bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Modality in Kant and Hegel
Authors: Stang Nicholas F.
Published: January 2024

This chapter explores Kant’s and Hegel’s views on what unifies the modalities, i.e., why possibility, actuality, and necessity are modalities and other notions, like truth, are not. According to Kant, modal concepts do not describe properties of objects, but instead express the relation of concepts of objects to our capacity for cognition. Since our capacity for cognition has two “stems,” sensibility and understanding, this generates a distinction between two kinds of modality: logical modality, which expresses the relation of a concept to the form and matter of the understanding alone, and real modality, which expresses the relation of a concept to the form and matter of understanding and sensibility. Hegel rejects this Kantian account of the unity of the modalities, holding that modal categories are determinations of objects just as much as any other category of Hegelian Logic. Hegelian modalities do not express the relation of a concept to a cognitive power rather than a determination of an object; they describe both determinations of an object and the relation of thought to its object, for, in Hegel’s Logic, these are ultimately the same. What unifies Hegelian modalities instead is that they describe structural moments of the self-development of the ‘modes’ of what Hegel calls ‘the Absolute.’
Modality and Essence in Contemporary Metaphysics
Authors: Koslicki Kathrin
Published: January 2024

Essentialists hold that at least a certain range of entities can be meaningfully said to have natures, essences, or essential features independently of how these entities are described, conceptualized, or otherwise placed with respect to our specifically human interests, purposes, or activities. Modalists about essence, on the one hand, take the position that the essential truths are a subset of the necessary truths and the essential properties of entities are included among their necessary properties. Non-modalists about essence, on the other hand, oppose the reduction of essence to modality and hold, rather, that essence is more basic than, and explanatory of, modality. This chapter begins with a brief summary of Kit Fine’s well-known challenges to the modal account of essence and considers a recent attempt by “sparse modalists” like Sam Cowling and Nathan Wildman to respond to Fine’s counterexamples by adding a sparseness constraint to the “bare” modal account of essence. A further question arises, however, as to whether and how Fine’s definitional approach can avoid his own counterexamples against the modal approach to essence. The chapter concludes with some final thoughts concerning the theoretical roles ascribed to essence by modalists and non-modalists.
Our Closest Relations
Authors: Sharone Ofer
Published: January 2024

Our closest relationships can provide crucial support, but more often during periods of prolonged unemployment, these relationships become strained. In marriages, strains arise from mutual expectations and disappointments. The spouse of the unemployed person often feels disappointed with the lack of financial and household contribution, while the unemployed spouse often feels disappointed at not being understood with more empathy. Friendships face other kinds of challenges. Many long-term unemployed jobseekers report that most of their day-to-day friendships were at work and that their job loss also entailed a loss of these friendships. But nonwork friends often also back away with stigmatizing reactions. Stigma in the context of friendship is revealed in the nature of friends’ questions, their unsolicited advice, and their awkward silences. These strains in marriages and friendships create a feedback loop and exacerbate the ongoing professional and emotional crisis of long-term unemployment.
Moving Beyond Stigma and the Myth of Meritocracy
Authors: Sharone Ofer
Published: January 2024

This chapter reflects on the tenacity of the unemployment stigma, the prospects and obstacles for collective action to challenge the institutions of neoliberal capitalism underlying this stigma, and the lessons that may be learned from the policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapter analyzes the efforts of a group of unemployed jobseekers who sought to raise awareness about the challenges of long-term unemployment and call for changes in policy. It focuses on the challenge of the activists who desire to make the issue of long-term unemployment visible at the same that they are understandably hesitant—given the stigma of unemployment—to make themselves individually visible. The chapter also discusses how the stigma of unemployment shapes the policy debate and what policies are possible when unemployment is considered in a manner that is not distorted by stigma or the myth of meritocracy.
A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy
Authors: Bagg Samuel Ely
Published: January 2024

This chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to the core theoretical claims of the book, as well as their normative and methodological foundations, as summarized in Table 1.1 at the end of the chapter. It begins by clarifying the fundamental aim of the book: to provide heuristics that are useful for guiding the judgment of real political actors. In particular, its focus is “mid-level” theories situated between abstract ideals and the particularities of everyday decision-making—a description that applies to both collective self-rule and resisting state capture, the two contrasting democratic ideals at the heart of the book. Theories of collective self-rule see politics as a way of making decisions, and democracy as a way of making those decisions collectively, on equal terms. When answering questions about why democracy matters and how to make it better, therefore, they focus on equalizing individual contributions to specific processes of collective will formation and decision-making. However, dissenting traditions of skeptical realism and radical critique suggest that this goal is impossible, and that any decision-making process will inevitably reflect background asymmetries of organizational capacity across groups. The ideal of resisting state capture sees politics instead as a process of group-based competition for state power, and democracy as a way of making that competition more egalitarian, by balancing the power of different groups. This makes states less likely to be captured by any particular group, and thus more likely to serve broad public interests. It concludes by reflecting on the scope and limits of this approach.
Beyond Responsive Representation
Authors: Bagg Samuel Ely
Published: January 2024

