bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On the Form and Justification of Some Private Law Rights, Liberties, and Powers
Authors: Essert Christopher
Published: September 2024

In this chapter I investigate the form and justification of private law rights, liberties, and powers, with particular attention to similarities and differences across the distinctions between some departments of private law. In contrast to a popular reductive account of private law relations on which these incidents are disconnected, each to be understood and justified in its own terms, I suggest a way of thinking about them as different aspects of the law’s realization of certain abstract moral ideas. This understanding discloses the deep and pervasive connections that the incidents have to each other within the context of particular relations as well as, more interstitially, across and between the departments of private law.
Private Law’s Choice of Private Law
Authors: Gold Andrew S.
Published: September 2024

Interstitial private law helps separate private law fields one from another (e.g., tort, contract, fiduciary law) while determining which field should prevail in cases of overlap. This chapter will argue that the resulting differentiation of legal fields is valuable for multiple reasons. One major consequence is that these fields are more modular, and this modularity cuts down on delineation costs and information costs. Yet we have reason to care about a field’s modularity even if our primary concern is not with economic benefits. This is not just because handling complexity can help with other goals, such as advancing the rule of law or providing corrective justice more effectively. It is also because modular structures, at both mid-level and micro-level, can help contribute to the existence and meaning of special relationships that the law helps constitute.
General Customs and Legal Institutions
Authors: Rose Carol M.
Published: September 2024

This chapter explores the relationship of general customs to the law, using the example of the widespread use of racial real estate covenants to discriminate against minority residents in the United States. For several decades in the first half of the twentieth century, the private law of property covenants combined with evolving real estate practices to produce an emerging customary pattern of residential discrimination. At mid-century, however, racial covenants were ruled constitutionally unenforceable. This brief history illustrates the ways in which law and custom can mutually and dynamically reinforce each other, but it also shows that law and custom may diverge as a customary practice and becomes so widespread as to draw scrutiny. Moreover, it illustrates that once in place, a customary practice can long outlive its legal supports, as has been the case—unfortunately—with the only gradually diminishing pattern of residential segregation in American metropolitan areas.
Expropriation and Nationalization
Authors: Ruzza Alice
Published: September 2024

The law of expropriation and nationalization in times of peace developed in consonance with the evolution of the status of → aliens in the host State. Until the 18th century, varying rules and standards applied to aliens in host States (→ History of International Law, Ancient Times to 1648; → History of International Law, 1648 to 1815); progressively, however, protection was afforded to foreigners and their property, and in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century various treaties incorporated the principle of equal protection of alien property (→ Hague Peace Conferences [1899 and 1907]; → History of International Law, 1815 to World War I). Judicial pronouncements also recognized such protection under → customary international law (→ German Interests in Polish Upper Silesia Cases; → Norwegian Shipowners’ Claims Arbitration), paving the way for the emergence of the concept of international → minimum standards of treatment.
International Law, Regional Developments: Africa
Authors: Mensah Thomas A
Published: September 2024

Major developments in international law in Africa have occurred in three main areas, namely: regional and sub-regional integration; the law for the promotion and protection of → human rights; and the enhancement of the judicial process in → international criminal law. In all these areas progress has been made in the adoption of conventions and agreements and the establishment of institutions at the continental and regional levels or by individual governments.
Solidarity Rights (Development, Peace, Environment, Humanitarian Assistance)
Authors: Minnerop Petra , Roht-Arriaza Naomi , Aminzadeh Sara C
Published: September 2024

Karel Vasak coined the term ‘solidarity rights’ in an article written for the UNESCO Courier in 1977. He suggested that after the international recognition of → human rights of the so-called ‘first generation’, ie civil and political rights in the traditional sense and following the acknowledgement of human rights of the ‘second generation’, ie economic and social rights it was time to recognize the specific needs of the new States emerging from the process of → decolonization and of the total → interdependence of all States in the contemporary world by establishing rights embodying the solidarity of the → international community.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Authors: Schoiswohl Michael
Published: September 2024

The United Nations Development Programme (‘UNDP’) is a programme and fund of the → United Nations (UN) established in 1965 by and under the authority of the UN General Assembly (‘UNGA’). Headquartered at the UN in New York, it operates as the UN’s development network with activities in about 170 countries and territories and a workforce of about 7,000 staff, along with 10,000 service contractors and United Nations Volunteers. Stressing the linkage between peace and development, the → United Nations Charter tasks the UN to promote ‘higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development’ (Art. 55 UN Charter).
Proving International Crimes
Authors: McDermott Yvonne
Published: September 2024

