On August 9, 2020, presidential elections were held in Belarus. Despite blatant electoral fraud and procedural violations, the official results declared Aleksandr Lukashenka reelected for a sixth term. While in the past, even the most obviously fraudulent election results have been followed by an atmosphere of resigned acceptance, this time countless Belarusians took to the streets to contest the results. What made this election different? This analysis of current affairs looks at the 2020 events through the lens of authoritarian consolidation theory, suggesting the unprecedented political mobilization was enabled by erosion in the three pillars of authoritarian stability: repression, cooptation, and legitimation. A majority of the population had been accepting the political status quo out of fear, for social and monetary security provided in exchange for loyalty, or a general understanding that there were no alternatives. Lukashenka did not realize this had largely changed. Nine months later, the foundation of the authoritarian regime is in an even worse shape. The regime’s reliance on repression further counteracts the legitimacy of the system. As a result, it seems it will be difficult for the authorities to re-consolidate authoritarianism, at least in the near future, no matter how the ‘revolution’ unfolds.

This paper offers a new perspective on historical understandings of the relationship between alcohol, climate and the body, by studying the way that British explorers of tropical Africa drank alcohol and wrote about drink between c.1850 and c.1910. We demonstrate that alcohol was simultaneously classified as a medicinal, a preventative and a pleasurable drink, shaped by competing medical theories, but that distinctions between these different roles were highly blurred. We also show how many explorers thought certain drinks helped to protect white bodies from the effects of tropical diseases. While popular amongst travellers, these views came under growing scrutiny in the latter part of the nineteenth century, reflecting both changing scientific views about the relationship between alcohol, climate and the body and the development of a much larger European presence in tropical Africa. However, even those who opposed tropical drinking often supported the use of other stimulants and viewed the tropics as uniquely dangerous. As such, the paper challenges the idea that the late nineteenth century marked a paradigm shift in scientific attitudes towards tropical environments, as much previous scholarship has suggested. At the same time, our examinations of explorers’ descriptions of drinking by African people demonstrates how ideas about racial difference played an important role within medical understandings of alcohol. Overall, this paper examines the heterogeny of attitudes to alcohol to be found within tropical medicine and documents the continuities in approach shown between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Literary Critic and Sinologist, Takeuchi Yoshimi, provides post-colonial and decolonial studies a logic of resistance that seeks to destabilize the colonialist projects of Western modernity without repeating its structural logic. In this regard, Takeuchi's logic of resistance functions as a dialectical lens into the “emancipatory traps” of Western modernity that frame the victim–victimizer paradox by turning negativity into a method of generating heuristic possibilities. But in this pursuit to look for alternative sites for mining theoretical possibilities, Takeuchi returns to the origins of Chinese modernity for imagining a proper logic of Asian resistance, that which could be deployed as a resource for negating the imperial gestures of modernist thought while affirming the positive kernel of the Enlightenment with the hope of bringing forth a global world that is continuously transformed by the cultural particulars themselves. The goal of this article is to further elucidate Takeuchi's logic of Asian resistance and to discuss how this logic can be read as having the potential to correct Nishida Kitarō's and the Kyoto School's failed attempt to overcome modernity.

At the Arctic Council’s Ministerial Meeting in Reykjavik on 20 May 2021, Russia assumed the chairmanship of the council for the second time since its establishment in 1996. Though some Russian analysts and practitioners were skeptical about the usefulness of such a mechanism during the 1980s and 1990s, Russia has become an active contributor to the progress of the Arctic Council (AC). Russia’s first term as chair during 2004–2006 led to the creation of the Arctic Contaminants Action Program as an Arctic Council Working Group. Since then, Russia has served as co-lead of the Task Forces developing the terms of the 2011 agreement on search and rescue, the 2013 agreement on marine oil spill preparedness and response, and the 2017 agreement on enhancing international scientific cooperation. Russia also has participated actively in the creation of related bodies including the Arctic Coast Guard Forum and the Arctic Economic Council whose chairmanships rotate together with the chairmanship of the AC. Now, far-reaching changes in the broader setting are posing growing challenges to the effectiveness of these institutional arrangements. The impacts of climate change in the high latitudes have increased dramatically; the pace of the extraction and shipment of Arctic natural resources has accelerated sharply; great-power politics have returned to the Arctic foregrounding concerns regarding military security. Together, these developments make it clear that a policy of business as usual will not suffice to ensure that the AC remains an important high-level forum for addressing Arctic issues in a global context. The programme Russia has developed for its 2021–2023 chairmanship of the council is ambitious; it proposes a sizeable suite of constructive activities. In this article, however, we go a step further to explore opportunities to adapt the Arctic governance system to the conditions prevailing in the 2020s. We focus on options relating to (i) the AC’s constitutive arrangements, (ii) links between the council and related governance mechanisms, (iii) the role of science diplomacy, and (iv) the treatment of issues involving military security. We conclude with a discussion of the prospect of organising a heads of state/government meeting during the Russian chairmanship as a means of setting the Arctic governance system on a constructive path for the 2020s.

