bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The anatomy of disease
Authors: Salkeld Dan , Hopkins Skylar , Hayman David
Published: December 2023

During an outbreak, information about the problematic pathogen can be used to rapidly predict and control transmission. The ‘anatomy of disease’ describes a framework for categorizing this information, including pathogen transmission modes (e.g. airborne, vector-borne, vertical transmission from parent to offspring), disease agent type (e.g. bacteria, viruses, parasites), disease outcomes after infection, and how pathogens enter and exit a host. This chapter also covers the timing of within-host processes, including the overlap between periods when the host is infected, infectious, and symptomatic. Finally, the chapter covers many processes that cause individual host or host species to differ in their susceptibility to infection or disease outcomes, ranging from genetics to environmental conditions to host health (e.g. microbiome, malnutrition).
Making simple predictions using models
Authors: Salkeld Dan , Hopkins Skylar , Hayman David
Published: December 2023

All mathematical models are simplifications of complex systems, and the simplifying assumptions that are used affect models’ abilities to describe and predict disease dynamics. Dynamic mathematical models include the SIR compartmental models described in this chapter, which can be deterministic or stochastic. These models can be used to make qualitative or quantitative predictions, depending on the goals of the model. This chapter covers several simple predictions and thresholds that can be gleaned from SIR models, as well as calculations for the basic reproductive number (R0) and the effective reproductive number (Re). Predictions like these can be critical for controlling infectious diseases.
Identifying animal reservoirs during an epidemic
Authors: Salkeld Dan , Hopkins Skylar , Hayman David
Published: December 2023

Identifying the important reservoir host(s) for a given pathogen is complicated; just because a wildlife host species can be infected by a pathogen does not mean that it plays important roles in transmission to other hosts. This chapter uses several case studies to illustrate how careful surveillance programmes, genomic analyses, and experimental manipulation may be used to reveal causal associations and identify reservoir host species. This includes an overview of the Bradford Hill criteria for epidemiologic causal association. The chapter ends with examples of epidemics that were not caused by new spillover events from reservoir hosts, but rather from pathogens with long latent periods that remained dormant before re-emergence.
Climate change and emerging infectious diseases
Authors: Salkeld Dan , Hopkins Skylar , Hayman David
Published: December 2023

Climate change will impact the spatial distributions of hosts, vectors, and pathogens. Sometimes these changes will cause infectious diseases to spread or expand their ranges, whereas other times, pathogen ranges may shrink and pathogens may even become extinct. On this changing planet, some habitats may become too hot or too dry or too wet for particular pathogens, whereas some previously unsuitable habitats may change and facilitate disease transmission. To further complicate matters, it is difficult to unambiguously identify the links between infection disease and climate change. Climate change itself is the consequence of human population growth, land-use change, industrialization, globalization, etc., and thus many of these correlated drivers will impact a given area, potentially synergistically. Furthermore, long-term or baseline climate and disease data are rarely available, making it difficult to compare present-day outbreaks to historical conditions. This chapter includes several case studies where climate change has clearly impacted disease dynamics, as well as several case studies where it is difficult to determine how much of a role climate has played in comparison to other drivers of disease.
Impacts of emerging infectious disease on wildlife populations
Authors: Salkeld Dan , Hopkins Skylar , Hayman David
Published: December 2023

Parasites and pathogens can regulate host populations by affecting birth rates, death rates, and other demographic processes. Therefore, infectious disease dynamics are important for conservation biology, whether host species were endangered before a new pathogen emerged or whether the host species used to be common and is now plagued by a pathogen with persistent reservoirs. However, without long-term surveillance data, these impacts may go undocumented until a pathogen is well established in the host population, complicating control efforts. This chapter describes several emerging infectious diseases and their impacts on wildlife.
Infectious disease control
Authors: Salkeld Dan , Hopkins Skylar , Hayman David
Published: December 2023

For disease control, the best defence is a good offence. There are many ways to prevent pathogens from spreading to new regions or spilling over into new host populations, and though prevention is neither cheap nor easy, it is cheaper and easier than controlling emerging infectious diseases. After pathogen invasion occurs, control interventions usually aim to reduce the effective reproductive rate of the pathogen (Re) to below 1, such that the pathogen will be eliminated over the long term. There are many ways to reduce Re, depending on the disease system, and this chapter organizes interventions using the BEET-IV mnemonic: Barriers, Education, Elimination/Eradication, Treatment, Isolation, and Vaccination. Since it is difficult to apply single interventions at the necessary spatial and temporal scales (e.g. reaching vaccination targets), disease control programmes are often most successful when they combine multiple control strategies.
‘Mecanicall Practises Drawne from the Artes Mathematick’
Authors: Bennett Jim
Published: December 2023

