bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
MOG cosmology without dark matter and the cosmological constant
Authors: Davari Zahra , Rahvar Sohrab
Published: August 2021

In this work, we investigate the MOdified Gravity (MOG) theory for dynamics of the Universe and compare the results with the Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology. We study the background cosmological properties of the MOG model and structure formation at the linear perturbation level. We compare the two models with the currently available cosmological data by using statistical Bayesian analyses. After obtaining updated constraints on the free parameters, we use some methods of model selection to assist in choosing the more consistent model such as the reduced chi-squared ($\chi ^2_{\rm red}$) and a number of the basic information criteria such as the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), the Bayes factor or Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), and Deviance Information Criterion (DIC). MOG model appears to be consistent with the ΛCDM model by the results of $\chi ^2_{\rm red}$ and DIC for an overall statistical analysis using the background data and the linear growth of structure formation.
A Positively Selected MAGEE2 LoF Allele Is Associated with Sexual Dimorphism in Human Brain Size and Shows Similar Phenotypes in Magee2 Null Mice
Authors: Szpak Michał , Collins Stephan C , Li Yan , Liu Xiao , Ayub Qasim , Fischer Marie-Christine , Vancollie Valerie E , Lelliott Christopher J , Xue Yali , Yalcin Binnaz , Yang Huanming , Tyler-Smith Chris
Published: August 2021

A nonsense allele at rs1343879 in human MAGEE2 on chromosome X has previously been reported as a strong candidate for positive selection in East Asia. This premature stop codon causing ∼80% protein truncation is characterized by a striking geographical pattern of high population differentiation: common in Asia and the Americas (up to 84% in the 1000 Genomes Project East Asians) but rare elsewhere. Here, we generated a Magee2 mouse knockout mimicking the human loss-of-function mutation to study its functional consequences. The Magee2 null mice did not exhibit gross abnormalities apart from enlarged brain structures (13% increased total brain area, P = 0.0022) in hemizygous males. The area of the granular retrosplenial cortex responsible for memory, navigation, and spatial information processing was the most severely affected, exhibiting an enlargement of 34% (P = 3.4×10−6). The brain size in homozygous females showed the opposite trend of reduced brain size, although this did not reach statistical significance. With these insights, we performed human association analyses between brain size measurements and rs1343879 genotypes in 141 Chinese volunteers with brain MRI scans, replicating the sexual dimorphism seen in the knockout mouse model. The derived stop gain allele was significantly associated with a larger volume of gray matter in males (P = 0.00094), and smaller volumes of gray (P = 0.00021) and white (P = 0.0015) matter in females. It is unclear whether or not the observed neuroanatomical phenotypes affect behavior or cognition, but it might have been the driving force underlying the positive selection in humans.
Parents living in water, embryos developing in air: respiratory adaptations to use both environments in the freshwater gastropod Pomacea figulina (Gastropoda, Ampullariidae)
Authors: Mardones Maria L , Arruda Eliane P , Chaparro Oscar R , Cubillos Victor M , Mardones-Toledo Daniela A , Pechenik Jan A
Published: August 2021

The ability to use oxygen from both air and water has been considered key to the colonization of terrestrial environments by invertebrates. The freshwater gastropod Pomacea figulina generally lives submerged, although females lay their eggs mainly above water during nighttime, on the stems of aquatic plants, and the embryos develop inside the air-exposed calcareous egg capsules. However, little is known about the physiological adaptations that the ovipositing females and the developing embryos have developed to breathe in air. In this study, we report sexual differences in the aerial and aquatic oxygen consumption of adults and embryonic respiration in aerially developing egg clusters. We found that the males and females of this species can obtain oxygen from both water and air, although uptake rates for both sexes were much lower in air than in water. Females in air consumed oxygen 42% faster than males, which may be related with the habit of egg laying above water level. Developing embryos inside calcareous eggs obtained oxygen faster when submersed under water than when exposed to air, although embryos near hatching were better able to use oxygen from both air and water than embryos at earlier stages of development. Our data suggest that for P. figulina, laying eggs in the terrestrial environment may be more a strategy for protecting embryos from predators than a respiratory adaptation.
Structural and mechanistic insights into the Artemis endonuclease and strategies for its inhibition
Authors: Yosaatmadja Yuliana , Baddock Hannah T , Newman Joseph A , Bielinski Marcin , Gavard Angeline E , Mukhopadhyay Shubhashish M M , Dannerfjord Adam A , Schofield Christopher J , McHugh Peter J , Gileadi Opher
Published: August 2021