Proving International Crimes elucidates how international criminal tribunals have tackled the immense and complex task of proving international crimes such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The challenges posed by the scale and scope of these crimes and the distance in time and space between their commission and their prosecution are well known. Nevertheless, investigators, lawyers, scholars, and policy makers often look to the law and practice of international criminal tribunals to establish what standards need to be met in the collection, preservation, presentation, and analysis of evidence to prove international crimes. In providing a comprehensive account of the law and practice of evidence before international criminal courts and tribunals to date, as well as recommendations for future practice, this book aims to inform domestic, regional, and international accountability processes for atrocity crimes going forward. This book demonstrates that, as a consequence of the flexibility built in to the legal and procedural frameworks of international criminal courts and tribunals, the law of international criminal evidence is currently unpredictable and uncertain. To this end, it argues for the development of a coherent epistemic framework driven by two guiding principles: rectitude of decision and the highest standards of fairness.
The Burden of Proof and Standards of Proof
Authors: McDermott Yvonne
Published: September 2024

This chapter assesses the meaning of the burden of proof and the interpretation of the presumption of innocence in international criminal trials. It also analyses the ‘no case to answer’ or ‘decision on a motion for a judgment of acquittal’ procedure as a function of the presumption of innocence, and how Trial Chambers have interpreted the requisite standard of proof for such motions. It also analyses the varying standards of proof applicable at different stages in proceedings, with a particular focus on the law and practice of the International Criminal Court and the three standards of proof that apply therein: reasonable grounds to believe; substantial grounds to believe; and proof beyond reasonable doubt. This chapter concludes by assessing an argument that has recently gained traction in the scholarly literature, which is that the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ standard of proof for conviction is too taxing and should be lowered. It argues against such a move, in light of the central tenets of rectitude of decision and the highest standards of fairness, as outlined in Chapter 2.
Weighing the Evidence as a Whole
Authors: McDermott Yvonne
Published: September 2024

This chapter analyses how the entire record of evidence is assessed by the Trial Chamber in determining whether the prosecution has proven the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, an issue that has been subject to intensive judicial debate. It begins with an argument that fact-finding in international criminal trials is, by nature, a probabilistic exercise, because evidence is invariably incomplete, rarely conclusive, often ambiguous, frequently dissonant, and always with varying degrees of credibility and reliability. There will never be one clear and unambiguous conclusion, so it falls to judges to determine whether guilt has been proven to the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, which requires a high degree of probability. The chapter then examines the tribunals’ stated approaches to the evaluation of evidence, explaining that the debate between ‘atomistic’ and ‘holistic’ approaches may mask the real division between judicial approaches to the evaluation of evidence—that is, how much detail the Chamber needs to provide on precisely which evidence led it to establish which finding of fact or to find that a particular fact had not been proven. Lastly, it examines how formal logic and tools developed from argumentation theory and decision science may assist judges in evaluating the evidence and articulating their findings. It addresses some likely scepticisms around such an approach.
Lottocracy
Authors: Guerrero Alexander
Published: September 2024

Democracy is in trouble. But there is disagreement about what is going wrong and what we should do about it. Lottocracy argues that, perhaps surprisingly, the problem is with the heart of modern democracy: the election. Elections are failing as accountability mechanisms. Elections provide powerful short-term incentives, leading elected politicians to downplay long-term catastrophic concerns. Elections create divisions where none need exist. The most powerful among us take advantage of this to control who is elected, what policies are enacted, and which problems are ignored. Policy complexity, citizen ignorance, elite capture and manipulation, algorithmically reinforced echo chambers, intensifying partisan division and distrust, and the dissolution of political community combine to render modern electoral democracies incapable of helping us solve the urgent problems we face. What should we do? This book takes seriously the possibility that although electoral democracy has been better than all systems that have been tried, the basic mechanism at its core—the election—is broken, and unworkable under modern political conditions. But this book moves past the Churchillian shrug (“worst, except for all the others”), introducing a new form of democracy: lottocracy. Lottocratic systems include many new elements, but the most striking is the shift from using elected representatives to using representatives selected through lottery. The book introduces and discusses lottocratic systems, their potential advantages, and potential concerns. It also engages foundational philosophical questions, considering how rights of political participation, political equality, political power, considerations of accountability and legitimacy, and the nature of democracy itself are illuminated and reconfigured once we move past the electoral representative framework.
Ignorance and the Voter Influence Dilemma
Authors: Guerrero Alexander
Published: September 2024

