bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Good News for Common Goods
Authors: Markofski Wes
Published: May 2023

There has been a lot of bad news about evangelical Christianity and democracy in America in recent years. In Good News for Common Goods: Multicultural Evangelicalism and Ethical Democracy in America, sociologist Wes Markofski draws on twelve months of immersive ethnographic fieldwork in Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, and Boston to investigate how multicultural evangelicals across the United States are addressing racial difference and inequality, poverty and economic inequality, and political, cultural, and religious difference and disagreement in America’s increasingly polarized social and political landscape. Based on extensive original research on multicultural evangelicals active in faith-based community organizing, community development, political advocacy, and public service organizations across the country—including over ninety in-depth interviews with racially diverse evangelical and non-evangelical activists, community leaders, and neighborhood residents—Markofski shows that the varieties of public religion practiced by evangelical Christians are not always, and need not always be, bad news for nonevangelicals, people of color, and those committed to advancing ethical democracy in the United States. He finds that reflexive evangelicals can and do work with diverse race, class, religious, moral, and cultural others to achieve common good solutions to public problems, and that they can do so without abandoning their own distinctive convictions and identities (or demanding that others do so). Just as ethical democracy calls for a more reflexive evangelicalism, so too does it call for a more reflexive secularism and progressivism.
Good News? Common Goods? Multicultural Evangelicalism? Ethical Democracy?
Authors: Markofski Wes
Published: May 2023

The title of this book contains a number of deceptively familiar terms whose precise meanings, in isolation and relation to one another, map the contours of its content and argument. “Good news,” “common goods,” “multicultural evangelicalism,” and “ethical democracy” all have particular meanings that speak to important concepts and prior work—on democracy, multiculturalism, evangelicalism, and the common good—and to the different ways this book aims to challenge and build on relevant debates and research in sociology, theology and religion, social and political philosophy, and democratic theory. I discuss these and other key concepts (social reflexivity and reflexive evangelicalism among them) and their particular usage in this book.
The Ruble
Authors: Pravilova Ekaterina
Published: May 2023

The Ruble is a political history of Russian money from Catherine the Great to Vladimir Lenin. It traces the evolution of the Russian state and society through the analysis of monetary reforms. The Ruble argues that currency constituted an important element of Russian political organization—first, autocratic, and then socialist—while monetary reforms were considered the means of enabling or preventing political transformations. The Ruble shows how politics affected finance and explains why Russia’s financial system remained unstable for many decades. The Russian imperial government considered certain financial models, such as independence of the bank of issue, to be incompatible with the principles of autocratic monarchy. The ruble was seen as a projection of monarchal power and a tool of imperial expansion. The Russian government used issuance of money to finance imperial wars and prioritized geopolitical successes over economic development at home. Russia was the last European empire to join the gold standard system, and the gold ruble differed from other gold-based currencies of the world. The Ruble analyzes the phenomena of the “autocratic” and “Soviet” gold standards and argues that the gold-based ruble differed from other currencies of the gold-standard system. Despite the preponderance of the conservative trend in monetary policy, Russian economists, liberal politicians, and intellectuals argued for a radical reform of Russian money and wanted to liberate the ruble from the control of the state. From Catherine the Great’s reform until the 1920s, the ruble remained an object of many political programs, utopian projects, and economic ideologies.
Introduction
Authors: Pravilova Ekaterina
Published: May 2023

The history of money is the history of state, society, and their interactions. Debates about money in Russia have always been extremely politicized because of the limited sphere of political debate. People communicated their political grievances and expressed their visions of social justice and economic prosperity in the language of money. Every financial institution had political meaning. The independence of the banks of issue stood for the introduction of representative legislative institutions, while the convertibility of currency was equivalent to political participation and the right to vote. The politics of monetary reforms in Russia reveals the role of economic and financial ideas in the formation of two political ideologies—liberalism and conservatism. Discussing the fate of national currency involved the representatives of various social classes and groups—peasants, merchants, and nobility.
Assignats
Authors: Pravilova Ekaterina
Published: May 2023

By introducing assignats in 1769, Catherine II inadvertently subjected the Russian monarchy to scrutiny. Russian intellectuals and Catherine’s courtiers were plunged into a debate about the nature of money and the possibility of reconciling the political ideas of the Enlightenment with the financial exigencies of imperial expansion and growth. Trying to figure out how to frame these relationships in political terms and how to boost Russia’s political credibility as a rule-of-law monarchy without affecting its financial means, Russian thinkers advanced a notion that was novel and radical even for pre-revolutionary Europe: they designated the empress’s subjects as the owners of the bullion reserve that backed up the value of paper money, and they described paper assignats as the ruler’s debt to the people. However, institutional arrangements, most important, the status of Assignat Banks, contradicted these lofty ideas. The government continued to print money excessively, and the paper ruble’s value vis-à-vis its metal equivalent and other currencies plummeted.
Practicing the Gold Standard
Authors: Pravilova Ekaterina
Published: May 2023