The exploits of the Elizabethan sailor John Davis established his reputation for combining a knowledge of mathematical navigation with the practical skills of an accomplished seaman. In the midst of an active life he wrote an important handbook, The Seamans Secrets, which went through many editions after its publication in 1595. Here he dealt with three types of ‘sailing’, which would now be called plane, Mercator, and great-circle sailing. In examining these and his treatment of finding the times of tides and finding the latitude, we see Davis seeking a working compromise between the understanding he wants to promote and the needs and expectations of men working at sea. The Seaman’s Secrets is a valuable commentary on the dynamic relationship between theory and practice.
What Mathematics for Portuguese Military Engineers?
Authors: Domingues João Caramalho
Published: December 2023

There were no explicit regulations on mathematical curricula for Portuguese military engineering education before the middle of the eighteenth century. But we may try to reconstruct their mathematical content by comparing the few textbooks published with some manuscript lecture notes, the more interesting ones dating from the 1720s and 1730s. These notes (more than printed textbooks) show a rather fuller curriculum, particularly on mathematics, from about 1720 onwards, than in the seventeenth century. This is probably related to the intention of the Chief Engineer, Manuel Azevedo Fortes, of transforming the classes on fortification into military academies, and elevating the status of military engineers.
Mathematics at the Literary and Philosophical Societies
Authors: Hollings Christopher D.
Published: December 2023

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, so-called Literary and Philosophical Societies (‘Lit & Phils’) emerged in many towns and cities across the British Isles. Their goal was to promote the understanding of a range of subjects at the local level, with science, broadly defined, usually being the major focus. The organizers of these societies often professed an interest in all strands of knowledge—including mathematics. In practice, however, the lecture programme of a typical Lit & Phil rarely featured topics that might permit any mathematical content, and where mathematics did appear, it was usually with a strongly practical or educational bias. Nevertheless, there are notable exceptions: the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, for instance, regularly featured lectures on mathematical topics. In this chapter, I offer a preliminary account of the handling of mathematics by a number of Lit & Phils, compare this briefly with the central position occupied by mathematics at meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and reflect on the disciplinary biases of these societies.
Assembling the Scribal Self
Authors: Gulizia Stefano
Published: December 2023

This chapter takes a fresh look at the circle of the Paduan virtuoso and collector Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601) and at his library, which held a prominent place in the European republic of letters. This library offers an ideal opportunity to locate mathematics within the culture of Counter-Reformation Italy and to study the rise and genealogy of the technical expert, seen as distinct from a courtier, during the years of Galileo’s tenure in Padua. The main claim is that early modern archives such as Pinelli’s were instruments of invention as well as formative social spaces. Attention is turned to the materiality of knowledge and information. By combining a reappraisal of key historical actors in Pinelli’s entourage with a new examination of how storing and abridgment helped a ‘mathematization’ of nature, the paper also reevaluates the role of paper technology, lists, and indexical machines.
‘All of this was born on Paper’
Authors: Morel Thomas
Published: December 2023

This chapter presents the mathematical operations involved in metallic mines in the eighteenth century, with the digging of the Deep-George draining tunnel (1771–1800) as its main case study. Named after George III, King of Great Britain and Hanover, this project located in the Hanoverian Harz mountains pioneered an improved, geometrical planning style. The scope of geometry in mining as it was concretely used at the time is described, underlining its legal and technical role as well as its challenges. There is a description of how surveyors designed the long-distance Deep-George tunnel with a previously unknown level of detail. It is argued that this new attitude was enabled by a number of apparently minor technical improvements while relying on an efficient, albeit elementary, set of geometrical methods. A third section shows how geometry was also used to monitor the digging operations over two decades and fine-tune the plans. The final section focuses on contemporary textbooks on mining and geometry, attempting to assess the extent to which the mobilized knowledge was actually taught and disseminated.
The Difficult Relation of Surveyors with Algebra
Authors: Heeffer Albrecht
Published: December 2023

In this chapter, the thesis is proposed that old techniques from Old-Babylonian surveyors survived through oral traditions within the practices of 17th-century engineers and lay surveyors. By means of a case study on a popular Dutch book of the early 17th century it is shown that the author Hans Sybrandt Cardinael shied away from algebraic methods for solving quadratic problems and instead insisted on the use of a cut-and-paste geometry which closely resembles Old-Babylonian problem-solving and Medieval methods for very similar problems. This work, originally published in Dutch, was translated into English and German and went through several editions and thus became a tool for learning for military engineers and lay surveyor all over Europe. It is argued that the explicit insistence on avoiding algebra is not caused by a lack of mathematical knowledge but by a familiarity with and a preference for techniques from a lore of surveying practices. The proposed thesis shines some light on the late 20th-century discussion by historians of mathematics on the term ‘geometrical algebra’.
James Thomson Senior and Mathematics at the Belfast Academical Institution, 1814–1832
Authors: McCartney Mark
Published: December 2023

