In this chapter we first review the parameters discussed in the preceding chapters and try to show systematically which values each one has in a range of familiar Germanic, Romance and other languages. This leads to a discussion of the Parametric Comparison Method (PCM). Finally, we consider some of the theoretical issues concerning the nature of parameters and parametric variation and conjecture a new theoretical characterisation of parameters.

This chapter explores how globalization constrains the policy autonomy of democratic governments and introduces a typology of four mechanisms that affect their ability to fulfill campaign promises: international legal obligations, market actors, citizens’ expectations, and economic uncertainty. These constraints are not evenly distributed: left-leaning parties are particularly vulnerable due to their typically expansionary agendas, whereas right-leaning parties are more aligned with market preferences. The chapter argues that globalization alters the cost–benefit calculus of promise making, and that parties often make promises knowing they may be difficult to keep, either due to informational uncertainty or strategic electoral incentives. These dynamics complicate the relationship between citizens and their governments, raising questions about the viability of promissory representation under global economic interdependence. This conceptual framework sets the stage for the empirical analysis in subsequent chapters.

Chapter 2 examines the positionality of Africa in China’s larger pursuit of image and recognition. Drawing on high-level official speeches, academic and policy writings, as well as on selective interviews with China–Africa experts in Beijing and Shanghai, the chapter shows China’s dualistic visions for Africa. It is at once treated as an important pathway for China’s construction of its global image as a major responsible power, but also as a sensitive context in competing for narratives with the West. China’s activities in Africa are frequently the target of Western criticisms that feed into the larger Western narrative of the “China threat.” Chinese scholars and experts, in turn, advocate for both offensive and defensive image-making in Africa – strengthening its diplomatic reach and debunking Western narratives on neocolonialism and imperialism.

Following the text and the Timeline, the Guide to Further Information provides a brief essay for each chapter suggesting publications in English for readers interested in learning more. The essays also discuss major figures in art, literature, architecture, and music pertinent to each chapter, as well as places to see and things to do for visitors to Spain, including museums and archaeological sites.

Portugal, Castile, and Catalonia completed separate reconquests of Muslim territory. In 1469, Princess Isabel of Castile married her cousin, Prince Fernando of Aragón. After inheriting their respective thrones, they fought a war establishing separate areas of the world for Portugal and Castile to explore. In 1492, they defeated the last Muslim king of Granada and allowed Christopher Columbus to seek a westward route to Asia for Castile, avoiding the Portuguese route eastward. Instead of Asia, he happened upon the Americas, which had been unknown to European cosmography. That same year, the monarchs expelled Jewish subjects who refused to convert to Christianity, two centuries after England and France had done so. Isabel and Fernando established a religious inquisition to enforce Christian orthodoxy on the population as a whole, including new converts. In another decision with far-reaching consequences, they arranged marriages for their children with Portugal, France, England, and the Habsburgs of Central Europe. The unplanned consequence of the Habsburg alliance, together with a series of premature deaths, left their grandson, Charles of Ghent, heir to a large collection of territories in Europe, as well as all the lands claimed for Castile in the Americas.

This Chapter discusses ergativity and various kinds of split ergativity, as well as the apparent lack of SVO ergative languages. An analysis of ergativity in terms of inherent Case is proposed, following Sheehan (2017).

I develop a framework as to how to grow group mind content and how to destroy existing group minds, and present standard operating procedures for how group minds interact with individual members of the group. PPF suggests that the brain/mind seeks to minimize “surprise” because surprise tells us that our predictive models are inadequate. We want our predictive models to be accurate at predicting what is going to happen next in our lives. When our expectations are violated, we are surprised and that surprise then triggers the model-updating process. This process involves a relaxation of central executive control networks so that the group mind can take over control of the mind and behavior of the individual. Once the CEN/FPN is downregulated, the individual is open to exogenous influences and then “downloads” content from the group mind. That group mind content primes existing semantic content in the individual mind, which then interfaces with the cultural scripts produced by the group mind, thus allowing those to take over control of the individual mind. Once the scripts in the group mind occupy those external positions and promoter positions in the self model, the script can take over the neurologic machinery of the mind.

