At the start of Hume’s Dialogues Philo feigns to agree with Demea that he believes that God exists, and both Philo and Demea claim that we cannot come to have knowledge of the nature of God. In §1, however, I turn to Cleanthes’ ‘Newtonian Theism’ in which science is seen as serving theology, with a central role played by the argument from design. We can infer ‘that the Author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man’ (D 2.5). §2 turns to the various critiques of this argument put forward by Philo and we find that his alliance with Demea is a ruse. Philo rejects the theism of both Cleanthes and Demea. §3 focuses on part 12 of the Dialogues where Philo appears to take a more conciliatory line towards belief in God. Various interpreters take Philo to be committed to a thin form of deism or theism. I reject such interpretations and argue that part 12 does not diverge from the atheistic message of the Dialogues.

One of the difficulties we face is how to characterize the current regime headed by Narendra Modi, which has won back-to-back victories in three elections (2014–2024). The terminology within which we understand the regime is important, as what to expect from the regime flows from its nature and how to resist it will emerge from an understanding of its character. What is apparent about the regime is its pronounced authoritarianism, with the regime increasingly unaccountable to any constitutional authority.

The Spanish political scientist Juan Linz called such regimes, in which the leader has arbitrary and unlimited discretion, ‘sultanist’ and a species of authoritarianism. Linz (2000, p. 259) defines an authoritarian regime as ‘ruler-centred’ where the

What ‘sultanism’ implies is captured indelibly by Girish Karnad in his play Tughlaq. Karnad captures Mohammad Bin Tughlaq, who embodied this form of arbitrary and whimsical decision-making, be it the decision to issue currency in brass or the decision to shift the capital to Daulatabad. Clearly, the Modi regime has ‘sultanist’ characteristics, based on the personalized and arbitrary decision-making which characterizes the regime.

Every 5 years, the World Congress of the Econometric Society brings together scholars from around the world. Leading scholars present state-of-the-art overviews of their areas of research, offering newcomers access to key research in economics. Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Twelfth World Congress consists of papers and commentaries presented at the Twelfth World Congress of the Econometric Society. This two-volume set includes surveys and interpretations of key developments in economics and econometrics, and discussions of future directions for a variety of topics, covering both theory and application. The first volume addresses such topics as contract theory, industrial organization, health and human capital, as well as racial justice, while the second volume includes theoretical and applied papers on climate change, time-series econometrics, and causal inference. These papers are invaluable for experienced economists seeking to broaden their knowledge or young economists new to the field.

The ‘logic’ of charity in modern Britain has been understood as ‘complex’ and ‘varied’: ‘a loose and baggy monster’. Charity after Empire takes this complexity as the basis for a new interpretation. First, the indeterminacy of the role and function of charity lay behind its popularity and growth. With no fixed notions of what they should be or what they should do, charities and NGOs have expanded because they have been many things to many people. Second, the messy practices of aid meant success could always be claimed amidst uncertain objectives and outcomes, triggering further expansion. Third, just as charity was welcomed as a solution to poverty overseas, its scope and potential were contained by powerful political actors who restricted its campaigning and advocacy work. Fourth, racial injustice, especially apartheid, shaped not only humanitarianism overseas but also the domestic governance of charity in Britain. It all resulted not only in the massive expansion of charity but also limitations placed on its role and remit.

This chapter examines the foundations of Sarah Wambaugh’s political thought and attempts to reconstruct her world view. Wambaugh’s avid support for the League of Nations was premised on her understanding of it as a new scientific way of conducting international politics. Key to her faith in political science, and later forming a key part of her prescriptions for the plebiscite, was her belief in the importance of neutrality, a concept of international law then in flux. Alongside neutrality, the concept of public opinion was also in flux, with debates as to its relationship to democracy and expertise. The chapter points to the way in which public opinion and perceptions were also integral to her later normative prescriptions for the plebiscite, and ends with an examination of Wambaugh’s own public relations campaign for American entry to into the League of Nations.

Every 5 years, the World Congress of the Econometric Society brings together scholars from around the world. Leading scholars present state-of-the-art overviews of their areas of research, offering newcomers access to key research in economics. Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Twelfth World Congress consists of papers and commentaries presented at the Twelfth World Congress of the Econometric Society. This two-volume set includes surveys and interpretations of key developments in economics and econometrics, and discussions of future directions for a variety of topics, covering both theory and application. The first volume addresses such topics as contract theory, industrial organization, health and human capital, as well as racial justice, while the second volume includes theoretical and applied papers on climate change, time-series econometrics, and causal inference. These papers are invaluable for experienced economists seeking to broaden their knowledge or young economists new to the field.

Arbitration, whether domestic or international, has always been the preferred choice for ADR amongst the trade community. It is generally argued that the concept of international arbitration as an ADR mechanism originated and developed in Western Europe. But domestic arbitration as a private dispute resolution mechanism outside of the courts existed in different forms in all societies. In the Arab countries, Asia and Africa, traditional arbitration was known in a form that is close to amiable compositeur or conciliation in Western Europe. Since the 1990s, the world has seen a dramatic increase in the quantum and complexity of international business transactions. In contrast to the more traditional forms of international trade such as sale or transportation of merchandise, these transactions, dealing with complex technologies and frequently involving more than two parties, have typically expanded over time. The world is becoming smaller, and national boundaries are becoming more permeable and gradually losing their economic significance. Modern technologies and the continuing shift towards market economies and free trade are creating an increasingly globalised world economy. In addition, regional integration of markets in trading blocks is changing the parameters of business activities. Faced with the growing internationalisation of competition and escalating cost of technologies, individuals and organisations are witnessing a gradual increase in transnational business disputes. From the beginning, arbitration has been governed by national laws that differed from state to state. The need to unify the framework for international arbitration became evident during the 1920s when ideas were being developed for the unification of rules on international trade in general.

