bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Universal Credit versus Universal Basic Income: strange bedfellows?
Authors: Parker Jonathan
Published: January 2024

Chapter 8 considers the ongoing need to reduce administration and bureaucracy culminating in Iain Duncan Smith’s development, and subsequent rollout, of Universal Credit. This is explored alongside historical demands for a Universal Basic Income. Twin aims have permeated formal policy directions: the need to simplify the systems of benefit and to examine novel ways of ensuring either a more equal or a more equitable distribution of income. While not the only rationale for reform, the simplification agenda remains important. Welfare simplification has an economic rationale in attempting to reduce administrative cost and to ensure that welfare is directed to those who most need it. This leads to consideration of calls for further reform from both right- and left-wing commentators in terms of a Universal Basic Income. Discourses from the right and left are played out in debates relating to the everyday working of tax-benefit systems.
Social Care in the UK's Four Nations
Authors: Needham Catherine , Hall Patrick
Published: January 2024

More than two decades have passed since the devolution of social care policy, with key differences emerging between the UK’s four systems. This book compares the adult social care systems of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to understand convergence and divergence between them, in terms of discursive framings, decisions and outcomes. The book highlights points of discursive convergence around the values of care – convergence on many of the care policies that are required, but divergence in effectiveness in making policy to address these mechanisms. We explain this through key institutional factors in the policy communities of the four nations – scale, style and scope – with Scotland having the most conducive environment in which to address care issues. Nonetheless, Scotland, like the other nations, has struggled with implementation due to a failure to acknowledge and debate the tensions within the ‘policy mix’. Drawing on extensive interviews with national and local policy makers across the UK, alongside document analysis, the book highlights two rival care paradigms – the informal and differentiated and the formal and standardised – which are a fault line in care policy within all four nations. Care policy gets stuck because policy makers in the four nations fail to acknowledge the tensions of calling for fluidity, differentiation, informality and co-production while also arguing for standardisation, regulation, formality and risk avoidance. Correcting decades of drift in social care policy requires an appreciation of how to manage the tensions between these two paradigms rather than blithely hoping for a best of both worlds.
What is social care policy for?
Authors: Needham Catherine , Hall Patrick
Published: January 2024

To assess and compare the four care systems of the four nations in the UK it is important to have a clear sense of what they are trying to achieve. This chapter focuses on how policy documents in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland frame social care, and how care policy supports the aim of improving social care. It looks at what policy makers have set out in the documents as being their vision of sustainable care and a good life for people with care needs. Despite the definitional ambiguities and boundary issues, policy documents from the four nations have a similar vision of what social care policy is aiming to achieve. The overarching principle in all four systems is that care policy should maximise individual and collective wellbeing. It will do this by being fair, rights-based and high-quality – and ensuring these goals are achieved for everyone in the system (people who use services, unpaid carers and care workers). These elements combined are expected to deliver sustainability. We look in turn at wellbeing, fairness, rights, quality and sustainability, as well as at the tensions that can arise when all of them are in focus at once.
Policy analysis by the federal government: the contribution of the National Institute of Public Administration
Authors: Doberti Juan Ignacio , Sabatto Dante , Levy Melina J.
Published: January 2024

The National Institute of Public Administration (INAP) of Argentina was founded in 1973. Since then, it has been in charge of both the training of the national state employees and the analysis of public policies, especially related to human resources, staffing, structures, salaries, and applied research on administration and public management. Despite having gone through several changes in its structure, INAP has maintained its role beyond the many macroeconomic and institutional crises and different governments Argentina has experienced in the last five decades. The Institute has thus become an example of persistence in training and research in the public sector, as well as a guide for public offices both at the national and subnational level. This chapter aims to study the history of INAP and its evolution, from its creation until the present day. The main objective is to identify and describe the features that allowed its stability as a leading institution in Argentina. We will also review the production on policy analysis that has been carried out by the institution in the last decade. We will focus on books, working papers, and the scientific journal Estado Abierto, which is currently the main publication on public policy in the country.
Policy analysis at different levels of government: the managerial skills in leaders of policy networks in Argentina
Authors: Estévez Alejandro M.
Published: January 2024

This chapter analyses the public policy networks in Argentina. As governments grow in complexity, networks appear to be a more relevant subject of study, since the late 1970s. We have selected and studied three public policy networks: the Solidarity Network of Health Professionals, which is dedicated to exchanging medical knowledge about cases of “rare” diseases (which affect a few people compared to the general population); the Municipal Network of Institutional and Administrative Dialogues, which is dedicated to the promotion of administrative modernization and electronic government of the municipalities of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the Network of Dialogue Spaces with the taxpayers of the Federal Administration of Public Revenues, which is dedicated to identify and solve the different complaints of the biggest Argentinian taxpayers. Based on perceptions and personal experiences of the interviewees, we have identified the following points: the main managerial skills of leaders in public policy networks; the different ways in which managers adapt the problems focused by networks; agenda formation; and the network’s learning process as an organization. To do this, we made a qualitative, comparative, and empirical case study of exploratory type. The conclusions can be generalized from an analytical point of view but not statistical.
Emergence and development of public policies training tracks in Argentine universities
Authors: Galano Natalia , Curti Guillermina
Published: January 2024