Witte understood the gold standard very literally as the introduction of gold coins and the elimination of paper cash of small denominations. As a result of the reform, the social pyramid of the monetary system turned upside down: wealthy people were expected to use paper banknotes, while simple folk had to operate with silver and gold coins. Predictably, there was a great deal of discontent, especially in the agrarian sector. The new system’s vulnerability became even more apparent when Russia attempted to introduce the gold ruble into the Eastern “realm of silver,” that is, Bukhara and Manchuria, where the population stubbornly continued to value the ruble by its reputation and purchasing power, not according to its gold “content.”
The Gold Syndrome
Authors: Pravilova Ekaterina
Published: May 2023

The fixation with the size of the gold reserve affected Russia’s financial policy during the crisis of the Russo-Japanese War and the revolution of 1905. During the crisis, the government tried to procure loans in Europe and used the gold reserve as proof of Russia’s solvency. However, in the eyes of Western politicians and journalists, Russia had low credibility because of the government’s reluctance to start political reforms. In 1905, Russia switched to constitutional rule, but the representative State Duma did not receive any prerogatives in the monetary sphere, and the ruble’s fate remained fully under the government’s control. This feature of Russia’s political order backfired in 1914, when Russia entered the First World War.
Expanding Influence
Authors: Robinson Rebecca
Published: May 2023

“Expanding Influence” looks to how the rulers used their newly transformed religious institutions to expand their influence. In the Han, this expansion took the emperor on sacrificial tours to important locations across the empire, where he assumed authority over the most sacred sites. During this expansion, he also incorporated lands that had belonged to the kings into the territory administered by the imperial government. In Rome, this expansion took place primarily within the city and its political institutions. Augustus elevated the college of quindecimviri, previously considered to be a relatively unimportant college, to a much more prominent position, and the men whom Augustus had co-opted into this college gained access to the highest political offices in Rome.
Communicating Imperial Authority
Authors: Robinson Rebecca
Published: May 2023

“Communicating Imperial Authority” looks at the way that the changes to religion and to imperial authority were made public, by comparing the ways in which Augustus infiltrated the city of Rome through the creation of the lares Augusti and his campaign of public building, and Emperor Wu’s inspection tours (xunshou 巡守) and bestowal of gifts and amnesties throughout the empire. Through these acts, and with the ceremonies that are discussed in Chapter 7, the rulers broadcast their new imperial image throughout the city of Rome and Han empire, respectively, each dominating their respective spheres of elite power and competition.
Kant and the Provisionality of Right
Authors: Yeomans Christopher
Published: May 2023

Chapter 2 concerns a specific feature of Kant’s political philosophy that is of fundamental significance, namely the notion of provisional right. In this idea, Kant has formulated an essential aspect of the historicity of German Idealism and it deserves sustained discussion on its own. I connect this notion with two important features of ownership relations in the Sattelzeit. First, the practical problem of ownership rights is not that of determining the boundaries of exclusive titles, but rather of disentangling and reweaving a complex set of ownership relations. Second, the relevant contrast to which the state of nature vs. civil condition distinction refers is not a contrast between a situation of no political authority and one with political authority. It is, rather, a contrast between a society that had many different political authorities and one in which only the state had political authority.
Inheritance
Authors: Yeomans Christopher
Published: May 2023

Chapter 6 takes up an issue in which both of the institutions we have seen so far—property and the family—are related to each other: inheritance. Inheritance lies at the intersection of family structure, individual property rights, and the economic structure of society. Laws concerning who gets to bequeath what to whom, and who gets to inherit what from whom, play an important role in tracing the outlines of the family by giving economic structure to its multigenerational nature. The issue of the legitimacy of inheritance is one of the crucial social questions of the late 18th and 19th centuries. In contrast with our own contemporary reflections on inheritance, which is spurred by the enormous inequality of capital wealth produced by multi-generational inheritance, the distinctiveness of the issue in the Sattelzeit comes from its reaction to feudal inheritance structures before the advent of capitalist industrialization.
Fichte’s Three Political Philosophies
Authors: Yeomans Christopher
Published: May 2023

In Chapter 7, Fichte takes center stage. Fichte’s great contribution to the historicity of political philosophy lies in his simultaneous development of three different political philosophies that are only tenuously connected to each other: an ideal theory in his Foundations of Natural Right, a very non-ideal theory in his Closed Commercial State, and an educational theory of progress in his Characteristics of the Present Age and Addresses to the German Nation. Working from a rather high altitude, I try to show that these three political philosophies can be characterized in terms that the historian Reinhart Koselleck has given us: the Foundations as a horizon of expectation (the future made present), the Closed Commercial State as a space of experience (the past made present), and the Characteristics and Addresses as the relation of agency that connects the horizon and the space, the future and the past.
Corruption Simpliciter
Authors: Issacharoff Samuel
Published: May 2023

