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The recent wave of autocratization in Latin America has put courts at the center of debates about regime and regime change. Much of the literature on the judicial politics of democratic backsliding focuses on incumbents' efforts to capture judiciaries and weaponize them against the regime. Our approach is different. We provide illustrations of independent courts in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico that successfully fought back when presidents pushed for reforms that jeopardized democratic stability. With the goal of furthering our knowledge of how judges can also complicate autocratization, the paper thus focuses on a type of horizontal accountability intervention that we refer to as "constitutional balancing." We also shed light on the reasons why constitutional balancing is well‐equipped to slow down or stop backsliding via a comparison with another type of horizontal accountability intervention: public administration policing. These interventions are increasingly common in Latin America, usually in the form of high‐profile corruption prosecutions. Unlike constitutional balancing, however, public administration policing has proven highly disruptive, and ultimately unable to settle regime‐threatening political conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1997, I conducted interviews with and observed former East German academics who belonged to the Leipzig branch of the Rosa Luxemburg Association. This segment of the East German intelligentsia shared counterfactual narratives about how reformers could have changed the trajectory of East German history. Identifying with the reformers, they signalled their loyalty to the German Democratic Republic while distancing themselves from its reputation for political repression. They also shared narratives about the post-socialist era in which they cast themselves as victims of Germany's reunification. These narratives implied that they did not unduly benefit from reunification nor pose a threat to the new democratic order. Other segments of the former East German intelligentsia, such as jurists and journalists, represented themselves as professionally active in the post-socialist time-space, consciously shaping their reputation in relation to their western German colleagues. The article concludes with a comparison to the Romanian and Polish intelligentsias, who, unlike segments of the East German intelligentsia, cast themselves as contributing to their nations' respective futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did America's twenty-year war in Afghanistan fail to establish a self-sustaining non-Taliban government? Analysts have cited cultural obstacles in Afghanistan, bureaucratic inertia in Washington, and a lack of strategic commitment, in part because Iraq dominated national security policy. Such claims tend to draw evidence from Germany, Japan, and Iraq, places where the U.S. military achieved some measure of success establishing pro-American governments. The present article broadens the comparison to consider Afghanistan alongside Germany, Japan, Iraq, and two examples of post-Cold War regime-change success: Panama (1989–1990) and Haiti (1994–1995). The cases indicate that U.S. influence in the postwar environment has depended on the prospects for integrating old regime elites into the new government and on the strength of indigenous opposition forces. Both variables were unfavorable in Afghanistan, and they shaped the boundaries of political order—no matter how hard U.S. forces fought or how long they stayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do democratization processes affect voter turnout in new democracies? Existing work points to an expected boost in electoral turnout after democratization as newly democratic citizens are euphoric to exert newly democratic freedoms or because they developed new political attitudes and behaviours by mobilizing for democracy. While intuitive and normatively appealing, these explanations have not been theoretically nor empirically scrutinized within the literature. This paper develops and tests novel theoretical expectations on the processes and legacies of democratization that impact voter turnout in new democracies. Using electoral turnout data from 1086 national elections between 1946 and 2015, and turnout survey data of over 1 million respondents between 1982 and 2015, we find that the boost in voter turnout (1) exists only for the first election after transition, (2) its effect depends on the life cycle during which individuals experienced the transition and (3) it is less dependent on transition type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detection and deterrence of collusive agreements among firms, such as price-fixing cartels, remain pivotal in maintaining market competition. This study investigates the application of machine learning methodologies in the behavioral screening process for detecting collusion, with a specific focus on parallel pricing behaviors in the wholesale fuel market. By employing unsupervised learning techniques, this research aims to identify patterns indicative of collusion—referred to as collusion markers—within time series data. This paper outlines a comprehensive screening research plan based on the CRISP-DM model, detailing phases from business understanding to monitoring. It emphasizes the significance of machine learning methods, including distance measures, motifs, discords, and semantic segmentation, in uncovering these patterns. A case study of the Polish wholesale fuel market illustrates the practical application of these techniques, demonstrating how anomalies and regime changes in price behavior can signal potential collusion. The findings suggest that unsupervised machine learning methods offer a robust alternative to traditional statistical and econometric tools, particularly due to their ability to process large and complex datasets without predefined models. This research concludes that these methods can significantly enhance the detection of collusive behaviors, providing valuable insights for antitrust authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African First Ladies are categorised into two: the less powerful First Ladies, the behind-the-scene actors, making positive contributions to their spouses’ regime and the powerful First Ladies whose arbitrary powers and overarching presence pose real threat to the regime. Extant studies concentrate on the former and pay scant attention to the latter. Drawing on the activities of Patience Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s former First Lady, this paper explores the ways Patience and other powerful African First Ladies contribute to regime change in emerging African democracies. In doing so, the paper explores the anatomy of female power and its intricate interface with the Office of the First Lady, the framework for appropriating and exercising the power of the First Lady. The goal is to provide the theoretical basis for understanding the empirical, that is, the practical ways Patience Jonathan and other powerful First Ladies appropriate power and contribute to regime change in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the posthumous reception of India's most famous religious reformer, hailed as the 'Father of Modern India', Raja Rammohun Roy, from the 1830s to the present decade. During the late