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Many professionals want to both achieve professional success and contribute to society. Yet, in some professional contexts, these aims are in tension because serving elite clients is considered the pinnacle of professional success, but professionals themselves may view serving this clientele as antithetical to making a societal contribution. Drawing on interviews with 84 architects and designers who self-identify as people seeking to contribute to society—that is, who hold a prosocial identity—we develop theory about how professionals navigate tensions between their prosocial and professional identities and with what consequences for their work with clients. We identified four strategies that professionals used to ease these tensions, all of which gave the prosocially oriented professionals a sense of identity integration. However, these strategies differently shaped professionals' approach to power relations with the client, depending on the client's status and the types of knowledge and skills each professional viewed as central to their work. Professionals with marginalized social identities, such as women and ethnic/racial minorities, were more likely than others to embrace working with low-status clients and to use broader definitions of the knowledge and skills required for their work. Our findings contribute to scholarship on professional identity construction and prosocial work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common ground isn't always a good thing. For example, consider the growing popularity of 'predistribution.' Predistribution is an alternative to redistribution: rather than taxing people's incomes and spending the revenue [...]

Although the matter of repartos (the sale on credit to Indians of goods they might need) has been extensively studied, the purpose that led the Crown to establish a system around them in 1751 is often neglected. Scholars usually understood the repartos as abuses carried out by the corregidores and alcaldes mayores (judges and local Spanish authorities) in the provinces of Peru and New Spain and tolerated by the government until their abolition from 1780 onwards. It is almost completely ignored that the 1751 decree was not a simple legalisation of the repartos to favour local elites, but quite the opposite, a true Bourbon reform with the intention of increasing the industriousness of the Indians and transforming them into buyers of colonial goods (mules, clothes, food) and European goods (textiles, iron, manufactures). It was a reform aimed at encouraging production, trade and the royal exchequer through taxation. The participation of different social sectors in the system contrasts with the idea of monopoly so often associated with the reparto. It is precisely this idea that results from prioritising the testimonies of the detractors of the repartos in the context of abolition rather than paying attention to the purpose of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Since the 2000s, rural elites have engaged in ‘greening’ the Amazon extractive frontier. Private and state‐led initiatives have consolidated the agro‐industrial system by incentivizing compliance and effectively legalizing deforestation. Brazil's Rural Environmental Registry (Cadastro Ambiental Rural — CAR) is fundamental to ‘sustainable producer’ initiatives and international and local carbon markets. Since its emergence at the end of the 1990s, it has been funded and promoted by European countries and the World Bank through the G7 Pilot Programme for the Conservation of Brazilian Rainforests and the Amazon Fund. This analysis draws on a critical political economy approach and several years of multi‐site interviews, participant observation and archival research to illuminate how donor and recipient agencies have sustained territorial and georeferencing technologies as an international state project to enable the green economy, despite political shifts and the inherent contradictions of this instrument. The article shows how ecological modernization technologies enable the ‘greening’ of agro‐industry expansion while exacerbating land conflicts and marginalizing Indigenous and traditional peoples’ collective land rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: Local government can develop democracy and community participation if institutions support it. But when a military regime takes over following a coup d'état, it may use familiar methods of patronage, corruption, and exploitation of kinship ties to render decentralization a spectacle—that is, done for show, but without substantial change. Local elites may then capture local administration and extract public resources. Purpose: Does decentralization as spectacle bring positive change — when the military hold power and the state is laden with corruption, patronage, and kinship ties? Methods and approaches: We analyse how respondents experienced two periods of local government, including post‐election public interactions between representatives and their constituents. Data comes from responses to qualitative interviews with 70 key informants from the Qambar Shahdadkot and Larkana districts of Sindh, Pakistan. We analysed the themes generated by responses to questions. Findings: Some 40% of respondents reported those who came into local government power aimed first and foremost to promote the interests of their own class. Some 29% of respondents reported local government made empty promises to provide services with public participation. Pakistan's decentralization has been a spectacle, to serve powerful elites. Local government has been captured by local elites. Policy implications: Decentralization, muzzled by the military, is mere spectacle, and predatory to boot. Donor agencies should explore possibilities for change at the local level; for example, where local networks and informal governmentality can build up trust amongst hyper‐local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International research collaboration is a way to facilitate original knowledge production, share research equipment, promote learning together and talent pooling at a cross-border level. However, it takes place in a hierarchical and