Democracy Unmoored argued in its preceding chapters that a lack of institutional constraints can lay the ground for clientelist and populist politics; that such a politics yields personalist decision making; and that with weak institutional constraints, this results in corruption. Working from this conclusion, this chapter argues that protecting democracies from authoritarian populism can begin by checking corruption through ordinary criminal and administrative law mechanisms, rather than sweeping constitutional programs—an indirect approach in the style of prosecuting Al Capone for tax evasion. Examples in Argentina, Brazil, Poland, South Africa, the United States, and more demonstrate both the promise of these ordinary mechanisms for checking populist unilateralism and how serious a risk to their own rule unilateralist populists perceive these mechanisms to be.
The Exposed Underpinnings of American Democracy
Authors: Issacharoff Samuel
Published: May 2023

This chapter, the last of Democracy Unmoored, asks what is to be done to mitigate the political fragmentation, democratic disenchantment, and politics of hatred that fuel populist candidates and assaults on democracy. Different theories of the rise of populism—whether economic dislocation, racism, or weakening state capacity—demand different solutions. Four broad categories of proposals are discussed. These are restoring government capability and the capacity for democracies to deliver on their promises; checking executive unilateralism by reinvigorating federalism, empowering the opposition, and strengthening intermediary oversight institutions; improving citizen participation and engagement with politics through social media; and reviving core democratic institutions by funding parties, preventing the capture of parties by their extremes, and experimenting with novel voting mechanisms with moderating effects. The chapter concludes by noting that no one of these proposals alone reverses the pressures on democracy, but may buy enough time for democracies to recover some of their institutional foundations.
Introduction
Authors: Powell Emilia Justyna , Wiegand Krista E.
Published: May 2023

This introductory chapter discusses the salience of territorial and maritime disputes, and the need to peacefully resolve these contentious disputes. It highlights similar and dissimilar features of territorial and maritime disputes, focusing on the role that international law plays in peaceful conflict management. These contentions entail the contesting of sovereignty rights and refusals to cede claimed territory or maritime areas. The chapter presents a short version of the theory of strategic selection and discusses the broader significance of the project, locating it within the existing international relations and international law scholarly literature. We introduce concepts crucial to our theory—choice-of-venue strategic selection and within-venue strategic selection. It emphasizes that territorial and maritime contentions involve politically and legally complex baskets of claims over borders, tracts of land, and maritime features.
Application of Within-Venue Strategic Selection
Authors: Powell Emilia Justyna , Wiegand Krista E.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 7 focuses on the application of the within-venue strategic selection stage, not only for the proposer state, but also for the target state that has agreed to a resolution process. The discussion in this chapter further expounds and illustrates the causal mechanisms at the core of the book’s theory in the context of strategic selection’s second stage. The discussion relies exclusively on qualitative data, primarily interviews, with a heavy focus on the Philippines v. China arbitration case. The main takeaway from interviews with a variety of experts and those involved in dispute resolution is that states are indeed strategic when planning the details of settlement as they filter a dispute through a particular peaceful resolution method. Since no disputant is able to predict the settlement outcome with certainty—especially in arbitration and adjudication—the careful framing of claims and shaping of the resolution procedures are critical.
Applied Witchcraft and Technical Wizardry
Authors: Bowen Bleddyn E.
Published: May 2023

The many twists and turns in the tales of global SLV developments are not even the half of the story of the Global Space Age. The exploitation of Earth orbit for military and intelligence purposes happened whilst global publics were captivated by the end of Apollo, the Soviet Union’s space stations, and United States’ Space Shuttle. It was the spread of secret satellite infrastructure that was to have lasting consequences for politics, economics, society, and international relations on Earth. As space became accessible to humanity’s machines, the world was fed a media diet of engineering firsts or scientific discoveries. Behind closed doors, attention fixed on what remote machines could do in orbit to enhance military power, government communications, and technical intelligence gathering.
War on the Cosmic Coastline
Authors: Bowen Bleddyn E.
Published: May 2023

Whilst more awareness of contemporary military and intelligence space activities is welcome, deterrence and arms control perspectives and approaches are not always useful to think through the roles, possibilities, and dangers of space warfare. Deterrence and arms control are narrow subjects within the larger sweep of what the sum of space warfare is, what it is doing and can do, and why many military powers are pursuing it at all. Deterrence and space arms control place an undue emphasis on nuclear strategy, missile defense, and space weaponization and do not capture the main purpose of space warfare and spacepower today: a supporting infrastructure from a littoral, adjunct environment like a coastline that tends to impose dispersion on military forces.
The Syrian Gambit
Authors: Tol Gönül
Published: May 2023

