Here, we explore variation in a new record of archaeological house-floor sizes from the southwestern United States relative to spatially explicit time series estimates of local precipitation. Our results show that inequality becomes more severe during periods of high precipitation. This supports the theory suggesting that inequality may emerge where resources are dense, predictable, and clumped within heterogenous and circumscribed environments. Our findings indicate that wealth inequality may emerge among populations with similar subsistence adaptations as a result of local socioenvironmental variation.

Ethiopia aspired to become Africa’s “light manufacturing hub” and a “lower middle-income country” by 2025 (National Planning Commission 2016, 143, 169). Successive Ethiopian governments launched long-term plans and pursued industrial policies in line with a declared “developmental state” approach inspired by Japanese, South Korean, and Chinese models (Aberg and Becker 2020; Cheru and Oqubay 2019; Clapham 2018; Fourie 2015; Gebreeyesus 2013; Oqubay 2018). The intention was to build on the country’s comparative advantages of cheap land and labor to develop manufacturing with backward linkages to the domestic economy, focus on labor-intensive light manufacturing, build special economic zones (SEZs) to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and promote exports for global markets to create jobs, enhance skills, expand the private sector, and kickstart wider industrialization.

At present, the international situation is complex and volatile, with the global economy facing multiple risks and challenges. The North–South development divide is widening, drawing increasing attention to the “Global South.” Given their distinct historical backgrounds and resource characteristics, countries in the Global South cannot simply replicate the development models of developed nations; rather, they must formulate their own development strategies tailored to their specific national conditions. The development models of these countries vary significantly and warrant further exploration.

This article introduces the LGBTQ+ Special edition of PS. It traces major developments of queer scholarship in political science beginning with Kenneth Sherrill’s 1973 paper, “Leaders in the Gay Activist Movement: The Problem of Finding Followers,” which was the first paper presented at an APSA annual meeting on a queer topic. As part of the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Professor Sherrill’s first paper, this introduction describes the efforts scholars made in their work and in the American Political Science Association to legitimate LGBTQ+ scholarship during the past half decade.

This study reconstructs the numerological considerations behind a Judeo-Greek innovation in religious terminology, with a focus on its key element—Hellenization of the Hebrew name of God. It demonstrates that the Greek nomen sacrum can also be interpreted as a sacred number, a fact that directly infuses the otherwise broad term κύριος with numinosity. This observation carries multiple implications for understanding the phenomena of nomina sacra and “names-numbers” as well as other related topics, such as the emergence of Greek and Hebrew alphabetic numerals, early Jewish and Christian numeric symbolism, and early binitarian theology.

The burgeoning China–Africa debates often fail to consider questions of African agency and, in particular, the role played by non-state actors (NSAs)—such as civil society organizations (CSOs), the media, and local groups—to give greater voice to African agency in Sino–African relations (SRA). Drawing on qualitative methods (i.e., interviews and content analysis), this study examines the relationship and focuses primarily on the case of Ghana to investigate how these NSAs engage, negotiate, influence, and resist Chinese actors’ involvement in Africa. It answers the question: “To what extent do NSAs (i.e., CSOs, the media, and local groups) exert agency in Sino–Ghana relations?”

Polyploidization is known to cause changes in the ploidy levels of plant somatic cells that affect the morphological, physiological and chemical composition. The aim of this research was to investigate the effects of tetraploidization in olive. To do this, several characteristics of 1-year-old shoots of two olive genotypes were compared: the diploid cultivar Leccino (L), and its tetraploid mutant Leccino Compact (LC), considered a slow-growing genotype. LC differed significantly from L in the morphological characteristics, with higher values of diameter, dry mass and volume of the stem (46%, 103%, 102%, respectively), and higher area, mass and volume of the individual leaf (43%, 66%, 73%, respectively). LC also had thicker, longer and wider leaves (30%, 10%, 34%, respectively) and significantly lower leaf density (7%) and lower specific leaf area, leaf mass ratio and leaf area ratio (17%, 4%, 18%, respectively). Internode length and stem density were not significantly different. The results allowed us to thoroughly characterize the effects of tetraploidy on 1-year-old shoots in olive, and also suggest that the slow growth of LC is due to its lower leaf area per unit of total biomass, which reduces leaf area production and, consequently, light interception, resource availability and tree growth. These results will be useful for genetic improvement programmes and for planning further exploitation of tetraploidy in horticulture.

This research reconstructs the business dynamics behind the evolution of the European mutual fund industry, which led Luxembourg to become its main international gateway since the 1960s. We analyze this local industry to understand how political and financial élites influence the economic specialization of small states. We argue that a closely-knit community of local professionals and politicians, well-versed in corporate and European legislation, leveraged the Grand Duchy’s small state status within the nascent European Community to become a financial hub specializing in mutual funds within an emerging network of international financial centers. This position was achieved through bifurcation of sovereignty strategies on the basis of two main premises. First, on the systematic acceptance of conflicts of interest within local financial and political leadership, comprising overlapping roles, revolving-doors, and familial ties in business relationships. Second, on regulatory engineering practices, such as the dynamic interpretation of laws, and the strategic planning of directive assimilation to advance Luxembourg’s interests as opposed to its EU counterparts. The analysis uses archival material from nine archival collections and oral history interviews.

A quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) must achieve desired flight missions despite internal uncertainties and external disturbances. This paper proposes an adaptive trajectory tracking control method that attenuates unknown uncertainties and disturbances. Although the quadrotor is underactuated, a fully actuated controller is designed using backstepping control. To avoid repeated derivatives of control inputs, a dynamic surface method introduces a filter and auxiliary controller. Lyapunov criteria guide adaptive laws for tuning controller gain and filters. A low-power observer is integrated for state estimation. Additionally, a disturbance observer is developed and combined with the control scheme to handle unknown disturbances. Simulations on a DJI F450 quadrotor demonstrate that the proposed control algorithm offers strong trajectory-tracking performance and system stability under multiple uncertainties and external disturbances during flight.

Many views of moral agency include, implicitly or explicitly, a consciousness requirement—namely, the claim that phenomenal consciousness is a necessary condition of moral agency. This paper casts doubt on the consciousness requirement. I argue that consciousness is not necessary for instantiating four key capacities necessary for moral agency: action, moral concept possession, responsiveness to moral reasons, and moral understanding. I defend my picture of nonconscious moral agency as a plausible account of an entity that can act for moral reasons and can be morally responsible. Lastly, I discuss broader implications of my argument, especially on the possibility of artificial moral agency.

The development of childcare policy can be understood as a process shaped by conflicts across multiple, interconnected dimensions of policymaking. Whilst existing literature often emphasises tensions between established policy legacies and emerging paradigms such as work–family reconciliation and social investment, this study introduces a multi-dimensional framework that includes conflict and negotiation processes between competing policies co-existing within the policy domain but also within policies themselves, emphasising the dynamics of self-reinforcing and self-undermining feedbacks. Our analysis reveals how efforts to resolve tensions in one policy dimension can inadvertently trigger new conflicts in other dimensions. By examining the South Korean case over three decades, we demonstrate how such interwoven tensions drive long-term policy change, offering scholars a more nuanced understanding of the complex mechanisms underlying policy evolution.