This book investigates German citizens' perceptions of electoral integrity, introducing a new survey-based measurement tool to better capture these attitudes. First, a general conceptualization of electoral integrity is developed using an integrative approach, then adapted to the context of German citizens. Afterwards, a multidimensional tool for public opinion research is designed and empirically tested, before being applied in three exemplary analyses. First, it is used to highlight different perceptions across sociodemographic and political groups. Second, it is used in a multivariate analysis exploring how individual-level factors shape attitudes across different dimensions, including the mediating role of personality traits. Third, the tool is used to examine current challenges, focusing on conspiracy beliefs and support for i-voting. Findings reveal that German citizens hold nuanced perceptions of electoral integrity, reflected in ten distinct dimensions. As determinants differ across dimensions, the study suggests that future research should address specific aspects of electoral integrity rather than relying on overall evaluations, which obscure diverse judgments and attitudinal patterns.

This collection of essays examines the spheres of arts, culture, and digital communication to trace debates that revolve around the notions of decolonization and racial (in)justice in Central and Southeast Europe. It asks how the global narratives of racial and ethnic solidarity find their way into regional contexts. How do these narratives activate the present political agenda as well as the historical pasts? How are they understood and expressed by professionals like academics, artists, activists, and above all, by actors from the lay digital audience? The edited volume presents provocative cases of political and cultural debates from Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia. Individual contributions employ an interdisciplinary framework, ranging from memory and media studies to cultural and visual studies. They discuss various phenomena from the fields of popular culture, visual arts, public art, and literature, as well as the regional examples of Black Lives Matter and Roma Lives Matter movements.

How the civil legal system undermines the political lives of marginalized communities

Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are disproportionately shouldered by racially and economically marginalized people, particularly women of color. Civil courts and legal aid organizations are supposed to protect their rights, yet more than 90 percent of low-income people receive inadequate or no legal assistance. Instead, access to justice is reserved for those who can afford its high price. For those who can't, the repercussions can be devastating, from homelessness and loss of public benefits to broken families and diminished health. Uncivil Democracy looks at the US civil justice system through the eyes of the people whose very citizenship is indelibly shaped by it.

Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle show how civil legal problems, and the institutions meant to address them, greatly erode trust in the legal system among marginalized communities, undermining their broader sense of democratic citizenship and political standing. While legal representation offers vital protections, increased access to justice through an ever-growing supply of lawyers does not address the structural problems that generate demand for lawyers in the first place. Looking at cases involving unfair evictions and substandard housing, Michener and SoRelle demonstrate how community groups such as tenants' unions can fill this justice gap and provide the means to build political power that transforms the conditions that create precarity.

Drawing on eye-opening qualitative evidence and a wealth of historical and survey data, Uncivil Democracy explains why collective organizing holds the greatest promise for altering the systems that create civil legal problems and exercising the political power necessary for meaningful change.

Taking the 2014 Scottish independence referendum as its case study, this book examines popular participation and elite interventions in democratic, plebiscitary events. It addresses how the referendum was constructed, represented, and performed as a participatory moment in media and political discourses and asks how elite representations overlap or contrast with referendum experiences of the public.

Drawing on and appealing to media studies, cultural theory, political science and history, this is the first study to use a truly interdisciplinary range of methods to examine a key moment of political participation. It does this through a unique primary dataset, including interviews, focus groups, newspapers, literature, and social media data. This book will appeal to scholars, students, and observers of political participation, secessionist movements, political media, and those interested in Scottish independence and British politics by shedding new light on the referendum's participatory legacy and hurdles that stop contemporary politics from being inclusive.

Romania is the sixth-largest country in the European Union by population. However, after decades of democratization and integration into the Euro-Atlantic organizations, many Romanian voters now seem willing to abandon this path of development. Does this change of direction indicate the beginning of a transition to a new era? This book summarizes how politics and society in Romania changed after the 1989 revolution and how these changes were connected to the country's EU accession. It also examines old and new challenges. In doing so, it provides fresh insights into various research fields and issues. Readers interested in the extent to which politics can be guided by law will find relevant material here. The same applies to scholars who ask if political actors can effectively shape the development of a polity and society. The book is also relevant for those who seek to understand whether the EU has an impact on domestic politics and society in its member states, as suggested by debates about its "transforming power."

