This article combines ethnographic and linguistic analysis to illuminate a critical aspect of the US criminal justice system—disciplinary hearings in prison. Focusing on one woman's (Cherry's) hearing, I consider the remaking of power through bureaucratic procedure. The scripted interaction requires the sergeant to read Cherry's ticket out loud in his performance of authority. I explore the intertextual relations motivated by this verbal animation for their ability to construct a unified front of the institution against which Cherry is tried. Cherry, however, manipulates these intertextual relationships, deploying verbal skills gained through her long entanglement with the criminal justice system to mitigate her punishment. The linguistic analysis of Cherry's hearing, positioned in her prison history, reveals the continual remaking of power in prison interactions that are framed by institutional regulations influencing the negotiation of officer authority and possibilities of inmate resistance. (Prisons, intertextuality, resistance, power, legal interactions)*

This article focuses on a novel English construction involving control and infinitival relatives. Examples such as this is John's book to read have a head noun (book) modified by an infinitival relative clause (to read) and a prenominal possessor (John's). I argue that there is a control relation between the prenominal possessor and the PRO subject of the infinitival relative. I show that this control relation bears the structural hallmarks of obligatory control whilst at the same time permitting PRO to be interpreted as arbitrary. I discuss these empirical facts in the context of a syntactic, Agree-based theory of control.

In today's age of restrictionism, a growing number of countries are closing their gates of admission to most categories of would-be immigrants with one important exception. Governments increasingly seek to lure and attract “high value” migrants, especially those with access to large sums of capital. These individuals are offered golden visa programs that lead to fast-tracked naturalization in exchange for a hefty investment, in some cases without inhabiting or even setting foot in the passport-issuing country to which they now officially belong. In the U.S. context, the contrast between the “Dreamers” and “Parachuters” helps to draw out this distinction between civic ties and credit lines as competing bases for membership acquisition. Drawing attention to these seldom-discussed citizenship-for-sale practices, this essay highlights their global surge and critically evaluates the legal, normative, and distributional quandaries they raise. I further argue that purchased membership goods cannot replicate or substitute the meaningful links to a political community that make citizenship valuable and worth upholding in the first place.

Debates on “rising powers” and a possible end to the liberal international order mostly focus on two kinds of actors: the hegemon (the United States), privileged by the power distribution of yesteryear, and rising powers (notably China). Europe's curious position brings to light some intriguing dynamics of the emerging world order—nuances needed to capture a more differentiated future. This essay traces the threats and opportunities to Europe presented by the emerging order in four domains. In terms of overall power (polarity) and economics, far-reaching change registers but is rarely designated as threatening. In contrast, change regarding values (human rights and democracy especially) triggers more alarm. Finally, in the domain of institutions, change elicited a relative lack of concern prior to 2016, but worries have grown since then. For Europe, peaceful change primarily demands that rising powers rearticulate rather than confront classical Western values because, in contrast to the United States, there is little sense of loss in Europe in relation to the global structures of power and economics.

In the early years of the twenty-first century the narrative of “emerging powers” and “rising powers” seemed to provide a clear and powerful picture of how international relations and global politics were changing. Yet dramatic changes in the global system have led many to conclude that the focus on the BRICS and the obsession with the idea of rising powers reflected a particular moment in time that has now passed. The story line is now about backlash at the core; and, with the exception of China, rising powers have returned to their role as secondary or supporting actors in the drama of global politics. Such a conclusion is profoundly mistaken for three sets of reasons: the continued reality of the post-Western global order; the need to understand nationalist backlash as a global phenomenon; and the imperative of locating and strengthening a new pluralist conception of global order.

While Russian leaders are clearly dissatisfied with the United States and the European Union, they are not inherently opposed to a liberal world order. The question of Russia's desire to change a liberal international order hangs on the type of liberalism embedded in that order. Despite some calls from within for it to create a new, post-liberal order premised on conservative nationalism and geopolitics, Russia is unlikely to fare well in such a world.

The crisis of the American-led international order would seem to open up new opportunities for rising states—led by China, India, and other non-Western developing countries—to reshape the global order. As their capacities and influence grow, will these states rise up and integrate into the existing order or will they seek to overturn and reorganize it? The realist hegemonic perspective expects today's power transition to lead to growing struggles between the West and the “rest” over global rules and institutions. In contrast, this essay argues that although America's hegemonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order—openness, rules, and multilateralism—are deeply rooted and likely to persist. And even as China seeks in various ways to build rival regional institutions, there are stubborn limits on what it can do.

India is gradually changing its course from decades of inward-looking economics and strong anti-Western foreign policies. It has become more pragmatic, seeing important economic benefits from globalization, and some political benefits of working with the United States to achieve New Delhi's great-power aspirations. Despite these changes, I argue that India's deep-seated anti-colonial nationalism and commitment to strategic autonomy continues to form the core of Indian identity. This makes India's commitment to Western-dominated multilateral institutions and Western norms, such as humanitarian intervention, partial and instrumental. Thus, while Indian foreign-policy discourse shows little sign of seeking to fully challenge the U.S.-led international order beyond largely reformist measures of building parallel institutions such as the New Development Bank, India will continue to strongly resist Western actions that weaken sovereignty norms.