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"Civic Freedom in an Age of Diversity: The Public Philosophy of James Tully" is a book edited by Dimitrios Karmis and Jocelyn Maclure that explores the work of political philosopher James Tully. The book is structured into six sections and includes 19 chapters that cover topics such as Tully's philosophy in relation to John Rawls, feminist philosophy, civil disobedience, global governance, Indigenous views and concerns, federalism, and thinking and acting differently. The book also includes Tully's responses to each chapter, providing a comprehensive and engaging dialogue. Overall, this collection of essays serves as an excellent introduction to the work of James Tully. [Extracted from the article]

Cassam stresses the need for a detailed intellectual and emotional engagement with the ideology and narratives of extremists by giving them reasons, relative to their own extremist ideologies, to change their views (202). As Cassam notes (29), questions such as what extremism is, what is an extremist mindset, or what defines a common extremist style cannot be answered solely by armchair reflection. Extremism has been a constant presence and threat to the stability of the world in the last few decades. [Extracted from the article]

Shklar self-reflectively viewed her own intervention, I After Utopia i , as sharing in the spirit of the age "to the extent of being neither able nor willing to build an original theory of politics" (xix). Shklar's book is a valuable narrative, more so in hindsight of the gradual decline of transformative political aspirations since the Enlightenment and simultaneously of the very transformation of modern philosophy. Shklar's book provides a rich and informative account of how the Enlightenment did not triumph and why its main feature, namely, its radical hope, is now forlorn. [Extracted from the article]

Through a case study of the regulation of the Canadian pulp and paper industry over a 20-year-old period, the article examines the political-institutional variables that help explain the policy and regulatory outcomes that occur in an industrial sector. It examines six variables: (i) the industrial structure of the sector and its particular interactions with environmental elements (water, air and land); (ii) changing configurations of interest group politics; (iii) specific features of how environment departments are organised and how they approach regulatory versus resource management task; (iv) scientific controversies and how they affect political and negotiating stances; (v) problems of precise statutory capacity, especially in federal political systems; and (vi) political-managerial leadership or the lack of it within the sector. The analysis shows that a sectoral focus is needed in environmental political analysis because macro approaches simply too often ignore variables that are vital in understanding policies more concretely. It also shows how some of the above variables are too easily shunted aside as organisational or technical factors when in fact they are embued with issues of power and influence. A sectoral focus must also recognise some of the practical boundary problems of what the sectoral industrial realm is in practice and it must be based on a longitudinal depth of coverage to capture some of the interplay among the variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article links the discussions which are currently centring on the future design of the European Union legislative process to modern constitutional political theory as exemplified in the Federalist Papers . It argues that, to better understand the European Union policy–making process, analysts are well advised to consult the Federalist ’s objectives as well as its method of reasoning. Considering institutional design in general and legislative decision–making in particular, Jean Monnet, one of the principal architects of modern–day Europe, perceived the early developments which led to the Treaty that established the European Coal and Steel Community of 1952 as an unprecedented process. However, although the European Union is indeed novel, and not a state in the traditional sense, the dialogue in Europe would benefit from a more constitutionally oriented assessment of the potential effects of the Union’s institutional arrangements on legislative outcomes. Modern constitutional theory can provide the basis for this assessment. Without assuming the Constitution of the United States for itself, the European debate on legislative design would be enriched by looking back at the Federalist ’s reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the 30 years between 1837 and 1867, the Gateshead Observer provided coverage of local and national business, financial and political news that rivalled and frequently surpassed that of the various Newcastle papers and was vastly superior to that of other north-eastern publications. This article examines how this came about. It also considers how a newspaper avowedly political in its foundation emerged, as a result of the particular circumstances of Gateshead's enfranchisement and industrial development and the individuals involved, essentially as a paper for the business community. This case study also reveals how the provincial press can shed light on an otherwise very much under-documented period of local business history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the recent European Commission White Paper on European Governance, arguing that the document offers interesting possibilities for the future development of the European Union (EU), how it is governed and more particularly for 'European Urban Policy'. However, the paper argues there are problems with its use of the term governance as a strategy for reform and with a number of its proposals to widen access to the European