bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Exploring the Potential for Gender Norm Change in Adolescent Girls: Evidence from ‘Real Choices, Real Lives’ Longitudinal, Qualitative Study Data
Authors: Rivett Jenny , Loveday Lilli
Published: September 2021

The chapter explores the gender socialisation process and the possible influences (individual, social, and structural) both on the reproduction of gender norms which contribute to gender inequalities (referencing the SDGs) as well as on areas where the girls and their family members demonstrate resistance to norms. Engaging the study’s longitudinal data, the analysis identifies ways in which there is the potential for gender norm change. Findings highlight policy/programming implications to support interventions aimed at achieving SDG 5.
Mauritian Joint Child Health Project: A Multigenerational Family Study Emerging from a Prospective Birth Cohort Study: Initial Alcohol-related Outcomes in the Offspring Generation
Authors: Luczak Susan E. , Oomur Shameem , Jackson Kristina , Mahoomed Tashneem
Published: September 2021

This chapter investigates parental factors in offspring alcohol involvement in the families of the Joint Child Health Project (JCHP), a longitudinal study that has followed a 1969-1970 birth cohort on the east African island nation of Mauritius since 1972. We were particularly interested in whether parent-child gender played a role in these parent-child alcohol relationships. The analytic sample included 1,147 13-24-year-old offspring of the original JCHP birth cohort. Both child-and parent-rated parental drinking norms and behaviors were associated with child alcohol use and binge drinking. Parental predictors of offspring drinking differed for daughters and sons, with daughter alcohol involvement related to both mother and father alcohol-related factors, whereas son alcohol involvement was more associated with paternal factors. These results highlight the value of longitudinal, multi-informant family studies for eludicating how familial factors combine to influence drinking behaviors of younger generations during developmental periods when drinking and high-risk drinking typically emerge.
Constitutional Policy & Territorial Politics in the UK Vol 1
Authors: Bradbury Jonathan
Published: September 2021

This is the first of a two-volume work which provides an authoritative account of devolution in the UK since the initial settlement under New Labour in 1997. This first volume meets the need for a comprehensive, UK-wide analysis of the formative years of devolution from the years 1997 to 2007, offering a rigorous and theoretically innovative re-examination of the period that traces territorial politics from initial settlements in Scotland and Wales and the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland to early maturity. The book reviews the trajectory and influencing factors of devolution and its subsequent impacts, using a novel framework to set a significant new agenda for thinking and research on devolution.
Introduction
Authors: Bradbury Jonathan
Published: September 2021

This chapter introduces the book as the first of a two-volume study which seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of devolution in the UK. It focuses on the period from 1997 to 2007, addressing the origins and introduction of the original devolution settlements, and the subsequent decade of their development until the end of the Blair government in 2007. In these years, the original devolution reforms followed extensive debate in the 1980s and 1990s, including in Northern Ireland a peace process and talks that led ultimately to the historic 1998 Belfast Agreement. Referenda in each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were held in 1997. The subsequent development of devolution up to 2007 included the move to start at least a debate about further reform in Scotland, as well as more immediately a second Government of Wales Act in 2006. In Northern Ireland, the 2006 St Andrews Agreement reset the terms of the original 1998 settlement, and enabled the resumption of devolution in 2007, after the Northern Ireland Assembly had spent more time suspended than in session. A referendum on an elected assembly for the North East in 2004 ended in a 'no' vote, but the powers of central government offices in the English regions, Regional Development Agencies and indirectly elected regional assemblies nevertheless increased.
Conclusion
Authors: Bradbury Jonathan
Published: September 2021

The book has provided four sets of conclusions. First, the examination of territorial strain, the nature of territorial problems and the characteristics of background conditions gives us a lens through which to evaluate critically the social, economic and cultural context to territorial politics. The second set of conclusions relate to the approaches used in the movements for territorial constitutional change in exploiting the support they did have and overcoming those weaknesses that still existed. As part of the reality of how territorial change happens it is to be expected that in the particular case of the UK that all territorial movements emerged out of party political contestation and self-interested party choices, and then had to define approaches heavily determined by party constraints. The third set of conclusions relate to UK central government. The UK centre was also in part defined by the pursuit of party power, and the key party at the UK level ready to address territorial constitutional reform — the Labour Party — faced large challenges and anxieties after 18 years out of office when they prepared for the 1997 general election. The final set of conclusions relate to the importance of constitutional policy processes to the resolution of conflicts in centre–periphery relations. Approaches to the development of devolution policy were followed which made the best efforts to achieve territorial balance under the constraints that they faced. The policy processes in Scotland and Northern Ireland achieved sometimes high, but at least sufficient, levels of inclusiveness in their mechanisms of negotiation.
Body Count
Authors: Hamourtziadou Lily
Published: September 2021