This chapter focuses on a problem for electoral democracy due to the large size and scale of modern political communities: ignorance and the voter influence dilemma. The large scale of political communities increases the complexity of political problems, the complexity of the institutions and policies required to address those problems, and the division of labor—epistemic and otherwise—that comes with living in a political community of that size. Furthermore, in large political communities, individuals make a very small difference to electoral outcomes, and they know this. The size also means that people do not know each other personally. Accordingly, this scale and size create an additional background condition: broad citizen ignorance about facts relevant to politics and to solving moral-political problems that arise in those communities. This gives rise to a dilemma for electoral representative democracy. Either (a) the elected representatives are responsive to the views of the citizens or (b) they are not. If (a), then we should expect poor performance along both epistemic and agential dimensions, as representatives follow us, the ignorant, as we wander in darkness. The chapter considers two theories—information shortcut theory and retrospective voting theory—that offer a sunnier picture, but argues that neither is plausible given the empirical evidence. If (b), then the mechanism of electoral accountability has broken down, and we will see capture of elected officials by the powerful, along with attendant distortions in the political sensibility of electoral institutions. The available evidence seems to suggest this is our situation.
Short-Term Bias
Authors: Guerrero Alexander
Published: September 2024

This chapter describes the way in which elections create a short-term bias, and the implications of that bias for the sensibility of electoral political systems. Elections lead elected officials to focus on the near term—on those problems that they can get immediate credit for addressing, or which they will be blamed for not addressing before the next election. Given that the urgency of political problems is not simply a function of their near-term proximity, this fact about elections has significant consequences for the moral-political problem-solving capacity of electoral representative government. It affects which problems get attention and are the focus of political action. But it also leads to significant epistemic distortion in what voters and elected representatives come to believe about the problems that we face. This concern about short-term bias can be seen to affect political response to many political problems, with climate change providing a particularly clear example.
How will we win
Authors: Kowol Kit
Published: September 2024

The chapter examines how military strategy and domestic politics were linked during the war. It begins with a historical view of the two dominant approaches to military strategy in Britain during the Edwardian period; liberal militarism, focussed on small, professional, high-tech forces and a ‘nation in arms’ approach that called for the creation of mass Continental-style armies. It outlines how both Neville Chamberlain and later Winston Churchill continued the tradition of liberal militarism. The chapter then describes the alternative ‘People’s War’ strategy advocated by some socialists, including George Orwell, during the war. This argued for the creation of a mass democratic citizens army and the liberation of colonial subjects. After describing Conservative critiques of this strategy, the chapter turns to the different emphasis groups of Conservatives placed on tanks, bombers, and naval warfare as the key to Britain’s military success and the ideological and political reasoning behind their preferences.
We will win
Authors: Kowol Kit
Published: September 2024

The chapter examines the end of Churchill’s all-party Coalition and the Conservative campaign during the 1945 general election. Issues examined include the intellectual background behind Churchill’s call for a referendum on continuing the Coalition, links between the 1945 campaign and those of 1931 and 1935, Churchill’s Gestapo speech, the Laski controversy, and the Labour Party’s success in portraying itself as the ‘national’ party.
The “Happy Thirties?”
Authors: Navarro Jaume
Published: September 2024

After the first uneventful presidency of William Henry Bragg (1922–31), Robert Millikan’s election to the General Assembly (GA) in 1931 promised to introduce some momentum to the union. But the Great Depression shattered all plans, especially the proposed next GA and major international conference in physics due to take place in Chicago in 1933 during the “Century of Progress International Exposition.” The lack of funds watered down that meeting, after which there was a general feeling that “the Union might disintegrate if it did not hold a meeting which would demonstrate that it had both vitality and a real work to perform.” And yet, Millikan’s presidency was not only an attempt to keep the union alive in spite of economic and political turmoil, but also to use it as an opportunity to promote American physics on the international stage.
The Role of IUPAP in Shaping Metrological Practice
Authors: Doran Connemara
Published: September 2024

This chapter addresses the central role played by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Commission on Symbols, Units, and Nomenclature (SUN, later known as Commission C2) in the development of international standards, in coordination with the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM). The chapter examines the roles of physicists with leadership positions in Commission C2 who furthered international collaboration on the development precision metrology by using light as an instrument for measuring distance and time. In turn, these novel techniques of precision measurement led to redefinitions of fundamental units. Commission C2 shaped metrological practice through international negotiations to redefine units and standards, through international conferences organized or facilitated by IUPAP, and through bringing early career scholars from different countries into contact with leading metrological researchers. Metrological techniques and instruments discussed in the chapter include interferometry, the maser, and atomic clocks.
IUPAP, Cooperative Antagonism, and the GDR
Authors: Olšáková Doubravka
Published: September 2024