This chapter explores the process of emergence and development of the study of public policy in higher education institutions (undergraduate and graduate) in Argentina. The reconstruction of this path allows us to track the theoretical influences and dialogues with the particular context, which allowed gaining an important place in the agendas and the academic offer of social sciences. For this purpose, we will survey the training programs in various careers and academic institutions since the return to democracy in Argentina using a diachronic and situational criterion. We will consider their formal and substantive aspects, focusing on the predominant approaches and methods in the public policy teaching process. Over more than four decades, public policies have painstakingly earned a place as an object of study. This field became more robust due to processes of state reform that deepened and took shape in the region from the 1990s onwards, and the more recent, albeit pendulum-like, “return to the State”.
Reimagining Community Safety as community safeguarding in response to extra-familial harm
Authors: Walker Joanne , Firmin Carlene
Published: January 2024

When introduced, Contextual Safeguarding (CS) promoted two key ways to better integrate responses to extra-familial harm (EFH) into child protection systems. Firstly, building reference to extra-familial contexts (like peer groups) into social work assessments that had traditionally focused on familial contexts. Secondly, promoting that children’s social care, rather than policing, practitioners led responses to EFH. However, in the latest testing of CS, a third legislative framework, and associated operational structure, has become apparent: Community Safety. In England, Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) are legislatively responsible for coordinating council responses to crime and disorder. This has often involved them leading local responses to crime or antisocial behaviour (ASB), as well as sanctioning those deemed responsible for those crimes/behaviours. Local areas testing CS have found themselves initiating child welfare assessments of contexts that have also been responded to via Community Safety disruption activity. Young people on social work plans due to the exploitation they have experienced are also facing Community Safety sanctions for ASBs they have displayed because of that exploitation. In these situations, the principal driver for decision making is unclear: if part of the response undermines the other, which one should take precedence? In this chapter, we draw upon data from test sites trying to overcome this tension, along with examples of those who have been compromised by it. We situate these examples within legislation in England as a case study example asking whether the use of Community Safety frameworks in this field undermine the principle in child protection legislation.
Contextual Safeguarding beyond the UK
Authors: Peace Delphine
Published: January 2024

Contextual Safeguarding (CS) has been shaped and primarily implemented in England and Wales, yet the issues it confronts are not unique to the UK. The CS team have begun to explore the applicability of the CS frameworks through their international research programmes. Drawing on a literature-scoping review, this chapter outlines some of the key challenges and opportunities of responding to extra-familial harm (EFH) in European contexts. It begins by describing the context of EFH in Europe and the challenges of responding, including the child protection system, partnership working and care provisions. The chapter finishes by outlining some of the ways that a CS framework could be beneficial within European jurisdictions.
What can we learn from multi-agency meetings to address extra-familial harm to young people?
Authors: Bostock Lisa
Published: January 2024

Multi-agency panel meetings to address extra-familial harm (EFH) are an integral part of the safeguarding landscape. In recent times, there has been a proliferation of such meetings with the aim of creating safety for young people. Yet little is known about what happens in these meetings or what difference they make to lives of young people at risk or experiencing EFH. This chapter is based on 16 meeting observations across three sites. It presents practitioner talk within meetings to illuminate the degree to which they align with the four domains of Contextual Safeguarding (CS) and positions young people’s perspectives as pivotal to the development of safeguarding responses within extra-familial contexts. It identifies a series of essential features to ensure that meetings move beyond ‘talking and tasking’ and focus on actions that really are ‘actions’ to intervene in contexts of concern rather than over-relying on tasking practitioners to gather more information.
BLAME the BAME
Authors: Shah Javeria
Published: January 2024

I wrote this improvised piece in response to the UK government’s delay in the release of their Disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19 report. Findings from the report identified disproportionately higher BAME mortality rates from COVID-19. The delay of this report to the backdrop of a revival of Black Lives Matter (BLM) activism after the death of George Floyd compounded issues surrounding everyday racisms. Fear among UK officials of nationwide anti-racist uprisings because of glaring disparities in the report were highlighted. Perhaps the biggest irony of all was that the very services that were supporting the public during this terrifying pandemic, such as the NHS, were mostly made up of BAME employees. BLAME the BAME reflects my racial frustrations with us as a nation state amid narratives of Brexit, COVID-19 and BLM – all compounded by the delay of this report and the confirmation of being othered.
COVID-1984: wake MBE up when Black Lives Matter
Authors: Ventour-Griffiths Tré
Published: January 2024

