Risso’s dolphin (Grampus griseus) is a widely distributed oceanic species; its global and regional population structure remains poorly understood. To assess their genetic diversity and connectivity in British waters, we analysed tissue samples from stranded individuals collected between 1992 and 2016 using 16 nuclear microsatellite loci and a 433-bp mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence. Microsatellite analyses (STRUCTURE, AMOVA, and PCA) consistently indicated a single genetic cluster with no significant geographic differentiation among sampling sites, suggesting a panmictic population. BayesAss results further supported high gene flow and limited isolation among regions. The mtDNA dataset identified six haplotypes with low haplotype and nucleotide diversity, showing no spatial structuring within the British Isles. Phylogenetic reconstruction revealed that all British haplotypes were endemic and formed a monophyletic clade closely related to haplotypes from the Azores in the North Atlantic. Together, the nuclear and mtDNA data indicate low genetic diversity and a lack of population subdivision among British Risso’s dolphins. These findings imply recent colonisation and high dispersal capability, consistent with patterns observed in other wide-ranging marine mammals. Continued monitoring, broader geographic sampling, and large-scale photo-identification are needed to refine understanding of Risso’s dolphin population dynamics and to inform conservation management.

Women receive a disproportionate share of the online abuse and violent threats made against politicians. Yet, mounting cross-national evidence also suggests that the long-observed gender disparity in citizens’ voting preferences has rapidly diminished – and arguably reversed – in recent decades. Emerging experimental research likewise suggests the broader public in many democratic countries is particularly sensitive to online abuse and threats against women politicians. Herein, we highlight the sexist beliefs of audiences as an important explanation for this apparent inconsistency. Analyzing data from a vignette experiment embedded within a wider survey administered to a demographically representative sample of the British electorate, we demonstrate that the sex of the candidate has only limited influence on observers’ tolerance for threats against politicians. However, respondents that held more sexist attitudes were both more tolerant of violent threats against politicians and particularly tolerant of abuse directed against female candidates. More concerningly, we find that priming sexist respondents to think about female candidates increased support for abusive behaviors against politicians more generally, irrespective of their sex. Our results add to the growing evidence that tolerance for political violence is driven not so much by partisan hostility and ideological polarization as by specific personality traits.

How do voters react to the individual characteristics of crises following events such as pandemics or floods? In the aftermath of crises following such events, governments may find they are sanctioned by voters, because the crises can provide voters with important information concerning the qualities of incumbents in handling crisis or their responsibility for the ensuing hardships. However, existing research provides limited evidence concerning the characteristics of crises that voters rely on to evaluate the government’s responsibility for or performance in handling them. The present article addresses this gap by providing evidence obtained from a conjoint experiment conducted among British voters. The results show that when voters sanction governments following a crisis, they focus overwhelmingly on the government’s perceived crisis management performance. Voter perceptions of crisis management performance are driven by the severity of the crisis, prevention and relief spending, as well as the behaviour of the political elites. In contrast, voter perceptions of government responsibility for the crisis are affected less strongly by crisis characteristics, such as crisis severity, prevention spending and expert statements.

This article examines the extent to which hostile Russian activities have shaped legislative, organisational, and policy-orientation change in the United Kingdom (UK). Employing a historical institutionalist framework, the study traces the progress of the UK’s response across two critical junctures, the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in 2018, separated by an intervening period of accumulating pressures (2007–18) during which institutional path dependency absorbed repeated provocations without producing fundamental reform. Methodologically, the article combines event data analysis (ICEWS and POLECAT datasets) to identify these junctures with qualitative content analysis of parliamentary records (Hansard) to examine the institutional implications of these shifts. The study focuses specifically on hostile activities directed at or conducted within UK territory and institutions. The study finds that the UK’s institutional adaptation to Russian hybrid threats has been marked by strong path dependency, with responses often reactive, fragmented, and shaped by a continued emphasis on counterterrorism rather than state-based threats. Initial provocations failed to punctuate the institutional equilibrium, as economic interests and diplomatic pragmatism prevailed. It was only under mounting public pressure and advocacy from epistemic security communities that a tipping point was reached, enabling a shift towards more coordinated and enduring institutional reforms.

Against a remarkable diffusion of commitments to inclusion, equality and diversity in universities, and cases where these commitments are being contested, this study considers the institutional environments that shape universities’ inclusionary commitments. Historical and sociological institutionalist perspectives are used to make sense of how regulatory and resource conditions of the national higher education (HE) systems that universities inhabit blend with global cultural pressures and supply universities with socially desirable ways of pursuing inclusion. A comparative case study of inclusionary commitments in an English and a Norwegian public research university is provided. Despite substantial differences between HE sectors, both universities portray themselves as deliberate and strategic in their pursuit of inclusion, and the state is a key ‘rationalizer’ of this process through equality legislation. Nevertheless, inclusionary commitments appear more organizationally embedded and cognizant of student needs in the English university. In the Norwegian university, structural measures to foster inclusion become more visible within the comparatively rudimentary organizational structure, with regional cooperation and the needs of personnel being highlighted. The findings show that the spread of inclusionary organizational actorhood is marked by differences in regulation, national service and market orientations between HE systems. They are paving distinct possibilities for how universities may relate to their inclusionary commitments if challenged.

