The Recovery and Resilience Facility reflects the generalisation of spending conditionality and the economisation of the rule of law in EU governance. The RRF performance-based approach also applies to measures related to rule of law protection, meaning that recovery funds can only be disbursed as long as the related conditions are met. While the academic literature has already highlighted the difficulty of applying performance frameworks to values, this article assesses how the RRF performance-based approach integrates the safeguard of the rule of law, based on a comparative study of the Slovak, Hungarian and Polish plans. Rule of law protection is set as a priority in the RRF. Yet, the economic and financial framing – in line with New Public Management and neoliberal governmentality – limits the potential impact of rule of law reforms. Overall, the effectiveness of rule-of-law spending conditionality depends more on the features of the performance regime and the attitude of political actors than the degree of financial pressure.

The value of people’s unique lived experience of mental illness (including psychosis), professional treatment and recovery as a valid form of knowledge remains relatively unexplored and under-utilised by mental health professionals, policy makers and by those seeking help. Mutual peer support remains a largely untapped resource, often ignored and distanced from mainstream services. In this reflective perspective article, I share my own experiences as a service user, spouse, close relative and brother-in-law and also as someone who worked for many years in mutual peer support and in the area of recovery. I reflect on the findings of my doctoral narrative research which focused on the role played by Grow Mental Health, Ireland’s largest network of mutual peer support groups, in recovery from a wide range of diagnoses. The main finding from this research suggested that recovery can be experienced as a re-enchantment with life and that mental illness can act as a gateway to mental health rather than be experienced as a form of (often life-long) disability. In the discussion I try and envisage what a recovery oriented mental health system might look like, and what changes would need to be introduced. Despite such a long personal history of dealing with mental illness and witnessing many different levels of recovery, I still have much to learn about mental illness and recovery. I also welcome many recent changes made within the system and indeed this special edition of the journal.

We simplify our lives by learning from others. I focus on instances where we learn from our peers by receiving evidence that they have evidence for a hypothesis. I refer to this type of learning as learning from others’ evidence. I exclusively consider cases where we do not learn what the other agent’s evidence is; we only receive evidence that such evidence exists. I approach learning from others’ evidence by exploring the following slogan, popular in epistemology:

I am interested in the limitations of the slogan, focus on the impact of non-epistemic values on it, and argue for the following main thesis:

In arguing for the thesis, I draw on and expand insights from the philosophy of science. There are instances where our peers’ reasoning, commitments, and evidence (see Douglas 2000) are not rationally acceptable to us due to differences in non-epistemic values. Building on this, I contend that in such cases, we cannot (adequately) apply the slogan.

Amid intensifying geopolitical competition and accelerating climate commitments, China’s rare earth elements (REE) sector has emerged as a strategic asset and a site of political contestation. While existing accounts emphasize China’s dominance through central control, this article develops the concept of “fractured extraction” to show how REE governance is mediated by uneven, multi-scalar negotiations among central authorities, provincial governments, municipal actors and firms. Drawing on historical analysis and provincial case studies from Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi and Sichuan, we argue that China’s REE governance is marked by cycles of alignment and divergence, where central mandates around environmental reform, industrial upgrading and resource consolidation are selectively implemented, reinterpreted or resisted by subnational actors pursuing local development goals. This dynamic reflects not fragmentation or coherence but fracture: a provisional, relational mode of governance that persists across China’s evolving extractive landscape. We identify four interrelated processes – innovation, upgrading, financialization and formalization – through which fractured extraction materializes to develop a framework for understanding the politics of green industrialization and strategic resource governance that foregrounds subnational actors and the contested nature of China’s low-carbon transition.

One of the natural problems of operational semantics is to characterise the relationship between eager and lazy evaluation. In the context of $\lambda$-calculus, this is expressed by the classic theorem that call-by-value evaluation of a program to (weak-head) normal form can always be simulated by a call-by-name evaluation. While the statement and intuition behind it are simple and clear, naive attempts at proof famously fail: the result is usually established as a consequence of the more complex standardisation theorem. In this work, we develop and formalise a novel and lightweight inductive approach to tackle the problem of simulation between two semantics for a single calculus, but with different evaluation orders. We exercise our method on the classic call-by-value and call-by-name example and report on methodological takeaways suggested by our approach, in particular what effect the flavour of semantics chosen has on the proof.

Astrotheology, the theological engagement with astrobiology and the possibility of extraterrestrial life, has primarily focused on the compatibility of scientific and religious beliefs. However, this article argues that probability and risk assessments play a larger role in the discussion than is commonly recognised, and there is need to learn from the rigour with which natural theological arguments have been evaluated. For instance, the relative urgency and style of astrotheological discourse is affected by ideas of what sort of life is likely to be out there, if any. In this article, I analyse astrotheological risk assessments from the framework of decision theory, using the discussion over Pascal’s Wager as a comparison case. Arguments over the fittingness of creating other life forms are analysed through a comparison with fine-tuning design arguments. I argue that while theological engagement with astrobiology remains important, the justification of probability and risk assessments depends on disputed philosophical and theological assumptions. Examining the compatibility of theological systems and ideas about extraterrestrial life is important. However, fostering doubt about these probabilities is also a service that theology can do for astrobiological debates.