unequal global research space. Conditioned by various structural factors, researchers actively exercise their agency to pursue their own objectives through international research collaboration. While researchers' agency is widely acknowledged in the literature, it remains unclear how the agency-structure plays out in international research collaboration. This study addresses this research gap through a case study of a Chinese elite university. It collected data from the university's researchers and administers, and national policymakers through in-depth interviews and policy document analyses. The results reveal two types of agency exercised by researchers in international research collaboration – agency as reflexive response to structural factors and agency as reflexivity in seeking international collaborators and collaboration – and influential structural factors that condition researcher's exercise of agency. The study theoretically contributes to the understanding of the agency-structure complex in international research collaboration and has practical implications for research policymakers, universities, and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A distinct education has become a heretical right for urban elites despite educational equality is an official agenda. This has not only widened the gaps between urban and rural counterparts but also developed discriminations amongst different classes of student within the urban schools. To validate this tenet, the facilities offered by various schools were compared. Yet, whether a particular secondary education program has become an exclusive right essentially for urban elites to deprive others; is not widely explored—an investigation of this study. Educational background and some selective socioeconomic status (SES) of 925,617 students; completed their secondary school certificate from 3,315 schools were collected to make comparison through descriptive analysis of secondary data. Findings note that secondary science education has become a popular program amongst the urban elites. Subsequently, they also perform well in the public examination. Furthermore, discussions suggest that science being an international education demands both formal and informal higher budgets. Hence, a greater success of urban elites in secondary science provision helps them to succeed successively in procuring higher education and thereby in job-market. Thus, a policy intervention is required to ensure an effective implementation of educational equity concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how local actors in Buffalo and Cleveland mobilized through garden tourism as a form of alternative urbanism to rehabilitate heavily stigmatized places and remake their city's reputations. Buidling off the concepts of civic action and scene styles, I compare how grassroots actors in Buffalo mobilized through a symbolic purity scene style to deracialize urban stigmas to how grassroots actors in Cleveland mobilized through a diversity scene style to create an inclusive place reputation that addressed the city's internal racial and ethnic divsions. I found that in the process of rehabbing their communities, grassroots actors in both cities replaced racialized urban stigmas with a different form of Whiteness, and when residents and elites shared the same scene style, they were more likely to cooperate, which entrenched the garden tour with local elites and other organizations in the cultural tourism field. Cultural variables like a place's reputation matter in how and what kind of Rust Belt city will emerge from the era of urban shrinkage. Data for this article comes from 50 semistructured in-depth interviews, fieldwork, and archival data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Studies (Routledge) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Administrative burden research has contributed to improved understanding of citizens' experiences while accessing state services. However, the significance of the material infrastructure within which citizen–administrator interactions take place remains largely absent from this line of research. To help address this research gap, this article uses ethnographic data to discuss the influence of material and virtual artifacts in bureaucratic offices on the administrative burden faced by citizens accessing social services. This significance of artifacts is further unpacked along their material, symbolic, and aesthetic dimensions. Our findings suggest that the instrumentality of certain artifacts (or lack thereof) can disproportionately decrease accessibility and usability of bureaucratic spaces for certain social groups thereby augmenting their administrative burden. Moreover, artifacts symbolizing power, prestige, and administrative easing are reserved for spaces occupied by the social elite while the underprivileged groups are relegated to bureaucratic spaces characterized by a general neglect of aesthetics and symbolism of decay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Now we are in power: The politics of passive revolution in twenty-first-century Bolivia" by Angus McNelly explores the dynamics of popular movements taking on leadership roles in politics in Bolivia. The author reflects on the challenges and limitations faced by these movements as they transition into governing roles, drawing on Antonio Gramsci's concepts. McNelly's analysis focuses on the dialectic between restoration and revolution in Bolivia's 21st-century transformations, emphasizing the concept of passive revolution. The article provides a critical examination of Bolivia's political landscape, offering insights into the complexities of popular movements attaining power within the state. [Extracted from the article]