colonial period, the British administration and Bengali elites used class networks and print capitalism to establish Roy as the father to show compradorship amidst calls for independence. After independence, the INC retained Roy to counter the rise of more popular Hindu movements. In the period of INC decline, the BJP elevated Swami Vivekananda instead of Roy as a representative of majoritarian Hinduism. Economic and political coalitions in control of legitimating institutions elevate and sustain fathers as positive cultural symbols in response to competing claims. By emphasising party competition and issue ownership within multi-national federalism, this article complements decolonisation, cult-of-personality, and regime change as explanations for the rise and fall of public fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2021 military coup in Myanmar incited widespread civil resistance, including mass street protests, a civil disobedience movement, labour strikes and armed rebellions. Despite more than three years of conflict, the junta maintains power in certain areas Of the country. This article employs an outcome-explaining. process-tracing approach to elucidate the junta's persistence. The analysis reveals that civil resistance activities are highly fragmented, with minimal convergence in their operations or long-term visions. This fragmentation stems from divergent views within the movement regarding non-violent versus armed resistance and the varied objectives Of different armed ethnic organizations opposing the military. Concurrently, the junta has bolstered its repressive capabilities by developing institutionalized methods for countering adversarial forces. These methods are deeply intertwined with Myanmar's ethnicpolitical history and the military's entrenched dominance over political institutions. Consequently, this article contends that the evolution of both resistance efforts and the junta's repressive strategies has been markedly asymmetrical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change increases the need to understand the effect of predicted future temperature and nutrient scenarios on marine phytoplankton. However, experimental studies addressing the effects of both drivers use a variety of design approaches regarding their temperature change rate and nutrient supply regimes. This study combines a systematic literature map to identify the existing bias in the experimental design of studies evaluating the phytoplankton response to temperature change, with a laboratory experiment. The experiment was designed to quantify how different temperature levels (6°C, 12°C, and 18°C), temperature regimes (abrupt vs. gradual increase), timings of nutrient addition (before or after the temperature change) and nutrient regimes (limiting vs. balanced) alter the growth and stoichiometry of a natural marine phytoplankton community. The systematic map revealed three key biases in marine global change experiments: (1) 66% of the studies do not explicitly describe the experimental temperature change or nutrient regime, (2) 84% applied an abrupt temperature exposure, and (3) only 15% experimentally manipulated the nutrient regime. Our experiment demonstrated that the identified biases in experimental design toward abrupt temperature exposure induced a short‐term growth overshoot compared to gradually increasing temperatures. Additionally, the timing of nutrient availability strongly modulated the direction of the temperature effect and strength of growth enhancement along balanced N : P supply ratios. Our study stresses that the rate of temperature change, the timing of nutrient addition and the N : P supply ratio should be considered in experimental planning to produce ecologically relevant results as different setups lead to contrasting directions of outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This practitioner and experience-based insider account outlines the reasons for the introduction in the late 1970s of a named 'ethics package' to the content of courses of study at the Police College, Bramshill. The context of the College, and the modal characteristics of its client groups of middle and senior ranking police officers are highlighted. In 1978 an 'ethics package' began to be constructed in order to make a significant contribution to the 'professional' knowledge and practices commensurate with the role-requirements of police leadership. An outline of the intellectual basis guiding and informing the content of the 'ethics package' is provided. The paper then identifies some of the persistent and often disappointing responses to the continuing attempts to include something called 'ethics' on the various programmes of study at Bramshill. From 1992 onwards 'ethics' was to make various appearances on the leadership and management courses but its status was always fragile partly because of the various regime changes that befell the institution. In 1994 a formal educational action-research process, was begun which sought to position 'ethics' on the 'Police Management Programme' such that the subject would not be set aside. However, after six years of commitment and endeavour, the feedback from course participants never achieved the level of positive response needed to achieve the fundamental aim of the research project. The paper concludes with a very brief summary of some of the reasons why presenting something called 'ethics' to experienced police officers was – and perhaps remains – intrinsically difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a new conceptualization of regime transformation that allows scholars to address democratization and autocratization as related but obverse processes. We introduce a dataset that captures 680 episodes of regime transformation (ERT) from 1900 to 2019 and offers novel insights into regime change over the past 120 years. The ERT has three main advantages over other approaches. First, it avoids problematic assumptions of unit homogeneity and constant as well as symmetric effects. Second, it integrates key insights from qualitative studies by treating regime change as a gradual and uncertain process. Third, the ERT is based on a unified framework for studying regime transformation in either direction. The dataset differentiates between four broad types of regime transformation: liberalization in autocracies, democratic deepening in democracies, and autocratization in both democracies and autocracies (democratic and autocratic regression). It further distinguishes ten patterns with distinct outcomes, including standard depictions of regime change (i.e. democratic transition or breakdown). A minority (32%) of ERTs produce a regime transition, with the majority of episodes either ending before a transition takes place or not having the potential for such a transition (i.e. further democratization in democratic regimes or further autocratization in autocratic regimes). We also provide comparisons to other datasets, illustrative case studies to demonstrate face validity, and a discussion about how the ERT framework can be applied in peace research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1990, after 17 years of authoritarian rule under inaugural president, Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia looked to be on the precipice of prolonged instability and violence. Authoritarianism showed no signs of softening; the country's economic decline continued