Artemis (SNM1C/DCLRE1C) is an endonuclease that plays a key role in development of B- and T-lymphocytes and in dsDNA break repair by non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ). Artemis is phosphorylated by DNA-PKcs and acts to open DNA hairpin intermediates generated during V(D)J and class-switch recombination. Artemis deficiency leads to congenital radiosensitive severe acquired immune deficiency (RS-SCID). Artemis belongs to a superfamily of nucleases containing metallo-β-lactamase (MBL) and β-CASP (CPSF-Artemis-SNM1-Pso2) domains. We present crystal structures of the catalytic domain of wildtype and variant forms of Artemis, including one causing RS-SCID Omenn syndrome. The catalytic domain of the Artemis has similar endonuclease activity to the phosphorylated full-length protein. Our structures help explain the predominantly endonucleolytic activity of Artemis, which contrasts with the predominantly exonuclease activity of the closely related SNM1A and SNM1B MBL fold nucleases. The structures reveal a second metal binding site in its β-CASP domain unique to Artemis, which is amenable to inhibition by compounds including ebselen. By combining our structural data with that from a recently reported Artemis structure, we were able model the interaction of Artemis with DNA substrates. The structures, including one of Artemis with the cephalosporin ceftriaxone, will help enable the rational development of selective SNM1 nuclease inhibitors.
ENDO-Pore: high-throughput linked-end mapping of single DNA cleavage events using nanopore sequencing
Authors: Torres Montaguth Oscar E , Cross Stephen J , Ingram Kincaid W A , Lee Laura , Diffin Fiona M , Szczelkun Mark D
Published: August 2021

Mapping the precise position of DNA cleavage events plays a key role in determining the mechanism and function of endonucleases. ENDO-Pore is a high-throughput nanopore-based method that allows the time resolved mapping single molecule DNA cleavage events in vitro. Following linearisation of a circular DNA substrate by the endonuclease, a resistance cassette is ligated recording the position of the cleavage event. A library of single cleavage events is constructed and subjected to rolling circle amplification to generate concatemers. These are sequenced and used to produce accurate consensus sequences. To identify the cleavage site(s), we developed CSI (Cleavage Site Investigator). CSI recognizes the ends of the cassette ligated into the cleaved substrate and triangulates the position of the dsDNA break. We firstly benchmarked ENDO-Pore using Type II restriction endonucleases. Secondly, we analysed the effect of crRNA length on the cleavage pattern of CRISPR Cas12a. Finally, we mapped the time-resolved DNA cleavage by the Type ISP restriction endonuclease LlaGI that introduces random double-strand breaks into its DNA substrates.
BusR senses bipartite DNA binding motifs by a unique molecular ruler architecture
Authors: Bandera Adrian M , Bartho Joseph , Lammens Katja , Drexler David Jan , Kleinschwärzer Jasmin , Hopfner Karl-Peter , Witte Gregor
Published: August 2021

The cyclic dinucleotide second messenger c-di-AMP is a major player in regulation of potassium homeostasis and osmolyte transport in a variety of bacteria. Along with various direct interactions with proteins such as potassium channels, the second messenger also specifically binds to transcription factors, thereby altering the processes in the cell on the transcriptional level. We here describe the structural and biochemical characterization of BusR from the human pathogen Streptococcus agalactiae. BusR is a member of a yet structurally uncharacterized subfamily of the GntR family of transcription factors that downregulates transcription of the genes for the BusA (OpuA) glycine-betaine transporter upon c-di-AMP binding. We report crystal structures of full-length BusR, its apo and c-di-AMP bound effector domain, as well as cryo-EM structures of BusR bound to its operator DNA. Our structural data, supported by biochemical and biophysical data, reveal that BusR utilizes a unique domain assembly with a tetrameric coiled-coil in between the binding platforms, serving as a molecular ruler to specifically recognize a 22 bp separated bipartite binding motif. Binding of c-di-AMP to BusR induces a shift in equilibrium from an inactivated towards an activated state that allows BusR to bind the target DNA, leading to transcriptional repression.
Stretchable and self-healable hydrogel artificial skin
Authors: Xue Bin , Sheng Hui , Li Yongqiang , Li Lan , Di Weishuai , Xu Zhengyu , Ma Linjie , Wang Xin , Jiang Haoting , Qin Meng , Yan Zhibo , Jiang Qing , Liu Jun-Ming , Wang Wei , Cao Yi
Published: August 2021

Hydrogels have emerged as promising materials for the construction of skin-like mechanical sensors. The common design of hydrogel-based artificial skin requires a dielectric sandwiched between two hydrogel layers for capacitive sensing. However, such a planar configuration limits the sensitivity, stretchability and self-healing properties. Here, we report the design of single-layer composite hydrogels with bulk capacitive junctions as mechanical sensors. We engineer dielectric peptide-coated graphene (PCG) to serve as homogenously dispersed electric double layers in hydrogels. Any mechanical motions that alter the microscopic distributions of PCG in the hydrogels can significantly change the overall capacitance. We use peptide self-assembly to render strong yet dynamic interfacial interactions between the hydrogel network and graphene. The resulting hydrogels can be stretched up to 77 times their original length and self-heal in a few minutes. The devices can effectively sense strain and pressure in both air and aqueous environments, providing tremendous opportunities for next-generation iontronics.
Mobility in China, 2020: a tale of four phases
Authors: Tan Suoyi , Lai Shengjie , Fang Fan , Cao Ziqiang , Sai Bin , Song Bing , Dai Bitao , Guo Shuhui , Liu Chuchu , Cai Mengsi , Wang Tong , Wang Mengning , Li Jiaxu , Chen Saran , Qin Shuo , Floyd Jessica R , Cao Zhidong , Tan Jing , Sun Xin , Zhou Tao , Zhang Wei , Tatem Andrew J , Holme Petter , Chen Xiaohong , Lu Xin
Published: August 2021