ABSTRACT The rise of China as a trading partner, lender and investor is among the most significant developments in the global political economy over the last two decades. This shift has created important new opportunities for developing countries, but it has also introduced new challenges, with benefits and drawbacks unevenly distributed across different nations. This article argues that understanding the developmental consequences of China's involvement requires studying not only Chinese priorities and modalities but also the interests and strategies of local elites. The development of Latin America has been profoundly influenced by these elite interests, which are shaped by the region's integration into the global economy. Elites may leverage the benefits of the relationship to China to enhance their rent‐seeking capabilities and limit competition, thereby hindering development and perpetuating inequality in Latin America. This argument is examined through the contrasting cases of Chile and Venezuela; while Chile's approach to China has been dominated by private sector elites, Venezuela's approach has been driven by governmental elites. In both cases, integration with China is shaped by and has in turn strengthened interests and strategies of the elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports an ethnographic case study of a Chinese female English major of a working-class background – Faye (pseudonym) and her English learning and use experience in an elite community in the Chinese context. Drawing on the data collected from a 13-month longitudinal inquiry, the study employs Darvin and Norton’s [2015. ‘Identity and a Model of Investment in Applied Linguistics.’ Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35:36–56. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190514000191] model of investment to explore her identity transformation through English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) practices. Findings suggest that Faye’s investment in EFL practices appeared to transform with her evolving perceptions of EFL learning and imagined identities, which were shaped largely under the influence of neoliberal and humanities discourses. The study argues for a critical interrogation of the impact of neoliberalism on EFL learning and humanities education, cautioning against its tendency to constrain identity potentials and sustain structural inequalities. Pedagogical implications are suggested at the end of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on central West Slavic sites in the Polish Lowlands (Poland) dated to the Early Middle Ages conducted within the framework of the Man in the Borderland project (NP DH) has shown that settlements located on small lake islands (Pomerania, Lubusz land) were of particular importance, alongside settlements performing complex social and political functions. Their physiognomy relates in many cases to British crannogs, as they have an anthropogenic (artificial) structure and their characteristic feature is the presence of wooden relics of structures in the form of embankments, piers and bridges. The occurrence of artifacts characteristic of social elites (militaria, merchant's accessories, jewellery) further indicates the importance of many of these sites. As a rule, they were located on the borders of former tribal territories and on the periphery of the early Piast state (8th/9th–11th century). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to their high political and social impact, studying elites is a growing strand of scholarship in sociology. In this research note, we investigate immigrants' pathways into the income elite, that is, the top 1% of Germany's income distribution. Using data from the German Microcensus from 2009 to 2018 covering more than three million observations, we examine the prevalence of immigrants in the elite and immigrants' pathways to access the elite, that is, education, self-employment, country-of-origin effects and integration. Our results show that immigrants are underrepresented in the elite by 46%. Smaller returns to education and self-employment compared with natives drive this underrepresentation. Regarding immigrant-specific pathways, immigrants from EU countries, who face fewer legal, cultural and social barriers, have higher chances of being in the elite than immigrants from non-EU countries. Finally, we find no evidence of integration, that is, years since migration, affecting immigrants' elite status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions do land transfers occur under land reform? Theories of land redistribution focus on demand-side explanations for land transfers where the state allocates land in exchange for support from voters or rural elites. In this article, I argue that land transfers under market land redistribution are driven by supply-side characteristics of landholders. Using the case of South Africa's sugar sector, I show that landholders chose to sell their land via redistribution when they had the economic incentive to preserve existing state-support frameworks and had collective capacity from centralized institutions. To understand when and why land redistribution occurs, one must pay attention to the landholders' relationship to the state and their internal sectoral organization. In some cases, landholders may have an incentive to redistribute their land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the entanglement of an international women's NGO, the International Council of Women (ICW), the Pahlavi state and Iranian female elite activists. Beginning in the late 1960s, the Iranian court started financially supporting this western NGO and subsequently its discourse regarding 'modern women'. By doing so, the Shah strengthened his own image as a modern ruler. The ICW was financially unstable and accepted money from the autocratic regime without any reluctance. The discourse the Shah invested in, ICW's discourse, was adopted by Iranian elite activists, whose activities were supported and controlled by the state. This study shows that this three-sided collaboration enforced a notion of modernity that failed to take class inequalities into consideration, thereby ignoring subaltern women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses elite continuity and settlement pattern change in Zagori (NW Greece) from the late fourteenth to the nineteenth century. The peaceful assimilation of the regional and local elites into the Ottoman Empire (1430) led to adaptations in the montane landscape. Imperial and local archival research, ethnography, and landscape archaeology reveal that the Ottoman administration divided large decentralized settlements into smaller villages to accommodate local elites and new timariots. This topography of division (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries) gave way to a topography of adaptation (seventeenth to nineteenth centuries) when local elites influenced settlement patterns in forming the administrative unit the Zagorisian League. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of elites has long considered families as the unit of analysis in studies of power dynamics between elite dynasties and their transmission of wealth and prestige over generations. However, the assumption that families are cohesive units with common goals and agendas does not hold, especially for large and powerful family dynasties. Internal conflicts and clan rivalries throughout history suggest that independent clans, rather than families, are the more appropriate level for aggregation. The increasing availability of large-scale genealogical datasets and advances in social network analysis allow this more fine-grained perspective to be implemented even without historical documentation on observed clan structures. This paper builds on socio-anthropological conceptualizations of kinship and on hierarchical clustering techniques to present a new method for identifying independent clans within families that relies only on network-dependent terms. I use simulated data and an empirical kinship network of families of early modern Basel, Switzerland to compare a clan detector algorithm's performance with common community detection techniques. The historical accuracy of the clan structures detected is further assessed with various status indicators. The analyses show that the proposed clan detector algorithm is more suitable for identifying historically accurate clans than the traditional approaches. The application of the new method to the kinship network of Basel families sheds light on the city's stratification into high- and low-status societies in which elite families were also divided into privileged and less privileged clans. • New method for identifying independent clans within large family dynasties. • The algorithm's performance is assessed with simulated and empirical data. • Comparison with other community detection techniques. • The detected clans in the empirical network are historically accurate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the final months of the Ferenc József University of Kolozsvár/Cluj during the closing stages of World War II. In this period, due to Soviet occupation, a distinct administration was established, separate from the Hungarian state administration, preceding the re-installation of Romanian state administration in March 1945. The university’s leadership chose not to follow the evacuation order and kept the institution in the city. This decision raised several issues, including the role of the university in Hungarian cultural life in Transylvania. The article explores the university’s relationship with the Red Army officials, its interactions with the Romanian political and cultural elite of the era, and its complex engagement with the Hungarian minority elite in Romania regarding the development of future strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study responds to the recent call in the literature for the interrogation and understanding of how social protection is accessed and distributed among various groups and classes of society. It explores who stands to win and lose from social protection through the lens of social class using the case study of Pakistan, where the elite class holds significant sway over decision‐making. Using a unique mixed methods approach, this study offers a two‐fold contribution: First, it applies cluster analysis to group households based on their socioeconomic demographics, with clusters serving as proxies for class and thereby giving unique insight into class composition in Pakistan. Second, it provides analysis of access to and experiences with social protection of households in different classes. The study concludes that social protection in Pakistan is insufficient in reaching and aiding lower‐class households. Instead, it predominantly benefits the wealthy, reinforcing a cycle of privilege and disadvantage among different socioeconomic classes. This study contributes to the construction of knowledge on how concentration of power within an elite group leads to resource allocation that perpetuates existing inequalities, hinders social progress and amplifies challenges faced by the lower classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets out to study Tunisian protest movements and state responses by focusing on continuities in protest and policing rather than radical breaks like the 1956 independence, the 2010–2011 revolution, or more recently, Kais Saied’s July 25 self-coup. Through ethnographic fieldwork among activists in Tunis, residents of its popular neighbourhoods and with the El-Kamour movement of the southern region of Tataouine, the article develops three arguments and theoretical tools: firstly, it argues that residents of Tunis’ popular neighbourhoods and Tunisia’s inland and southern regions are racialized through consistent securitisation at the hands of urban elites as they migrated to the cities to establish what would become peripheral popular neighbourhoods. Secondly, it develops and applies a lens of internal occupation to analyze policing of these racialized populations. Through a grounded theory-approach, it articulates intimately felt indignity and humiliation in the context of an outsider-insider policing dynamic. Thirdly, it argues that racialisation is perpetuated by a state-capitalist class nexus consisting of economic benefactors of the reserve army of labour and natural resource extraction. Security forces violently enforce this socio-economic order. Lastly, it suggests that internal occupation is a useful theoretical lens through which to analyze policing of marginalised populations in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within its location on the Çine plain, south of the Great Meander River, Çine-Tepecik is an important settlement inhabited continuously from the Chalcolithic to the end of the Bronze Age. Çine-Tepecik reflects an advanced lithic assemblage based