study of GWs from both vantage points results in a deeper overall understanding. How the energy, momentum, and angular momentum of GWs from the Noether theorem are obtained, how field-theoretical considerations fix the form of the Pauli-Fierz action for linearized gravity, and how the non-linearities of general relativity can be recovered from linearized gravity are then detailed.
5 GW generation by post-Newtonian sources
Authors: Maggiore Michele
Published: January 2008

This chapter discusses how to go beyond the limit of sources moving in flat space-time. For a self-gravitating system such as a binary star, assuming that space-time is flat means that its dynamics is described using Newtonian gravity, rather than general relativity. When dealing with a (moderately) relativistic system, held together by gravitational forces, the source is better described by a post-Newtonian formalism. After recalling the post-Newtonian expansion in general relativity and how to obtain the lowest-order correction to the Newtonian equations of motion, GW generation by post-Newtonian sources is described, and the application to sources with strong gravitational fields, such as neutron stars and black holes, is then presented. The results of this chapter have an intrinsic conceptual interest, since the full non-linear structure of general relativity at work can be seen here. Furthermore, this formalism is of paramount importance in the computation of the waveform from an inspiraling binary system, and its extraction from the data of interferometric GW detectors.
Military Institutions and Fiscal Growth
Authors: Gunn Steven , Grummitt David , Cools Hans
Published: January 2008

This chapter analyses the development of military and fiscal institutions in England and the Netherlands. Their armies were composed of different mixtures of noble retinues, militias, garrison and artillery forces, mercenaries, auxiliaries, and standing companies; their navies likewise a blend of converted merchant ships and purpose-built warships. It was England that developed the more permanent navy in this period, the Netherlands the more permanent army. Their arsenals, navies, and logistics showed some signs of increasing bureaucracy. War drove on fiscal expansion and demesne revenues, taxation, coinage debasement, and borrowing were all exploited as rulers sought to construct a tax state. The process involved tense negotiation with their subjects in representative institutions, and rebellions and showed clear limits to the growth of state power.
Introduction
Authors: Gunn Steven , Grummitt David , Cools Hans
Published: January 2008

This chapter introduces the variety of towns found in England and the Netherlands: towns large and small, centres of industry, trade, and administration; booming like Antwerp or in crisis like Coventry; governed by a tight oligarchy or with wide popular participation. In general, towns in the Netherlands were larger, more politically powerful, and more confrontational in their relationship with princely power than those in England. In England these numbered five large towns: Canterbury, Exeter, Norwich, Salisbury, and York, together with the smaller Beverley, Hull, and Rye. In the Netherlands, all were large, but they were spread geographically from Valenciennes in Hainaut and Douai in Walloon Flanders to Haarlem and Leiden in Holland, from Antwerp in the west of Brabant to 's-Hertogenbosch in the east.
Urban Military Resources
Authors: Gunn Steven , Grummitt David , Cools Hans
Published: January 2008

This chapter examines the direct contributions made by towns to their princes' wars. Town councils had constantly to manoeuvre between the sometimes exorbitant demands of their princes, the reluctance of the townsfolk to meet the costs of war, and the necessity to keep the town safe from attack. They raised companies of troops for field service, especially in England, as well as defending themselves with their own militias or shooting guilds. Some towns, such as York and 's-Hertogenbosch, were more militarized than others. Some supplied ships or encouraged privateers. Most developed their holdings of artillery and maintained arsenals, and nearly all paid some attention to their fortifications, though those on the coast or military frontiers did so more urgently. The costly bastions of the new trace italienne style appeared with increasing frequency in the Netherlands but not — except perhaps as temporary earthworks — in England.
Life During Wartime
Authors: Gunn Steven , Grummitt David , Cools Hans
Published: January 2008

This chapter shows how towns contributed to the war effort in more indirect ways. They generally kept watches and maintained warning beacons, but they were wary of hosting garrisons or billeting other troops until they felt immediately threatened, for troops threatened to bring both disorder and political subjection. Keeping prisoners of war and supplying food and carts for army logistics might each be a source of profit or a burden. English towns drew less benefit from the arms trade than those in the Netherlands. Refugees and discharged soldiers strained urban poor relief systems, but encouraged their elaboration.
War, Towns, and the State
Authors: Gunn Steven , Grummitt David , Cools Hans
Published: January 2008

This chapter concludes the discussion of towns by drawing out the similarities and differences between the impact of war on towns in England and the Netherlands, stressing the geographical and political variations within each polity. Towns in the Netherlands were more independent than their English equivalents, yet in some respects, war brought them more directly under princely tutelage. The processes that developed the prince's ability to deploy urban resources for war, however, might also consolidate urban communities and the power of their magistrates over them, and might result in a concentration of power in provincial states, where urban leaders might combine to direct military policy in the interests of their towns.
Nobles in Command
Authors: Gunn Steven , Grummitt David , Cools Hans
Published: January 2008