2020 was an unprecedented year, with rapid and drastic changes in human mobility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand the variation in commuting patterns among the Chinese population across stable and unstable periods, we used nationwide mobility data from 318 million mobile phone users in China to examine the extreme fluctuations of population movements in 2020, ranging from the Lunar New Year travel season (chunyun), to the exceptional calm of COVID-19 lockdown, and then to the recovery period. We observed that cross-city movements, which increased substantially in chunyun and then dropped sharply during the lockdown, are primarily dependent on travel distance and the socio-economic development of cities. Following the Lunar New Year holiday, national mobility remained low until mid-February, and COVID-19 interventions delayed more than 72.89 million people returning to large cities. Mobility network analysis revealed clusters of highly connected cities, conforming to the social-economic division of urban agglomerations in China. While the mass migration back to large cities was delayed, smaller cities connected more densely to form new clusters. During the recovery period after travel restrictions were lifted, the netflows of over 55% city pairs reversed in direction compared to before the lockdown. These findings offer the most comprehensive picture of Chinese mobility at fine resolution across various scenarios in China and are of critical importance for decision making regarding future public-health-emergency response, transportation planning and regional economic development, among others.
Examining the effects of calorie restriction on testosterone concentrations in men: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Smith Stephen J , Teo Shaun Y M , Lopresti Adrian L , Heritage Brody , Fairchild Timothy J
Published: August 2021

Context

Testosterone concentrations decline with age, and lower testosterone concentrations are associated with several morbidities, including sexual dysfunction, obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and metabolic syndrome.

Objective

Because dietary habits play a critical role in weight regulation and T2DM management, the aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to summarize and critically evaluate the evidence from randomized controlled trials to determine the effects of calorie restriction (CR) on testosterone concentrations in men.

Data Sources

A literature search was conducted across 4 databases, from their inception until March 2020.

Data Extraction

The screening and data extraction were completed by 2 authors independently, and in a blinded manner, according to a priori inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Data Analysis

Of the 4198 studies identified from the initial search, 7 randomized controlled trials were included for data extraction. Significant increases in total testosterone concentrations were reported in 3 of 4 studies in which CR was examined with overweight or obese men, compared with the control groups. Significant decreases in total testosterone concentrations were reported in 2 of 3 studies in which the effects of CR were examined with normal-weight, healthy men, compared with the control groups. In all 4 studies that examined the effect of CR on sex hormone–binding globulin concentrations, the intervention significantly increased sex hormone–binding globulin concentrations compared with that of the control groups irrespective of body composition.

Conclusion

This systematic review and meta-analysis provide some evidence that CR affects testosterone concentrations in men and this effect depends on their body mass index. PROSPERO registration no. CRD42020173102
Monocyte Gene Expression Distinguishes Enhancing Brain Parenchymal Cysticercal Granulomas From Tuberculomas
Authors: Pamela Betcy Evangeline , Vasudevan Prabhakaran , Thamizhmaran Subashini , Moorthy Ranjith K , Oommen Anna , Manoj Josephin , Thanigachalam Anupriya , Zhang Miao , Drevets Douglas A , Carabin Hélène , Rajshekhar Vedantam
Published: August 2021

Background

In patients with enhancing brain parenchymal lesions, parenchymal neurocysticercosis (pNCC) is often difficult to distinguish from tuberculoma, necessitating biopsy or empirical therapy.

Methods

In a prospective study, peripheral blood monocytes were isolated from patients with definitive pNCC (n = 39) and brain tuberculomas (n = 20). Patients with tuberculomas were diagnosed by the presence of concurrent systemic tuberculosis (n = 7), pathological or bacteriological confirmation (n = 5), and resolution of typical brain lesions following a therapeutic trial of antituberculous therapy (n = 8). Expressions of 14 NCC-associated monocyte genes were determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and analyzed for diagnostic usefulness between the 2 groups.