on different raw material resources from the earliest period. Obsidian is among the earliest finds in Tepecik showing interregional trade based on the system of exchange, and is a resource that societies prioritized in their social lives and interregional communication since the beginning of the settlement process. Starting from the 4th millennium BCE until the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, obsidian was obtained from three main resources in the Aegean. These are Melos and Antiparos from the Cyclades; Giali from the Dodecanese and Göllü Dağ, Nenezi and Acıgöl from Central Anatolia. These connections, based on trade with the Aegean and Central Anatolia, reveal a skilled craft of obsidian tool production, as well as an obsidian and rock crystal vessel tradition in Tepecik during the Middle Bronze Age. The assemblage, which has a special meaning among prestige products, belongs to a craft activity that requires skill and experience, and is an indicator of socio-cultural richness. During the 2nd millennium BCE, in the wide geographical region covering Anatolia, Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean obsidian and rock crystal vessels were among the special items produced for the royal or elite class. The stone vessel assemblage reflects the political and economic power of these regions, and also provides an understanding of interregional cultural and commercial connections. In the Çine-Tepecik Middle Bronze Age settlement, the obsidian and rock crystal vessel traditions followed a similar chronological development as the geography extending to Anatolia, the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, and brings new finds to regional archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran’s contemporary transnational connection with Turkish Alevis and Shiites has been a curious case. This study examines the perceptions of Alevi, Shiite, and Mutashayyi (converted Shiite) religious minorities in Turkey towards the Islamic Republic of Iran, shedding light on the complex interplay between denominational public opinion and international politics. The research unveils divergent perspectives held by these minority groups through semi-structured face-to-face interviews with the ‘opinion-maker’ religious elites. While Alevis, motivated by secularist concerns, shows political opposition to the Iranian regime despite the common religious symbolisms, Shiites and Mutashayyis demonstrate different degrees of sympathy or allegiance towards Iran. The study elucidates the complexities of multi-layered identities and their possible ramifications for international relations. Furthermore, the findings provide insights into the Iranian regime’s soft power potential and dynamics through religious diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elites played a pivotal role in the formation of post-Roman Europe on both macro- and microlevels during the Early Medieval period. History and archaeology have long focused on their description and identification based on written sources or through their archaeological record. We provide a different perspective on this topic by integrating paleogenomic, archaeological, and isotopic data to gain insights into the role of one such elite group in a Langobard period community near Collegno, Italy dated to the 6-8th centuries CE. Our analysis of 28 newly sequenced genomes together with 24 previously published ones combined with isotope (Sr, C, N) measurements revealed that this community was established by and organized around a network of biologically and socially related individuals likely composed of multiple elite families that over time developed into a single extended pedigree. The community also included individuals with diverse genetic ancestries, maintaining its diversity by integrating newcomers and groups in later stages of its existence. This study highlights how shifts in political power and migration impacted the formation and development of a small rural community within a key region of the former Western Roman Empire after its dissolution and the emergence of a new kingdom. Furthermore, it suggests that Early Medieval elites had the capacity to incorporate individuals from varied backgrounds and that these elites were the result of (political) agency rather than belonging to biologically homogeneous groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how in 1967 South Korea’s local elites, developmental regime, and American park planners jointly designed South Korea’s first national park around Mt. Jiri as a recreational park. In so doing, this article asks what it meant to preserve nature in the 1960s South Korea in the context of the developmental populism of the Park Chung-hee regime and Cold War preservationism. After the end of the Korean War, Mt. Jiri’s forest suffered overlogging by garrisoned soldiers and non-native timber traders. In response, local leadership actively sought to bring in another industry in which they could participate, such as large plantations. By the mid-1960s, several government survey teams explored the mountain, aiming to set up large plantations on Mt. Jiri at the request of local society. However, due to the inhospitable environment to alpine agriculture, the South Korean government abandoned the food colony project and opted instead for a national park in 1965. In this context, the South Korean government designed a new national park to maximize the profit for the government and local society, with consultations with economists of US foreign aid agencies. Paradoxically, this model made Mt. Jiri less attractive to IUCN’s preservationist park planners seeking to establish well-preserved natural reserves in the Third World, and eventually helped the opening of a recreational national park in 1967 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vrushali Patil's book, "Webbed Connectivities: The Imperial Sociology of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality," challenges the Euro-centric perspective of gender and sexuality studies. Patil argues that the transnational turn in the field has produced knowledge beyond Euro-American borders but has displaced the transnational itself. She proposes the concept of "webbed connectivities" to rewire common concepts in the sociology of sex, gender, and sexuality. The book explores the historical connections between race, colonialism, and imperialism in shaping sex, gender, and sexuality. Patil's work aims to connect seemingly disparate histories and geographies and offers a blueprint for transforming contemporary field formation. [Extracted from the article]