Chapter 4 turns to the danse macabre and the pathologization of motor disorders in two novels preoccupied with non-normative embodiment: Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and Smollett’s Humphry Clinker. Eighteenth-century conduct manuals often defined proper “carriage,” “comportment,” “mien,” and “air” in opposition to unusual or awkward motion. Resisting the all-too-common assumption that eccentric bodies function primarily as comic relief, Landreth looks to essays by Hume and Erasmus Darwin together with modern theorizations of ableism and motion sickness to read Sterne’s and Smollett’s novels as experiments in crafting new forms of sensorimotor selfhood. Both novels dispute practices of self-observation championed by Lockean philosophy and the Richardsonian novel tradition and ultimately challenge the assumption that the expression of one’s interior selfhood is – or should be – the main aim of fiction.

Franco prepared the son of the Bourbon pretender to succeed him and officially restored the monarchy in 1969. After Franco died, King Juan Carlos I quietly marshaled support to transform Spain into a true democracy, appointing as prime minister Adolfo Suárez, the former head of Spain’s radio and television networks, a man trusted by the right. While Suárez persuaded the Francoist Cortes to vote itself out of existence, Juan Carlos persuaded his colleagues in the military to allow change to happen. Within two years after Franco’s death, Spain emerged as a full-fledged democracy. Weathering an attempted right-wing coup, terrorism from Basque separatists, and the usual challenges of a modern democracy, Spain joined NATO in 1982 and was admitted to the European Union in 1986. Elected governments have alternated between moderate left and moderate right, and with the new millennium, Spaniards began to deal with the wounds of the past. Juan Carlos abdicated in 2014, and his son ascended the throne as Felipe VI, celebrating the tenth anniversary of his reign in 2024. Meanwhile, the Spanish economy has continued to enjoy impressive growth, fueled by tourism, immigration, and industries such as shipbuilding and automobile construction.

This chapter delves into the concept of ‘Rights of Nature’ (RoN) through a semiotic lens; in particular, the ethnological semiology of Jean Baudrillard has significantly influenced this contribution. RoN challenges conventional anthropocentric legal paradigms by integrating Indigenous cosmovisions in Western jurisprudence. By examining legislative examples such as New Zealand’s Te Awa Tupua Act and Australia’s Yarra River Protection Act, this chapter assesses whether these recognitions faithfully reflect Indigenous viewpoints or merely adapt nature into pre-existing Western ontological (legal) philosophies.

RoN frequently intersects with Indigenous cosmovisions, suggesting a profound, metaphysical significance beyond Western legal constructs. This discussion illuminates the evolving character of RoN and its interplay with legal pluralism. The incorporation of RoN into Western legal systems unveils a dynamic where Indigenous knowledge is recognised but simultaneously streamlined to conform to established legal structures.

The chapter further contemplates the possibility that RoN may simply codify Indigenous rights without capturing the full depth of Indigenous perspectives. Ultimately, RoN signifies an endeavour to broaden the legal recognition of nature and its purported intrinsic values, albeit at the risk of misrepresenting Indigenous knowledge as mere extensions of Western legal ontology. In doing so, RoN adorns itself with the Indigenous symbol and ritual to advance environmental politics.

CBDCs have the potential to disintermediate deposits from the banking system and move them into CBDC accounts held at the central bank. Such disintermediation could lead to a less productive financial system because previously stable bank credit is undermined by CBDC issue. The banking system would also be more prone to crisis, which could erupt suddenly too.

In the event of a major market shock, there may be no interest rate sufficient to prevent fund holders moving large amounts into CBDCs, and this problem could be aggravated further by administrative ‘fixity’ in CBDC rates of return. We would then get a situation similar to what happened with the US Postal Service system in the 1930s when administrative fixity in Post Office interest rates sucked deposits out of the banking system.

CBDC policymakers would also have to grapple with a clear contradiction between a central bank’s commitment to maintaining a fixed rate of exchange between commercial and central bank money, and a central bank considering the use of quantitative restrictions on the issue of CBDCs. Should the demand for CBDCs surge, then it may become impossible to maintain parity between CBDCs and conventional central bank money.