Huainanzi 淮南子 contributes a model of sage rulership as, among other things, rule through wuwei 無為, or “non-action.” Through analysis of several concepts core to the text’s political cosmology of governance by wuwei—qi 氣 (vital breath, energy-matter), resonance (gan-ying 感應), and sincerity (cheng 誠)—this article suggests that Huainanzian sagely wuwei refers to an act that seemingly straddles a patterned level of reality of distinct forms, on the one hand, and a primordial, chaos-like reality, beyond the bounds of form, on the other. In an effort to grasp, first, how a singular Huainanzian cosmos may present two seemingly structurally antithetical faces, and second, how the sage-ruler’s program may not only embrace, but put to powerful political effect, the paradoxical union of these two “faces,” this paper draws on a heuristic of fractal and Euclidean geometries, simplified from modern mathematics. The article thereby contributes a further representational modality for thinking through Huainanzi’s extensive, multi-faceted political cosmology, joining in discourse a recent swell of research interested in the same.

Environmental taxation is often justified by the ‘double dividend’ hypothesis, yet evidence overwhelmingly derives from high-income countries. In low-income countries (LICs), where broadening the tax base is a central fiscal priority, we identify a special case – the ‘tax base’ double dividend– in which environmental levies simultaneously curb emissions and strengthen revenue capacity. Exploiting Uganda’s 2018 reform of vehicle import duties as a natural experiment, we use administrative microdata covering all motor vehicle imports and a difference-in-differences strategy to assess this proposition. The reform generated substantial revenue gains alongside modest improvements in the emissions profile of imports. Effects varied by vehicle type, highlighting the need for policy tailoring. Drawing on these results, we outline design principles for LICs, emphasising sequencing, enforcement and inter-agency coordination. Uganda’s experience shows that administratively simple, import-based carbon taxes can serve as an effective and politically feasible entry point to carbon pricing while advancing domestic resource mobilisation.

The racial segregation of schools is commonly cited as the foundational injustice of the U.S. education system and an ongoing impediment to educational equality. For liberal experts and reformers, school segregation is defined as a pattern of racially separate schools serving either White students or students of color. This paper argues that this prevailing understanding of the school segregation issue is intellectually inadequate and politically limiting. Drawing on a case study of Chicago’s movement for racial educational justice in the 1960s, I show that this simple framing of the issue initially gained prominence as an alternative to the more radical and contextualized critique of urban school segregation articulated by local Black grassroots activists. In contrast with official liberal discourse and reform proposals, Black urban activists in the early 1960s challenged school segregation as a set of educational policies and practices that render schools both separate and unequal, locking Black students out of more privileged White schools and contributing to the uneven development of schools across the racial divide. By recovering this suppressed grassroots critique of urban school segregation, this paper calls for a broader theorization of contemporary school segregation as dynamic and relational rather than a static statistical pattern that simply compounds the existing concentration of disadvantage within segregated neighborhoods.

An aspect of the Indigenous struggle against colonial oppression is the struggle for the inclusion of their knowledge in policymaking. Perceived as epistemically inferior to science, Indigenous knowledge and subsequently interests are systematically excluded in science-based policy. This article advances an anti-colonial political philosophy of science. As Indigenous knowledge feeds into the necessary political value judgments in policy-relevant science, Indigenous knowledge inclusion, I contend, should be treated as a political, not solely epistemic, matter. I further argue that Indigenous peoples, not just scientists, should have the power to make such political value judgments given the politics of representation under coloniality.

To enhance the supervision of regional environmental issues, China initiated a nationwide campaign in 2007 to establish environmental courts and formulate local environmental regulations. This study selected Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2004 to 2021 as its research sample to examine the impact of local environmental legislation and the establishment of environmental courts on corporate carbon emissions. The findings indicate that the combined effect of these measures significantly curbs carbon emissions. Additionally, the study identifies that the intensity of local environmental court establishment and the implementation of corporate pollution charges or environmental protection taxes are critical mechanisms through which environmental legislation and court establishment reduce corporate carbon emissions. Finally, the interaction of environmental legislation and court establishment on corporate carbon emissions is most pronounced in regions where the government exhibits lower environmental concern, in state-owned enterprises, in enterprises located in the eastern region and in highly polluted cities.