The first major account of this transformative period in the history of Great Britain

Between 1990 and 2020, the United Kingdom experienced tension between unparalleled social change and a pragmatic political culture which sought continuity, compromise and gradualism. Thatcher's legacy was slowly digested, Blair's 'New Labour' thoroughly scrutinized and the decision was made after forty-seven years to leave the European Union. The UK's long-established major institutions-monarchy, parliament and the union between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland-were sorely tested. Yesterday provides the first fully documented history of this pivotal time in Great Britain.

Was the UK in decline? Brian Harrison points to Britain's unsuccessful adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan and its relative economic decline, underfunded hospitals, sink schools, over-filled prisons and terrorism of both Irish and Islamic varieties. Yet there were successes. Harrison shows how the UK's participatory institutions outmanoeuvred terrorism and precariously surmounted regional, intergenerational, ethnic and social-class tensions. This vibrant, creative society saw major improvements in time, place and recruitment for work, as well as growth and innovation in conservation, digitization, tourism, consumerism, sport and the arts. Some changes were revolutionary: in family life and relations between the generations, and in the ever-changing electronic media. And if religious observance was in decline, immigrants were introducing new faiths and even a revived religious fervour while attitudes to health and death were changing fast.

A panoramic and wide-ranging analysis by a scholar at the height of his powers, Yesterday paints an evocative, richly textured portrait of a people who were shedding their complacency and insularity and bracing themselves to face a very different but promising future.

This book explores how public opinion toward the European Union has evolved during the age of polycrises. It shows that not all crises are perceived in the same way, nor do they generate uniform political responses. By distinguishing between process-oriented threats, event-driven crises, and recurrent threat-to-crisis issues, the book offers an original framework to analyse the impact of global challenges. Situating Italy within a comparative framework alongside France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Sweden, the volume reveals how specific types of crises foster greater support, while others exacerbate disaffection or ambivalence. Despite signs of rising Euroscepticism in many European countries in recent years, the book argues that recent global threats and crises have helped to redefine the role of the EU in its relationship with national governments, leading to a shift in public opinion that mitigates criticism against it. The book will appeal to all those interested in European politics, political communication, and European studies.

This book seeks to identify the manifold ways in which the multiple European crises, debt, financial, sociopolitical, refugee (re)construct political polarizations in Greece on the basis of the country's divided past. This is the first book in the context of Discourse Studies and Political Communication which addresses specifically the Greek political particularities and their importance in both the construction and the expression of different notions of political identity in discourse.

The book, written by two linguists, provides a critical interactional approach that combines critical discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, argumentation, political sociology, and social theory. Its interdisciplinary character enriches its theoretical platform and makes it distinctive.

While the book centers on the Greek political landscape, it offers valuable insights for the broader study of Western politics and societies, which, like Greece, have in recent years been marked by overlapping crises, polarization, and political instability. We anticipate that readers will identify parallels between the Greek case and their own political realities. Coupled with an innovative methodological approach, this study aims to open new pathways in the analysis of political discourses.

In a cross-regional approach, Vassilis Petsinis generates new insights about how developments of groundbreaking significance in regional and global politics (here, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 24 February 2022) can exert powerful ramifications on the domestic politics of other states and societies. Inside the geopolitical context of Central and Eastern Europe, this monograph examines this 'external impact' on selected empirical cases from Northeastern (Estonia and Latvia in the Baltic States) and Southeastern Europe (Croatia and Serbia) through the spectrum of idiosyncratic and fluctuating intersections among ethno-nationalist, nativist, Eurosceptic, and 'other' trends (e.g. Occidentalism inside the political and sociocultural context of Serbia) at the level of domestic politics. This is a highly relevant contribution inside an increasingly unpredictable international system where the responses of major actors (Russia, China, and the US) to armed conflicts, or other global crises, can vary from peculiar alignments all the way to alarming friction.

This open access book offers an innovative exploration of the concept of autonomy, extending beyond the traditional individualistic perspectives to encompass a richer, more interdependent understanding of autonomy in various domains. The authors delve into the multifaceted nature of autonomy, traversing theoretical, biological, psychological, and technological landscapes to present a comprehensive and cohesive picture. The main topics, including enactivism, biological autonomy, the psychological self in its environment, and the interplay of technology, ecology, and politics, are not only timely but also crucial for understanding the challenges and opportunities of autonomy in our increasingly complex world.