Chapter Three chronicles how Erdoğan’s turn to Islam and his endeavors to construct a national identity along Sunni Muslim lines at home translated into a policy that sought to topple the Assad regime in Syria and replace it with an Islamist-run government. It articulates how the steps Erdoğan took in Syria contributed to the Syrian uprising’s transformation into civil war and its radicalization.
Erdoğan’s Nationalist Gamble Backfires
Authors: Tol Gönül
Published: May 2023

Chapter Six argues that after having served Erdoğan’s goals for many years, Turkish nationalism finally came back to haunt him. The discussion delves into the growing nationalist reaction against the millions of Syrian refugees, which became one of the main reasons for Erdoğan’s loss in the 2019 municipal elections. The chapter takes stock of the growing challenges he faces and the role of the Syrian war in Erdoğan’s decline. It argues that Erdoğan is at his most vulnerable.
Caught on Tape
Authors: Kelly Casey Ryan
Published: May 2023

In a surveillance culture, the ubiquity of audio-visual recording devices has enabled the unprecedented documentation of private indiscretions, scandalous conversations, and obscene behaviors ranging from the high-profile to the ordinary. From former President Donald J. Trump’s lewd banter on the infamous Access Hollywood video and leaked audio of celebrity racist tirades to outbursts of violent hate speech posted daily to YouTube, convergence media culture is awash in obscene performances of transgressive white masculinity. Such exposés are screened and viewed under the assumption that revealing secret prejudices will necessarily realize the promises of democracy and bring about a postracial and postfeminist future. In Caught on Tape, Casey Ryan Kelly addresses why the culture of public revelations has failed to hold the perpetrators accountable. Kelly illustrates how public revelations constitute a symbolic and imaginary world for the public that is preoccupied with the obscene enjoyment of transgressive white masculinity: a compulsively repetitive experience of ecstatic and excessive pleasure-in-pain that arises from encounters with that which disturbs, traumatizes, and interrupts illusory notions of our coherent selves and reality. Drawing from scholarship in rhetoric, media studies, and psychoanalysis, Caught on Tape argues that addressing race and gender inequality with the promise of scandalous hot mics and obscene private videos transforms anti-racism and gender justice into disempowering forms of spectatorship that ultimately conceal the structural nature of whiteness, white supremacy, and patriarchy. The central argument of this book is that it is we the spectators who are the ones “caught on tape.”
YouRacist.com
Authors: Kelly Casey Ryan
Published: May 2023

Chapter 3 explores the diffusion of obscene enjoyment into everyday life by examining the scaling down of public scandal in “racist freak out” videos on YouTube.com. The racist freak out video (otherwise labeled as “racist rant” or “racist tirade” videos) is a genre of viral video, captured by smartphone technology, that features ordinary white people expressing racist rage in public: harassing people of color, yelling racial epithets, and even threatening violence. The ubiquity of such videos suggests that beneath the surface of postracial culture is a seething yet sometimes unacknowledged rage lurking within the white imaginary. Although the abundance of such videos helps document the extent to which racism remains lodged in the white psyche, this chapter argues that racist freak out videos circulate as part of a libidinal economy that pathologizes and individualizes racism, thus obscuring the structural and systemic nature of white supremacy.
Triumph and Despair
Authors: Kamrava Mehran
Published: May 2023

Triumph and Despair tells the dramatic story of post-revolutionary Iran's first four decades, from its establishment in 1979 until today. The revolutionary coalition that overthrew the monarchy was at once democratic, populist, and Islamic. The Islamists, and the Khomeinists in particular, were able to capitalize effectively on prevailing conditions on the ground; to frame the new republic's constitution, capture nascent institutions, and consolidate their power by eliminating opponents through a reign of terror. Once the war with Iraq was over and after the death of the new order's charismatic founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic was consolidated: first by tweaking its institutional arrangements, and then by fostering economic development and post-war reconstruction. A reformist interlude then followed, reversed unceremoniously by a return of populism and a broader authoritarian retrenchment. Today Iran remains at odds with itself, its economy too deeply political to yield meaningful developmental results, its foreign relations too conflicted to allow it a productive place in the community of nations. As Iran's nationalities and its women and youth carve out spaces for themselves in the broader narrative, competing identities—religious, national and otherwise—abound. After forty years, the Islamic Republic remains a country in search of itself.
A Question of Identity
Authors: Kamrava Mehran
Published: May 2023

Four dominant currents have characterized Iranian culture. they include the problematic of modernity; the role of the state as a crafter and influencer of culture; the role, nature, and influence of religion on popular beliefs, behavior, and the organization of society; and nationalism. Combined, these four elements have greatly shaped both the overall nature of Iranian society as well as state-society relations in the country.
A Theory of Nasty Politics
Authors: Zeitzoff Thomas
Published: May 2023