Commission (EC) and the policy process. With regard to urban policy it is suggested that the White Paper's emphasis on a greater role for sub-national government and citizens' is to be welcomed. Although once again it is unclear whether the Commission has fully thought through the implications of its proposals both for itself and the groups it wishes to engage with. More specifically it is argued that the Open Method of Coordination is broadly similar to the methods whereby both current urban (and spatial) policy have been developed and should be embraced. Overall the White Paper is something of a mixed bag; however, this is to be expected of a document which is primarily intended to stimulate discussion about the future of EU governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the resilience of Orientalist representations in contemporary political and popular cultural constructions of space and time. Derrida's deconstruction of universalist notions of space and time enables a challenge to these mechanisms. However, our contemporary political era in the context of the war between terrorisms is marked by an implosion of the Enlightenment concept of universal space and time and the attempt to negate multiple spacetimes. In this sense, Derrida's concept of autoimmunity appears to be a necessary theoretical tool in reading our political future in relation to wars between state and other terrorisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the Turkish political landscape through the November 2002 elections, amid rising expectations for full-membership negotiations with the European Union. Holding of the elections in a period when legitimacy of political parties was questioned and the risk of political crises was pronounced; Delineation of the axes of crises that eclipse Turkish political modernity.

Describes four flourishing cottage industries that have cropped up in Washington since November 3. The resume industry; The `Dear Bill' industry; The who's-in industry; The real estate industry.

Recent scholarship on anti-fascist education has stressed the role of everyday manifestations of power and oppression as the locus of molecular or microfascism, a term coined by Deleuze and Guattari. While identifying the ways in which power structures operate at the quotidian level is undoubtedly an important educational task, this paper argues that an anti-fascist educational approach must also account for the ways in which such structures are connected to concrete political manifestations of fascism. To this end, it explores the potential contributions and challenges of an Arendtian conception of love in the context of anti-fascist education. Drawing on Arendt's polemical interactions about love with Israeli scholar Gershom Scholem, this paper suggests that Arendt's conception of love as belonging outside the realm of the political, and her rejection of a love for the nation and for collectivities in general, can serve as important pedagogical tools in uncovering and critiquing specific affective appeals characteristic of fascist and neo-fascist rhetoric. While in Arendt's own work love is not explicitly associated with an analysis of fascism, her thinking about love brings us back to questions about the very meaning of politics, questions that are foundational to any meaningful attempt to establish an anti-fascist pedagogy.[AQ] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies polarization of attitudes toward immigration in Norway from 2001 to 2019. The paper studies polarization along five dimensions: dispersion, bimodality, consolidation, constraint, and sorting. Empirical analyses were based on two Norwegian longitudinal, cross-sectional surveys. The findings suggested that, first, overall attitudes toward immigration did not become more polarized in terms of dispersion and bimodality. There was, however, a tendency toward increased polarization of attitudes toward Islam and a decreased polarization of attitudes toward refugees. Second, there was an increasing generational gap in attitudes toward immigration, especially with respect to Islam. Third, attitudes toward immigration were more closely linked to attitudes toward other political issues and to party preference. Although these changes should not be overestimated, finding increased tendencies of consolidation, constraint, and sorting in a consensus-based democracy like Norway indicates the wider existence of polarizing trends similar to those in the UK and US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constitutes the concluding remarks paper to the special issue of Pedagogy, Culture & Society, titled 'Intercultural Communication Pedagogy and the Question of the Other'. The paper presents our own reflections of the broader implications and possible conclusions that can be drawn from contributing papers. Here, we argue that there is one notion, which has been overlooked in the field of Intercultural Communication Pedagogy, namely, the political. In this paper, we argue that the political should not be negated, or relegated, at the expense of the ethical – instead, the political should be included in addressing and redressing the ethics of Intercultural Communication Pedagogy. We reject the liberal doxa that Intercultural Communication Pedagogy should be conceptualised along the lines of non-conflict with the other, e.g., through understanding the other or having a dialogue with the other. Instead, we propose conceptualising the self and other relation in Intercultural Communication Pedagogy as a permanent antagonism, a permanent crisis, without resolution. In outlining our argument, we discuss some conceptual issues surrounding some postpositivist approaches and offer a way forward for Intercultural Communication Pedagogy through an engagement with the political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary Greek Cypriot popular music scape, we witness various and varying instances that feature cultural heritage elements: the frontman of a hard rock band performing in a vraka, the traditional male trousers; a trap song making references to lefkaritiko, a traditional lace; a metal band opening their album with an acapella tsiattisto, a traditional oral poetic style. This paper discusses these and other instances by placing them in the wider historical and political framework of the Republic of Cyprus. Distinguishing between tradition and heritage, as well as place and space, it suggests that the creative turn to the cultural past of Cyprus can be interpreted as a redefinition of the modernisation and decolonisation process of the Republic of Cyprus, which is accomplished through an inward look that emphasises the geographical and cultural particularities of the island. This inward look, it is argued, speaks back to the historical process of decolonisation that was defined by external references (attachment to the motherland(s), desire for Westernisation, and opposition to the 'Other'). The decolonisation process, itself the cause and effect of conflict and sentiments of ethno-nationalism, defined the identity of postcolonial Greek Cypriot subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Account of Practice concerns a short training programme for action learning facilitators, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The programme is run on action learning principles and it involves participants working as an action learning set, taking turns to act as facilitators, set members, and issue holders, and reflecting on the processes they experience and the learning they are gaining. They are supported by two experienced action learning facilitators. The paper explains how these learning processes are structured and enabled, and also shares examples of the models that are used to help participants understand how best to learn through engaging in new experiences and to support the development of the fundamental facilitation skills of listening and asking questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We, the Editors and Publisher of West European Politics, have retracted the following article: Ric Neo (2023) 'Analysing the political effects of 'fake news' deflections in the UK', West European Politics, DOI: , published online on 21 June 2023. Since publication, significant concerns have been raised about overlaps in concept, theory and design with work made available as a conference panel paper by Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, Daniel Schiff and Natália Bueno in 2020, a precursor to their paper recently published in the American Political Science Review. Schiff, Kaylyn Jackson, Daniel Schiff, and Natália S. Bueno. 2020. 'The Liar's Dividend: How Deepfakes and Fake News Affect Politician Support and Trust in Media'. Presented at APPAM in November 2020. Schiff, Kaylyn Jackson, Daniel S. Schiff, and Natália S. Bueno. 2024. 'The Liar's Dividend: Can Politicians Claim Misinformation to Evade Accountability?' American Political Science Review. Published online 2024:1–20. doi: . Upon query, the author has not been able to provide a satisfactory explanation for this significant level of overlap and the inadequacy of accreditation. As this is a serious breach of our Editorial Policies, we are retracting the article from the journal. The author has agreed to retract the article. We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retractions. The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as 'Retracted'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractToday’s political climate is turbulent and polarized. It appears that liberals and conservatives and their respective parties are continuing to grow further apart ideologically, making it increasingly difficult to work together for the good of our country. Marketing researchers use segmentation and positioning analysis to gain a better understanding of consumers’ perceptions to increase their success in the marketplace. In this paper, we demonstrate that these same multivariate methods can be used to investigate the current political climate. Across three samples, we find support for political polarization based on voters’ views of important political issues. We also find that although the political parties align well with their ideologically typical issues, the presidential candidates (Trump and Biden) do not align well with the issues or their parties. This leads to the conclusion that they may not the best candidates for their parties or the voters. Consumer centric marketers want to help consumers make better decisions so that they are more satisfied with their consumption choices. Ideally, politicians should also want to help voters make better decisions so that voters are more satisfied with their choices of who is best suited to lead our country. The primary contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the application and benefits of using two common marketing analytics methodologies in the investigation of important political issues and voter perceptions. Additionally, this paper also provides practical implications that are applicable to political scientists, political practitioners, and voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The richly allusive tapestry of Carter's fictional costumes – comprising varying fabrics, face-paint, tattoos, and other forms of bodily modifications – invites closer examination of the complex politics that undergird them. This paper examines Carter's The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman to understand how the novel uses dress not only to foreground gender-coded sartorial practices but also to draw attention to the ways in which it indexes colonial, cultural, and moral politics. The proposed paper thus, aims