Conditional return is a potential outcome in claims for the return of cultural property of which the rightful owners were previously illegitimately dispossessed. Conditions might include a prohibition on an object’s sale or the repayment of compensation. Despite its use, there is a noticeable lack of critical discussion on the appropriateness of conditional return in these claims. Imposing conditions on the rightful owner of cultural property is impractical, ignorant of the context, and ultimately at odds with ownership and its associated rights. Drawing on examples from Nazi-era claims and Native American claims, I show that the use of conditional return is inappropriate and ultimately unhelpful in achieving the goals of restitution and fair and just solutions. This article further reveals the covert and malignant forms of conditional return that hide under power structures and assumptions of authority and expertise. Both overt and covert conditional return ought to be prohibited given their inappropriateness and impracticality in these contexts.

Party youth wings are a vital pipeline to power, but have been overlooked by gender scholars. We investigate the political socialization that youth wings offer their women members, focusing on gendered trends as regards two key political attitudes. We ask: Do women and men in youth wings differ in their acquisition of personal efficacy and electoral ambition? Using YOUMEM survey data from over 3,100 youth wing members in Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, we find that women are more likely than men to report increased desire to influence party policy and stand as candidates – the latter especially in center-right youth wings. In addition, the more exposed members are to the youth wing, the larger the gender gaps in the acquisition of efficacy and ambition. Our results suggest that, insofar as women’s political socialization is concerned, youth wings can be forces of renovation within their parties.

This paper takes issue with the proposition that low productivity growth in the non-market sector is dragging down Australia’s living standards. To do that, we revisit an old debate that showed that wages should be adjusted for productivity in the market sector alone. That was the argument put by John Nevile and used by the ACTU in the 1975 national wage argument that resulted in quarterly wage indexation. Discounting wages for the lower productivity in the non-market sector causes macroeconomic stress as it prevents wage-earners from purchasing as much of the market sector’s output.

What are the determinants of individual uptake of vaccination? Using original data from a survey fielded in September 2021 in Germany and the United Kingdom, this study looks at the impact of three factors on individual vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a first study using observational data, we look at individual trust in institutions and political ideology. In a second study, based on experimental data, we assess the impact restrictions for unvaccinated individuals in the form of ‘green pass’ policies have on the propensity to get vaccinated.

Results from the first study show that trust in institutions and ideology are associated with vaccination uptake. Results from the survey experiment indicate that the ‘green pass’ policy scenario significantly increased willingness to get a booster shot for Germans, but not for UK respondents, due to a ceiling effect in the United Kingdom.

We further ask whether the effects of trust and policy coercion ‘amplify’ or ‘compensate’ each other. We find that trust has a ‘compensation’ effect, whereby individuals not yet vaccinated are considerably more likely to do so if they trust political institutions. Trust also compensates for other policy measures, as trusting individuals are highly likely to get vaccinated with or without the ‘green pass’ policy incentive, whereas low-trust individuals are more likely under the ‘green pass’ scenario.

Assessing extinction risk is important for protecting species, as it is the starting point for conservation efforts. However, in Antarctica, none of the c. 116 species of bryophytes (the main terrestrial plant group) have been assessed. The global Aichi Biodiversity Targets stipulate that countries should have knowledge of the extinction risk of their entire flora. However, the Convention on Biological Diversity does not apply to the area of Antarctic Treaty governance, as Antarctica is not subject to national sovereignty. Recognizing the importance of understanding threats in this remote and ecologically sensitive region, we assessed the extinction risk of the moss Roaldia revoluta (Pylaisiaceae) in Antarctica. As far as we are aware, this is the first extinction risk assessment of a native plant on the Antarctic continent. Additionally, we provide a tool for estimating the number of bryophyte individuals. Our findings indicate R. revoluta should be categorized as Endangered. The species has not been documented in any Antarctic Specially Protected Area, suggesting both weakness in survey effort and a potential gap in conservation action. This study underscores the need for specific measures to mitigate the extinction risk faced by R. revoluta as an exemplar of threats facing Antarctic mosses, and emphasizes the importance of devoting resources to conserving Antarctic flora. This study will encourage further initiatives to investigate the risks facing Antarctic botanical diversity and strengthen support for safeguarding the continent’s biodiversity.