Results

Expression of 7 genes (TAX1BP1, RAP1A, PLCG2, TOR3A, GBP1P1, LRRFIP2, and FEZ2) was significantly higher in pNCC patients than in tuberculoma patients, with TAX1BP1 and RAP1A expressions more than 22- and 5-fold higher in pNCC patients. TAX1BP1 had the highest sensitivity of 66.7% at a specificity of 100% in discriminating pNCC from tuberculoma. A combination of TAX1BP1 and RAP1A increased the sensitivity to 84.6%, and including GBP1P1 with TAX1BP1 and RAP1A further increased sensitivity to 87.2% while maintaining specificity of 100%.

Conclusions

Expression of a panel of genes in blood monocytes distinguishes pNCC from brain tuberculomas in patients with enhancing brain lesions.
Fin de Siècle, Gilded Age, or Belle Époque
Authors: West Shearer
Published: August 2021

This chapter considers the origin and significance of three terms widely used to characterize a decadent periodization in Britain, the United States, and France: fin de siècle, Gilded Age, and Belle Époque. While these terms were used loosely, and in some cases retrospectively, to describe the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, they also highlight dominant social narratives of the period. These decades witnessed unprecedented economic growth, rapid technological progress, and relative peace following such crises as the Franco-Prussian War in Europe and the Civil War in the United States. However, the cultural products of decadence were more likely to emphasize millennial doom, nervous exhaustion, sexual perversion, and scientific failure, while the decadent style was seen as a novel way of expressing how it felt to live in an era in which the pace of modern life brought with it febrile cultural, social, and political change.
Culture, or the Meaning of Meaning Making
Authors: Borer Michael Ian
Published: August 2021

The exploration and investigation of culture is nothing short of complex since the term itself is used in many ways by both academics and lay publics. Symbolic interactionists and “fellow travelers” tend to approach the study of culture from the position of those who experience and practice it. That is, they focus on the cultural context of practices and interaction and often do so by illuminating the activities of individuals and groups in everyday life. The meanings that people give to their actions and interactions are of utmost importance for scholars interested in the culture as a social forces and a shared collection of beliefs and practices.
Sex and Sexuality
Authors: Rinaldi Cirus
Published: August 2021

Symbolic interactionist approaches to sexuality state that human beings become sexual as they become whatever else and learn sexual definitions and sexual meanings just like they learn any other kind of meaning. Therefore, interactionist analysis shifts the focus of inquiry into sex from being sexual towards becoming sexual, which takes into account how sexualities are produced, organized, and negotiated, rather than tracing their sources in an immutable (conception of) nature. Sociosexual meanings give people the chance to define themselves and others sexually, to construct their sexual self and doing sexual things together in the shaping of more complex sexual choreographies and performance.
Timbre, Rhythm, and Texture within Music Theory’s White Racial Frame
Authors: Lavengood Megan L.
Published: August 2021

This chapter discusses music theory’s neglect of EDM as it relates to the dominant methodologies of the field and Philip Ewell’s concept of the white racial frame, arguing that EDM is overlooked due to implicit biases against racial Otherness and against technological mediation, biases that runs deep enough in US culture to have impacted the trajectory of music theory as an academic field. The chapter examines unpitched percussion through analysis of performance, timbre, and texture in a Roland TR-909 drum machine “workout” performed by Jeff Mills. This analysis models one way that music theory might learn to take EDM seriously. By broadening the methodological toolbox, music theory can begin to course-correct and become more inclusive of music that challenges certain principles of Western music.
Durkheim and the Philosophy of His Time
Authors: Fabiani Jean-Louis
Published: August 2021

Durkheim was trained as a philosopher, taught philosophy, and never left the philosophical field. He started his career with standard philosophical equipment but also with a growing disenchantment about the eclectic and metaphysical mainstream that had survived the establishment of the Third Republic. Philosophy was too general to deal with the growth of scientific invention. Durkheim pursued simultaneously two goals: first, he established a firm demarcation line between philosophy and sociology, guaranteeing the full autonomy of the latter. Second, he benefited from his full membership in the philosophical institution. Rationalism remained his lifetime affiliation. It was largely based on a French version of neo-Kantianism. In the last part of his life, he engaged in a strong discussion with American pragmatism, as a way of clarifying his grasp of social practice.
The Personality Nexus
Authors: Zhu Chen Wei
Published: August 2021

This chapter explores the changing legal landscape of moral rights in the context of music creation. It traces moral rights’ roots to the Kantian theory of authors’ personality rights in continental Europe and it also explains common law jurisdictions’ ideological resistance to a freestanding moral right doctrine in favor of a patchwork approach to the issue. It shows that international agreements including the Berne Convention, the WPPT, and the Beijing Treaty, have played different roles in promoting the minimal moral right standard for either music creators or performers at the international level. Furthermore, it should not be ignored that there has always been an unresolved tension between moral rights and the time-honored practice of music parody, because the former might exert a chilling effect on the latter. It is suggested that a reimagination of moral rights through the Kantian communicative authorship is crucial for accommodating parodic expressions in an increasingly reconfigurable music ecosystem.
Ancillary-Care Obligations
Authors: Richardson Henry S.
Published: August 2021

