This article is a response to Shieh from Travis.

This article tracks the buildup of the South Carolina criminal legal system between 1867 and 1899 through three eras of its state penitentiary: from the politics of reform to convict leasing to the prison plantation. To track the delayed emergence and unusual trajectory of South Carolina’s criminal legal system, I argue that two approaches became entangled after the Civil War: On the one hand, a modern, nationalized politics of reform, and on the other, a decidedly Southern vision of crime and punishment haunted by the afterlife of slavery. It was the tension between—and variegated blending of—these two approaches that yielded a hybrid carceral project and set the trajectory for the state’s criminal legal system as it entered the twentieth century.

Students of comparative law have long argued that undermining judicial independence is electorally costly, and that the norms against interference uphold institutional checks and balances essential to constitutionalism. However, evidence from countries with robust judiciaries suggests that exposing voters to deficiencies in the legal process or the courts’ partisan leanings can reduce perceptions of judicial legitimacy, making such interference on part of would-be authoritarians more likely. The rise of populist politicians poses additional risks: by emphasizing judges’ unelected status and counter-majoritarian tendencies, populists may erode legitimacy, framing judges as part of a “corrupt elite” opposing “the people.” This rhetoric challenges liberal-democratic norms that limit state interference with individual rights. To test whether one observes the effects of partisanship and procedural fairness on voters’ perceptions of the courts outside the US context, and whether populist messages produce comparable effects, a pre-registered survey experiment is conducted in the context of Czechia, a country that, until recently, has had both a populist executive and a strong and independent Constitutional Court. The study presented respondents with vignettes describing an important electoral ruling of the Czech Constitutional Court, embedding messages that highlighted judges’ unelected status, the ruling’s procedural irregularities, or its partisan implications. Contrary to expectations, findings show no significant effects of any message type on perceptions of judicial legitimacy. The results of the study suggest that the marginalization of robust judiciaries in backsliding democracies may be a largely elite-driven institutional process, with uncertain electoral payoffs.

In her groundbreaking paper “Having too much” Ingrid Robeyns introduces the principle of “limitarianism,” arguing that it is morally impermissible to have more resources than needed for leading a maximally flourishing life. This paper focuses on one component of limitarian theory, namely the nature of the riches threshold, and critiques Robeyns’ absolute threshold, that limits wealth above what is needed for satiating human flourishing. The paper then suggests an alternative, relative threshold for determining excessive wealth, and also argues that limitarianism is best understood as a set of wealth-limiting principles, each with its own threshold, justifications, and conditions for operation.

Research on civil war termination typically classifies conflict outcomes into homogeneous categories. Civil wars are conventionally described as ending in ‘victory’ for one side, ‘negotiated settlement’, or ‘stalemate’. However, each of these common categories conceals a significant degree of unexplored variation. Not all peace processes are the same, nor should we assume equivalence between all ‘victory’ outcomes. Ignoring the variability in outcomes obscures our understanding of how civil wars actually end and can undermine efforts to examine how this may influence the sustainability of the ensuing peace. This article focuses on the concept of rebel victory and argues that it has been used to describe a wide range of civil war outcomes that share some features but that also differ along three dimensions: (i) the residual threat posed by the defeated regime; (ii) the role of external actors in enabling victory; and (iii) rebel fragmentation. The article describes these dimensions and the influence that they can exert on the likelihood of continued political instability in the aftermath of rebel victories. The examples of rebel victories in the Central African Republic (2003 and 2012) are used to demonstrate the analytical utility of this novel conceptualisation of rebel victory.

CHD includes a wide range of cardiac disorders present at birth. If appropriate care is delivered in time, the prognosis is relatively good. However, in many parts of the world, access to healthcare continues to be a problem for these patients, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The aim of this study was to synthesise and analyse the available evidence to provide a deeper understanding of this problem. The literature search identified 1578 articles, and the final selection included 57 articles. Using the patient-centred healthcare access framework for identifying facilitators and barriers, issues were found at all levels of the health provision pathway, of which diagnosis, referral systems, lack of qualified institutions/health professionals, financing, inappropriate health insurance, and quality of care stand out. More evidence is needed to analyse the effect of potential barriers linked to acceptability. Given the nature of the barriers that this population faces, solutions depend on the health system and the local context.

On June 13, 2024, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered its judgment in Case C-123/22 European Commission v. Hungary, a follow-up action to Case C-808/18 European Commission v Hungary condemning Hungary's non-compliance with EU legislation on common standards and procedures for returning illegally staying third-country nationals and on common procedures regarding international protection. Hungary had responded to the earlier judgment in what the Commission deemed a wholly inadequate manner. The Commission requested that a lump sum and penalty payment be imposed on Hungary by the ECJ. The Court now responded by ordering a record lump sum payment and record-equalling penalty payment, forcefully underlining judicial power in policing rule of law compliance.

