This chapter examines the defensive measures provisions of the EU Takeover Directive of 2004 in the light of the changing policy orientation of both the EU Commission and the Member States towards the role of takeovers in relation to industrial policy. As far as the Commission is concerned, it charts a decline from initial enthusiasm for the threat of the hostile takeover as a central tool for promoting the Union’s industrial policy, via acceptance that the Directive would not achieve this goal because of Member State opposition, to at least partial acceptance of the arguments against making the control of companies contestable. The second half of the chapter analyses whether the failure of the Commission’s initial plans for defensive measures can truly be regarded as a missed opportunity, because those proposals would have been of limited importance, even if enacted. The chapter concludes that the ‘shareholder structure’ and ‘pre-bid defences’ versions of the argument that the Commission’s proposals were trivial carry more weight than the argument that other provisions of national company law already achieved the Commission’s goal.

This chapter addresses the nightclub as an architectural typology. It will consider what the Italian architect Carlo Caldini, co-designer and owner of Florence’s Space Electronic nightclub (1969–2017), called the nightclub’s ‘inexistent architecture’ - in other words, the importance of sound and light over bricks and mortar in the design of club spaces. This was echoed by the critic Aaron Betsky who described a design of ‘rhythm and light’ (Queer Space, 1997) in his description of New York’s iconic Studio 54. The discussion further considers a range of nightclubs from the late twentieth century including Rome’s Piper club, Florence’s Space Electronic, and Electric Circus, Studio 54, Area, and Palladium in New York. In addition, it brings in other voices from architecture, design and music – including Simon Reynolds’ concept of the ‘affective charge’, to position design and architecture as a key realm in electronic dance music culture.

The current chapter focuses on basic properties of communication that inform the ways that the study of communication and the study of relationships intersect. These properties include interdependence (the idea that messages simultaneously influence and are influenced by messages that precede and follow them), reflexivity (the notion that communication creates and is constrained by structure), complexity (the concept that communication conveys multiple messages and functions at different levels of analysis), ambiguity (the notion that any given message has various meanings), and indeterminancy (the idea that messages can have multiple and diverse outcomes on relationships). Research on relationship narratives, message features, multiple goals, and message processing, among other topics, is reviewed and challenges for researchers who study communication and relationships are discussed.

Part III covers the period from the end of the Popular Front in 1938 through the German occupation of France. The Popular Front had led to the marginalization and disarticulation of neo-socialism as a distinct position in the political field. Déat and the neo-socialists became unmoored from the left and thus “available” for political conversion in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Popular Front. The vector through which this happened was the reclassification of the political field around the question of war and peace. As a leading pacifist, Déat took up an anti-anti-fascist position and rallied to the politics of collaboration after the 1940 armistice. Initially seeking his place within Vichy’s “national revolution,” his failure to impose himself there led him to occupied Paris, where he came to adopt an increasingly radicalized form of collaborationist fascism modeled on Nazism through his leadership of the Rassemblement National Populaire (RNP).

In this chapter I focus on the nature of theories in the social sciences, some philosophy of science behind the validation of theories (e.g., falsifiability, approaches to deciding the value of evidence for/against a theory), and some issues to consider with respect to the research process and theory development and evaluation. I discuss the value of deconstructing theories to assess their core and auxiliary assumptions and determine aspects of a theory that have yet to be examined. I also discuss modern approaches to assess the evidentiary value of this body of research. I suggest that in our interdisciplinary field, researchers should consider generating hypotheses, as well as research explorations, through carefully evaluating and questioning the assumptions of the theories typically applied in the study of personal relationships. This discussion includes the use of modern approaches such as computational models. The overarching theme of the chapter is that as a field we need to evaluate and develop our theories using some recommendations put forward for decades combined with recently developed techniques in order to advance our theories beyond vague verbal statements that are interesting yet not precise to theories that allow for more consistent deductions of specific hypotheses.

