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The train wrecks of modernization: railway construction and separatist mobilization in Europe
No full textThis paper uses the gradual expansion of the European railway network to investigate how this key technological driver of modernization affected ethnic separatism between 1816 and 1945. Combining new historical data on ethnic settlement areas, conflict, and railway construction, we test how railroads affected separatist conflict and successful secession as well as independence claims among peripheral ethnic groups. Difference-in-differences, event study, and instrumental variable models show that, on average, railway-based modernization increased separatist mobilization and secession. These effects concentrate in countries with small core groups, weak state capacity, and low levels of economic development as well as in large ethnic minority regions. Exploring causal mechanisms, we show how railway networks can facilitate mobilization by increasing the internal connectivity of ethnic regions and hamper it by boosting state reach. Overall, our findings call for a more nuanced understanding of the effects of European modernization on nation building
Dollar dominance and the transmission of monetary policy
No full textHas the dominance of the dollar in global trade rendered monetary policy ineffective? An emerging view contends that if a country invoices its exports in dollars, exchange rates cannot stabilize economic activity, as the classical expenditure-switching channel is muted. This view rests on the premise that export prices are sticky in dollars, breaking the link between export demand and depreciations. But this assumption is not borne out by the data: goods priced in dollars tend to have more flexible prices, along with higher elasticities of substitution. We propose a model with more realistic assumptions and show that even with dollar pricing, depreciating the currency by loosening monetary policy can still boost exports and activity materially. The limit to any expansion is not demand, but supply capacity. We also show that low exchange-rate pass-through to dollar prices is not informative about price stickiness. The price response to exchange rates is small when demand elasticities are high, even with flexible prices: low pass-through is an equilibrium result, not evidence of a nominal friction
Who put Hegel back into Marxism?
No full textThere is a consensus in the literature that the Marxism of the Second International (1889-1916) lacked philosophical sophistication and that understanding of Marxism’s Hegelian origins was lost soon after Karl Marx’s death, only to be recovered with the emergence of Western Marxism in the 1920s. This article challenges this consensus, urging revision of the basic outlines of the intellectual history of Marxism. It begins by sketching two ways contemporary scholars understand the Hegel-Marx connection. It then shows that these views were anticipated before World War I in the work of Max Adler. Against the view that Hegel was “put back into Marxism” in the 1920s or 1970s, then, this article maintains that there have always been sophisticated as well as simplifying accounts of the Hegel-Marx connection
Safe spaces for teenage girls in a time of crisis
No full textAdolescent girls across low-income countries face disadvantages stemming from limited agency over their bodies and barriers to investing in their human capital. We study how these outcomes are shaped in times of aggregate crisis, in the context of the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. This is a setting in which adolescent girls have long faced disadvantage because of a high prevalence of sexual exploitation and violence towards them. Our study is based around an evaluation of a club-based intervention for young women implemented during the epidemic. We track 2,700 girls aged 12–18 from the eve of the epidemic in 2014 to just prior to when Sierra Leone was declared Ebola free in 2016. The club-based intervention provides a safe space where girls can spend time away from men, receive advice on reproductive health, vocational training, and/or microfinance. During the epidemic all schools were closed. We show that without the protection of time in school, in control villages teenage girls spent more time with men, pregnancy rates rose sharply, and their school enrolment dropped post-epidemic. The provision of a safe space breaks this causal chain: It enables girls in treated villages to allocate time away from men and reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies. These effects are most pronounced in places where girls face the highest predicted pregnancy risks. In such locations, the intervention also increases school re-enrolment rates post-epidemic. To further pin down mechanisms, we exploit a second layer of randomization of input bundles offered by clubs. This reinforces the idea that the safe space component is critical to driving outcomes for teenage girls. Our analysis has implications for school closures during health crisis in contexts where young women face sexual violence, highlighting the protective and lasting role safe spaces can provide in such times
Vets must support meat reduction for the benefit of people, the planet and animals
