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Collective remembering and imagining futures
No full textThis review explores the intertwined psychological processes of collective remembering and imagining, emphasizing their shared roots in present-day uncertainty. We propose a multidirectional model of collective mental time travel, where the present acts as a catalyst for navigating both the past and future through culturally embedded narratives and symbolic resources. Drawing on recent interdisciplinary research, we argue that these processes are not linear but multilinear, shaped by social identities, historical contexts, and culturally specific worldviews of time. Collective remembering and imagining serve as mechanisms of meaning-making and self-regulation, enabling social groups to interpret uncertainty, foster agency, and mobilize for change. While nostalgia may anchor groups in idealized pasts, utopian visions can inspire transformative futures. However, the direction and impact of these temporal orientations vary across cultures and depend on how time is conceptualized. Our model highlights the feedback loop between temporal reflection and present-day action, showing how collective memory and imagination can either reinforce the status quo or catalyse social transformation. Ultimately, we advocate for a nuanced understanding of CMTT as a dynamic, socially situated process that plays a critical role in shaping collective agency and envisioning alternative futures
The structure of leveraged buyouts and the free-rider problem
No full textWe study the structure of public firm buyouts in a model that features the Berle-Means problem (lack of incentives) and the Grossman-Hart problem (holdout). We find that bootstrapping, debt in excess of funding needs, and upfront fees to bidders are socially optimal and increase buyout premiums. These elements make LBO financing tantamount to a “management contract” arranged by an outside manager to receive cash and incentives to manage a firm—except the cash is funded by excess debt imposed on the firm. Our model also rationalizes why PE firms collect fees from their equity partnerships and directly from target firms
A manifest evil? on Palestine, judgement, and justice
No full textIn this essay, I reflect on the problem of moral judgement with respect to the horrors we have been witnessing in Palestine, especially since October 2023. I offer these reflections primarily through philosophical comparison, advancing a complementary reading of anthropologist David Scott’s treatment of the evil of New World slavery and Hannah Arendt’s considerations on moral responsibility during the Holocaust. In particular, I think with two provocative texts, namely, Scott’s insightful book from 2024, Irreparable Evil: An Essay on Moral and Reparatory History and Arendt’s classical essay from 1964, “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,”Footnote1 to raise questions about judgement, justice, and responsibility in relation to Palestine. I present these thoughts in a particular historical conjuncture, a conjuncture I do not hesitate to judge as genocidal when treating the very problem of moral judgement. While well-publicized reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, have already designated – legally speaking – what is unfolding in Palestine as “genocide,” I propose we treat this term not merely as a question of legal determination but also as a matter of political and moral judgement
Active citizens and passive learning: a qualitative study of students’ perspectives on citizenship education across England and Wales
No full textAcross the UK there has been a steady, but rising, concern over young people’s political engagement. Citizenship education (CE) is one policy response to this lack of engagement, seeking to mould young people’s transition to full citizenship according to prevailing values and ideals of citizenship. In this paper, we examine CE in England and Wales reporting on the findings of twenty focus groups with secondary school students across ten schools. We identified four representations in how students represented good citizenship: Communitarian; civic; transactional; and rights-based citizenship. We also found, across our focus groups, a clear preference for practice-based teaching that connects abstract ideas around citizenship into lived experience – which students missed in actual CE practice. In the discussion of the paper, we draw on these findings to make recommendations for future CE provision in the UK and more broadly
Reconstruct Ising Model with global optimality via SLIDE
