With formal international organizations (IOs) facing gridlock and informal IOs proliferating, cooperation in the twenty-first century looks different than it did in previous eras. Global governance institutions today also face additional challenges, including a fragmented information environment where publics are increasingly vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation. What do these trends portend for international politics? One way to answer this question is to return to a core ingredient of a well-functioning IO—information provision—and ask how such changes affect efficiency. Viewed through this lens, we see decline in some arenas and adaptation in others. Formal IOs are struggling to retain relevance as their weak policy responses and ambiguous rules create space for competing signals. The proliferation of informal institutions, on the other hand, may represent global governance evolution, as these technocratic bodies are often well-insulated from many political challenges. Yet even if global governance retains functionality, the legitimacy implications of such trends are troubling. IO legitimacy depends in part on process, and from this standpoint, the informational gains of informal governance must be weighed against losses of accountability and transparency. Ultimately, evaluating the normative implications of these trends requires making judgments about the preferred legitimizing principles for global governance.

We investigate a Leslie-type prey–predator system with an Allee effect to understand the dynamics of populations under stress. First, we determine stability conditions and conduct a Hopf bifurcation analysis using the Allee constant as a bifurcation parameter. At low densities, we observe that a weak Allee effect induces a supercritical Hopf bifurcation, while a strong effect leads to a subcritical one. Notably, a stability switch occurs, and the system exhibits multiple Hopf bifurcations as the Allee effect varies. Subsequently, we perform a sensitivity analysis to assess the robustness of the model to parameter variations. Additionally, together with the numerical examples, the FAST (Fourier amplitude sensitivity test) approach is employed to examine the sensitivity of the prey–predator system to all parameter values. This approach identifies the most influential factors among the input parameters on the output variable and evaluates the impact of single-parameter changes on the dynamics of the system. The combination of detailed bifurcation and sensitivity analysis bridges the gap between theoretical ecology and practical applications. Furthermore, the results underscore the importance of the Allee effect in maintaining the delicate balance between prey and predator populations and emphasize the necessity of considering complex ecological interactions to accurately model and understand these systems.

With fintech investment apps providing convenience and round-the-clock access to financial markets on the go, investors are becoming more active in managing their financial lives through smartphones and other mobile devices. However, fintech investing’s role in the financialization of everyday life remains unclear. Combining insights from Foucauldian governmentality and Science and Technology Studies (STS), this article positions fintech brokerage apps as both neoliberal tools in governing investor conduct and as agencements in reconfiguring financial subjectivities. Based on a survey and interviews with lay investors in Singapore, the findings reveal that fintech investors use app-based brokerages as a tool to invest conveniently and at low cost. However, users themselves may resist the financial subjectivities promoted by fintech investing, driven by skepticism towards gamified and other algorithmic app features. They are also motivated by feelings of uncertainty towards fledgling fintech startups and difficulties in their interactions with the app user interface. To mitigate uncertainty, investors adopt various tactics to protect their portfolios.

This essay reveals the institutional dynamics of hard times in the issue area of human rights. I show that the human rights regime has developed innovative-yet-informal institutions like individuals-based coalitions for the international protection and progressive development of human rights. Yet, as these informal institutions function very much based on, first, the interpersonal relations among their members, and, second, legal instruments that require no further consent by states, the advocacy success of liberal human rights defenders has, in turn, provided a playbook for advocates and governments from the illiberal end of the ideology spectrum. In addition, new human rights advocates in the form of certain private law firms have entered the UN through their pro bono work. They promise valuable resources for a crisis-ridden system but often represent corporate clients with conflicts of interest. Given the imminent risk of ideological capture and illiberal interests in human rights paralyzing the system, I reemphasize the need for regulating access to the human rights global governance institutions.

When Johann Wolfgang von Goethe coined the term ‘world literature’ (Weltliteratur) in 1831, he made it clear that this epoch had begun in his time and, like every epoch, would come to an end. This article is about the end of that epoch and the future of comparative literature in an era after the end of world literature. It is easy to see that we are now living in the era of world literatures. In a world in which, at first sight, literature counts for less and less, it must emphasize its unique selling point: it is the only form of human discourse that has actively expanded the realm of knowledge over several millennia. Only comparative literature, which draws on the most diverse literatures of the world, is able to bring this uniqueness into focus and highlight its social relevance.

