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Accuracy first: episodic memory’s evolution
No full textThe debate about episodic memory’s evolutionary function has given rise to three prominent views. The Mnemonic Function View (MFV) argues that episodic memory is for remembering the Future Function View (FFV) argues that episodic memory is for simulating the future and the Communicative Function View (CFV) argues that episodic memory is for communication. In the current debate, these views are presented as incompatible and sole functions of episodic memory. While some authors mention the possibility that episodic memory has multiple functions, a systematic account of how these functions might be related is currently lacking. In this paper, I argue that episodic memory could have evolved for all three functions, despite the prima facie tensions between them. I further show that the mnemonic function is episodic memory’s most basic or primary function. This is because the future and communicative functions depend, both metaphysically and historically, on the existence of an episodic memory capacity with the mnemonic function
Firm adaptation in production networks: evidence from extreme weather events in Pakistan
No full textThis paper considers how far private adaptation may reduce future vulnerability to climate risks. Using data on monthly firm-to-firm transactions from Pakistan, we find that flood-affected firms are more likely to relocate to safer ground, and shift purchases towards suppliers in less flood-prone regions and reached via less flood-prone roads. The results indicate that firms are imperfectly informed about flood risk, and update their beliefs following floods. We quantify aggregate impacts using a spatial model of endogenous production network formation. The findings suggest that firms’ learning will shape the economic impact of increasingly frequent climate-related disasters
Advancing sociological understanding of felt and enacted stigma through the experience of mothers raising children with disabilities in Nigeria
No full textA longstanding sociological tradition of stigma research has highlighted its salience and consequences, both for children with disabilities and their parents. Yet, while it is recognised that forms of stigma are embedded in structural conditions and social context, understanding of how disability-related stigma plays out is overwhelmingly restricted to high-income countries. This is despite the fact that prevalence of child disability is higher, and the associated economic and social challenges more severe in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This paper advances sociological understanding of disability-related stigma and its consequences through thematic analysis of interviews with 22 mothers of children with disabilities in Nigeria. We analyse how their experience is embedded in the structural features of their society, an LMIC marked by high inequality, constrained state schooling, and an absence of disability support. We show how these conditions help perpetuate forms of felt stigma rooted in dominant cultural understandings of disability that serve to isolate mothers, and forms of enacted stigma typified by children’s educational and social exclusion. We further explore how mothers negotiate these attitudes and behaviours. Our findings show both concordance with and difference from existing sociological studies of disability-related stigma, demonstrating the relevance of attending to salient but under-researched settings
Response: “Letter to the Editor: lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic: some further ideas”
No full textInformation processing in participatory institutions
No full textParticipatory institutions often aim to yield information useful to policymakers, whether about public preferences, problems, or solutions. But how can large numbers of public contributions be processed into interpretable and actionable information outputs? As theorists and practitioners increasingly call for participatory institutions to operate at larger scales, often enabled by new technologies, this challenge only becomes more important. This article reviews recent work on participatory institutions in order to develop several insights: ( a ) that there are different types of information that policymakers may aim to learn and that are relevant to different policy stages; ( b ) that information must be effectively processed in order to be interpretable and actionable for policymakers; ( c ) that there are different types of information processing, depending on the specificity and novelty of the information outputs that policymakers aim to learn; and ( d ) that there are different ways in which this processing can be delegated, whether to experts, ordinary people, or automated algorithms. Better recognizing these differences will help both researchers and practitioners better understand the potential and the limitations of participatory institutions in different settings and with different goals
Climate policy portfolios that accelerate emission reductions
No full textThe corpus of national climate policies continues to grow - but to what effect? Using data on 3,917 policy instruments across 43 OECD countries and major emerging economies from 2000-2022, we show that national climate policy portfolios specializing in instrument types and sectors are associated with faster reductions in fossil CO2 emission intensity. Supported by exemplar country case studies, we also provide quantitative evidence that the effectiveness of climate policy is amplified by long-term emission reduction targets and the presence of dedicated governmental bodies including ministries and intergovernmental organisations. The cumulative effect of all climate policy portfolios over our study period amounts to 3.1 GtCO2 fewer emissions in 2022 relative to a no-policy counterfactual - substantially less than what's needed to stay on track for the Paris Agreement goals
Rivalling the French? The impact and effectiveness of British European policymaking, 1973-1990
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Discovery tools: how powerful new scientific methods and instruments emerge and catalyse innovation
No full textPowerful new methods and tools drive scientific progress—but how do we actually make such innovations? No theory yet explains how we invent major tools across fields. To address this gap, we examine all nobel-prize-winning method discoveries—that enabled breakthrough findings not possible without them—and we trace science’s most influential toolmakers across fields, from Ernst Ruska’s electron microscope and Kary Mullis’s PCR method to Ernest Lawrence’s particle accelerator. Here we lay out the critical pathways taken to create these groundbreaking tools. We introduce a taxonomy of science’s methods and tools: a scientific table of discovery methods that is a map of underexplored and unexplored method opportunities. By mapping the method landscape, we reveal gaps and possibilities that help guide where methods can be adapted, recombined or strategically developed to catalyse discovery. It can help identify and predict untapped combinations of tools—and where the next breakthroughs can come from. What if we no longer wait for new discovery tools to emerge by chance but begin deliberately prioritising their development? How many big breakthroughs are we missing because we have not yet strategically focused on designing the needed tools? We also outline the need for establishing methods labs and hubs—as incubators of innovation—that catalyse tool creation
China, the ‘rise of the rest' and the remaking of the international space order in a multiplex world
Get PDFMultiplexity is a promising but underdeveloped concept that describes the shift towards a post-hegemonic global order, which is more decentred, diversified and pluralistic, yet deeply interdependent and increasingly shaped by non-western agency. This article is the first to apply and to reassess the concept of multiplexity in the context of the international space order. Two key arguments follow. First, space reveals some important limitations of multiplexity, particularly given the enduring power of the United States, reinforced by commercialization and privatization. This cautions against treating the multiplex world as a single, unitary order. The article therefore introduces functionally differentiated multiplexity, which disaggregates world order into functional suborders, such as space, to show how the general features of multiplexity manifest unevenly across functional orders. Second, multiplexity retains strong analytical value when considering China, rising powers and the emergence of space regionalism in the developing world. It is not simply that an analysis of these themes has the merit of shifting our attention from a predominant focus on competition and national military considerations to cooperative patterns that are usually neglected, but it helps to underscore the agency of non-Western actors, which is often lacking in what remains a largely Eurocentric literature