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Geographies of exclusion: mapping the political economy of minoritized nations in Iran
No full textThis article analyzes the socioeconomic factors influencing levels of economic well-being across Iran’s provinces, focusing on the impact of minority status, using data spanning 2015–2019. We employed a two-phased approach: first, we calculated welfare indices for each province and then assessed how minority status intersects with various socio-economic determinants to influence these indices. Findings reveal that minority groups, particularly the Baloch, Kurdish, and Sunni populations, are negatively correlated and have lower welfare outcomes not only within that province but also with the neighboring provinces. This correlation is pronounced in provinces with substantial minority populations, where lower welfare levels coincide with lesser access to essential services like healthcare, education, and robust infrastructure. The study also observes that these minority groups often reside in areas with underdeveloped infrastructure and higher unemployment rates. As shown, the paradoxical effects of higher education infrastructure expansion, which, despite increasing access to education, do not translate into economic productivity or gains in economic wellbeing due to the mismatch between educational attainment and labor market needs
Populism and the aesthetics of security: the case of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy
No full textSince Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has championed Ukraine’s identity as a brave democracy fighting an authoritarian aggressor, combining passionate, informal communication with strategic humour in framing security issues. This chapter examines the relationship between populism, security and aesthetics through Zelenskyy’s wartime leadership, proposing a contextualist approach that recognises how populist actors adapt their securitisation styles to specific circumstances. I argue that populist leaders tend to perform security narratives in a way that resonates with those who feel marginalised not only in local but also in global politics. By embodying Ukraine as an empowered political actor rather than a passive victim, Zelenskyy challenges traditional power dynamics where smaller nations become mere pawns in great power relations. This chapter advances International Relations scholarship on populism by exploring how populist leaders can reshape global political aesthetics and potentially transform existing hierarchies through their securitising performances
Matroid products via submodular coupling
No full textThe study of matroid products traces back to the 1970s, when Lovász and Mason studied the existence of various types of matroid products with different strengths. Among these, the tensor product is arguably the most important, which can be considered as an extension of the tensor product from linear algebra. However, Las Vergnas showed that the tensor product of two matroids does not always exist. Over the following four decades, matroid products remained surprisingly underexplored, regaining attention only in recent years due to applications in tropical geometry, information theory, and the limit theory of matroids. In this paper, inspired by the concept of coupling in probability theory, we introduce the notion of coupling for matroids – or, more generally, for submodular set functions. This operation can be viewed as a relaxation of the tensor product. Unlike the tensor product, however, we prove that a coupling always exists for any two submodular functions and can be chosen to be increasing if the original functions are increasing. As a corollary, we show that two matroids always admit a matroid coupling, leading to a novel operation on matroids. Our construction is algorithmic, providing an oracle for the coupling matroid through a polynomial number of oracle calls to the original matroids. We apply this construction to derive new necessary conditions for matroid representability and establish connection between tensor products and Ingleton’s inequality. In addition, we verify the existence of set functions that are universal with respect to a given property, meaning any set function over a finite domain with that property can be obtained as a quotient
Handbook of politicization and political patronage
No full textThis expansive Handbook discusses key conceptual and theoretical issues in politicization and patronage. With contributions from leading academics across the globe, it presents diverse perspectives on politicization and patronage practices, exploring the positive and negative implications of both concepts. Chapters analyze detailed case studies from a range of countries, regime types and levels of governance, providing critical insights into the variations of politicization and patronage practices and advocating for a clear differentiation between the two terms. Expert authors examine the methodologies involved in the study of these concepts, including prosopography, experimental methods and the difficulties of conducting research within authoritarian regimes. The Handbook emphasizes the recent increase in both patronage and politicization, particularly within democratic regimes, and makes timely suggestions for future research. This comprehensive Handbook is vital for students and scholars of public administration and management, public policy, political science and regulation and governance. It is also a valuable resource for government officials and public policymaker
The fantasy of a grand bargain between America and China: why deadlock is more likely than détente
No full textRefugee return without refoulement: rethinking state strategies to evade asylum norms
No full textHow do states avoid hosting refugees? Whereas scholars have documented at length the strategies that rich democracies use to avoid hosting refugees, conventional wisdom holds that states in the Global South have no choice but to host refugees. This article presents a novel typology of state strategies to evade asylum obligations, demonstrating that just as rich democracies can feign compliance with the letter of international law without upholding the spirit, states in the Global South can manipulate liberal asylum policies towards illiberal ends. Identifying how they do so, however, requires looking to the governance of refugee return. Using a descriptive typology and inductive case study, the article identifies and describes a common but under-recognized tactic that states use to avoid asylum responsibilities. I call this strategy “return-without-refoulement” because states seek to coerce refugees to return without technically violating non-refoulement, the international legal prohibition against states returning refugees to dangerous places. Conceptualizing return-without-refoulement alongside other well-studied state responses to asylum-seeking evinces the continued strength of non-refoulement in shaping state behavior—just to perverse ends. In so doing, the article advances both the research agendas on state responses to displacement and international norm compliance
Soviet Communism was no more successful at reducing inequality than other regimes
No full textDid communism reduce inequality in the Soviet Union? Joan Costa-Font, Ana Nicinska and Melcior Roig-Rosello show that individuals exposed to Soviet Communism are worse off according to current and retrospective measures of welfare than people in other countries. However, there is some evidence that Soviet Communism delivered higher social mobility than other regimes
Spending more on defence without damaging social spending - time for a coalition of the borrowing?
No full textNATO’s commitment to sharply increase spending on defence and security presents a daunting fiscal challenge for many European governments. Iain Begg asks whether a “coalition of the borrowing” that enables countries to raise debt collectively could provide the solution
Mobile internet access is exacerbating household wealth inequality in the Philippines
No full textMobile connectivity can have a positive economic impact on jobs and incomes. But how does it shape household wealth inequality? Zhiwu Wei, Neil Lee and Yohan Iddawela investigate. The Philippines serves as the ideal case study: it has seen a huge uptake in connectivity in recent years, while its 7000+ islands make physical connectivity costly, meaning the internet is often the dominant bridge to markets, services and opportunities