Medical researchers’ ancillary-care obligations have, until recently, been ignored by the authoritative guidelines on the ethics of medical research. Ancillary care is medical care, often unrelated to what is under study, that is not required by sound science, safe trial conduct, morally optional promises, or redressing research injuries. The question is when medical researchers have moral responsibilities to provide such care if their study participants need it. This question shows up insistently in studies done in resource-poor areas and—as the question of whether to return incidental findings—in genomic and imaging studies. After laying out six desiderata for a fully adequate account of medical researchers’ ancillary-care obligations, this chapter critically evaluates six potential grounds for such obligations—the duty of rescue, human rights, rectificatory justice, professional-role obligations, the researcher–participant relationship, and partial entrustment. It closes by suggesting the possibility of combining two or more of these grounds.
The Comparative Politics of Environmental Justice
Authors: Fuentes-George Kemi
Published: August 2021

Although the terms “environmental justice” and “environmental racism” emerged due to race-based mobilization in the United States, justice is a constant feature of environmental struggles around the world. Pursuing social justice in environmental advocacy can be difficult, but case studies of activism in places including New Zealand, Mexico, Jamaica, Brazil, and the United States show that it is possible. Environmental injustice emerges when populations that are already politically and socioeconomically marginalized disproportionately bear the costs of environmental consumption, and they are often systematically excluded from the benefits of this consumption. Although different political systems vary in how they structure marginalization, this close association of social injustice with environmental injustice characterizes cases like fossil fuel extraction in industrialized countries and agricultural development in the Global South alike. While skeptics have argued that promoting environmentalism is counterproductive to social justice, because environmental regulations often constrain economic growth, combining the two can lead to more sustainable environmental practices.
Assessing 30 Years of Neoliberal Environmental Management in
Chile
Authors: Barandiarán Javiera
Published: August 2021

Neoliberal environmental policies operate through markets, including for carbon, water, ecosystem services, or—as in contemporary Chile—for environmental scientific knowledge. Chile illustrates how markets for science operate, such as for monitoring data or environmental impact assessments, and their negative impacts on public trust in science and on the state’s regulatory efforts. In a society governed by a market for science, environmental scientists cannot escape the suspicion that conflicts of interest compromise their independence and the credibility of their work. Chile’s neoliberal 1980 Constitution sustains this market for knowledge but will be reformed following national demonstrations in 2019. The health of Chile’s environment depends on a new constitution that democratizes both democracy and science. Rights of nature doctrines, as in Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution, can provide the constitutional foundation for strong mutual accountability between science, the state, society, and nature.
Civil Disobedience, Sabotage, and Violence in US Environmental
Activism
Authors: Brown Joseph M.
Published: August 2021

This chapter explores the logic of illegal or “radical” tactics in the United States environmentalist movement, generating broader theoretical insights to guide research in other national settings. Two theoretical concepts help to explain environmentalists’ escalation from legal activism (lobbying, litigation, marches, etc.) to more confrontational tactics such as civil disobedience, sabotage, and violence. The first concept is the stepwise escalation of intensity: from legal activism to civil disobedience, to sabotage, to interpersonal violence. Activists escalate from one level of tactical intensity to the next when government and business interests prove unresponsive to activism at the lower level. The degree of escalation is proportional to the degree of government and business resistance. The second concept is the diversity of tactics. Even in highly contested campaigns, only a minority of activists escalates to illegal tactics, while the majority continues to employ legal means of struggle. Tactical diversity is a source of strength: civil disobedience and sabotage may temporarily block environmentally destructive projects until legal challenges and legislative rule changes end them for good. Tactical diversity also creates opportunities for solidarity, with different organizations contributing to the same campaign according to their tactical comparative advantages. The chapter lays out directions for further research and speculates about the future—whether the worsening climate crisis portends an increase in the most radical tactics, sabotage and violence.
The Politics of Climate Disasters, Social Inequality, and Perceptions of
Government Assistance
Authors: Alcañiz Isabella , Sanchez-Rivera Ana Ivelisse
Published: August 2021

This chapter addresses a central research question of the politics of climate disaster: Who do citizens believe responsible for aftermath relief? The authors examine the issue of responsibility attribution in federal disaster assistance—and the related question of who voters believe deserves government disaster relief—against three devastating 2017 hurricanes, with a special focus on the impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico. The authors begin to answer the questions of responsibility and deservingness with survey data collected by them in a pilot study on the Island of Puerto Rico in 2019. They conclude by identifying fruitful links of comparative analysis between climate disaster politics and distributive and welfare politics.
Modern IPE
Authors: Germain Randall
Published: August 2021