The German Democratic Republic (GDR) case and the role of East German scientists in the international community shed new light on issues such as political and non-political discrimination or the free movement of scientists. The paper discusses the East and West German organization of the physical sciences in a divided Germany. Political tensions, the Hallstein Doctrine (1955), or the erection of the Berlin Wall (1961), complicated cooperation between German physicists and led to their separation. The initial efforts of the GDR to gain international recognition in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) were unsuccessful. The paper shows how negotiations took place following the adoption of the ICSU Resolution on Political Non-Discrimination, which provided crucial support for the GDR’s quest for recognition. While the international relations and policies of UNESCO members shaped the formal processes leading to the recognition of the GDR in UNESCO, the acceptance of the GDR in the ICSU and IUPAP reveals the functioning of cooperative antagonism.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and (N)MRI
Authors: Satija Indubala I.
Published: September 2024

This chapter describes discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and how it leads to the invention of MRI. There is a discussion of spin echo and its role in measuring relaxation times that distinguish cancerous and normal cells. In addition to discussing various Nobel laureates, chapter also dwells on tales of missed Nobel Prizes such as those of Cornelis Gorter, Etwin Hahn, and Raymond Damadian. Hitler’s action led to a brain drain of some of the finest intellectual minds, who then enriched America with scientists who would contribute enormously to its postwar leadership in all branches of science. These include scientists who won Nobel Prizes and whose foundational contributions to quantum science led to MRI
A Prelude to Quantum Computing
Authors: Satija Indubala I.
Published: September 2024

This short snapshot to quantum computing provides a historical perspective on one of the most vibrant and active frontiers in quantum science that can potentially transform our civilization with second quantum revolution. To whet the appetite for the final chapter on quantum information, this chapter touches on Einstein’s skepticism about quantum physics, the Bells theorem and the wormhole and the knot theory applied to braid anyons as a pathway to topological quantum computing.
Spin and Quantum Information
Authors: Satija Indubala I.
Published: September 2024

In this final chapter, quantum spin -1/2 acquires a new life as qubit, the fundamental building block of quantum computation and quantum information as qubits and quantum gates are introduced from the spin perspective. The systems of two and more spins are used to illustrate quantum entanglement, the non-classical correlation that are responsible for much of the quantum magic. We will recount the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox, the discovery of Bell’s inequalities and theorems, and the road to the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. Some examples from the rapidly evolving research frontier of quantum information are given to show how quantum circuits are composed to simulate quantum many-body Hamiltonians or carry out quantum algorithms of superior performance. The readers will encounter simple examples that exploit entanglement, safeguard communication, and achieve dense coding and teleportation. Chapter concludes with a brief introduction to topological quantum computing by braiding anyons.
The Accident Preference, ‘Unrigorous Thinking’ and Injury Compensation Schemes
Authors: Grant Genevieve , Luntz Harold
Published: September 2024

Professor Stapleton’s striking early work focused on the distorting impact of tort law’s preferences on the compensation debate and the design of compensation schemes. This chapter explores the continued relevance of these ideas to contemporary Australian compensation schemes for personal injury. The current state of understanding of the underlying prevalence and distribution of injury and disease in the community and the profile of claiming activity is looked at. The chapter charts the proliferation of non-tort schemes in Australia, and their replication of tort’s accident preference. It also argues that in this landscape, a new variety of unrigorous thinking has emerged: the assumption that introducing a scheme signals ‘job done’ in facilitating appropriate support for claimants. The chapter calls for a new generation of injury law scholarship to enrich the policy debate around the design and operation of tort law and compensation systems.
Transformative Action as Structural and Publicly Constituted
Authors: Marin Mara
Published: September 2024

In Chapter 2, ‘Transformative Action as Structural and Publicly Constituted’, Mara Marin takes an optimistic view on the potential for structural change. She argues that we should understand actions as structural and publicly constituted in a plurality of publics. After a rejection of Ann Cudd’s interpretation of resistance, Marin draws on William Sewell’s understanding of social structures as dual (the combination of structure and agency), she argues that actions are made possible and acquire meaning within pre-existing structures, and the ways in which agents’ actions will be received depends on the plurality of publics involved in the processes of interpreting action. Understanding agency as an ability to introduce contingency and unpredictability, and also recognizing the ways in which this is interpreted by different publics, explains the role of less powerful agents in precipitating social change; those with power in particular social structures are unable to control how different publics will respond to particular actions. Thus, there is always the latent possibility to unsettle structural power dynamics.
Decolonizing Structural Justice and Political Responsibility
Authors: Gordon Lewis R.
Published: September 2024