James Thomson Snr (1786–1849) is perhaps best known as the father of one of the most significant natural philosophers of the nineteen century; Lord Kelvin. Thomson was, however, an important mathematician and mathematical educator in his own right. In Belfast he taught both school and college level mathematics at the Belfast Academical Institution and wrote a number of successful textbooks on arithmetic, calculus, trigonometry, and geography. This chapter focuses on Thomson’s life and work in Belfast over the period 1814–1832, surveying the texts he wrote while there, and giving examples of the standard of mathematical teaching and examining in Belfast at the time.
Method
Authors: Huju Kira
Published: December 2023

Chapter 1 is a theoretical and methodological reflection on how to think more imaginatively and inclusively about global order. It provides a critical reading of both liberal internationalist and postcolonial accounts of global order. It then proposes a set of alternative analytical tools, involving reflexive sociology, critical archival work, a subaltern anti-technocratic sensibility, and autoethnographic interview methods. Drawing on self-critical experiences of fieldwork, it introduces the sensibilities of reflexive sociological thinking and lays the methodological groundwork for a systematic treatment of caste in diplomatic studies and IR. In sociologizing the study of international society, this chapter rethinks questions of membership and belonging in it. It considers how we might think about the emergence and nature of the social order now under challenge and where the ‘cosmopolitan elite’ features in this order.
Pedagogy
Authors: Huju Kira
Published: December 2023

Chapter 5 considers how Indian diplomats are made. It shows how the over seven decades of Indian diplomatic training constitute an ongoing attempt at reproducing, managing, and re-appropriating an ideal cosmopolitan officer—while also analysing the ongoing anxieties around Indian authenticity and subaltern representation. From an earlier postcolonial anxiety about making ‘real’ Indians out of suspiciously worldly elites, Indian diplomatic training now coalesces around the concern that future diplomats may be excessively ‘authentic’ and insufficiently comfortable in the wine-drinking club of elite diplomats. The chapter examines both the official project to instill a certain habitus in diplomatic probationers during mandatory institutional training and the lonely autodidactic attempts by self-professed outsiders—female and lower-caste recruits in particular—to mimic the dominant, supposedly more worldly officers of the Service outside official training hours.
The Digital Revolution
Authors: Balbi Gabriele
Published: December 2023

This book is a short history of the ways in which the digital revolution has been narrated, of the rhetoric, the narratives, and the overt or implied debates that have accompanied it and continue to accompany it today. This volume aims to tell the story of an idea, defined as one of the most powerful ideologies of recent decades: that digitalization constitutes a revolution, a break with the past, a radical change for the human beings who are living through it. The book aims to investigate the origins of this idea, how it evolved, its quasi-religious dimension, which other past revolutions consciously or unconsciously inspired it, which great stories it has conveyed over time, which of its key elements have changed and which ones have persisted and have been repeated in different historical periods. All these discussions, large and small, have settled and been condensed into a series of media, advertising, corporate, political, and technical sources, and so in the book, readers can also find new, previously unpublished historical sources. The main aim of the book is to deconstruct what looks like a “natural” and incontestable idea and to help rethink digital societies today.
Tracing International Legal Change in Genocide Prevention
Authors: Putnam Tonya
Published: December 2023

In the more than seventy years since the International Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide was adopted, nothing in the text has changed. Nevertheless, how states understand the prevention obligations encompassed by the Convention has changed quite dramatically. From initially reinforcing the principle of sovereign non-interference in the absence of external aggression, the Genocide Convention is now widely understood to provide a justification for intervention when foreign governments manifestly fail to protect populations inside their borders from genocide and mass atrocities. A minority of interpreters insist, in addition, that capable states have affirmative duties to take preventive actions in those situations short of the use of military force. This chapter traces these changes, drawing attention to the directed efforts of diverse agents on multiple pathways along with intersecting political and legal developments and agendas.
Resurgent Authoritarianism, Rights, and Legal Change
Authors: Sandholtz Wayne
Published: December 2023

Authoritarian politics and practices are on the upsurge around the globe. This study analyses the paths and processes by which rising authoritarianism might reshape international human rights law. At the international level, authoritarians seek to inhibit international human rights institutions from within. Authoritarian regimes also curtail the domestic accountability mechanisms through which international human rights law can enhance respect for rights. They target three essential categories of rights in order to suppress opposition and retain power: (1) access to independent courts; (2) freedom of expression and the press; and (3) freedom of civil society to organize and participate in public life. However, international human rights norms possess sources of resilience to the extent that they become more fully embedded in a greater variety of domestic contexts.
The Future of the Oceans
Authors: Trevisanut Seline
Published: December 2023

