The Last Purge explores the political ramifications of what is now known as the Cotton Affair, the largest and final purge in the post-Stalin Soviet Union. A significant yet underexamined episode of Uzbekistan's contemporary history, the Cotton Affair was a drawn-out judicial and political imbroglio that grew out of falsified cotton production data and corruption. Under cotton king Sharaf Rashidov, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, the country more than doubled its production of cotton, the nation's principal cash crop. When the USSR's tenth five-year plan demanded an annual production of six million tons of raw cotton, however, production became a matter of political survival for the Uzbek ruling elite. To cope, they began hiding inefficiencies through bribes and falsifying cotton production data. Moscow's eventual crackdown in the 1980s implicated 58,000 officials - 20,000 of whom faced criminal prosecution - and overwhelmed Uzbekistan's institutions.

Cucciolla sets the Cotton Affair at the center of Uzbekistan's transition from Soviet republic to independent state. Through the use of untapped Russian and Uzbek sources, he traces how the Cotton Affair became a sensitive identity issue of revenge and resistance against former rulers that served to legitimize the new Uzbek president's regime and define his relations with local power networks. In recovering the often sordid details of this critical event in the USSR's political history, Cucciolla offers fresh insights into the contradictions as well as consequences of perestroika and the disintegration of the Soviet Union from the perspective of its periphery.

An eye-opening story of the people who make the census, the United States' largest and most consequential dataset, and the growing threats to their crucial work.

By many measures, the US census is the government's largest non-wartime operation, and one of the world's oldest and biggest data-making endeavors. The 2020 census required more than a decade of planning and technical work-not to mention managing nearly a quarter of a million temporary workers simultaneously-to collect data about the American public. That data was then processed to count each of 331,449,281 residents once-and only once-and in the right place. The operation is also one of the country's most consequential. Census data determine how political power and federal funding are allocated. Census data make politics, and consequently, politics make census data. In this urgent book, danah boyd explores what it took for the Census Bureau to make the 2020 census, amidst a global pandemic and natural disasters, and while navigating political forces that constrained the budget, micro-managed the schedule, and attacked statisticians' methods.

With rare insider access to the Census Bureau, boyd observed and interviewed hundreds of government civil servants who made the 2020 census. By documenting the perspectives of government workers, Data Are Made, Not Found provides a rare glimpse into what it takes to make democracy's data. Each chapter reveals a different challenge-ranging from the last-minute fights about a citizenship question to the not-so-helpful help of well-intended stakeholders to avoid undercounts-and shows how civil servants responded to each problem, controversy, and hurdle. Boyd shows how many of the challenges that the Census Bureau faced in 2020 resulted from decades of political operatives, data users, and various stakeholders playing what boyd calls "Jenga politics," weakening the administrative state for short-term political gains by removing support and adding more requirements.

Civil servants saved the 2020 census, but future censuses-and other data-making efforts related to elections, health, and the economy-are precarious. Boyd's message is clear and compelling: protecting democracy means protecting the people and institutions that produce this data.

A wide-ranging collection of research examining the intricate economics of place-based policies.

After decades of skepticism about place-based policies, recent initiatives such as Opportunity Zones and elements of the Inflation Reduction Act signal renewed policy interest in targeting economically distressed areas. This volume surveys empirical findings from the US and Europe on the effectiveness of these policies, explores new theoretical rationales for geographic targeting, and examines the institutional contexts that shape policy design and implementation. The contributors evaluate major place-based initiatives and consider nontraditional approaches to supporting regional economies, including large-scale industrial interventions, public employment reallocation, and economic development on Native American reservations.

This collection is not limited to empirical policy impact evaluations as it takes a broader-ranging perspective. The contributors present evaluation evidence while also emphasizing the features, implementation processes, and institutional settings that shape policy effectiveness. They address critical questions such as: What new insights from economic theory can inform the design of place-based policies? What lessons from past policies are reflected-or ignored-in current approaches? How does US policymaking compare with European practices, and what takeaways can be derived from the comparison of the two?