to analyze how Carter employs dress as a recurrent motif in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman to examine its role in signaling and shaping socio-cultural identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper's purpose is to systematically analyse and understand the complexity of strategic-level stakeholder management within defence. Empirical data was collected via a rigorous systematic literature review of 10,369 manuscripts contained within the Web of Science, with 206 A1 studies constituting the final paper set. This was followed by bibliometric and maturity analysis leading to extraction, synthesis and integration of insights. In doing so, knowledge on defence stakeholders is consolidated beyond the traditional field of political science. The results illuminate aspects of stakeholder network complexity, including stakeholders that need to be better understood and holistic frameworks important for contextualising initiatives. Further, the need to move beyond bilaterally-focussed relationships towards the consideration of the larger ecosystem is emphasized. Finally, managers are encouraged to internalise engagement capabilities, able to continuously balance diverse stakeholder cultures and interests. Thereby, contributions are made towards the development of descriptive, instrumental and normative stakeholder theory within defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by critical feminist, decolonial, and narrative approaches, this paper invites political sciences scholars to engage in different forms of knowledges (unlearning Western-centrism by centering Asia), (collective) methodology, and data collection (centering stories). We offer a pathway to political sciences otherwise, i.e., "as if people matter" and propose reading-through as a methodology for open-ended sensemaking at the service of pluriversal co-existence, prioritizing life in/and dignity over mastery or singular truths and fact-finding. Reading-through encompasses diverse practices of meeting, co-reading, and co-writing, including exchanging thoughts on fictional/scientific stories in a "live" epistolary process paper. To articulate the substantive purchase of reading-through, we engage a selection of novels—Szabo's The Door, Faye's Small Country, Thúy's Ru, and, especially Lee's Pachinko, a woman-centered multigenerational story on the Korean and wider (north)East Asian colonial/diasporic experience in the twentieth century—and revisit the political sciences theme of belonging as be-longing otherwise. Rather than offering a definitive blueprint for Political Sciences otherwise, this paper seeks a deeper understanding of how method and methodology are an integral, co-constitutive part of our capacity to fundamentally rethink learned disciplinary conventions towards scholarship "as if people matter." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Randomised controlled trials in development economics, political science, and other social science fields have been on the rise in recent decades. Recent awards and particular trials in development economics have re-ignited active discussions of the ethics of these trials. This article surveys common ethical concerns with such trials and proposes a series of practical suggestions to help researchers and policymakers be more mindful of and transparent about ethics as they consider, design, implement, and report randomised controlled trials and other impact evaluations in development settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper attempts to look at the factors leading to the victory of the Aam Aadmi Party which have not been taken up by the traditional political analysis. Making an ethnography of the Punjab assembly elections 2022 in the Malwa belt of Punjab, it chronicles the social and cultural impact of the farmer’s movement, particularly its far-reaching impact on changing the mood of the electorate. The paper also focuses on the novel digital election campaign which resulted in new election outcomes from the past trends and a massive victory for the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In much extant scholarship, Dante is either misused as the prophet of the modern Italian nation-state or dismissed as a naive imperialist. This paper steers clear of both these characterizations and gives serious consideration to Dante’s own understanding of nationhood. I examine the construction of language and national community in De vulgari eloquentia and then place Dante’s idea of the nation in the context of his argument for world government in Monarchia. Grappling with the received view that for Dante, as for Aristotle, language is inherently political, the paper suggests that Dante’s nation is first and foremost a kind of psychological bond arising from the experience and use of common language; it is not embodied in political-juridical institutions, nor is it a suitable sphere for human self-realization through civic discourse and participation. The recovery of Dante’s ‘non-political’ understanding of the nation cautions against a blanket dismissal of premodern ideas of the nation and offers a more nuanced perspective on language, national identity, and the future of nation-states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both political theorists and scholars working on populism with an ideational approach have frequently noted that populists are averse to compromise. However, the negative relationship between populism and compromise has not been analyzed in detail. In this paper, we offer a comprehensive account of the reasons behind this oft-repeated conflict between populist narratives and the practice of compromise, disentangling the various dimensions of such incompatibility and exploring their connections. We rely on theoretical and empirical research on populism, supplemented by illustrative