Heterogeneity and integrative levels are other aspects of the dialectical approach. In this chapter we elaborate our fundamental argument concerning the landscape nature of biodiversity conservation, emphasizing the role of agroecosystems in evaluating the biodiversity effects of various landscape forms. The fragmentation of natural habitats leads to a heterogeneous landscape where biodiversity conservation depends on how those patches are interconnected at various spatial and temporal scales. We emphasize the ecological nature of the project (e.g., the need to preserve metapopulation structures) and the sociopolitical aspects (small farmer perspectives on nature and biodiversity). We introduce here some more advanced ecological topics such as ephemeral sources and propagating sinks, and note that the recent emphasis on novel ecosystems fits snugly within the agroecological framing of biodiversity conservation.

Island biogeography theory views island species richness as an equilibrium of extinction rates and the immigration rates of novel species to an island. At equilibrium, MacArthur and Wilson’s model predicts that species composition will change over time, but species richness will remain relatively stable. In addition, large islands with low extinction rates and high immigration rates will tend to support more species than will small islands. Geographic ecologists also want to understand why particular species or groups of species have a particular geographic distribution. The theories of continental drift and plate tectonics have helped to resolve these questions. More recently, developments in molecular technology have allowed biogeographers to answer numerous questions about species distributions. Landscape ecology explores how variation in landscape structure, such as configuration or scale, influences the distribution and abundance of species. Conservation ecologists are particularly concerned that industrial, agricultural, and urban development have led to increased fragmentation of habitat that is suitable for sustainable wildlife populations. Applying the lessons of island biogeography, ecologists recommend erecting immigration corridors to increase immigration rates of novel species into nature preserves, thereby increasing species richness.

How should we best characterise the UK party system in the wake of nearly a decade and a half of Conservative government? Has it undergone a significant and enduring realignment, or merely amounted to passing turbulence, after which things have returned to the seemingly eternal verities of stable two-party competition? The question for us to consider in this chapter is whether we can regard the period since 2010 in such terms: in particular, does the general election of December 2019 constitute a moment of critical realignment? Or is it more sensible to view this as the mere culmination of a relatively prolonged period of Conservative Party ascendancy based on a regular swing of the electoral pendulum – a swing which will inevitably reverse itself as the centre of electoral gravity shifts in favour of Labour once more? In other words, a simple affirmation of the age-old dynamics of the two-party system.

Systemic integration has made its way into the parlance and practice of international scholars and adjudicators, particularly as a tool against the fragmentation of international law. The chapter analyses it as a particular instance of what Foucault termed ‘problematization’, that is, ‘how and why certain things (behavior, phenomena, processes) became a problem’. In fact, while the issue of fragmentation is not a recent phenomenon, only in the late 1990s did it receive special attention. Why was it so? The question of what drove most international lawyers to present fragmentation as one of the most pressing issues of the time, and the International Law Commission to issue a report on fragmentation and international law, prepared by Martti Koskenniemi in 2006, is examined. The chapter argues that the wide acceptance of the systemic integration principle could be explained by international lawyers’ continuous quest for unity, uniformity, and coherence.

This chapter highlights the importance of government composition in explaining the nature of domestic conflict in the refugee crisis. It puts into evidence two important aspects of this composition: fragmentation and ideology. Most of the governments in our study are coalition governments and therefore should not be treated as unitary actors. The type of governments in charge during the crisis ranges from monolithic single-party governments to fractious grand coalitions. Fragmentation is fairly closely linked to the prevalence of intragovernmental conflict, while the link with ideological distance between the parties appeared to matter less. We confirm that center right governments are more likely to engage in debates centered on immigration with the opposition. However, the general relationship between ideology and partisan conflict is weak. The source of the partisan challenge matters more than the ideological make-up of the government: When the challenge comes from the radical right – and to a lesser extent, from the center right – security–sovereignty–identitarian frame types are more likely to be prevalent compared to challenges from the mainstream left, where humanitarian–solidaristic–democratic themes are likely to take center stage.

This chapter analyses global value chains. First, we explain how globalisation leads to fragmentation of production and dispersion of activities. Global value chains consist of nodes, where each node represents the value added received from the previous node. Countries can now specialise in activities and functions – nodes of the global value chain – rather than in the whole production of certain goods. Second, we discuss how to measure global value chains, which is challenging. Recent efforts allow us to estimate so-called forward- and backward linkages. Third, we provide a framework to map the governance configuration of global value chains based on the complexity of the knowledge to be exchanged in a transaction, the ease of codifying information about the transaction, and the capability of the supplier with respect to the specificities of the transaction. Fourth, we describe some possible sources of inefficiencies in global value chains (taxation, rent-seeking, contracts and trade costs).

