To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
This book examines how constitutional courts can sustainably contribute to advancing democratic norms in hybrid regimes, i.e. regimes that are neither fully democratic nor fully authoritarian. Using a comparative approach analysing cases from across the globe, particularly from Hong Kong, Pakistan, and Uganda, Julius Yam makes the case that courts can assume a democracy-enhancing role to mitigate the problems arising from hybrid regimes. The book reveals the challenges faced by courts in performing such a role. It also proposes an adjudicative framework that systematically integrates principled judging with judicial strategy, and suggests non-adjudicative techniques that judges can adopt to reinforce democracy. While theoretical in substance, this book is informed by empirical studies and draws on a wide range of disciplines, including law, political science, sociology and psychology. The book will be a key resource to judges, academics, and practitioners who are interested in the study of democracy and courts. Its insights are particularly pertinent in an age of democratic backsliding and resurgence of authoritarianism. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
This Handbook analyses pressing legal and policy issues that have arisen in the rapidly changing media ecosystem: from threats to media freedom and pluralism and the safety of journalists to challenges arising from the shift to platform-based communication, the spread of disinformation and the impact of AI on media and news production. Seeking to pave the way for new, integrated regulatory responses, the individual chapters address legal and policy developments from an overarching perspective that includes insights from human rights law, media law and copyright law. Following this holistic approach, the Handbook identifies common principles for a coherent regulatory framework for news and media in Europe. It evaluates existing laws and media governance institutions in light of the economic, technological and political challenges posed to the media sector. The individual contributions present new directions for an integrated approach to European media law and policy. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Human interactions, in any group or social setting, rely on and generate shared knowledge and social understandings. These shared intellectual resources are just as important to the efficient operation of markets and organizations as are their shared legal and material infrastructures. Governing Corporate Knowledge Commons focuses on the formal and informal arrangements that govern the creation and community management of intellectual resources within and across organizational boundaries. It demonstrates how the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework can be fruitfully combined with existing theoretical work on firms and corporate governance found in economics, management, and sociology. The volume also proposes a new set of case studies, ranging from old industrial enterprises to modern venture capital, investor alliances, and decentralized autonomous organizations. Chapters explore the benefits of participatory approaches to the management of genomic or financial data, online gaming communities, and organic waste. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Informed by fascinating interviews, photographs, and previously unexamined archival materials, this book reveals a compelling story of Yugoslav avant-garde and experimental music from 1945 until 1991, ending with the year when all artistic activities came to a sudden halt with the start of the Yugoslav wars. It examines the political, social, and cultural events that gave rise to the flourishing avant-garde scene in the country and follows the emergence and development of Yugoslav cultural programs in the postwar period that made the republic a magnet for cultural exchange, through to the sudden and violent dissolution of those programs with the collapse of the political state. The book is the first full-length book in English on the subject, and provides an indispensable, interdisciplinary resource that will contribute to the preservation of this legacy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
From genome sequencing to large sky surveys, digital technologies produce massive datasets that promise unprecedented scientific insights. But data, for being good to use and reuse, need people – scientists, technicians, and administrators – as embodied, evaluative, social humans. In this book, anthropologist Götz Hoeppe draws on an ethnography of astronomical research to examine the media and practices that scientists and technicians use to instruct graduate students, make diagrams for data calibration and discovery, organize collaborative work, negotiate the ethics of open access, encode their knowledge in datasets – and do social inquiries along the way. This book offers a reflection on the sociality of data-rich research that will benefit attempts to integrate human and machine learning. It is essential reading for anyone interested in data science, science and technology studies, as well as the anthropology, sociology, history, and philosophy of science. This book is also available Open Access on Cambridge Core.