Winter barley is mainly grown in Europe. Before new varieties are recommended for cultivation, they undergo evaluation in breeding and variety trials. Based on the results of these trials, the stability and adaptability of promising new lines or varieties are assessed. In the present study, based on results from post-registration trials, we compared varieties grown in the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons. We fitted two Bayesian mixed models and assessed the stability of the varieties using the posterior estimates of variance components from the preferred model. We also used Bayesian probabilistic methods to recommend the best varieties. Using the probabilistic methods, we identified the varieties that were the most stable and had the highest tuber yield in the barley post-registration trials. The varieties Melia, Mirabelle and Zenek were shown to be the three most stable and highest yielding. Furthermore, these three varieties had the highest joint probability of superior performance and stability. This study demonstrates that probabilistic methods within a Bayesian framework are a powerful tool for recommending the best winter barley varieties. The R-codes for both models are provided in a Supplement.

This paper examines some institutions of French public law and their transformations induced by European integration. It shows how institutions rooted in a specific political culture that long aimed at ensuring political liberty through the active role of la loi have been challenged by other institutions designed in the first place to protect civil liberties. It argues that the loi-based republican institutions of public law, that were inherited from the French Revolution and 18th century political thinkers, such as Montesquieu and above all Rousseau, have been significantly reshaped. That did not happen through politics, nor through another ‘French-style’ revolution. Ironically enough, it happened more modestly through law, within the meaning of le droit (and courts) as opposed to la loi (and the legislator), that is through those very means of political change that Republican France had consistently rejected ever since the Revolution. The French example showcases how paradigmatic political changes, from messianic republicanism to global constitutionalism, may thus occur, without a revolution, through the smooth medium of (European) law.

Ammonoid cephalopods are excellent model systems for evolutionary biomechanics due to their volatile evolutionary dynamics and remarkable fossil record. During the Mesozoic marine revolution, natural selection increasingly favored ammonoid shells with specific ranges of ornamentation patterns (projections that influence surface roughness). While this evolutionary pattern has been attributed to enemy-driven evolution (i.e., escalation), many morphologies lack clear defensive roles. Using a combination of 3D modeling, physical experiments, and computer simulations, we investigate these patterns from a hydromechanical perspective. We model theoretical morphologies along a continuum of increasing ornamentation coarseness. Neutrally buoyant, 3D-printed models, weighted to match the mass distribution of their virtual counterparts, demonstrate that coarser patterns progressively attenuate rocking motions. Flow visualization experiments reveal these coarser patterns produce higher energy dissipation rates in the disturbed fluid. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were performed to characterize the hydrodynamic costs of ornamentation patterns over the majority of biologically relevant swimming speeds and shell sizes for planispiral ammonoids. Only the coarsest categories incur substantial increases in hydrodynamic drag. However, ornamentation patterns with intermediate coarseness effectively avoid this physical trade-off, experiencing dynamic stabilization without considerably reducing swimming efficiency. These trade-off-defying morphologies were progressively favored during the Mesozoic, becoming more abundant than others by the end of this era. Ultimately, these experiments highlight important hydromechanical selective pressures involved in ammonoid evolutionary trends and some fundamental constraints on aquatic locomotion more broadly.

Following the trajectories of vaccines against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in France and Britain up to the 1960s, this paper will show how vaccine efficacy has two meanings: 1) technical – or experimental – which refers to test protocols and regimes of evidence, and 2) practical – or experiential – which refers to the experience various actors have of diseases and their direct or indirect impacts on society and the economy, as well as on representations and imaginaries they share about diseases, vaccines, and vaccination. The assessment protocols in the two countries are analysed to show how these two meanings are deeply intertwined and influence the different public policies chosen by each country. Although statistically assessed, the efficacy of the same vaccines appears situated, depending not only on regimes of evidence but also on the reality of agricultural practices, on national stock exchanges, and on various imaginaries about animal health and the absence of disease that differ between and within countries. As a consequence, this analysis reveals how public policies regarding vaccination do not always come from governmental incentives but can also emerge from private and local initiatives.

The Critically Endangered Hooded Grebe Podiceps gallardoi has suffered a population decline of 80% since the 1980s. The evolutionary history and its critical conservation status place it 20th in the EDGE of Existence Bird List (EDGE-ZSL) among the more than 10,000 bird species of the world. The identification of demographically independent units (“management units”) is essential to address appropriate conservation and management strategies for threatened species. Genetic markers can be used to infer isolated populations without the need for logistically expensive banding and recapture. We used blood samples of 71 Hooded Grebes (c.10% of the global population) from three reproductive populations located at different plateaus that hold over 90% of the species’ global population. We analysed genetic population structure using a 353-bp fragment of mtDNA control region and 1,886 RAD loci to study whether Hooded Grebes are philopatric or not. We did not find differences in genetic structure of populations between plateaus indicating that Hooded Grebes do not consistently return to their plateau of origin. Our results are critical to understanding the connection of populations throughout the full annual movement cycle and propose management actions accordingly.