In previous work, I have argued that subjectivists about well-being must turn from a preference-satisfaction to a desire-satisfaction theory of well-being in order to avoid the conceptual problem of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. In a recent paper, Van der Deijl and Brouwer agree, but object that no version of the desire-satisfaction theory can provide a plausible account of how an individual's degree of well-being depends on the satisfaction or frustration of their various desires, at least in cases involving the gain or loss of desires. So subjectivists can avoid the conceptual problem of interpersonal comparisons only by adopting a substantively implausible view. In this reply, I defend subjectivism by arguing that the totalist desire-satisfaction theory avoids Van der Deijl and Brouwer's objections, and briefly suggest that it may also be able to handle the problem of adaptive desires. I conclude that subjectivists should endorse the totalist desire-satisfaction theory.

Scholars have long grappled with the puzzle as to why some regions become peaceful and resilient while others crumble into perpetual insecurity. Much of the scholarship that they produced viewed regional formations as extensions of the state system. This work argues that state-centric tools to study regionalism have precluded us from uncovering regional forms of engagement under hierarchical relations of empires. They have privileged great power politics, at the expense of the political agency of non-state actors, such as minority communities, constitutional assemblies, and political parties, among others. This work highlights the lack of conceptual tools to capture historical continuity in the regional fabric of world politics. The bulk of the article engages in the methodology of concept development for regional fracture, in an effort to advance comparative regional studies historically and systematically. The concept development is then applied in the context of the Eastern Anatolian region of the late Ottoman Empire.

This article takes a closer look at the ministerial representation of peripheral elites in central state institutions. We assess the ministerial portfolios that regionalist parties hold once they enter national government. We use a novel dataset that consists of a large sample of ministerial posts (N=1880) allocated to regionalist parties across Western multilevel democracies throughout the post–World War II period. An empirical analysis shows that regionalist parties control a disproportionately high share of the minister posts, a proportionate share of the policy domains, and a disproportionately low share of the key leadership positions in national cabinets. They have a distinctive preference to hold territorial and institutional (that is, decentralization) responsibilities in their ministerial portfolios. In contrast, concerning secondary policy domains (social-economic and culture-identity) they appear to be highly flexible. Ministerial appointments are an important gateway for peripheral elites to get access to central state institutions. It is also one of the clearest manifestations of (policy) payoffs: portfolios are meaningful tools to defend the interests of a territorial subgroup. Yet, there is no straight line from portfolio distribution to policy outcomes at the end of a legislative term. Resolving this broader question of a party’s influence on public policy requires continued research.

Beginning in the seventeenth century, numerous attempts were made to reach a very high latitude or even the North Pole. One of the more successful of these was the Italian Arctic expedition of 1899–1900, led by Luigi Amedeo di Savoia (Duke of the Abruzzi). Using two successively returning support parties, di Savoia’s second-in-command, Captain Umberto Cagni’s party eventually reached 86°34’N north of their base in the Franz Josef Land archipelago before retreating due to lack of supplies. The second support party also returned safely to the base from 83°16’N. However, the first support party, led by Lieutenant Francesco Querini, disappeared without a trace after returning southwards from 82°32’N. Although previous studies have cited starvation from lack of food supplies or accidents as the potential causes of their disappearance, the extant literature does not provide any deeper analyses to explain these events. This study explores the hypothesis that the first support party in fact turned back from a much more westerly position than they thought. This, in combination with an untimely blizzard that prevented travelling for several days, most likely made it impossible for Querini and his two men to return to base before their limited supplies ran out.