Chapter 2 develops a supply and demand theory of nasty politics. It focuses on responses to nasty rhetoric (the demand side), politicians’ incentives to go nasty (the supply side), and the implications for democracy. Voters on average don’t like nasty politics. Yet nasty politics also draws outsized attention. Certain personality types are more open to its use. Nasty politics also signals to voters that a politician will fight for their ingroup, particularly during periods of threats. Outsiders, extremists, and marginalized groups all have more to gain by going nasty. Nasty politics can also be a legitimate tool for marginalized groups to gain attention. But its continued use breeds cynicism in voters and leads to a nastier pool of candidates running for office. Finally, nasty politics can be used by incumbents to justify anti-democratic actions and can spiral into actual violence.
From Insults to Incitement in U.S., Ukrainian, and Israeli Politics
Authors: Zeitzoff Thomas
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses the historical origins and recent developments of nasty politics in U.S., Ukrainian, and Israeli politics. It also includes multiple datasets of nasty politics including: (1) historical news media data from the U.S., Ukraine, and Israel; (2) social media posts from key politicians during recent elections and protests in the U.S., Ukraine, and Israel; and (3) social media posts from two key purveyors of nasty politics: Donald Trump in the U.S., and Oleh Lyashko in Ukraine. Across these datasets and contexts, the chapter shows that nasty rhetoric peaks around key elections and crises. Low levels of insults and accusations are relatively common, while incitement is relatively rare. Outsider politicians tend to use it more often. Finally, nasty social media posts get more attention and engagement.
What Do the Experts Think about Nasty Politics?
Authors: Zeitzoff Thomas
Published: May 2023

What kinds of nasty rhetoric does the public find acceptable versus unacceptable? What insights can elites and academics offer about the central puzzle of nasty politics—the public says they don’t like nasty politics, yet why do politicians use it, and many of them win? To answer these questions, the chapter examines surveys and in-depth interviews in the U.S. and Ukraine with political elites, and a survey of political science experts. The elite and expert surveys find support for the theory of nasty politics. Calls for violence (incitement) are considered rarely acceptable and seen as likely to trigger violence. But accusations and insults are more ambiguous. Some insults, particularly the dehumanizing kind, are considered very threatening. The in-depth interviews further show that elites in both countries think that nasty politics is driven by politicians trying to attract media attention and signaling that they will fight for their core supporters.
Prelude to War, a Coup and an Insurrection, and Concluding Thoughts
Authors: Zeitzoff Thomas
Published: May 2023

The book concludes by coming back to nasty politics in Ukraine in the lead up to the Russian invasion in 2022, and in the U.S. in the lead up to the insurrection on January 6. Social media data of key politicians in Ukraine shows how the threat of Russian invasion dramatically decreased the level of nasty politics in Ukraine. In contrast, the nasty rhetoric of President Trump and his key Republican allies in Congress increases in the lead up to January 6. The chapter places the findings from January 6 in the broader context of democratic leaders stoking outrage and incitement and how that can be dangerous for democratic survival. Finally, the chapter concludes by discussing the summary of findings about the logic behind nasty politics and offer pathways for future research.
A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making
Authors: Koch Lisa Langdon
Published: May 2023

This chapter presents a theory of nuclear decision-making. Two theoretical mechanisms are offered to explain why leaders make nuclear decisions: domestic expert influence and international structural and political conditions. After assessing alternative explanations, the chapter discusses the domestic mechanism. Domestic experts in nuclear agencies and the state military can highlight or downplay the advantages and disadvantages of steps to change the course of nuclear weapons development. The relative balance of power among the key domestic organizations affects the ability each expert group has to influence leaders. Under the right conditions, experts from these organizations can intervene to facilitate or impede the transmission of information to country leaders. In those cases, expert organizations have opportunities to influence a leader’s beliefs by shaping that leader’s understanding of both the value of nuclear weapons and the set of possible policy options. The external mechanism is discussed in Chapter 4.
Changing Proliferation Environments across the Nuclear Age
Authors: Koch Lisa Langdon
Published: May 2023