The introduction to the themed section on ‘Labour in Government and Its Impact on Social Policy’ is setting the scene for the following articles in three steps: First, it sketches the social policy landscape at the start of the Labour Party’s current term in government, shaped by New Labour and the following years of Conservative (and Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition) rule. Secondly, to contextualise the broader political backdrop for the different policy areas that are analysed in the themed section, we highlight the tensions between the large scale of social policy challenges faced by the government on the one hand, and the relatively modest ambitions of the Labour Party, due to its self-imposed restrictions around fiscal policy and its political positioning, on the other. Thirdly, the introduction presents the rationale for a collection of analyses of the Labour government’s social policy orientations and impacts after 12 months in office, underlining its relevance and usefulness as a state-of-art resource for academics, practitioners and students. Finally, we summarise the focus and key insights from the articles in the themed section, before presenting a range of cross-cutting considerations that run across the diverse social policy areas.

A growing number of governments are seeking to return control from supranational authorities to the state. Many of them wish to do so without sacrificing the benefits of deep international cooperation. But this desire to increase national control while maintaining cooperation – which we term ‘sovereigntist internationalism’ – is often frustrated in practice. We argue that this is due to a ‘trust paradox’ these governments face when their ideological commitments push them towards trust-based institutional arrangements while simultaneously rendering them less trusting and less trustworthy. We illustrate our argument with a case study of the Brexit negotiations during Theresa May’s premiership from 2016 to 2019. Drawing on elite interviews, we show how the UK government sought to transpose existing forms of economic cooperation into looser institutional arrangements but failed to convince the European Commission that enough trust could be generated to make the continuation of deep cooperation viable without strong control mechanisms. Our argument advances debates in International Relations (IR) by, first, explaining governments’ sometimes contradictory preferences for institutional designs; second, showing that different actors need different levels of trust to achieve similar levels of cooperation; and, third, improving our understanding of how populist actors view international institutions.

There is an emerging consensus that conspiracy theories are dangerous. They can fuel extremism, undermine democratic institutions, and be mobilized in the disinformation operations of adversary states. That framing fits comfortably within well-understood practices of elite securitization, which have recently framed conspiracy theories as a threat to national security. This article explores the securitization of conspiracy theory during the COVID-19 pandemic when misinformation proliferated, and elites identified the threat of an ‘infodemic’. While conspiracy theories were securitized by elites alongside the virus, conspiracy theories identified those same elites as the real peril. We argue that this dynamic can be best understood through the concept of counter-securitization, which shows how an initial securitization process can be resisted by reframing its progenitors as the actual threat. We illustrate this argument through a case study on the United Kingdom, where there was palpable resistance to lockdowns and vaccine mandates. We suggest that the securitization dynamic identified here reflects a wider relationship between elite and popular securitization that has been under examined in the securitization literature, despite recent efforts to theorize the main characteristics of populist securitizations.

Portunid crabs of the genus Charybdis De Haan, 1833 are among the most frequently reported marine invaders worldwide. Here, we report the first record of Charybdis (Archias) hoplites (Wood-Mason, 1877) outside its native Indo-West Pacific range, collected from the Test Estuary, Southampton Water, United Kingdom. Morphological and molecular analyses confirm the specimen’s identity and clarify diagnostic features useful for distinguishing C. (A.) hoplites from closely related taxa. This represents the northernmost record of any Charybdis species and suggests a long-distance dispersal event, associated with shipping activities in the Port of Southampton. Environmental data indicate that salinity and turbidity at the collection site are within known tolerances for Charybdis spp., although low winter temperatures may limit survival and establishment. The detection of this warm-water species in a major international port highlights the ongoing need to monitor non-native marine fauna.

This article compares the historical trajectories of democratic innovations across space and time in the UK by analysing the development and impact of collaborative governance, participatory budgeting, referendums, and mini-publics. This is an interesting country for longer-term analysis. First, the UK has been considered an inhospitable environment for democratic innovation. Second, it has experienced asymmetrical decentralisation of legislative and executive powers from national to subnational institutions. Third, these changes have taken place during a period of democratic backsliding. We analyse how these dynamics are interrelated by charting the trajectory of four types of democratic innovations in four different countries of the UK (space) from the 1970s to the present (time). We find that, after years of limited democratic innovation there has been rapid, although geographically asymmetrical, development in recent decades. We argue that the importance of these differences should not be overstated in relation to democratic deepening. We conclude that, to advance democratic innovations in the UK, a constitutional convention is required.