The need to secure civilians and their fundamental rights has led to the moral imperative to track, record and memorialise the killing and the suffering of those who find themselves in the midst of violent conflict. Body Count tracks and explores civilian deaths in Iraq following the 2003 invasion by the US-led coalition. It is a recounting of the conflict through the counting of its victims. The book provides a narrative of the War on Terror by charting its course and its impact, through ‘live’ reports and through reflective analysis by the principal researcher of the NGO Iraq Body Count. It highlights the importance and the challenges of casualty recording, it maps the insurgency in Iraq and the ensuing civilian deaths, the struggle between military power and ideology, the increasing radicalisation, the seeking of security through hegemony, and the cycle of violence. The book narrates state collapse through discussions on the neoliberal system’s effect on Iraq’s security, on military interventions and the Western control paradigm, on individual and community trauma. It raises questions on leadership and hegemony, the vulnerability of weak states, winning and losing, regime and energy security. It tells the daily story of Iraq: a story of fear, of executions and mass graves, of airstrikes and car bombs, of heroism and sacrifice, and of life carrying on.
Epilogue: Iraq and Its Casualties Today
Authors: Hamourtziadou Lily
Published: September 2021

The book covers the 2003-2017 period, but what has happened in Iraq since 2017? After nearly two decades of war, Iraq has experienced its least violent year; seventeen years after the invasion, during 2019 2,392 civilian deaths were recorded by Iraq Body Count. In its worst year, 2006, Iraq had witnessed the violent deaths of more than 29,500 civilians. The monthly and yearly totals, assembled after the painstaking daily task of extracting the data from hundreds of reports, betray the true magnitude and impact of the war on Iraqi civilians. The controversy surrounding the precise figures, the counts, or the estimates ultimately leads to the realisation that we do not need for millions to have been killed for the world to be outraged by the catastrophic impact of the War on Terror on the Iraqis. The number of certain civilian deaths that has been documented to a basic standard of corroboration by passive surveillance methods, in an ongoing war and through ongoing casualty recording, provides enough evidence to deem this invasion and occupation a security failure.
Cold Warfare
Authors: Waldman Thomas
Published: September 2021

This chapter discusses America's ascent to great power status following the Second World War. It argues that the nation emerged out of the war with great wealth, unparalleled military capabilities and a series of bases spread around the world. The chapter then elaborates the key factors that compelled policymakers to aggressively defend US primacy in the new geopolitical context. It also discusses the profound militarization of US foreign policy and a new level of worldwide vicarious warfare following the onset of the so-called Second Cold War in the 1980s. Ultimately, the chapter presents fierce controversy that surrounds the question of responsibility for the onset of the Cold War. It then details the most potent and pervasive weapons system of contemporary vicarious warfare: the sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, guided by advanced communications technologies and armed with precision-guided cruise missiles.
Emergence
Authors: Waldman Thomas
Published: September 2021

This chapter charts the gradual emergence of vicarious warfare over recent decades, in terms of both military practice and as an increasingly coherent and influential tradition of war vying for influence in decision-making circles. It states that modern US vicarious warfare can be understood as the operational manifestation of seeking to fight war without the people, without major political, economic or legal consequence, and on an indefinite basis. As the chapter demonstrates, it is also, in many respects, a dangerous mirage. Vicarious warfare appeared to provide strategists with the means to operationalize America's activist foreign policy. The marginal nature of the interests at stake more or less precluded taking great risks or committing large forces. Ultimately, the chapter discusses the grim journey of Somalia toward a vicarious future.
Epilogue: Implications for American Grand Strategy
Authors: Waldman Thomas
Published: September 2021

This chapter suggests some possible implications of the analysis for US grand strategy and considers the extent to which vicarious warfare might be eclipsed by the demands of re-emerging great power rivalry. It assesses the broad contours of US foreign policy and offers prescriptions regarding the best way forward. The chapter also focuses on the overarching purpose or 'vision' of US global engagement, identifying vital interests and suggesting how they can best be secured by employing the resources available to the nation in ways that accord with foundational values. The chapter then turns to the application of military force in some sweeping grand strategic articulations, especially those associated with the pursuit of continued US primacy and liberal interventionism. Ultimately, the chapter presents a way to escape the never-ending spirals of war, resistance and radicalization that characterizes current approaches, which, in the long run, will likely prove cumulatively more costly in blood, treasure and insecurity. It unveils the impacts of the application of ill-considered military force.
Making Do
Authors: Ren Julie
Published: September 2021

