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Understanding public support for EU polity building in hard times: the role of territorial, functional, and crisis politics
No full textBetween 2005 and 2025, repeated European crises spurred various forms of EU polity building in a process we call ‘binding’ (i.e., the development of capacity by the centre to provide public goods). This paper investigates whether EU citizens support this development. Leveraging the polity building literature, we theorise three key dynamics structuring preferences for binding: territorial, functional, and crisis politics. Exploiting original data on public preferences across six crisis-related policy domains (social, fiscal, migration, health, defence, and climate) in 15 countries, we find broad support for EU polity building in all domains. Territorial cleavages are generally weaker than expected, with fiscal policy being a partial exception. Functional cleavages retain their relevance and largely reflect ideological and socio-economic divides. Surprisingly, and contrary to Hirschman’s famous argument, crisis politics – marked by dissatisfaction and high salience – heighten the demand for EU polity building, especially in redistributive domains like social, climate, and health policy. These findings suggest that crises can reshape Europeans’ preferences and mitigate territorial and functional conflicts, offering opportunities for polity building in challenging times
How is climate change changing agrarian studies?
No full textA range of compelling recent literature highlights how climate change is rewriting the intertwined social and environmental processes that comprise agrarian landscapes. Mainstream reaction has been to double down on technical intensification strategies supplemented by a resolute faith in scientific advancement to reduce vulnerabilities. For critical agrarian studies, however,climate change raises new conceptual and methodological challenges. Has climate change reinforced or undermined existing concepts and frameworks that explain core dynamics of agrarian change? Does agrarian studies as a field of engaged research need to change alongside the climate? In this exchange our contributors consider how anthropocentric climate change requires the field to rethink core analytical categories within agrarian studies. Key questions that the forum addresses include: How does climate change validate and/or challenge the conceptual armoury and normative orientations inherited largely from Marxist-influenced political economy? What new concepts and theoretical influences will prove helpful in orientating agrarian studies within a changing climate? How do we synthesise these with existing frameworks and concerns? And how does this reformulation change our understanding of the forms and content of resistance within agrarian environments
The crisis of long-termism: time and independence in the European Union
No full textUnable to point to a popular mandate, unelected institutions must find another source of legitimacy. This article argues that, in the context of European integration, a solution was long sought in the notion of far-sighted rule. Independent institutions such as the European Commission, Court of Justice and European Central Bank consolidated their authority with claims that they were distinctively well-placed to pursue long-term goals, being insulated from the short-termism to which national democracies are supposedly prone. Having traced the emergence and the logic of these claims, the article examines the preconditions they rest on, and the extent to which these still hold. As we argue, in today’s context of volatility and emergency governance, these temporal claims look increasingly outdated, thereby disrupting one key rationale for the EU’s division of powers
Belief in creation in the image of God violates the individualizing-binding dichotomy of moral foundations
No full textMoral foundations theory proposes that there are two types of moral domains: the individualizing domain, which relates to individual welfare (comprising harm and fairness foundations), and the binding domain, which relates to communal and spiritual welfare (comprising loyalty, authority, and purity foundations). In this investigation, we demonstrate that this distinction is not universal. Specifically, across five studies (total N = 1,211) conducted among Jews in Israel and Christians in the United States, we show that the core religious belief that people are created in the image of God is associated not only with purity/divinity values that are typically considered to be part of the binding domain but also with the individualizing moral domain. In two correlational studies, we find that this belief is highly correlated with religiosity but that it predicts greater endorsement of the individualizing moral domain (Studies 1–2). Two experimental studies further establish that this belief is associated with endorsing the individualizing moral domain and the moral foundation of purity, but not the communal foundations (Studies 3–4). Finally, in Study 5, we demonstrate that these experimental findings are not driven by belief in God. We conclude that the distinction between individualizing and binding moral domains is more culturally contingent than previously believed. We discuss the broader implications of the belief in creation in the image of God for understanding moral judgments pertaining to human dignity
Identifying, communicating, and de-escalating risk in high-stakes settings: how conversation analysis research can underpin communication training