This chapter addresses one of the two most practically influential versions of collective self-rule: the ideal of “responsive representation.” This account of democracy sees it as a way of ensuring that representatives obey the popular will. Some version of it is presumed by most public discussion of democracy, as well as a good deal of scholarly discussion, despite the fact that its limitations have long been established by scholars from a variety of methodological and ideological perspectives. The goal of this chapter is to summarize this scholarship in an especially concise and pointed way, rebut various attempts to vindicate the ideal of responsive representation, and highlight the consequences of accepting its limitations. It first explains critiques arising from social choice theory, and then moves to a contrasting set of critiques arising from social identity theory. Defenders of responsive representation have pointed to real weaknesses in both lines of critique, but a key contribution of the chapter is to show how combining the two enables a much stronger and more robust critique than either provides on its own. Once both are accounted for, the ideal of responsive representation cannot survive. The chapter closes by considering the implications of this conclusion for the practical questions of democratic theory: namely, what to make of existing democratic institutions, and what priorities to adopt in improving them. Most importantly, it shows, popular strategies of electoral reform can only ever hope to make marginal improvements to democracy, and should not be granted so much priority.
Dispersing Private Power
Authors: Bagg Samuel Ely
Published: January 2024

This chapter explores the three radical demands implied by the ideal of resisting state capture: anti-monopoly, countervailing power, and systemic redistribution. By dispersing private power and mitigating imbalances in organizational capacity, all three reduce capture beyond the levels achieved by liberal practices described in Chapter 5. Through careful application of “corrective partiality,” that is, they make competition among groups more egalitarian, thereby reducing the severity and pervasiveness of capture by those hegemonic groups that most reliably capture public power in contemporary democracies: wealthy elites and categorically advantaged groups. The principle of anti-monopoly entails directly targeting the power resources and coordination capacity of those hegemonic groups, through policies such as antitrust, wealth taxes, and caps on pay and spending. The principle of countervailing power entails bolstering the organizational capacity of their most serious rivals: i.e., those counter-hegemonic groups whose position of social and economic subordination gives them a robust interest in contesting hegemonic groups, as well as the ability—once properly organized—to do so successfully. This entails organizing in unions, community organizations, movements, parties, and beyond, although most discussion of this is deferred to Chapter 10. Finally, the principle of systemic redistribution entails flattening the overall distribution of private power, so that background asymmetries are less severe. Going beyond a liberal commitment to ensuring a basic social minimum, this radical principle entails redistribution for its own sake, via reparations and—ideally—a continuous stream of unconditional wealth transfers. Table 6.1 summarizes the six principles outlined in Chapters 5 and 6.
The Power of the Multitude
Authors: Bagg Samuel Ely
Published: January 2024

This chapter applies the ideal of resisting state capture to the first major task of democratic theory, as outlined in Chapter 1: namely, evaluating the existing practices of electoral democracy. It begins by insisting that recent “epistemic” challenges to democracy must be taken seriously, and that existing responses to these challenges are underwhelming. It then develops a novel instrumental account of why basic electoral democracy is valuable, providing a more robust and broadly compelling rebuttal to its critics. It proceeds by comparing competitive elections and universal suffrage with their most plausible concrete alternatives: a political meritocracy where political leaders select their own replacements, and an epistocracy restricting the franchise to those with certain epistemic or moral virtues. It demonstrates that these alternatives would enable incumbents to entrench their power far more easily, and would thus dramatically increase the danger of the most severe and pervasive forms of tyrannical state capture. And this explains—in robust yet realistic terms—why electoral democracy, despite its many flaws, cannot be abandoned under any circumstances. After this defensive account of democracy’s value, the chapter then develops a brief positive account of how elections keep public officials loosely tethered to the public interest, despite the very real and concerning shortcomings of responsive representation highlighted in Chapter 2. Finally, it emphasizes that the appropriate attitude towards electoral democracy is one of “measured appreciation,” and highlights the implications of adopting this attitude for other normative and philosophical domains, such as legal theories of administrative legitimacy.
Fighting Power with Power
Authors: Bagg Samuel Ely
Published: January 2024