Regardless of the artistic motivations and stated engagements, the practices of initiating and sustaining these art spaces reveal the degree to which place-making is characterized by practically-oriented, at times opportunistic motivations rather than artistic goals. So, while art spaces may conceive of themselves as islands, they are also situated within a legal context and rental market. The function of creative capital is discussed in terms of its exchange value for both financial and political capital. Moreover, the section on hustle shows how there are a diversity of strategies employed to sustain their work. This illustrates how art spaces can remain non-profit while sustaining costs of operation. These practices reflect a kind of place-making activity that indicates both a surplus of resources, financial and temporal, and the resourcefulness of individual actors in their ability to access, generate and employ these resources.
Expressions
Authors: Ren Julie
Published: September 2021

The consequences of the motivations and practices from the previous two chapters are considered here in terms of art spaces as spatio-temporal expressions. As an expression, the art space is more accurately depicted as an act and not an object. The issue of precariousness continues, particularly in view of the art spaces’ temporariness as a kind of adaptive strategy. Further reflections on nomadic agency consider their access to resources. The perspective of continuity challenges the dualistic character of whether the spatio-temporality of art spaces reflect their being either victim of precarity or subject or an agent of urban change. It raises questions about permanence, especially in connection to rhythms and patterns that reflect the desire for continuity.
The Capacity to Aspire
Authors: Ren Julie
Published: September 2021

The concluding chapter synthesizes the approach and findings, to theorize back. It takes inspiration from work from grounded theory and mid-range theory, to explain the approach for understanding these findings as theoretical. Further, it notes some of the biases and limitations of a relational comparative analysis, particularly with regards to the position of the researcher. Drawing on the comparative analysis, this chapter considers how in the context of inevitabilities, art spaces expose spaces of possibility. Finally, it suggests how a concept of aspiration can serve to better connect the function of imagined futures, hopes and fears in the exercise of present-day everyday life. Cities are constantly shaped by the presence of an elsewhere, evident in these art spaces’ ability to see possibility and imagine alternatives, and to recognize their positions and present conditions. As a heuristic, aspiration connects the function of imagined futures, hopes and fears in the exercise of present-day everyday life.
What Personality Is and Why It Matters for Organisations
Authors: Wang Ying , Wu Chia-Huei
Published: September 2021

The first chapter provides foundational knowledge about the conceptualization of personality at work. In particular, it discusses the trait-perspective of personality and reviews personality research in the work context. It also discusses practical implications, highlighting how the knowledge of personality traits has been used to inform personnel decisions and practices. It concludes with an overview of the rest of the chapters in this book. The first chapter is intentionally kept very brief so that more focus of the book is dedicated to the change perspective of personality.
Can Personality Traits Change, and How? A Review of Personality Development Literature
Authors: Wang Ying , Wu Chia-Huei
Published: September 2021

This chapter introduces the change perspective of personality, through an integrative review of research evidence in supportive of this perspective. It presents what has been found, primarily in the personality and social psychology disciplines, as to personality change during adulthood. It also discusses what types of change is usually observed, as well as several theories and frameworks that offer insight on why personality change would occur. In general, this chapter offers a theoretical and empirical foundation about personality change in the general life domain, before progressing to the chapters focusing specifically on personality change at work.
From Scientific Motherhood to Intensive Mothering
Authors: Hamilton Patricia
Published: September 2021

This chapter examines contemporary political contexts that focuses on how attachment parenting (AP) matches with neoliberal politics and emphasizes the notion that society is 'post' race. It highlights both the specificities and similarities in Britain and Canada as they have similarly sized black populations and comparable histories of migration. It also offers unique and underexplored insights about contemporary blackness and motherhood in the two countries. The chapter looks at interviews with women and their shared characteristics that inform the analysis of their experiences. It describes scientific motherhood as the idea that mothering should be guided by scientific supervision and principles.
Why Now? AP in a Neoliberal, Postracial Context
Authors: Hamilton Patricia
Published: September 2021

This chapter recounts how attachment parenting (AP) has grown in popularity and has inspired a host of media and public attention since it was first named in the late 1980s. It refers to the establishment of organisations, like the Attachment Parenting International, that reflect the global expansion of the philosophy's reach, with forums and support groups in locations such as Brazil, Norway, and Turkey. It also cites the increased interest in AP as part of a broader intensification of parenting that is captured in the ideology of intensive mothering. The chapter addresses why AP has emerged at this particular socioeconomic moment, linking AP's heightened popularity to the dominance of neoliberalism in Britain and Canada. It explains how neoliberalism is inextricably tied to motherhood and understood as essential to the production of good citizens.
Introduction: Narrative, Criminology, and Fiction
Authors: McGregor Rafe
Published: September 2021