After October 7, 2023, the fallout of the war in Gaza has gone beyond Israel and Palestine. In the Balkans - a region grappling with the complex convergence of post-socialist and postcolonial legacies - many began reliving their past experiences of war and genocidal violence through the plight of Palestinians. This book explores the diverse postulates of transnational solidarity that have (re)emerged in the Balkans in support of Palestine or forged new burgeoning political alliances with Israel. It precisely delves into the weaponization of collective memory and history to fight "old enemies" or readjust the geopolitical predicament of the whole region toward key Euro-Atlantic partners and allies.

Like other countries in East Central Europe, the Slovak Republic is facing new challenges which were not on the horizon at the time the communist system collapsed and there are worries that this country, with the pro-Russian Prime Minister Robert Fico now at the helm, might be at risk of democratic backsliding. One of the key factors determining whether Slovakia will weather its current political difficulties or slide away from democracy is the strength of civic values such as tolerance, respect for the equality of people, and readiness to play by the rules of the political game.

This book looks at the record of the Slovak Republic in the years since 1993, taking into consideration politics, values as reflected in public opinion surveys, gender inequality, and the values communicated in literature, religion, and film. In addition, the volume takes a look at ethnic minorities, focusing especially on Slovakia's Hungarian minority.

This book's major contribution is deploying the conceptual framework of Afrocentrism, which underscores Nigeria and South Africa's Afrocentric posture in the pursuit of their foreign policy objectives, both bilaterally and multilaterally. Indeed, Afrocentrism presents an important framework for understanding Nigeria-South Africa relations and the regional powers' relations with other states in Africa and beyond. The salience of Afrocentrism stems from the fact that both states see Africa as the centre-piece of their foreign policies. Additionally, this book delves into dimensions that surpass previous studies by exploring key aspects such as space diplomacy and diaspora diplomacy, which are critical to the bilateral and multilateral relations of the two states. It further introduces the concept of de-Afrocentrism into international relations discourse.

This book elucidates two distinct traditions within geopolitical theory: the Anglo-American and the Continental schools. By examining these different frameworks, the volume underscores the necessity of recognizing the contrasting worldviews that underpin each tradition for anyone seeking to engage meaningfully with the concept of "geopolitics." Through this comparative lens, the book offers enriched insights into the historical dynamics of war and peace in regions such as Europe and Japan, as well as contemporary international conflicts. It demonstrates how the tension between these opposing geopolitical paradigms can serve as a valuable analytical tool for understanding global political developments.

This book examines traditional approaches to conflict resolution in Northern Nigeria, tracing their development from the pre-colonial period through to the present day. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, it highlights how indigenous systems, rooted in local customs, religious values, and communal authority, have historically played a key role in maintaining peace across diverse communities.

Chapters explore topics such as the farmer-herder conflict, the influence of Islamic scholarship, the legacy of colonial legal systems, and the continuing relevance of traditional rulers and justice mechanisms. The volume combines historical analysis with contemporary examples and argues for the reintegration of indigenous practices into modern peacebuilding efforts.

This book will be of interest to researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working in conflict resolution, African studies, governance, and legal reform. It also offers important insights for those seeking locally grounded responses to insecurity in Nigeria and beyond.

This volume discusses the rise of drone technology in modern warfare, focusing on its profound implications for global military competition, arms control, and international security. Situated within the broader context of contemporary international relations, where emerging military technologies are increasingly central to the formulation of national security strategies, this book explores not only the technological advancements that enable drone warfare, but also the strategic, political, and ethical dilemmas that arise from their widespread use.

The scope of the book spans several key areas: the rapid development of drones as tools of military power, the implications for global arms races, the challenges they present to arms control frameworks, and the evolving nature of international security in an age of autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons systems. Through an interdisciplinary lens, this book draws on international relations theory, security studies, and military strategy, seeking to provide a nuanced understanding of the issues at play.

Filling a critical gap by providing a detailed, interdisciplinary examination of the global "drones race" and its consequences for security, governance, and international norms, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students working in fields such as security studies, arms control, the proliferation of conventional weapons, and international security.

This book focuses on the incentives for armed conflict in the Great Lakes Region of Sub-Saharan Africa and its consequences, including social preferences and refugee integration. The contribution of this book is twofold. First, the book adds to the limited literature on incentives for engaging in armed conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa and the post-conflict recovery trajectory. Secondly, it provides evidence on likely forms of discrimination due to biases from social identity amongst refugees and hosts, which may affect refugee integration.

