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Bringing policy innovation through gender research in the social sciences
No full textGender inequality remains one of the most persistent and pressing economic challenges today. However, policymakers often address gender inequality through fragmented measures that focus on individual choices rather than the structural constraints driving economic disparities. This issue portrays how recent academic research increasingly supports this shift toward a multidisciplinary and overarching approach, highlighting the structural and cultural forces that sustain inequality. Gender inequality is not an isolated issue and gender disparities persist not because of a lack of talent or ambition among women but because of economic, legal, cultural, and institutional constraints that systematically disadvantage them. Whether in labour markets, workplace discrimination, health inequalities, or media narratives, gender gaps are reinforced through overlapping systems of exclusion. This recognition has profound policy implications: traditional, piecemeal interventions – such as work-family policies – are necessary but insufficient on their own. Addressing gender inequality requires a shift toward integrated, structural reforms that target the underlying constraints shaping women’s economic opportunities. Policies that promote financial inclusion, strengthen legal protections, enforce workplace rights, and challenge entrenched cultural norms must work in tandem. By linking individual-level gender penalties to systemic labour market inequalities, workplace policies, and institutional barriers within academia and policymaking, this issue underscores the urgent need for a more integrated approach to gender research and policy innovation
The “Netflix effect” revisited: OTT video, media globalization and digital sovereignty in 4 countries
No full textThis article examines the interplay between the ‘Netflix effect’ of media globalisation and the reassertion of ‘digital sovereignty’ through national competition, content, and industrial policy. Taking a case study approach the study is based on analysis of laws, codes and policy documents along with expert interviews and secondary data. The study finds that whilst OTT video has undermined revenues and audiences for national broadcasters in all the countries studied, there are differences in the nature of the impact and the response. Policymakers are reasserting digital sovereignty using a variety of broadcasting policy tools. All the countries feature policies including protection of domestic producers, consumers and public service media as well as competition law-based interventions. In some countries such as Australia and the UK, public service media protections have been updated. In others, such as Japan and Korea, policy has focused more on promotion of domestic content exports abroad. The article closes with discussion of the wider significance of these developments for media globalisation, soft power and digital sovereignty
The uncounted dead: statist bias and civilian targeting in conflict data
No full textQuantitative research on violence against civilians relies extensively on “off-the-shelf” data, such as the widely cited Uppsala Conflict Data Program's (UCDP) One-Sided Violence dataset. We show that, due to data collection and coding protocols that privilege government narratives of violence, such data often reproduces statist biases pervasive in the international system. These dynamics are particularly visible when civilian deaths result from airstrikes, shelling, and other forms of long-range bombardment. Such capabilities are disproportionately possessed by states, yet conservative coding practices, combined with government control over information and access restrictions, dictate that UCDP consistently codes civilian deaths at the hands of governments as “battle-related” or incidental rather than deliberate targeting. We analyze patterns in the UCDP data release, version 23.1, using evidence from Sri Lanka and Ethiopia to illustrate these patterns
Upholding the racial hierarchy: the so-called perspectivelessness of legal study skills
No full textLegal education is premised upon the reproduction of colonial power dynamics that embed Eurocentric conceptions of rights, justice and indeed, of what law is as seemingly neutral, objective and universal. Skills such as how to read and analyse cases and legal arguments, and write essays are typically assumed to be bias and value free, however, these are in fact, rooted in upholding an uncritically Eurocentric approach to the question of what law is that necessarily obstructs the decolonisation of law's curriculum, and thus, of the narrative of law. The aims of a law curriculum are necessarily and purposefully contrary to decolonising our understanding of law and its central role in the reproduction of colonial power dynamics. Creating legal thinkers who have the skills to disrupt settled framings of law, rights, and justice requires making one's worldview and positionality central to learning academic skills. It deliberately personalises students engagement with questions of law, and empowers them with the skills to begin unpacking Eurocentric narratives around law, rights, and justice
The delicate balancing act of accelerated approval for cancer medicines—speed, certainty, and benefit
No full textNonresponse adjustment using auxiliary variables subject themselves to missing data
No full textNonresponse is a significant matter that cannot be denied in a sample survey. Declining response rates lead to increasing nonresponse bias which affects the estimated bias. Nonresponse adjustment can be used to deal with unit nonresponse by using nonresponse weight. Two possible models in which missingness in an ancillary database may be correlated with missingness in a survey are considered in this study for estimating the population mean when nonresponse occurs on both the study and auxiliary variables. Two auxiliary variables where one auxiliary variable is fully observed and some part of the other is missing are considered in the possible models. Simulation studies are carried on to see how the nonresponse adjustment using auxiliary variables that subject themselves to nonresponse work under the possible models. The simulation results show that the weighted mean performed the best in removing the bias and gave the minimum mean square error compared to the unweighted mean which was affected by nonresponse
Livestreamed genocide: framing analysis of Palestinians in the BBC and i24 News coverage of the war on Palestine (2023–24)
No full textThis qualitative investigation employed media framing theory to unpack the BBC and Israeli TV channel i24 News coverage of the war on Gaza between October 2023 and April 2024. A textual analysis method on articles and video coverage of these channels was used to divulge how Palestinians were framed amid three events: the sieges of Al-Shifa hospital, the ‘Flour Massacre’ and the killing of the World Central Kitchen aid workers. These findings were then discussed with regard to the presence of ‘orientalist’ tropes regarding Palestinians. This study found that the BBC and i24 News varied and overlapped in patterns of reporting; both channels predominantly employed Israeli security frames, particularly through the ‘terrorism’ frame. For both channels, Palestinian security frames were absent, and Israeli responsibility frames were only made salient when covering the killing of the foreign World Central Kitchen aid workers. The BBC news framing appeared more balanced, as it employed both humanitarian, conflict/war and Israeli security frames, but its overall coverage was underpinned by Israeli security framing. These findings were discussed against the broader context of ‘orientalizing’ Arab/Muslim tropes, Israeli culpability and power asymmetries inherent in the Palestinian struggle against colonization, occupation and ongoing genocide
Rethinking the science-policy interface for chemicals, waste, and pollution: challenging core assumptions
No full textNegotiations are ongoing but fraught for designing a new global science-policy panel for chemicals and waste pollution. In this Perspectives article, we challenge three assumptions guiding these negotiations. First, the new panel should resemble the existing panels of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Inter-governmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Second, the creation of a new panel will automatically carry authority within policymaking. Third, the participation of industry is crucial without special consideration for its interests. Further, we identify three steps to enhance the panel’s relevance and influence
Galina Starovoitova and the matrilineal history of Russia's lost democratic federalism
No full textGalina Starovoitova played a key role in promoting democracy in Russia until her murder in 1998. Dina Gusejnova asks how Russian politics might have developed if she had survived
From Grenfell to Kartalkaya: disasters, collective action, and social justice
No full textDedicated to the memory of Mert Doğan, Duygu Doğan, Mavi Doğan, and Doğa Doğan On 21 January 2025, a fire at the Grand Kartal Hotel in Kartalkaya, Turkey, killed 78 people, including at least 36 children, and injured 51 others. Despite being one of the region’s top ski resorts, investigations revealed severe fire safety violations. The hotel lacked essential protections such as an automatic alarm, sprinkler system, functioning smoke detectors, and illuminated emergency exits. The area had no dedicated fire department, and the nearest units – nearly an hour away in Bolu – struggled to reach the scene due to harsh winter conditions, allowing the fire to burn unchecked for over 12 hours