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce narrative representation, criminology, and the concept of fiction. The chapter begins with a delineation of criminology as an academic discipline and crime as a contested concept. Narrative vs. non-narrative distinguishes narrative representation from the various forms of non-narrative representation and identifies two types of narrative representation: minimal narratives and exemplary narratives. Fiction vs. non-fiction begins by differentiating ‘fiction’ from ‘narrative’ and then draws attention to the problems with differentiating fiction from non-fiction in terms of either the imagination, invention, or falsity. The chapter defines fiction in terms of a practice, which unites a particular kind of creative utterance to a particular kind of receptive stance. The chapter concludes with an extended abstract of the book.
Criminological Cinema
Authors: McGregor Rafe
Published: September 2021

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the relationship between pedagogic and aetiological value within the criminology of narrative fiction. The chapter’ focus is on criminological cinema – Hollywood feature films that take crime or social harm or the control of crime or social harm as their subject – on the basis of the relevance of audience size to pedagogic value. Pedagogic value is a function of accessible communication and audience engagement and both of these features are enhanced by the characteristic realism of the cinematic mode of representation and the mythic storytelling characteristic of the Hollywood film industry. The chapter concludes with a demonstration of pedagogic value that employs Martin Brest’s Beverly Hills Cop (1984) as a case study.
Inclusion of Whom, and for What Purpose? Strategies of Inclusion in Peacemaking
Authors: Hirblinger Andreas T. , Landau Dana M.
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores how the emerging discourse on, and practice of, inclusion in peace mediation has dealt with questions of identity, representation, and difference. In particular it seeks to understand how the object of inclusion (who?) has been framed by policy makers and practitioners, for what reasons, and with what effects. The chapter finds that the object of inclusion varies along a spectrum that can be differentiated into three main categories: Closed references, which refer to an actor group that can readily be identified according to relatively hard criteria, open references, which are rather ambiguous in their meaning and thus provide room for interpretation, and relational references, which are situated in a specific social and political context and are made salient through their relationship to other actor groups. These varying ways of framing inclusion correspond with different, and sometimes conflicting, peacemaking strategies.
The Nexus of Peace Mediation and Constitution Making: The Case for Stronger Interaction and Collaboration
Authors: Mubashir Mir , Klauke Julian , Vimalarajah Luxshi
Published: September 2021

This chapter argues for rethinking and reassessing our understanding of how mediation is related conceptually and practically to constitution making. In many cases of armed intra state conflict or social unrest calling for democratic transition, the core issues are of deep constitutional relevance, speaking to the political transformation of the state. To address the constitutional issues in such conflict contexts, peace or transition processes often combine peace making and constitution making. Despite this clear connection in practice, scholarship on the relationship between mediation and constitution making is largely absent. The chapter proposes new ways of thinking about how a mutual relationship may be forged to better contribute to the transformation of conflict for sustaining peace.
Irony and the Liminality of Resistance
Authors: Brassett James
Published: September 2021

This chapter deals with the rise of irony and questions an essential ambiguity that emerges in comedy of this period. On the one hand, new satires advance a set of post- structural concerns with the mediatization of politics and the loss of a coherent subject. On the other hand, the apparent return of reactionary subjects of race, gender and sexuality suggests that irony plays an important role in the accommodation (recuperation?) of significant political dilemmas. This dilemma yields an important perspective on the emerging social democratic consensus over globalization.
Brexit, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Single Market
Authors: Brassett James
Published: September 2021

This chapter engages with the curious case of the dog that did not bark in comic resistances to Brexit. Strangely, for a genre that has so closely associated itself with themes of resistance, British comedy was remarkably aligned with the goal of remaining in Europe, indeed, this uniformity evoked consideration in some quarters as to whether ‘liberal comedians’ were now a fundamental part of the global capitalist establishment.
Class Actions in Historical and Comparative Perspective
Authors: Molavi Michael
Published: September 2021

This chapter outlines the historical and comparative context of class actions that have developed since their modern origins in the United States. It traces the development of the United States as a first generation regime, followed by Canada and Australia as second generation regimes. It also examines the recent efforts to institute collective mechanisms and the ways in which these developments have progressed. The chapter focuses on first and second generation regimes for comparative insights in order to understand their influencing developments in England and Wales as a third generation regime. It illuminates and situates developments in a broader historical and comparative perspective to provide a better sense of the lineage of the vehicle and the extent to which extant developments in England and Wales are falling short of their access to justice potential.
Understanding the Economics of Class Actions
Authors: Molavi Michael
Published: September 2021