Over time, the structure and politics of the international system have created permissive or constraining environments in which states might pursue nuclear weapons. This chapter argues that the benefits and costs of pursuing nuclear weapons have been understood differently within each of three distinct proliferation environments, bookended by systemic shocks. In each proliferation environment, leaders are faced with different sets of available options. The chapter defines each period and explains why and how the periods have imposed different constraints that affect how leaders have perceived the benefits and costs of nuclear weapons development. The chapter concludes by describing the empirical strategy of the book.
Untrue Truisms
Authors: Powers John
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines 16 mm reversal film stocks. It argues that the particular photographic qualities of stocks such as Tri-X and Kodachrome provided pliant metaphors that allowed filmmakers to address expanded fields of inquiry such as politics, spirituality, and mass culture. It analyzes films by Peter Hutton, Chick Strand, Vincent Grenier, Amy Halpern, Storm De Hirsch, Nathaniel Dorsky, George and Mike Kuchar, and Jack Smith. From this analysis it argues that Tri-X’s aesthetic profile of grab-and-go versatility with conspicuous grain and Kodachrome’s saturated color palette and associations with nature, classical painting, and bourgeois opulence served as valuable resources for filmmakers eager to connect the materiality of their medium to broader cultural spheres. Rather than view Eastman Kodak’s near monopoly as limiting experimental filmmakers’ capacities for expression, this chapter maintains that the avant-garde located in reversal stocks a seemingly inexhaustible supply of possibilities for art making.
A Lab of One’s Own
Authors: Powers John
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines film laboratories, which were central to the artistic and cultural life of the avant-garde, providing opportunities for unconventional collaboration with lab technicians. In labs, specialized processes were performed behind closed doors by technicians according to the filmmaker’s instructions. In experimental film discourse, labs were framed as mystifying and adversarial, frameworks that are tested by Morgan Fisher and J. J. Murphy in films that amplify common lab procedures to erode the boundaries between filmmaker and technician. The chapter concludes with an extended consideration of Stan Brakhage’s, Bruce Baillie’s, and Gunvor Nelson’s uses of multiple-roll printing, a technique used to produce fades and dissolves, as a compositional tool and metaphor for consciousness. This case study describes the process by which the specialized meanings attributed to technology served as currency within the avant-garde, supplying cultural resources to be mined and contested among artists.
The Zelensky Effect at War
Authors: Hale Henry E. , Onuch Olga
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines Zelensky's leadership on and after the launch of Russia's all-out war on February 24, 2022. It begins with a discussion of Zelensky's own Euro-Atlantic orientation and how he brought other Ukrainians around to this position while Russia was gearing up for its major escalation of the war. Putin's views on Ukraine are analyzed, as are his major speeches aimed at justifying it to his people and international audiences. These, the book shows, are deeply misguided and often had a hand in massive mistakes that contributed to Russian failure to achieve its goals in the war. Zelensky proved to be potent in leading Ukraine's resistance both because of who he is (a russophone eastern Ukrainian of just the sort Russia had expected would capitulate) and how he led it (not only through inspirational words and actions and mobilizing the international community, but also by not micromanaging the military effort). Nevertheless, the backbone of Ukraine's resistance, the book shows, is the Ukrainian people themselves and their strong senses of civic national identity and duty. Much of Zelensky's wartime effectiveness reflects his own reflection and amplification of these values.
Politics
Authors: Leslie Jonathan G.
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines how Israel's foreign policy evolved from viewing Iran as a peripheral threat to treating it as a primary strategic challenge. Building upon the history of their relationship examined in Chapter 2, this section analyzes how the conduct and messages of Israel's political leaders and intellectual elites framed Iran as an existential threat to Israel's nationhood. This effort continued, even as Iran made attempts at moving toward internal reform and reengagement in the international arena in the decades after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This chapter uses the public record, namely the particular words of politicians and media reports about the conflict, to assess the threat narrative as it developed in Israel. The composition of this narrative, targeted primarily for Israel's domestic public and for Western international audiences, reveals how Israel's leaders generated support for a conflict with Iran built in larger part upon social and political constructions rather than a realistic threat of annihilation.
Actions
Authors: Leslie Jonathan G.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 4 describes how the revelation of the Iranian nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election as Iran's president in 2005, and the fighting and aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon War, among other consequential developments, transformed Iran's image in Israel from a somewhat obscure and distant nation to an adversary that Israeli citizens could be convinced to fear. To understand the impact of these events, it is essential also to examine how Israeli political and thought leaders used the political process to promote fear and insecurity. Significantly, as the pivotal moments of this period receded, the emergent narrative became one-sided. As Israelis grew more fearful of Iran, Iranians became increasingly disinterested in Israel. This chapter thus details the origins of a disconnect between the perceptions of the two nations, their leaders, and their citizens. The divergence from a shared historical narrative would have fateful consequences for each.
Introduction
Authors: Hamming Tore
Published: May 2023

The introduction explains why this book is important; defines its overall focus, and highlights the paradox that it seeks to explain by asking the question if Sunni Jihadism is on the path of self-destruction. Introducing the issue of intra-Islamic contestation and conflict, it briefly covers the historical fault lines within Islam as a whole and the tensions that existed during the early history of the Sunni Jihadi movement to set the context for the book. Readers are also introduced to the methodology and the vast number of unique sources that comprise the empirical foundation of the book.
Expanding the Caliphate and al-Qaida’s Response
Authors: Hamming Tore
Published: May 2023