This chapter investigates the special position of noblemen who acted as leading military commanders. The appointment of provincial governors, lords lieutenant, wardens of the marches, and deputies in Ireland might both focus the social power and military ambition of the nobility in the service of the prince and reinforce noble power with a framework of public authority, but incompetent exercise of such offices could wreck noble reputations. Skill in administration, firmness in disciplining troops, wisdom in taking counsel, and splendour in living nobly all contributed to effective generalship. Distant campaigns in Germany, Ireland, Italy, or Spain, and relations cultivated with foreign princes and their commanders could make or break careers as readily as defending one's neighbours and friends. Negotiating and collecting taxation or suppressing revolts could do as much for the war effort as front-line command.
War, Subjects, and the State
Authors: Gunn Steven , Grummitt David , Cools Hans
Published: January 2008

This chapter concludes the discussion of the effects of war in constructing individuals as subjects of the ruler and the state. War increased the princes' claims over their subjects in many ways, but their realization was often partial at best and interacted with other forces for growing state power over individuals, judicial, political, and ideological — sometimes amplifying their effects, sometimes interfering with them. War constrained the subject to serve the state, but also helped make the subject a citizen engaged, however indistinctly, in dialogue with the prince about the aims and effects of war. War drew individuals together in common action and a common identity, but that identity need not be a recognizably national identity. Questions of identity, of the strains of war, and of the limits of princely power were all more complex and acute in the Netherlands than in England.
Ingredients for a Theory of Agreements
Authors: Ray Debraj
Published: January 2008

This chapter describes the essential ingredients of a theory of coalition formation. Three aspects receive emphasis. First, it is important to settle on a particular methodology. One might picture the process of negotiation as a classical game, with all decisions centered on individual choices, or one might choose the group (or coalition) as the fundamental unit of analysis. Second, one must construct a theory that permits players to go beyond the myopic consequences of their immediate actions, to take account of potential repercussions. Finally, one must take account of the degree of commitment in a joint undertaking. Are all commitments irreversible, or potentially changeable, perhaps at a cost to the agents involved? Different assumptions regarding either of these aspects will necessarily generate different theories of coalition formation.
Coalitions, Cooperation and Noncooperation
Authors: Ray Debraj
Published: January 2008

This chapter describes in greater detail what the phrases ‘cooperation within coalitions’ and ‘non-cooperation across coalitions’ mean in this book. It develops the idea of coalitional equilibrium, which captures ‘non-cooperative play’ across coalitions. It then uses coalitional equilibrium to construct partition functions, which embody specifications of the worth or value of every coalition in every ambient coalition structure. Partition functions will be used intensively in the rest of the book. Several examples of partition functions are provided, drawn from different social situations.
Irreversible Agreements: Symmetric Games
Authors: Ray Debraj
Published: January 2008

This chapter studies a special case of the framework introduced in Chapter 4, one that relies on ‘symmetry’. It focuses on symmetric partition functions: such functions have the property that the worth of a coalition depends only on the number of individuals in that coalition and the ambient ‘numerical coalition structure’ — the ambient structure described only by the vector of membership sizes. It develops an algorithm that generates a distinguished coalition structure from any symmetric partition function. The heart of the chapter connects the coalition structure of this algorithm to the actual equilibria of coalitional bargaining. The resulting characterization is one of the basic results of this book.
Blocking
Authors: Ray Debraj
Published: January 2008

This chapter begins a second approach to coalition formation, one firmly grounded in coalitions as fundamental behavioral units. A central notion is that of blocking and the attendant concepts that stem from it — blocking coalitions and the core — are important ideas in the theory of cooperative games. Using the core as a starting point, two ingredients of this book's general approach are reintroduced. First, the notion of farsightedness is re-examined: the idea that a deviating coalition should not simply look at the immediate consequences of its actions. Second, the fundamental prediction problem is reconsidered: a coalition must attempt to forecast what other players might do, in an attempt to predict its own worth. These two features will play an important role in the two chapters that follow.
The Blocking Approach in Real Time
Authors: Ray Debraj
Published: January 2008

This chapter studies reversible agreements under the blocking framework. It presumes that negotiations can open and reopen over an indefinite period of time. As before, a study of this phenomenon requires an explicitly dynamic model of coalition formation, though the task is now to construct a parallel theory under the ‘blocking approach’. The central contribution of this chapter is the development and examination of a new solution concept: an equilibrium process of coalition formation. This concept is carefully linked to traditional concepts such as the core, as well as newer concepts such as the largest consistent set, and is applied to a variety of situations. The chapter concludes the examination of a theory of coalition formation, though there are several permutations of the general methodology described in Chapter 2 that are left unexplored in this book.
Directions
Authors: Ray Debraj
Published: January 2008