This chapter delves into one of the strongest arguments in favour of the access to justice potential of class actions, which can be found in the rational choice theory of orthodox economics. It explains the economic access to justice framework that is based on the recognition that the class action allows the pursuit of claims that would not be pursued by rational actors. It also talks about how class actions allow the pursuit of negative value claims or claims in which the value of the claim is outweighed by the costs of its pursuit. The chapter elaborates how allowing for ideological representatives to advance claims on behalf of harmed groups can contribute towards preventing injustices by deterring misconduct by potential wrongdoers. It explores important issues pertaining to the economics of class actions that impact the access to justice and are achieved through mass litigation.
Youth, Work and the Post-Fordist Self
Authors: Farrugia David
Published: September 2021

Youth, Work and the Post-Fordist Self represents a paradigm shift in contemporary understandings of youth and work: from the study of youth transitions to the formation of young people as workers. With this focus, the book addresses transformations in the status of young people as economic actors. Despite high levels of youth unemployment, young people are increasingly encouraged to view work as a realm of meaning and self-actualisation, and are required to invest more and more in their identities as workers. In this, young people are evocative of broader shifts in labour force formation processes, which now go beyond the possession of skills or educational capital to encompass aspects of the working self that were previously considered ‘unproductive’, such as a worker’s relational style and mode of self-expression. The book draws on a large qualitative data-set in which young people articulate the meaning of work in their own words, describe their experiences of employment, and articulate their plans and aspirations for the role that work will play in their own lives. More than a set of employment conditions to move through, this book explores work as a realm in which young people’s selves and identities are produced in line with post-Fordist social and economic changes, which make work into an increasingly all-encompassing arena for the production of youth itself. In this sense, the book represents a new research agenda in studies of youth and work, situating youth as critical to the dynamics of labour and value in contemporary capitalism.
Young People, Work and Society: New Terrain
Authors: Farrugia David
Published: September 2021

Contemporary research on youth and work is focused on young people’s transitions into employment – on the question of who gets which jobs and when do they get these jobs. In this it is neglecting the relationship between work, productivity and the self, or the status of young people as labouring subjects who must produce value through their work. This has also led to a limited view of the nature of social class, which has come to focus on the distribution of economic and cultural resources that may be exchanged on the labour market to the exclusion of work as a uniquely significant site for the formation of the classed self. Taking up these conceptual problems is the task of the book.
Passionate Subjects and the Middle-Class Self at Work
Authors: Farrugia David
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on the experiences of relatively privileged or middle-class young people and explores the role of work in their identities and the practices and ethics through which they cultivate identities as workers. In this chapter, the key term that young people use to describe the meaning of work in their lives is ‘passion’. Young people describe work as (ideally) a realm of passionate self-actualisation, in which the intrinsically passionate self is realised through work, and in which preparation for work entails cultivating passion. In this sense, these young people do not differentiate between themselves at work and themselves outside of work, viewing work as one realm amongst many in which the passionate self may be realised. In another sense, young people also subsume their whole of their identities in work, and view every aspect of themselves as economically productive. Out of all of the young people in this book, they encapsulate the post-Fordist work ethic most completely. These young people are also mobile, disparaging the areas they come from as areas of high unemployment and cultivating ‘cosmopolitan’ dispositions through their work.
Subjects of Achievement: Social Mobility, Competence and Aspiration
Authors: Farrugia David
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on the experiences of young people from family backgrounds with a history of trades and clerical labour. The young people in this chapter also describe work as a realm of self-actualisation, but this time manifested through the achievement of concrete goals related to material success and milestones at work. For these young people, the meaning of work is self-realisation through social mobility. While these young people view work as the single most critical aspect of life determining happiness and personal fulfillment, they do not regard their entire lives as sources for the creation of value, instead focusing on specific aspects of themselves that they feel may be valued on the labour market. To this end, they identify and cultivate particular competencies or “things I am good at” that they hope can translate into skills that are of value to the labour market. Their engagement with education takes place on this basis, and their aspirations for social mobility are articulated with reference to competencies they have identified and nurtured over time. This constitutes a specifically working-class manifestation of the post-Fordist work ethic, displaying both continuities and ruptures with earlier manifestations of the work ethic.
Methodological Afterword
Authors: Farrugia David
Published: September 2021

This final section of the book is aimed at those readers who are interested in the methodological processes that led to the three-part analysis I have presented in this book. To some, dividing the post-Fordist work ethic into three categories or types may appear anachronistic. After all, sociologists are increasingly being encouraged to attend to ‘mess’ in social scientific research (...
Between Realism and Revolt
Authors: Davies Jonathan
Published: September 2021