The Economics of Place-Based Policies provides policymakers with evidence-based guidance on the design of effective interventions while offering researchers a comprehensive foundation for future study of how public policy can address geographic economic disparities.

This book explores the rise of transformative economies-innovative systems and practices that redefine how we think about value, growth, and equity. Moving beyond traditional profit-driven models, transformative economies prioritize social justice, environmental sustainability, and fair wealth distribution.

At their core, these economies seek to replace endless growth and resource exploitation with well-being, community resilience, and ecological harmony. Rooted in principles of solidarity, inclusivity, and circularity, they challenge the foundations of conventional capitalism and strive to empower marginalized communities.

Through real-world examples like cooperative ownership, regenerative agriculture, and fair trade, this book reveals a growing global movement committed to ethical and sustainable development-for the benefit of both people and the planet. It will appeal to scholars in regional and spatial science, urban and regional economics, and human geography.

In 2021, the London School of Economics found that octopuses are sentient beings, capable of experiencing pain, distress, and happiness, and that high-welfare farming of them would therefore be impossible. But the enormous international demand for octopus meat continues to grow even as wild octopus populations decline, prompting a race to bring the first farm-raised product to market. At the same time, firestorms of protest in Europe and the United States over the ethics of farming such an intelligent creature are pressuring lawmakers to ban the practice altogether.

After working at one of the world's first octopus farms, on the Yucatan Peninsula, award-winning journalist Richard Schweid embarked on a global adventure to explore the ethics and future of octopus aquaculture. He traveled to octopus-farming sites in Mexico, Spain, and Japan where he met people on both sides of the ethical debate: marine biologists, businesspeople, restaurateurs, animal rights advocates, octopus farmers, and everyday fishermen whose livelihoods depend on wild octopus. In this vibrant account of his experiences, Schweid also engages pressing related issues: environmental impact; the need for sustainable farming opportunities in underresourced communities; and how global desires for specific foods place pressure on local populations. Ultimately, the appetite for octopus demonstrates the conundrums of our interconnected world-across countries, through oceans, and via the food we consume.

This book offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of how legal frameworks influence sustainable entrepreneurship. Moving beyond traditional approaches that treat regulation and innovation as opposing forces, it explores how laws and policies can both constrain and stimulate entrepreneurial activity aimed at achieving long-term economic, social, and environmental goals. Through research-informed case studies, the book reveals how entrepreneurs can align with regulatory expectations while driving meaningful change.

Featuring contributions from experts in law, finance, and sustainability, the second part of this two-volume set examines how regulatory environments shape and support sustainable entrepreneurship within free-market systems. It also highlights the strategies of mission-driven enterprises that align profit with purpose, particularly in navigating environmental and social regulations. It is an ideal resource for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to understand and shape the future of sustainable enterprise.

Facing unprecedented challenges including extreme weather events, shifting rainfall patterns, and rising temperatures, the agriculture sector is at an inflection point. These difficulties endanger the global food supply chain and the livelihoods of millions of producers. This collected work provides the tools required to navigate the complex relationship between smart farming and climate resilience.

Sustainable and Smart Farming Eco-systems: Changing Landscapes in the Age of Technology bridges the gap between theory and practice by providing actionable insights and strategies for improving the sustainability and resilience of agricultural systems. The editors offer a comprehensive guide to modern agriculture that emphasises the critical significance of smart farming and climate resilience. Multidisciplinary in nature, the collected chapters delve into the basics of climate change and its direct and indirect effects on agriculture, the economic aspects of intelligent agriculture, marketing strategies for smart agriculture practices, and practical and managerial issues in the implementation of smart agriculture. It also analyses policy implications and advocacy for developing sustainable and smart farming ecosystems. Chapters provide step-by-step instructions, case studies, and real-world examples to help readers comprehend how to integrate technology and data analytics into their agricultural operations.