This chapter details how the Islamic State's caliphate declaration in June 2014 kickstarted numerous dynamics within the Sunni Jihadi movement. For the newly established caliphate, the priority was to consolidate its territorial control in the Levant and expand its borders to other countries. The latter involved a process of announcing the creation of new provinces in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia in several waves of expansion. For al-Qaida and its allies, the response came in the form of discrediting the Islamic State's caliphate and promoting the Taliban's Islamic Emirate as a counter religio-political authority. The result of these dynamics was a growing polarization that represented a point of no return and impeded any prospect of reconciliation.
The Union of Wealth and Power
Authors: Remington Thomas F.
Published: May 2023

Democracy treats all adult citizens as politically equal. No one voter has more or less voting power than any other. The redistributive implications of democracy explain much of the resistance to democratization. When economic liberalization loosens government restrictions on competition, the successful seek to entrench their economic and political power by allying with ruling politicians who rely on their support. An extreme example of such an alliance arose in post-Soviet Russia following the collapse of the Soviet regime and, in a different way, in China as well. In the United States, a set of wealthy, organized interests, united around an ideology of laissez-faire, gained political influence. The doctrine treating market dominance as a mark of efficiency took hold. Policymakers privatized formerly public goods and services. These policies and institutions have reinforced high and rising economic inequality. The union of wealth and power has progressively eroded the democratic principle of political equality.
The Social Market Economy in Germany
Authors: Remington Thomas F.
Published: May 2023

In Germany, the liberal economic model that replaced the centralized, war-oriented economy of the Third Reich, based on the principles of the “social market economy” and “social partnership,” has led to widely shared prosperity and broad support for democratic values. The system has maintained this model since the end of the war through continuous incremental adaptation. The contributions of Freiburg school ordoliberalism, along with such institutions as collective bargaining, employment-based social insurance, a vigorous antimonopoly policy, and a concern with social justice, have contributed to Germany’s success. An orientation to investment in the productive capacities of the workforce facilitates the sharing of knowledge, in contrast to the more conflictual American system of labor-management relations. Germany does not confuse financial manipulation with the production of value. Germany’s party system has so far kept antidemocratic extremists on the margins.
Jesus the Stranger
Authors: Dusenbury David Lloyd
Published: May 2023

This chapter introduces two modern theories of the political life of Jesus. The first was formulated by Hermann Samuel Reimarus in the 1760s; the second, by Immanuel Kant in the 1790s. Kant's theory is briefly defended. And it is argued, in conclusion, that we must break with a modern tendency--exemplified by Reimarus--to reduce Jesus to his milieus. In the city of his youth (Nazareth), in the tetrarchy to which he legally belonged (Galilee), in the Roman province he visited (Judaea) and in the city where he died (Jerusalem), Jesus seems to have remained--in Friedrich Nietzsche's words--a "strange figure."
Jesus and the Desire to Die
Authors: Dusenbury David Lloyd
Published: May 2023

"Will Jesus kill himself?" This arresting question in the Gospel of John serves to introduce one modern theory of Jesus' death--namely, that he wanted to be put to death. This argument is made, most famously, by the nineteenth-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. However, two eighteenth-century philosophers--Hermann Samuel Reimarus, and Carl Friedrich Bahrdt--formulated their own versions of this theory. In this chapter, these modern theories are introduced--and Immanuel Kant's objections to both Bahrdt and Reimarus are briefly examined.
Jesus and the Horror of Death
Authors: Dusenbury David Lloyd
Published: May 2023

In contrast to modern theories that Jesus sought his death (reviewed in Chapter 4) are ancient theories that he unduly feared death. This chapter introduces one powerful attack on Jesus' behavior in the gospels by a second-century "pagan" philosopher, Celsus. It then briefly examines the criticisms of Celsus' reading of the gospels by a third-century Christian philosopher, Origen. It is concluded that Celsus' open disdain for Jesus seems to have distorted his reading of the gospels. It is finally suggested that Jesus' prayer, on the night before his crucifixion, resembles one of Socrates' sayings shortly before his death.
Jurisdictions and Dramatis Personae
Authors: Dusenbury David Lloyd
Published: May 2023

Before the life of Jesus is retraced within the gospels (in later chapters), it is reasonable to ask: What were the jurisdictions in which he lived? The political geography of the gospels is highly complex. Judaea is a Roman province, but Galilee--the center of Jesus' prophetic life--is a territory which belongs to a Herodian dynast. In this chapter, therefore, the gospels' political geography is sketched. Further, readers are introduced to surviving data on the Roman prefect of Judaea, Pontius Pilate--the Judaean high priest, Joseph Caiaphas--and the Galilean tetrarch, Herod Antipas.
Realpolitik and the Transcendent Kingdom
Authors: Dusenbury David Lloyd
Published: May 2023

This chapter begins to ask what conception of politics is reflected in the sayings of Jesus collected in the gospels. And it is argued that Jesus seems to be, in contemporary terms, a realist. What could this mean? It is shown, for instance, that the political motifs in his parables are typically dark. They involve deception and fraud, cruelty and murder. Furthermore, the judges and monarchs described by Jesus all seem to act according to bleak, Realpolitik motives and calculations. And yet, Jesus seems to renounce such motives and calculations in his sayings about God's "kingdom." This may be because this kingdom is, in some elusive sense, transcendent--or, in the words of John, "not of this world."
The Action in the Temple
Authors: Dusenbury David Lloyd
Published: May 2023