No full textCommunicating risk in high-stakes settings can prevent avoidable deaths. Communicating, assessing and managing risk is a critical part of many healthcare and related professionals' roles. However, there is a dearth of empirical research on risk communication in practice. Training is seldom based on empirical evidence, meaning professionals communicating in some of the most urgent circumstances may have little formal knowledge of how to communicate about risk in practice. Focusing on high-stakes settings, we describe three projects involving work with diverse professionals to improve how they communicate to identify, mitigate, and manage risk. We integrate insights for others considering similar projects. We present three projects where communication training about current or future threat to life in high-stakes settings was developed based on conversation analysis (CA) and its findings. Projects focused on (1) communicating the risks of emergency medical evacuation during infectious disease outbreaks (2) risk communication about suicidality and self-harm (3) crisis negotiation in the context of suicide threats RESULTS: In each project, researchers collaborated with practitioners to understand communication about risk moment-by-moment. They used CA to identify key challenges and develop empirical evidence of (in)effective communication practices. The evidence was used to develop resources for practitioner training. Integrated insights showed that: training is well received, core risk communication practices were often absent from extant training; collaboration with partners is crucial; and resources/funding constraints limited formal evaluation. Conversation analytic research can generate insights on how risk is assessed and managed moment-by-moment in practice. These insights can underpin training based on evidence from real communication. Developing training from empirical CA can equip professionals working in urgent and high-stakes circumstances to meet and address challenges in practice. Future work is likely to include systematic evaluation of the impact on interactions and patient outcomes
Rumor as ethical vernacular: Ebola and the womb in eastern Congo
No full textThe position of pregnant women in clinical research remains a topic of international ethical debate. Yet, the reflections of actual and potential trial participants, including pregnant women themselves, often remain absent. Following a policy reversal in 2019, pregnant women were eligible to participate in a second Ebola vaccine trial during an epidemic in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This article follows how this decision was perceived in Goma, a city in the DRC, the meanings and functions of the rumors that emerged about reproductive health, and how these rumors influenced pregnant women's experience of the trial. I argue that the womb became a site to discuss broader biopolitical anxieties about collective survival, but that rumors also became a vehicle for ethical debate amid uncertainty. Ethical debates about medical research continue locally through other ethical vernaculars‐ like rumors‐ and center on contested ideas of acceptable risk, shaped by collective historical experiences
The battle to rebuild our social media has started
No full textThe harms of social media platforms – from the mental health of young people to their role in creating rabbit holes for isolated adults who went on to commit atrocities – are well known. But to move forward, writes Nick Couldry, we must address the root cause of these problems: the decision to delegate the design our social spaces, at the most basic level, to profit-seeking businesses
Bad versus good enough: negativity bias and institutional choice
No full textWhy do decision-makers choose to create new international institutions, even though an existing institution appears to be both suitable and good enough? This article examines this puzzle. Existing literature suggests that a status quo bias leads decision-makers to view the creation of a new institution as the choice of last resort. Existing institutions will, therefore, be used or modified when they are suitable for a given cooperation problem and their past performance is good enough. Yet, as the case of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (KSC) suggests, decision-makers at times reject existing institutions that are suitable and good enough. We identify the phenomenon of rejection-led creation and explain why it occurs. We argue that negativity bias, which is a known principle of human cognition, can account for why leaders might reject an institution and create another in its place. Negativity bias manifests during processes of institutional choice as loss aversion and failure salience. Empirically, we illustrate how negativity bias led to the rejection of the European Union (EU) Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo and the subsequent establishment of the KSC. This article contributes to literature on institutional choice theory and behavioralism in International Relations
Allies and partners: US public opinion and relationships in the Indo-Pacific
No full textCompetition between China and the United States spurs renewed emphasis on security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. However, this development in security collaboration unfolds differently from the past. While Washington's Cold War alliances endure, these are supplemented by less formal arrangements with new regional partners. This reflects a shift from the codified obligations of treaty alliances in favor of flexible forms of security partnerships. While the distinctions between allies and partners may blur during peacetime, they can become acute amid a crisis. To test how differences in security arrangements may manifest in a crisis, we conducted a survey experiment on a representative sample of 2,021 US citizens, exploring their response to Chinese aggression against a regional state. We find that variations in bilateral relationships influence public support for the target of China's aggression. However, an aversion to retaliatory measures towards China exists, regardless of the target's relationship with the United States