Colonial honourifics to land grabs, genocide, white supremacy, and other forms of violence (aka Honours), are awarded biannually as part of the political calendar. Today, it is also jarring to see so-called activists, anti-imperialists, and ‘allies’ take these medals. Since March 2020, imperial gongs have gone to people for combatting the same institutional violence that has been manufactured and/or upheld by the state. This chapter uses auto-ethnography to discuss the intimate links between Honours, COVID-19, Black Lives Matter – and the cognitive dissonance required to take state recognition while pontificating about social justice. All while hereditary aristocracy appears to have pervaded through the allocation of senior jobs in the UK government’s COVID-19 response. How can anyone take Honours or a life peerage in proximity to state power, while also positioning themselves as anti-oppression and/or against the government’s gaslighting of the public sector? It is deplorable.
It’s alive! The resurrection of race science in the times of a public health crisis
Authors: Tan Jon E.C.
Published: January 2024

In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic brought into sharp relief the prevalence of global health inequalities, showing impacts of the virus were disproportionately felt by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. In the same year, the killing of George Floyd by a public official sparked worldwide demonstrations about institutionalised racism. This chapter explores how such institutional racism pervades public health responses to the pandemic. It examines the rise of anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism and shows how legacies of the past, and the use of science in racialised ways, cast long shadows across the understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic. Written from a British-born, mixed-heritage perspective, the chapter engages with issues of race, racism and the 2020 pandemic as a lived experience. Weaving together an analysis of the emerging evidence, reflective writing and storytelling, it suggests that rivers of privilege and superiority run deeply underneath the surface of the public discourse.
Racial justice and equalities law: progress, pandemic and potential
Authors: Richardson Robin
Published: January 2024

The Equality Act 2010 in Great Britain marked the culmination of 45 years of deliberation, campaigning and legislating, and had the clear potential to protect certain groups, backgrounds and communities from unfair discrimination. In the years following 2010, however, the requirements of the Act were increasingly ignored by public bodies, particularly in England. Partly in consequence, the COVID-19 pandemic had a disproportionately negative impact on people with protected characteristics, as defined by the Act. The essential task of government when the pandemic is over will be not only to ‘build back better’, but also to build back fairer. If the new normal is not significantly fairer in its outcomes than the old, it will not be better. Among other measures, but crucially, this will involve activating the Act’s socioeconomic duty, attending to needs and priorities in left-behind neighbourhoods, and addressing forms of inequality that are systemic and structural.
COVID-19 in the UK: a colour-blind response
Authors: Hinchcliffe Jane
Published: January 2024

This chapter is an opinion piece, using examples from healthcare and policing to demonstrate colour-blind, or colour-evasive, responses to the COVID-19 crisis. It describes the findings of a public health report and explores the way in which stakeholder recommendations were ignored. Using illustrations of health inequality, colour-blindness or colour evasiveness will be explored in action. Moving on to law and order, the chapter will explain how COVID-19 additional policing powers added to the discrimination faced by people of colour in the UK, and how this was not acknowledged, mitigated or recognised by wider society or those in positions of power in the UK. The chapter shines a light on specific examples of discrimination during the COVID-19 crisis.
The impact of COVID-19 on Somali students’ education in the UK: challenges and recommendations
Authors: Omar Yusuf Sheikh , Hersi Baar , Tarah Abdishakur
Published: January 2024

COVID-19 lockdown has exposed Somali students’ vulnerabilities in achieving their educational targets due to existing settlement challenges and social inequalities that have been compounded by new difficulties brought by COVID-19, such as stress, emotional difficulties, mental illness, gaining weight (caused by physical inactivity due to lack of space to burn off their energies), together with issues surrounding mock exams that disadvataged Somali students. On the other side, the condition created by the pandemic has facilitated family reconnection; improved teacher–parents constructive engagement towards helping children’s learning at home; created a community discussion on how to support their children’s education during lockdown and also learn useful technological skills. Similarly, older siblings have proved useful informal teachers for the youngsters during school closures.
Conclusion: Long COVID, long racism
Authors: Lander Vini , Kay Kavyta , Holloman Tiffany R.
Published: January 2024

