Liberal political institutions have been an enormous boon for humanity. The free market aspect of liberalism has led to an explosion of innovation, ranging from new kinds of technology and novel forms of entertainment to advances in science and medicine. The emphasis on individual rights at the core of liberalism has increased our ability to explore new ways of living and to construct an identity of our own choosing. But liberal political institutions around the world are facing two crises: low fertility and declining social trust. In particular, liberalism’s focus on individual liberty rather than group cohesion can increase economic productivity by encouraging the free movement of people and capital, but this movement is associated with declines in social cohesion and fertility. In this essay, we highlight some challenges to the long-term evolutionary stability of liberalism. In other words, we raise the question: Can liberalism last?

On September 5, 2023, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Panel (CPTPP Panel or the Panel) issued its first decision. The case was initiated in May 2022 by New Zealand which claimed that Canada's system for the administration of its tariff rate quotas on dairy projects is inconsistent with Canada's obligations under the Partnership Agreement. After consultations with Canada failed, New Zealand requested that a panel under Article 28.7 of the Agreement be established to examine the issue. There was a dispute about the role to be played by a prior decision of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Panel on similar issues. New Zealand felt that the USMCA Panel decision was “highly pertinent” because of the similarities between relevant provisions in the two agreements, but Canada disagreed, arguing that not only is the USMCA decision irrelevant but that its interpretation of the relevant provisions was incorrect. Australia, which intervened as a third party participant, agreed with New Zealand, pointing to the need to ensure consistent decisions concerning what it deemed were identical provisions in the two agreements. Japan, another third party participant, suggested that the panel ensure that its decision was made in reliance on Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (concerning rules of interpretation).

In 2019, Chile’s artistic collective Las Tesis staged the viral feminist performance “Un violador en tu camino” (A Rapist in Your Path), as a popular protest against Sebastián Piñera’s government. This article analyzes the geopolitical context behind Las Tesis, focusing on Chile’s 2019 events and the motivations behind the performance in Valparaíso. Subsequently, I explore the performance’s structure and lyrics as a form of artivism, emphasizing its impact. The third section of this article will be dedicated to exploring the linguistic and musical adaptations of the same performance undertaken by various women’s collectives, associations, or informal groups across the globe.

From the birth of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) in the 1970s during the rise of fascism in Latin America until his death in 2009, Augusto Boal affirmed his utopian conviction that “another world is possible.” Born at a time that was hardly conducive to utopianism, TO offers us techniques through which to exercise utopianism in our fatalistic times, repairing our conviction that a more livable and just world is possible even as the Right tries to convince us of the opposite.

This article discusses textually problematic passages in Catullus 63, a particularly corrupt poem from a particularly corrupt manuscript tradition. It proposes new conjectures and revives several old ones. Throughout there are notes on punctuation, conjecture attribution and an analysis of the structure of Attis’ lament.

This essay argues that we have a duty to protect biodiversity hotspots, rooted in an argument about the wrongful imposition of risk and intergenerational justice. State authority over territory and resources is not unlimited; the state has a duty to protect these areas. The essay argues that although biodiversity loss is a global problem, it can be tackled at the domestic level through clear rules. The argument thus challenges the usual view of state sovereignty, which holds that authority over territory, resources, and migration (all of which are connected to the protection of biodiversity hotspots) is unlimited.

The magnetic network is a typical magnetic structure of the quiet Sun. Investigating its cycle dependence is crucial for understanding its evolution. We aim to identify and analyze the spatial scales of the magnetic network within magnetic power spectra derived from high-resolution Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)/Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) and Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)/ Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) synoptic magnetograms. The data sets cover the entirety of solar cycles 23, 24, and part of cycle 25. We find that the identified magnetic network sizes identified range from 26 Mm to 41 Mm. There seems to be no obvious dependence on the solar cycle, and the sizes are distributed uniformly within the identification range.

Inequality is present in all human societies, but building a robust understanding of how that inequality developed and persisted for centuries requires historical and archaeological data. Identifying the degree of inequality (or disparity) in ancient communities can be addressed through a variety of methods. One method becoming standard practice in archaeology evaluates inequality through quantitative analysis of robust settlement data. In this Compact Special Section, we assess household size as a potential reflection of wealth inequality among Classic period (a.d. 250–900) Maya settlements. First, we generate house-size data from both pedestrian and remotely sensed LiDAR surveys. Then we use those data to calculate Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves, which provide measures of variation. Gini coefficients range from 0 to 1, where 0 reflects perfect equality and 1 indicates perfect inequality, regardless of the actual values in the distribution. Both area (m2) and volume (m3) provide different, complementary metrics to investigate residential size as a metric for wealth inequality among Classic Maya Lowland settlements. Proposed mechanisms that generate inequality include the intergenerational transmission of wealth and differential access to resources; however, addressing these and other pathways for how inequality develops and persists, and how it was maintained in the past provides insight into similar processes of systemic inequality worldwide.

There is a tension within social architecture between aims and actions. Emerging in response to the increasingly anti-social nature of the urban, some claim the aim of social architecture is to challenge and build beyond various contemporary urban crises. This aim, however, is at odds with the primarily small scale and contextually grounded nature social architecture operates on. Some proponents avoid this tension by arguing that their aim is to materially improve the communities they are engaged with, however this has been critiqued as limiting social architecture’s potential. Within this paper, I advance previous critiques that have been made of social architecture through an examination of literature fields both inside and outside of architecture, and through a yearlong fieldwork study. Firstly, I explore the definition of the phrase in its use both by proponents and detractors of the movement. Secondly, I situate social architecture's emergence within architecture and use this to further the critiques of the tension between its aims and actions through the lens of reification. Thirdly the fieldwork serves as a contextual basis to manifest these critiques. Finally, with the aims of social architecture brought into question, the paper speculates upon what social architecture’s aim could be. This paper furthers the critiques of social architecture while suggesting that, through reframing its aim, social architecture could be used to demonstrate that alternatives to the present moment are possible.