The book is organized as follows: the first chapter is a general motivation and framing of the studies. The second chapter investigates the incentives and disincentives for engaging in armed conflicts in the Great Lakes Region (GLR). The GLR has a history of armed conflict, with some active armed conflicts in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which have affected the development of the region. The GLR is also characterized by criss-crossing hostilities, including governments supporting fellow incumbent governments to quell a rebellion or supporting rebel groups hostile to sitting governments. The region provides an excellent case study for understanding the incentives and disincentives for armed conflict, especially in SSA. The third and fourth chapters address a highly policy-relevant issue in the context of refugee-hosting and integration. Humanitarian efforts to manage refugees have emphasized the need for self-reliance and reintegration with the host communities. The chapters examine the potential discrimination and biases that hosting communities may harbor towards refugees and how these attitudes can impact land transactions. Refugees may face discrimination emerging from differences in social identity and characterization within and external to refugee settlements. The behavioral attitudes of hosts may also influence their willingness to engage in land transactions with refugees. Amidst costly, unsustainable approaches to land distribution to refugees by hosting governments, land arrangements that hinge on the hosting communities' behavioral attributes, such as trust and altruism, may offer lasting solutions. If fairness or social preferences are profound amongst refugees and hosting communities, land transactions between hosts and refugees might provide an alternative sustainable approach for refugees to acquire land. Ignoring positive behavioral attributes through government provision may crowd out such private provision.
* Adds to the literature on incentives for armed conflict
* Evidence on trajectory for post- conflict recovery

This book explores how generative AI and design are reshaping the law, legal communication, and contracting-moving beyond automation toward collaboration and meaningful outcomes. Combining theory and practice, it addresses challenges such as privacy, communication, financial well-being, responsible AI use, and the language of contracts.

This edited book breaks new ground in exploring how generative AI and design are acting as catalysts for change in law, legal communication, and contracting. Together, they are transforming the way we think and act-moving beyond automation toward collaboration, actionability, and achieving goals. Bringing together theoretical insights and practical experiments, the book features contributions from scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of law, business, technology, and design.

Chapters address topics such as AI-enhanced financial well-being and debt support; bridging the implementation gap in contracting; improving the usability of privacy communication and health data; and protecting artistic style in the age of AI. Threaded through these diverse contributions, common questions emerge: If the purpose of contracts is to establish and achieve common goals, why does their language so often seem arcane-like a magic spell-and how can AI help us change that? How can we responsibly integrate AI into legal, health, and commercial information to enhance usability and understanding? What does responsible AI use look like in practice, and how can design principles guide it?

This book provides legal professionals, technologists, designers, business leaders, and policymakers with the insight and tools necessary to shape the future of law and contracts creatively and critically.

Surviving the demise of his humoral pathology and anatomy, Galen's works on simple and compound remedies (the so-called 'galenicals') formed the backbone of Western pharmacology up until the Industrial Revolution. Over its long and multicultural tradition-spanning the Roman Empire and Byzantium, through Islamicate societies, India, and China, to the New World and even Japan-Galenic pharmacopoeia evolved to incorporate new remedies, foods, philosophical rationales, and modes of preparation, including chemical ones. Despite its endurance, a systematic exploration of the use of galenicals beyond the Renaissance remains overdue.

Addressing this gap, the contributions in this volume bring together leading scholars who illuminate how this medical tradition unfolded in the early modern period and its underlying dynamics, often drawing on new or overlooked archival material. Challenging the prevailing narrative of decline, they examine how pharmacological knowledge was transmitted across languages and medical traditions. Each contribution highlights an aspect of the various conceptual adaptations this process entailed, including textual transmission, debates over the structure of matter, occult qualities, dosage quantification, apothecary regulations, patient treatment, and the integration of galenicals into household medicine. Special attention is also given to the commodification of materia medica in Atlantic trade, while a comprehensive introduction contextualises the main themes of Galen's post-Renaissance legacy and explores the reasons for its enduring vitality.

Chapter 13 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book is a collection of academic and practical articles focusing on various dimensions of maritime security, policy, and strategy. It explores subjects such as submarine proliferation, bioregional planning, and contemporary maritime challenges, with a particular focus on strategic and operational concerns in the Indo-Pacific and Asia-Pacific region.

Readers interested in maritime strategy and security will find discussions on archipelagic state roles, the complexities of maintaining good order at sea, and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) issues particularly engaging. Topics like submarine proliferation and maritime terrorism are emphasized for their impact on regional security dynamics and strategic considerations, making the book relevant for military professionals, policymakers, and academics alike.

The book employs a didactic approach with well-organized essays, case studies, and historical analyses. Articles are supported by references to significant security incidents and policy analyses, complemented by tables and data from real-world case studies. This structured approach aids readers in connecting theoretical insights with practical applications within the maritime sector.

