This research examines migration in Linares during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, focusing on migration chains. The city experienced a significant increase in population due to the mining boom, which led to an almost sixfold increase in the population over a period of 30 years. Using data from the 1873 population register, which includes more than 22,500 individuals, this study confirms the effectiveness of the migration chain framework in analyzing internal migration during the preindustrial and early industrialization periods. This approach has revealed the significant influence of this form of social capital in determining migratory flows to Linares, highlighting the importance of places of origin in the spatial distribution of the city and in the occupational specialization of the migrant population. The findings suggest that migratory chains played a key role in providing information about opportunities at the destination, as well as in reducing the costs associated with the search for employment and housing.

Why does ideological competition between states intensify despite opportunities for coexistence? This article develops a theory of the ideological security dilemma to explain this puzzle. Like the military security dilemma, states may take defensive measures to safeguard the legitimacy of their own ideology, but these actions can be interpreted by others as ideological offensives aimed at weakening the legitimacy of rival ideologies. I test the theory through a process tracing of US–China ideological competition from 1991 to 2024. I find that although the United States initially hoped China would democratize voluntarily, democratizing China was not a central policy goal. Conversely, while China seeks global respect for its “China model,” actively exporting authoritarian ideology is not its goal either. Nevertheless, China perceives US efforts as aimed at regime change, prompting Beijing to promote the “China model” more assertively as a countermeasure to what it sees as a US ideological assault. This intensifies US fears of the global spread of authoritarianism and triggers further counteractions. This study integrates constructivist and realist approaches while drawing on insights from comparative politics on regime legitimacy and democratization.

A central theme in Francis Nyamnjoh’s rich IAI lecture at the 2025 ECAS conference in Prague, as in his work in general, is the ongoing struggle over exclusion and closure all over the continent (and throughout the modern world). But in this lecture he adds a new term: nimble-footedness. My question is: to what extent can this poetic term provide a counter-weight to the powerful tendency towards closure that he illustrated with such cogent examples in his lecture?

Through an ethnographic study of ageing Italians in Tunisia, this article explores the historical development of the Italian diaspora community in Tunisia from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. It compares two distinct yet interconnected Italian communities: the ‘lost colony’ of La Goulette and the ‘vacation colony’ of Hammamet, emphasizing the daily lives, social interactions and ageing experiences of Italian pensioners in Hammamet alongside those of long-established Italian descendants in La Goulette. The analysis highlights the duality of the Italian community’s identity, torn between its colonial heritage and modern migration patterns, providing a deeper understanding of the relative privilege enjoyed by the Italian diaspora and its complex relationship with the local Tunisian population. The findings emphasize the continuity between historical and contemporary forms of colonization without colonialism, offering insights into the nuanced interplay of race, class and national identity within the context of postcolonial Tunisia. This contribution is in dialogue with ethnographic and historical research on the European diaspora in Africa, which has demonstrated how (neo-)colonial inequalities can arise and evolve beyond the framework of political colonialism.

This article examines the historical evolution of gender concepts in modern Afghanistan, tracing its development from nation-state building in the late nineteenth century through the revolutionary influences of Socialist and Islamist movements, and into the transformations prompted by the U.S. invasion in 2001. While situating the topic within its broader historical framework, the analysis centers on two archetypal figures of iconoclastic women in twentieth-century Afghanistan: those affiliated with communist parties under the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) and those associated with Islamist mujahidin groups. Drawing upon the traditional Afghan archetype of the heroic-poet woman, the discussion explores how warfare—both in theory and practice—reconfigured gender identities via a recurring cycle of uneven advancement and regressions. These shifts were driven largely by elite, top-down strategies that positioned urban women as symbolic agents enlisted to fight entrenched gender norms, rather than to transform them through meaningful reform. The article further addresses the roles of migration and regional ideologies in this process, underscoring how such dynamics often disregarded the lived experiences and needs of ordinary Afghan women. This oversight contributed to the rise of novel iterations of the poet-heroine archetype, which paradoxically sought to dismantle conventional notions of femininity. Ultimately, the article advocates for a viable feminist approach in Afghanistan grounded in local histories, geographies, and social realities—moving beyond rigid binary frameworks to achieve genuine relevance and effectiveness.