The law which regulates the use of the oceans is one of the oldest branches of international law. It is consequently deeply rooted in traditional understandings of foundational principles, such as sovereignty, territory, and subjectivity. The multiplication of activities and of sea users emphasizes the importance of the legal framework and its tenants by increasingly requiring the law of the sea to interact, in particular, with international environmental law and human rights law. The present chapter compares the law of sea/international environmental law interaction with the law of the sea/human rights law interaction to identify factors and pathways that facilitate or hinder the impact of environmental law and human rights on the law of the sea. The analysis aims to offer tools to better understand how international environmental law and human rights law are shaping the present and future of ocean governance.
Whose International Law is Changing?
Authors: Endres Dorothea
Published: December 2023

The solidification of incremental legal change—ie change not primarily settled by treaty-making or jurisprudence—is a murky process in two ways. First, in the way in which legal change unfolds: a web of interacting participants and elusive institutional structures make it challenging to pin down one clear trajectory of legal change. Secondly—and this partly explains the first difficulty—the way legal change becomes visible for legal practitioners is murky: different communities will have diverging opinions on the degree of solidification of a legal change. In order to pin down the extent to which a legal change has been ‘successful’, it is crucial to look at the practices registering or sidelining legal change. We may find within one issue-area several communities composed of various actors linked together through common practices. Members of divergent communities of practice—whether within the same issue-area or not—will account differently for ‘successful’ legal change.
The Path not Taken
Authors: Venzke Ingo
Published: December 2023

Legal change must be understood in relation to its context. But how? To approach that question, the present contribution builds on studies of law’s contingency—the possibility of alternative legal developments under unchanged circumstances. What was the path not taken? This question advocates for law’s utter contextualization while keeping a critical distance from contexts. It does not stop asking why something happened until it is adequately explained, nor does it deny alternative possibilities. The chapter first situates contingency in thinking about legal developments, placing special emphasis on the travails of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL). Secondly, it expands on claims about law’s relative autonomy, and thirdly, on claims about what would make a difference, even in the long run. What has the potential to be path-breaking? The conclusions circle back to questions of what qualifies as context. Why politics?
The King’s Observator
Authors: Fisher John
Published: December 2023

Astronomers adopted Keplerian as opposed to Galilean optic systems for although they inverted images, they also increased the field of view. More importantly, they allowed the development of telescopic sights and micrometric devices in the common focus. The invention of the pendulum clock allowed the accurate location of celestial objects via right ascension as quadrants did for declination. Charles II appointed an almost unknown provincial John Flamsteed as the King’s Observator, much resented by Robert Hooke who had expected to be appointed. Flamsteed modelled himself on Tycho Brahe, as a hard working astronomer-mathematicus, whereas Hooke proposed new ideas and introduced untried technologies. Flamsteed’s lack of concern about the acquisition of patronage and his distancing from the Royal Society left him politically exposed during his conflict with Isaac Newton. Under Flamsteed’s incumbency, the Royal Observatory was generally neglected whereas the rival Paris Observatory was given every support required.
An Ingenious Young Man
Authors: Fisher John
Published: December 2023

Bradley was introduced to astronomy in 1711 in Wanstead, soon becoming Pound’s observational partner when they often worked for Newton and Halley. Bradley’s skills were soon noted by Halley; he was employed to observe Jupiter and its satellites in order to determine the longitude and discovered the gravitational resonances between the inner three satellites. His skills were recognized by Newton. In 1717 Bradley contracted smallpox and was isolated and nursed before he recovered. Bradley was ordained a deacon and then a priest in the Church of England in 1719. He was elected as the Savilian Professor of Astronomy in 1721 by a London-based Whig power base, much resented by many Oxford-based Tories, and relinquished all Church livings as required by the office.
The Triumph of Themistocles
Authors: Fisher John
Published: December 2023

Bradley first revealed his observations of the nutation of the Earth’s axis to Maupertuis in 1737, after observing it at Wanstead since 1727. He published his paper on the nutation in 1748 after he had observed the phenomenon through a complete retrogression of the nodes of the lunar orbit around the Earth. By eighteenth century standards the phenomenon, followed via the senses was infinitesimal, so much so that Edmond Halley, Bradley’s mentor, never accepted that such highly precise observations were possible. The Newtonian approach to making new knowledge claims based on observation and experiment was more successful than the Cartesian approach to knowledge claims based on first principles. It was the precision of George Graham’s instruments that made the discovery of nutation possible.
Framing the Anti-vax Protests
Authors: della Porta Donatella
Published: December 2023