This chapter applies the ideal of resisting state capture to the second major task of democratic theory, as outlined in Chapter 1: namely, developing an agenda for the reform of law and policy. It begins by reframing this task in terms of a “dilemma of public and private power.” Previous chapters concluded that deepening democracy would require ambitious state action aimed at dispersing private power—especially through policies of anti-monopoly, countervailing power, and systemic redistribution. Yet empowering state actors also invites capture by the very hegemonic groups those policies are designed to constrain. As such, the key challenge for reformers is to find the safest and most efficient ways of advancing these democratic goals. After reformulating the task of democratic reformers in terms of this dilemma, the chapter presents a three-stage process for addressing it. First, they should ask which general approach to state involvement in different policy areas will most likely minimize capture. Second, they should ask how substantive policy tools can be designed to advance democratic aims while minimizing their susceptibility to capture. And third, they should ask what kinds of procedural mechanisms can most effectively insulate such ambitious forms of state action from capture. The chapter works through each question in turn, endorsing significant but not overwhelming public ownership and participation in private markets; a structuralist approach to policy that favors simplicity, transparency, and adversarialism; and procedural reforms that institutionalize oppositional expertise, employ randomly selected citizens in an oversight capacity, and create leverage points for popular mobilization.
Introduction
Authors: Ford E. David
Published: January 2024

The weather on which plants depend for their growth is changing—so the question of how plants respond to change is of great interest. However, the effects of climate conditions on plant growth cannot be considered as discrete, independent events for each environmental variable. The normal course of plant growth depends upon responses to changes, such as diurnal and seasonal variation and weather events, in which there is partial correlation between environmental variables. Several theories of the control of plant growth are reviewed and a critique is developed showing that interaction of components of the growth process is important and produces a dynamic system. Six general groups of interacting control processes are identified for analysis in subsequent chapters. Plant growth is a biological process. It is not a chemical process, although chemical synthesis and transformations of compounds are involved. It is not defined by the physical environment, although the environment affects both rates and limits to component processes. The response of plant processes to variation in the environment is determined by the plant’s genetics which defines the structure and properties of the plant body and its tissues that determine how growth responds to change.
Processes producing organization in the plant
Authors: Ford E. David
Published: January 2024

Typically, controls of growth process are embedded within a network of nuclear control that acts as an interface with the environment and integrates component responses. Constituent modules of plant growth, and the apical meristems that produce them, become spatially distributed with a substantially regularly pattern. The dynamics of the WUS-CLV3 system (which acts as a regulator in apical meristem function) and the PIN1-auxin system (which acts as a positive feedback for auxin accumulation to produce cell wall loosening and cellulose microfibre increment) are described. Modules and meristems throughout the plant can experience different environments and come to have different status and relationships with other modules on which they depend. The circadian clock, a feedforward controller, ensures nuclear control at the local (cellular) level and an integrated response to the local environment in that physiological systems are gated to respond to conditions in the diurnal cycle that are most suitable for them.
Stability of the photosynthesis system
Authors: Ford E. David
Published: January 2024

Photosynthesis is frequently represented as an interaction between outputs of NADPH and ATP from light reactions and their use in CO2 fixation via the CBB cycle, or dark reactions. However, the action of light energy in photosynthesis is to drive a redox reaction. Redox reactions involve a change in the oxidation states of atoms with a reduction of one chemical and a complementary oxidation of another through the transfer of electrons. Photosynthesis uses the products of the redox reaction, but if these are not utilized, which may occur under high light conditions, then reactive oxygen species (ROS) can form and damage cell contents and tissues. Control of the photosynthesis system has components that operate to reduce excess redox reactions whilst maintaining competence for CO2 fixation in conditions of fluctuating light flux. This involves processes protecting against damage from high light flux and the repair of damage that does occur. Control around PSII involves both reduction of transfer of light excitation to PSII through action involving protective pigments and damage of PSII itself, which reduces electron flow, and is gradually repaired. Control around PSI through cyclical electron flow is an essential component because its action produces ATP even though linear electron flow (from PSII) is reduced and this ATP may be essential for the repair process of PSII. Control of photosynthesis does not achieve homeostasis in CO2 fixation, or an optimum rate; it protects and repairs both the light and dark cycle systems.
Conclusion
Authors: Ford E. David
Published: January 2024