In Chapter 10, ‘Decolonizing Structural Justice and Political Responsibility’, Lewis Gordon approaches the topics of responsibility, epistemology, and decolonization. He argues that most discussions around structural injustice initiated by Iris Marion Young are deficient in three ways. First, the secondary literature fails to recognize the influence of phenomenology on Young’s approach. From a phenomenological perspective, any separation of individual and structure is a misnomer, because both can be understood only in relation to the other. Second, this insight has implications for understanding responsibility for structural injustice. Since we can understand individuals only in relation to structure, individuals have a responsibility not only to challenge structural injustice, but to produce structural justice. However, this leads to a third issue—the emphasis on ‘justice’. Gordon argues that, in political philosophy in recent decades, the focus on justice is a form of disciplinary decadence. Rawls, and Young, never explained why justice is the primary political virtue. Gordon explains that, from an Africana decolonial perspective, drawing on Fanon, the primary virtue could be health rather than justice: sick institutions produce sick people. Gordon highlights the Eurocentrism of contemporary philosophy, noting that the structural analysis in the structural injustice debate was already present in anti-slavery and anti-colonial thought, and even back to antiquity in the story of Sekhti-nefer-medu (1850 bce). Finally, Gordon uses the metaphor of a house to think about structure, referencing Audre Lorde’s famous dictum that the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
Populist social movements of the Great Recession
Authors: Aslanidis Paris
Published: September 2024

Chapter 4 applies the theoretical framework of the previous chapter to Iceland’s Pots and Pans Revolution (2009–2010). It proposes first that the protest cycle of the Great Recession Movements was driven by an elaborated populist master frame. The Icelandic case study sheds light on the inner processes of populist mobilization and its limitations. It examines the organizational, political, and cultural dimensions in the activity of “artivist” Hordur Torfason, leader of the Voices of the People, highlighting the crowd-sourced nature of the populist diagnostic frame, the prognosis that Torfason mandated, and the frame disputes over diagnostic, prognostic, and repertorial strategies. The chapter concludes by discussing the rise of a militant faction among protesters, the challenge it posed for the leader, and the negotiation of violence within the movement as a means to achieve its core objectives.
The Rise of Helios
Authors: Badoud Nathan
Published: September 2024

Chapter 1 is devoted to Helios, the god portrayed by the Colossus of Rhodes. From the time it was settled by the Argives, the island was divided into three different cities, Ialysos, Kamiros, and Lindos. It was placed under the protection of Zeus, who had his sanctuary on its peak, Mount Atabyron. Yet, in 408 bc, when Ialysos, Kamiros, and Lindos united to create the city of Rhodes, they chose Helios as their patron deity. This decision is due to the influence of the Eratids, an aristocratic and perhaps royal family from Ialysos, which had long promoted the unification. Already in 464 bc (or slightly later), it had tasked Pindar with rewriting the history of Rhodes, to make Helios the ancestor of its inhabitants, for both geographical and political reasons.
The Kolossós of Rhodes
Authors: Badoud Nathan
Published: September 2024

Chapter 4 sheds new light on the chronology, the height, the technique of construction, the financing, and the appearance of the Colossus, as well as on its inclusion among the Seven Wonders of the World. It also addresses the legends that developed after the collapse of the statue in 227 bc. On the one hand, the Book of Daniel was the first to propose a mythical version of the Colossus, which returns, metamorphosed, in the Book of Revelation. On the other, John Malalas was mistaken in assuming that the statue had been reconstructed under the reign of Hadrian. Both narrative traditions unite in the Chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa, the author of a forgery staging the destruction of the statue by the caliph Muʿāwiya in ad 653 and the sale of its remains by a Jew of Emesa.
The Image of the Statue
Authors: Badoud Nathan
Published: September 2024

As no physical trace or image survives of the Colossus built by Chares of Lindos, Chapter 7 considers the period from the ninth century ad to the present to demonstrate both the ways in which artists have fashioned the image of the statue and how this image has influenced the identification of supposed copies of the statue by archaeologists. It challenges the most widely accepted ideas about the appearance of the Colossus to conclude that the foundations of archaeological research are, in this matter, entirely fictional. It eventually addresses the projected reconstructions of the Colossus, which not only are anachronistic but also embody some of the most destructive tendencies of mankind.
Conclusion
Authors: Badoud Nathan
Published: September 2024

The Conclusion gathers the results of the enquiry and highlights their coherence. It first addresses the tradition of the Colossus by going back in time, distinguishing five layers, each of which corresponds to a different historical period. It then restarts from the sources to reconstruct the history of the statue.
Corruption and Related Offences Before 2011
Authors: Nicholls Colin , Bacarese Alan , Maton James , Scott Rachel , Hatchard John
Published: September 2024