Whether denied, derided or determined to overcome it, COVID-19 has impacted many lives in ways that we are only now beginning to witness, as we move from old configurations of normality and adapt to new realities, be it flexible ways of working and learning or working to change social systems. This conclusion summarises the reflections from the preceding chapters, and ends with a call to develop and maintain critical, anti-racist, decolonial and intersectional approaches that acknowledge the complexities and effects of diverse lived experiences in long COVID society.
Introduction
Authors: Poocharoen Ora-orn , Boossabong Piyapong
Published: January 2024

The state and development of policy analysis have never been thoroughly examined in Thailand. This volume aims to fill that gap. This chapter outlines the content of the volume, which comprise of five parts. Part I covers the history, styles and methods of policy analysis. It sets the foundation for readers to understand typologies of methods of policy analysis found in Thailand. Part II focuses on policy analysis within executive government. It specifically discusses the central government, the local governments, and the role of collaboration and policy networks. Part III captures knowledge on policy analysis beyond executive government, particularly the monarch, the military, the parliament, the consultants and political movements. Part IV explores political parties and interest groups including business associations, the community sector and social movements. Lastly, Part V investigates policy analysis education and research. This part provides insights to the emerging non-traditional school of thought for policy studies. It discusses how Thailand is stuck in the ‘in-between’ state between conservatives and progressives. This has crucial implications for the direction of policy analysis. It offers possible directions and prospects that would enrich policy analysis in Thailand to better serve democracy, and a just, sustainable future.
The role of the Thai military in policy analysis: unpacking three faces of the military in the non-military policy domain
Authors: Punthong Wasin
Published: January 2024

The military has historically been the key political player in Thai politics and public policy. This chapter examines the role of the military in the analysis of three non-military policy domains including internal security, rural development and telecommunications policies. It shows that the military has become embedded in these policy domains through various institutional channels usually created after the coup. The military’s influence on the internal security policy analysis has made it a veto player, while its interference in telecommunications policy analysis involves huge economic benefits. Concurrently, the military’s involvement in the rural development policy analysis has continued in the post-Cold War context. With a series of post-coup political interventions, the chapter analyses that the military has utilised rural development policy as a channel to manipulate civilian grassroots population. With an active role in these policy activities, the chapter also illustrates how the military’s political influence is far from limited.
Political parties and policy analysis
Authors: Pensute Chanintorn
Published: January 2024

This chapter explores how and why political parties in Thailand have paid most attention to choosing political leaders and mobilising resources for elections, both national and local. It emphasises that, due to the focus on these areas, serious professional policy analysis has been ignored by most political parties. The basic tool that has been used is ‘polling’, to check the popularity of their party, politicians and policies, and thus, in turn, ‘populist policy’ has become their policy culture. In aiming to win the election, most parties compared the policy choices of their competitors and proposed a more popular one. The chapter highlights that, in the national election of 2019, there was a new political party that tried to engage more with the critical orientations of policy analysis by challenging short-term populist policies and proposing some policies based on public deliberation and reinterpretation of the Thai society towards the structural transformation.
Non-traditional policy studies in Thailand
Authors: Ungsuchaval Theerapat
Published: January 2024

This chapter aims to provide a critical reflection on the study of public policy analysis in Thailand by showing the academic endeavours of Thai policy scholars starting from the 1980s to advance non-traditional policy studies which can be seen as alternative approaches to the study of public policy analysis. The alternative approaches encourage policy studies outside the shadows of public administration by being more interdisciplinary. They also engage post-positivist perspectives in analysing public policy. This chapter introduces two major developments contributing to this non-conventional perspective. The first one is the governance turn, focusing on politics, governance and interaction in the policy process. The second one, on the other hand, is the critical and interpretive turn, focusing on various forms of policy knowledge, deliberation and non-technocratic-instrumental policy analysis. Although the alternative approaches are gaining more attention from the policy community, they are still uncommon among mainstream academics and literature in Thailand.
Growth, Wealth And Health
Authors: Taylor Sebastian
Published: January 2024

Economic growth is modernity’s religion – the centrepiece of political promise and policy making in countries across the world. Yet growth does not, on its own, result in a healthier or longer life. This chapter argues that an economic concept of progress unduly dominates policy thinking given the limited evidence of its benefit to our lives, and the extent of damage it poses for environmental sustainability. It argues that the key factor mediating between national wealth and human welfare is the quality of governance supplied by government – and that a better governance model is one which combines growth and health not as alternative priorities but as mutually interdependent components of a single social development strategy.
Health, Development, Capital And Trade
Authors: Taylor Sebastian
Published: January 2024

Coming out of the ‘lost development decade’ of the 1980s, global policy makers recognised that human development requires more than just economic growth. The Millennium Development Goals, however, continued to instrumentalise vertical investment in health as, in effect, an input to human capital and economic productivity. Using the example of food and nutrition systems, this chapter argues that, with the transition to the Sustainable Development Goals, the tension between growth, welfare and environmental survival has now become critical – a tension which the current architecture of global governance is unequipped to manage.
The poverty of justice
Authors: Taylor Sebastian
Published: January 2024