A standpoint can be defined and used to develop a theory for the growth of a particular species, or possibly some variant of a species. The standpoint maintains that four characteristics of plants, as dynamic systems, must be considered to define how growth is controlled in a particular instance. These characteristics may have different relative effects between species: (i) growth is the result of a sequence of processes that starts with developmental processes involved in meristem activity and continues with structural development, autotrophic processes, and then synthesis of material for the plant body; (ii) the environment, whether internal to the plant or external, may affect each of these processes; (iii) it is necessary to understand interactions between processes in order to explain how growth is controlled; and (iv) primary control of development of the plant body is dispersed—it occurs within each apical module of the plant where genetic programmes interact with availability of resources and environmental conditions and that may result in expression of plasticity. The way that modules are integrated to form what appears as the complete plant is the result of this dispersed system of control.
The distribution of urban populations
Authors: Barthelemy Marc , Verbavatz Vincent
Published: January 2024

It is remarkable that cities are not all of the same size. This seemingly trivial fact disqualifies the idea of an “optimal size” of cities, a typical size scale that would reflect optimal transport costs or living conditions for people. On the contrary, there is no rule that leads cities to a universal equilibrium – typically between economical increasing and decreasing returns to scale – and universal size, as would result from urban economics models. More importantly, the most recognized and characterized quantitative urban fact is the idea of a regular and universal inequality of sizes of cities, long approximated by Zipf’s law. This chapter aims at describing how the distribution of urban population has been thought so far. After some theoretical reminders on power-laws (and power law fitting methods), we will see how urban populations could appear to be described by Zipf’s law that we will formally introduce.
Dynamics of ranking
Authors: Barthelemy Marc , Verbavatz Vincent
Published: January 2024

Ranking objects according to a given measure goes far beyond cities as we can rank virtually anything, from countries, cities, people to products such as movies or songs. Given the generality of this problem, we outline in this chapter some theoretical results on the ranking dynamics of any system. The application of these studies to the case of cities certainly requires more work, but the models presented here are interesting starting points for further studies of the ranking dynamics of cities. In addition, the study of city ranking shows that cities exhibit a very turbulent ranking dynamics. This idea will be paramount in the future chapters while attempting to find a new model of city growth.
Stochastic calculus
Authors: Barthelemy Marc , Verbavatz Vincent
Published: January 2024

To understand the modeling of city growth, we need to resort to the mathematical formalism of stochastic differential equations (SDEs). Stochastic differential equations are dynamical equations in which future events are not purely deterministic, they depend on some noise that happens at each time. The noise term models everything that is too complex to be written explicitly: particle shocks in Brownian motion, bid and ask in stock market prices, migrations, births and deaths in city growth. This is the main reason why this type of equation appears in so many different fields of research and is a fundamental tool in the study of complex systems. In this chapter, we propose a short introduction to these stochastic differential equations. Starting with the notion of random walk, we will show how to use these nontrivial objects and will avoid the use of complex mathematical objects. We will also elaborate on the particular case of multiplicative noise that appears to be fundamental for understanding the growth of cities.
From first principles to the growth equation
Authors: Barthelemy Marc , Verbavatz Vincent
Published: January 2024

In this chapter, we discuss a bottom-up approach to understand the growth of cities. We start from elementary mechanisms and propose a quantitative description of the growth dynamics. Essentially, the growth of a city belonging to a country can be decomposed into the sum of a natural growth term (births and deaths) and a migration term, the balance of the number of newcomers to the city minus the number of emigrants. The empirical study of these different terms shows that in particular that interurban migrations are characterized by rare but important fluctuations that correspond to “shocks”. This is a crucial feature that will allow us to understand the dynamics of cities.
The joint search for new approaches with a public good benefit
Authors: Huysentruyt Marieke
Published: January 2024

Today’s many crises—the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, social division, the steep economic downturn, and the contentious matters raised by social movements—urgently call for compelling ideas and approaches that benefit us all, but are privately costly to uncover. Yet, decision-makers rarely foresee incentives for citizens, employees, groups of individuals, organizations, or groups of organizations to actually search in partnership for such solutions, giving way to the free-riding problem. In this chapter, four distinct strategies to redress this problem are put forth: raise the stakes; boost information-sharing; promote prosociality; and embrace an uncertainty mind-set. The chapter underlines the essential role that social economy organizations can play to make these strategies work.
The social economy and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Authors: Mulgan Geoff
Published: January 2024

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a broad umbrella term that covers just data and AI, but also their links to physical objects: infrastructures, cars, homes, and cities. It has profound implications for civil society both as a threat and an opportunity. This chapter assesses both. It analyses the relative failure to influence a previous generation of digital technologies or to realize some of the hopes for platforms and the sharing economy. It then suggests some more strategic approaches, including to the governance of data, and describes more detailed approaches relevant to net zero, jobs, and care. It also sets out the relevance of collective intelligence as an important concept for the future social economy.
Beyond a niche approach
Authors: Battilana Julie , Krol Leszek , Sheppard-Jones Kara , Ubalijoro Alexandra
Published: January 2024