Providing actionable insights and strategies for improving the sustainability and resilience of agricultural systems, this collected edition is useful for academics and professionals in the field of agriculture, environmental science, and climate change.

Sustainable development is at the forefront of urban, rural, social, agricultural and economic development policies in European countries, out of these areas, agriculture is researched the least as there is currently more focus on central and urban areas.

Salvati and Konaxis present an interdisciplinary and multidimensional examination of the complex evolution of rural systems in advanced economies, and more specifically in Europe and the Mediterranean region, providing an integrated framework approaching environmental problems and socioeconomic issues jointly. Distinctive chapters authored by leading scholars in Europe identify the intrinsic peculiarity of the environmental-economic nexus characteristic of advanced economies and the most important differences with other socioeconomic contexts. Both contributions from a traditional ecological/agronomic vision, and studies having a more strict socio-demographic and economic focus, clarify the role of policies addressing sustainable development goals in the 'kaleidoscopic' rural landscape, confirming the need of place-specific approaches to socio-ecological complexity and the partial effectiveness of generalized, top-down measures.

Against the archetypal vision of economic backwardness of agricultural and forest systems, Transitional Rural Landscapes shows a dynamic image of rural landscapes under the increasing impact of climate change, providing novel interpretations, conceptual definitions, and operational tools designed to reduce ecological fragility and economic vulnerability.

Acclaimed economist James K. Galbraith sounds an urgent alarm: how conventional economic ideas and policies are unequipped to account for the most daunting challenges of our geopolitical moment.

Amid a mounting sense of American decline, Americans live with a new kind of dissonance: economists announcing that everything is fundamentally fine. Where growth is steady, unemployment is low, prices are (somewhat) stable, and stocks are high-what's there to worry about?

The Power to Destroy shows that this dissonance reflects a failure to evolve. James K. Galbraith's incisive history of economic policy in this century is grounded in the fundamental problem that today's experts are still deploying tools from all yesterday's wars: obsolete economic ideas, measures, and doctrines focused on market functioning and crude economic indicators like output and prices. These methods, many of them honed a century ago against a vastly different social landscape, offer little hope in the face of today's more existential threats.

Such conventional policies, Galbraith argues, are increasingly ill-equipped to counter the daunting challenges of our moment-from inflation to trade sanctions, industrial cold wars, and climate change-and, left unacknowledged, are accelerating the end of the US economy as we know it. Shortcomings include the weak responses to the inflation of 2021-2022; the sanctions war against Russia; the rise of China; the weak and ineffective attempt at industrial revival; and the impending demographic crisis. All have roots in a flawed body of outdated economic thought that has been sustained for ideological rather than practical reasons. They now promise to hinder the United States in the emerging multipolar world.

As Galbraith makes plain, for all the virtues of the market system, governments and their policies make markets possible. The ideas behind the policies-for better or worse-will determine the fate of the US economy-and new and better ideas are urgently needed. The alternative-sticking with economic ideas and policies we know and currently use-brings the power to destroy us all.

A short, bold, and timely history and defense of research in the humanities and sciences and its incalculable importance

If there were a single tool that could cure disease, improve the quality of human life, send people into outer space, and uncover vital riddles from the deepest past, wouldn't we celebrate it as humanity's greatest achievement? That tool exists-it's called research, and it powers the modern world, channeling roughly $3 trillion a year to solve problems and answer questions across fields as distant as computer science and classics. Yet, for all its importance, research as a subject is seriously neglected-dangerously so today, when the priceless research structure built since World War II is under existential attack. In Research, Peter N. Miller offers a passionate, original, and eloquent history and defense of research.

Research is a history, but it is also a philosophical exploration of inquiry and creativity. Some elements of research go back to antiquity; others to the seventeenth century. Only in the nineteenth did it become itself a subject of reflection. And in the twentieth, it reached a preeminence that led to an informal compact between government and the university-an alliance that has now been shattered, producing enormous risks for the well-being of people and the planet.