What happens when European politics goes digital? Behind the scenes in European Union institutions, a quiet transformation is reshaping the way power works. Based on long-term ethnographic research, this book follows diplomats, civil servants, spokespersons, and interpreters through the corridors, meeting rooms, cafés, and smartphone screens of Brussels' European Quarter. Against the backdrop of Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia's war on Ukraine, it reveals how digital technologies have become inseparable from the practice of international politics—reshaping trust, tact, and authority in unexpected ways. Far from a tale of technological revolution, The Brussels Bubble exposes digitalisation as a messy, human negotiation about what diplomacy and Europe itself mean today. Combining vivid narrative with sharp theoretical insight, it offers a rare, inside view of how global governance, technology, and human interaction intertwine at the heart of European power. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Quantile models are widely used across the natural and social sciences to analyze heterogeneous phenomena that mean-based methods often obscure. Yet their adoption in political science remains limited, in part because accessible, discipline-specific introductions and applications are scarce. This Element addresses the gap by offering an applied introduction to quantile models and showing how they can be incorporated into the empirical toolkit of political scientists. Combining methodological innovation with practical guidance, this Element introduces quantile models for both continuous and discrete response variables, which are illustrated with real-world political examples concerning, among others, governments, parties, voters, and legislative choices. It is intended for both students and researchers who wish to apply quantile models to obtain a richer understanding of political phenomena. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
How did the state become Christian in late antiquity? Many scholars have traced the Christianization of the Roman world in the centuries following the conversion of the emperor Constantine in 312 CE. Robin Whelan, however, turns his attention away from the usual suspects in such accounts-emperors, empresses, bishops, ascetics, and other holy people-to consider a surprisingly understudied set of late ancient Christians: those who served the state as courtiers, bureaucrats, and governors. By tracing the requirements of regimes, the expectations of subjects, and patterns of engagement with churches and churchmen, he argues that that those who served the state in late antiquity could be seen-and indeed, could see themselves-as distinctly Christian authority figures-just as much as the emperors and kings whom they served, and the bishops and ascetics whom they governed. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This book examines a wide sweep of prominent Black and Asian British poets, from Linton Kwesi Johnson and Jean 'Binta' Breeze through David Dabydeen, Bernardine Evaristo, and Jason Allen-Paisant. Throughout, Omaar Hena demonstrates how these poets engage with urgent crises surrounding race and social inequality over the past fifty years, spanning policing and racial violence in the 1970s and 1980s, through poetry's cultural recognition in the 1990s and 2000s by museums, the 2012 London Olympics, the publishing scene, and awards and prizes, as well as continuing social realities of riots and uprisings. In dub poetry, dramatic monologues, ekphrasis, and lyric, Hena argues that British Black and Asian poets perform racial politics in conditions of spiraling crisis. Engaged and insightful, this book argues that poetry remains a vital art form in twenty-first-century global Britain. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Bad lawyering has come under increasing focus though NDAs, SLAPPs, the banking crisis, and latterly the UK's Post Office Scandal, an extraordinary legal scandal spanning more than 20 years that ruined thousands of lives. This book examines the commercial, cultural, legal, and psychological drivers of ethical failure weaving them together with case studies in a compelling account of what is wrong with lawyers' ethics. Rather than concentrating on a few bad apples, it shows how deep-seated traditions, psychological frailties, the complacency and aggression of well-paid lawyers, and the pragmatism, cynicism, and hubris of organisations combines to pollute decision-making and weaken the rule of law. Be it through awful orthodoxies or legality illusions, it shows how a lawyer's naturally uncomfortable relationship with truth and justice can become improper or even criminal. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
In the first history of the oceanic Anthropocene, Stefan Huebner explores the twentieth-century extension of human habitats into oceanic spaces. He shows how the effects of this amphibious transformation have followed a very different trajectory from human-driven change on land, in terms of both socioeconomic development and environmental degradation. The extension of the human habitat through artificial islands such as seabed-fixed and floating structures has granted vertical access to Earth's different spatial layers, from the fossil fuels beneath the seabed to outer space. Huebner asks why this transformation occurred; how it has been shaped by political, economic, and environmental factors; and how it has altered marine environments. A deeper understanding of Earth's amphibious transformation compels us to reconsider the history and future of climate change, sea level rise, energy transitions, human–marine species interactions, globalization, and even urbanization, including floating cities. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