Social businesses have been praised for creating innovative models that combine financial, social, and environmental goals, but they continue to exist in a niche in parallel with the rest of the market economy. This parallel evolution, which implies that some businesses can legitimately focus solely on returns to shareholders, presents two major risks: first, if social businesses remain a minority in a world driven solely by profit maximization, they will have continued difficulty accessing necessary resources because of their lack of alignment with dominant organizational forms and so will struggle to survive. Second, if the sole pursuit of profit maximization remains the driving force of the business world, then inequalities will continue to increase and we will destroy our natural ecosystems. How can we change the institutional context in which businesses operate in order to better support social businesses, and in the process shift away from profit maximization at the expense of all else? To investigate this question, we explore the historical development of the social economy and of the shareholders-first paradigm. We then briefly highlight the key activities in which social businesses can engage internally to sustain their pursuit of multiple goals. Finally, we conceptualize three levers to shift the institutional context in order to better support social businesses: legal structures; accountability metrics; and financial and fiscal strategies. The chapter contributes to conversations about sustainable capitalism by synthesizing three mechanisms for institutional change in order to create a ‘new normal’ in which social businesses not only survive but thrive.
Empowering knowledge and training in higher education to leverage social economy action on societal challenges
Authors: Nogales-Muriel Rocío , Nyssens Marthe
Published: January 2024

The purpose of this chapter is to analyse how knowledge, research networks, and higher education training can support the development of social economy ecosystems. Departing from a succinct review of the various ‘social economy notions’, we propose to analyse them as relevant analytical resources to enrich the scientific and the public debate. Understanding the landscape of social economy research in the past decades, including the role of research networks, is critical to assess how research supports social economy ecosystems. In a complementary way, by delineating the development of pioneering formal higher education training initiatives, some reflections emerge on the possible contributions that formal social economy education can make to social economy ecosystems and society in general. We conclude with policy recommendations in order to empower knowledge and training in higher education as a lever for social economy ecosystems.
Social economy resilience facing the COVID-19 crisis
Authors: Chaves-Avila Rafael , Guillén Ángel Soler
Published: January 2024

The COVID-19 crisis highlights the threat posed to humanity by non-economic external shocks, such as pandemics, natural catastrophes, and armed conflicts, which have a harsher and more widespread impact on economies than strictly economic downturns. To cope with these shocks, resilience is critical. Resilience refers to a society’s capacity to resist and react to shocks, to adapt to them, and to seize them as opportunities for economic and social development through systemic transformations. Institutional framework and socio-economic structure are recognized as key elements of resilience. This chapter analyses the resilience function of the social economy in the face of COVID-19. It highlights the worth of the social economy both theoretically and empirically, focusing on its systemic role in addressing market and state failures and for social and economic resilience. The chapter provides empirical evidence based on a meta-analysis of a number of studies recently carried out in Spain and in other European countries and on our own statistical work. Theoretically we draw on the socio-economic and resilience functions of the social economy and on the theory of the emergency shock management cycle. We empirically analyse the social economy’s response to the health emergency situations generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular stress on its response to mitigate the crisis’ economic and employment impacts. Thereby we take account of the impact of government action on the economy, the world of work, and the social economy. We offer proposals for addressing future challenges and highlight the systemic functions of the social economy.
Civic leadership for a transformative social economy
Authors: Sancino Alessandro , Pagani Michela , Corvo Luigi , Braga Alessandro , Scognamiglio Fulvio
Published: January 2024

This chapter discusses the role of civic leadership as an open agency which can promote place-based partnerships and coalitions (both formal and/or informal) to address complex challenges and to create social, economic and environmental value. In particular, we argue that social economy actors should develop civic leadership roles and capabilities to become more effective social change agents, to design and lead place-based ecosystems for value co-creation, and to institutionalize new collaborative governance structures. We present explorative empirical research conducted in the cities of Padua (Italy) and Peterborough (United Kingdom), which is based on a multi-site mixed-methods research design and uses a qualitative approach to social network analysis. Specifically, our work aims at identifying city leaders from a positional and reputational perspective in four main domains of local governance: political/democratic; public services; business environment; community/social domain. Our findings reveal that a decentred vision of civic leadership works in the eyes of the city leaders who participated in our study, showing city leadership constellations that are often fragmented and, in some cases, invisible to other city leaders, especially in the case of social economy actors. Implications of our study are both conceptual and practical: conceptually, they call for opening up our cognitive understanding and cultural legitimation of civic leadership; practically, our findings highlight the importance for social economy organizations to develop leadership functions and managerial structures devoted to building connections within civic leadership constellations.
The Politics of Agenda-Setting
Authors: Gifkins Jess
Published: January 2024

