This article highlights the significance of Lëvizja Vetëvendosje’s (LVV) left-wing Kosovar Albanian nationalist challenge to the authoritarian and patrimonial nationalist system of Kosovo’s rebel victors. LVV used the political settlement’s own legitimizing metanarrative – that of Kosovar Albanian nationalism – to bolster their own legitimacy while undermining that of post-war elites drawn from organizations active in the conflict of the 1990s. A methodology based on Discursive Institutionalism makes sense of LVV’s position as both a challenger of rebel victors but also as a representative of the same ideological culture that underpins Kosovo’s political culture. There are two key contributions here. Empirically, this study characterizes LVV as a nationalist challenge to the rebel victor parties rather than as a distinctively nationalist or a protest party. The second contribution is theoretical: peacebuilding and political settlements theories must take a more dynamic and agency-sensitive view of legitimacy creation than they have hitherto.

This article explores the concept of non-personal immortality. Non-personal theories of immortality claim that even though there is no personal or individual survival of death, it is still possible to continue to exist in a non-personal state. The most important challenge for non-personal conceptions of immortality is solving the apparent contradiction between on the one hand accepting that individual existence ends with death and on the other hand maintaining that death nevertheless is not equal to total annihilation. I present two theories of non-personal immortality found in Schopenhauer and William James and derive a set of systematic core theses from them. Finally, I discuss whether the notion of non-personal immortality is consistent, and whether a non-personal afterlife could be desirable.

Extant literature concurs that fiscal transfers affect local democracy when they grant subnational governments nontax revenue. Yet there is nonetheless a mismatch between this concept and existing measures, which consider the whole transfers local governments receive, including both tax and nontax revenue. This article studies the Fondo Común Municipal (FCM), the most important intergovernmental grant in Chile, and provides a novel measure of nontax revenue. It uses this measure alongside the whole FCM transfer to test the rentier hypothesis. On the one hand, it shows that both measures increase the incumbent party vote share, although the effect of our measure is smaller. On the other hand, it finds that the FCM transfer has an impact on the probability of reelection and the competitiveness of elections, but this effect disappears when using our measure. Overall, the findings suggest that rents from transfers do not lead to strong electoral dominance in unitary states.

Much has been made of the ideological connection between the mental world of servitors in Elizabethan Ireland and the origins of early English colonial endeavor in North America. In this vein, the case of Sir Ralph Lane, the first governor of the Roanoke colony and, later, muster-master general of Ireland, would seem to present a historiographically promising test case, one that might not only link Ireland and the Roanoke Colony but also could show, following recent suggestions, how attitudinal, behavioral, and aspirational commonalities existed between early modern English military culture and the ethos of early English colonial endeavor. Lane's record on both sides of the Atlantic, however, rather than painting a picture of the applicability of martial virtue and military discipline at times of crisis, demonstrates instead the stark reality of the impulsive and appetitive culture of the garrison in the Elizabethan period and its corrosive effects. Lane's remarkable capacity for corruption, willful mismanagement, and wily self-defense in an Irish context in fact amplifies and complements troubling tendencies that scholars have recently detected in Lane's famous discourse of his government in what was commonly termed Virginia printed in Hakluyt's Principal Navigations. Lane can indeed serve as an emblem of common features shared by Elizabethan Englishmen drawn to office in Ireland and Elizabethan/Jacobean Englishmen drawn to settle in Virginia, but largely because of his mendacity, venality, and irresponsibility.

The belief in witchcraft and sorcery is a significant cause of intentional homicide in Kenya. Moreover, those who kill people suspected of being witches often employ as a defense for their actions the so-called provocation by witchcraft argument: the homicide was purportedly committed under the influence of belief in witchcraft and sorcery. One major legal difficulty that the Kenyan courts have frequently been invited to resolve is thus the question as to whether the belief in witchcraft and sorcery avails to an accused person the defense of grave provocation and, if so, under what circumstances. Drawing largely on pertinent case law, statutes, and academic literature, the author explores the controversy over provocation by witchcraft. The author first offers an exposition of the concept of witchcraft and sorcery in Africa and critically discusses the evolution of the Kenyan courts’ interpretation of the country’s law on provocation in relation to witchcraft beliefs since the 1930s. The author establishes that under the current Kenyan common law, defenses of heat of passion and sudden provocation may apply in instances where there is no real provocation and that the courts have exceeded the boundaries of the provocation defense without well-grounded reasons. The author cautions that giving the doctrine of provocation such a broad construction and application may increase the already rampant killings of suspected witches in Kenya.

This article demonstrates how mediatization facilitates the (re)production of mock language. Through an examination of Chinese netizens’ reactions to a series of viral internet commercials that feature three Hong Kong actors speaking nonstandard Mandarin, it uncovers the processes whereby Gangpu (Hong Kong Mandarin) has become increasingly perceived in China as funny. The vast scale of uptake formulations enabled by mediatization has made it possible for Chinese netizens to engage in a collaborative effort not only in highlighting certain features of Gangpu and certain elements of the commercials but also in presenting them in ways that evoke specific meanings and interpretations. Ultimately, it is through the parodic revoicing of Hong Kong celebrities speaking nonstandard Mandarin that this non-native variety has come to be keyed as humorous. This study shows that we gain a better understanding of how mock practices reinforce and build on each other by tracing their uptake and circulation. (Mediatization, mock language, parody, listening subject, Mandarin Chinese, Hong Kong, China)*

In Gaum and Others v. Van Rensburg NO and Others, the South African High Court held the view that a decision taken by the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, which included a condition of a life of celibacy for gays and lesbians in order to be ordained as ministers in the church, along with a prohibition against the solemnizing of same-sex civil unions by ministers in the church, resulted in a violation of the right to equality and that unfair discrimination based on sexual orientation had taken place. Consequently, the finding in Gaum postulated a specific view on the permissible boundaries regarding conduct related to sexual orientation that should apply to a religious association. In this regard, Gaum is of concern when considering that courts in democracies around the world generally refrain from getting involved in matters related to the central doctrines of a religious association. Gaum’s findings are disquieting not only for the effective protection of the right to freedom of religion (in both an individual and associational context) but also for the furtherance of diversity. It is argued in this article that Gaum exceeded its jurisdiction in adjudicating on matters related to conduct regarding sexual orientation, an argument that critically focuses on the concept of equality against the background of the importance of the protection of the autonomy of religious associations.