Justice is widely invoked as the basis of political legitimacy. Yet injustice remains entrenched within countries and between them. In the absence of a clear concept of social justice, policy has tended to focus on inequality as an economic phenomenon, on the problem of poverty as the core issue – and on the idea of fair opportunity and social mobility as the solution to unjust society. This chapter argues that poverty reduction and opportunity creation fail to address the deeper drivers of social inequality, and that this focus therefore offers a profoundly inadequate approach to advancing justice.
Cities in Search of Freedom
Authors: Mocca Elisabetta
Published: January 2024

European local authorities are gaining more political influence and recognition, both domestically and internationally. Many cities across Europe have designed and implemented interventions off the beaten track of the state’s policy. Similarly, the establishment of supra-national municipal organisations witnesses the desire of cities to be “masters of their destiny”. This book therefore examines municipalities’ emancipatory endeavours, zooming in on the centrifugal push occurring in Europe.The past 40 years have been marked by the weakening of the Westphalian state, where the central state was the unquestionable protagonist of domestic and international affairs. Processes of devolution and upscaling of competencies have diffused authority both to sub- and supra-national governmental and non-governmental actors, weakening central states’ authority. However, nationalism has recently harked back in Europe, as showed by political events such as Brexit and the strengthening of nationalist and populist parties. At the same time, several European cities are going against the decisions taken by the central states, following their own path and implementing different political projects. This divergence between states and cities lies at the core of the book. From an analytical perspective, the book adopts an urban-centred perspective, assigning a strong political agency to cities. While zooming in on local authorities, the linkages with other levels of government (that is, the national, and the supra-national levels) play an important role in the analysis of the growing freedom of European municipalities. Moreover, not only local policy-makers, but also civil society actors, like activists and civil society organisations, will be taken into account. The book primarily focuses on contemporary events; however, to provide a thoroughgoing understanding, the text examines the historical trajectory of political and institutional processes that have paved the way to the growing influence of European cities. The chapters in this book draw on an interdisciplinary framework, bringing together contributions from geography, political science and sociology, history and philosophy and on a comprehensive analysis of published research on the topic.This book hopes to enrich the literature on the analysis of cities’ self-reliance. It does so by throwing light onto the ‘realms of freedom’ where cities can move away from the state orbit. These realms are: the international arena, where cities can put in place paradiplomatic practices and develop new worldview, and the urban space, characterised by significant political and social ferment.
A Just Energy Transition
Authors: Atkins Ed
Published: January 2024

To reduce emissions and address climate change, we need to invest in renewables and rapidly decarbonise our energy networks. However, decarbonisation is often seen as a technical project, detached from questions of politics and social justice. What if this is leading to unfair transitions, in which some people bear the costs of change while others benefit? In this timely and expansive book, Ed Atkins asks are we getting decarbonisation right? And how could energy transitions be made better for people and communities? In doing so, this book proposes a different type of energy model: one that prioritises and takes opportunities to do better – to provide better jobs, community ownership, and improve people’s homes and lives.
Beyond Climate Fixes
Authors: Levidow Les
Published: January 2024

As a popular slogan, ‘System Change Not Climate Change’ highlights the political-economic system which drives climate change, other environmental harms and social injustices. Global elites have evaded the systemic causes through deceptive techno-optimistic climate fixes, encouraging a passive public to accept or await them. As exemplified by carbon trading, market-type instruments are meant to incentivize technological innovation which will supposedly decarbonize or replace high-carbon systems. This neoliberal techno-market framework has analogies in other deceptive environmental fixes, which have provoked public controversy.
Using this opportunity, various critics have opposed false solutions and counterposed low-carbon, resource-light, socially just alternatives. However, an effective social agency to implement them has remained elusive. By default, alternatives have often remained as futile appeals to hypothetical planners or as supplements to harmful high-carbon systems.
Towards system change beyond climate fixes, this book presents a big picture of transformative mobilizations. To build a common future vision, frame-bridging has helped to align disparate frames of groups opposing false solutions. For an effective social agency, transformative mobilizations combine five main elements: counter-publics, frame alignments, eco-localization agendas, grassroots innovation and solidaristic commoning. Such efforts could help fulfil the demand for ‘System Change Not Climate Change’. The potential is illustrated here through several controversies: GM crops, biofuels, waste incineration and Green New Deal agendas.
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Serious Youth Violence
Authors: Gray Paul , Jump Deborah , Smithson Hannah
Published: January 2024