examples and references to political theory with an anti-pluralist coloration and the opponents thereof. We compare populist objections with Baume and Papadopoulos’s typology of objections to political compromises. We demonstrate that populist objections only partly overlap with those inventoried in the typology, notably along the moral and antagonistic dimensions, while the populist claim that compromises denature the unmediated expression of the popular will has not been considered before. Through an exploratory case study, we further reflect on how populists justify compromises when they are in power, notwithstanding their ideological reluctances. Our paper enriches the study of the ideational elements of populism while advancing research on the perception of compromises in democratic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have seen an increase in climate financing channelled to the Global South from multiple sources, putting a spotlight on climate finance coordination challenges in recipient countries. However, the climate finance coordination debate has largely been centred at climate finance provision at the global level. Emerging literature has called on recipient countries to establish effective climate finance coordination mechanisms. Yet, the calls have not clarified what accounts for an effective coordination mechanism. This paper addresses the gap by analyzing stakeholder perceptions of effective climate finance coordination in Kenya. Kenya has instituted a legal and institutional framework to guide climate finance coordination, but challenges of coordination persist. Using the political economy framework, the paper analyzes political economy factors influencing stakeholder perceptions and climate change policy implementation to identify political contestations that need to be reconciled. Data is drawn from relevant literature, 29 key informant interviews and 4 focus group discussions at the national level in Nairobi and at the sub-national level in Turkana County. Deductive thematic analysis is adopted for coding and analyzing data. Results indicate that different ideologies, interests, incentives, politics, power relations and contestation over resources largely influence stakeholder perceptions of an effective climate finance coordination mechanism and climate policy implementation. The operationalization of the National Climate Change Council and the National Climate Change Fund are the most contested. The paper calls on policy actors to reconcile political issues of contention for recipient countries to institute coordination mechanisms that gain ownership and widespread legitimacy from stakeholders. Underlying political economy factors including different ideologies, interests, politics, incentives, power relations and contestation over resources largely influence stakeholder perceptions of effective climate finance coordination as well as climate change policy implementation. The consequential political contestations need to be reconciled; otherwise, the established coordination mechanism is less likely to gain ownership and widespread legitimacy from climate change stakeholders. This calls for meaningful and extensive stakeholder engagements and consensus building to minimize contention, particularly over the operationalization of the National Climate Change Council and the National Climate Change Fund in Kenya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including humanitarianism, political science, and professionalisation.

However, our next paper, 'Government transfers to parents and population policy in a global perspective: An economic demographic approach' by Martin Kolk, points out that the realities of 21st century population show that this is no longer reasonable. The vast majority of people now live in societies with comparatively low fertility rates, where people are already taking steps to control their fertility, meaning that these are now the societies that are contributing the most to global global population growth. Two of these papers focus on more theoretical aspects of population ethics and two consider contemporary population policy from a practical perspective. [Extracted from the article]

Japan famously muddled through the 2020 Summer Olympics – triumphant as a host in that the Games were held, after a year-long delay, despite the global COVID-19 pandemic that had threatened to shutter the event entirely. The successes were qualified, with spectator-less matches and races leading to eerily quiet medals ceremonies, at least compared with normal years of cheering fans, enthusiasts, and tourists. Nowhere was the strangeness of the event more apparent than in the Opening Ceremony, filled with a combination of subdued but technologically adept spectacle, artistic representations of grief and loss, and the an unnervingly empty Olympic Stadium. This paper examines the politics of the Ceremony, and in particular the apparent early plans for a more standard, lightly nationalistic display of local history and culture, and toward a set of acknowledgments of a global crisis that transcended borders. In doing so, it calls attention to the complex political goals on display, as well as the challenges of benefiting politically from an event whose meaning in the midst of loss had been called broadly into question. Drawing from political science and literary theory, the paper emphasizes that while spectacle can matter, it risks, a dense environment of media reflection, being seen as little more than a gimmick. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how and why the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) in the Newry-area engaged in a type of violence commonly referred to as 'punishment attacks' during the first half-decade of the Troubles. A rich literature has developed to explain the use of punishment attacks, and their consequences, in Northern Ireland's two largest cities of Belfast and Londonderry/Derry. This paper builds on this work by drawing on the emerging political science literature on rebel governance to develop a resource constraint model and an internal competition model to explain the use of punishment attacks in the rural and semi-rural areas along the border with the Republic of Ireland. The explanatory models are then evaluated against newly collected quantitative data on punishment attacks reported in the Belfast Telegraph from 1974–1975 and qualitative evidence from archival and newspaper sources. The analysis suggests that the resource constraint model provides a better, although imperfect, explanation for PIRA punishment attacks during this period, while the internal competition model provides a better, although imperfect, explanation for OIRA activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizenship and the posthuman have not been often theorized together. In this paper, I want to think about their coalition both as a new episode in the efforts of politics for citizenship, including knowledge politics, and as a source of rebalancing power against governmental and corporate interests in citizenship politics. Here, I seek to address two questions: (1) What is posthuman citizenship? (2) What does posthuman citizenship bring to analysis of intersectional, complex, and multi-layered struggles of citizenship? Section I of the article addresses possible conceptual connections between citizenship and posthumanism at the posthuman political system level. Section II concentrates on a posthuman genealogy of citizenship to show why posthuman citizenship is a much-needed ontopolitical praxis. Section III details the main principles of posthuman citizenship with respect to mediation of rights, political agency, and political responsibility. The paper contributes to the understanding of politics of/for citizenship with two concepts: augmented political responsibility and posthuman deeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the concepts of social visibility and invisibility in the context of social justice and political participation. It discusses how social and political philosophers, such as Axel Honneth, Hannah Arendt, and Jacques Rancière, view visibility and invisibility as critical lenses through which to understand oppression, exclusion, and emancipatory change. The article also highlights the ambivalent nature of visibility, which can both empower and sustain problematic social dynamics. The papers in this special issue address questions about how individuals and groups achieve social visibility or remain invisible, and how democratic societies can challenge and diversify prevailing modes of perception. The hope is that these discussions will contribute to a nuanced understanding of the relationship between visibility, social justice, and transformative action. [Extracted from the article]

'Escape from the Dead Letter Office: Smuggled Birds and the Paperless Body in the Americas' brings together Eduardo Galeano's Century of the Wind, Carolina Maria de Jesus' Child of the Dark and Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the scrivener' in an analysis of dead letters. The essay suggests the metonymic relationship between textual and physical bodies. It traces a motif of paper - recycled newspapers, stolen archives, incinerated codices, paper money, letter-writing campaigns - in order to investigate the ways in which marginalized communities are exiled from the world of letters. This 'paperlessness' serves as a prophecy for more terrifying disappearances, and the theoretical contributions of Jacques Derrida, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Karl Marx, Roberto González Echevarría, and Lisa Sánchez González inform the analysis. The article itself commits to paper the resourcefulness of individuals and organizations in procuring paper for communities under siege. It seeks to bring the material aspect of literacy into clearer focus by investigating the ways in which paper circulates and is robbed of circulation, how paper is consumed literally and figuratively, and why the weight of paper can be the measure of its value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For subnational authorities in Europe the emergence of governance structures at the European level represents an opportunity to further their involvement in the policy process. However, the structures and process by which this governance is to be delivered require a deeper understanding of different national systems of governance. The modernisation agenda in the UK is producing an overall model that clearly emulates the structures of a more formalized federal system and a comparative analysis with Germany and Spain shows that this system does not necessarily match the depth of citizen participation or governmental cooperation and partnership formation upon which the non-regional system in the UK was built. It is suggested that care needs to be taken that a regional form in UK governance is not followed simply for form's sake. For the European Union, the issue is one of ensuring participation and openness -- which entails being aware of the consequences of pursuing a purely regional governance programme at the expense of effective subregional actor mobilisation and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document "Radicalization in the Asia-Pacific Region: Themes and Concepts" is a special issue that aims to enhance understanding of radicalization in the Asia-Pacific region. It includes various research papers that explore the diverse socio-economic, political, ideological, technological, and cultural systems influencing radicalization. The papers discuss topics such as the 3 N Model of radicalization, the role of masculinities in recruitment and disengagement from militant groups, and the impact of martialization on individuals' values. Additionally, the document delves into specific case studies from Indonesia, examining the promotion of moderate Islam, relationships between existential anxiety and support for violent extremism, and the role of group identification in religious collective action. The papers highlight the need for context-focused research, interdisciplinary dialogue, and culturally specific perspectives to address the complexities of radicalization in the region. [Extracted from the article]