Although attribution theory remains central to organizational science, most existing instruments originate in clinical psychology, rely on hypothetical vignettes, and exhibit notable psychometric shortcomings. To address these deficiencies, we introduce the Attributional Styles at Work Questionnaire (ASWQ), a measure grounded in realistic, empirically grounded work events. Informed by a systematic review that identified the occupational situations most likely to trigger attributional processing, the ASWQ samples this content domain comprehensively, thereby ensuring contextual relevance and providing initial evidence of content validity. Across independent employee samples drawn from distinct cultural contexts, sequential exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses produced a replicable, theoretically coherent factor structure with satisfactory reliability coefficients, supporting the instrument’s internal validity. The ASWQ assesses responses to positive and negative work events along two core attributional dimensions (i.e., locus of causality and stability). As predicted, optimistic versus pessimistic attributional styles correlated meaningfully with positive/negative affectivity, the Big Five personality traits, and self-determined work motivation, providing validity in relation to these established measures. Moreover, the findings reveal nuanced attribution patterns for negative events across work domains, challenging a simple valence-based dichotomy. By clarifying the cognitive processes that shape employee behavior, the ASWQ positions workplace attributions as a pivotal construct for advancing organizational research and practice.

This article examines the growing importance of cultural studies in supporting the increasing development of socio-cultural awareness among students in the higher education sector in the United Arab Emirates. It adopts a descriptive quantitative methodology, which involves conducting two questionnaires. They involved 11 instructors teaching cultural studies and 85 students attending their curricula. A random sampling technique was used in this study, where all instructors and students participated equally. Main findings indicated that 85% of instructors agreed that cultural studies play a significant role in promoting socio-cultural awareness among students. Additionally, the students’ questionnaire highlighted how they perceive cultural studies depending on their ability to foster, appreciate, and understand the value of coexistence, and the role of cultural studies in shaping their communicative and life skills. Finally, the study concludes that the need for the development of cultural studies courses is essential, aiming at adopting more effective strategies that promote students’ awareness in relation to future challenges.

States can acquire international status through battlefield performance, but they can also pursue it through the fielding of ostentatious prestige platforms that look impressive but, unless properly supported, possess limited battlefield utility. When and how do status concerns influence states’ military force structure choices? This article advances a choice-theoretic model of states’ military force structure choices as a function of external threat and the ease of acquiring status. When threats are high, countries uniformly pursue military effectiveness. But when external threats are low and conditions for status enhancement are propitious due to states confronting a destabilised status hierarchy or enjoying a surfeit of resources, military effectiveness is sacrificed in favour of prestige platforms unsupported by requisite enablers. A paired case study leveraging original archival documents traces the evolution of British and American naval procurement practices in the early twentieth century to illustrate the argument.

With the term “decolonization” circulating widely and animating debates inside and outside the academy, how can we ensure that it retains analytic value? In this paper I show that the meanings that the term has acquired in practice complicate empirical analysis. Specifically, I contend that three problems emerge. First, the term’s usage in practical struggles leads a foregrounding of its normative power over analytic precision. Second, this tends to bracket ends, glossing any move away from colonial practices as decolonial, in turn affecting scholarly treatments. Third, the term’s usage often produces an analytic flattening, downplaying nuance, context, and historical specificity. Not inherent to the concept itself, these problems are stubbornly present, despite recent work that seeks to address them. To make the discussion concrete, I focus on political science interventions about a single world region: Central Asia. The relative newness of scholarly engagement with Central Asia’s colonial and decolonial experiences provides an opportunity for critical reflection.