Today, more than ever, we need to understand what research means and why it matters. Engaging and provocative, Research is essential reading for everyone working in the humanities and sciences-and all those who believe in the value of discovery.

A necessary exploration into the mechanics of data privacy protections within empirical social science research.

The explosion of computational power and data availability has revolutionized empirical social science research, but it has also created unprecedented challenges for protecting the privacy of individuals and businesses. As computational tools make it increasingly possible to breach data anonymity in government surveys by combining the survey data with additional information from external sources, statistical agencies face mounting pressure to develop new privacy protection methods while maintaining data quality essential for research and policymaking. This volume explores how innovations in data privacy protection, including differential privacy and synthetic data methods, affect the conduct of empirical analysis in economics, computer science, and statistics. Contributors explore critical questions about the trade-offs between privacy and data usability: How do new protection methods impact statistical inference and parameter estimation? What standards should data providers adopt? The chapters examine frameworks for characterizing privacy protection, disclosure limitation challenges for survey data, methodological innovations for privacy-preserving statistical analysis, regulatory considerations in modern data governance, and strategies for balancing confidentiality with research access.

This volume provides researchers, statistical agencies, and policymakers with essential guidance for navigating the complex landscape where data protection meets scientific inquiry.

Reshaping the State in the Age of Fiasco meticulously analyses fifty years of structural innovation in UK public management reform. Rather than ascribing policymaking blunders to the ascendency of New Public Management, it focuses on how the rise of managerialism led to pathologies and contradictions arising from the traditions and culture of British government. In the post-war era, the myth prevailed that UK institutions, policies and solutions offered a model for the rest of the world, while there was little meaningful that could be learnt from elsewhere. Yet recent governing crises, notably fiscal austerity, Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic underlined that despite decades of reform, the performance of the British state and public services remained glaringly inadequate. There has been far less improvement in efficiency, economy and effectiveness than was promised. This book asks why that is so, and what can be done.

This book articulates and defends a novel view about fundamental reality, an alternative to the traditional opposition between monism and pluralism. Collective allism is the view that what's metaphysically fundamental is neither the universe as a whole nor some fragments thereof, but the plurality of all entities, i.e. all entities taken collectively. Using resources from plural logic, the book systematically develops the view and argues that considerations about mereological infinitism, emergence, natural laws, and relations give it an edge over monism and pluralism. This book is therefore of great interest to both scientists and philosophers of science.

This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of Indonesia's special autonomy policies in Papua and Aceh through a necropolitical lens, explaining why formally similar institutional arrangements produce different effects. Drawing on Mbembe's theory of necropolitics, the book demonstrates how sovereign power operates in tandem with democratic institutions, revealing why formal autonomy frameworks have been ineffective when underlying power relations remain unchanged. Key topics include the theoretical evolution from Foucault's biopolitics and Agamben's to Mbembe's necropolitics; historical trajectories; manifestations of necropolitics; and critical factors explaining autonomy negotiations. These topics are significant because they challenge conventional wisdom in the conflict-resolution literature and illuminate the ongoing human rights crisis in Indonesia's periphery, which has received little scholarly attention. Despite its elitist and imperfect tendencies, the special autonomy policy has been a crucial instrument for preventing disintegration during the transition from the New Order to the Reformation.
Necropolitical analysis helps understand how external and internal factors shaped the political landscape in Papua and Aceh. The concept of necropolitics in this book departs from the dilemmas faced by victims in both regions, precisely at the time of the formulation and implementation of asymmetric decentralisation. Necropolitics demonstrates how tension zones lead to the deprivation of human rights for victims who remain in their homes or flee to escape conflict. By relying on extensively reviewed study texts and public documents, this book is expected to enrich policy analysis approaches, particularly by advancing understanding of the arena of issue management, which then enters the agenda-setting in policy formulation. In other words, necropolitics provides analytical tools for understanding how policy spaces are designed and dissected. The analysis demonstrates that change requires genuine negotiation, non-state mediation, and a commitment to equitable power sharing. Thus, this book invites readers to reflect on the implications of necropolitics for public policy and on how modern power can shape political isolation in certain regions. This book can be essential reading for scholars and students of political science, Southeast Asian studies, conflict resolution, human rights, and critical theory, as well as policymakers and NGO practitioners working on autonomy and peacebuilding in postcolonial contexts.