This chapter describes several directions of research that are not adequately emphasized in this book. Among the topics discussed are equity within coalitions, coalition formation with deliberate exit, overlapping coalition structures, networks, incomplete information, and various axiomatic approaches.
Colonization
Authors: Kallendorf Craig
Published: January 2008

This chapter develops the connection between the Aeneid and the imperial projects of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was easy for the colonizers to cast themselves in the role of Aeneas and the conquering Trojans, and this approach accorded well with the demands of the schools, which tended then, as now, to eschew moral complexity. But then as now, again, more mature readers in different environments were able to see that Virgil presented both what is lost as well as what is gained in conquest, so that as early as Bartolomé de Las Casas, some Europeans were able, like Virgil, to see imperialism from the other side. Some of them, like Alonso de Ercilla and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, are still known to specialists and to educated people in their own countries; and others, like William Shakespeare, are known wherever Western culture has penetrated. All of them, however, turned the model text of the colonizers against them, focusing on the ‘other voices’ in the Aeneid in a series of protests that became more insistent as the Virgilian imitations moved from epic to drama to lyric. This line of argument suggests, in turn, that Virgil's place in the ideology of the Ancien Régime is also more complicated than traditional historiography suggests.
Defining the Romantic Symbol
Authors: Halmi Nicholas
Published: January 2008

This chapter begins with a discussion of the concept of the symbol as articulated by a number of German writers and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the period designated as the age of Goethe in German literary history and the Romantic period in British literary history, in the years between 1770 and 1830. It argues that the theorization of the symbol in the Romantic period may be understood as an attempt to foster a sense of the harmony of the human mind with nature, of the unity of seemingly disparate intellectual disciplines, and of the compatibility of individual freedom with a cohesive social structure — all for the sake of reducing anxiety about the place of the individual in bourgeois society (especially in the aftermath of the French Revolution and ensuing European wars) and about the increasing dominance of mechanistic science. To the extent that it sought to effect a re-enchantment of the world by reforming perception, the symbolist theory of the philosophically minded Romantics, for the most part Germans, was closely related to the poetic project of English poets like Wordsworth and Shelley, who sought to reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary and thereby transform human understanding of the external world.
Uses of Mythology
Authors: Halmi Nicholas
Published: January 2008

The ‘discovery’ of the symbol in antiquity may be understood as a response to the obstacles confronting the creation of a ‘new mythology’, a project conceived by the early German Romantics in explicit opposition to classical mythology. Although the purpose of an oppositional definition is to privilege one term at the expense of another, the logic of opposition renders the term to be privileged entirely dependent on the one to be suppressed: having determined to distinguish their prospective mythology from an existing one, the Romantics could hardly avoid referring to the latter. But it was not only for definitional reasons that the one mythology proved impossible to disentangle fully from the other. Just as the Querelle des anciens et des modernes, inaugurated in the late 17th century as an assertion of advancements in knowledge and manners since antiquity, paradoxically stimulated a half-century of intense interest in and identification with antiquity — the age of Winckelmann and Thomas Percy — so the Romantics wound up answering their call for a new mythology by seeking assistance from the old. This chapter argues that there were limits to the amount of assistance they could accept, and that one of those limits was reached in the project of a new mythology, with which the early German Romantics sought to continue the emancipatory work of enlightenment by the very means from which the Enlightenment had imagined itself to have been emancipated.
INTERACTION OF IONS WITH VORTEX LINES
Authors: Borghesani A.F.
Published: January 2008

If the superfluid is contained in a rotating bucket, it resembles a solid-body rotation by developing an uniform array of quantized vortex lines. These can capture ions and, thus, rotating superfluid He II shows a strong anisotropy to the motion of ions. This chapter is concerned with the interaction of ions with vortex lines. The ion capture experiments and their results are described. Concepts such as capture width are discussed. A theoretical model of Brownian diffusion has been developed to understand the capture of ions by vortex lines. The competition between the attractive hydrodynamic suction and the thermal diffusion leads to an effective capture rate of ions. The effect of the pressure on the capture of an electron bubble is also discussed.
TRANSPORT PROPERTIES OF DIFFERENT IONS
Authors: Borghesani A.F.
Published: January 2008

This chapter describes the study of transport properties of several different positive ions in superfluid helium. In addition to alkali and alkaline-earth ions, the still unsolved problem of the so-called exotic ions is considered, which contain negative ions which are faster than the common electron bubbles, whose nature remains unknown. Several hypotheses have been made to explain their nature, among which the most intriguing is the electrino hypothesis, i.e., the possibility that the electron in the electron bubble may undergo fission.
DIRECT DETERMINATION OF THE EFFECTIVE MASS OF IONS
Authors: Borghesani A.F.
Published: January 2008

