The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off southeast China, was suddenly transformed into a military frontline in 1949 by the Cold War and the Communist-Nationalist conflict. The army occupied the islands, commencing more than 40 long years of military rule. With the lifting of martial law in 1992, the people were confronted with the question of how to move…
That everyone has a human right to enjoy the benefits of the progress of science and its applications comes as a surprise to many. Nevertheless, this right is pertinent to numerous issues at the intersection of science and society: open access; 'dual use' science; access to ownership and dissemination of data, knowledge, methods and the affordances and applications thereof; as well as the role …
Michelson's analysis of almost 150,000 divorce trials reveals routine and egregious violations of China's own laws upholding the freedom of divorce, gender equality, and the protection of women's physical security. Using 'big data' computational techniques to scrutinize cases covering 2009–2016 from all 252 basic-level courts in two Chinese provinces, Henan and Zhejiang, Michelson reveals tha…
Standards often remain unseen, yet they play a fundamental part in the organisation of contemporary capitalism and society at large. What form of power do they epitomise? Why have they become so prominent? Are they set to be as important for the globalisation of services as for manufactured goods? Graz draws on international political economy and cognate fields to present strong theoretical arg…
Populism and authoritarian-populist parties have surged in the 21st century. In the United States, Donald Trump appears to have become the poster president for the surge. David M. Ricci, in this call to arms, thinks Trump is symptomatic of the changes that have caused a crisis among Americans - namely, mass economic and creative destruction: automation, outsourcing, deindustrialization, globali…
This book discusses and analyses global policies and practices aimed at promoting equity in higher education participation and attainment. Although the massification of higher education systems has facilitated the participation of students from deprived backgrounds, socioeconomic inequalities persist in access to the most prestigious institutions and programmes. Privileged students benefit from…
This open access book provides an in-depth look into the background of rule of law problems and the open defiance of EU law in East Central European countries. Current illiberal trends and anti-EU politics have the potential to undermine mutual trust between member states and fundamentally change the EU. It is therefore crucial to understand their domestic causes, context conditions, specific p…
This insightful volume provides a comprehensive account of the history and politics of lawyers of the last 200 years in the Nordic countries: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland. Topping most global indexes of core civil rights, these states have been found to contain few to no visible legal complexes. Where previous studies have characterized lawyers as stewards and guardians of the …
This book places literature on the post-colonial African state in conversation with literature on modern authoritarianism, using this to frame over ten months of qualitative field research on Uganda's informal security actors - including vigilante groups, local militias, and community police. Based on this research, the book presents an original framework - called 'institutionalized arbitrarine…
Digitalization is not only a new research subject for political science, but a transformative force for the discipline in terms of teaching and learning as well as research methods and publishing. This volume provides the first account of the influence of digitalization on the discipline of political science including contributions from 20 different countries. It presents a regional stocktaking…