The chapter addresses collective framing by anti-vax organizations and activists. The analysis of the framing processes in the Italian anti-vax campaigns identifies the diagnostic frame in the expansion of the powers of a (hidden) elite through various global plots aimed at exercising total control over citizens. The prognostic solution is the defence of (assumed) previously existing liberties, primarily related with freedom, defined in a negative sense as the primacy of individual choice over the collective good. Oppositional frames targeted what was seen as a large global conspiracy, carried out by politicians, corporations, and Big Pharma, which aimed at establishing a sanitary dictatorship. The identity-framing involved a call for individual freedoms, which were considered as being jeopardized by an international elite of politicians, scientists, and journalists with the intention of imposing a global order, pointing to the resistance of a persecuted population of enlightened and critical individuals fighting against a powerful global elite, supported by loyal serfs (such as journalists and experts) and a mass of vaccinated ‘zombies’. As the comparison with the German and Greek cases confirms, different strands present at the beginning of the mobilization tend to be bridged through the spreading of conspiracy thinking.
Anti-vax Protests and Social Movement Studies
Authors: della Porta Donatella
Published: December 2023

The concluding chapter first aims to summarize some of the main empirical results on the repertoires of action, organizational models, and collective frames in the anti-vax protests, initially in Italy and then from a comparative perspective with other case studies. Furthermore, it connects some main characteristics of regressive movements to general and country-specific opportunities and challenges for anti-vax protests as well as their expected societal impacts. In doing this, it locates the empirical results within general reflections on the effects of emergency critical junctures, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, on contentious politics with particular attention to the transformative role of protests, i.e. their capacity to trigger new forms of action, organizational models, and collective framing. The final section reflects on the sectarian evolution of anti-vax protests fuelled by vicious cycles as well as their potential consequences.
Seeking Isotopy
Authors: Simon Steven H.
Published: December 2023

The diagram algebras that we have developed are closely related to knot invariants. To make this connection we want the algebras to be “isotopy invariant”, menaing that the diagrams can be freely deformed as long as strands are not cut. To achieve this we change the diagram normalization to use so-called “Isotopy Normalization”, where a particle loop is weighted by the quantum dimension. This almost achieves isotopy invariance of certain diagrams, except for a possible sign known as the Frobenius-Schur indicator. We carefully discuss this sign, its origin, physical meaning, and how one nonetheless achieves isotopy invariant diagrams. Having handled this sign, we achieve what essentially amounts to a knot invariant — an isotopy invariant mapping from a labeled knot or link diagram to a complex number output. Even given this success it may still be the case that diagrams with branching may incur phases from deforming an up-branching to a down-branching. We briefly discuss other properties of unitary fusion categories including the spherical and pivotal properties.
Some Simple Examples
Authors: Simon Steven H.
Published: December 2023

We explicitly work out the details of some simple examples anyon theories. We start with a fusion ring and using consistency conditions we build F-matrices, then the possible braidings (R-matrices). We consider Z2 fusion rules, Fibonacci fusion rules and Z3 fusion rules as simple cases. We consider Ising fusion rules, obtaining eight possible (modular) unitary braided theories. We then describe several more abelian theories, including the toric code, and general ZN anyons. These can be extended to describe all possible abelian braided theories in terms of a limited number of so-called “prime” theories.
Anyons From Discrete Group Elements
Authors: Simon Steven H.
Published: December 2023

Given a discrete group, we consider planar diagrams where each edge is labeled with an element of the group, and vertices must obey the rule that multiplication of the edges incident on the vertex (in order) must yield the identity. The possible F-matrices for such a diagram are discussed and are known as 3-cocycles from the formalism of group cohomology. We discuss a simple example of building anyons from the ZN group. Noncommutative groups can be considered although they cannot describe a braided theory.
Introducing Quantum Error Correction
Authors: Simon Steven H.
Published: December 2023

We briefly introduce some basic ideas of information and quantum information. We start by comparing a classical memory with a quantum memory. Simple repetition codes can protect classical memories from error and we introduce the idea of a code space, physical bits, and logical bits. However, the quantum no-cloning theorem prevents a straightforward generalization to the quantum case. Nonetheless quantum error correction is indeed possible. We show the 9 qubit Shor code as an example.
Levin–Wen String-Net
Authors: Simon Steven H.
Published: December 2023