This chapter offers a new reading of one of Jesus' most iconic actions. In all four gospels, he is said to have created a disturbance in the Jerusalem Temple, by interrupting the commerce in one of its outer courtyards. The meaning of this scene, which scholars call his Action in the Temple, is not entirely clear. And it is complicated by the fact that Jesus is said, in all four gospels, to have enjoyed teaching "in the treasury of the Temple." It is reasonable, therefore, to ask: why is Jesus so offended by the presence of coinage in the Temple that he creates a disturbance, and yet, he exhibits a definite liking for that part of the Temple in which Judaeans place their currency into Israel's sacred fisc?
The Incident with the Alabaster Jar
Authors: Dusenbury David Lloyd
Published: May 2023

One of the most scandalous aspects of Jesus' life, in the gospels, is that he is betrayed by one of his inner circle of disciples--by "one of the Twelve." Jesus' Action in the Temple (in chapter 14) marks an incident without which Jerusalem's Temple elites might not have sought to arrest him; yet the gospel-writers nevertheless maintain that the elites' intentions would have come to nothing without the actions of Judas Iscariot. In light of all this, the present chapter asks: Is there an incident in the gospels which might have moved Judas to betray his rabbi, Jesus? The answer which is offered is a scene that can be called, The Incident with the Alabaster Jar. A new reading of this scene--which is found in all four gospels--is offered, and its economic irrationality is stressed.
Jesus the Galilean
Authors: Dusenbury David Lloyd
Published: May 2023

This chapter begins to elucidate the highly complex tradition about Jesus' death which is found in the canonical gospels. One aspect of this tradition which is often overlooked is, simply, this: Jesus is killed outside of his proper jurisdiction. His connection to Nazareth means that he is not a subject of the Roman province of Judaea, but rather, of the Herodian tetrarchy of Galilee. A Roman prefect (Pilate), and a Judaean high priest (Caiaphas), are most visible in the drama of his Passion--yet Jesus' political life is most decisively shaped by a Herodian dynast (Antipas). This chapter, therefore, asks: how is the drama of Jesus' death affected by the fact that he is, in terms of jurisdiction, a Galilean?
Some Salient Approaches to Moore’s Paradox in Belief
Authors: Williams John N.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 7 examines the main accounts offered to date of Moore-paradoxical belief. Among the accounts considered are Hintikka’s epistemic logic approach, Heal’s positive infallibility approach, Sorensen’s commitment to directly opposed belief approach, Shoemaker’s self-intimation approach, Baldwin’s conscious belief approach, Kriegel’s conscious belief approach, Fernández’s extrospective justification approach, de Almeida’s justification approach, and Douven’s probabilistic approach. It is argued that none of these approaches leads to a satisfactory account of Moore-paradoxical belief.
The Knowledge Version in Belief
Authors: Williams John N.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 8 discusses the ostensible Moorean-absurdity of beliefs with the content p & I do not know that p, arguing that such beliefs are not, in fact, generally absurd. Timothy Williamson, Jonathan Sutton, Igor Douven, Alexander Bird, Michael Huemer, and Rodrigo Borges espouse norms of belief that entail that beliefs with the content p & I do not know that p are absurd. The proposed norms are argued to be untenable.
The Self-falsification Account in Belief and Assertion, Rationality, and Absurdity
Authors: Williams John N.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 12 takes up the self-falsification account, according to which Moore-paradoxical beliefs are absurd because if one has such a belief, then it is false. The chapter develops a normative version of the self-falsifying account—according to which one should not form or continue to have a specific belief that you can be reasonably expected to recognize is your very own false belief. To explain the epistemic irrationality of commissive versions of Moore’s paradox, this is combined with a norm of avoiding overtly contradictory beliefs. The account coheres with Mitchell Green’s normative account of absurdity, and is defended against a charge of circularity levelled by Timothy Chan. The chapter closes with an objection to God’s omniscience.
Defining Moore-Paradoxicality
Authors: Williams John N.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 16 argues that there are everyday cases in which rationality requires you, as a non-idealized human thinker, to have inconsistent beliefs while recognizing the inconsistency. This view is defended against objections by Doris Olin and others. Three versions of the preface paradox are considered as candidate cases, including Makinson’s original version of the preface paradox. None of these is free from objection; however, there is a fourth version, Modesty, that supposes that you believe that at least one of your beliefs is false. It is argued that this case escapes all the objections to the other versions, including the objection that given certain closure principles for justified belief, justified inconsistent beliefs saddle you with a pair of justified beliefs that are in explicit contradiction.