Readers will gain a profound understanding of maritime affairs from an experienced practitioner's perspective, enriched by the author's academic research and operational expertise. This book is a valuable resource for advancing knowledge in maritime strategy, security, and governance and promotes critical thinking on the modernization and development of naval forces globally.

This edited collection is composed of four uniquely authored chapters, each of which examines collective identity in early modern East Asia through biography and historical accounts. In addition, an introductory chapter lays out the overall principles and concerns of biography in Early Modern East Asia.

The book covers five civilizations (China, Japan, Ryukyu Kingdom, and Vietnam) while also touching on relations among these civilizations. This volume considers how biographies or life stories can help us better understand these civilizations. Each contributor explores shared concerns about biography, writing, group and individual identity, and the implications of these on the overall genre of biography in East Asia in the early modern period.

The most extraordinary family you've never heard of.

An excellent work that presents the research history of Mao Zedong! It is the first book to delve into the history of translating, publishing, and disseminating Mao Zedong's works in over 20 languages. Notably, the translation projects were not only led by the Chinese government but also undertaken by universities and think tanks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other Western countries against the backdrop of the Cold War. These projects stemmed from Mao's ideology, personal charisma, and the Western bloc's need to study China. Through an objective evaluation of extensive Chinese archives, the author showcases and discussed the influence of Mao Zedong's thoughts on the world.

This handbook, in its second edition, unites leading scholars from around the world in exploring anarchism as a political ideology, from an examination of its core principles, an analysis of its history, and an assessment of its contribution to the struggles that face humanity today. Grounded in a conceptual and historical approach, each entry charts what is distinctive about the anarchist response to particular intellectual, political, cultural and social phenomena, and considers how these values have changed over time. In this second edition, eight new chapters cover salient political issues, including Black Anarchism, the American Individualists, Anarchism and Psychology, Anarchism and Punk, Anarchism and Disability, and other topics. At its heart is a sustained process of conceptual definition and an extended examination of the core claims of this frequently misunderstood political tradition. It is the definitive scholarly reference work on anarchism as a political ideology, and should be a crucial text for scholars, students, and activists alike.

How to understand a long-standing puzzle in political philosophy: the relationship between justice and legitimacy

Can laws be unjust and yet remain, in some sense, morally legitimate? In this book, Jonathan Quong considers central issues in political philosophy through the lens of this single question. He explores and evaluates recent influential work on this topic and then proposes a novel approach of his own. The puzzle at the heart of his account is the phenomenon of legitimate injustice-laws and policies that are substantively unjust yet may be legitimately imposed by government officials. How can such laws be legitimate if, as some have argued, justice is the first virtue of social institutions?

Quong analyzes the work of those who deny that injustice committed by states can be legitimate simply by virtue of its democratic or procedural pedigree; the Kantian account of legitimate institutions and justice; instrumental approaches to political legitimacy; and the recent wave of work in democratic theory focused on its egalitarian character. Arguing that these analyses do not offer an adequate solution to the puzzle and that there are compelling reasons to revise or reject them, Quong lays out his view and explains the implications for more general theories of political morality. He argues that we can explain legitimate injustice by appeal to distributive justice. If political disagreement is inevitable, then unjust legislation is largely unavoidable; it constitutes a burden that must be distributed according to just principles. Quong's novel and illuminating framework offers a unique introduction to crucial questions in political philosophy.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of different logics from a metainferential standpoint. It starts with a metainferential presentation of Classical Logic, and then moves onto other systems where one or more structural metainferences fail. These logics maybe considered non-classical in a robust sense, since they allow to build theories which are non-transitive, non-reflexive, non-monotonic and non-contractive. In some other sense, though, they also preserve many desirable features of classical logics, and thus may have an advantage over other non-classical alternatives. The authors show how these logics can be characterized both model and proof-theoretically. Besides some standard inferential properties, emphasis is placed on metainferential theorems, some of them quite standard, such as Cut-elimination, and other more idiosyncratic, such as metainferential Soundness and Completeness. It ends with a philosophical chapter which intends to illustrate some of these logics' applications, mainly regarding non-classical treatments of paradoxes. Each chapter comes with exercises which help fix the central concepts, learn to use some of the formal tools, and problematize the philosophical issues at stake. This book is aimed to anyone interested in the question of reasoning, argumentation and theory-building in the presence of contradictions, paradoxes and other puzzles.