Most existing literature on the causes of party switching both in Africa and around the world is built on tenuous empirical foundations. The question of why members of parliament (MPs) switch parties has hardly been asked directly either to the MPs themselves or to everyday voters. While MPs could lie or give more favourable accounts that suit their interests, putting this question to them could uncover other crucial factors that have fallen through the cracks in previous theorizations. This article takes a triangulation approach by drawing from the viewpoints of researchers, voters and MPs themselves to give a more holistic picture of the drivers of party defection. Through a combination of a nationwide representative survey and elite and key informant interviews, I situate the trend of party switching in Nigeria within broader comparative literature on the subject, showing how Nigeria conforms and deviates from existing conceptualizations of party switching around the world. I find evidence of interactions between formal and personal drivers of party switching in Nigeria. I also discover that while a majority of Nigerian voters are suspicious of defectors, defectors point accusing fingers at the lack of internal democracy within political parties, thereby exposing an issue not adequately addressed in existing literature.

This essay argues that the current Roman Catholic ecclesial climate with respect to its teachings on gender identity and sexual orientation constitutes our own contemporary version of the Galileo Affair. After a consideration of the historical circumstances of the Galileo Affair of the 17th century, I argue not only that the institutional risk factors for a subsequent Galileo Affair have not been adequately mitigated; I argue also that the presence of discourse impasse, preemptive judgments, and exclusionary policies on the part of Church leaders make it likely that we are in the midst of another Galileo Affair.

The social ecological model (SEM) is a conceptual framework that recognizes individuals function within multiple interactive systems and contextual environments that influence their health. Medical Legal Partnerships (MLPs) address the social determinants of health through partnerships between health providers and civil legal services. This paper explores how the conceptual framework of SEM can be applied to the MLP model, which also uses a multidimensional approach to address an individual’s social determinants of health.

Plato's closing reference to the Iliad in the Sophist has been largely overlooked in contemporary scholarship. The reference, a quotation from the confrontation between Glaucus and Diomedes in Book 6, forms part of a broader frame to the dialogue. The frame, with its recurring themes of identification and misidentification, helps us make better sense of the dialogue's final description of the sophist and its central concerns about the relationship between philosophy and sophistry. It also provides a revealing case study of Plato's use of Homer as part of a broader strategy for undermining simple appeals to authority.

Solar winds originate from the Sun and can be classified as fast or slow. Fast solar winds come from coronal holes at the solar poles, while slow solar winds may originate from the equatorial region or streamers. Spicules are jet-like structures observed in the Sun’s chromosphere and transition region. Some spicules exhibit rotating motion, potentially indicating vorticity and Alfvén waves. Machine learning and the Hough algorithm were used to analyze over 3000 frames of the Sun, identifying spicules and their characteristics. The study found that rotating spicules, accounting for 21% at the poles and 4% at the equator, play a role in energy transfer to the upper solar atmosphere. The observations suggest connections between spicules, mini-loops, magnetic reconnection, and the acceleration of fast solar winds. Understanding these small-scale structures is crucial for comprehending the origin and heating of the fast solar wind.

It is argued that the natural and human vicissitudes of the Northern Hemisphere—or at least western European history between 1315 and 1648—provide a preview of the sort of consequences for humanity and its demography that will result from the serious if not catastrophic climate change that is now anticipated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Game theory suggests that at least some nation-state players in the strategic problem that climate change raises will not choose Nash equilibria that mitigate the problem. The only feasible solution will be the discovery or invention of some non-greenhouse-gas-emitting energy source so cheap that its owner will be indifferent to free-riding by all other users of energy. Recent efforts to develop fusion reactors do not provide much hope for this eventuality.

In response to a crisis, policymakers face the decision of whether to enumerate specific actions the public must do or, instead, to aim at an overall outcome while leaving room open for choice. This essay evaluates the merits and demerits of crisis response that leaves room open for choice, with a particular focus on pandemic response. I evaluate two approaches: trades and offsets. Trades allow individuals or groups to exchange protection against harm or entitlement to engage in risky activity. Offsets allow the same actors to pay to mitigate the effects of decisions that increase risk for others. Choice-friendly approaches can free people to better align their actions with their values, harness local knowledge for better social outcomes, and act as natural experiments. However, they also are subject to objections, including negative externalities, agency problems, exploitation, and exacerbating inequality.