to heap misery on a population where the vast majority were already living in poverty; and the banning of opposition parties in 1973 meant that there was no legitimate political opposition to challenge to Kaunda's rule. Over the 1970s and 1980s, opposition to Kaunda found expression in various civil society organisations, eventually coalescing into a broad-church Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). When the price of the national staple, maize, doubled overnight, protests quickly escalated into riots, killing dozens. However, instead of an escalation of violence, the MMD pushed Kaunda to engage in political reform. What followed was a decision by Kaunda to lift the ban on opposition parties, leading to his electoral defeat. How did the growing opposition rule precipitate a peaceful transition to multi-party democracy? In this article I argue that Kaunda's inclusive ideology, which avoided the politicization of ethnicity allowed for a more inclusive and peaceful transition away from authoritarian rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have argued that watchdog journalism cannot flourish under authoritarianism. However, the effect of the democratization of previously authoritarian regimes on watchdog journalism is still poorly understood. This article aims to fill this knowledge gap by using Kompas, Indonesia's oldest daily newspaper, as a case study. Drawing on four years of ethnographic fieldwork (2013–2017) within Kompas 's newsroom and one year of archival review (2020–2021), this study shows that the newspaper did not truly function as a watchdog. Instead, it developed a specific style that we conceptualize as "polite" watchdog journalism, that is, monitoring the wrongdoing of those in power in such a manner that does not hurt the feelings of those in power. This style of journalism was developed in response to the cultural and political-economic forces that intersected in and shaped its newsroom. Kompas developed close relationships with authoritarian power holders, thereby avoiding the persistent threat of bans and securing the economic advantages of their close ties with those in power. After the regime change, polite journalism continued to be practiced, both to maintain its political leverage and to preserve its economic advantage in the post-authoritarian era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages with the question of coordinating action during transitional and politically volatile times, in high-stakes situations. More specifically, I look at a local assembly that was established to campaign for the 'no' vote against regime change in the 2017 constitutional referendum in Turkey, and how it disintegrated at a time when coordinated action was perceived as the only viable strategy by the participants. Based on participant-observation and ethnographic interviews, I argue that instead of framing or strategy, differences in temporal frameworks eroded the basis on which activists usually coordinated their next steps, leading to an unresolvable mismatch in their anticipation of future events, and therefore, in action. I characterize the temporal dynamics of political contestation in such contexts as a 'politics of anticipation,' where futurity and temporality themselves become subjects of political contention. As such, this article contributes to the study of anti-authoritarian social movements, studies of time and temporality, and to the sociology of time and the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit will have implications on financial stability and the implementation of macroprudential policies. The United Kingdom (UK) will no longer be subject to the jurisdiction of the European Systemic Risk Board. This paper studies the welfare implications of this change of regime. By means of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, I compare the pre‐Brexit scenario with the new one, in which the UK sets macroprudential policy independently. I find that, after Brexit, the UK is better off by setting its own macroprudential policy without taking into account Europe's welfare as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it a yearning for more political freedom, or a demand for the more mundane economic necessities of life which drives large waves of potentially destabilizing mass protests against authoritarian regimes? We examine this question in the context of the Arab Spring, which originated from Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 and soon spread through the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We use a static fixed effects model and a dynamic GMM model on a panel of 14 MENA countries for the period 2006–2017 to identify the major socio-economic and political determinants of both non-violent and violent Arab Spring protests. One of the main findings of our article is that, in contrast with the "intermediate regimes hypothesis", the intermediate regimes tend to be more stable compared to both strictly authoritarian and relatively democratic regimes. Further, more nuanced dimensions of democracy, in terms of institutional checks on the authoritarian regime, have a positive impact on stability and reducing protests. With regard to socio-economic factors, our results show that factors leading to better living standards, such as higher economic growth and higher levels of GDP per capita, and transfers in the form of public expenditure ("authoritarian bargain") partly mitigate the grievances and the resulting protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A functional legislature is very vital for democratisation. During the time of democratic consolidation, parliament changes from its primary roles of oversight, representation and legislation into 'important public arenas of partisan dispute, of encounters with social topics, of negotiations and of important decision-making'. Populist leaders in parliamentary systems like Turkey recently either led to sui generis presidential systems or transformed them into illiberal democracies by expanding the executive branch's power to amend the constitution, which contradicts the favourable conditions of the third wave of democratisation at the turn of the twenty-first century. By streamlining legislative processes, the Turkish Constitution of 1982 envisaged an empowered executive that would subordinate the parliament. The three constitutional modifications passed after 2007 resulted in de-democratisation, de-parliamentarisation and eventually, a regime change from democratic consolidation to autocracy. The parliamentary debates on these constitutional amendments, which included popular presidential election, judicial reform and the so-called 'Turkish style' presidential governance system, failed to reach a consensus and were marked by an adversarial rather than deliberative approach. Have constitutional reforms made in the name of re-democratisation resulted in de-democratisation, with the legislature entirely crippled, the judiciary reliant and the executive exercising sole authority? This study aims to analyse the impact of three consequential constitutional amendments on democratic backsliding in Turkey, with special reference to the decline of parliament. Parliamentary minutes on the relevant constitutional amendments, procedural changes disabling the parliament from performing its legislative and oversight functions and the actual outcomes of these amendments in terms of