This book examines how the capability approach offers fresh ways to think about work, well-being, and social justice. It argues that work should not only provide income but also empower people to achieve their life goals, develop skills, and participate fully in society. Drawing on research and real-world examples, Jac van der Klink and Sebastiaan Rothmann show how organisations and policies can enhance employees' health, satisfaction, and capabilities. The chapters explore how human resource management, public administration, and organisational leadership can create fairer workplaces by removing barriers that limit potential, improving the quality of work, and ensuring access to opportunities for all. A key theme is equity: work should reduce disparities and foster inclusion across gender, socio-economic, and cultural divides. Timely and relevant, the text appeals to academics, practitioners, policymakers, and advocates seeking practical ways to make work more meaningful. This title is also available Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Social media giants like Meta and transnational regulators such as the European Union are transforming private governance by creatively emulating public law frameworks. Drawing on exclusive interviews and in-depth analysis of Meta's Oversight Board and the EU's Digital Services Act, this book explores how these approaches blend European and American perspectives, bridging distinct legal traditions to address the challenges of platform governance. Analysis of content moderation practices and their implications uncovers a critical pattern in the evolution of governance for industries that will define the future, from digital platforms to emerging technologies. Combining public and private law in innovative ways, the book sheds light on bold governance experiments that will shape the digital world-for better or worse. This study offers crucial insights for understanding the next chapter of global governance in an increasingly interconnected and privatized world. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
What is the physics behind getting a spacecraft to the nearest stars? What science can it do when it gets there? How can it send back data over enormous distances? Drawing on established physics, Coryn Bailer-Jones explores the various challenges of getting an uncrewed spacecraft to a nearby star within a human lifetime. In addition to propulsion methods such as nuclear rockets and laser sails, this book examines critical issues such as navigation, communication, and the interstellar medium. Starting from fundamental concepts, readers will learn how a broad spectrum of physics – ranging from relativity to optics, and thermodynamics to astronomy – can be applied to address this demanding problem. Assuming some familiarity with basic physics, this volume is a comprehensive and self-contained introduction to interstellar travel, and an indispensable guide for studying the literature on deep space exploration. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
International organizations (IOs) play a central role in contemporary international law-making: they institutionalize most of the processes through which international law is adopted today. From the perspective of the democratic legitimacy of international law, this raises the question of the conditions under which those IOs may be regarded as democratic representatives of their Member States' peoples. Curiously, given its important international and domestic stakes, however, the democratic representativeness of IOs, but also of States and other public and private institutions within those IOs does not seem to be much of a concern in practice. Even more curiously, and by contrast to other issues of democratic legitimacy it is necessarily related to, such as participation or deliberation inside IOs, representation has only rarely been addressed as such in scholarly debates. It is this gap in theory and practice that this volume purports to fill. It is the first one bringing global democracy theorists and international lawyers into dialogue on the topic and in English language. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Recognizing religion in global politics is neither neutral nor benign. This book reveals how recognition operates to reinforce hierarchies, reify religious difference, and deepen political divisions. Maria Birnbaum reframes religion as a historically contingent category of knowledge and governance. She shifts the question from whether religion should be recognized to how it becomes recognizable. Through the entangled imperial histories of British India and Mandate Palestine, the book traces how colonial and anti-colonial governmental logics shaped the politics of religious minorities, representation, and border-making-dynamics that continue to shape postcolonial states like Pakistan and Israel. Offering a timely critique of the epistemic assumptions underpinning global discourses on religion, sovereignty, and political order, Before Recognition challenges conventional understandings of religion in international relations. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Across history, lotteries were used in political selection to combat corruption, ideological polarization, and inequity in access to governance. Today, democracy seems to be facing similar challenges – are lotteries a potential solution? This Element responds to recent calls to incorporate lotteries in democracy, by analyzing historical cases of their use. We focus on the rationale behind and benefits of lotteries – to prevent elite capture, equalize access to power, and improve deliberation – and then the details of their implementation. Drawing on academic research, our chapters analyze the use of lottery-based selection in pre-modern Greece and medieval Florence, and present original micro-level empirical data on lottery-based selection in the construction of the 1848 Danish constitution and in parliaments in 19th century Europe. We conclude with a discussion of how these analyses inform the use of lotteries in modern day governance. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This Element offers a critical exploration of institutional health communication in an era marked by information overload and uneven content quality. It examines how health institutions can navigate the challenges of false, misleading, and poor-quality health information while preserving public trust and scientific integrity. Drawing from disciplines such as health communication, behavioral science, media studies, and rhetoric, this Element promotes participatory models, transparent messaging, and critical health literacy. Through a series of thematic sections and practical examples, it addresses the role of science, politics, media, and digital influencers in shaping public understanding. Designed as both a conceptual guide and a strategic toolkit, this Element aims to support institutions in fostering informed, engaged, and resilient communities through communication that is clear, ethical, and responsive to the complexities of today's health discourse. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This Element's contribution explores the historiography of madness in the Modern era, including landmark publications in the overlapping fields of the history of psychiatry and the history of lunatic asylums. As this examination of almost 200 academic works will demonstrate, the field is vast and highly contested, with researchers sometimes disagreeing about the basic terms of analysis. Nevertheless, from Foucault to Fanon, from Goffman to Gilman, these debates about social and medical responses to madness have inspired some of the most influential academic scholarship of the twentieth century. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.