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How are cultural tastes stratified? Evidence from library borrowing for the entire population of Denmark
No full textThis article develops ‘the imperial gaze’ concept to explore how maps not only represent the world, but also do things in geopolitics, even provoking mass demonstrations. It examines China’s early-modern and contemporary maps to highlight how they create an imperial gaze that guides Chinese understandings of world order. If your cartographic ‘view of the world’ produces your ideological ‘worldview’, then it is important to see how China’s early-modern maps inform the PRC’s twenty-first-century claims in the South China Sea. The article argues that Chinese cartography does things in geopolitics by mobilising the affective governance of an assemblage of hybrid combinations of tradition and modernity, East and West, and Sinocentric and Westphalian conceptions of space. In this way, it examines how historical maps of China and contemporary maps of the U-Shaped Line in the South China Sea work with each other to provoke the imperial gaze that celebrates China’s territorial expansion, laments its lost territories, and fights to recover them. It concludes that the imperial gaze is not peculiar to the PRC, thus further comparative research will help to see how it works in other polities as well
Belief inertia and awareness-evidence commutativity
No full textIt is alleged that imprecise probabilism can render one unable to update one’s credence in light of new evidence. While such belief inertia by itself is already quite worrying, I argue that it has other worrying epistemic implications that were previously unnoticed. It opens the possibility that one’s doxastic state depends not only on the evidence one has but also on the temporal order between awareness growth and evidence acquisition. I find this implication difficult to accept
Rethinking criminal justice: punishment, abolition and moral psychology by Alan Norrie
No full textAlan Norrie, Rethinking Criminal Justice: Punishment, Abolition and Moral Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025, pp. 346, ISBN 9781108781329, £12
Who would want to be Rachel Reeves this autumn?
No full textAs borrowing costs soar and the pound falters, Chancellor Rachel Reeves faces mounting pressure to stabilise the UK’s public finances. Difficulties include limited room for tax rises, sluggish growth and stubborn inflation. Iain Begg writes that the government must confront hard choices on debt, welfare and investment, before markets lose confidence
Value for money in domestic abuse services: insights from rapid evidence assessment
No full textAs part of the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government’s evaluation of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, a team from LSE (Bert Provan, Kath Scanlon, Jessica Rowan, and Adriana Gaganis) conducted a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) on how to evaluate the value for money of support provided in safe accommodation
Rule in the new European Union
No full textThis article suggests that the economically activist tendencies of the European Union are not just a temporary response to exogenous crises, but part of a long-term transformation of the EU into a governance structure that is increasingly equipped for forms of more direct rule over its territory, economy, and citizens, albeit still in an incomplete and contested manner. This transformation hinges on three interlocking processes that feed into each other and accelerate: (i) the rise of EU-level material, financial, and institutional infrastructure; (ii) the significant centralisation of EU power; and (iii) novel narrations about the ‘point’ of the EU that stabilise its authority. This transformation of the EU brings with it new challenges for its authority. Using the work by Charles Tilly, who focuses on the way in which trust networks are integrated in rule, this article distinguishes between the EU’s ability to rule by way of coercion, by way of capital and by way of commitment. It is suggested that while the EU’s ability to rule by way of coercion and capital have grown, it remains difficult to envisage how the EU may stably reproduce commitments structures that would allow it to transition into a stable and democratic structure of governance
“I think it is quite naive to think everybody’s goal is that” how Zambian sexual violence stakeholder perspectives complicate global health roadmaps to ‘decolonization’
No full textBackground: The global health and development field is embracing calls to decolonize, producing ‘roadmaps’ to decolonial practices. These calls are echoed in the field of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), where entrenched global structural power relations undermine the potential for the community-centered, liberatory change to which decolonial roadmaps aspire. Despite the ubiquity of such calls, empirical research on the prospects for their implementation remains limited. This paper investigates the readiness among SGBV-related institutions in Zambia to address coloniality. We ask: can a decolonial praxis be realized amidst entrenched barriers, and is the global health and development industry ready to implement roadmaps for decolonization? Methods: We conducted 19 interviews with Zambia-based donor, implementing agency, and grassroots stakeholders involved in SGBV policy and programs. We performed a critical thematic analysis to explore the complexities within the country's SGBV interventions. Results: While the Zambian Anti-Gender-Based Violence Act and subsequent policies aimed to transform the SGBV landscape by establishing a systemized approach, we find considerable discrepancies between intervention expectations and the local implementation realities. Norms contributing to SGBV, a perception of a “bad” Zambian culture, and conflicting social values impede the impact of legal instruments. These challenges not only hinder sustainable implementation of transformative policies, but also reflect deeper structural and epistemic inequities that undermine efforts to pursue a decolonial praxis. As such, they illuminate how colonial legacies continue to shape policy and intervention outcomes and constrain the feasibility of decolonization in practice. Conclusion: This paper argues that addressing power dynamics and profit-driven motives is crucial for genuine transformation and will require a recalibration of current systems. The disparity between these factors raises critical questions about decolonization and the potential for alternative, community-focused interventions which give people agency over their liberation. The current study speaks to broader global health and development discussions by spotlighting the challenges to transformative interventions in Global Majority contexts. Confronting these challenges is essential for reshaping narratives around the implementation of decolonial roadmaps and the aspiration to community empowerment
The London consensus: economic principles for the 21st century
No full textA generation ago, the so-called Washington Consensus laid out a series of dos and don’ts for policymakers around the world. Today, that vision is recognised as having fallen short in a number of ways – particularly in its neglect of the social and institutional factors that are indispensable for achieving sustained growth and for building fairer and more cohesive societies. The immense challenges humanity faces are easy to list: climate change, pandemics, social inequalities, the far-reaching effects of the tech revolution and AI, a fragmenting world economy, and a wave of populism and political polarisation that has undermined support for liberal democracy in many countries. It is much harder to identify a set of new ideas – and policies – that will solve these seemingly intractable global problems. In this new world, political leaders and policymakers need guidance and principles that can assist when choosing among policy alternatives. To this end, the editors of this volume convened over 50 of the world’s leading economists and policy experts at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The London Consensus: Economic Principles for the 21st Century is the result of these exchanges. It is not intended as a one-size-fits-all set of economic remedies, but an exercise in assembling the best available evidence and ideas to foster dialogue, and ultimately to develop a set of principles that can address the urgent political, social and economic tasks ahead
