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A feminist critique of cybersecurity: techno feminist imaginaries of vulnerability and care
No full textIn this collection of five short essays, each authors examine how online spaces produce and reproduce queer marginalisation while also offering opportunities for queer expression, connection, and resistance. Tanvi Kanchan examines Indian queer activists’ connections with Indigenous and Black politics in the U.S. and anti-gender rhetoric that travels between American conservative contexts and Indian Hindutva contexts to highlight how digitally mediated transnational rhetoric is simultaneously progressive and reactionary. Łukasz Szulc, on the other hand, proposes that feminist and queer manifestos can suggest ways to imagine alternative digital futures and navigate the present. Likewise, Yener Bayramoğlu unearths the ambivalence emerging from digital spaces offering connection, visibility, and resistance while also extracting data and regulating subjects. Ahmet Atay considers how the digital mundane presents an opportunity for queer disruption and activism, and, finally, Rohit Dasgupta encourages the tension of concurrent embodiment in digital and offline spaces. From these essays, we see rising tensions between digitally mediated 'transnational' and the local struggles, and queer critical imaginaries and organisational work. Here, we find space for queer presence and activism within both mediated and unmediated public spaces
Navigating marginalization in peace processes: the engagement and disengagement of Yemeni women activists in the diaspora
No full textThis paper explores the interplay between women’s activism, war-generated diaspora, and peacebuilding in Yemen, focusing on Yemeni women’s engagement and disengagement in peace processes. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Yemeni diaspora activists in Western Europe, mainly Germany and the Netherlands, between 2021 and 2024, it examines how structural, social, and individual factors, together with the dynamics of homeland and host-country politics, shape women’s agency and political activism. Moving beyond the binary of inclusion versus exclusion, the analysis traces non-linear trajectories of activism marked by pauses, reorientations, and transformations. The findings demonstrate that the war in Yemen continues to provoke strong emotional responses among diaspora women, often channeled into renewed mobilization and peace-related efforts rather than complete withdrawal. Exclusionary practices in formal peace talks, while constraining, also generate resilience and counter-resistance, prompting many activists to reconfigure their engagement into alternative political, social, and cultural forms
Mapping the global impact of UNCRC General comment No. 25 on children’s rights in the digital environment
Get PDFTrade-offs in the international legal regime: the case of the pandemic agreement
Get PDFCOVID-19 starkly exposed the systemic frailties of global health governance, particularly concerning the functioning and utility of the International Health Regulations (IHR). Multiple independent reviews declared that the existing framework was designed to constrain rapid global action, and recommended concrete transformational reforms for the global health legal regime.1 Most notably they recommended the negotiation of a new instrument to govern future pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (PPPR). The appetite for a new instrument was cemented by a statement of support from twenty-six other world leaders and the director-general of World Health Organization (WHO).2 From the start, there was a lack of clear unified vision for what a new treaty ought to achieve. This ideological rift generally fell along the North–South divide, something that continued throughout the negotiations of the treaty. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), suffering from the stark inequalities in vaccine access during the COVID-19 pandemic demanded embedding equitable distribution of life-saving health products into legally binding commitments. Meanwhile high-income countries (HICs) sought greater prevention and surveillance activities, determined to prevent spillover events from occurring and spreading in the first place
Valuing health system resilience: the limits of conventional economic evaluation under catastrophic risk
No full textBackground Health system resilience has emerged as a critical policy priority following recent global health emergencies, yet conventional economic evaluation methods are poorly equipped to value preparedness investments that reduce vulnerability to rare, catastrophic shocks and enhance capacity to manage them. Objective To examine the alignment between economic evaluation methods and preparedness investments addressing catastrophic shocks, and to identify alternative frameworks for valuing such investments under deep uncertainty. Methods We undertake a critical synthesis, drawing on health system resilience frameworks, environmental economics, and decision science. We analyse preparedness investments across three domains: prevention (reducing shock probability), absorptive capacity (redundancy and buffers), and adaptive capacity (flexibility to reconfigure resources), illustrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Standard economic evaluation cannot adequately value preparedness investments addressing rare, catastrophic risks. Cost-effectiveness analysis operates within predetermined budgets that such events, if realised, would overwhelm; cost-benefit analysis becomes unstable when the probability distributions of such events are fat-tailed. Prevention investments face an additional challenge: the benefits of successful prevention are counterfactual and therefore difficult to demonstrate to decision-makers. Absorptive capacity functions as insurance, valuable because shocks might occur, but this value is difficult to quantify under fat-tailed uncertainty. Adaptive capacity carries option value that conventional appraisal is ill-suited to capture. Conclusions The limitations of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis in valuing preparedness investments are inherent to these methods. Alternative frameworks, including real options analysis, robust decision-making, and multi-criteria assessment, offer promise but require institutional reforms that recognise the strategic and uncertain nature of these investments
Gong Xiangrui at LSE: how a Chinese student brought interwar functionalism to modern Chinese administrative law
Get PDFGong Xiangrui studied for two years at LSE and went on to shape the evolution of Chinese administrative law for decades. Ting Xu, Professor of Law at the University of Essex, shares his story
‘Our government is bureaucratic but more legitimate’ an exploration into the complexities of institutional hybridity in Charagua-Bolivia
No full textInstitutions are the formal and informal rules that govern social, political, and economic life. In post-colonial contexts, indigenous/local institutions coexist and evolve alongside liberal- imported ones, sometimes gaining formal recognition and leading to institutional hybridity. This article aims to examine how liberal and hybrid formal institutions differ in their rules for leadership selection and decision-making, and to explore the practical implications of hybridity in terms of bureaucracy and legitimacy. The research reveals that hybrids are intricate systems that accommodate dual normative frameworks, adding procedural layers, timelines, and administrative requirements. Yet, while being more complex and bureaucratic, they are also more legitimate
Coming back to life from "social death" creating and regulating women-only/feminist spaces with/for women refugees in the UK
No full textRefugeehood may epitomize what Achille Mbembe (2003, “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15 (1): 11–40) refers to as “death worlds,” where individuals are dehumanized and excluded from everyday spaces and relationships, imposing “social death” upon them. Social death is a gendered process that might be reinforced by the public–private division, limiting women’s social connectedness, agency, and autonomy to integrate and interact with society as full persons in the UK. Building on ethnographic research, this article explores the potential of women-only/feminist spaces, offered by self-identified feminist and women’s organizations in the UK, to support women’s individual self-worth and full personhood while fostering community-building, ownership, and collective resilience and resistance. According to the organizations, creating and regulating space for/with women refugees counter social death via (1) effectively addressing the everyday needs of women, (2) fostering community ownership, (3) promoting and maintaining (gender) equality within communities, and (4) cultivating belonging and friendship
EU banks and nature-related risk management: from awareness to action
Get PDFNature degradation is increasingly recognised as a source of prudential and macrofinancial risk. This has prompted regulators and banks in the European Union to move beyond climate-only approaches to assess broader environmental exposures. An analysis of 15 EU banks’ public disclosure documents reveals a developing approach to nature-risk mitigation but a gap between ambition and implementation. Banks, financial supervisors and regulators should build on emerging good practices even in the face of regulatory rollbacks. They should treat nature-related risks as material prudential concerns, strengthen monitoring and assessment frameworks, and address environmental risks in their entirety rather than through a climate lens alone