Whereas crime more generally has fallen over the last 20 years, levels of serious youth violence remain high. This book is the first of its kind to investigate the complex relationship between adverse childhood experiences and serious youth violence with justice-involved young people. Based on innovative research that foregrounds young people’s voices, this book explores the theoretical underpinnings of trauma and the manifestations of childhood adversity. While the implementation of trauma-informed approaches to working with justice-involved young people are becoming common practice, there remains a dearth of research into the efficacy of such approaches. By adopting a psychosocial lens, the authors present a new way of understanding and delivering trauma-informed practice. The authors conclude by advocating the adoption of a more psychotherapeutic trauma-informed approach when engaging with young people in the justice system.
Critical and Comparative Rhetoric
Authors: Berenguer Elizabeth , Jewel Lucy , A. McMurtry-Chubb Teri
Published: January 2024

Through the lenses of comparative rhetoric and critical rhetoric, this book theorizes how alternative approaches to communication can transform legal rhetoric and reform legal meanings and legal outcomes. These new approaches can infuse the law with more inclusive participation, more equity, and more justice. Viewing legal language from a radical lens, this book resituates legal argumentation away from White and Eurocentric approaches and presents new rhetorical tools from diasporic and non-Western cultures. These tools include critical analysis of existing precedent, methods to disrupt precedent, and non-Western multicultural rhetorical methods from diasporic peoples. These new tools have the potential to reform and transform the law and legal systems.
Reluctance in World Politics
Authors: Destradi Sandra
Published: January 2024

World politics is, in many cases, a chaotic field: international actors frequently adopt indecisive, hesitant, muddling-through approaches instead of clear-cut foreign policy decisions – in other words, they are reluctant. This also applies to powerful states, which frequently disappoint the expectations of those who want them to decisively contribute to the solution of pressing problems. Surprisingly, despite being a widespread phenomenon, ‘reluctance’ has not been studied systematically in the field of International Relations (IR). This book fills this gap by asking why international actors, including powerful states, are often reluctant in their foreign policies. It develops a conceptualization of reluctance and a theorization of its causes by building on a range of approaches from Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) and related fields. Reluctance emerges if governments face difficulties in their domestic processes of preference formation (driven by political weakness, limited capacity, cognitive problems or normative struggles), and if external actors confront them with strong and competing expectations. This theory is applied to in-depth qualitative analyses of varying degrees of reluctance in regional crisis management on the part of three powerful regional countries: India’s reluctant approach to crisis management in Afghanistan (2014–21) and Nepal (2015–17); Germany’s reluctant crisis management with regard to Libya (2011) and its more determined and responsive approach to the Ukraine crisis of 2014–15; and Brazil’s non-reluctant approach to crisis management in Haiti during the first Lula presidency (especially its leadership of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH) as well as its consistent but low-key approach to the civil war in Colombia.
A Conversation with Marina Fedosik
Authors: Fedosik Marina , Hipchen Emily
Published: January 2024

ABSTRACT: In this interview, Marina Fedosik and Emily Hipchen discuss adoption and assisted reproduction technologies, their relationship to the heterocoital norm and origins-hunger, and how film and television are wrapping all alternative reproduction back into narratives or heteronormal pregnancy and family life.
Representation of Chinese Opera in Xiong Liang’s Picturebooks
Authors: Karmasz Joanna
Published: January 2024

Abstract: Xiong Liang is an illustrator widely recognized as a pioneer of Chinese picturebooks. His works seek to be both visually appealing and educational in familiarizing readers with traditional aspects of Chinese cultural life. This article focuses on Wu Song Da Hu 武松打虎 [Wu Song Beats the Tiger] and 长坂坡 [Battle of Changbanpo], a picturebook adaptations of the operas of the same titles. In Xiong’s work, the human characters are depicted as charming street cats for their playfulness. This article analyses Xiong’s picturebooks to unveil the creation of a clever synergy of word, sound, and image to introduce young readers to the traditional art of Chinese opera.
Withdrawing Life Support After Attempted Suicide: A Case Study and Review of Ethical Consideration
Authors: Oxman David A. , Richter Benjamin
Published: January 2024

Ethical questions surrounding withdrawal of life support can be complex. When life support therapies
are the result of a suicide attempt, the potential ethical issues take on another dimension. Duties and principles
that normally guide clinicians’ actions as caregivers may not apply as easily. We present a case of attempted
suicide in which decisions surrounding withdrawal of life support provoked conflict between a patient’s family
and the medical team caring for him. We highlight the major unresolved philosophical questions and contradictory normative values about suicide that underlie this conflict. Finally, we show how these considerations
were practically applied to this particular case.
Super-resolution reconstruction of underwater polarized images with a fused attention mechanism
Authors: Lang Liying , Feng Haoyi , Zhang Jinghan , Pang Yajun
Published: January 2024