The rise of the far right in the European Parliament and the institutional pushback it provoked

In recent years, far-right political parties have grown in influence not only in the domestic politics of such countries as Hungary, Brazil, and the United States but also in international institutions ranging from the United Nations Human Rights Council to the European Union. Have these international platforms contributed to the rise of the far right in liberal democracies? In this book, Christin Tonne examines the far right's role in the European Parliament and the institution's response. Tonne, a former aide to a member of the European Parliament, provides a rare insider's view of the far right's ascent in that organization. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research-observations and interactions in corridors, meetings, and plenary sessions-she traces how the far right seamlessly integrated into EU politics, often with the support of mainstream political parties.

Tonne argues that many of Europe's far-right parties, including the French National Rally and Alternative for Germany, incubated at the EU level, using the European Parliament as a laboratory for experimentation with far-right ideas and as a springboard for a new, more self-assured and ambitious generation of far-right leaders. Exploring the responses of the Parliament's traditional political factions, she traces the emergence of a quiet yet persistent opposition movement as the institution tries to defend itself and its mission. Tonne's account raises important questions about the ongoing normalization of far-right politics at the EU level and beyond.

This volume provides an in-depth, qualitative analysis of volunteers and volunteerism in the U.S. National Parks Service (NPS). Over the course of the 50+-year history of the Volunteers-in-Parks (VIP) program, there has been no systematic research undertaken about the history or impact of volunteers serving in parks. This book corrects this deficiency, filling a large gap in the scholarly literature and advancing theory on volunteerism within a critical space in the nation's environmental, historical, and cultural infrastructure.

Using a combination of participant observation and interviews with more than 200 volunteers and park staff, the volume introduces new insights on the value and management of volunteers in support of broader societal goals while also delving deeply into the tensions that emerge when public institutions are reliant but cannot afford to be dependent on volunteers.

The book will be of use to scholars and students studying public administration, nonprofit management, and environmental conservation or cultural preservation as well as practitioners of volunteer management and community engagement across the spaces of public parks, museums, and other places of environmental, historical, or cultural significance.

Shows how the proliferation of contractors within the federal agencies is fundamentally reshaping American governance.

Much of what the federal government does today is carried out by people the public rarely sees. While debates focus on bureaucrats and political appointees, agencies increasingly rely on a vast contractor workforce to perform functions ranging from tech support to policy analysis to regulatory drafting services. This quiet transformation has altered how the government functions while simultaneously preserving the public-facing image of a bureaucracy run by civil servants. The federal government does not keep reliable data on how many contractors it employs, but many estimates suggest that contractors outnumber career bureaucrats.

In Going Private, Rachel Augustine Potter explains how this shift reshapes the everyday operation of the administrative state and coalesces power within the presidency. Easily hired and easily fired, contractors have strong incentives to please their clients, making them malleable to the president's will. Presidents from both parties have leveraged these features and learned to rely on contractors to advance political priorities, bypass uncooperative bureaucrats, and gain increased control over agency work.

Drawing on new data and interviews, Going Private argues that outsourcing is not merely an administrative convenience. Rather, it is a defining feature of contemporary governance-one that complicates accountability, blurs the boundaries of the administrative state, and alters the exercise of presidential power.

From a revered public intellectual, an essential argument for the political preconditions of a liberal society.