This section, comprising chapters 2 to 7, examines the legal framework governing criminal investigations and prosecutions of bribery and corruption offences in the United Kingdom. It explains the offences under which corrupt conduct may be prosecuted, addresses the guidance issued by the UK government, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Serious Fraud Office pursuant to the Bribery Act 2010, reviews the strategic mechanisms and tools used by law enforcement agencies in corruption investigations (including in relation to whistleblowing as well as mutual legal assistance and extradition), and considers relevant proposals for reform of UK laws. This chapter describes the offences under which conduct constituting bribery and corruption taking place wholly or partly before 1 July 2011 continues to be prosecuted. The chapter examines the common law offence of bribery and the statutory offences set out in the Prevention of Corruption Acts 1889–1916, as well as their extension to include foreign bribery in the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. It examines the definition and scope of the offences, which distinguish between corruption in the public and private sectors, and considers the mental element and defences as well as their treatment of facilitation payments. It includes cases decided under the Prevention of Corruption Acts since 2011, illustrating their continuing use and application to foreign bribery and to corporates. Deferred prosecution agreements which involve offences spanning both the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 and the Bribery Act 2010 are considered in Chapter 2.
Varieties of Populism in the US
Authors: Puhle Hans-Jürgen
Published: September 2024

Populist mobilizations have been part of the American liberal script(s). They have gone through various stages and established three lines of continuity: the strong populist heritage that has been integrated into the political mainstream (through the “progressive” groups in both parties); the dissenting groups of right-wing populisms; and more fragmented left-wing populists. Their contestations usually were internal contestations, and they have shared significant characteristics that make American populism unique in that the populist potential for contestations of the liberal script has been built into the American liberal script(s). The populist impact, however, has changed since a significant threshold around 1990 when the onset of the destruction of the Republican Party coincided with repercussions of the structural change of the public sphere and new constellations of political communication. More polarized external and deep contestations set in, and populist mobilizations have become more of a threat for the liberal script than before.
Independent Black Political Movements
Authors: Ali Omar H.
Published: September 2024

Since the late nineteenth century, African Americans have created independent political movements in the United States that have been vital to the development of democracy. These independent Black political movements constitute an ongoing feature of contestations of the liberal script as expressed in bipartisan political rule. Such challenges to the authority and policies of the Democratic and Republican parties, in particular, have centered on fighting for the expansion of Black civil and political rights and have taken a range of forms, including as electoral parties, labor unions, and associations, and often in combination. The largest of these independent movements were the Black Populist movement of the late nineteenth century, the Civil Rights movement of the mid-twentieth century, and Black Lives Matter in the twenty-first century.
Deep Contestations of the Liberal Script at the US–Mexican Border
Authors: Toro María Celia , Covarrubias Velasco Ana
Published: September 2024

We discuss the liberal script for borders, in particular, the tension between two liberal principles that converge or collide at the border: individual and collective self-determination. This inherent tension between the individual’s right to engage in cross-border activities and the right of the community to be independent from outside interference accounts for the continuous contestations of the script. The authors focus on the US–Mexico border and on four key aspects of the border liberal script, namely, human rights, the rule of law, respect for international law, and free trade. They conclude that over the last two decades, security and identity concerns among large segments of American society have been the main drivers of a shift in US border policies, that includes deep contestations of the liberal script, in particular during the Trump administration.
From Weaponized Aesthetics to Aesthetic Injustice
Authors: Lopes Dominic McIver
Published: September 2024

According to the cosmopolitan theory, a large-scale social arrangement is aesthetically unjust when and only when it harms people in their capacities as aesthetic agents, thereby subverting interests in the value diversity and social autonomy of aesthetic cultures. The main components of the theory are discussed. Aesthetic injustice is contrasted with weaponized aesthetics, where expressive practices drawn from aesthetic culture stem from and compound social injustice. A standard account of social injustice and its mechanisms is summarized. Three cases are presented of scenarios where aesthetic injustice and weaponized aesthetics interact. Two arguments for the cosmopolitan theory are previewed.
Catholic Teaching on Contraception
Authors: Kalbian Aline H.
Published: September 2024

This essay reviews the history of Catholic teaching about contraception as a way to answer the question of why the Catholic opposition to artificial contraception remains unchanged. While acknowledging the role of social and cultural influences on Church teaching, I argue that the theology of human domination over nature is at the core of official Catholic views about contraception, and that this understanding reinforces a strong distinction between artificial and natural means. Framing the Catholic opposition as a theological one about creation, dominion, and nature is an important supplement to the cultural/social accounts because it can better explain the intransigence of the Catholic teaching. To be clear, Catholic teaching about contraception is not always explicitly framed purely in terms of a worry about dominion; nevertheless, theological concern about human dominion over nature, especially via technological means, is integral to the discourse about contraception, especially in the distinction between natural and artificial that the Church upholds.
Sources of Catholic Moral Theology
Authors: Christie Dolores L.
Published: September 2024