executive-legislative relations will be discussed. In conclusion, potentials for strengthening parliament, checks and balances, and re-democratisation will be presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parallels between the Afghanistan and Iraq wars include phony victories (bought from local forces), phony aims and claims (train the Afghan army, secure women's rights, rebuild Iraq), shifts of alliances (allies become outcasts), creating 'homeless Sunnis' (who later join the IS). If we view Iraq and Afghanistan on a wider canvas alongside Pakistan, do wider parallels emerge? The Iraq and Afghanistan wars are profoundly tragic, but are they exceptional? If we view Iraq and Afghanistan as extensions of and variations on the Cold War, do different patterns emerge? Would they help us understand problems of regime change more clearly? This article views the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a series and reflects on what this series tells us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2023 Turkish elections marked a historic juncture in the nation's political trajectory. Amidst economic, social, and political upheavals, coupled with a devastating earthquake, the elections served as a decisive evaluation of the newly inaugurated presidential system. With the incumbent Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) lagging in polls for the first time in over twenty years, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the People's Alliance faced formidable opposition yet managed to score a victory in the second round. This article delves into the contrasting campaign strategies of the two leading candidates, Erdoğan and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. We argue that while Erdoğan's campaign leaned on negative tactics and exclusionary populism, emphasizing counter-terrorism, identity politics, and regime maintenance, Kılıçdaroğlu's strategy championed positive messaging buoyed by inclusive populism, spotlighting democratization, good governance, and regime change. Within an overarching competitive authoritarian context, these distinct strategies highlighted the intricate dynamics between campaign narratives and voter perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vortex-induced vibration of a step cylinder comprising two coaxially arranged cylinders of different diameters with a step between them is simulated numerically. The purpose is to investigate the impact of the interaction between the two cylinders on the vibration and the wake mode of the step cylinder. In this study, the Reynolds number, diameter ratio, and mass ratio are fixed at 150, 0.5, and 2, respectively. Two distinct lock-in regimes are observed, which are named larger cylinder (LC) lock-in regime and smaller cylinder (SC) lock-in regime. In the SC lock-in regime (for reduced velocities between 2.25 and 2.75), the vortex shedding of the SC synchronizes with the vibration, while the vortex shedding of the LC does not. The lift coefficient of the LC has dual frequency components, a lower-frequency and smaller-amplitude component and a higher-frequency and larger-amplitude component associated with vortex shedding and vibration, respectively. In the LC lock-in regime (for reduced velocities between 4 and 7), the vortex shedding of the LC synchronizes with the vibration, while the vortex shedding frequency of the SC increases with increasing reduced velocity, with reduced velocities of 4 and 5 being exceptions, at which the vortex shedding of both the LC and the SC locks in with the vibration frequency. The dual lock-in at reduced velocities of 4 and 5 results in a periodic chainlike wake behind the step where all the vortices from the LC are linked together by N-N loops. At the reduced velocity of 7, a very small difference between the vortex shedding frequency of the SC and twice the vibration frequency causes a low-frequency beating of the lift coefficient. The wake is in the indirect mode with an N-cell in the SC lock-in regime but changes to the direct mode without an N-cell in the LC lock-in regime. It is confirmed that in either of the lock-in regimes, the lock-in cylinder excites the vibration, whereas the non-lock-in cylinder damps the vibration. The damping effect of the non-lock-in cylinder results in a vibration amplitude lower than that in the lock-in regime of a uniform lock-in cylinder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orthodox scholarship claims the CIA-MI6 covert actions in Albania and Ukraine in the early Cold War exemplified a singular effort to rollback Soviet power in Europe. Using recently declassified files, this article presents a case study of Operation BGFiend/Valuable and Aerodynamic to challenge the existence of an aggressive rollback programme. These were limited, diverse and strategically dynamic projects that did not seek regime change in either territory. The west subverted Hoxha's Albanian regime, focusing on intelligence collection and propaganda. In Ukraine, emphasis was on gathering intelligence, particularly to provide early warning of an anticipated Soviet invasion of Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent toppling of the Awami League regime after 15 years in power illustrates both the weakness of the Bangladesh state’s capacity for constitutional rule and the strength of the armed forces. The military’s role has been critical in each change of regime from the first, on 15 August 1975, to the most recent, in August 2024. The military has emerged as the only credible formal state power in Bangladesh mainly because it is largely free from accusations of corruption. Its role in UN peacekeeping ensures an external and legal source of income for its members. Civilian authorities, both politicians and civil servants who form the state governance machinery, function through their identities as members of a common political network, with extra salary income taken as payment for loyalty, something now seen as ‘normal’. This has resulted in a ‘withered’ state: formal on paper, informal in practice. Meanwhile, trust in and dependence on the public service agencies and the formal economy is low. Traditional societal institutions still dominate while formal institutions have shown low growth and poor performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how economic crises relate to the likelihood of experiencing regime changes 'from within'; that is, transitions brought about, in part or fully, by actors in the incumbent regime. While historically common and influencing the political trajectories of many countries, such processes are far less studied than regime transitions forced by non-incumbent actors, such as coups or revolutions. We synthesize previous arguments and further specify how crises can incentivize leaders to change the regime from within due to two mechanisms. First, crises create windows of opportunity for leaders to pursue transitions they inherently prefer, for instance through self-coup. Second, crises sometimes allow opposition actors to mobilize and threaten the regime, forcing incumbents to liberalize. We leverage new data on timing and mode of regime change for more than 2000 regimes from about 200 countries, during the period 1789–2018. Employing different measurement strategies, estimators, control variables and other specification choices, we find fairly robust evidence that economic crises are related to transitions