A very important property of the complex charge structures used to test superfluidity is effective mass. This can be measured directly in experiments with microwaves or in experiments based on inertial methods. These experiments and their results are discussed.
ION TRANSPORT IN NORMAL LIQUID 4HE
Authors: Borghesani A.F.
Published: January 2008

Ions are used in normal liquid helium to investigate the hydrodynamics in presence of electrostriction. The Navier-Stokes equation must be modified in order to account for the spatial variations of density and viscosity around the ion because of the local pressure increase due to electrostriction. The solutions of the modified hydrodynamic equations are compared to experiments in normal liquid 4He. The issue matters if the liquid actually freezes around the ion. The analogies with the transport of the O2  - ion in dense Neon gas are described.
ION MOBILITY AT THE LIQUID-VAPOR TRANSITION IN 3HE
Authors: Borghesani A.F.
Published: January 2008

This chapter presents the experimental results of the study of the mobility of ions in liquid 3He at the liquid-vapor transition. It shows how electrostriction in a region in which the compressibility is the highest affects both positive ions and negative ions, though in a quantitatively different way that depends on the different structure of the two kinds of charges. The interesting observation that the mobility minima are located on the extrapolation of the coexistence curve into the one-phase region is emphasized. The correlation of this behavior with that of O2  - ions in dense argon gas is put into evidence.
NEGATIVE IONS IN NORMAL LIQUID 3HE FORT< 1 K
Authors: Borghesani A.F.
Published: January 2008

This chapter discusses the studies of the electron bubble mobility in normal liquid 3He. The high temperature measurements are extended into the milliKelvin range down to the superfluid transition at approximately 2.7 mK. At such low temperatures, the mean free path of the quasiparticles of the liquid becomes larger than the size of the electron bubble, and the drag on them must be calculated in the Knudsen limit. A quantum modification of the Boltzmann transport equation has been used to describe theoretically the experimental results by taking into account the requirements of the Pauli exlusion principle for fermion scattering. It is shown that the ion recoil must be taken into account by means of the van Hove scattering functions.
DYNAMICS OF THE FORMATION OF THE ELECTRON BUBBLE
Authors: Borghesani A.F.
Published: January 2008

The phenomenon of self-trapping is well known in helium and in different systems, such as electrons in ammonia, Positronium in dense helium gas, and so on. It is known that localization occurs when the balance between exchange repulsive forces, thermal energy, expansion work, and polarization energy is such that the excess free energy of the localized state is lower than that of the extended state. Several physical mechanisms have been proposed to explain how the electron bubble forms, including trapping on virtual or resonant states due to density fluctuations. Stabilization of the localized state is obtained by sound wave emission of the new-born, oscillating bubble. The breathing mode of the cavity around an helium excimer in liquid helium has been also measured.
ELECTRON MOBILITY IN DENSE HE GAS
Authors: Borghesani A.F.
Published: January 2008

Experiments on the mobility of electrons in dense helium gas elucidated how localized electron states develop when the gas density gas is increased. Up to 77 K, the density dependence of the mobility clearly shows that the formation of electron bubbles is a continuous phenomenon. Localization of electrons in bubbles also appears at high temperatures if the density is so large that the free energy of the localized state is negative enough. Percolation and hydrodynamic models have been devised to explain the continuous transition from high-mobility states to low-mobility states. It is shown that density-dependent, quantum multiple scattering effects modify the energy of the nearly free electron in a way that can be accurately described by heuristically modifying the kinetic theory prediction.
Introduction Answering Another Sphinx
Authors: Goff Barbara , Simpson Michael
Published: January 2008

The Introduction pursues the theme of identity by considering the varieties of ‘family’ in the plays. The grounding of civilization is investigated by means of the dichotomy of orality and literature, as well as the polarity between Thebes and Athens. To develop this analysis, the profile and potential of Oedipus and Antigone in Western and African philosophical traditions is examined. The book's argument about cultural transmission contends that the African-descended adaptations of Oedipus and Antigone indict colonial culture for the infliction of oedipal violence, while themselves enacting an oedipal bind as they simultaneously embrace and resist those cultures. Above and beyond this bind, the plays offer more benign models of transmission constituted within the African continent and diaspora. The Introduction recasts the arguments of Freud and Bloom by a focus on Fanon, and advocates a specific theoretical re-orientation of reception studies to equip it to do postcolonial analysis.
1 Intersections and Networks
Authors: Goff Barbara , Simpson Michael
Published: January 2008

