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Rulers on the road: itinerant rule in the Holy Roman Empire, AD 919–1519
No full textItinerant rule, rule exercised through traveling, was a common, yet insufficiently researched pre-modern form of governance. Studying the determinants of ruler itineraries in the Holy Roman Empire AD 919–1519, we argue that rulers focused on monitoring “marginal” elites. Powerful rulers could count on family members and thus targeted unrelated local elites. Weak emperors had to monitor their less loyal relatives and left unrelated nobles unvisited. We reconstruct emperors’ itineraries from 72’665 dated and geolocated documents and measure territorial control by their relatives. Exploiting the weakening of imperial power through the Great Interregnum (1250–1273), we find that strong, pre-1250 emperors frequented areas controlled by their relatives relatively less. In contrast, family control increased visits post-1273. Causal identification rests on the discontinuous reduction of emperors’ power through the Great Interregnum and differences in family relations between subsequent emperors. The results show strategic itinerant rule as an important but understudied form of governance. The data and materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures and analyses in this article we be available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network upon publication of the article
Implementing the AfCFTA: a sluggish start
No full textIt is widely recognized that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could have a transformative impact on African economies and strengthen policy coherence on trade and development across the continent. After the rapid conclusion of three AfCFTA negotiation phases, implementation has been sluggish. Two major initiatives emerged to drive implementation: institutional arrangements at country level to underpin policies and strategies for benefiting from the AfCFTA; and the Guided Trade Initiative to support start of trading between selected AfCFTA member states. Both initiatives are assessed in this chapter. However, without advancing to full AfCFTA implementation, the expected transformative impact may prove to be elusive
Consciousness: its goals, its functions and the emergence of a new category of selection
Get PDFWe suggest that the emergence of consciousness in living organisms entailed new goals and new functions, which gave rise to a new category of selection, which we call mental selection. Mental selection involves ontogenetic choices that are directed towards consciously perceived and affectively evaluated patterns. It expands the types, targets and regimes of natural and sexual-social selection and is a scaffold on which human artificial selection emerged. We suggest that the functional effects of consciousness and the mental selection which it affords, were driven and enabled by the evolution of an open-ended form of associative learning (unlimited associative learning (UAL)). UAL enables animals to discriminate between composite percepts and acts and permits plastic self-learning and goal-directed behaviour driven by flexibly prioritized physiological needs, which enable flexible adjustments to a huge range of conditions and events during the animal’s lifetime. We propose that UAL-based signal selection, involving for example, predator–prey, sexual and other social interactions, led to the evolution of intricate perceptual, emotional and motor patterns that could not have existed before consciousness evolved. These patterns, which can be thought of as signatures of consciousness, first appeared in the Cambrian era and scaffolded the evolution of imaginative animals and reflective humans. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolutionary functions of consciousness’
Here's our emerging eight-step path to a decent influencing strategy - what do you think?
Get PDFSomething like a ‘core curriculum’ on influencing is emerging at the heart of our Activism, Influence and Change programme. This week I tested and tweaked it further in a two day workshop with 30 health activists from across China and Southeast Asia, who I’d previously worked with in London (see this July post)
Does the tendency for "quiet quitting" differ across generations? Evidence from the UK
Get PDFIntroduction: The post-COVID-19 phenomenon of “quiet quitting” could be problematic for UK economic growth because unpaid overtime has been a key contributor to business productivity since the 2008 global financial crisis. Here, we explore the extent to which this phenomenon exists in the UK, and whether the tendency for quiet quitting differs across generations. Methods: We analyzed data from the UK Quarterly Labor Force Survey (QLFS) between 2007 and 2022 to determine changes in hours worked. Quiet quitting was characterized by notable declines in hours worked between 2019 and 2022, benchmarked against 20072018 trajectories. Analyses were demarcated by four commonly defined generational cohorts (i.e., Generation Z [GenZs; 1997–2004], Generation Y [Millennials; 1981–1996], Generation X [GenXers; 1965–1980], and Baby Boomers [1952–1964]). Results: Overall, we found that the UK workforce reduced hours by ~28 h per year in the pandemic and post-pandemic periods. Hours lost was most notable in 2022, with hours down by ~36 h. However, in assessing generational differences, quiet quitting was most pronounced in the two younger cohorts. GenZs showed the steepest decline in hours worked, while Millennials worked the least number of hours overall, with no indication of recovery by the end of the study period. Hours declined for GenXers and Baby Boomers, but changes were more moderate, and Baby Boomers showed evidence of a possible rebound to pre-pandemic levels. Discussion: Given the ~24,568 million UK full-time workers in 2022, our findings equate to over 55 million discretionary hours lost to the labor market per year between 2019 and 2022, 48.1% of which is accounted for by Millennials. Thus, we evidence that quiet quitting has interrupted the recovery of working hours in the UK to pre-pandemic levels, and lost hours are especially attributable to younger cohorts. JEL: J24 J01
Statelessness
No full textStatelessness is the status of those people who are not legally recognized as nationals of any state. Statelessness first emerged as an international concern with the reordering of the international state system following the First World War, and gained greater attention following the Second World War. The United Nations adopted specific treaties on the protection of stateless persons and on the reduction of statelessness, as well as including the right to a nationality within the major human rights conventions. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has taken up its mandate for stateless persons with increasing seriousness in the twenty-first century. Outstanding challenges relate to the definition of stateless person – and the consequent difficulty of assessing the number of stateless persons, statelessness created by arbitrary deprivation and denial of nationality, and discrimination in access to nationality on the grounds of race, ethnicity, or religion
UKRI R&D missions accelerator programme NHS fit for the future: exploring the potential for greatest gains
Get PDFStakeholder perceptions of primary school education about food sustainability and farm animal welfare in England
Get PDFBackground: There is growing consensus on the negative impacts of food production on the natural environment and planetary viability. UK society is also increasingly concerned about the impact of intensive farming systems on the billions of sentient farmed animals within them. In liberal democracies and capitalist economies, enlightened citizens and informed consumers are key to the solution to environmental crises, such as anthropogenic climate change. Despite this, there is minimal provision for food sustainability and farm animal welfare in England’s National Curriculum. Purpose: To investigate the views of stakeholders on the provision of food sustainability and farm animal welfare education in English primary schools. Sample: Ten stakeholders selected for their knowledge or interest in food sustainability and farm animal welfare education. Design and methods: In-depth, semi-structured interviews, analysed naturalistically within an interpretivist framework. Results: Barriers to teaching food sustainability and farm animal welfare reported by stakeholders were restraints caused by the curriculum, the need and lack of funding, a lack of teacher knowledge about the topic, and concerns about its controversy. Best methods identified for teaching were teaching from an early age and throughout all of schooling, adopting a cross-curricular approach, facilitating learning in a hands-on way, and not waiting for change from government reform. Conclusion: This research informs the debate on the provision of food sustainability and farm animal welfare education in English primary schools. Given that the environmental crisis is a global one, and that sentient animals are farmed across the world, the research may also inform discussion on inclusion of food sustainability and farm animal welfare outside of the English education context