Between Realism and Revolt explores urban governance in the “age of austerity”, focusing on the period between the global financial crisis of 2008-9 and the beginning of the global Coronavirus pandemic at the end of 2019. It considers urban governance after the 2008 crisis, from the perspective of governability. How did cities navigate the crisis and the aftermath of austerity, with what political ordering and disordering dynamics at the forefront? To answer these questions it engages with two influential theoretical currents, Urban Regime Theory and Gramscian state theory, with a view to understanding how governance enabled austerity, deflected or intensified localised expressions of crisis, and generated more-or-less successful political alternatives. It develops a comparative analysis of case studies undertaken in the cities of Athens, Baltimore, Barcelona, Greater Dandenong (Melbourne), Leicester, Montreal and Nantes, and concludes by highlighting five characteristics that cut across the cities, unevenly and in different configurations: economic rationalism, weak hegemony, retreat to dominance, weak counter-hegemony and radically contagious politicisations.
Reading the Conjuncture: (Dis)Ordering Dynamics in the Crises of Neoliberal Globalism
Authors: Davies Jonathan S.
Published: September 2021

The chapter reflects on the question of governability, from the standpoint of the mooted interregnum in the hegemony of neoliberal globalism. It first recapitulates the positioning of each city in relation to austere neoliberalism and the urban political (dis)orderings disclosed by the research. The remainder of the chapter discusses five political-economic characteristics of the post-GFC conjuncture, interwoven unevenly through the eight case studies: pervasive economic rationalism(s), weakening hegemony, the retreat to dominance, weak counter-hegemony and politicisation through radically contagious struggles. The first three characteristics contribute to explaining the fate of “the collaborative moment” in the age of austerity, and to reviewing the concept of late entrepreneurialism. The fourth and fifth characteristics, weak counter-hegemony and contagious politicisations, capture both powerful resistance dynamics and impediments to more decisive transformations. Weak counter-hegemony suggests that anti-austerity, anti-neoliberal and anti-capitalist forces continue to encounter barriers and limitations, while politicisation dynamics are signified by combustibility and tendencies towards generalisation and internationalisation in anti-austerity and related struggles.
The Gilets Jaunes and the New Social Contract
Authors: Devellennes Charles
Published: September 2021

This book provides a detailed account of the gilets jaunes, the yellow vest movement that has shaken France since 2018. The gilets jaunes are a group of French protesters named after their iconic yellow vests worn during their demonstrations, who have formed a new type of social movement. They have been variously interpreted since they began their occupation of French roundabouts: at first received with enthusiasm on the right of the French political establishment, and with caution on the left. They have provided a fundamental challenge to the social contract in France, the implicit pact between the governed and their political leaders. The book assesses what lessons can be drawn from their activities and the impact for the contemporary relationship between state and citizen. Informed by a dialogue with past political theorists — from Hobbes, Spinoza and Rousseau to Rawls, Nozick and Diderot — and reflecting on the challenges posed by the yellow vest movement, the book rethinks the concept of the social contract for contemporary societies around the world. It proposes a new relationship between the state and the individual, and establishes the necessity of rethinking the modern democratic nature of our representative polities in order to provide a genuine process for the healing of social ills.
Violence
Authors: Devellennes Charles
Published: September 2021

This chapter deals with the questions of violence and Hobbes' theory of the state. Violence refers to a variety of different types of action. The chapter draws an important distinction between two main types of violence: physical violence (often referred to as simply 'violence'), and moral violence (often qualified by other terms, such as 'spiritual', 'structural' or 'psychological' violence). Both physical and moral violence are coercive and engender resistance. They are coercive in the sense that they seek to change the behaviour of others. But violence also has a subjective element. For it to qualify as violence, it needs to be perceived as such by others. Typically, violence needs to be recognized as such by those on whom it is exercised. The term 'violence', when used on its own, implies that there is a physical aspect to it. Non-physical uses of the term 'violence' need it to be qualified, typically, for interlocutors to make sense of what type of violence is being discussed. Physical violence is material in that it uses material means to achieve its ends. Moral violence is the result of attempting to achieve ends through blackmail, spying and manipulation. This bureaucratic violence, as a form of moral violence, is the one that is characteristic of the modern nation state and largely explains its successes and failures. State violence today relies mostly on this type of moral violence to create compliance.
Conclusion
Authors: Devellennes Charles
Published: September 2021