We provide an introduction to the world economy. World population levels have risen drastically since 1800, in conjunction with (per capita) income levels. Economic leadership regularly shifts from one country to another. Rich countries are usually well connected in terms of international trade, contacts, investments, migration and capital flows. Historians have identified two big ‘waves’ of economic globalisation: at the end of the nineteenth century and after World War II. These episodes show decreases in international price gaps and increases in relative international trade- and capital flows. The ‘fragmentation’ process, in which different parts of goods are provided in different nations before they are combined in final goods, is a relatively new phenomenon. The most recent wave of globalisation is slowing down at the moment (slowbalisation), but it remains to be seen how much the backlash against globalisation will affect trade- and cross-border investment in the years to come.

This chapter offers an analysis of the challenges for governments and the private sector in cybersecurity governance from a systemic perspective. It first identifies the challenges that the liberal international order, characterised by political liberalism, economic openness, and international cooperation, has faced in the area of cybersecurity governance. It also observes that there have so far been no successful global efforts to harmonise rules or create a unified regime. This chapter then emphasises how the private sector’s essential role as innovators possessing technological expertise is unique to cybergovernance and explains how the interplay of different actors, both public and private, has practical meaning for states and actors.

Interorganizational coordination is increasingly viewed as crucial to frontline crisis response. Contemporary crises often require the collective action of multiple organizations. Many researchers recommend integrating frontline responders of diverse organizations to make good use of scarce resources and synchronize their actions. In practice, frontline responders frequently choose fragmentation by dividing responsibilities and limiting interactions instead. This allows them to implement a fast response without being dependent on others. At the same time, it can lead to safety risks and suboptimal outcomes. Frontline responders face a dilemma, because they have an interest in pursuing both integration and fragmentation. It is useful to note that coordination may not always be the right course of action in a crisis. Even if it is, it does not necessarily need to be formal, as much coordination emerges in the operational field. For more structured ways of coordinating, the nature of the crisis and existing interorganizational relations are useful guides in how to organize the coordination. Generally, it must be conditional upon the situation at hand.

This chapter explores the direct experiences of renowned record producers, working with metal music, to construct an in-depth understanding of the genesis, and development, of recorded metal music. Technological democracy has changed the experience of making metal records, affording creative flexibility and control that would historically have been out of reach, technologically and financially. Multitrack technologies and fragmented production processes are also examined. Framed by the experiences of producers that have shaped the recording careers of artists such as Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, this chapter links the direct experiences of record-making to musical, sociocultural and technological development.

During the Renaissance, central–northern Italy was both Europe’s intellectual and artistic hub and its most prosperous economy. From the seventeenth to early nineteenth century, the Italian economy drifted from center to periphery, in a long economic decline. During that decline, Italy was fragmented and subject to foreign occupations. Structural divides got deeper and a distance between citizens and public authorities emerged. We summarize the fruits of Italy’s “modern economic growth” since political unification through four periods in Italy’s transition from poverty to abundance: a) 1861–1896 slow growth and divergence from Western Europe’s leading economies, b) secular movement from “periphery” to the “center” of the developed world; 1896–1995 was a century of almost uninterrupted, if uneven, convergence with the world’s richest countries, c) 1995–2007 was a period of losing ground: slow growth and relative decline, d) 2008–2019 from relative to the absolute decline of the Italian economy.

The future of ISDS is at a historic crossroads. In this final chapter we provide an overview of the ISDS reform process in the UNCITRAL and discuss the EU proposal for a Multilateral Investment Court in the context of this reform. First, we contextualise the current ISDS reform against earlier attempts to negotiate multilateral international investment agreements to explain how the current reform is different. Second, we discuss the scope of the reform and its process in the framework of UNCITRAL, particularly focusing on the identified ISDS concerns. Third, we outline the reform options that have emerged in the discussion and explain their correlation to the EU’s MIC proposal. In the final part of this chapter, we consider the potential contributions that an MIC could make to the rule of law and the legitimacy of international investment law. While the negotiations are set to conclude in 2025, the aim of this chapter is to place the EU’s proposal in the broader ISDS reform context and reflect on its external challenges in this reform process.

With the foreign investment competence in the Lisbon Treaty, the EU has set an objective to develop a coherent international investment policy. This policy is now being implemented through EU (mixed) international investment agreements and the Member States’ extra-EU BITs concluded with third countries in the post-Lisbon period. Both set of agreements serve to replace or supplement the existing extensive network of pre-Lisbon extra-EU BITs of Member States. As a matter of principle, a coherent EU policy could ensure the same level of protection for all EU economic operators investing abroad, contributing to the uniformity of the Common Commercial Policy. Further, it supports the EU in the global reform of international investment governance. Ultimately, a coherent external approach of the EU and its Member States could improve consistency between the regulation of investment internally and externally, thus endorsing the EU vision of constitutionalism in international law. In this chapter we examine the extent to which the EU has achieved coherence between EU’s and Member States’ investment agreements. We analyse substantive and procedural provisions of pre- and post-Lisbon Member States’ extra-EU BITs and EU international investment agreements in light of primary EU law, the existing transitional arrangements in EU secondary law and the CJEU case-law.