In this article, we present the first results from radiocarbon dating of the Kirakle-Tobe settlement located in the central part of the Volga River Delta, southern Russia. Archaeological artifacts and 14C measurements on charcoal indicate three stages of settlement development on the Kirakle-Tobe knoll. The oldest 14C age corresponds to the Late Sarmatian period—early 4th century CE. The abundance of archaeological artifacts associated with the 6th–8th centuries CE indicates a long period of occupation. The youngest 14C age presumably corresponds to the Khazarian period (9th century CE). These results suggest dynamic human activity in the central part of the Volga River Delta during the Great Migration Period. These initial results can be used to verify the impact of fluctuations in the Caspian Sea level on the Volga River Delta during the Great Migration Period.

Adam Smith was against mercantilism and against monopolies in a time when mercantilism and monopolies prevailed. He was against slavery in a time when slavery was the norm. He was against the British Empire in a time when the empire he was a subject of was at its peak. He was against colonialism in a time when colonialism was the backbone of power. He was against taxation without representation in a time when democracy did not exist. He was against the established Church in a time when the Church had the power of life and death over people. He was against endowed universities in a time when education and its prestige were in their hands. When taken all together, one appreciates the extent to which Smith was a dissenter.

In 2024, while Switzerland was no longer grappling with immediate crises, the lingering effects of an overlapping crisis remained evident. Public dissatisfaction grew, driven by perceptions that state interventions disproportionately favoured banks and large corporations, while the needs of ordinary citizens amid a cost-of-living crisis were sidelined. This contributed to a broader crisis of representation. This article examines how direct democracy functions as a channel for expressing such discontent, focusing on the historic approval of a popular initiative to increase public welfare spending despite a strained federal budget. It concludes with a discussion of three key political issues: the landmark European Court of Human Rights ruling in KlimaSeniorinnen and Others v. Switzerland, the domestic debate about austerity measures and the conclusion of negotiations on a new EU–Switzerland deal.

The article examines the fundamental international legal standards on guarantees and state protection of the legal profession of an attorney, analysing the essential content of the relevant provisions, the specifics of the current criminal law regulation in Ukraine, and also the prospects and trends for its further reform. The comparative analysis focused on the positive experience of foreign legislation, in particular, the criminal codes of Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Spain, the United States, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom, in terms of determining the direct object of an offence in crimes against justice. This allows the identification of certain regularities in the approaches to defining the grounds for criminal liability and the elements of criminal offences against the legitimate legal activities of a defence counsel (primarily, an attorney) or another person providing legal aid. The article also addresses the criminal law mechanisms for protecting the rights and interests of individuals and legal entities from the unlawful actions of attorneys and representatives, including their violation of fundamental principles of law enforcement and legal requirements.

This article investigates the history of displaying nuclear energy from the 1980s to the present by tracing the cultural biography of a scale model of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, which operated in Lithuania between 1983 and 2009. By reconstructing the model’s trajectory, from its initial role as a promotional exhibit in Soviet-era industry showcasing to its contemporary status as an artifact of nuclear cultural heritage, the study highlights a shift in the politics and practices of exhibiting the atom, as well as evolving theoretical frameworks and cultural discourses surrounding nuclear energy. The author argues that the model’s movement through industrial, technological, artistic, and heritage domains, along with its diverse functions, has rendered it a techno-political actor that, alongside human and institutional agents, plays a significant role in shaping the dynamics of nuclear culture.

This study developed and evaluated an online English speaking training approach that integrates corpora and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The training integrated a self-developed spoken corpus, generative AI tools, and text-to-speech AI tools. Pre- and post-test results identified improvements in participants’ speaking performances. Participants attempted to use more positive linguistic features (e.g. producing complex sentences more frequently) and avoid using negative linguistic features (e.g. reducing the number of vowel errors) after receiving the training. Participants showed positive attitudes towards this corpus-based and AI-integrated English oral ability learning approach and affirmed the importance of integrating both tools. The corpus helped raise participants’ awareness of features that influence speaking performance and offered prompt engineering and feedback-checking functions, while the generative AI tools provided useful feedback and tailor-made sample responses. Additionally, text-to-speech AI tools offered learners with tailor-made native speaker samples for imitation and helped learners learn pausing. Results also revealed that this approach helped create an interactive oral ability learning environment, and the combination of corpora and AI tools provided more accurate feedback for each subskill of speaking.