Arbitration is currently a global phenomenon. It has gained popularity among the international commercial community the world over. The significance of the study of commercial arbitration, especially international commercial arbitration, lies in the fact that in the contemporary world of changing economic dimensions, it has become an indispensable mechanism for consensually dealing with international disputes. Beyond its practical importance, international arbitration is worthy of attention because it involves a framework of international rules and institutions. This, with remarkable success, provides a fair, neutral, expert and efficient means for resolving difficult transactional problems. These rules have evolved over time through the joint efforts of national governments and international institutions.

However, arbitration is increasingly faced with complexities of parties and disputes originating from different countries and legal traditions. The laws applicable in these various jurisdictions may be less favourable towards arbitration, or even less flexible. How would the tribunals sitting in arbitration-friendly jurisdictions address the legal differences? There is anxiety among the world's different legal systems across countries that make it relatively easy to arbitrate unhindered by stringent regulatory framework and oversight by the national law.

Hence, the harmonisation of international commercial arbitration law and its procedure continues to gradually develop. There has already been a plethora of international conventions, treaties and agreements that have assisted in attempting to achieve harmonisation of arbitration law and practice. This has further helped shaping international commercial arbitration as the primary means for global businesses to resolve their disputes.

This chapter examines the career of Tristram (Jimmy) Betts, a former civil servant in Nigeria, Oxfam’s first Field Director in Southern Africa and the brother of the Labour Party’s first Minister for Overseas Development, Barbara Castle. Figures such as Betts ensured that charities were important intermediaries in the shift from the colonial to the postcolonial world. Through their extensive connections, they were the conduit through which late-colonial states invited in charities to play important roles in the delivery of social services. Through a case study of the three High Commission Territories of Basutoland (Lesotho), Bechuanaland (Botswana) and Swaziland (Eswatini), it argues charities were a key part of the new world of development through the international agencies. The United Nations’ Freedom From Hunger Committees enrolled the charities into the broader machinery of official aid and development in the 1960s. It meant they were transformed from organisations focused on emergency relief to ones funding long-term development.

This chapter turns to Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Swahili coast narratives, focusing on his novel Desertion (2005), which tells stories about interracial intimacies between Indian, Swahili, and European characters across multiple generations in colonial and postcolonial periods. In the nineteenth century, colonial debates on Indian emigration to Africa insisted on a clear racial separation between “native” Africans and Indian “settlers.” Late twentieth-century East African nationalist discourses reproduced this racialized indigeneity as national identity. Gurnah’s critique of this racial nationalism lies in the novel’s experimental aesthetics, which involve perspectival storytelling, nested stories, and inclusion of multiple genres. The novel’s layered narration gives expression to abject, repressed Indian Ocean intimacies, reconfiguring colonial models of racial encounter as part of the longer history of migration and exchange in Indian Ocean. The melancholic return of Indian Ocean affiliations troubles both the racial-dystopic conception of nationhood in postcolonial East Africa and the utopic imagining of a multiracial community of the past or future.

The contradiction at the heart of the 1935 Saar plebiscite – its public perception as a tool of international peace, and its political reality as a Nazi triumph – would lead to the plebiscite playing a particularly ignoble role in the diplomacy leading to the 1938 Munich Pact, where the Saar plebiscite was a precedent literally written into the agreement dismembering Czechoslovakia. Consequently the reputation of the plebiscite soon collapsed, and during the Second World War it was not seriously entertained by the allies planning the post-war world. Although women as a whole were largely marginalised in these official peace planning organisations, Sarah Wambaugh’s connection to the now-discredited plebiscite served to marginalise her even further. At the same time, both Wambaugh and the post-war planners began to appreciate that the plebiscite’s component parts could be used to perform other tasks, including monitoring domestic elections and administering territory.

From the mid-eighties of the last century, the neoliberal economic model, devised by the anti-collectivist theorists,1 which conceptually elevates competition as a high principle, has been favoured by the ruling classes. It remains nothing but a social Darwinist contrivance for accumulation by dispossession (Harvey 2004). Since the collapse of the Soviet system, it has become almost the default model sans alternative. The endemic crises it entails and the alienation it engenders necessitate increasingly authoritative responses and demagogic strategies from the rulers, using existing social divisions in the form of castes, religions, ethnicities, and so on, which lead to the fascization of societies.

While this trend is visible everywhere today, some countries have congenial ideological resources for the fascization of their societies. India, with a hegemonic Brahminist ideology (with its hierarchical ethos and the organizational dominance of its hegemons in the state apparatus as well as in civil society) is uniquely positioned. While fascization has been discernible since the 1990s in the overt majoritarian communalism whipped up by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), it was somewhat muted by the lack of political consensus and the moral scruples of constitutional decencies.