We characterize the compact elements and the hypocompact radical of a crossed product $C_0(X)\times _\phi \mathbb Z$, where X is a locally compact metrizable space and $\phi :X\rightarrow X$ is a homeomorphism, in terms of the corresponding dynamical system $(X,\phi )$.

Per Research Letter article type, we are not including an abstract.

While the giant anemone, Relicanthus daphneae, has been described as a characteristic inhabitant of the East Pacific Ocean since 1991, there are relatively few published occurrences worldwide. Here, we present the discovery and molecular verification of R. daphneae along the southern Central Indian Ridge, at the Rodriguez Triple Junction, and along the northern Southeast Indian Ridge within the BGR contract area for the exploration of marine massive sulphide deposits in the Indian Ocean. Individuals were solitary and attached exclusively to basalt hard substrates on the periphery of hydrothermal vent fields, at distances from active vents between 66 and 710 m. We report megafauna observed in close proximity to R. daphneae and, in one case, polychaetes on its tentacles and oral disc. For the first time, the giant anemone was observed capturing prey, a shrimp of the species Rimicaris kairei. Beyond this remark on the diet of these anemones, we also report other behavioural aspects for this species.

Krieger’s embedding theorem provides necessary and sufficient conditions for an arbitrary subshift to embed in a given topologically mixing $\mathbb {Z}$-subshift of finite type. For certain families of $\mathbb {Z}^d$-subshifts of finite type, Lightwood characterized the aperiodic subsystems. In the current paper, we prove a new embedding theorem for a class of subshifts of finite type over any countable abelian group. Our theorem provides necessary and sufficient conditions for an arbitrary subshift X to embed inside a given subshift of finite type Y that satisfies a certain natural condition. For the particular case of $\mathbb {Z}$-subshifts, our new theorem coincides with Krieger’s theorem. Our result gives the first complete characterization of the subsystems of the multidimensional full shift $Y= \{0,1\}^{\mathbb {Z}^d}$. The natural condition on the target subshift Y, introduced explicitly for the first time in the current paper, is called the map extension property. It was introduced implicitly by Mike Boyle in the early 1980s for $\mathbb {Z}$-subshifts and is closely related to the notion of an absolute retract, introduced by Borsuk in the 1930s. A $\mathbb {Z}$-subshift has the map extension property if and only if it is a topologically mixing subshift of finite type. We show that various natural examples of $\mathbb {Z}^d$ subshifts of finite type satisfy the map extension property, and hence our embedding theorem applies for them. These include any subshift of finite type with a safe symbol and the k-colorings of $\mathbb {Z}^d$ with $k \ge 2d+1$. We also establish a new theorem regarding lower entropy factors of multidimensional subshifts that extends Boyle’s lower entropy factor theorem from the one-dimensional case.

Despite the important role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in government policy implementation, there is a lack of research on how SOEs owned by different government entities differ. We draw on an attention-based view (ABV) to understand how central government-owned (called central SOEs) and local government-owned enterprises (called local SOEs) differ in their response to digitalization, a major state objective in China in recent years. The two types of SOEs differ in the foundational feature of attention structure – the rules of the game (as embodied in their different goals, identities, and evaluation of top executives) – as well as important features such as governance structures and resources. These features can trigger more attention in central SOEs to digitalization. Given the interdependence of these features in shaping the structural distribution of attention, we further propose how governance structures and resources can influence strategic attention differently in SOEs with different rules of the game. The arguments are tested using data from all Chinese-listed manufacturing SOEs between 2009 and 2020. The study reveals different responses to national strategy between central and local SOEs due to their distinct attention structures designed by the state. It also extends the ABV and research on corporate digital transformation.

This study charts Bayard Rustin’s contentious career as a biographical subject, from 1987 to 2013. Interpreting biographies of Rustin as “ethically constitutive stories,” I argue that shifting accounts of his life-history address public debates over issue definition and political conduct in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. At stake in rival portrayals of Rustin, then, is not just memory of him but the very idea of civil rights, including how and by whom such rights were—and ought to be—pursued. The article examines the production and reception of two distinct waves of biographical representation, with close attention to how each narrates the pursuit and proper locus of civil rights. I end with notes toward an alternate rendering of Bayard Rustin. Instead of recovering his singular authority vis-à-vis the Civil Rights Movement, the concluding “story” reckons with the manifold history of black politics by reappraising the specificity of “black and gay” peoplehood.