The polarization imaging technique leverages the disparity between target and background polarization information to mitigate the impact of backward scattered light, thereby enhancing image quality. However, the imaging model of this method exhibits limitations in extracting inter-image features, resulting in less-than-optimal outcomes in turbid underwater environments. In recent years, machine learning methodologies, particularly neural networks, have gained traction. These networks, renowned for their superior fitting capabilities, can effectively extract information from multiple images. The incorporation of an attention mechanism significantly augments the capacity of neural networks to extract inter-image correlation attributes, thereby mitigating the constraints of polarization imaging methods to a certain degree. To enhance the efficacy of polarization imaging in complex underwater environments, this paper introduces a super-resolution network with an integrated attention mechanism, termed as SRGAN-DP. This network is a fusion of an enhanced SRGAN network and the high-performance deep pyramidal split attention (DPSA) module, also proposed in this paper. SRGAN-DP is employed to perform high-resolution reconstruction of the underwater polarimetric image dataset, constructed specifically for this study. A comparative analysis with existing algorithms demonstrates that our proposed algorithm not only produces superior images but also exhibits robust performance in real-world environments.
A-Si/SiO2 nanolaminates for tuning the complex refractive index and band gap in optical interference coatings
Authors: Kreuzer Karl , Farr Philipp , Vergöhl Michael , Bruns Stefan , Melzig Thomas , Patzig Christian , Feder René
Published: January 2024

A-Si/SiO2
nanolaminates are deposited
by magnetron sputtering and show a decreasing absorption when the a-Si
single-layer thickness is reduced from 2.4nm to 0.7nm. Moreover, an increase of the Tauc
band gap by 0.18eV is measured. Experimental Tauc band
gaps are compared to calculated effective band gaps, utilizing a
numerical Schrödinger solver. Further, it is demonstrated that the
refractive index can be controlled by adjusting the a-Si and SiO2 single-layer thicknesses in the
nanolaminates. The nanolaminates are optically characterized by
spectroscopic ellipsometry, transmittance, and reflectance
measurements. Additionally, TEM images reveal uniform, well-separated
layers, and EDX measurements show the silicon and oxygen distribution
in the nanolaminates.
Freeform surface topology prediction for prescribed illumination via semi-supervised learning
Authors: Cerpentier Jeroen , Meuret Youri
Published: January 2024

Despite significant advances in the field of freeform optical design, there still remain various unsolved problems. One of these is the design of smooth, shallow freeform topologies, consisting of multiple convex, concave and saddle shaped regions, in order to generate a prescribed illumination pattern. Such freeform topologies are relevant in the context of glare-free illumination and thin, refractive beam shaping elements. Machine learning techniques already proved to be extremely valuable in solving complex inverse problems in optics and photonics, but their application to freeform optical design is mostly limited to imaging optics. This paper presents a rapid, standalone framework for the prediction of freeform surface topologies that generate a prescribed irradiance distribution, from a predefined light source. The framework employs a 2D convolutional neural network to model the relationship between the prescribed target irradiance and required freeform topology. This network is trained on the loss between the obtained irradiance and input irradiance, using a second network that replaces Monte-Carlo raytracing from source to target. This semi-supervised learning approach proves to be superior compared to a supervised learning approach using ground truth freeform topology/irradiance pairs; a fact that is connected to the observation that multiple freeform topologies can yield similar irradiance patterns. The resulting network is able to rapidly predict smooth freeform topologies that generate arbitrary irradiance patterns, and could serve as an inspiration for applying machine learning to other open problems in freeform illumination design.
High efficiency diode-pumped Pr:LiLuF4 visible lasers in femtosecond-laser-written waveguides
Authors: Baiocco Davide , Lopez-Quintas Ignacio , Vázquez de Aldana Javier R. , Tonelli Mauro , Tredicucci Alessandro
Published: January 2024

In this work we investigate the power scaling of diode-pumped Pr:LiLuF4 waveguide lasers produced by direct femtosecond writing. The waveguides studied consisted in depressed cladding waveguides with different geometries. We observed laser emission at 604 nm, achieving a maximum output power of 275 mW and a slope efficiency of 40%, and 721 nm, demonstrating 310 mW of output power and a slope efficiency of 50%. Moreover, we obtained, what we believe is for the first time in a diode-pumped waveguide, laser emission at 523 nm, with a maximum output power of 65 mW and a slope efficiency of 11%. In the end, we also demonstrated the first diode-pumped operation of a single-transverse-mode waveguide laser at 721 nm, reaching a maximum output power of 28 mW and maintaining a high quality beam with an M2 of 1.1.
Polarization-separating Alvarez metalens
Authors: Hada Mitsutoshi , Adegawa Hyo , Aoki Katsuma , Ikezawa Satoshi , Iwami Kentaro
Published: January 2024

