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Across the humanities, a set of interrelated concepts - excess, becoming, the event - have gained purchase as analytical tools for thinking about power. Some versions of affect theory rely on Gilles Deleuze's concept of 'becoming', proposing that affect is best understood as a field of dynamic novelty. Reconsidering affect theory's relationship with life sciences, Schaefer argues that this procedure fails as a register of the analytics of power. By way of a case study, this work concludes with a return to the work of Saba Mahmood, in particular her 2005 study of the women's mosque movement in Cairo, Politics of Piety.
Penguin Classics have built their reputation as one of the largest and most successful modern imprints for 'classic' texts on the notion of 'the general reader'. Following an interrogation of this idea, Leah Tether investigates the publication of medieval French literature on this list and shines a light on the drivers, motivations, negotiations and decision-making processes behind it. Focusing on the medieval French texts published between c.1956 and 2000, Tether demonstrates that, rather than Penguin's frequently cited 'general reader', a more academic market may have contributed to ensuring the success of these titles.
The basis of Chinese religious culture, and with that many aspects of daily life, was the threat and fear of demonic attacks. These were inherently violent and could only be counteracted by violence as well - even if this reactive violence was masked by euphemisms such as execution, expulsion, exorcisms and so on. At the same time, violence was a crucial dimension of the maintenance of norms and values, for instance in sworn agreements or in beliefs about underworld punishment. Violence was also an essential aspect of expressing respect through sacrificial gifts of meat (and in an earlier stage of Chinese culture also human flesh) and through a culture of auto-mutilation and ritual suicide. At the same time, conventional indigenous terms for violence such as bao 暴 were not used for most of these practices since they were not experienced as such, but rather justified as positive uses of physical force.
With the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election, populists have come to power in the US for the first time in many years. However, US political scientists have been flat-footed in their response, failing to anticipate or measure populism's impact on the campaign or to offer useful policy responses. In contrast, populism has long been an important topic of study for political scientists studying other regions, especially Latin America and Europe. The conceptual and theoretical insights of comparativist scholars can benefit Americanists, and applying their techniques can help US scholars and policymakers place events in perspective.
Why do some people adapt to the risks of climate change, while others do not? This Element provides an in-depth overview of the psychology of climate change adaptation. It begins with an overview of adaptation behaviour and highlights the importance of successful adaptation by individuals and households. Key psychological theories are introduced that can explain adaptation behaviour and the role of a wide variety of motivational variables in adaptation behaviour is discussed, such as risk perception, experiences with climate-related hazards, and perceived responsibility. Next, the authors examine three examples of how this psychological knowledge has been used to develop and test interventions to promote adaptation behaviour in real-world settings. After which, the relationship between climate adaptation behaviour and climate mitigation behaviour are considered and the potential for integrating these bodies of literature is put forward. It concludes with an agenda for future psychological research on climate change adaptation behaviour.
This Element explores the growing party divisions on the environment in the United States. It draws upon quantitative and qualitative data from several decades of national and state politics. The study contributes theory to the party position change literature, showing that interest groups change parties, but in turn are changed by them. In the 1970s the characteristics that predicted voters' attitudes on the environment also predicted legislators' votes. Yet as environmentalists and their opponents aligned with parties, officials had incentives to set their own views aside to represent new party constituencies. Influence flowed in both directions, however. Environmentalists were drawn to the Democrats as they confronted GOP-linked business lobbies. Environmentalists' resulting need to cooperate with other groups close to Democrats led them to change their positions. Although environmentalists were long unwelcoming to minorities, they embraced immigration reform, allied with unions on trade, and worked with civil rights lobbies and labor in battles over judicial nominations. The Element concludes with discussion of how the current party alignment on the environment might change.
This Element has two aims. The first is to discuss arguments philosophers have made about the difference God's existence might make to questions of general interest in metaethics. The second is to argue that it is a mistake to think we can get very far in answering these questions by assuming a thin conception of God, and to suggest that exploring the implications of thick theisms for metaethics would be more fruitful.
This Element critically explores the potential relevance of God or a soul for life's meaning as discussed in recent Anglo-American philosophical literature. There have been four broad views: God or a soul is necessary for meaning in our lives; neither is necessary for it; one or both would greatly enhance the meaning in our lives; one or both would substantially detract from it. This Element familiarizes readers with all four positions, paying particular attention to the latter two, and also presents prima facie objections to them, points out gaps in research agendas and suggests argumentative strategies that merit development.
This Element is an introduction to contemporary religious fictionalism, its motivation and challenges. Among the issues raised are: can religion be viewed as a game of make-believe? In what ways does religious fictionalism parallel positions often labelled 'fictionalist' in ethics and metaphysics? Does religious fictionalism represent an advance over its rivals? Can fictionalism provide an adequate understanding of the characteristic features of the religious life, such as worship, prayer, moral commitment? Does fictionalism face its own version of the problem of evil? Is realism about theistic (God-centred) language less religiously serious than fictionalism?
The modern state protects citizens from many different harms, from industrial accidents to airline crashes. This Element illuminates a distinctive politics of protection that transcends policy sectors as diverse as criminal justice, consumer protection, and public health. Adopting a comparative and historical perspective, the Element identifies common drivers of protective state-building as well as cross-national differences in the politics of protection. The Element concludes by examining political theories of the protective state, which seek to defend and critique the obligations for and the limits of state protection.