Chapter One establishes the book's theoretical and methodological context by siting it within recent developments in postcolonial studies, reception studies, and theories of tragedy. Taking as its methodological parameters the work of Gilroy and Bernal on the Black Atlantic and Black Athena, it introduces the construct of the ‘Black Aegean’ as the zone of cultural transmission among Africa, Ancient Greece, and contemporary Europe. Other issues in postcolonial studies, such as the nature of canonical counter-discourse, and the possible identity of the United States as a postcolonial society, are analysed. The chapter also enters into dialogue with recent writers on classical reception, and develops further the theory of classical reception by positing a version of reception that has learnt from deconstruction and so highlights its self-consciousness and recursivity. The final section of the chapter discusses theories of tragedy, supplementing Steiner with Soyinka.
2 Back to the Motherland: Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not To Blame
Authors: Goff Barbara , Simpson Michael
Published: January 2008

This chapter reads Ola Rotimi's The Gods are Not to Blame as an allegory of colonization and decolonization and revises the established reading of the play as a representation of the Nigerian Civil War. The protagonist's patricide is understood as the slaying of the colonial father at the moment of independence, and the ensuing incest is the intimate embrace between the hero of national liberation and what the despatched colonizer leaves behind, namely his culture. This relationship is incestuous because the liberating hero is already a partial product of colonial culture. Political decolonization is thus staged as the easy part, while cultural decolonization is dramatized as impossible because the incestuous embrace produces issue. This issue is not only the children in the play but also the play itself. As such, the play is a product of an indigenous and a colonial culture. Ethnic aggression, as both colonization and civil war, is thus characterised as fighting oneself.
4 The City on the Edge: Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus
Authors: Goff Barbara , Simpson Michael
Published: January 2008

Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus foregrounds the themes found in Oedipus at Colonus, of reconciliation and integration, and tests them against America's racially divided society. The analyses in this chapter concentrate on various comparisons between Gospel and its Greek antecedent: on the representation of Oedipus, on descriptions of time and change, on the inconcinnity between the Christian and the Greek worldviews, and on the notion of place. The chapter shows that Gospel reworks the exacting bleakness of the Greek play in the service of a vision of a racially integrated American polity. Its utopian politics, however, may be compromised by its other allegiances, including its commitment to the theatrical roots of tragedy. To pursue this tension, the play is read in relation to the traditions of gospel music, other black theatre, and the American avant-garde.
5 The Wine‐dark Caribbean? Kamau Brathwaite's Odale's Choice and Derek Walcott's Omeros
Authors: Goff Barbara , Simpson Michael
Published: January 2008

Kamau Brathwaite's Odale's Choice, an adaptation of Antigone designed for school children to perform, figures and enacts the birth of a nation, as Ghana, where it was first produced, becomes the first African country to achieve independence from a European colonial power. The bleakest aspects of the play are read as representations of both the necessary sacrifices that must be made to achieve independence and the unnecessary sacrifices that may be demanded after independence. The Pan-African implications of this play by an Afro-Caribbean writer are contrasted with the Pan-Caribbean vision articulated in Derek Walcott's Omeros. In the debate among Caribbean writers and critics about the historical, epistemological and political priority of the constituent cultures of the region, Omeros's fixation on Greek models is an answer to Brathwaite's assertion of African antecedents. Against all efforts to privilege any of the region's cultures, Omeros plots the limits of even its own Greek apparatus.
7 History Sisters: Femi Osofisan's Tegonni: An African Antigone
Authors: Goff Barbara , Simpson Michael
Published: January 2008

Femi Osofisan's Tegonni: an African Antigone moves beyond a concern with the political and cultural effects of colonialism. Instead, the play deconstructs colonial and other types of authority, including paternal power and the domination of the male, in the service of resistance to neo-colonialism. In place of traditional authorities it foregrounds relationships of spontaneous affection, female agency, and a comic dimension. The self-conscious metatheatricality of the drama serves the same project; Tegonni doubles its heroine between a mythical Greek Antigone and a nineteenth-century Yoruba princess, and thus can address, like Odale's Choice, the issue of a sacrifice that is efficacious but must be repeated. The authority of the Greek Antigone comes to symbolize the tragic inevitability of Africa's damaged history, but is countered both by the comedy in the play, represented most forcefully by the soldiers, and by the tradition of Antigones set in Africa.
Constructive Empiricism and the Argument from Underdetermination
Authors: Van Dyck Maarten
Published: January 2008