The rapid advancements in optical communication technologies have highlighted traditional optical components’ limitations, particularly in size, adaptability, and integration capabilities, underscoring the need for more compact and versatile solutions. Metalenses offer a promising pathway to address these challenges, with their ability to provide high-functionality, miniaturized optical components. We developed a varifocal metalens with a polarization separation function designed for the wavelength of 1550 nm for potential application for next-generation communication technologies. To integrate the varifocal and polarization separation functions, polarization-dependent phase profiles for an off-axis Alvarez lens were derived and encoded by amorphous silicon pillar meta-atoms with rectangular cross sections to provide independent 0–2π phase delays for both orthogonal linear polarization components. The fabricated metalens achieved a varifocal range of 0.75 mm to 10.65 mm and a polarization extinction ratio of 18.5 dB.
Compact optical 90° hybrid based on a wedge-shaped 2 × 4 MMI coupler and a 2 × 2 MMI coupler on a thin-film lithium niobate platform
Authors: Chen Yake , Xie Xiaojun , Sun Yang , Pan Wei , Yan Lianshan
Published: January 2024

We performed an experimental demonstration of a wedge-shaped optical 90° hybrid coupler on the thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) platform, utilizing a paired-interference-based 2 × 4 multimode interference (MMI) coupler and a general-interference-based 2 × 2 MMI coupler. The fabricated optical 90° hybrid coupler has a compact footprint with a width of 18 µm and a length of 134 µm. In a coherent receiving system, the hybrid coupler directly connects to the balanced photodiode array, eliminating the need for waveguide crossings or cascaded phase shifters. The device exhibits a  < 1.1 dB excess loss, a  > 20 dB common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR), a  < 1.3 dB wavelength sensitive loss, and a  < ±5° phase deviation over a spectral range of 1530–1560 nm, which is promising to enable a compact heterogeneously integrated coherent receiving system on the thin-film lithium niobate platform.
Sculpting harmonic comb states in terahertz quantum cascade lasers by controlled engineering
Authors: Riccardi Elisa , Justo Guerrero M. Alejandro , Pistore Valentino , Seitner Lukas , Jirauschek Christian , Li Lianhe , Giles Davies A. , Linfield Edmund H. , Vitiello Miriam S.
Published: January 2024

Optical frequency combs (OFCs), which establish a rigid phase-coherent
link between the microwave and optical domains of the electromagnetic
spectrum, are emerging as key high-precision tools for the development
of quantum technology platforms. These include potential applications
for communication, computation, information, sensing, and metrology
and can extend from the near-infrared with micro-resonator combs, up
to the technologically attractive terahertz (THz) frequency range,
with powerful and miniaturized quantum cascade laser (QCL) FCs. The
recently discovered ability of the QCLs to produce a harmonic
frequency comb (HFC)—a FC with large intermodal spacings—has attracted
new interest in these devices for both applications and fundamental
physics, particularly for the generation of THz tones of high spectral
purity for high data rate wireless communication networks, for radio
frequency arbitrary waveform synthesis, and for the development of
quantum key distributions. The controlled generation of harmonic
states of a specific order remains, however, elusive in THz QCLs.
Here, and by design, we devise a strategy to obtain broadband HFC
emission of a pre-defined order in a QCL. By patterning n regularly spaced defects on the top
surface of a double-metal Fabry–Perot QCL, we demonstrate harmonic
comb emission with modes spaced by an (n+1) free spectral range and with an
optical power/mode of ∼270µW.
Transformations of the transverse Poynting vector distribution upon diffraction of a circularly polarized paraxial beam
Authors: Bekshaev Aleksandr , Mokhun Igor , Galushko Yuriy , Viktorovska Yuliia , Karabchyivskyi Maksym
Published: January 2024

Usually, the structure of paraxial light beams is characterized by the intensity associated with distribution of the longitudinal energy flow density (Poynting momentum) across the transverse plane. In this work, the special attention is paid to the distribution of internal energy flows described by the transverse Poynting momentum (TPM) components. This approach discloses additional polarization-dependent features of the vector beam transformations; in application to the edge diffraction of a circularly polarized (CP) Gaussian beam, it reveals the helicity-dependent asymmetry of the diffracted-field TPM profile characterized by the shifts of the TPM singularity, or maximum, etc. These phenomena are confirmed experimentally and interpreted in terms of the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) and spin Hall effect of light. In contrast to the known SOI manifestations in the CP beams’ diffraction, originating from the small longitudinal component of a paraxial field, the new TPM-related effects stem from the transverse field components and are thus much higher in magnitude.