from within. However, when we distinguish between liberalizing and non-liberalizing guided transitions, we only find that economic crises systematically relate to the latter, suggesting that the window of opportunity mechanism may be especially pertinent in many contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Lai Xá Village, Vietnam, studio photography is the village handicraft. Counter to Walter Benjamin's characterization of the click of a button, privileging eye over hand, but typical of many craft traditions, photographers there describe painstaking apprenticeships through which they learned to master the tools and materials of their craft. They learned to compensate for the shifting properties of light, climate, humidity, and irregular supplies of electricity, chemicals and printing paper, and adapted to changing regimes of technique and labor organization. As in many other craft traditions, apprentices often acquired their most valuable knowledge by stealth. We argue that studio photography belongs within contemporary discussions of craft as a handed, adaptive, engaged, small-scale social practice, and that craft awareness enables a richer ethnographic understanding of the work of studio photographers, both material and social. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research in political science relies on datasets produced by human coders. Many variables included in these datasets are not based on observable facts but rather require a considerable level of human judgment. This project studies the extent to which this judgment is affected by availability bias and how it influences the retrospective coding of historic cases. The analysis uses coder-level data from the V-Dem project, one of the few datasets collecting and releasing codings tagged with timestamps when they were produced. The results show that recent dramatic events in a country just prior to the coding have a small, but visible impact on coder ratings, but primarily for those variables that are directly related to the observed events. The magnitude of this effect, however, is small. This alleviates concerns that prominent events in world politics around the time of coding significantly affect the reliability of cross-national indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1644 and 1672, England halted the production of its lowest denomination coins, prompting ordinary individuals and communities to create coins to address the shortage of small change. A large twentieth-century collection that includes over 13,000 such surviving tokens has largely been overlooked by historians and economists, despite the tokens' significance. In this source and others are a total of over 9,000 types of tokens, originating mainly from the City of London, thirty-seven English counties, and the Irish Pale. Catalogued in an eight-volume Sylloge, published over thirty years, the tokens offer valuable insights into England's history and societal dynamics during a tumultuous period that included two major regime changes, plague, and London's Great Fire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the impact of large swings in economic policy on the risk-return trade-off faced by i nvestors? What is the impact of changes in policy regimes on investment strategies? In this paper we study the impact on returns of switches between periods of market-friendly economic policies and periods of populist policies. To quantify the impact of policy instability, we use data from Argentina--a country that has experienced frequent and very large regime changes--and find that the risk-return for individual assets and minimum variance portfolios are quite different across regimes. We then develop a dynamic model to understand optimal portfolios when investors are cognizant that regimes can change. We find that when portfolios are unrestricted, it is optimal for investors to take a large amount of risk. On the other hand, when portfolios are restricted to include only long positions, a real asset (real estate) dominates financial assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent resurgence of inflation in Europe has led the ECB to increase interest rates and phase out asset purchase programmes designed to address the effects of the Great Financial Crisis. This article investigates how the ECB has adjusted its logic of responsibility throughout this series of crises. Using a topic model and in-depth analysis of speeches, we examine the ECB's strategic framing of linkages related to inflation during three historical periods: the Central Bank Independence (CBI) era (1998–2011), the secular stagnation era (2011–2021), and the new inflation era (2021-). Our findings indicate that modifications made to the CBI's linkages during the secular stagnation era shaped the ECB's framing of the new inflation era in a novel way. However, despite acknowledging difficult policy tradeoffs, which they used to downplay in the past, ECB policymakers have continued to reframe its initial imperative of responsibility in the hope of avoiding policy discussions on regime change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the European Commission's 'Banking Package', introducing a series of amendments to the key legal sources of EU banking regulation, a comprehensive proposal for the treatment of third country branches of credit institutions (i.e., branches of institutions licensed by non-EU jurisdictions seeking authorisation in an EU Member State) has been presented. If and when ultimately adopted, this new framework will, for the first time, harmonise the applicable authorisation procedures and substantive conditions for authorisation hitherto left exclusively to the discretion of EU Member States. Under the new regime, the equivalence of third country regulatory and supervisory approaches with EU banking regulation will play a role, albeit a limited one. While taking up, and refining, approaches that have been present in a range of Member States for some time already, the new framework will require others to fundamentally change their existing regimes. The new amendments will be of particular relevance for the future regulatory relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, since a bespoke arrangement for continuing access of UK financial intermediaries to the EU markets has not been achieved, and UK credit institutions wishing to continue to operate within the EU other than through legally separate and independently capitalised subsidiaries have to rely on authorisations as third country branches. Against this backdrop, the present paper presents a functional analysis of the incoming regime in light of experiences made with regard to the existing landscape of diverging national laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The behaviour of football fans in Ukraine has often taken the form of public order offences. However, since Maidan, fans have enjoyed a more positive image, linked to their recognition by and assimilation into Ukrainian society through their social and political activities. Eventually becoming one of the driving forces of revolutionary events and contributing to regime change, football fans have taken an active part in hostilities in the east of the country since 2014. This article explores the links between football fans, their collective violent practices and their social transformation before Maidan, at the time of Maidan and in the