This chapter analyses the process by which the Security Council added the situation in Darfur to its agenda. It begins by providing background on the politics of adding and removing items from the Council’s formal agenda. It then demonstrates that for the first six months of the Darfur conflict, there was extremely limited information about the conflict outside Sudan, which can plausibly explain the Security Council’s lack of engagement during this period. From late 2003, however, the US and the UK possessed intelligence showing the scale and nature of the violence in Darfur. They chose not to push Khartoum on Darfur because the peace negotiations for the concurrent north–south conflict in Sudan were nearing completion. Staff from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) lobbied Western states on Darfur to no avail. The US and the UK only changed their position after OCHA staff spoke to the media and drew an analogy with the Rwandan genocide, which gained significant domestic traction. Briefings to the Security Council by UN agencies and NGOs also helped to build momentum towards inclusion of Darfur as a formal agenda item. The shift in position from the US and the UK is an example of an external legitimation practice, whereby key domestic audiences no longer viewed their argument on sidelining Darfur as legitimate, so they changed position and became advocates on Darfur.
Peacekeeping and the Challenge of Consent
Authors: Gifkins Jess
Published: January 2024

This chapter analyses the negotiations towards the hybrid UN/AU peacekeeping operation in Darfur. Security Council members sought to move away from the pre-existing AU peacekeeping operation because donors were reluctant to continue funding it, whereas UN peacekeeping is funded via assessed contributions from all UN member states. This priority aligned with civil society demands for greater civilian protection in Darfur. The authorization of the hybrid operation was a circuitous process because the Security Council first authorized UN peacekeeping, which was rejected outright by Sudan. This first attempt can be understood in terms of the external legitimation practice of ‘doing something’, whereby Western drafters prioritized taking action even though it was known in advance that Khartoum would not offer the requisite consent. It was the UN Secretariat, using its legitimated authority, that proposed the plan for hybrid peacekeeping and pitched it to both Security Council member states and Khartoum. China shifted from backing Khartoum in the first round of negotiations to lobbying Khartoum for consent in the second round of negotiations, which was instrumental in achieving Sudanese acquiescence. This shift can be understood as an external legitimation practice in that China shifted position towards one that would garner greater legitimacy from international peers. When negotiating the hybrid peacekeeping operation, Security Council members refocused on normal internal legitimation practices—unanimity and regional support—with the understanding that legitimacy was central to implementation.
Introduction
Authors: Kruger Wikus , Eberhard Anton
Published: January 2024

Structured competitive procurement programmes are producing competitively priced renewable energy projects in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The book provides an overview of innovative auction approaches in the Global South which have yielded attractive price and investment outcomes. We draw lessons from countries as diverse as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, India, South Africa, Zambia, and Namibia. We show how auctions have been applied and adapted to very different (and often challenging) contexts to produce incredible results with the aim of extracting lessons from the Global South for the design and implementation of auctions generally. The introductory chapter will introduce readers to the topic of renewable energy procurement (including feed-in tariffs and direct negotiation); provide an overview of auctions as both a procurement method and a scholarly topic; discuss the ascendancy of auctions globally in the 2010–2020 period, including major results; introduce the combined analytical (country–programme–project) framework that will be used in the case chapters; provide a list of preliminary findings and recommendations.
Brazil
Authors: Tolmasquim Maurício T. , de Barros Correia Tiago , Porto Natália Addas
Published: January 2024

Brazil pioneered the use of electricity auctions in the early 2000s, introduced as part of the country’s second wave of power-sector reforms. It has since developed a sophisticated auction process and institutional set-up that has secured large volumes of new generation capacity, including renewables, at competitive prices. The authors show how the auction programme design and implementation evolved over time to address changes in the market. Brazil’s experience highlights the importance of considering three main goals when designing auctions. First, auctions must be attractive enough to investors to generate competition and to achieve optimal prices. Second, the auction design must ensure the commitment and reliability of the bidders and their technical and financial capability to build projects on schedule and deliver the promised energy. Third, the auction design should ensure the acquisition of the right mix of energy sources to safeguard the security of the electric system.
Chile
Authors: Serra Pablo
Published: January 2024