What is the effect of one’s personality on one’s close relationships? In this chapter, we review the literature on this topic, focusing especially on the personality dimensions of self-esteem and the Big 5 traits of neuroticism and agreeableness. We review empirical studies of each of these three traits as predictors of (a) interpersonal processes and (b) relationship outcomes, including relationship satisfaction and dissolution. We also summarize any existing theoretical perspectives on these associations, including the most complete theoretical account offered for the influence of any of these traits on relationships—namely, the Self-Esteem-Infuses-Relationships-through-Trust (SIRT) model. We expect that two core assumptions of the SIRT model would be fundamental to theoretical accounts concerning any personality dimension’s influence on relationships. Specifically, (a) any trait?s influence must exert its influence through a causal chain of mediators, and (b) one of the essential mediators is behaviors between partners. Finally, we also evaluate how complete theoretical accounts concerning neuroticism and agreeableness that are likely to be offered in the future are likely to differ from or be similar to the account for self-esteem offered by the SIRT.

This chapter discusses the various ways in which we've struggled to fight against or live with the weather. It frames this discussion as an exploration of dispositional attitudes and suggests that the moral valence of weather is in part a consequence of the technologies and policies we have developed to mitigate risk. Roofs, gutters, aqueducts, pumps, shades, fabrics, paints, umbrellas, parasols, and sunscreen have all done considerable work to dampen or amplify the impacts of weather on our lives. It also reflects on the three historically significant agricultural revolutions and ties them into the emergence of technologies and policies that we have used to intervene with weather. These technical innovations have themselves also shaped whole economies, transformed cities, and affected the physical landscape in which we live. It stresses in particular how contemporary theorists have sought to capture weather as one of many “ecosystem services,” an actuarial abstraction that further reframes weather, not as an unending cascade of unpredictable hazards, but instead as a gift of free services from nature. In the end, it suggests that this transforms our relationship to weather almost entirely into impact terms. The primary purpose of this chapter is to make a practical point: that weather presents a kind of ongoing, forever-looming natural hazard, but as we've been able to soften the blow of weather through practical and technical means, we have changed how we live and how we view weather.

This chapter explores how victims have participated in unofficial transitional justice efforts involving non-state armed groups. Using the memoir of Seamus Kearney in the Northern Ireland context as a case study, we critically examine how victims participate in what we argue to be ‘quiet’ transitional justice efforts. Our discussion centres around two interlinked foci: the story told about how Kearney unofficially engaged with the Irish Republican Army in the pursuit of acknowledgement and truth; and how his memoir represents a participatory space where he leads in narrating the experience of ‘quiet’ transitional justice. Arguing that his memoir is, and contains, evidence of victim-led transitional justice, we juxtapose Kearney’s agency in the ‘quiet’ transitional justice process with his more passive role within formal truth recovery mechanisms. In doing so, we expand the transitional justice imagination on the place and role of victims beyond their engagement with formal mechanisms.

This chapter addresses intimate relationships of Black populations, as well as the sociocultural and economic contexts in which they are embedded. The authors underscore the heterogeneity of Black populations both in, and outside of, the United States. How racial discrimination is experienced, and the impact of that experience, differs across Black populations – underscoring heterogeneity. While some research suggests that racial discrimination contributes to negative relationship dynamics, other work suggests that when some individuals experience racial discrimination their partners engage in supportive behaviors. Despite declines and delays in marriage, many U.S.-born Blacks are still pursuing marital unions and are happily married (Skipper & Taylor, 2021; Skipper et al., 2021). This is likely a function of relational resilience, or even the Black Advantage Vision as many U.S. Black couples adapt and strive in spite of seemingly unsurmountable stressors over which they have little control.

Relationship development and growth have long drawn the interest of relationship scholars. This chapter focuses on the theoretical frameworks that have guided inquiry. We begin by explicating the term relationship development, including different ways researchers have studied it. Traditional theories (e.g., relational dialectics, relationship stage models, social exchange, social penetration, relational turning points) are described, alongside recently developed perspectives on relationship development and growth (e.g., relational turbulence theory, the relationship trajectory framework). The chapter also discusses current research associated with the theories and how this scholarship informs our understanding of the initiation of relationships and how relationships develop over the lifespan. Special attention is paid to the development and maintenance of marginalized relationships. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research, including the need to assess the ability of current theories to describe development in different relationship contexts (e.g.., friendships, courtship, families) and in different communication contexts (e.g., online, offline).