Welfare theories, models, and programs vary in historical development and country. In the 21st century, socio-economic and economic changes significantly impact the welfare state and its social development and role. The aim of the paper is to identify the main focuses of welfare state research in the 21st century based on scientific articles. For this purpose, the tasks were set to implement bibliometric research, textual analysis, and systemic structuring results. The methodology covers bibliometric/authors co-occurrence analysis and automated content analysis, as well as general analysis and synthesis methods. Considering the dynamics and number of publications, the respective emphases of welfare state research are presented in three periods. First, bibliographic pairing analysis revealed clusters comprising conceptual nodes based on the keywords. After regrouping according to the close similarity enlarged 5 clusters presented in the paper are as follows: (1) welfare, (2) political issues, (3) service and care, (4) countries, and (5) women. The study will enable scientists and the interested public to gain an insight into current thematic and future research trends of the welfare state. Some interesting intersections for further research are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate political activity by large firms has increased in a range of western countries and in Australia. There has also been an increased tendency for large firms to lobby individually on firm-centred agendas. Both trends have seen large firms engaging in institutional adaptation, primarily through developing dedicated government relations functions (GRF). The last research on this topic in Australia was thirty years ago (Bell and Warhurst [1993]. "Business Political Activism and Government Relations in Large Companies in Australia." Australian Journal of Political Science 28: 201–220.) and this paper updates this earlier research. It also frames the relevant developments as an important set of institutional challenges, not only for government relations (GR) managers within corporate hierarchies, but also in interacting with and influencing other key institutional interlocutors, especially government policy makers. The way in which GR managers deal with such challenges through building supportive relations with key internal and external interlocutors, and especially how this shapes the business-government relationship more broadly, is a key focus of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western political philosophy has been dominated by the idea of speech as the locus of subjectivity constitution, individual and collective. This has led to a neglect of silence and silent forms of political being. Taken for the absence of speech acts, silence has come to stand for the want or failure of agency. This special issue reconsiders silence in relation to both speech acts and other forms of political action. Equipped with new understandings of silence, it re-assesses the role of silence and of silent agency in both democratic and authoritarian systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By constructing and analyzing a dialogue about dialogue among Plato, Mill, and Oakeshott, this paper considers conversation in the liberal arts and political theory classrooms as a form of political education that prepares students for the responsibilities of citizenship. An education in and through conversation can cultivate a disposition that is willing and able to engage with others. With less at stake in the classroom, the skills that are necessary for politics—the frankness, good will (and self-control), knowledge, listening, and respect for particularity—can be developed and practiced. This paper advocates a respect for particularity in conversation over an optimism regarding progress toward truth, arguing that our contemporary polarized politics needs conversation that respects difference now more than ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the 'blind spots in IPE' recently addressed in related Special Issues of Review of International Political Economy and New Political Economy. It identifies a blind spot of law in IPE, tracing the problem to a blind spot in the discipline of international relations (IR) generated by tendencies in dominant theories to consider international law to be super-structural, epiphenomenal, and not worthy of political analysis, and to associations of international law with idealism. The analysis notes an inverse blind spot in international law (IL), wherein legal scholars tend to regard IL as autonomous of politics and the political economy of 'who gets what, when, how'. These blind spots contribute to the neglect of how legal forms function to mystify the political economy of IL, thereby advancing transnational capitalism and inequality. The empirical focus is on transnational contract law, dispute settlement, and value and production chain contracting. These laws function as Capital's law and central pillars of the transnational politico-legal order by reaching deep inside states to restructure domestic spheres according to new constitutionalism and the demands of transnational capital. Drawing on critical political economy, the paper develops a historical materialist analysis to denaturalize and