Pregnancy scams or fraudulent representations of pregnancy – a situation where a woman who knows that she is not pregnant, or has no reason to suspect that she is, deceives her spouse or sexual partner into believing that she is, usually for her own self-interest – have become a common phenomenon in Ghana, and the media is replete with such episodes. However, even though these media publications are useful in bringing this practice to the attention of the public, an analysis of the legal ramifications of, and the criminal justice response to, the phenomenon is virtually non-existent in the academic literature. Drawing on pertinent judicial decisions, statutes and academic literature, the present study offers an exposition of the legal implications of the pregnancy scam phenomenon in contemporary Ghana. It explores the extent to which this type of fraud is (un)actionable, highlighting important legal principles and controversies.

Ethnographic methods of all varieties contend with the idea of the “truth” of accounts and the meanings attached to them, as well as the importance of context in mitigating truth or falseness in how these accounts are presented. Discerning truth from lies and the purpose of both in the context of making meaning in a time and place is at the heart of the ethnographic enterprise. Because powerful images or messages evoke emotional reactions on social media or contributory websites like message boards, the relative accuracy of the representations they make is often less important than their reach and the ways they make and remake “reality” for their audiences. A picture or an image, even one attributed to a context or a meaning wholly independent of the context from which it emerged, becomes part of how people online see or experience an event. The context in which information is presented and the speakers or presenters of this information also condition its uptake and resonance. This paper argues that ethnography is uniquely suited to understand the effects and reach of decontextualized information and the ways it makes meaning, both on- and offline.

For decades, the study of Chartism has been one of the most vibrant fields of modern British history. Indeed, this nineteenth-century radical movement was a major empirical focus for proponents of the so-called linguistic turn that has exerted such a major influence on the discipline. Interest in the Chartists does not abate, with valuable recent studies all combining—to greater or lesser extent—close attention to Chartist verbal and symbolic forms of communication with novel thematic concerns. However, more remains to be said about the language of Chartism, the topic that provided the original impetus for so much subsequent work. Specifically, the generally accepted argument that languages of constitutionalism and democracy were inextricably intertwined can be questioned, a task made easier by digitization of key organs of the Chartist press. This article revisits this intertwining in the pages of the Northern Star from the movement’s beginnings in the late 1830s to its disintegration in the late 1840s. It commences with results of a quantitative analysis of Chartist discourse and reconsideration of the relationship between the constitutional and democratic idioms in the movement’s early phase. Four factors are then discussed, which help explain the increasing prevalence of the language of democracy through the 1840s: heightened social conflict during the general strike of 1842; Chartist engagement in formal politics; international developments; and the crisis of 1848. However, despite the dominant linguistic trend, connections between democracy and social class, forged in the early 1840s, were not immutable but contingent.

Gauge theories are often characterized as possessing ‘redundancy’ or ‘excess structure’. This, in turn, motivates reducing the gauge symmetries, commonly through ‘symplectic reduction’ in the Hamiltonian framework. However, there are multiple ways to formulate a Hamiltonian gauge theory. This paper examines the relationship between the formulation of a Hamiltonian gauge theory and the attribution of excess structure. I argue that one can formulate a Hamiltonian gauge theory such that symplectic reduction does not remove structure, and there-fore that the role of symplectic reduction cannot be purely to remove ‘excess structure’. I discuss in what sense symplectic reduction is thereby motivated.