This chapter examines the arguments van Fraassen gives for constructive empiricism. Van Fraassen is often presented as giving some version of the argument from underdetermination: the argument which holds that since theories always have empirically equivalent rivals, empirical evidence can never adjudicate between a theory and its rivals, and hence belief in any theory is unfounded. It is argued that van Fraassen does not give any version of the argument from underdetermination, and that the argument from underdetermination is incompatible with van Fraassen's epistemological views.
Why be Hanged for Even a Lamb?
Authors: Cartwright Nancy
Published: January 2008

This chapter examines van Fraassen's motivation for restricting his scientific theoretical commitments to claims about observables. Many critics have argued that the observable/unobservable distinction van Fraassen draws on is either an illegitimate distinction, or can't play the important philosophical role van Fraassen wants it to. The importance of this distinction is discussed. It is argued that what we fundamentally care about is what we will experience under the possible courses of action open to us, and hence we have a (non-epistemic) reason to try to control what we experience. This gives us special reason to form beliefs about what we are capable of observing.
The Epistemology of Constructive Empiricism
Authors: Ladyman James
Published: January 2008

This chapter questions what epistemic reason van Fraassen has for focusing on empirical adequacy. It contrasts van Fraassen's constructive empiricism with a pragmatic empiricism, where one gives pragmatic, not epistemic, reasons for believing in the claims of a theory. It suggests that van Fraassen does not give adequate justification for why belief in the empirical adequacy of a theory could ever be epistemically warranted. Van Fraassen is also relying on a priori knowledge — a charge with which van Fraassen would presumably be unhappy.
Taking an Empirical Stance
Authors: McMullin Ernan
Published: January 2008

This chapter begins by considering the role of emotion in scientific revolutions. It argues that one can undergo a scientific revolution without ever facing an existentialist moment where emotion is essentially involved. It then takes up van Fraassen's discussion of religion from the final chapter of The Empirical Stance. It proposes that such a discussion of emotion in conceptual shifts is relevant to van Fraassen's ideas about encountering God.
Six Degrees of Speculation: Metaphysics in Empirical Contexts
Authors: Chakravartty Anjan
Published: January 2008

This chapter argues that the distinction between empiricism and metaphysics is not as clear as van Fraassen would like to believe. Almost all inquiry is metaphysical to a degree, including van Fraassen's stance empiricism. Van Fraassen does not make a strong case against metaphysics, since the argument against metaphysics has to happen at the level of meta-stances — the level where one decides which stance to endorse. The chapter maintains that utilizing van Fraassen's own conception of rationality, metaphysicians are rational. Empiricists should not reject all metaphysics, but just the sort of metaphysics which goes well beyond the empirical contexts that most interest them.
Europe and the Scope of International Society
Authors: Clark Ian
Published: January 2008

This chapter addresses two interconnected issues about the historical trajectory of international society. First, in terms of its character, whether it started out essentially European, and then changed in fundamental ways to become increasingly, and genuinely, multicultural? Second, in terms of its scope, whether its historical course has been one of constant and continuous expansion in the sense that it started from a narrow geographical base, and ever since has become progressively, and consistently, broader. It establishes that the international development of notions of legitimacy was grounded in a real debate about the nature and scope of international society, sparked off by the age of discovery.
Utrecht: Consensus, Balance of Power, and Legitimacy
Authors: Clark Ian
Published: January 2008

The Utrecht settlement refers to the complex of treaties, signed in the period 1713-14, which brought an end to the wars of Spanish Succession. These treaties were devoted principally to the conditions on which the members of the Grand Alliance secured future peace with Louis XIV's France, and separately, to the effective partition of the Spanish territories. This chapter explains what the settlement was about, why it has been regarded as significant by various historians and international relations scholars, and how it relates to the developing practices of legitimacy within international society. It shows how a traditionally dominant conception of rightful membership — through the principle of legitimate succession — was challenged and subordinated to international regulation, and in particular to a governing principle of the balance of power. It also explores the elaboration of various aspects of rightful conduct as manifested in the modalities of treaty-making, the articulation of a basic notion of consensus, and the self-conscious promotion of a societal norm of equilibrium. Finally, it reflects on the complex interrelationship between the extent of the consensus around the treaty and the then prevailing balance of power.
7 Legitimacy and the Dual Settlement of 1945
Authors: Clark Ian
Published: January 2008

This chapter discusses the application of legitimacy principles within the context of the dual settlement of 1945. The settlement was dual in the sense that it included a putatively universalistic component that, in practice, was to become confined initially to the West alone. It also included a separate component, not amongst the former enemies, but amongst the former Allies. The chapter explores the new elements of rightful membership, within the areas of human rights and what is often referred to as embedded liberalism. On the side of rightful conduct, the key areas for discussion are trends in then current thinking about consensus, and how it was to be attained.
11 Legitimacy and Norms
Authors: Clark Ian
Published: January 2008

