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Seeing Football Like a State
Get PDFThis article argues that football tactics offer an underexplored resource for anarchist political theory by reframing football as a site of collective intelligence, relational organization, and resistance to technocratic control. Challenging leftist dismissals of sport as mere distraction, the essay reads contemporary football through the writings of Scottish coach Jamie Hamilton, situating his critique of modern tactics alongside James C. Scott’s analysis of high-modernist state planning in Seeing Like a State. Hamilton’s opposition to dominant “Positionist” models -- characterized by rigid spatial grids, data-driven optimization, and bureaucratic rationality -- is developed as a footballing analogue to statist and managerial forms of power. In contrast, his concept of “Relationism” emphasizes emergence, improvisation, local knowledge, and embodied coordination, treating football as a living cultural practice rather than a system to be engineered. Drawing on examples from global football cultures, the potrero tradition, and relational coaching practices, the article frames contemporary tactical debates as a struggle between abstraction and life, control and creativity. It concludes by proposing Hamilton’s relational football as a practical and conceptual model for anarchist politics, one that privileges situated action, collective intuition, and bottom-up organization over universal schemas and centralized authority
The Impact of Exchange-Traded Fund Index Inclusion on Stock Prices
Get PDFWe report on a laboratory experiment examining how demand for ETF index products affects the prices and trading volume of assets. We compare an environment where the ETF index includes all assets in a market against an environment where a redundant asset is excluded from the index. We find that (i) subjects place significant value on the ETF index asset beyond the value of its constituent assets; (ii) there is a substantial index premium for included assets; and (iii) the index premium persists even when short-selling is permitted. The price increases of the constituent assets and of the ETF itself suggest that ETF products can distort markets to some degree
(Mis)perception of Party Congruence and Satisfaction with Democracy
Get PDFThis study investigates the implications of perceived ideological incongruence between voters and their supported parties for satisfaction with democracy. Using panel data from the British Election Study, we first demonstrate that greater misperceptions of party positions correspond to higher perceived ideological distance from one’s preferred party. We then show that such increased perceived incongruence is associated with reduced satisfaction with democracy, even when accounting for actual incongruence based on expert surveys of party positions. This pattern is also seen when using several alternative measures and specifications, as well as in cross-sectional data from Europe. The findings suggest subjective perceptions of representation, potentially distorted by misperceptions, play a role in how ideological congruence relates to citizen attitudes toward the political system. While potential endogeneity warrants caution in interpreting the relationship, the results suggest that potentially inaccurate beliefs about parties can distort the link between representation and satisfaction with democratic performance
How United Nations peace operations can help overcome perils to post-conflict elections
Get PDFAgreeing to elections is generally seen as a key way to settle armed conflict and prevent recurrent violence. However, the transition from violent conflict to nonviolent electoral competition can be wrought with many challenges. Stable electoral competition requires trust in institutions, but trust often takes a long time to develop and is often lacking in post-conflict elections. We argue that UN peacebuilding operations can play an indispensable role in the development of stable electoral institutions through three interrelated ways: reducing political and electoral violence, supporting democratic attitudes and norms of peaceful coexistence, and reinforcing institutional capacity and the rule of law. Using a new measure of the expected quality of elections in post-conflict countries between 1946 and 2012, we show that UN peace missions are associated with better elections and a greater likelihood of successful transitions to electoral competition compared to post-conflict countries without UN involvement. We also find larger differences when the UN is involved in establishing electoral institutions, especially when there is no or limited prior electoral competition, indicating that the UN is effective at assisting the democratization processes in difficult contexts
How to Develop Research Questions: The First Stage of The Social Research Toolbox, QGAP [How-to Guide]
Get PDFThe research question is the foundation for any social research process. It is the thing that sparks the impetus and direction for the research that will follow. Questions are fundamental for your research journey - but they are surprisingly difficult to develop. This guide takes you through a step-by-step process which will help you move from a broad research topic to a researchable and feasible research question. You will learn why research questions are important, where to get inspiration for research questions and how to refine your research questions so they have the potential to generate robust and relevant social research. This guide has been developed as part of the social research toolbox series (QGAP), where asking questions forms the first part of the toolbox
Exploring parents experience of child health reviews with health visitors using video consultations: a Hermeneutic Phenomenological Approach.
Get PDFBackground: Health visitors deliver the Healthy Child Programme to children under five, involving five reviews: antenatal, birth, six-to-eight weeks, one and two years.