Liberalism has always suffered from messaging challenges. It simultaneously implies a pursuit of individual liberty and social equality, two projects often regarded as at odds. Or: Liberal means the opposite of conservative. Except when it doesn't. The list goes on.

Liberal bard Deirdre Nansen McCloskey understands these rhetorical troubles. Equality of Permission is her stirring and career-defining intervention on this essentially contested yet critical topic-a forceful case for liberalism as our best hope, and an essential vision of the political conditions necessary for its survival. McCloskey prescribes a liberalism built around liberty from the bottom up: "equality before the law and equality of political and economic permissions," lightly administered.

The state, McCloskey argues, is increasingly the source of our discontents-an illiberal institution, hindered by a quixotic fixation on pursuing equality of wealth or opportunity. Equality of Permission evangelizes for a better, and earlier, version of liberalism-that of John Locke, Adam Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Henry David Thoreau-as against a top-down quest for an unattainable utopia. McCloskey shows that statism in pursuit of a chimerical general will, even when well-intentioned, leads to tyranny.

Brimming with energy and erudition, drawing on wisdoms from Alexis de Tocqueville to Mae West, Equality of Permission is McCloskey at the peak of her powers-brilliant, lacerating, garrulous, funny, worldly, and warm. Amid intense debate over the use and abuse of government institutions, McCloskey shares her singular vision for a true democracy, one grounded in respect and conducive to universal human flourishing.

This book considers the concept of time after the shift from genetics to phylogenetics. It uses an interdisciplinary analysis based on the latest findings from neuroscience, physics, philosophy of medicine, epistemology, logic and artificial intelligence to delve into various aspects of the enigmatic character of time. The book shows how what we call 'experience' is structured by virtue of the availability of 'innate guides to learning' dating back to a deep memory, which has the long timescale of natural history and not the short timescale of individual development. Meanwhile, the idea of the 'future' is understood not as a calculated probability via statistics and artificial intelligence, but as an uncertain or open temporal dimension and an ethics of possibility. This book is of interest to scholars and specialists involved in this research, and to the general reader interested in the current cultural debate about evolution, memory, and time.

Available for the first time in a stand-alone volume, the classic essay that envisions liberalism not as the triumphant endpoint of political progress, or even a cohesive ideology, but rather as a precarious guardrail against abuses of power.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many hailed the supposed triumph of liberal democracy as the "end of history." But Judith Shklar offers a sober and cautionary perspective. Far from an inevitable or permanent political order, liberalism was as fragile as it was essential: always threatened by the abusive political forces against which it offered imperfect but necessary defense. Shklar's vision of a bulwark in the face of cruelty, rather than a venerable ideology of freedom or individual autonomy, powerfully rejects conceptions of liberalism that were easy targets of critique from both left and right.

With its focus on the thin line dividing our political system from authoritarianism, The Liberalism of Fear is as relevant today as it was on its initial publication. Democratic institutions, from the courts to the ballot, are under attack from within, and marginalized groups are even more vulnerable to state-sanctioned violence. Now as before, our faith in the liberal order seems to be fueled above all by a fear of the alternatives. This is as it should be, according to Shklar: Properly conceived, liberalism is a means of survival, not the road to utopia.

A new foreword by Mark Lilla places this classic study in its historical context and solidifies its importance during a precarious moment. A perfect entryway into Shklar's large and influential body of work, The Liberalism of Fear is both an essential addition to any scholar's library and a powerful note of warning.

Offers a new theory of the minority as a political form and shows how majoritarian projects are built through its appropriation.

Around the world, national majorities are telling themselves a potent story: that they are the ones in danger. In the United States and Serbia, Christian and white nationalists warn of "replacement." In Turkey and Pakistan, Muslim nationalists cast religious "others" as existential threats. In India, Hindu nationalists stoke fears that Hindus are becoming minorities in "their own" land. These movements, and the migration and citizenship policies that accompany them, are not aberrations, but rather expressions of a logic embedded in the modern nation-state-a logic that turns populations into numbers, numbers into votes, and difference into enmity.