post-Maidan period. The author presents the idea of the connection between the conversion of various types of capital and the application of different kinds of collective violent practices, which can affect the status of the group within society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists distinguish between governments and regimes. A government is comprised of incumbents holding positions of authority specified within an institutionalized “regime,” that is, a legal order. Within a well-institutionalized regime, politics consists of legal struggles over what governments and government officials do. But when the issues in contention pertain to what governments are authorized to do, and not about what they should do, competitors may no longer feel bound to follow the rules. Such struggles can threaten the integrity of the regime. This article suggests that the prolonged, if temporarily sidelined, crisis over the overhaul of the Israeli judiciary should be understood less as a threat to democracy than as both a challenge to the Israeli regime’s remaining liberal features and as an early skirmish in what will be a long political war over whether and how to emancipate millions of noncitizen Palestinian Arabs living in effectively annexed territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposal introduced in January 2023 for a ‘judicial overhaul’ in Israel has been characterized as a seismic event. Labeled a ‘reform’ by supporters and a ‘coup’ by skeptics, the proposal is better understood as part of a long process rather than a sudden event. This process involves gradual but persistent executive aggrandizement advanced by weakening multiple institutions of horizontal accountability and the media, alongside the imposition of restrictions on oppositional organizational capacity. Accordingly, the process should be defined in terms of autocratization. The spokes analogy is invoked to highlight the interconnectedness between the various realms that collectively underpin the regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Weimar Republic from 1918 to 1933 is considered as an independent period in which a democracy was established after World War I. The author analyzes the different phases of the republic and discusses important events such as the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch and the Great Depression. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) played an important role as the carrier of democracy, while the split in the labor movement favored the rise of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). The Weimar Republic ultimately became a victim of an anti-republican movement that paved the way for dictatorship. The text also deals with the political history of Hesse during this time and emphasizes the political stability of the state in contrast to Bavaria. The SPD dominated the political landscape in Hesse, while the NSDAP received more support compared to the rest of the Reich. The text also addresses other aspects of the Weimar Republic, such as the changing position of women, regime changes in Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden, and successes in literature and housing construction. The economy of the Weimar Republic was efficient but not as successful compared to other European countries. Agriculture and rural businesses struggled during this time, leading to political conflicts. [Extracted from the article]

• The paper estimates the effect of changes in the wage share on the growth rate of the US economy for the period 1947–2019. • We use a time varying parameter model, which allows for continuous changes in the regime over time. This is the first paper that has attempted to do this. • We find that the US economy became more profit-led in the first postwar decades until the 1970s and has become less profit-led since. In the last fifteen years of our sample the effect of changes in distribution on economic activity is statistically insignificant. This paper estimates the distribution-led regime of the US economy for the period 1947–2019. We use a time varying parameter model, which allows for continuous changes in the regime over time. To the best of our knowledge this is the first paper that has attempted to do this. This innovation is important, because there is no reason to expect that the regime of the US economy (or any economy for that matter) will remain constant over time. On the contrary, there are significant reasons that point to changes in the regime. We find that the US economy became more profit-led in the first postwar decades until the 1970s and has become less profit-led since. In the last fifteen years of our sample the effect of changes in distribution on economic activity is statistically insignificant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prominent theories propose that commitment problems drive phenomena such as war and democratization. However, existing work disagrees about a basic question: how does a challenger's coercive strength affect prospects for conflict and/or institutional reform? We establish that the relationship depends on how challenger strength affects the average and maximum probability of winning a conflict in a given period ("threat"). We analyze a formal model with a general distribution of threats, and conceptualize challenger strength as affecting this distribution. If the maximum threat is fixed and stronger challengers pose a higher average threat, then weak challengers will rebel (absent reform) during the rare periods they pose a high threat. However, if stronger challengers pose a greater maximum threat, then they are harder to buy off. Applying these insights advances theoretical and empirical debates about democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the Impact of Exchange Rate Regime Change on Non-oil Export in Nigeria from 1985Q1 - 2018Q4. The paper employs Markov Regime-Switching Approach to capture the exchange rate regime change. Results of the study reveal that exchange rate regimes have a positive and statistically significant impact on the non-oil export in Nigeria. The results also show that the degree of the impact in the two regimes are not the same, it is higher in regime 2. This is as a result of the fact that prior to the 1980s; Nigeria adopted the fixed exchange rate regime which does not allow for domestic currency devaluation hence, the relatively low non-oil export. However, in the 1980s, especially at the introduction of the structural adjustment programme of the 1986 which saw most economies of the world switch over to the floating exchange rates regime, the Naira is often time devalued and hence the higher increase in the non-oil exports. Therefore, the study recommends that there is need to achieve a stable exchange rate that when combined with the export-oriented policy will promote non-oil exports in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political geographers and sociologists working in the field of critical toponymies have demonstrated that renaming the streetscape follows invariably after a regime change. Scholars have barely gone beyond documenting the extent of toponymic change at the level of particular places, however, usually the capital cities of countries from the former socialist bloc and other postdictatorial societies. This article sets out to address toponymic changes at the country level, by examining the complete national