Chile was the first country to liberalize its power sector in the early 1980s. This yielded a complex market structure consisting of a contract and a spot market. Since 2006, mandated by law, distribution companies have contracted energy for their regulated customers through technology-neutral auctions. Bidders backed by renewable projects have played a crucial role in these auctions after the drastic fall in their generation costs in the 2010s. The author shows how the auction design has enabled these bidders to bid in the auctions by allowing them to purchase energy on the spot market to cover energy supply shortfalls.
India
Authors: Rustagi Vinay , Chadha Mridul
Published: January 2024

India provides a fascinating case of the world’s most ambitious auction programme under the banner of the country’s National Solar Mission. Due to the federal governance system in India, parallel state and federal government renewable energy programmes have been run, securing good prices. India has also experimented with the use of solar parks to address land availability and other site-related risks and costs. A breakdown in the planning and procurement processes between the federal and state governments has, however, seen India struggle to maintain project realization rates. This is compounded by the poor financial standing of many state-level utilities, which necessitated a multipronged risk-mitigation approach.
South Africa
Authors: Kruger Wikus , Eberhard Anton , Filipova Anna V. , Naude Raine
Published: January 2024

South Africa accounts for nearly half of sub-Saharan Africa’s total installed generation capacity. The country also pioneered energy auctions in the region. The authors show how auctions have led to dramatic price reductions over successive bidding rounds as well as the factors supporting the high realization rates of awarded projects. The chapter also analyses South Africa’s unique use of socio-economic development criteria in the design of the auctions as well as some of the political economy dynamics at play in the country’s energy sector. Despite its current challenges, South Africa has demonstrated that it is possible to introduce renewable energy independent power producers at scale in a highly centralized, vertically integrated power sector.
Zambia
Authors: Kruger Wikus , Eberhard Anton
Published: January 2024

Zambia has secured record-breaking auction prices for its solar power in what is a very difficult investment climate. This has been achieved through Scaling Solar, an auction package developed by the World Bank, and the Global Energy Transfer Feed-In Tariff (GETFiT) programme, an auction programme supported by the German government and the European Union (EU). The authors show not only how trust in these supporting institutions was central to driving competition levels and resulting price outcomes for both programmes—alongside various risk-mitigation provisions—but also how the economic deterioration of Zambia’s power sector increased investor risks and undermined project realization.
Namibia
Authors: Kruger Wikus , Eberhard Anton
Published: January 2024

Namibia’s use of renewable energy auctions was precipitated by an energy security crisis triggered in neighbouring South Africa. This chapter traces the development of the energy sector, in particular the renewable energy auction programme, through various iterations over a five-year period. Through a combination of good auction design and responsible power-sector governance decisions, the country was able to attract significant competition and secure and build solar projects at very low costs, with no risk mitigation or concessionary provisions. Namibia has since become a regional trailblazer for renewable energy policy reform and offers important insights into what the future holds for countries embracing the energy transition.
Contributions from the Global South and Future Directions
Authors: Kruger Wikus , Eberhard Anton
Published: January 2024

Renewable energy auctions—pioneered and refined in the Global South—have emerged as an important tool for accelerating the transition to a low-carbon energy future to avoid catastrophic climate change. The final chapter of the book summarizes and extracts key lessons on the design and implementation of renewable energy procurement programmes in the Global South. It is divided into three sections covering the impact of renewable energy auctions in the Global South, lessons learned from the use of renewable energy auctions in the Global South, and the potential role of auctions in the rapidly unfolding energy transition in the Global South and beyond, with a particular emphasis on the evolving roles of auctions in very different circumstances.
Inverse morphology
Authors: Oxford Will
Published: January 2024

This chapter describes the morphological structure of Algonquian inverse forms and the contexts in which such forms occur. The inverse is argued to be an agreement pattern in which the function of indexing the object is shifted from the “theme sign” slot to the adjacent “central agreement” slot. This is shown to be one of three agreement patterns that can be used for a transitive verb. The inverse pattern is distinct from the other two patterns in that it displays ergative rather than accusative alignment. In terms of its distribution, the inverse pattern appears in two contexts: When a third person is acted upon by a less topical third person and when a speech-act participant (SAP) is acted upon by a non-SAP. The unified person hierarchy that is often posited to describe this set of contexts is argued to be both inadequate and unnecessary.
What is the inverse?
Authors: Oxford Will
Published: January 2024