The Levin-Wen model is a general construction that uses an input planar diagram algebra to construct a Hamiltonian with a topologically ordered ground state (the Drinfeld double of the input category). The ground state (code) space consists of a sum over all diagrams weighted by the evaluation of the diagram. We work through the example of the doubled Fibonacci model. Here the input category is the Fibonacci fusion rules and F-matrices. We work with continuum diagrams and construct the full tube algebra of the model. We identify the quasiparticle types to include both left- and right-handed Fibonacci anyons. In the case that the input category admits a modular braiding, much of the analyis simplifies and the output is two copies of the input category of opposite chiralities (both left- and right-handed). We finally turn to the construction of the explicit Hamiltonian on the lattice, and construction of quasiparticle string (or ribbon) operators. We return to the reconsider the toric code and doubled semion models as simple examples.
Anyon-Permuting Symmetry
Authors: Simon Steven H.
Published: December 2023

A theory with anyon permuting symmetry is unchanged under permutation of the names of the particle types. The toric code is an example of a theory with such a symmetry. The toric code, and all theories with such symmetries can be viewed as arising as a condensation of anyons from some more complicated parent theory. Given that such a symmetry exists, we consider defects of this symmetry which generalize the mathematical structure of the TQFT to a so-called G-crossed extension. To clarify how this works we use a particularly tranparent example of the toric code where the symmetry of particle types is reduced to a lattice symmetry, and the defects correspond to dislocations in the lattice. It can be shown that these defects harbor Majorana zero modes. We discuss the general structure of a parent theory condensing via a G-crossed theory to a theory with permutation symmetry. Finally we mention theories with both on-site symmetries and anyons, which are known as symmetry enriched topological phases.
Cameral Structures
Authors: Martin Shane , Strøm Kaare W.
Published: December 2023

To help us understand better the challenges of legislative capacity and accountability within the three ideal-typical models of legislative assemblies developed in Chapter 1 (the members’ assembly, the leaders’ assembly, and the voters’ assembly), this chapter focuses on the number of assembly chambers in the legislative. A legislative assembly’s cameral structure describes the number of chambers in the legislature and, in the case of a legislature with two or more chambers, the similarities and differences between the chambers. This chapter explores the design of cameral structures from the perspectives of voters, members and leaders. Of the legislative assemblies included in our study, 33 have two chambers while 35 have just one chamber. Yet bicameral constitutions are not all the same, and rather than treating unicameralism and bicameralism as binary categories, it often makes more sense to think of different degrees of cameral differentiation. The chapter discusses variation in cameral structures with a focus on how members of second chambers are selected and what legislative powers they have. It thus becomes possible to speak of strong versus weak bicameralism according to the division of power between the chambers and their respective modes of selection.
Parties in the Assembly
Authors: Martin Shane , Strøm Kaare W.
Published: December 2023

To help us understand better the challenges of legislative capacity and accountability within the three ideal-typical models of legislative assemblies developed in Chapter 1 (the members’ assembly, the leaders’ assembly, and the voters’ assembly), this chapter focuses on political parties within the legislative arena. Specifically, this chapter explores how legislative parties organize and how party leaders shape and perhaps even control what members do. Indeed, the role and functioning of political parties, and the hierarchies they create, are central to our notion of a leaders’ assembly. Parties do many things, but most importantly they provide a critical hierarchical structure in legislative assemblies. And parliamentary party organizations are most important vehicle by which leaders and members interact. A core theme in this chapter is the degree to which parties, and in particular party leaders, control members and thus encroach on the relationship between voters and members. The level of control plays a central role in determining the type into which the legislature falls: a voters’, members’ or leaders’ assembly. We can usefully think of most democratically elected legislators as having two principals: their respective voters and their party leaders. Legislators may need to balance their responsiveness to voters with following the call of their respective parties. In many situations, serving their party may come at a cost to their constituents, and vice versa.
Lawmaking
Authors: Martin Shane , Strøm Kaare W.
Published: December 2023

To help us understand better the challenges of legislative capacity and accountability within the three ideal-typical models of legislative assemblies developed in Chapter 1 (the members’ assembly, the leaders’ assembly, and the voters’ assembly), this chapter focuses on lawmaking and in particular on where power resides in this process. By definition, a legislative assembly is one that makes laws, and by almost universal accord, lawmaking is a central function of any legislative assembly. Our chapter explores variation in the authority and capacity of legislative assemblies to make laws. This legislative capacity of legislative assemblies may vary along several dimensions. One has to do with the laws and regulations that empower particular office-holders or institutions to introduce legislative bills (proposed pieces of legislation). In that context, we also consider rules that allow leaders to preclude potential bills from consideration, also known as gate-keeping power. Such rules are particularly relevant to the power of legislative leaders, or individual members, to control their respective assemblies. Given our interest in legislative assemblies as vehicles of citizen representation, we also examine different ways in which ordinary citizens can put their own proposals on the assembly’s agenda. It may even be the case that laws (e.g., decrees) can be made without the prior consent and deliberation of the legislative assembly.
The Elective Function
Authors: Martin Shane , Strøm Kaare W.
Published: December 2023