street nomenclature in postsocialist urban Romania. For this purpose, a data set comprising the entire collection of urban street names in Romania, together with all the street name changes that occurred during postsocialism, was constructed from multiple sources (N = 37,076). A series of multilevel logistic regression analyses were performed to model statistically the effects of various street- and locality-level variables on postsocialist street renaming. The results of these multilevel logistic regression analyses indicate that toponymic revision after the fall of state socialism is shaped by the intersection of street-level properties (e.g., artery class and features regarding the street name itself) and locality-level characteristics (e.g., the historicity of urban status and the ethnopolitics played out at the level of each city and town). The article is the first to analyze the shifting political geography of urban nomenclatures at a national level based on a complete data set of street names. The analytical model advanced in this article, based on postsocialist Romania, could be used to inform similar research on other geographical settings and historical contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines human agency in the production and transformation of global security assemblages. A situated conception of human agency is elaborated theoretically through the reincorporation of key concepts from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's original oeuvre, such as 'bodies' 'desire' and 'affect'. Through this Deleuzoguattarian assemblage framework it becomes possible to distinguish between human/non-human and active/reactive forms of agency, while not losing sight of how human actions invariably take place within broader structures of signification. To showcase the utility and analytical potential of this approach, the paper returns to a paradigmatic case of global security cooperation in recent times: the military intervention in Libya of 2011. Through the assemblage framework advocated it is illustrated how the agency of the governments of the United Kingdom, France and the United States is crucial for making connections with other bodies in the production of a Libyan humanitarian intervention assemblage, and later bringing about its transformation into a Libyan regime change assemblage. More than this, it becomes possible to grasp how in fact both these processes form part of a single Western-led biopolitical-geopolitical strategy. The paper concludes by emphasising the political and ethical significance of an appreciation of human agency in global security assemblages. De l'intervention humanitaire au renversement du régime en Libye : l'agentivité humaine dans la production et la transformation des agencements de la sécurité mondiale [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Premise: Snow is an important environmental factor affecting plant distribution. Past changes in snowfall regimes may have controlled the demographies of snow‐dependent plants. However, our knowledge of changes in the distribution and demographies of such plants is limited because of the lack of fossil records. Methods: Population genetic and landscape genetic analyses were used to investigate the response of population dynamics of Arnica mallotopus (Asteraceae)—a plant confined to heavy‐snow areas of Japan—to changes in snowfall regimes from the Last Glacial Period to the Holocene. Results: The population genetic analysis suggested that the four geographic lineages diverged during the Last Glacial Period. The interaction between reduced snowfall and lower temperatures during this period likely triggered population isolation in separate refugia. Subpopulation differentiation in the northern group was lower than in the southern group. Our ecological niche model predicted that the current distribution was patchy in the southern region; that is, the populations were isolated by topologically flat and climatically unsuitable lowlands. The landscape genetic analysis suggested that areas with little snowfall acted as barriers to the Holocene expansion of species distribution and continued limiting gene flow between local populations. Conclusions: These findings indicate that postglacial population responses vary among regions and are controlled by environmental and geographic factors. Thus, changes in snowfall regime played a major role in shaping the distribution and genetic structure of the snow‐dependent plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the voting patterns among the Sarawakian Chinese and their pro-opposition inclination in the 2021 Sarawak State Election (SSE21). It begins by recounting how the national opposition alliances, former Pakatan Harapan (PH) alliances--Barisan Alternatif (BA) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR)--gained popularity among the Chinese voters in Sarawak since the 2006 state elections. The voting trends reveal changes in Chinese voting patterns, from a voting bloc to fragmented votes, and their openness to local opposition parties in the recent state elections. In order to examine the plurality voting pattern and the extent of fragmentation, this research studies two Chinese-majority urban constituencies, Batu Lintang and Bukit Assek in Sarawak. It contends that the Chinese political leanings, including their tendency to embrace regionalism, are profoundly shaped by local and national political developments. In the past two decades, ethnopatronage politics and prevalent corruption practices partly explain the Chinese's quest for regime change. The Sarawak government's emphasis on regional identity and multiculturalism in its official narrative nurtures a sense of belonging, which also impacts Chinese identity politics. This article argues that the decision to support minor parties advocating for separatism can be read as strategic voting of the regional minority who feel deprived of their equal rights. It also contends that political fragmentation among the Chinese might persist if PH fails to consolidate its previous support. Otherwise, it spells the decline of Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) and Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK). The sustainability of local opposition parties depends on the internal reform of parties. The parties should reduce the influences of personal politics as it tends to breed party-hopping, which places parties' future or institutional development at risk of uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interpretation of biological communities as complex adaptive systems aims to demonstrate their ecological patterns at different scales and their environmental relationships. In this survey, we analyzed species diversity and alternative stable states patterns of the bird community in an Andean agroecosystem located on the central-western slope of the Peruvian Andes (Cajatambo District, Lima - Peru), on a temporal and spatio-temporal scale. We evaluated their bird community through 24 line transects, located in seven plant formations along two ecoregions, between 2 700 and 4 600 masl, during the dry and rainy seasons of 2015 and 2016. The temporal patterns did not show differences in species diversity between seasons. We determined the existence of a single temporary alternative stable states; however, we evidenced changes in their species composition between dry and rainy seasons, suggesting