Although there is some disagreement, a remarkable consensus exists that IPE as a formal subject of study emerged in the late 1960s or early 1970s, as the Bretton Woods system was dissolving. This chapter interrogates such a consensus by considering why modern IPE failed to materialize as an organized subject of enquiry after World War II, when there was a demonstrable calling for knowledge of the type it provides. To explore this puzzle I establish that an ongoing academic conversation was available through the work of three eminent intellectuals who would today be clearly recognized as IPE scholars: Karl Polanyi, E.H. Carr and David Mitrany. Although they all advanced distinct IPE-centered ways of framing the central problems of the post-1945 world, their work failed to launch a systematic and coherent conversation about IPE because of the absence of key conditions for this to occur. There are two lessons which we may draw from this case: disciplines require institutional homes from which to carry out “conversations,” and, more controversially, these homes might best be assembled within an architecture provided by a single discipline rather than within multi- or inter-disciplinary venues in which few agreed-upon rules exist.
Foreign Economic Policy
Authors: Bearce David H.
Published: August 2021

This chapter provides an overview of foreign economic policy. First, it defines the subject as it relates to the discipline of Political Science in order to demonstrate how this discipline’s research on foreign economic policy is problem-centered and what problem is its focus: explaining the variation in policy related to trade, external investment, capital, exchange rates, and immigration. Second, it reviews two major research programs related to this problem: the state-level variation based on political regime type and the individual-level preference variation for different foreign economic policies. Third, this chapter highlights the obstacle to connecting these two research programs: how to explain outcomes at the state-level based on preferences at the individual-level.
Friends and Lovers
Authors: Simpson Kathryn
Published: August 2021

Friendship was the vital centre of Woolf’s life and she had a diverse social circle. She was not always kind about her friends, particularly those for whom she felt most complexly and passionately. On first impression Mansfield is ‘cheap’ and ‘stinks like a … civet cat’ (D1 58); Vita Sackville-West fares no better: she is ‘florid, moustached, parakeet coloured’ (D2 216); E. M. Forster is ‘timid as a mouse’ (L2 63), and Ethel Smyth’s friendship feels ‘like being caught by a giant crab’ (L4 171). Yet this menagerie of friends were important companions, sparring partners, and love(r)s. They provoked, affirmed, and inspired her, prompting her admiration for qualities she felt she did not possess. She valued these friends and depended on them for love and to satisfy her complicated, unconventional, and sometimes contradictory needs and desires. This chapter explores some of Woolf’s closest relationships in this light.
Woolf and Suffrage
Authors: Green Barbara
Published: August 2021

In Night and Day and The Years, Woolf employs the figure of the suffragist/suffragette to think through problems of feminist history and to imagine feminism’s temporality. Extending work by Sowon Park, Naomi Black, and Clara Jones on Woolf’s relation to the suffrage movement, this chapter places Woolf’s novelistic meditations on suffrage in close dialogue with Elizabeth Robins’s earlier movement novel, The Convert, in order to explore what Woolf can offer us in a rereading of the suffrage archive. Woolf’s careful assessment of movement feminism, and even her ambivalence regarding her activist heroines, invites us to notice complexity, and even ambivalence, in the work of her feminist precursor.
Oceans and Empire
Authors: Uphaus Maxwell
Published: August 2021

This chapter explores how Woolf’s frequent writing about the ocean highlights both her opposition to and her enmeshment in the British Empire. Woolf scholarship has emphasized Woolf’s portrayal of oceans and empire as naturally antithetical, demonstrating the various ways in which Woolf’s oceans oppose patriarchal imperialism. The chapter argues that, in portraying this antithesis, Woolf’s writing subverts a central tenet of British imperial ideology during her lifetime: the belief that oceans and empire were naturally connected and that, because of the critical importance of maritime trade and sea power to British imperialism, the sea was in fact an agent of empire, foundational to British imperial identity. The chapter shows how Woolf’s subversion of this naturalized connection between oceans and empire both augmented her anti-imperial critique and, by amplifying her blind spots regarding race and the representation of non-European peoples, significantly constrained it.
Queer Theory
Authors: Coffman Chris
Published: August 2021

Many of Virginia Woolf’s books from the 1920’s and early 1930’s feature characters with queer longings. The mock biography Orlando (1928) was written for Vita Sackville-West, Woolf’s lover, and exemplifies her work’s queerness. Beginning male but waking up one morning female, Orlando shakes up fixed ontologies of gender identity and sexual orientation, anticipating Sara Ahmed’s analysis of queer spatiality and Elizabeth Freeman’s examination of queer temporality. Orlando’s concerns are reinflected in the work of contemporary English novelist Jeanette Winterson and invite transnational comparisons to twentieth-century Islamic writing, such as the works of Indian writer Iqbalunnisa Hussain, Egyptian novelist Nawal El Saadawi, and Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun. Crossing borders of gender, nation, and time, Orlando and other of Woolf’s writings ask readers to engage the divergences and continuities between what we now call feminist, lesbian, queer, and transgender theories.
Early Novels and Stories (1915–1923)
Authors: Rodal Jocelyn
Published: August 2021