No full textThe reconstruction of interaction networks between random events is a critical problem arising from statistical physics and politics, sociology, biology, psychology, and beyond. The Ising model lays the foundation for this reconstruction process, but finding the underlying Ising model from the least amount of observed samples in a computationally efficient manner has been historically challenging for half a century. Using sparsity learning, we present an approach named SLIDE whose sample complexity is globally optimal. Furthermore, an algorithm is developed to give a statistically consistent solution of SLIDE in polynomial time with high probability. On extensive benchmarked cases, the SLIDE approach demonstrates dominant performance in reconstructing underlying Ising models, confirming its superior statistical properties. The application on the U.S. senators voting in the six congresses reveals that both the Republicans and Democrats noticeably assemble in each congress; interestingly, the assembling of Democrats is particularly pronounced in the latest congress
Mapping creative capabilities: skill composition and regional specialisation in the cultural and creative industries
No full textThis study provides the first conceptual and empirical framework to evaluate the cultural and creative industries’ (CCIs) skill composition by utilising the revealed skill requirements method. First, it identifies the most important skills within and across the CCIs. Second, it maps their spatial distribution and links them to the stage-sensitive regional specialisation of the CCIs. Finally, it formalises a framework to assess the specialisation potential patterns. Moving beyond a generic treatment of the CCIs, this study develops a comprehensive, bottom-up approach to regional CCIs policy, focusing on place-specific capabilities and untapped potential of regions by comparing their skill endowments with observed CCIs’ specialisation patterns
A typology of labour agency in the gig economy: gig drivers' experiences of struggle in Indonesia during the COVID‐19 pandemic
No full textThis article explores how ride‐hailing drivers, couriers, and food‐delivery riders in Indonesia exercised labour agency to improve their working conditions during the Covid‐19 pandemic. Drawing on a survey (N = 997) and in‐depth interviews (N = 30) with gig drivers in Jakarta, it contributes to labour geography and employment relations literature by reconceptualizing labour agency in the gig economy. Four modes of agency are proposed: (1) Individual resilience, (2) Individual reworking and resistance, (3) Collective resilience, and (4) Collective reworking and resistance. This article further presents main obstacles that explain why not all workers may exercise these practices: Fear of potential platform counteraction and moral dilemma hindered workers from resisting the platform. Identity struggles concerning the ‘driver‐partner’ status and the competitive nature of the platform work prevented workers' involvement in collective agency. Meanwhile, free rider problem, fragmented and leaderless movement, and collective frustration posed challenges for workers in translating collective feeling into active solidarity
Generating models of attentional cueing and inhibition of return with genetic programming
Get PDFThe cueing task is a robust experimental paradigm for investigating attention. A centrally presented valid cue, correctly indicating the location of an upcoming target stimulus, leads to quicker responses than an invalid cue. A feature of this paradigm is that increasing the delay between a peripheral cue and a target reverses this effect, where responses become slower for a valid cue, a phenomenon termed inhibition of return (IOR). Using GEMS, a system that utilises genetic programming techniques, we generated potential strategies underlying the facilitation and IOR effects in the cueing paradigm. Models were generated for three experiments differing in their experimental designs, all with good fit to behavioural data. Our approach helps address current issues in the field of attention regarding how it is defined and what mechanisms underlie it. Additional benefits and limitations of this method are discussed
Sentience in cephalopod molluscs: an updated assessment
Get PDFThis article evaluates the evidence for sentience – the capacity to have feelings – in cephalopod molluscs: octopus, cuttlefish, squid, and nautilus. Our framework includes eight criteria, covering both whether the animal's nervous system could support sentience and whether their behaviour indicates sentience. There is strong evidence of sentience in octopuses and cuttlefish, which are assessed with very high or high confidence in meeting six of eight criteria. There is also substantial evidence for squid (very high or high confidence in five of eight criteria). By contrast, whether nautiluses are sentient remains unknown (high confidence in only one of eight criteria), since this group of cephalopods have attracted little research. This reflects a general pattern: cases where a taxon did not satisfy a criterion were invariably due to insufficient evidence, rather than evidence that the criterion was not met. In no cases were we confident that a taxon failed a criterion. We explore the nuances of evidence for sentience, examining both neural and behavioural markers, drawing from and updating our previous review (Birch et al., 2021), and shedding light on the implications for ethical treatment and welfare within this class of animals while also revealing areas where further research is needed