On 29 November 2020, Swiss citizens voted on a popular constitutional initiative, known as the Swiss Responsible Business Initiative.1 The vote was triggered by an initiative signed by more than the required 100,000 Swiss citizens who used their constitutional right to ask for an amendment of the Swiss Constitution by introducing a new provision on mandatory human rights due diligence and corporate liability. For such an initiative to be successful, both the majority of the people as well as of the cantons (states) is required. While 50.7 per cent of the participating voters accepted the initiative, the proposal did not reach the majority of the cantons and therefore the Responsible Business Initiative was rejected. Its rejection nevertheless triggered the adoption of new reporting and due diligence obligations relating to conflict minerals and child labour, which the Parliament had promised to adopt in case the Responsible Business Initiative was rejected.2 This contribution outlines the content of the newly adopted human rights due diligence legislation that will reflect the due diligence standard for companies in Switzerland for the years to come. It also aims to inform policy makers in other countries by describing the political struggle underlying the adoption of mandatory human rights due diligence in Switzerland.

Germany and Norway are the two latest states to adopt laws mandating human rights due diligence by companies. Germany adopted a Law on Supply Chain Due Diligence (German Law) on 10 June 2021.1 The same day, the Norwegian parliament passed a Transparency Act (Norwegian Act) requiring human rights and decent work due diligence.2 Like the French Loi de Vigilance and the Dutch Child Labour Due Diligence Law, these laws provide further momentum for mandatory measures to promote corporate respect for human rights, including future regulations in the European Union (EU). While the aims are similar, the German and Norwegian laws contain certain important differences when it comes to the substance and scope of the due diligence requirement. In this context, adherence to international standards remains the way forward to ensure compliance with divergent requirements in different jurisdictions.

There is a growing international emphasis on the importance of diversity in the judiciary and the impact of the individual in decision-making. However, it can be a challenge to gain insight into the individuals who sit on the bench. For instance, there is limited official information about the individuals who sit on the High Court of Australia. One of the rare glimpses provided by the justices themselves is their judicial swearing-in speech. Drawing on a case-study of the swearing-in speeches of High Court justices sitting between 2008 and 2016, this paper illustrates how these speeches can illuminate key demographic information about the judiciary, as well as facets of the individual rarely explored in studies of judicial diversity: personality and values. This study demonstrates how swearing-in speeches can assist with filling information gaps about judicial diversity, and so extend debates about judicial selection.

In this article, we engage with environmental conflicts on indigenous land through a focus on an attempt to gain social licence to reopen and operate the Biedjovággi mine in Guovdageainnu/Kautokeino in Sápmi, Norway. We argue that mining prospects bring forth ontological conflicts concerning land use, as well as ways to know the landscape and the envisioned future that the land holds. It is a story of a conflict between two different ways of knowing. The paper explores the Sámi landscape through different concepts, practices and stories. We then contrast this to the way the same landscape is understood and narrated by a mining company, through the programmes and documents produced according to the Norwegian law and standards. We follow Ingold’s argument that the Sámi landscape practices are taskscapes, where places, times and tasks are interconnected. These were not acknowledged in the plans and documents of the mining company. We conclude by addressing the tendency of extractive industries to reduce different landscapes in ways that fit with modern understandings, which oppose culture to nature.

Between the founding of Jamestown in 1606 and the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, images of Indigenous men and women rose and fell on the great seals of the British Atlantic colonies. At the peak of this process, “the Indian” was the most persistent seal icon save for that of the arms and image of the monarch himself. This essay traces the sigillary Indian's illustrious career, as evolving imperial structures and legal debates about the nature of empire positioned and repositioned him (and her) in relation to just claims of authority. Early depictions reflected the settler colony concerns of private charter companies, justifying claims to land, not the rule over people. Royal colonies, by contrast, imagined Indians as a form of vassal, essential aids in the procurement of raw materials from the land. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, the image of the Indian had yielded to classical motifs and representations of the land through maps, mirroring the increasing centrality of territoriality to British imperial thought. Taken together, seal images of Indians in the British Atlantic present the rise and fall of a visual paradox: depicting Indigenous people as symbols of authority over white settler colonies.