a greater functional redundancy in dry season than rainy season due to temporal variability of small granivore-insectivore species. Regarding the spatio-temporal patterns, the plant formations of Polylepis forests, some scrubs and agricultural lands presented high values of species diversity. In addition, we determined eight alternative stable states in relation to one or more plant formations and seasonality. Finally, a higher proportion of regime changes was found in the community alternative stable states located in the Meso-Andean ecoregion as opposed to the Puna-Humid ecoregion, which would suggest that this bird community has a greater selforganization and adaptability in the face of environmental stochasticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The loess-paleosol sequence of the Alma-Peschanoe section located in the west of the Crimean Peninsula is analyzed. A comprehensive analysis of morphological, physicochemical, and some other features enables us to identify eight paleosols formed under different conditions. The supposed age of the loess-paleosol sequence was determined by the paleofaunal analysis based on the discovery of a tooth from the mouse Micromys cf. bendae. According to the data obtained, the formation of paleosols at the initial stage was rhythmical under dry and moderately warm conditions. The paleosols were formed according to the steppe type of soil formation (Kastanozems in the WRB). Later, the climate changed towards an increase in temperature and humidity, and two red-brown polygenetic paleosols were formed. Their formation was gradual under conditions from arid to hot humid subtropical climate; at the optimal stages of soil evolution, the soils were formed according to the fersiallitic type (Nitisols). At the final stages, paleosols were formed under sharp changes in the regimes of moistening—drying. The studied red paleosols may be presumably assigned to the Sevastopol stratigraphic horizon. The studies performed enable us to characterize the landscape-climatic conditions and to elaborate a concept of the genesis of the soil cover in the Early Pliocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mid-1980s was a period of significant growth and change in Hungarian education, with numerous debates discussing the potential transformation of the schooling system. These discussions took place years before the political regime changed in 1989/1990, were primarily focused on the issue of school autonomy and the promotion of workplace democracy. This modernization trend, which was allowed and supported by some reformsocialist politicians in the Cultural Ministry and experts from the Pedagogical Institute, was not without its critics. In this study, I aim to unveil a forgotten and unanalyzed national dispute based on discourse analysis. This is a significant and yet unexplored chapter in Hungarian education history, in which many educationalists, teachers, and principals have played a pivotal role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do socioeconomic disparities between ethnic groups influence whether a country democratizes and remains democratic? I propose that, on average, high levels of ethnic inequality do not affect the prospects of democratization due to competing mechanisms. Although such inequalities give rise to grievances that fuel the demand for democracy, they also make the ruling elites from dominant groups less willing to concede political rights. However, ethnic inequality is generally associated with an increased risk of democratic breakdowns because high-inequality countries are more likely to experience politicized ethnic divides, distributional conflicts, and polarization. Investigating these arguments with time-series, cross-national data, I find that while there is a relatively strong and robust association between ethnic inequality and the risk of democratic breakdown, ethnic inequality is not associated with transitions to democracy. Examinations of potential mechanisms based on national and group-level data lend further support to the argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fall of communism in Eastern Europe did not bring about a radical and immediate destruction of the material heritage of communist dictatorships in the region. In fact, the process of de-commemoration has been more contested and more protracted than had been anticipated. Thus, what warrants a closer consideration is why this is the case since on the whole public acceptance of the regime change has been very high. This paper considers the case of Poland, the country of the Solidarity movement, which played a major role in the fall of communism in the region. The two-decade-long history of the right-wing nationalists' attempts to legislate street renaming culminating in the so-called de-communization law of 2016 will serve as a lens for investigating the responses that favoured the de-communization of public space. The paper argues that the protracted nature of the remaking of public landscape in Poland has been the result of the country's transitional legacies and different approaches to transitional justice among the former dissident opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large wildfires are increasing across numerous regions of the globe. While the West has remained a primary focus of wildfire research and resources in the U.S., recent signals suggest that wildfire risk is increasing in the eastern U.S. as well. We conducted an in‐depth assessment of large (>200 ha) wildfire regime characteristics (size, number, total hectares burned, seasonality, probability of occurrence, and ignition source) over a 36‐year period across the Eastern Temperate Forests of the U.S. to quantify geographic patterns in large‐wildfire regime and identify changing spatio‐temporal large wildfire patterns. We found increases in large wildfire size, occurrence, number, and total hectares burned in the southern and eastern regions of the Eastern Temperate Forests. In contrast, large wildfires declined or were minimal in northern ecoregions. We demonstrate increasing large wildfires across some of the most populated regions of the United States. Plain Language Summary: Large wildfires are increasing across numerous regions of the globe. While the western U.S. has remained a primary focus for wildfire research and resources, recent signals suggest that wildfire risk is also increasing in the eastern U.S. We assess patterns and changes in large (>200 ha) wildfire size, number, total hectares burned, seasonality, probability of occurrence, and ignition source over 36 years in the Eastern Temperate Forests, a region comprising most of the eastern U.S. We found that large wildfire size, occurrence, number, and total hectares burned increased in the southern and eastern portions of the Eastern Temperate Forests. In contrast, large wildfires declined or there were too few wildfires to assess in northern portions of the Eastern Temperate Forests. Our findings suggest the potential for increasing wildfire risk across some of the most populated regions of the U.S. Key Points: Large wildfires are increasing in portions of the eastern U.S.The southern and eastern regions experienced the greatest increases in large wildfire number, occurrence, size, and total hectares burnedLarge wildfire seasonality shifted across the Eastern Temperate Forests [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]