Throughout the history of Tibet, sacred places such as mountains, lakes, caves, and monasteries have been visited by laypeople and religious elites alike in search of purification, blessings, karma, long life, teachings, and spiritual transformation. More recently, scholars have studied the history and evolving present circumstances of pilgrimages across the Tibetan landscape. While the study of pilgrimage in Tibet remains a relatively small subfield, in the past 30 years, this body of scholarship has grown. This article will provide a short overview of this scholarship on pilgrimage in Tibetan Buddhism. It is intended as an introduction to people new to the field of pilgrimage studies in Tibet, so that they can orient themselves in the literature, find resources on topics of interest, or find teaching resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The studied materials highlighted the extent of the relationships in areas of the Iberian inland, also connected to the Mediterranean world, during the iron age. • The ceramic characterisation showed only a main production, with two body fabrics, but both used to produce all ceramic types, either traditional or ceremonial, manufactured in local workshops. • The material knowledge of these inland communities provided them the suitable ability to understand the fashions and industrial uses of the coastal circuits to replicate the characteristic elements of the social elites of that time with adequate mastery. The archaeological site called El Pueyo de Marcuello (Huesca, Spain) is an Iron Age urban settlement, geographically situated in inland Iberia, and dated of the second half of the first millennium BCE. The nature and manufacture of their archaeological remains allow identifying this site as a contact point for relevant exchanges, with remarkable connections with Central and Western Mediterranean cultures. These cultural influences and exchanges were investigated through the characterisation of the ceramic objects found during the archaeological excavations. More than forty fragments were studied, including some of the most peculiar ceramic types, and analysed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The petrographic observations of the thin-sections highlighted two ceramic fabrics, with a similar matrix and mineralogy, but the second one using sparite crystals of crushed calcite as intentionally added temper. The statistical treatment of the chemical data supported the identification of two main compositional subgroups; both included very similar low-calcareous clay bodies. All these data allowed for highlighting a main production, with two body fabrics, but both used to produce all ceramic types, either traditional or ceremonial. These objects could have been largely manufactured in local workshops. The materials from El Pueyo de Marcuello highlighted the extent of the relationships in areas of the Iberian inland, also connected to the rhythms of Mediterranean world, during the Iron Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lineage of Rodrigo Díaz has recently been a subject of debate. This paper strives for a better understanding with several points in this regard: that he was not a member of the upper aristocracy by birth; that he is not portrayed as a lowly infanzón in the Cantar de Mio Cid, but rather as a powerful nobleman not belonging to the highest rank; that neither Rodrigo nor Jimena can be ascribed to the Flaínez family, meaning theirs was not an endogamic marriage; that she, being of royal blood, was buried at San Juan de la Peña rather than at Cardeña; that a confusion led to the poet naming one of the Cid's daughters Elvira, with further insights on the usage of Sol as a cognomento also being provided; and that the hypothesis of a granddaughter called Maria marrying an alleged Count Bernat III of Besalú, should most definitely be dismissed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the importance of, and variations in, political alignment within African regimes. Political alignment is how leaders establish sufficient political support across elites: we posit that formal appointments are the primary way that leaders manipulate political coalitions in order to secure their collective authority and tenure. Appointments, individually and collectively, can take on multiple characteristics: they can create inclusive or exclusive coalitions, transactional or loyal support, volatile or stable elite networks. Appointment powers have greater salience since governments institutionalized and formalized in governance systems across democratic and autocratic states. Manipulating who holds and secures power at the subnational and national levels, rather than repressive control or state capacity, underpins the stability, security, and survival of modern African regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When studying the erosion of democratic institutions – such as elections – researchers often focus on elite co-optation or regime dynamics. Yet changes in political selection may also have long-term effects on the types of individuals seeking a political career, defining the dominant features of decision-makers down the road. I design a lab experiment to explore the effects of changes in political selection that accompanied authoritarian backsliding in Russia. Using a series of experiments, I show that creating an unfair playing field in elections and replacing elections with appointments for the local offices leads to self-selection of the risk-averse individuals into political careers. This happens because selection features like low costs of running (for regime candidates) and the absence of public evaluation for the appointees attract individuals who are more risk averse. This study demonstrates a causal mechanism connecting elements of authoritarian backsliding with citizen political