demystify Capital's law. This is a necessary move for scholars interested in the progressive and emancipatory potential of IL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deploying a Lacanian conceptual framework, this article interrogates the psychoanalytic underpinnings of Paulo Freire's dialogical method of critical pedagogy. The paper advances the claim that the transformative efficacy of Freirean dialogue is rooted in its unique ability to confront and engage the repressed element of trauma, or what Lacan calls the real. The author suggests that the locus of trauma stands as the elusive, yet central and constitutive axis around which Freire's dialogical engagement turns. Following psychoanalysis' attention to biography, the paper first examines how Freire's personal experience of exile informs his philosophical orientation to being, politics, and education. Turning to a specific classroom event Freire outlines in Pedagogy of Hope, the paper then develops a new interpretation of Freire's idea of naming, and through Lacanian analysis, extends Freire's insight on the relationship between psyche, ideology, and social antagonism. Pushing the idea of class subjectivity in Freire beyond its familiar determinants (namely as an 'identity'), the paper resituates the notion of radical subjectivity in critical pedagogy as the effect of a traumatic loss or gap in the sociosymbolic order of being. The author argues that the 'naming event' in Freire is formally rooted in an encounter with this unconscious gap. To conclude, the paper offers critical educators some new points of departure for conceptualizing the transformative labor of problem-posing dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a clarification of how 'education in a postliberal world' differs from the concept of 'postliberal education;' and second, to contribute to an understanding of the backlash against liberalism and liberal education in recent years. The paper is primarily conceptual and only secondarily descriptive in that it prioritizes the importance of clarifying the conceptual haze surrounding the notion of postliberalism and related terms (i.e. illiberalism, anti-liberalism); it is argued that this conceptualization is necessary as these concepts have different educational implications in different political contexts. The paper outlines a number of broad dimensions that are important to explore in future research on the entanglement between postliberalism and education; it also discusses how the concept of postliberalism could be used fruitfully to account for changes in education in ways that take into consideration the recent critiques against liberalism and liberal education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from the theoretical and empirical results of a European research project, this paper tentatively elaborates a post-neoliberal framework for social policy and welfare reform. We argue that for moving beyond neoliberalism it is not sufficient to just increase the generosity of social policies: what is also needed is 'social empowerment', i.e. processes of democratization of social policymaking that effectively redistribute power in society, making welfare institutions increasingly accountable and responsive to citizens, including marginalized ones. Building on reflections and learnings emerging from our work in the research project, we show that a capability and human rights informed participatory action research involving civil society organizations, marginalized citizens and academic researchers, can offer potential pathways forward to advance a post-neoliberal social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the need of marine protected areas for mitigating environmental impacts of climatic changes and for sustainable fisheries management. It discusses the private conservation of marine environment initiatives managed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). It further focuses on the politics in marine protected areas and the influence of NGOs. It also suggests the need of positive NGO engagement in the marine protected area management and designation.

This article examines “currency chains”—messages and petitions written on paper money—as folkloric expressions and rhetorical acts that critique or commend dominant American public discourse. After a general description of currency chains, it considers two categories in detail. First is the “St. Lazarus” variety that flourished in the United States in the late 1990s, having migrated from Europe. Second are political money chains that engage with a social or political order, often in protest. This article observes the condemnation of currency chains as an irrational phenomenon, and regards them as viable means for often marginalised groups to foster participation in a public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bibliography on philosophy and politics is presented which includes the books "Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations," by Arif Ahmed, "Tough Choices: Structured Paternalism and the Landscape of Choice," by Sigal R. Ben-Porath, and "Alexander the Great and His Empire: A Short Introduction," by Pierre Briant.

The Editors and Publisher of West European Politics have retracted an article titled "Analysing the political effects of 'fake news' deflections in the UK" by Ric Neo. Concerns were raised about similarities between this article and a conference panel paper by Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, Daniel Schiff, and Natália Bueno in 2020, which was later published in the American Political Science Review. The author was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the overlap, leading to the retraction of the article. While the retracted article will remain online, it will be marked as "Retracted" on each page. [Extracted from the article]