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Tell don’t ask: how to use social media to mobilise local collective climate action
No full textCollective climate action may be vital for shaping societal-level change and alleviating climate anxiety. We examined how climate movements can utilise social media to promote local public engagement, as the language and social imagery used by climate activists could affect public willingness to engage. Collaborating with Extinction Rebellion (XR)-United Kingdom (UK), we conducted a randomised controlled field trial with over 350,000 Facebook users in three cities: Birmingham, Oxford, and Cardiff. We evaluated the impact of messaging and imagery on engagement with information about climate events by comparing willingness to click links to attend local climate talks based on requests versus exhortations, alongside protest, impact, and diversity images. We found that exhortations were more effective than requests, especially when paired with climate impact imagery. Message effectiveness varied across cities, being the strongest in Birmingham and weakest in Cardiff, indicating the importance of tailoring strategies to local contexts
An optimal stopping problem for reflecting Brownian motions
No full textWe study the optimal stopping problem supτE(|B τ 1|∨|B τ 2|−cτ)where (B 1, B 2) is a standard two-dimensional Brownian motion and c > 0 is a given and fixed constant. We first show that this problem is equivalent to the one where |B τ 1|∨|B τ 2| is replaced by |B τ 1|+|B τ 2|. Solving the latter problem we find a closed formula for the value function expressed in terms of the optimal stopping boundary which in turn is shown to be a unique solution to a nonlinear Fredholm integral equation. A key argument in the existence proof is played by a pointwise maximisation of the expression obtained by Wald-type identities. This provides tight bounds on the optimal stopping boundary describing its asymptotic behaviour for large coordinate values of (B 1, B 2). The solution found is applied to find the best constants in the inequalities which bound E(|B τ 1|∨|B τ 2|) or E(|B τ 1|+|B τ 2|) from above by a constant multiple of E(τ) for any stopping time τ of (B 1, B 2)
What went wrong with Mexican liberal democracy?
No full textThis research note critically examines the structural failures of Mexico’s post-2000 democratic transition, arguing that the rise of illiberal populism under the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) is not the cause but the consequence of a stalled and superficial democratization process. While formal electoral procedures were strengthened, underlying issues such as state capture, elite dominance, widespread corruption, and socioeconomic exclusion remained unaddressed. By reducing democracy to procedural minimalism, political elites failed to deliver substantive democratic outcomes, eroding institutional legitimacy, and fueling public disillusionment
Enforcing the “unnatural offence” sodomy legislation and anti-queer panoptic policing in Uganda
No full textArbitrating attribution: corporations in the law of State responsibility
No full textThis chapter examines corporations in the law of State responsibility, focusing on techniques of attribution in investment arbitration. It surveys the practice on four rules under the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. It identifies three mistakes: tribunals have misapplied attribution rules to general conduct; extended the privity of domestic contracts from autonomous entities to the State itself; and conflated the public interest in commercial activities with elements of governmental authority. An extended range of attributable conduct has tended to favour the financial interests of global corporations, with distributive stakes for host States and local communities
Income, sovereignty, and cohesion: the political economy of Europe’s first mover innovation deficit
No full textEurope’s economic stagnation and declining global position stem from its failure to lead in first mover innovation, as the United States and, increasingly, China have produced the new breakthrough technologies of the latest industrial revolution. In this paper, we consider the causes of this innovation problem: interrelated issues in the structure of innovation institutions, education, geography, finance and markets, all of which have deep political roots. We build on a game theory model of strategic complementarities and mutual commitments to suggest a path forward which would allow a ‘coalition of the willing’ of advanced European states to develop US style institutions of innovation while combining them with Europe’s social model. Using this, we chart a feasible transition path for Europe which builds on strengths in incremental innovation while creating first mover capacities through integrated capital markets, venture ecosystems, and focused regional cluster development. Only by overcoming its first mover innovation gap, while not abandoning the goals of its social model, can Europe achieve growth, global relevance, and social stability in an era of intensified geopolitical and technological competition
Kucinskas, J. C. (2025). The Loyalty Trap. Conflicting Loyalties of Civil Servants Under Increasing Autocracy. Columbia University Press, 440 Seiten, 120,00 US- (kart.), 29,99 US-$ (E-Book).
No full textIn this work, Kucinskas offers a close-up perspective on the dismantling, the attempted dismantling, or the reshaping of the U.S. administrative state under the Trump administration. The empirical basis for the study consists of interviews with 77 officials—predominantly members of the Senior Executive Service—conducted during various phases of the first Trump term. She concludes that democratic backsliding can occur “more quickly and more seamlessly than most Americans would suppose”. Furthermore, she argues that the professional culture of the civil service, which in stable times was considered a safeguard of democracy, proves to be “shamefully inadequate” in preserving the democratic state under an autocratic leadership. The implications for the second term of Trumps presidency are not hard to see in this remarkable book
The myths of blockchain governance
No full textResearch Question/Issue Blockchain technology promises to revolutionize governance through strong commitments, trustlessness, and transparency. This paper examines how these promises have failed to materialize in practice. Research Findings/Insights Drawing on case evidence from major blockchains, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, I argue that blockchains have evolved into technocracies where developers, foundations, and companies exercise disproportionate control. Rather than being exceptional, blockchain governance suffers from the same coordination problems, collective action failures, and centralization tendencies that plague traditional governance systems. Theoretical/Academic Implications The paper concludes that while blockchains offer valuable experiments in governance design, their alleged advantages over traditional institutions remain largely mythical. Practitioner/Policy Implications Blockchain organizations should acknowledge their reliance on off-chain coordination and informal authority. Investors must understand that blockchain governance depends on trusting technical elites, while regulators should recognize that decentralization claims often mask concentrated power structures requiring traditional oversight
Troubled ontologies: an economisation approach to climate risk and its politics
No full textWhether as economisation or performativity, scholars in market studies have problematised various entanglements between financial markets and climate change. Studies have identified, for instance, how notions of climate change were subjugated to the concepts and needs of financial actors in the form of climate risk. While some scholars have cast doubt on whether such an approach to govern climate change can succeed, these doubts rest on an implicit assumption of ontological stability in existing market arrangements. By contrast, and drawing on the economisation framework, we provide a theorisation of climate risk as a performative project in-the-making shaped by marketizing framing processes, highlighting its potential to successfully transform relations, identities and ontologies. Nevertheless, we also identify misfires and counterperformative moments, as well as instances where this transformative drive reinforces the unequal relations of financialised capitalism. Thus, our paper contributes to market studies by demonstrating the value of an economisation approach to climate risk. Furthermore, it advances a nascent post-performativity scholarship by proposing a novel conceptualisation of the politics of economisation