During COVID-19, health visitors engaged with parents using video for the first time as lockdowns forced professionals to alter their working to keep safe. Little is known about this way of engaging for health visitors and families. Method: A Heideggerian interpretative hermeneutic phenomenological study using unstructured interviews and in-depth data analysis using guidance by Dibley et al and the Diekelmann et al framework. Ten parents in England who had experience of video consultations with a health visitor, were recruited using social media and snowballing. Findings: Ten themes, three were constitutive patterns, present in all interviews, five relational themes, prominent in most interviews. The key finding was parents felt that health visitors were unable to assess their child over the screen so the burden of responsibility was on their shoulders, and they worried their reporting might be inaccurate, or something might get missed. Technical issues, logistics and being a tick box exercise were also patterns. The patterns were considered using Heideggerian concepts which helped reveal the phenomenon and meaning the parents had attributed to their experience with ‘technology’ and ‘presence’ being the prescient philosophical notions. Conclusion: The experience of video consultations was different for each parent, but all felt the burden of responsibility to report to the health visitor. Recommendations for practice include adopting a conversational style
A glossary for social-to-biological research
Get PDFResearch has shown that our socially structured experiences elicit a biological response, leading to the observation that numerous biomarkers (objective biological measures that are representative of various biological processes) are socially patterned. This ‘social-to-biological’ research is of interest to researchers across multiple disciplines and topics and especially to those with an interest in understanding the biological embodiment of the ‘social environment’. Combining social and biomarker data is also of relevance to those examining the biological determinants of social behaviours (for example, the relationship between genetics and certain behaviours like smoking). However, as much of the research involving biomarkers and social data are multidisciplinary, researchers need to understand why and how to optimally use and combine such data. This article provides a resource for researchers by introducing a range of commonly available biomarkers across studies and countries. Because of the breadth of possible analyses, we do not aim to provide an exhaustive and detailed review of each. Instead, we have structured the glossary to include: an easy-to-understand definition; a description of how it is measured; key considerations when using; and an example of its use in a relevant social-to-biological study. We have limited this glossary to biomarkers that are available in large health and social surveys or population-based cohort studies and focused on biomarkers in adults. We have structured the glossary around the main physiological systems studied in research on social to biological transition and those that go across systems and highlight some basic terms and key theoretical concepts
Climate change exposure and green bonds issuance
Get PDFIn this study, we examine the relationship between firm-level climate change exposure and green bond issuance. We find that firms exposed to climate change are more likely to issue green bonds. This relationship is primarily motivated by the firms’ desire to hedge against physical and regulatory risks rather than to capitalize on new climate-related opportunities. Green bonds issued by climate-exposed firms have lower proceeds, higher coupon rates and larger maturities. The issuance of such bonds is associated with higher ESG scores but not with lower carbon emissions. Our findings survive a battery of robustness tests including endogeneity checks, and are important to issuers, asset managers and bond market regulators
The Capacity of a Finite Field Matrix Channel
Get PDFThe Additive-Multiplicative Matrix Channel (AMMC) was introduced by Silva, Kschischang and Kötter in 2010 to model data transmission using random linear network coding. The input and output of the channel are n × m matrices over a finite field Fq. When the matrix X is input, the channel outputs Y = A(X + W) where A is a uniformly chosen n × n invertible matrix over Fq and where W is a uniformly chosen n × m matrix over Fq of rank t. Silva et al. considered the case when 2n ≤ m. They determined the asymptotic capacity of the AMMC when t, n and m are fixed and q ∞. They also determined the leading term of the capacity when q is fixed, and t, n and m grow linearly. We generalise these results, showing that the condition 2n ≥ m can be removed. (Our formula for the capacity falls into two cases, one of which generalises the 2n ≥ m case.) We also improve the error term in the case when q is fixed
Housing adaptations and older adults' health trajectories by level of initial health: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.
Get PDFBACKGROUND: In many ageing societies, the housing stock is poorly designed to meet the needs of older people with health limitations. Housing adaptations may enable older people to retain functional ability in the home, improve well-being and reduce the risks of falls. There is mixed evidence on whether adaptations are most beneficial for those who have limitations or whether they have a greater impact if implemented before people experience substantial disability. This study aimed to identify socio-demographic factors associated with obtaining housing adaptations and whether and how the impact of adaptations on changes in mental and physical health varied by initial level of health measured using objective indicators. METHODS: We used data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing to analyse socio-demographic factors associated with acquiring housing adaptations using logistic regression. We then estimated mixed-effects models to assess how a measure of baseline physical health, derived from observer-measured indicators of physical function, modified the association between acquiring housing adaptations and health and disability outcomes for two cohorts each followed up for three waves. RESULTS: Having more activities of daily living (ADL) limitations was positively associated with acquiring housing adaptations, but we found no evidence for socio-demographic variations. Acquiring housing adaptations was associated with slower development of instrumental ADL/ADL disability among older people with initially good latent physical health. Sensitivity analysis suggested that housing adaptations mitigated the predicted probability of falls for those with severe mobility impairments. CONCLUSIONS: Housing adaptations may slow down development of disability in older people with initially good health