This chapter analyzes the relationship between legitimacy and its cognate norms; namely, those of legality, morality, and constitutionality. It criticizes propositions to the effect that a choice can be made between legitimacy, on the one hand, and particular norms, on the other. It does so for several reasons. First, legitimacy possesses no independent normative content of its own that would make such a choice meaningful. Second, the notion of legitimacy is always mediated through a composite of other norms, and cannot be ranged against them individually. Third, the tensions that arise are amongst those discrete norms themselves, rather than between each individually and legitimacy.
12 Legitimacy and Equilibrium
Authors: Clark Ian
Published: January 2008

This chapter develops the idea that legitimacy is intimately related to power, and considers the extent to which contemporary problems affecting international legitimacy simply reflect the current distribution of power. It considers the specific debate about US hegemony in the contemporary world situation. It argues that the problem for legitimacy in contemporary international society does indeed reside in disequilibrium, but not in any straightforward sense. It is not simply a matter of international society coming to terms with the lack of a balance of power. Nor, for that matter, is it the case of international society having to adjust to the preferences and vagaries of US policy, as they variably reflect these underlying power conditions. The contemporary idea of legitimacy attaches itself to a notion of acceptable leadership in conditions of hegemony. That is to say that it must be a leadership that is acceptable both to international society at large, and also to the predominant state called upon to play that role.
Conclusion
Authors: Clark Ian
Published: January 2008

This chapter presents some final thoughts. It discusses the reasons why legitimacy matters and maps out the history of the gradual shift in normative bases of legitimacy. It concludes that principles of legitimacy are integral to the concept of an international society; that the working through of these principles is part of the day-to-day practice of international society; and that because this is a realm of contested politics, there can be no direct appeal to superior international norms at this stage.
Chapter 9 Reforms to Canadian Social Security, 1996–7
Authors: Brown Robert L.
Published: January 2008

This chapter discusses Social Security reform in Canada in 1996-7. It argues that the C/QPP reforms of 1997 gave merely tweaks to the system as opposed to massive change, with most of the amendments subtle and not fully understood by the average Canadian citizen. These reforms were made without apparent opposition, which is somewhat surprising given that contribution rates were raised from 6 to 9.9% over a short 6-year period. The failure of the Seniors Benefit in 1996 was political, not actuarial. The government failed to understand how popular the OAS was and how emotional the response would be to proposed reforms given the very small- and long-deferred savings that were projected to result. The Canadian social security system today provides Canadians with a high level of income security while leaving ample room for individual savings and investments. The reforms of 1997 have meant that the CPP now rests on a healthy foundation. The latest CPP actuarial report shows that this system is sustainable for at least the next seventy-five years.
Chapter 10 A Decade of Government‐Mandated Privately Run Pensions in Mexico: What Have We Learned?
Authors: Sinha Tapen , Yañez Maria de los Angeles
Published: January 2008

On July 1, 1997, a new privatized pension plan — called the Seguro de Retiro, Cesantía en Edad Avanzada y Vejez (RCV, or Retirement and Old Age Insurance) — took effect in Mexico. This chapter begins with a short description of the new system giving special attention to the cuota social or social quota, and the housing subaccount. It then discusses the coverage issue in the context of the government's claim that higher coverage would be an important advantage of the new system. It looks at the market structure of the pension funds in Mexico and investment portfolios, and tackles the cost structure of running the funds, transition costs, and the cost of the payout phase, noting the inequality between men and women in terms of the future pension payout. Finally, it reviews the conditions that may lead low-income affiliates to fall back on the minimum pension guaranteed by the reform. It shows that the system faces a number of challenges, including a reduction in the ratio of contributors relative to affiliates, high commission charges, and a likelihood that the government will have to support the old-age poor when lower-income individuals retire with insufficient funds in their accounts. On the other hand, the government bond market has deepened, bringing more financial security to the pension system.
Chapter 11 Pensions in Brazil: Reaching the Limits of Parametric Reform in Latin America
Authors: Matijascic Milko , Kay Stephen J.
Published: January 2008

This chapter describes Brazil's social security system and the highly contentious reform process. While much of the rest of the South American region moved toward individual accounts, Brazil engaged in parametric reforms. Recently, the country introduced the fator previdenci ário, a system akin to a notional DC system, whereby contributions and benefits are strictly linked but contributions do not go into individual-funded savings accounts. Although a few political leaders have favoured private accounts, individual accounts never received much political support, and the transition costs are considered potentially prohibitive, reaching as high as 201% of GDP. Structural reform is complicated by the fact that the social security system is codified in the 1988 constitution, which means that any structural reform needs to go through the laborious and politically costly constitutional amendment process. It is argued that administrative and legislative reforms that would make the system more efficient and equitable are possible even when support for constitutional reform is lacking.
Chapter 12 Costa Rica's Pension Reform: A Decade of Negotiated Incremental Change
Authors: Franzoni Juliana Martínez
Published: January 2008