ambition and contributes to our understanding of the long-term effects these changes may have on political participation, elite quality, and regime functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, mercury is a matter of concern for health and environmental authorities across western countries, and legislation has been passed and programs have been implemented for its total elimination from human activity. But this was not always the case: mercury and its compounds have been highly appreciated and used since remote times all over the world with very diverse purposes ranging from decorative, medicinal, metallurgical and symbolic. In particular, cinnabar (HgS, mercury sulfide), a mineral of an intense red color, has been considered in many cultures as an exotic raw material, highly valued and associated with the elites and sacred practice. In this paper, we examine one such case, set almost 5000 years ago, in Copper Age Iberia, by investigating mercury exposure through human bone. The study presented here includes a total of 170 samples from 70 different human individuals and 22 animals (plus one soil sample) from the Copper Age mega-site of Valencina, south-western Spain. It is the largest ever single-site study of exposure to mercury based on human bone in combination with cinnabar use. Abnormally high values are recorded in some individuals dating between 2900 and 2650 BC, especially in those buried in remarkable tombs belonging to the social elite of this period, but high levels of mercury are also recorded in the rest of the population. Three lines of interpretation are used to explain these results, including the manipulation of cinnabar (grinding it into powder, mixing it with other substances, using it for the decoration of objects, buildings and the human body), its direct consumption through ingestion or inhalation by a 'special' social group and the contribution of environmental factors. Based on the currently available evidence, which is carefully reviewed, Valencina represents the most intense and prolonged case of exposure to mercury recorded in human history, which makes it an important site to assess the long and complex history of use of this substance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The institutions-cum-forest use dynamics literature is growing, albeit marred by scanty evidence on actor roles in shaping the process in sub-Saharan Africa. Cameroon represents a useful "laboratory" to explore such actor-driven change processes. Recent studies have reported the change process linked to a colonial hangover in parts of Cameroon that came under French influence, suggesting the need for fresh evidence to uncover such change processes in parts of the country which came under British influence. Using the Bakossi Landscape as a case, this article (i) traces the pathways of forest-linked institutional change, (ii) estimates the role of actor groups in shaping forest-linked institutional change, and (iii) explores the determinants of forest-linked institutional change in the Bakossi Landscape. A representative sample of 116 households in 3 selected communities was performed. This was complemented by focus group discussions (n = 6) and key informant interviews (n = 10). Descriptive statistics were used to establish forest-linked institutional change, while the ordinary least square was employed to estimate the effect of actor groups and other determinants on forest-linked institutional change. The results lead us to the following conclusions: First, both forest-linked institutional structures and processes witnessed changes over the years. Second, raising the intensity of actor group processes (in-migrants, local elites, traditional leadership, timber dealership and NTFP traders) significantly decreases changes in forest-linked traditional rules, while migration, state officials and the church significantly increase changes in forest-linked institutional structure. Finally, an increase in the composite index of process-mix traditional leadership and NTFP traders decreases changes in forest-linked institutional structures. Future studies should uncover gender dimensions of changes in forest-based institutions, as well as the role of conflict actors in engendering institutional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Marmara University Journal of Political Science / Marmara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of Marmara University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the American expatriate community in Florence, Italy, between 1840 and 1865. Florence, with its history of liberalism, attracted reformers from all over the Atlantic world, including many Americans and Britons committed to antislavery. During the two decades before the Civil War, Florence attracted American and British cultural elites who valued its history, culture, cosmopolitanism, and suitability for untrammeled discussion and debate about a variety of liberal causes, including antislavery. For American reformers and intellectuals like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, and Sarah Parker Redmond, the city represented both a physical location and an imagined community dedicated to antislavery and liberal reform. American abolitionists' interaction in Florence with English abolitionists such as Robert and Elizabeth Browning and Fanny Trollope suggests that the city looms larger in the geography of nineteenth-century abolitionism than previously appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do armed movements gain civilian compliance and prevent counter-mobilization in localities under their wartime control? This paper argues that rebel capacity to control civilians is contingent on the coalitions formed between rebel mid-level commanders and elite groups embedded in local communities. Rebels are confronted with coalitional choices because local communities are contested and comprised of multiple sets of elite groups. Coalitional choices influence rebel control because they determine whether rebels ally with strong or weak local partners. Where rebel allies are weak, they should confront serious challenges to eliciting civilian compliance. Where rebel allies are stronger, rebels should confront less resistance. I argue that the availability of elites as potential allies for armed movements depends on their pre-conflict proximity to the state. This paper develops this argument through a comparison of three localities governed by the Forces Nouvelles (FN) in Côte d'Ivoire (2002–2011). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the result of ethnographic research on the LGBT community over the last five years in Mozambique, I will deal theoretically with a hegemonic elite discourse alleging tolerance of homosexuality in this country. I will review previous scholarly works on this theme and analyze the recurrence of this discourse among certain elite groups, such as local activists, journalists, and politicians. I conclude that this discourse is reminiscent of the Lusotropicalist myth transformed into a new kind of homonationalism and that it explicitly reverberates in the current political strategies of LGBT activism in Mozambique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has been attempting to promote stability in the Sahel since 2011 through capacity-building missions in the security and defence sectors. These policy instruments have been criticised for their limited effectiveness. To explain it, a common argument claims that 'local elites' lack ownership and political engagement. This article opposes such rationale and suggests that we need to rethink the agency of non-European actors beyond a Eurocentric conceptual toolbox ('resistance', 'fragility', 'ownership'). Building on an ethnography of the European capacity-building mission in support of security forces in Niger (EUCAP Sahel), this article shows that Nigerien elites regard the EU as an economic resource rather than a genuine security actor. Therefore, they primarily seek economic profits, material advantages, and professional opportunities from EU security policies. The argument proceeds in three steps. The first part intends to refine the broad category of 'local elites'. I suggest an inductive distinction that helps simplify our understanding of the agential practices of non-European actors. The second part uses this inductive distinction to foreground different strategies of Nigerien elites to make the most out of EU security policies. Third, the article discusses both the theoretical and policy implications of these empirical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We start out from Harriet Zuckerman's study of the US scientific ultra-elite of Nobel laureates, in which Robert Merton's idea of 'Matthew effects' as a key mechanism in the creation of social inequalities was first introduced. We then consider two issues arising from critical commentary on this study by Elisabeth Crawford, a historian of science. First, how far can a scientific ultra-elite be shown to exist as a collectivity that is socially distinctive? Second, how far is Zuckerman's account of the formation of the US ultra-elite trough 'bilateral associative selection' between scientific masters and their would-be apprentices historically specific to the US? In the UK case, we compare the social origins and educational careers of members of two possible scientific ultra-elites, defined by differing degrees of stringency, with those of other elite scientists. We find that as one moves from the elite to the less stringently defined ultra-elite, there is little evidence of increasing social stratification but that such evidence does emerge in moving to the more stringently defined ultra-elite. We also show through two contrasting Cambridge case studies, that the underlying social processes that Zuckerman identifies in ultra-elite formation in the US are also present in these UK contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most accounts of the Indonesian revolution in South Sulawesi have focused on the two groups fighting for power: the Republic of Indonesia as a new nation-state and the Dutch, who wanted to regain control. What is absent from this way of viewing history are the views of local elites, who wanted to retain their traditional authority and whose ideas about the nation-state were based on their oral traditions, which have the potential to affect the reconstruction and politicisation of collective memory in the struggle for cultural rights and political authority. This article examines how the Polombangkeng community used oral traditions to justify local input into the cause of the revolution in South Sulawesi. During the Indonesian revolution, the Polombangkeng people drew on their oral tradition to define leadership positions, claims of political authority, and alliance formation. Their narratives about their identity were supported by ritual ceremonies. The article argues that the Indonesian revolution in Polombangkeng was more than just a power struggle between ‘Indonesian’ and ‘Dutch’ groups: it was also a process of negotiating and/or renegotiating identities, driven by the desire to stake traditional authority claims through the justification of oral traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, President Bashar al-Assad ordered the most significant reform of religious institutions in Syria’s modern history by abolishing the position of Grand Mufti and replacing it with a collegial body. Whereas most observers interpreted this move as a means to further subdue the Sunni religious elites, I argue that in fact, Assad’s decision addressed an old demand of the conservative Sunni ulama. For decades, the latter had asked for a collegial religious authority to be entrusted with the protection of ‘correct’ Islam not only from extremist ideas but also from modernist interpretations like those propagated by the last Grand Mufti himself. Getting rid of such ‘enlightened’ figures was all the more urgent, for the conservatives, that wartime circumstances had provided their rivals with new allies among paramilitary forces and pro-regime minority constituencies. In that context, ‘moderate Islam’ had become the focus of competing definitions by conservatives, who equated it with traditional Sunni doctrines, and modernists, who advocated innovative interpretations of the Scriptures and further secularization of law and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]