Between 1915 and 1923, Virginia Woolf published her first three novels (The Voyage Out, Night and Day, and Jacob’s Room) as well as some of her most iconic essays and stories. This chapter examines that work with particular attention to how Woolf’s early fiction describes modern novels, placing it in conversation with her essays on the modern novel. Woolf turned repeatedly to the problem of how to achieve the freedoms of a new modernity, and her early work struggles to imagine a new kind of novel while acknowledging that this new kind of novel does not exist: not quite yet. This chapter examines Woolf’s deliberately undetermined vision of modernity, tracing how her early work persistently ponders and imagines what a new era of writing will offer even as she refuses to specify and delimit what has yet to come to pass.
Late Works (1933–1941)
Authors: Wood Alice
Published: August 2021

This chapter traces the development of Woolf’s late feminist politics and aesthetic experimentalism, focusing on her penultimate and final novels, The Years (1937) and Between the Acts (1941), and her anti-war pamphlet, Three Guineas (1938). It reads across these texts and Woolf’s wider writings from 1933–1941, including essays, unpublished drafts, and her fictional biography Flush (1933), to identify key strands of social and political enquiry in Woolf’s late works. The chapter pays particular attention to Woolf’s late analysis of the role of art in society and her evolving feminist-pacifist critique of the links between patriarchy, nationalism, fascism, and war. Rejecting a narrative of creative decline, the chapter highlights the productive relationship between political engagement and formal experiment in Woolf’s late works.
Ambivalent Self-Determination
Authors: Cahill Maria
Published: August 2021

This chapter focuses on the interface between international law and Irish constitutionalism. Part I examines how Ireland achieved constitutional self-determination first on the basis of and then in violation of an international treaty. The remainder of the chapter concentrates on the place of international law within the framework provided by the 1937 Constitution. Part II highlights how constitutional law has, in general, required that international treaties may neither displace the content of the Constitution nor curtail the competences of the legislature or the courts; as such, it seeks to preserve self-determination as substantive constitutional integrity. Part III focuses on the atypical case of the EU, for which the concept of self-determination used is consciously ambivalent about substantive constitutional integrity, tolerating significant compromises as long as they are made using the correct procedure: in other words, self-determination is reconceived as procedural constitutional integrity.
The Electoral Framework and the Politics of Representation
Authors: Carty R. Kenneth
Published: August 2021

The framework that governs electoral competition in Ireland has a profound impact on the democratic cast and character of the country’s political life. The institutionalization and organization of both constitutional referendums and national general elections constrain and shape its capacity for responsible decision-making. The former has become an increasingly significant focus of electoral decision, the latter have fostered a conservative politics in which representative impulses overwhelm the party system’s ability to provide for disciplined choice. Despite a party-focused proportional representation electoral regime, the use of the single transferable vote has generated a politician–party–voter dynamic privileging a constituency-centred politics that has persisted in the face of the social and economic changes that have transformed much of Irish life.
Parliamentary Accountability and Reform
Authors: MacCarthaigh Muiris
Published: August 2021

The assertion that the Irish parliament, Oireachtas Éireann, or more specifically its lower house Dáil Éireann, is poor at if not incapable of fulfilling its constitutional role of holding the government to account is an established feature of the study of Irish politics. In this chapter, the development of parliamentary accountability is examined in constitutional and comparative contexts. This is achieved by first looking at the idea of accountability and its manifestation within the Westminster family of parliamentary systems, including the Oireachtas. The chapter examines the three principal methods through which executive accountability to Dáil Éireann has been pursued, namely debates, questions, and, more recently, committees. An analysis of the parliamentary reforms that have been proposed and introduced to address perceived accountability deficits is then presented. In a final section, important changes that resulted from the outcome of the 2016 general election for the operation of parliamentary accountability are examined.
The Political Executive
Authors: Martin Shane
Published: August 2021

There can be little doubt that the cabinet is at the apex of political power in Ireland. Yet the central theme of this chapter is a challenge to the conventional wisdom of undue executive dominance. This is often thought of as an imbalance in the relative power of the executive and legislature, where the imbalance favours the executive. This chapter cautions that the degree to which the party or parties comprising the executive must remain responsive to the preferences of the bodies they serve—parliament, but ultimately the electorate—may be underestimated. Specifically, we suggest that the level of ex ante control (through the government selection process) and ex post control (through various oversight mechanisms) make the Irish cabinet particularly responsive to the interests and preferences of parliamentarians and voters. Even though the government may appear to dominate the legislature, responsiveness and accountability are core features of the political system.
Form over Function
Authors: Reidy Theresa
Published: August 2021