In The People, in Parts, anthropologist Natasha S. Raheja homes in on a paradox visible along the India-Pakistan border. When Hindus cross into India from Pakistan seeking refuge, they are admitted as minorities in need of protection. Yet in India, their welcome into the putative majority is selective and conditional. How does majority-minority status shift by crossing a border? Drawing on long-term research in the Thar Desert region, Raheja argues that this bureaucratic confusion is political machinery. Where liberal democracy treats the minority as a shifting, procedural category, nation-state governance fixes it as a substantive identity. The suffering of minoritized populations becomes raw material for majoritarian projects, converted into demographic justification, electoral arithmetic, and nationalist grievance. The minority form, in other words, does majoritarian work.

The People, in Parts offers not only a searing diagnosis of minority-majority politics and the governance of migration but a reframing: the problem is not simply about who belongs and who does not, but how nationalist belonging crosses state borders, pointing to strains within liberal democracy and the nation-state order.

This open access book examines the subject of 'contentious governance', a situation in which lower-level governments collaborate with activists to contest policies implemented by other governmental actors. Drawing from three case studies, it introduces the concept and relevance of 'contentious governance', before assessing how it works in action. The book demonstrates that the processes of 'contentious governance' are inherently political and riddled with power struggles, as those involved vie over the interpretation of public interest. As instances of 'contentious governance' become increasingly common, it also proposes a framework through which to better understand its complexities. In doing so, it provides fresh perspectives on numerous classical issues, including the political nature of policy, power dynamics, governance processes, government-citizen relations, and policy conflicts.

This book develops a pluralistic political theory that reinterprets John Rawls's proviso as a framework of justification capable of sustaining legitimacy amid deep reasonable pluralism and the rise of artificial intelligence. Part I reconstructs the distinction between morality and ethics in contemporary political philosophy and argues that the right to reciprocal and general justification grounds a freestanding but non-metaphysical account of political legitimacy. Part II brings this framework into dialogue with Confucian political thought, showing how a modified proviso can underwrite a non-meritocratic and pluralistic Confucian democracy, while also accommodating hybrid constitutional orders and maintaining global justice. Part III extends the same justificatory structure to the technological domain, proposing an expanded proviso as a normative architecture for the design, adoption, and regulation of artificial intelligence systems in democratic societies. Across these three parts, the book comparatively advances a pluralistic political theory at the intersection of ethics, politics, and artificial intelligence, showing how justificatory practices can be extended from liberal democracy to Confucian traditions and algorithmic governance to prepare democratic institutions for an increasingly technologically mediated future.

How to avoid the trap of taking conflicts so personally

We're all imperfect. Good relationships require seeing each other through these imperfections-distinguishing what is signal, and what is noise. But sometimes we mistake noise for signal-or worse, signal for noise. And even when we get things right, the other person can be getting them wrong. In When Things Get Personal, Mark Schroeder shows that the better we can learn to tell the difference between signal and noise in our relationships, the better we can predict and avoid everyday misunderstandings that, if left unchecked, can lead to "discord"-fundamental, sometimes chronic failures to see eye to eye that lead us to take things personally that we shouldn't, to treat others in ways that they take personally, to abandon relationships that are worthwhile, and to stay in relationships that we'd be better off without.

Engagingly written, story-driven, and rich with powerful ideas and insights, When Things Get Personal addresses conflicts between colleagues, friends, and partners-and between parents and their children. Along the way, it explores the role discord plays in abusive relationships, in tragic coming-out stories, in political polarization, in small ongoing disagreements over things like how to load the dishwasher, and much more.

Discord gets us all into serious trouble. But unrecognized discord is even worse. When Things Get Personal teaches you to recognize the causes and symptoms of discord, allowing you to escape many of its worst effects. You will understand other people better-and maybe yourself, as well.