Catholic moral thinking on sexual issues derives from several sources: the Bible (particularly the values it proposes), previous church teaching (“Tradition”), natural law, and historical experience (Vatican II’s “the signs of the times”). Nevertheless, the Church maintains that the informed conscience of each person is the final and inviolate arbiter of individual acts. The vigorous and evolving Catholic debate on sexual issues, particularly that of reproductive technology, contributes both to reflection for individual decisions and to ongoing development of church doctrine and moral teaching.
Natural Law and Reproductive Ethics
Authors: Kieran Haile Bethany
Published: September 2024

Natural law claims to advance a form of moral reasoning that is grounded in the order of reality, and is in this sense, objective and universal. Because of its foundation in an objective “nature” the hope is that natural law can provide a sort of “moral Esperanto” or “lingua franca” for the pluralistic public square. The vast majority of those embracing this argument, however, tend to advance very conservative positions in reproductive ethics that have failed precisely in forging the consensus they claim to offer. Even supporters of the natural law have been skeptical of its goal to provide a common moral framework for a universal ethic. Reproductive ethics provides a critical test of the natural law’s ability to establish such common ground. This essay argues that natural law can indeed be an effective way to address the morality of reproductive issues, but that our expectations must be realistic. At its best, natural law reasoning can help foster some level of agreement between some opposing groups but will not lead to widespread consensus on the most pressing, and indeed most controversial, issues. Most contemporary natural law ethicists do not expect the natural law to provide a universal and exhaustive ethic. This essay will focus on two fundamental questions. The first concerns the question of the status of the embryo at its earliest stages. The second concerns technologies that separate sexual intercourse and reproduction.
Finger Amputation in the Ethnographic and Archaeological Record
Authors: McCauley Brea , Collard Mark
Published: September 2024

Several published studies indicate that amputating finger segments, and even multiple entire fingers, for nonmedical reasons has been a surprisingly common practice over the past few hundred years. This chapter reports the results of a study undertaken (a) to shed further light on the occurrence of finger amputation via a survey of ethnographic and historical documents and ethnographic and archaeological objects, and (b) to review the ethnohistoric literature to identify motivations for amputating healthy fingers. Based on information gathered from six online resources using keywords from seven different languages, the survey of ethnohistorical texts revealed that at least 181 remarkably diverse societies engaged in finger amputation as a cultural practice, and that it was not limited to a particular geographic region or type of society. The search for finger amputation-related ethnographic and archaeological objects produced evidence that the total number of societies that engaged in finger amputation in the past may be over 200 and suggests that the practice has a time depth of thousands, possibly even tens of thousands, of years. In addition, the chapter identifies seventeen different reasons for engaging in it other than trying to solve a medical problem with the targeted finger. Among the most common of the nonsurgical motivations were mourning a deceased loved one, appealing to a deity for assistance, and punishment. Taken together, the findings reported in this chapter demonstrate that finger amputation was a widespread cultural practice in the past, one that was invented multiple times, in multiple places, for multiple reasons.
Is There Anybody Up There? The Human Presence on the Madonie Mountain Range (Sicily, Italy): From the Last Hunter-Gatherers to the Early Pastoralists
Authors: Forgia Vincenza
Published: September 2024

The Madonie Mountains, located in the northwestern part of Sicily, a central mountainous chain in the Mediterranean basin, offer an excellent case study to the investigation of the relationship among human peopling, environment, and consequent transformation of landscape over the millennia. The earliest direct evidence for the exploitation of the mountainous territories of Sicily is dated to 9450±50 BP (9120–8565 cal BCE). After a gap, the Neolithic communities that were the first to push inland and into mountainous territories were involved in economic practices that mainly included the breeding of sheep and goats. At the Vallone Inferno rock-shelter a long and complete sequence of more than 1,000 years, beginning at the end of the third millennium BCE, shows the development of pastoral activities carried out on the mountain territories by human communities coming from the central and southern part of the island. The historical occupation of the Madonie was largely influenced by the Greek colony of Himera and the subsequent Roman settlement. The exploitation of medium- and high-altitude areas (above 700 m asl) is linked to activities related to pastoralism, in connection/combination with rural settlements in the plains. Specialized activities carried out on the mountains, such as breeding of pigs, have been recognized during the seventh and ninth centuries CE.
Petrarchan Metamorphoses
Authors: Gragnolati Manuele , Southerden Francesca
Published: September 2024