No full textSteven McCulloch argues that national veterinary associations must advocate for a 50 per cent meat reduction target by 2050 to meet their duties to public health, animal welfare and the environment
Policy and public health implications for mental health after the COVID-19 pandemic
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic revealed essential weaknesses in mental health systems and intensified existing inequities, highlighting the need for a comprehensive assessment of policy responses and strategies for future resilience. Guided by four questions relating to system adaptations, approaches to inequities, financing strategies, and evidence gaps, we synthesised evidence from a structured literature search (2020–24), expert consultation, and lived experience. We found that public health systems embedded infodemic management, expanded digital services, and mobilised community workforces, but responses varied in equity and effectiveness. Although gender, age, socioeconomic, and racial disparities worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, social protection, gender-sensitive policies, school-based services, and culturally adapted interventions showed promise. High-income countries buffered shocks with welfare measures while low-income and middle-income countries faced sharp fiscal constraints. Few studies evaluated cost-effectiveness or equity impacts of psychosocial interventions. Building resilient, equitable mental health systems requires integrated policies spanning communication, digital and community care, gender-responsive and youth-responsive strategies, and sustainable financing, alongside investment in longitudinal and cross-national research
Introduction
No full textThe introduction highlights Punjab’s turbulent history, underlined by a shared Punjabi culture that continues to evolve from diverse influences palpable in the vivid experience of Punjabis worldwide. The emergence of Sikhi, and other powerful social movements, are a manifestation of the diverse streams of this culture and a contribution to the enrichment of this diversity. The scholarly understanding of Punjab, hitherto reflecting the contradictions arising from diversity in a fragmented manner, is here supplemented by a critical rethinking of issues of concern to contemporary Punjab scholars. The summaries of the chapters by established and emerging scholars traversing new paths of inquiry are contextualised within six thematic sections. This first Handbook on Punjab Studies is presented as advancing an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach for providing a comprehensive, critical and holistic engagement with the field
Managing the politics of health data during COVID-19: a comparative institutional analysis
No full textThis article investigates the political dynamics of health statistics during COVID-19, a period marked by intensified reliance on quantitative data. It examines how institutional configurations shaped the governance and politics of pandemic data. Using the concept of ‘statistical systems’, the article presents a comparative typology of formal structures and informal norms for official data production and dissemination, and tests how these influenced data politics during the crisis. Drawing on interviews with health officials and experts in Australia, Sweden, the UK, and the USA, the analysis reveals how technical and political challenges in data use were encountered and addressed. Despite facing similar pressures, countries diverged in managing data-related problems and pursuing structural reforms. The findings demonstrate that institutions critically condition data governance during crises. Efforts to redesign data systems should account for embedded institutional patterns that shape data governance and influence public trust across national contexts
Afrobeats, moral disengagement and the cultural politics of online fraud: the difference between a twitch and a wink is vast
No full textThis article examines how Afrobeats reframes online fraud through mechanisms of moral disengagement, interrogating 40 songs by Nigerian artists (2023 to 2025). Drawing on Bandura's theory and cultural sociology, it interprets lyrics as moral texts. Thematically, it identifies five recurrent patterns: (i) victim dehumanisation through predator-prey metaphors (e.g., maga), (ii) reframing fraud as “hustle” or divine blessing, (iii) minimisation of agency via structural poverty or spiritual forces, (iv) cyber-spiritualism (Yahoo Plus), where juju rituals ensure success and protect fraudsters, and (v) glamorisation through aspirational global aesthetics. Structurally, fraud references operate as career-contingent resources, more common among emerging than established artists. All credited vocalists are male, highlighting gendered exclusion. Lyrics also encode temporal discipline, depicting synchronisation with Western time zones as both a moral duty and a logistical necessity for transnational fraud. Beyond technical coding, Afrobeats is read as a moral and cultural text through which identity, aspiration, and legitimacy are negotiated under postcolonial inequality and digital capitalism. It functions as a moral economy in which fraud is glamorised, spiritualised, and rarely contested. As a shared cultural grammar, these lyrics convert deviance into symbolic capital and export local fraud imaginaries, shaping global perceptions of Yahoo Boys and their victims
