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Introduction: Secular stagnation and the end of capitalism
No full textContemporary US economists who invoke the term secular stagnation refuse to look into the abyss to which Hansen pointed when he brought up the intractability of the problem – capitalism was no longer providing growth and the only solutions for returning productive dynamism to capitalist economies available would require ending capitalism and transforming it into something else. Instead, they seemed to invoke the ‘problem’ of secular stagnation to propose ‘solutions’ that involved keeping maintaining the capitalist organization of the economy in the sense of the primacy of the private prerogative in determining the pace and pattern of investment, growth and employment. In contrast, the articles in this special issue return to the more fundamental questions to which Hansen pointed to underline the relevance of the diagnosis today
Fiji’s proposal for an ‘Ocean of Peace’ in the Pacific: analysis and reflections from a peace studies perspective
No full textIn 2023 the Prime Minister of Fiji, Sitiveni Rabuka, proposed designating the Pacific a region-wide ‘Ocean of Peace’. Two years later in 2025, after a series of wider regional deliberations, the Blue Pacific Ocean of Peace Declaration was adopted at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting. This Pacific-led peacebuilding proposal has attracted global attention but remains less examined within the peace studies literature. Drawing on public communications by Rabuka, listening sessions with Pacific Islander stakeholders, and the authors’ diverse peace studies expertise, this article examines how the Ocean of Peace was initially framed by Rabuka and how peace studies might support and learn from its development. We explore how diverse understandings of peace can address the region’s security threats; how inclusive peacebuilding approaches can strengthen engagement and practice; and how confronting violent legacies may advance peace. This article is not a prescription for what the Ocean of Peace should be. Rather, we aim to illuminate opportunities and challenges for the concept and to highlight an opportunity for transdisciplinary and transnational peace learning and dialogue
Oligarchic rule or elite constellations? Conceptualising and researching power and the state in Colombia
No full textThis article explores the challenges of conceptualising and researching power and the State in Latin America and potentially beyond, with a particular focus on Colombia. It makes the case for using ‘elite constellations’ (Savage and Nichols 2018), through an iterative research process, i.e. moving back and forth between theory and data, including constructing a database of Colombian elites as well as qualitative research. Oligarchic elites, whose capital rests on wealth, are the most powerful of constellations. However, to understand how they maintain, protect, adapt and expand their interests, it is important to explore the relationships between them and other elite constellations which draw on varied capitals and in Bourdieu’s terms, dictate and at times dispute the dominant principles of domination in a society. The idea of elite constellations challenges assumptions of homogeneity in rule by the few and/or rule by wealth while recognising ‘unity in the dispersion of power’
'Sexy jail’ and performative transparency: evaluating shadowbanning notifications and appeals in Instagram’s Account Status amongst pole dancing content creators
No full textThrough a survey amongst 100 users who post pole dancing content, this study evaluates the efficacy of Instagram's Account Status tools for the transparency and appeal of shadowbanning. Instagram's 2023 Account Status update appeared, on paper, to be a revolution for shadowbanned users: finally, after having to guess if they were shadowbanned since 2019, users could check if their content and profile violated Instagram's newly published Recommendation Guidelines, making it ineligible for recommendations on the Explore page and to non-followers. However, this paper's findings show that pole dancers – a demographic greatly affected by algorithmic precarity in the creator economy, crucial in providing some of the first examples of shadowbanning – found Account Status tools to be ineffective and discriminatory. Users surveyed found that the update merely informs them of violations’ detections, falling short of educating them about improving posting behaviour and of providing significant redress mechanisms. As such, this paper finds Account Status to be an exercise in performative transparency, a corporate box-ticking exercise engaging with a form of disclosure surrounding governance decisions that only serves the purpose of dodging opacity accusations without meaningfully engaging in communications about governance
The relationship between educational attainment and Right-Wing Authoritarianism: a discordant twin study
No full textWhile it is well-established that educational attainment and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) are negatively correlated, it remains unclear why, as causal effects are hard to distinguish from the effects of confounders. Here, we use an adaptation of the discordant twin design in a structural equation framework (ACE-β models) with 1264 Norwegian monozygotic and dizygotic twins, to investigate whether education and RWA remain associated after controlling for confounders from genes and environmental influences shared by twins. Our model estimates that 25% of the covariance between education and RWA reflects genetic confounders, 47% reflects shared-environmental confounders, and 28% of the covariance remains unaccounted for. This remaining covariance then reflects causal effects and/or environmental confounders not shared by twins. Perceived socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood accounted for about one-third of the shared-environmental confounding. We did not find evidence that effects of education on RWA are mediated by perceived SES in adulthood