This chapter provides an overview of the system of local government and politics. It reviews the institutional and management structures, policy functions, and financial profiles of local government units. The chapter emphasizes that successive waves of reform have done little to establish a robust system of local government, and, indeed, that legislative changes have focused on institutional form over function at several junctures. The number of local authorities has been rationalized, and while the official position stresses enhanced policy and administrative roles, any rigorous analysis must conclude that local government has been hollowed out. Local elections have become more regular since a constitutional change in 2001, and while they have obvious ‘second order’ aspects, candidate numbers are robust, turnout remains reasonable relative to other contests, and there is a strong perception that councillors are embedded in their communities.
The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy in Ireland
Authors: Kinsella Stephen , Regan Aidan
Published: August 2021

Relative to other small open economies in Western Europe, Ireland has a low revenue to national income ratio. This limits the strategic capacity of the state to invest in new public services. Fiscal policy is highly centralized, with weak revenue raising capacity at local government level. The Irish government commits significant resources to socially protecting low-income earners through the welfare state. The income tax base is quite narrow in Ireland relative to comparator countries. A rather small group of higher income earners pay most income and wealth taxes. Social insurance revenues are relatively low from a comparative perspective. More recently, Irish revenue has become unusually dependent on procyclical corporate tax receipts.
The Distribution of Income and Wealth in Ireland
Authors: Collins Micheál L. , Regan Aidan
Published: August 2021

Ensuring a fair and efficient distribution of economic resources in society is one of the most important public policy challenges facing democratic governments. This chapter notes how the emergence of new and better data on the composition and distribution of income and wealth has heightened interest in economic inequality. Data on the distribution of both income and wealth are presented, highlighting how Ireland, as a liberal market economy, has high levels of direct market income inequality but the welfare state plays a significant role in redistribution. The provision of robust wealth data is a recent phenomenon for Ireland, one absent from our understanding of living standards, well-being, and redistributive public policies for some time. Wealth is more unequally distributed than income, and it is notably concentrated in housing capital. The chapter concludes by highlighting the relevance and potential of these new insights.
Gender Quotas in Ireland
Authors: Buckley Fiona , Brennan Mary
Published: August 2021

This chapter considers the implementation and effect of legislative gender quotas in the 2016 general election, a first for Ireland and a first for the proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote electoral system (PR-STV). It focuses on political parties and examines how they integrated the formal gender quota law into their candidate selection processes. Particular attention is paid to whether the law changed existing candidate selection practices, many of which are guided by informal candidate selection norms, such as a preference for incumbents and those exhibiting localist traits. The chapter concludes that the gender quota law did engender change in the candidate recruitment, selection, and election of women, but, as scholars of feminist institutionalism would describe, the change was ‘nested’ and ‘bounded’ within existing practices surrounding candidate selection, thereby denting but not dismantling the gendered norms of this process.
The Politics of Regulation in Ireland
Authors: Scott Colin
Published: August 2021

There has been a global trend towards greater dependence on regulation since the 1980s. This chapter examines how this has played out in Ireland. Ireland offers an interesting case study of regulatory governance because of the long-standing practice of delegating key welfare functions to NGOs, which established the early Irish state as regulator as well as direct service provider. Subsequently, changes in state structures align to wider global trends towards regulatory governance. Nevertheless, there are also particular national characteristics, with significant weaknesses in regulatory capacity and with respect to accountability. Arguably, the global financial crisis, and the ensuing crises that hit Ireland from 2008, have shifted regulation towards a less exceptional model, with better established independent capacity over financial regulation, and, following a longer trend, growing independent provision for overseeing government. Within Ireland, there is a growing recognition that effective regulation of business and government is becoming a core doctrine.
Foreign, Security, and Defence Policy
Authors: Tonra Ben
Published: August 2021

This chapter explores the roots of Irish foreign, security, and defence policy, placing them in the context of a deeply pragmatic approach to public policy. Those roots are defined in terms of nationalism, solidarity, and global justice, which are themselves deep markers within Irish political culture. Ireland’s pragmatic approach is then grounded in a meticulously crafted rhetoric surrounding key foreign policy priorities but an associated reluctance to devote substantial resources towards these foreign policy and defence goals. Together, this gives rise to an assessment that the interests of smaller and less powerful states such as Ireland are best defended within legitimate, strong, and effective multilateral institutions such as the UN—even as the state continues to face adaptation challenges arising from a deepening foreign, security, and defence policy engagement within the EU.
Paul and Contemporary Philosophy
Authors: Blanton Ward
Published: August 2021

Modern philosophy is inextricably intertwined in the history of cultural and hermeneutical engagement with Paul the apostle. More recent philosophical and historical reflection on this fact of entwinement has renewed key struggles about cosmopolitanism, internationalism, anti-Judaism, cultural and political revolution, technology or cultures of calculation, and—perhaps above all—how we cope with our relentless drives to improve, energize, transcend, escape, or destroy the given worlds we inhabit. The goal of this chapter is to articulate several usefully orienting issues about the intertwining of Paul and contemporary philosophy and to signal some useful ways forward for further interdisciplinary research which addresses these broader cultural concerns.