To help us understand better the challenges of legislative capacity and accountability within the three ideal-typical models of legislative assemblies developed in Chapter 1 (the members’ assembly, the leaders’ assembly, and the voters’ assembly), this chapter focuses on the role of the legislative assembly in selecting the government and other important office holders. By government we mean the political executive and specifically the members of the cabinet and the person identifiable as the head of government. In some political systems, the national legislature plays a key role in determining which individuals and parties comprise the government and for how long. In other systems, legislatures are less involved in selecting or removing the chief political executive, but may nevertheless play some role in executive appointments. Legislative assemblies commonly also have other elective functions, typically concerning high government offices not directly accountable to the cabinet, in the judicial branch, or in government enterprises. In this chapter, we focus on two such offices: the head of the highest court in the judiciary (or the constitutional court, where such courts exist) and the governor of the central bank. The elective functions of a national assembly depend in the first instance on whether the political regime is parliamentary, presidential, or some mix of these. Indeed, it is largely for this reason that one of the most fundamental constitutional decisions facing any country is whether to adopt a parliamentary form of government, a presidential one, or some mix of the two.
Legislative Assembly Types
Authors: Martin Shane , Strøm Kaare W.
Published: December 2023

Our aim in this chapter is to measure more comprehensively the extent to which real-world legislative assemblies in the world’s major democracies correspond to the three ideal types we laid out at the outset. In other words, we want to understand to what degree each assembly resembles our ideal types of a members’ assembly, a leaders’ assembly, or a voters’ assembly, and the degree to which these different ideal types overlap in the real world. We identify the essential empirical features that we expect each ideal type to exhibit and use these to assess the fit between our theory and typologies on the one hand and real-world assemblies on the other. To do this, the chapter constructs an index for each ideal type of legislative assemblies. This chapter begins by exploring the rationales and rules we set for constructing these indices. We then introduce the component parts of each index as well as the placement of each of our 68 assemblies on each scale.
Democratic Assemblies and Contemporary Challenges
Authors: Martin Shane , Strøm Kaare W.
Published: December 2023

In this concluding chapter we discuss the circumstances that might lead legislative assemblies to resemble one or the other of the three ideal types we presented at the beginning of the volume: a Members’ assembly, a Leaders’ assembly, or a Voters’ assembly. We also discuss the place of legislative assemblies in autocratic societies, exploring the notion of a Dictator’s assembly. The chapter discusses paths that might lead democratic assemblies to transition into non-democratic ones. We conclude by exploring the prospects for democratic legislative assemblies in the contemporary world, including the need to function and meet capacity and accountability challenges in an ever-changing world.
Muddy Waters
Authors: Bourne Angela K.
Published: December 2023

Chapter 1, Muddy Waters: Populism and Democratic Defence explores the complex political context in which opposition to populist parties in Europe takes place. It discusses contested conceptions of populism, charts the rise of populist parties in Europe, discusses debates about populism and democracy and links between populism and ‘democratic backsliding’. The chapter argues that opponents to populist parties swim in ‘muddy waters’, especially compared with extremist opponents typically taking less ambiguous positions on the value of democracy. Opposing populist parties in the name of democratic defence is complicated by the attractiveness of appeals to popular sovereignty, the electoral success of populist parties in democratic elections, and by the fact that populist parties may mobilize genuine popular grievances. Opponents are therefore likely to enter a political minefield requiring constant reflection on taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of democracy and to confront rival claims about who has the democratic high ground.
Manipulation of Voter and Party Choice
Authors: Bourne Angela K.
Published: December 2023

Chapter 3, Manipulation of Voter and Party Choice examines how initiatives opposing populist parties (IoPPs) may affect populist parties by reducing or increasing their support, diminishing or boosting their resources, inducing moderation or radicalization, and/or curbing their ability to implement illiberal or anti-democratic policies. IoPPs such as ostracism, coopting populist policies, inviting populist parties into government, and international sanctions targeting powerful supporters or core constituents, may reduce incentives to vote for, join, or retain membership of a populist party. Populist parties that want to win back voters or become more ‘coalitionable’ may have incentives to moderate. On the other hand, populist parties entering government may alienate voters won over by their anti-establishment appeals and face ‘costs of incumbency’. Polarizing IoPPs may increase support for populist parties by reinforcing anti-establishment critiques or boost the resources of unified or highly committed memberships. Data on a wide range of European populist parties illustrate these processes.
Leverage, International Sanctions, and Disruption
Authors: Bourne Angela K.
Published: December 2023