This Element provides an overview of research considering variables deemed to impact bilingual language acquisition, and highlights research outcomes from a variety of disciplines. An exploratory study takes into account these variables and examines the language acquisition of adult Spanish-English bilinguals across a range of domains in their two languages. The results demonstrate that the highly interactive nature of bilingual speakers' languages is in line with a holistic view of the dynamic, interdependent nature of bilingualism as described by usage-based theories and dynamic systems theories, and by the conceptualization of bilingual language from a Dynamic Interactive Processing Perspective.
Economists commit a category mistake when they treat democratic governments as indebted. Monarchs can be indebted, as can individuals. In contrast, democracies can't truly be indebted. They are financial intermediaries that form a bridge between what are often willing borrowers and forced lenders. The language of public debt is an ideological language that promotes politically expressed desires and is not a scientific language that clarifies the practice of public finance. Economists have gone astray by assuming that a government is just another person whose impulses toward prudent action will restrict recourse to public debt and induce rational political action.
This Element explores the primary modes by which rulers have exercised power and shaped political relations in Timor-Leste across four distinct periods. The contrast between coercion under colonial rule and consent expressed through the 1999 referendum on independence exerted a powerful influence on scholarship on Timor-Leste's politics and future. Since the restoration of independence in 2002, however, politics in Timor-Leste are best understood in terms of powerful economic constraints during the first Fretilin government (2002–6), and thereafter, thanks to revenue from the country's petroleum reserves, a ruling strategy based on a wide range of inducements (rather than genuine consent).
Emotions are central to social life and thus they should be central to organization theory. However, emotions have been treated implicitly rather than theorized directly in much of organization theory, and in some literatures, have been ignored altogether. This Element focuses on emotions as intersubjective, collective and relational, and reviews structuralist, people-centered and strategic approaches to emotions in different research streams to provide one of the first broad examinations of emotions in organization theory. Charlene Zietsma, Maxim Voronov, Madeline Toubiana and Anna Roberts provide suggestions for future research within each literature and look across the literatures to identify theoretical and methodological considerations.
From the 1980s onward, income inequality increased in many advanced countries. It is very difficult to account for the rise in income inequality using the standard labour supply/demand explanation. Fiscal redistribution has become less effective in compensating increasing inequalities since the 1990s. Some of the basic features of redistribution can be explained through the optimal tax framework developed by J. A. Mirrlees in 1971. This Element surveys some of the earlier results in linear and nonlinear taxation and produces some new numerical results. Given the key role of capital income in the overall income inequality, it also considers the optimal taxation of capital income. It examines empirically the relationship between the extent of redistribution and the components of the Mirrlees framework. The redistributive role of factors such as publicly provided private goods, public employment, endogenous wages in the overlapping generations model and income uncertainty are analysed.
This Element presents an examination of the origins of the policy sciences in the School of Pragmatism at the University of Chicago in the period 1915–38. Harold D. Lasswell, the principal creator of the policy sciences, based much of his work on the perspectives of public policy of John Dewey and other pragmatists at Chicago. Characteristics of the policy sciences include orientations that are normative, policy-relevant, contextual, and multi-disciplinary. These orientations originate in pragmatist principles of the unity of knowledge and action and functionalist explanations of action by reference to values. These principles are central to the future development of the policy sciences.
Assertive bargaining occurs from time to time in the US Congress. It became an important feature of legislative negotiations within the House Republican Party when, following the 2014 elections, a group of organized conservatives called the House Freedom Caucus regularly issued threats against its own party's leadership. Such behavior by an ideologically extreme bloc of lawmakers is not accounted for by existing theories of legislative politics. This Element posits explanations for why such threat-making might occur and what might increase its likelihood of success, then tests those explanations using the Freedom Caucus as a case study.
Widespread belief in the benefits of empathy and its healing power is evident in public discourse and across diverse news and social media outlets around the world. Yet research reveals that empathy can sometimes have adverse effects on individuals' intergroup attitudes and behavior. A link between empathy and concerns with negative evaluation helps explain why empathy can backfire. Accordingly, using the minimization of evaluative concerns as an organizing principle, the author makes recommendations regarding when and how to encourage empathy in intergroup contexts, so that its potential to foster stronger social bonds across group boundaries can be fully realized.
Scholars and professionals interested in the study and engagement with young people will find this project relevant to deepening their understanding of reading practices with comics and graphic novels. Comics reading has been an understudied experience despite its potential to enrich our exploration of reading in our currently saturated media landscape. This Element is based on seventeen in-depth interviews with teens and young adults who describe themselves as readers of comics for pleasure. These interviews provide insights about how comics reading evolves with the readers and what they consider a good or bad reading experience. Special attention is paid to the place of female readers in the comics community and material aspects of reading. From these readers, one begins to understand why comics reading is something that young people do not 'grow out of' but an experience that they 'grow with'.
This is a study of Vietnam's socialist transition and state transformation, generally known as đổi mới. It examines the drivers of socialist-regime change, the nature of the đổi mới state, and the basis of regime legitimacy in Vietnam. The Element argues that despite its 'one-party rule' label, the party-state apparatus that channels said rule has become fragmented. State-building during the đổi mới period involved negotiations and bargaining that redefine authority and power relations within the state apparatus. The party-state's accountability projects are designed to target the specific self-aggrandizing tendencies of the state apparatus, its policies, and abuse of state power. At the leadership level, patterns of resource allocation underlying the đổi mới growth model as well as the VCP's cadre rotation approach have accommodated central and sub-national state elites across sectors and levels, helping shore up the legitimacy of the đổi mới state in the eyes of the state elite. The combination of sustained economic growth, expansion of political space, accountability, and tolerance of small-scale public protests have been factors in strengthening regime-society legitimization.