This chapter analyzes the metamorphosis of a crucial Petrarchan motif, developing Teodolinda Barolini’s idea that even more than a poet of desire, Petrarch is fundamentally a poet of time. It explores how a range of texts, specifically sonnets, written by Torquato Tasso, William Shakespeare, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Mimi Khalvati, have appropriated and reimagined that motif centered on the beauty and mortality of the human body, declining it in original ways. The lyric sequence that the chapter creates through this comparative analysis demonstrates not only how the Petrarchan model travels across time and space but also how the texts resonate across the sequence and what they reveal about the lyric mode and the possibilities it opens to desire differently.
Multimodal Imaging of Brain Plasticity
Authors: Peters Judith , Vansina Eline , de Weerd Peter , Maas Dorien
Published: September 2024

Brain plasticity operates across various spatial and temporal scales, necessitating integrative multiscale approaches to fully capture its intricate underlying mechanisms. By combining methods with complementary strengths, multimodal imaging can help to bridge findings across multiple scales. This chapter discusses the potentials and challenges of multimodal imaging while proposing strategies to overcome the latter. The text focuses on recent advancements in three key types of multimodal applications, each serving distinct objectives: bridging spatial scale disparities, enhancing spatiotemporal resolution, and elucidating causal relations within functional brain networks. Finally, the chapter explores recent technological advances and novel combinations of neuromodulation and imaging techniques that may open new avenues for multimodal imaging of neuroplasticity with potential for clinical translations. By synergizing methodological strengths from various techniques, multimodal neuroimaging studies hold immense value for brain plasticity research, provided that accompanying challenges are effectively addressed.
Emotional Energy in Conflict, Repression, and Violence
Authors: Bramsen Isabel
Published: September 2024

Emotions play a significant role in shaping human interaction, not least in the context of conflict and violence. This chapter delves into the intricate interplay between emotional energy, protest, repression, and violence. First, the chapter gives the state of the art of how emotions have been dealt with in peace and conflict research, reviewing five academic traditions: psychological approaches, human needs approaches, biological approaches, rational choice approaches, and post-structuralist approaches. While each of these traditions provides valuable insights into understanding the role of emotions in conflict, they often overlook the mechanisms by which emotions emerge in concrete interactions. The chapter subsequently introduces the concept of emotional energy as a force of agency generated in social interaction. It shows how a greater understanding of emotional energy can inform micro-sociological studies of violence, protests, and repression in terms of how individuals are energized or de-energized for action.
Emotions, Colonial Trauma, and Brazil’s Desire for International Validation
Authors: Resende Erica , Sandrin Paula
Published: September 2024

Departing from Euro- and Western-centric approaches, a more recent scholarship has explored the role of memory and trauma in the Global South in an effort to explore traumatic experiences and memory politics beyond the Holocaust. Looking into the case of Brazil, this chapter shows how colonial trauma has an impact on foreign policy. The chapter contends that Brazil suffers from a broad psychosocial condition that has come to be known as a “mongrel complex” that generates the desire for international validation of the country’s potential. As a result, Brazil’s long-held national aspirations to become a member of the United Nations Security Council, to lead peace operations, and to appoint the heads of key international organizations should be understood as a coping mechanism to transcend its mongrel complex. This is fueled by resentment and anxiety originating from Brazil’s socialization in a hierarchical international system that stigmatizes inferior, subaltern nations.
Latine Media Studies
Authors: Valdivia Angharad N.
Published: September 2024

Latine media studies is a growing field with maturing scholarship that represents the fruit borne by the promise of cumulative knowledge from at least four stages of scholarship and enriches communication and media studies, both historically and contemporarily. As with any recent field of study, scholarship arises from previously existing cognate disciplines and interdisciplines, following paradigm shifts and questions that cannot be answered by previous theories. This chapter provides a brief review of the stages of inclusion of Latine in mainstream media and then presents a historical overview of the field of Latine media studies via a four-stage assessment, exploring both the institutionalization of the field and the stages of scholarship. The stages are not mutually exclusive. Whereas in the first two stages of research, much of the scholarship drew on cognate fields, by the third and fourth stages the field had a robust quantity and quality of scholarship and scholars who work within communication and media studies. The four stages follow a familiar path of near omission; peripheral inclusion; steps toward institutionalization and maturation of scholars; and a present that is rich in hybrid, intersectional, and transnational scholarship. Latine media studies is no longer a promise but, rather, a full-blown reality. Thus, as a growing area of study, it contributes to social justice via diversified production, increased and progressive representations, and creating spaces for audience identification and sometimes activism.