This concluding chapter uses Burke's theorizing about the social contract, as well as his reflections on the sublime and beautiful, to show how ugliness (as a concept) has seeped into political life, as well as offering reflections on some international comparisons, by showing the links between the gilets jaunes and the Brexit and Trump votes, as well as providing short comparisons with Poland and Chile. A social contract for the future will have to address the issues. A rethinking of the militarization of police forces equipped with weapons of war for crowd control seems essential, but this is unlikely to occur if those who have used these weapons do not come forward to testify to their use in practice. A public reconciliation process, with open and transparent accounting of who has done what and when, possibly granting immunity from prosecution for those who come forward, will go a long way in addressing the social ill caused by the protests. Constitutional revisions can go a long way in addressing systemic inequalities, even if the outcomes of the new constitutional arrangements do not exactly meet the demands of either party. In terms of economic justice there are also solutions. As an alternative to increased inequalities caused by public debt, Graeber proposes that all new moneys could be issued by citizens, rather than financial institutions, creating wealth for all instead of for specific companies and their shareholders. If the current wounds inflicted to the social contract are to heal, it seems inevitable that widespread changes occur, rather than piecemeal band-aids.
Field Theory and Global Transformations in the Long Twentieth Century
Authors: Go Julian
Published: September 2021

This chapter explores how the Bourdieusian field theory can be deployed to make sense of global dynamics. It mentions international relations (IR) scholars that have enlisted Bourdieu in their analyses, applied his work to international issues, and taken certain concepts, such as habitus and practice, from his larger theoretical conceptual apparatus. It also focuses on three transformative processes or macro-historical turning points: the expansion of colonial empires during the phase of 'high imperialism', the two world wars, and the post-war end of formal colonial empires that heralded the rise to dominance of the modern nation state. The chapter maps the points of differentiation between field theory approaches and other approaches. It recognizes other key elements of Bourdieusian field theory, such as fields that consist of objective relations between actors and the subjective and cultural forms of those relations.
The ‘Long Twentieth Century’ and the Making of World Trade Law
Authors: Stafford James
Published: September 2021

This chapter develops a new narrative of the emergence of a global system of trade law since the mid-nineteenth century. It identifies a continuous attempt to establish and elaborate systems of interpolity law that is designed to regulate economic exchanges on a global scale. It also talks about a central feature of global social change in the 'long twentieth century' that is understood in terms of the elaboration of global communicative infrastructures. The chapter recounts the rise of world trade law, which enabled the expansion and growing status of a transnational body of trade diplomats, consuls, economists and economic lawyers. It looks at projects of international economic law that were often associated with liberal ideals of 'free trade' and described as pliable instruments that could support regionalist or protectionist ambitions.
Third-Party Actors, Transparency and Global Military Affairs
Authors: Müller Thomas
Published: September 2021

This chapter analyzes the history and effects of third-party actors in global military affairs. It begins with an observation of transnational and international organizations that have collected, produced and published comparative data on a variety of aspects of world politics. It also discusses the creation of a complex global system of ongoing quantified observation and evaluation of patterns, trends and problems in world politics and other parts of world society. The chapter explains the scope and impact of third-party actors on global military affairs and clarifies how it changed the underlying dynamics of military competition. It refers to the group of third-party actors that includes the United Nations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Platforms of Power
Authors: Timcke Scott
Published: September 2021

This chapter traces how digital media instruments are used by different factions within the capitalist ruling class to capture and maintain the commanding heights of the American social structure. Drawing upon principles presented earlier in the book, the chapter examines cases where different capitalists pursue different strategies, form different alliances and viciously compete against one another. It examines how progressive neoliberals responded to this challenge in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries and how party officials sought to thwart class struggle 'from below.' The chapter ends by examining how capturing the judiciary can encode a 'passive revolution'.
Testbeds for Authoritarianism
Authors: Timcke Scott
Published: September 2021

This chapter traces the evolving intersection of capital, security and technology to examine the broad trajectory of unfreedom. This chapter drives at the central stakes of technology in 21st-century American life: whether technology will help codify flat capitalist realism, or if it can help deliver broad-based emancipation. The chapter revisits some assumptions of 'totalizing technological determinism' as they conceptualize the manufacturing, acquisition and deployment of digital arms. It critiques the Mead–Straub–Wright analysis of great power competition. It examines deterministic thinking through several case studies in which digital arms manufacturing are oriented towards security objectives. The case studies involve the United States as conceptualized by analysts and researchers who participate in the wider American academic-knowledge system. The chapter assesses how these analysts do or do not anticipate how artificial intelligence and its implementation will be incorporated into existing organizations and politics.
Interest, Actors and Intent: Studying the Global by Understanding the Domestic
Authors: Breslin Shaun
Published: September 2021

The chapter disaggregates different types and levels of authority and agency in China’s international interactions. It outlines a system of bounded autonomy where the state retains the ability to set overarching agendas, and also to control key levers of economic control that create and shape the nature of the market that others have to operate within. But this still leaves considerable freedom for others to pursue their own agendas under ‘normal’ circumstances, and to manipulate political agendas to serve local and private economic interests. The chapter also focusses in on domestic Chinese debates over its place in the world, and how studying them can give is a clearer understanding of how China’s place in the world looks from the inside out. In addition to showing how these debates have evolved, the chapter also shows how a consensus of sorts has emerged over what China might (or should) seek to achieve as a global power.
Chinese (Grand) Strategies for (Global) Change
Authors: Breslin Shaun
Published: September 2021