We report a new relative sea level curve from Inglefield Land, northwest Greenland, to investigate the transition from maximum to minimum loading across Nares Strait. We sampled marine bivalves and terrestrial macrofossils for radiocarbon dating from raised marine terraces in Rensselaer Valley, Inglefield Land (78.58°N, 70.71°W) to constrain relative sea level through the Holocene. The oldest terrestrial macrofossil of 9010–8650 cal yr BP provides a minimum-limiting constraint for the deglaciation. Sea level fell rapidly from the marine limit at 85 ± 4 m to 37.5 ± 4 m above sea level (m asl) between 9010–8650 and 7970–7790 cal yr BP at a rate of 49 m/ka. The rate of sea -level fall decreased to 11 m/ka between 7970–7790 and 5320–5060 cal yr BP, when it fell from 37.5 ± 4 to 9 ± 4 m asl. After 5,320–5,060 cal yr BP, we estimate sea level fell at a lower rate of 2 m/ka to modern sea level. The period of fastest emergence in Inglefield Land is earlier in time than in Hall Land, reflecting earlier deglaciation, and is steeper than in Hall Land and Washington Land. This sea-level history captures the transition from the style of emergence from Pituffik to Hall Land.

The success (or failure) of ‘borrowed’ or ‘transplanted’ laws is largely attributed to the extent of compatibility between them and the contexts of their host countries. This paper draws upon legal philosophy, legal transplant, and new institutional economics literature to argue that while compatibility is both relevant and important, legitimacy is equally – if not more –critical for shaping the extent, quality and direction of enforcement of legal transplants in their adoptive contexts. This is especially true for the more technical economic transplants that are often considered to be context independent. To establish this argument, the paper explores the concept of legitimacy and its relevance for legal transplants; why it may be mistaken for compatibility; and why it is distinct from it. It also compares the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi experience of transplanting modern competition laws to demonstrate how the legitimacy quotient of these economic transplants has impacted their subsequent enforcement.

Notating electroacoustic music can be challenging due to the uniqueness of the instruments employed. Electronic instruments can include generative components that can manipulate sound at different time levels, in which parameter variations can correlate non-linearly to changes in the instrument’s timbre. The way compositions for electronic instruments are notated depends on their interfaces and the parameter controls available to performers, which determine the state of their sound-generating system. In this article, we propose a notation system for generative synthesis based on a projection from its parameter space to a timbre space, allowing to organise synthesiser states based on their timbral characteristics. To investigate this approach, we introduce the Meta-Benjolin, a state-based notation system for chaotic sound synthesis employing a three-dimensional, navigable timbre space and a composition timeline. The Meta-Benjolin was developed as a control structure for the Benjolin, a chaotic synthesiser. Framing chaotic synthesis as a specific instance of generative synthesis, we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the state- and timbre-based representation we designed based on the thematic analysis of an interview study with 19 musicians, who composed a piece using the Meta-Benjolin notational interface.

Cet article retrace l’évolution des pratiques d’écriture documentaire à l’abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés et montre combien leur rôle fut central dans la défense des droits de l’institution. Dès le xie siècle, les moines utilisent des outils variés (historiographie, forgeries, interpolations) pour protéger leur patrimoine face aux contestations, notamment celles émanant des évêques de Paris. Le cartulaire des Trois Croix, élaboré au xiie siècle, constitue un premier socle documentaire, combinant diplomatique et historiographie pour affirmer la libertas du monastère. À partir du xiiie siècle, le contexte économique et institutionnel change. La gestion des terres passe d’un système en faire-valoir direct à une économie centrée sur les rentes. Dans ce cadre, les cartulaires AB et G1 introduisent un classement topographique des actes qui permettent d’optimiser la gestion des possessions et renforcent les droits monastiques face aux tensions croissantes avec les autorités royales et épiscopales. Ces cartulaires traduisent une spécialisation des outils documentaires, avec une attention accrue portée aux dépendances locales, au détriment d’une vision globale du patrimoine. L’article met en lumière l’adaptation des pratiques documentaires aux mutations économiques et politiques, tout en soulignant leur rôle dans la construction de l’identité institutionnelle du monastère. Enfin, il analyse l’effacement progressif de cette riche tradition documentaire à l’époque moderne au profit d’un retour quasi-systématique à son passé carolingien ou à l’érudition mauriste.