We introduce and analyse a variant of the Becker–Döring equations that models the growth of clusters through the gain or loss of monomers. Motivated by enzymatic reactions in biology, this model incorporates irreversible fragmentation and monomers injection. We establish the well-posedness of the equations under suitable conditions on the kinetic rates. Then, as in the Becker–Döring equations, we distinguish two cases for the long-time behaviour of our solution; however, the distinction is made from the constant rate injection of monomers. While under strong fragmentation rate the system may exhibit infinite steady states, we prove that for low injection rate and moderate fragmentation, the solution converges locally exponentially fast to the steady state. Finally, we present an efficient scheme that preserves the asymptotic and allows fast computation by sub-sampling the clusters.

The domestic cat Felis catus is a predator, variously regarded as a pet, pest or pest controller, making its management ecologically and socially complex. On islands, wildlife predation by cats is a major conservation concern. Knowledge of the ecology of free-roaming cats is essential for identifying the variables that influence their predatory behaviour, for regulating their populations and for controlling their negative effects. We assessed the seasonal diet of free-roaming cats, including the importance of anthropogenic foods, using stable isotope analysis, on Linosa. This small Mediterranean island is home to the largest Scopoli’s shearwater Calonectris diomedea colony in Europe and an important stop-over site for migratory passerines. We also compared the diet of neutered and unneutered cats, to investigate whether differences in husbandry practices influence consumption of wild prey. Cat diets mainly comprised anthropogenic foods during summer and autumn. Consumption of Scopoli’s shearwaters increased during the early chick-rearing period and shifted towards passerines during the autumn migration. Invasive mammals in cat diets were primarily European rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus. Unneutered cats consumed more shearwaters and passerines than neutered cats. Neutered individuals relied more heavily on pet foods rather than pasta, possibly indicating improved husbandry conditions. Overall, anthropogenic foods likely support the high cat densities observed on Linosa, and wild prey consumption, primarily by unneutered cats, fluctuated according to availability. Free-roaming cats are protected by Italian Law 280/91, and their populations can be managed only with non-lethal methods. Enhanced cat husbandry and compulsory reproductive control via neutering combined with adoptions could significantly reduce consumption of wild prey.

Do immigration policies impact long-term political integration? I argue that the interplay between admission requirements and post-admission rights of migrants is highly consequential in shaping key democratic attitudes of increasingly diverse societies. Migrant selectivity boosts democratic satisfaction and political trust only when combined with inclusive internal regulations, such as high security of status, easier pathways to settlement, and social rights. Analyzing Commonwealth migrants in the UK after WWII through difference-in-differences and interrupted time series models, I find that ‘watermelon regimes’ (strict entry with inclusive post-entry rights) show lasting positive effects. Cross-national analyses with European data support the findings that watermelon regimes outperform free movement and stricter policies. Selection and context mechanisms explain why watermelon regimes enhance migrants’ economic integration, leading to political support. The benefits and costs of adopting watermelon regimes are discussed.

Presidential impeachment has traditionally been seen as a clear manifestation of accountability. Recently, however, the impeachment of some presidents has sparked public backlash. This article highlights the importance of elite affective and ideological polarization in explaining presidential impeachment. We theorize impeachment as a multi-hurdle process and focus on examining the determinants of overcoming two primary hurdles: a pro-impeachment lower house vote and removal from office. The article employs crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to examine 44 cases of successful and failed impeachment. The results uncover three types of impeachment: polarized, scandalized, and mobilized impeachments. Notably, elite polarization, be it affective or ideological, is the primary trigger of impeachment in several cases and the facilitator of impeachment in the presence of other triggers such as corruption scandals or mass mobilization. While both ideological and affective polarization facilitate a pro-impeachment vote in the lower house, it is affective polarization that drives removal from office primarily in the absence of a legislative shield. We use two illustrative cases to demonstrate polarized impeachment: Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021, and Dilma Rousseff in 2016. The findings withstand a wide range of robustness tests, including sensitivity ranges, consistency thresholds, fit-oriented robustness, and cluster analysis. Given the rise of affective polarization worldwide, presidential impeachment may be increasingly weaponized by polarized elites.