The chapter traces the changes continuity and change in China’s international relations under Xi. Continuity in terms of building on pre-existing trends evident before his assumption of power, and change in the way that these were accelerated and concentrated after 2012. In particular, it focuses on how reforms implemented under Xi were designed to overcome fragmentation in decision making, and allow for ‘joined-up’ strategic thinking that serves both domestic and international interests. Through a close analysis on Xi’s thinking on international relations (and Chinese scholars’ study of it), it establishes a ‘conceptual flow’ in Xi Jinping’s thinking that links philosophic starting points through action to objectives. It then outlines ten broad ‘strategic strands’ that have been at the heart of Xi’s agenda for global change.
High-Q, submicron-confined chalcogenide microring resonators
Authors: Yang Zhen , Zhang Rizhen , Wang Zhiyuan , Xu Peipeng , Zhang Wei , Kang Zhe , Zheng Jiajiu , Dai Shixun , Wang Rongping , Majumdar Arka
Published: September 2021

We demonstrate high quality (Q) factor microring resonators in high index-contrast GeSbSe chalcogenide glass waveguides using electron-beam lithography followed by plasma dry etching. A microring resonator with a radius of 90 μm shows an intrinsic Q factor of 4.1 × 105 in the telecom band. Thanks to the submicron waveguide dimension, the effective nonlinear coefficient was determined to be up to ∼110 W−1m−1 at 1550 nm, yielding a larger figure-of-merit compared with previously reported submicron chalcogenide waveguides. Such a high Q factor, combined with the large nonlinear coefficient and high confinement, shows the great potential of the GeSbSe microring resonator as a competitive platform in integrated nonlinear photonics.
Roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography of high efficiency Fresnel lenses for micro-concentrator photovoltaics
Authors: Jacobo-Martín Alejandra , Jost Norman , Hernández Jaime J. , Domínguez César , Vallerotto Guido , Askins Steve , Antón Ignacio , Rodríguez Isabel
Published: September 2021

Roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography (R2R-NIL) is an enabling technology for the low-cost mass production of high-quality micro- and nano-sized optical elements. Particularly, the fabrication of Fresnel lenses using R2R-NIL is a promising approach to produce optical arrays for micro-concentrator photovoltaic modules. This work investigates the application of a continuous R2R imprinting process based on ultraviolet curing of transparent photopolymer resins (UV-NIL) to fabricate high-efficiency and low-cost Fresnel lenses. The morphological attributes and the related optical performance of the lenses fabricated using roll-to-roll UV-NIL on flexible PET sheets yielded optical efficiency values up to ∼ 69% at a concentration ratio of 178X, whereas a value of ∼ 77% was obtained for the UV-NIL batch processed on a flat rigid substrate. Further improvement of the optical efficiency has been achieved by adding moth-eye inspired antireflective (AR) features on the side opposite to the Fresnel motifs via a double-sided R2R UV-NIL process. The process developed paves the way for cost-effective mass production of high-efficiency Fresnel lenses for micro-concentrator photovoltaics.
Mathematical model of a personalized neoantigen cancer vaccine and the human immune system
Authors: Rodriguez Messan Marisabel , Yogurtcu Osman N. , McGill Joseph R. , Nukala Ujwani , Sauna Zuben E. , Yang Hong
Published: September 2021

Cancer vaccines are an important component of the cancer immunotherapy toolkit enhancing immune response to malignant cells by activating CD4+and CD8+T cells. Multiple successful clinical applications of cancer vaccines have shown good safety and efficacy. Despite the notable progress, significant challenges remain in obtaining consistent immune responses across heterogeneous patient populations, as well as various cancers. We present a mechanistic mathematical model describing key interactions of a personalized neoantigen cancer vaccine with an individual patient’s immune system. Specifically, the model considers the vaccine concentration of tumor-specific antigen peptides and adjuvant, the patient’s major histocompatibility complexes I and II copy numbers, tumor size, T cells, and antigen presenting cells. We parametrized the model using patient-specific data from a clinical study in which individualized cancer vaccines were used to treat six melanoma patients. Model simulations predicted both immune responses, represented by T cell counts, to the vaccine as well as clinical outcome (determined as change of tumor size). This model, although complex, can be used to describe, simulate, and predict the behavior of the human immune system to a personalized cancer vaccine.