This paper examines the intersection of socio-legal research and activism through my ethnographic work with the Tulipas do Cerrado collective, a group of sex workers in Brazil. It explores the dynamics of knowledge production and the transformative potential of collaborative research that prioritises the reflections and experiences of marginalised communities while recognising the importance of legal expertise. Drawing on the concepts of ‘whoring the knowledge’ and ‘whoring the law’, the article highlights how sex workers reclaim their narratives and creatively navigate legal frameworks, demanding that researchers enhance both academic and activist relevance of their endeavours. First, I discuss relevant literature on ethnography within sex workers’ activism, introducing recent key studies on Brazilian sex work as examples of having the knowledge whored. Then, I detail the ethnographic approach employed in my research, which was inspired by the preceding three studies. Ultimately, the work analyses how reciprocal engagement between sex work activists and scholars is a consequence of a demand that researchers adopt a bolder and more creative way of thinking and living. Furthermore, from a socio-legal perspective, these exchanges present an opportunity to rethink the role of law within these communities and to foster concrete social transformation. I propose the concept of ‘whoring’ the law, suggesting that both activists and socio-legal scholars can identify and build new pathways for dealing with the law.

Zaiwa (ISO 639-3 code: atb; Glottocode: zaiw1241) belongs to the Burmese branch of the Tibeto-Burman languages, sharing many common features with the Burmese and Achang languages of the same branch. It is primarily spoken by a subgroup of Jingpo people, who identify as ‘Zaiwa’. Beyond Zaiwa, the Jingpo people encompass four distinct subgroups, each conversing in unique linguistic variations, namely Jingpo (景颇), Langsu (浪速), Leqi (勒期), and Bola (波拉). Jingpo is distinctively affiliated with the Jingpo branch of the Tibeto-Burman languages, whereas the other three languages, including Zaiwa, are categorized within the Burmese branch (He, 2016). The majority of Zaiwa speakers are found in Luxi (潞西), Yingjiang (盈江), Longchuan (陇川), Ruili (瑞丽), Lianghe (梁河), and Wanding (畹町) counties within the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture (德宏傣族景颇族自治州) of Yunnan province (云南省) as well as the Shan and Kachin states in Myanmar. Zaiwa is widely used in Zaiwa-dominant areas or communities with a significant Zaiwa presence. It is used not only in daily life contexts, such as among family members, villages, markets, and shops, but also in a range of social sectors, including in government and judicial offices, as well as on radio and broadcasting stations. Among the Jingpo languages, Zaiwa has the largest number of users. Individuals who speak Zaiwa often speak languages of other Jingpo subgroups in addition to Mandarin Chinese. Due to the extensive promotion and dissemination of Mandarin, particularly in educational and media contexts, Mandarin has emerged as the predominant second language for the youth within the community. Moreover, in neighboring regions or mixed communities where the Zaiwa subgroup is prominent, individuals from other ethnic groups such as the Achang, Han, Dai, and Lisu also frequently speak Zaiwa. According to the statistics from China’s Sixth National Population Census in 2010, the total population of the Jingpo ethnic group is approximately 140,000. There were over 80,000 Zaiwa speakers within China, constituting more than 60% of the total Jingpo ethnic population in the country (He, 2016). Scholars such as Xu and Xu (1984), Dai (1989), Kong (2001), Pan (2014), He (2016), Lu and Kong (2019), and Lu et al. (2025) have conducted studies on the phonetics of Zaiwa.

In many tourism-dependent islands, an acute imbalance between increasing demand for wastewater management and the capacity of existing sewage infrastructure represents an increased risk for ecosystems and population health. Given that locals may be opposed to increasing tourism taxes to fund investments in sewerage, promoting charitable giving among tourists may be an alternative to improve wastewater management in tourist destinations. Using a contingent valuation survey, this study assesses whether tourists are willing to donate to improve wastewater management in San Andres Island, Colombia. Split-sample treatments were implemented to examine the response of tourists' giving preferences to priming communications regarding the effects of poor wastewater management. Results indicate that tourists are willing to donate to improve local wastewater management. Our findings also provide useful insights about tourists' giving preferences to design effective charitable giving campaigns to improve wastewater management.

With this paper, I suggest focusing on diplo-scientific actors as a fruitful approach to study how certain actors have helped to shape international organisations through their diplomatic activities and scientific practices. Using the example of the Swedish medical physicist Rolf Sievert, I show how Sievert’s personality and preferences came to decisively shape the post-war trajectory of the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) and more broadly the international landscape of radiation protection. In the inter-war period, Sievert was engaged in the ICRP and its mother organisation, the International Radiological Congress (IRC), dealing with the interwoven questions of how to formulate international radiation standards and radiation protection initiatives. Following the Second World War, Sievert became concerned with the proliferation of nuclear technologies and the spread of radioactive fallout following nuclear test bombings. Because of this concern, Sievert set out to separate the ICRP from the IRC and form a new, independent group that could deal with the dangers of the new ‘Nuclear Age’. While Sievert was ultimately unsuccessful, his attempts would decisively change the purview and trajectory of the ICRP. This had large ramifications, as the ICRP continues to be the prime international organisation on radiological and medical radiation protection, formulating recommendations that are used by international, regional, national, and local groups, informing epistemic judgements on radiation research.