Chapter 5, Leverage, International Sanctions, and Disruption examines how initiatives opposing populist parties (IoPPs) may affect populist parties by reducing or increasing their support, diminishing or boosting their resources, inducing moderation or radicalization, and/or curbing their ability to implement illiberal or anti-democratic policies. Leverage works by mobilizing mutual interdependence. International sanctions, like EU Article 7 voting sanctions, and EU rule of law budget sanctions (used against Hungary), may, under certain conditions, allow states to pressure governing populist parties to curb illiberal or anti-democratic policies. Similarly, civil society actors may exploit dependence of public authorities on citizen consent and political stability by using disruptive protesters to block populist government policies or even force them from power. Alternatively, international interventions may strengthen targeted parties which ‘rally around the flag’. Examples of EU initiatives targeting populist-led governments in Poland and Hungary and civil society protests against these and other populist party-led governments illustrate these processes.
Right-Wing Challenges to Cosmopolitan Memory in Western Europe
Authors: Yoder Jennifer A.
Published: December 2023

This chapter examines four cases of memory distortion masked as patriotism and “setting the record straight” in Western Europe. The focus is on contestation of memory of three wartime events: the bombing of Dresden in February 1945, the liberation of northern Italy from Nazi control in April 1945, and the roundup of Jews in Paris by French authorities in July of 1942. The examination also includes a controversial commemoration not centered on a single event but rather on a specific group: Austrian war veterans, including combat units in Nazi Germany’s army. All four commemorations have been targeted by groups that wish to diminish the importance of Holocaust-centered memory and that seek to whitewash the fascist or collaborationist past. Memory manipulations by far-right actors often contain an explicit electoral challenge to ruling parties and mainstream governments and an implicit challenge to liberal democratic values.
August 23, 1939
Authors: Yoder Jennifer A.
Published: December 2023

This chapter explores the construction of memory and memory eruptions around August 23, 1939, the date the Soviet Union and Germany signed a non-aggression agreement known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Baltic countries first revived the memory of August 23 in the early 1990s; the bitter memory of the pact’s devastating impacts on their sovereignty has become central not only to their commemorative calendars but also to the broader post-communist Eastern European memory. During the first decade of the new millennium, the new post-communist members of the European Union lobbied to place August 23 at the center of European memory of the war. In reaction to developments in Eastern European memory, Russian President Vladimir Putin reinterpreted the Pact, using deflection, disinformation, and distortion to construct a particular historical narrative inside Russia. That, in turn, provoked anger and fear in Eastern Europe.
Reflexive Practitioners? A Qualitative Assessment
Authors: Weinberg James
Published: December 2023

This chapter takes a deep dive into qualitative data gathered through in-depth interviews with 51 national politicians about (a) how they understand trust, (b) the saliency of trust in their occupational lives, and finally (c) their perceptions of general public trust in politics at a time of immense upheaval: the Covid-19 pandemic. This initial assessment of how politicians interpret trust is an intuitive precursor to subsequent efforts at establishing how they see themselves as trustees. In other words, what are the benchmarks against which they might judge their trustworthiness in the eyes of the public they serve? For most politicians, trust equates with trustworthiness and can be assessed in terms of an individual’s competence, benevolence, and integrity in political office.
A Typology of Political Trustees
Authors: Weinberg James
Published: December 2023

Chapter 3 considers how politicians might vary in their trust perceptions and with what consequences. Focusing on behaviours and leadership styles that relate to contemporary concerns about the health of democracy, the first half of the chapter outlines six hypothetical trustee ‘types’ that might arise from varying combinations of felt trust, distrust, and mistrust. The second half of the chapter presents cluster analysis of politicians’ responses to survey measures of the felt trust concepts. This analysis throws up three core groups of politicians that are identified as ‘conceited’, ‘sanguine’, and ‘faltering’ trustees. These categories help to make sense of when and why the trust gap in politics might be smaller or wider, and they provide an umbrella typology under which theoretical schemas of representation, such as the one offered in the first half of the chapter, might be developed further.
Under Pressure? The Link between Politicians’ Trust Perceptions and Behaviour in Office
Authors: Weinberg James
Published: December 2023

Adding precision to broader causal propositions offered earlier in the book, this chapter details a linking mechanism, built around the concept of risk, that may connect politicians’ trust perceptions with behavioural choices in office. In essence, the felt trust concepts may act as heuristics that help politicians to make decisions in situations of uncertainty or, more specifically, situations entailing risk in either the policy or electoral domain of their job. As an example, this logic is used to explain when and why politicians might engage in blame avoidance behaviours, and subsequent hypotheses are then tested using survey experiments fielded to hundreds of locally elected politicians in the UK.