This chapter argues that a full understanding of the Algonquian inverse rests crucially on a distinction between two kinds of inverse patterns: Inverse voice and inverse alignment. It is proposed that in contexts involving two third persons, the Algonquian inverse represents inverse voice, whereas in contexts involving a speech-act participant (SAP) and a non-SAP, the inverse represents inverse alignment. This split analysis, which has antecedents in the functional-typological literature, is argued to be preferable to accounts that view the inverse as a unified system. The remainder of the chapter places the Algonquian split-inverse system in a broader typological context, comparing it with other inverse systems in non-Algonquian languages and with other constructions that resemble inverse voice and alignment.
The SAP inverse
Authors: Oxford Will
Published: January 2024

This chapter examines the properties of Algonquian inverse clauses in which a speech-act participant (SAP) is acted upon by a non-SAP. Such clauses are proposed to involve inverse alignment in the absence of inverse voice. It is argued that SAP inverse clauses, unlike third-person inverse clauses, show little evidence for syntactic promotion of the notional object to the subject position. From a comparative perspective, the distinguishing property of the SAP inverse is the variability of its distribution: Not all forms in which an SAP is acted upon by a non-SAP show the inverse pattern, and the details of exactly which forms show the pattern vary from language to language. The chapter gives a thorough survey of this variation. The chapter concludes by considering the historical origin of the SAP inverse, which is argued to differ sharply from that of the third-person inverse.
Formal analysis of the inverse
Authors: Oxford Will
Published: January 2024

This chapter presents a generative analysis of the Algonquian inverse. The key proposal is that the inverse agreement pattern arises whenever the Infl head agrees only with the object and the Voice head lacks agreement features. In inverse voice contexts, this configuration results from the use of a special “ergative” Voice head, which produces a clause that is morphologically, syntactically, and pragmatically inverse. In inverse alignment contexts, the same configuration results from a particular outcome of the Agree operation on the Infl head, which produces a clause that is morphologically inverse even though it has default syntax and pragmatics. By identifying two distinct syntactic paths to the same morphological outcome, the analysis explains why the Algonquian inverse appears to be a unified phenomenon at the morphological level despite the fundamental distinction between inverse voice in third-person contexts and inverse alignment in SAP contexts.
Conclusion
Authors: Oxford Will
Published: January 2024

This brief chapter summarizes and integrates the main proposals of the book and places them in a broader context. The following general questions are considered. What synchronic properties must a language have in order for a direct-inverse system to exist, and what diachronic changes must take place in order for those properties to develop? What role does the notion of subjecthood play in understanding the Algonquian inverse? Which aspects of the Algonquian inverse require further investigation in future work? And how, if at all, is the treatment of the Algonquian inverse in this book relevant to language maintenance and revitalization efforts?
After War and Peace
Authors: Haque Adil Ahmad
Published: January 2024

In this chapter, Adil Ahmad Haque traces some theoretical implications, for both law and moral philosophy, of the legal prohibition of aggressive war and armed force, with special emphasis on implications for the individualization of war. The focus is on the application of human rights law during armed conflict, individual rights and duties under the law of armed conflict, and individual criminal responsibility. The chapter argues that every killing in furtherance of an act of aggression, and every killing in violation of international humanitarian law, violates the human rights of those it kills. International humanitarian law does not give soldiers a right to fight irrespective of their cause, but instead confers a limited legal immunity from prosecution except for international crimes. Notably, general rules regarding official immunities do not apply during armed conflict to members of a state’s armed forces, which may include a head of state. International law imposes different individual obligations on state leaders and ordinary soldiers in order to preserve the pragmatic compromise underlying combatant immunity. As a result, the modern law of war tracks the revisionist just war theory associated with Jeff McMahan more closely than the conventionalist just war theory associated with Michael Walzer, though the transformation is not yet complete.
The Direct Rights of Individuals in the International Law of Armed Conflict
Authors: Peters Anne
Published: January 2024

When ascribing individual rights, there is a difference between legal rules which embody ‘objective’ standards of protection that impose obligations or duties on obligors, and rules which additionally confer ‘subjective’ rights on those persons whom the rules seek to protect. In this chapter, Anne Peters examines whether, and under what conditions, international humanitarian law (IHL) generates such individual rights, and against whom. Since case law has yet to settle which rules in IHL actually generate individual rights, this must be determined in each case by interpreting the provisions or by clarifying the content of the underlying norm of customary law. Therefore, further study must identify how to recognize an individual IHL-based right and which types of rights exist. In doing so, Peters concludes that the acknowledgement of IHL-based rights endorses the individual human being as the normative reference point of IHL. Thus, Peters asserts that the individualization of IHL has not reached its limits. The principal modern purpose of IHL—to protect humans from the calamities of war—is best pursued by acknowledging direct IHL-based, special individual rights, rather than falling in the two extremes: either applying human rights across the board or denying individual rights altogether.