During the past two decades, Costa Rica has transformed its pension system into a ‘mixed model’ that combines collective and individual savings. This chapter focuses on the structural reform approved in 2000 and in effect since May 2001 and the parametric reform approved in May 2005. The 2000 reform created a multipillar system, which included the R égimen de Invalidez, Vejez y Muerte (RIVM, or the Disability, Old-Age, and Survivorship Regime). The RIVM was created in 1943 and currently reaches nine out of every ten insured workers in the country. The 2005 parametric reform modified requirements and benefits of the RIVM and created new benefits while seeking to strengthen the collective capitalization system. Both reforms strengthened the administrative effectiveness of the RIVM. The chapter discusses the main historical characteristics of the pension system, focusing on the RIVM; describes the political context for the design and adoption of the main reforms of the past five years; and explains both reforms in detail. It also examines the strengths and weaknesses of the implementation process and concludes with an exploration of tensions within the Costa Rican pension reform.
Chapter 14 Uruguay: A Mixed Reform
Authors: Saldain Rodolfo
Published: January 2008

This chapter describes Uruguay's 1995 pension reform, which is based on a multipillar or mixed, system, with contributions and benefits linked to both a state-managed PAYGO system and privately managed individual savings accounts. Since its implementation, the reform faced challenges arising from its design, turbulent financial markets, and difficulties with respect to political and social acceptance. The new pension system emerged in good condition after the country's worst financial crisis, which happened in 2002. The system now faces renewed political challenges after the election of a political coalition that had opposed the creation of the new mixed system. However, the lack of a viable alternative to the 1995 reform suggests that current policies will be maintained, though it is likely that policymakers will make advisable and necessary adjustments.
Chapter 16 Epilogue: The Future of Retirement Systems in the Americas
Authors: Mitchell Olivia S.
Published: January 2008

This chapter presents lessons that can be learnt from pension reform in the Americas. Among these are that precision in speaking and thinking about social security is essential but too often ignored, and that reforming retirement systems takes patience and, in fact, the process is never over. Suggestions to make retirement systems more resilient are also presented.
1 Divine Qualities
Authors: Clark Anna J.
Published: January 2008

This chapter introduces divine qualities, contexts in which they are found, and ways in which they can constitute a helpful lens for understanding how Romans thought about themselves. It explains the terms in which they are explored in the rest of the book. They are thought of as a congnitive vocabulary, individual elements of which are situated in the overlap between religion and qualities associated with Romans. The forms in which divine qualities were expressed in Rome (statues, temples, festival days, coins, dramas) were resources that themselves constituted and created opportunities to engage with each quality. This gives us insights into processes by which individuals and groups forged conceptions of community. The chapter emphasizes the fluidity of any boundary between divine qualities, other qualities, and other deities, and explains both the choice of label ‘divine quality’ and the decision to represent divine qualities in small capitals (pietas).
Introducing New God(desse)s (?)
Authors: Clark Anna J.
Published: January 2008

This chapter explains the dangers of making absolute claims about geographical or conceptual orgins for divine qualities, and of positing overly clear‐cut ‘Greek’/‘Roman’ dichotomies, pointing out some of the problematic consequences in older and more recent work. It focuses instead on claims made about their origins, in Republican evidence, including that of Varro and Cicero, and in later stories, especially in Livy and also in Pliny the Elder for example, taking account of the nature of the sources in which these claims survive. The chapter explores the stories told about the introduction of cult and foundation of temples or shrines to divine qualities in Rome during the ‘Struggle of the Orders’ (pudicitia plebeia, salus, concordia, victoria), the Punic Wars (fides, spes, libertas, mens, ops, concordia, and perhaps honos), and the early second‐century bc (pietas).
Staging Divine Qualities
Authors: Clark Anna J.
Published: January 2008

This chapter argues that New Comedy, especially Plautus, gives us insights into a lively preoccupation with divine qualities in the third/second centuries bc. It considers evidence from plays of Plautus, Terence, comic fragments, and fragments from dramas on Roman subjects (fabulae praetextae), proposing a role for virtus in Naevius' Clastidium. It probes the connections between plays and temples and their consequences, and explores differences between qualities with long‐established cult and more recent recipients, taking pietas as a case study. The chapter shows that divine qualities were used in these plays to discuss questions about ‘who we are’. Qualities receiving or about to receive public cult in the city were drawn on in a variety of ways by a disparate range of different characters in these comedies staged in front of heterogeneous audiences. This has potentially important consequences for our understanding of the relevance of such qualities to non‐élite social strata.