This study examines whether different biodiversity proxies – species, habitat and functionality – satisfy the scope sensitivity and plausibility criteria in willingness to pay (WTP) estimation using a choice experiment in Manu National Park, Peru. We introduce the network of species interactions as a proxy for functionality and apply latent class (LC) models, including attribute non-attendance (ANA), to account for heterogeneity in preferences. Our results indicate that functionality is the only proxy consistently meeting both validity criteria across all specifications. LC analysis reveals two segments: one (74.4 per cent) displaying coherent, scope-sensitive WTP across biodiversity attributes, and another (25.6 per cent) less engaged, disregarding standard proxies but still valuing networks. Even under ANA constraints, networks remain salient for less attentive respondents, underscoring their cognitive accessibility in complex ecological contexts. These findings highlight the methodological and policy relevance of functionality-based proxies for biodiversity valuation in megadiverse environments, where conventional measures may fail to elicit behaviourally consistent responses.

How do perceptions of demographic change affect the strength of white identity and corresponding attitudes toward immigrants, immigration and personal perceptions of victimhood? While white identity has received scholarly attention in the United States, we know much less about its effects in Canada. We conducted a preregistered survey experiment in which we exposed respondents to different framings on Canada’s increasing ethnic diversity. We find that perceiving demographic change increases feelings of white identity, particularly when framed as an increase in Canada’s visible minority or immigrant population. However, exposure to these trends does not in turn robustly affect respondents’ attitudes toward immigrants, immigration admission preferences or own perceptions of personal victimhood. These findings suggest that white identity is both present and can be primed in Canada; however, it has not yet been politically mobilized in the same way as in other contexts, such as the United States.

This article examines two ruined monumental architectural complexes in ancient Oaxaca: the Main Plaza of Monte Albán and the acropolis of Río Viejo. I consider how the material vibrancy of these ruins differed in ways that both brought together and destabilized communities. After its abandonment, the ruins of the Main Plaza, as well as the mountain on which it was built, continued to assemble substances important to human well-being, including rain, clouds, sky, mountains, ancestors, and deities. People periodically journeyed to the plaza to make offerings and bury their revered dead, thereby constituting a broader identity and community. In contrast, the earthen architecture of the acropolis, located in the center of Río Viejo, rapidly decayed in the tropical lowland climate. The reemergence of hierarchy at Río Viejo in the Late Classic period activated material memories of rupture held in the ruins that threatened and resisted new forms of community and political authority.

This essay highlights hitherto overlooked continuities between Husserl’s phenomenological idealism and Hegel’s absolute idealism. I focus on Husserl’s account of essence and argue that some of Husserl’s core expositions of essences suggest that they are akin to Hegelian concrete universals: like concrete universals, phenomenological essences are ideal entities instantiated in particulars and exemplify a structure of unity-in-difference. Husserl’s proximity to these Hegelian tenets is evident in his account of the ego’s self-constitution, which is broadly consistent with Hegel’s account of the determination of the Concept. Appreciating Husserl’s similarities with Hegel suggests a means of reconciling competing metaphysical, epistemic, and transcendental interpretations of Husserl’s idealism. By revealing the extent to which the transcendental character of Husserl’s phenomenology is embedded within some absolute idealist commitments, these results locate Husserl in hybrid philosophical territory, between transcendental and absolute versions of idealism, allowing him to reconcile his transcendental and realist commitments, and offering him a defence against the charge that he succumbs to an unsophisticated and unattractive form of subjectivism.

Nematode records and specimens from the South Australian Museum, Australian Museum, CSIRO Wildlife Collection, Queensland Museum, Western Australian Museum, and Natural History Museum, London, of 1107 individuals of Rattus fuscipes were examined. The nematode community comprised 19 families, 36 genera, and 44 identified species. Mastophorus muris and unidentified heligmonellids were recovered from 4 individuals of R. f. fuscipes. Rattus f. assimilis was infected with 40 identified species of nematode from 955 individuals; R. f. coracius 18 species from 107 individuals; and R. f. greyii 8 species from 28 individuals. Rattus fuscipes harboured 18 species in Northern Queensland, 27 species in Southern Queensland, 27 species in New South Wales, 19 species in Victoria, and 8 species in South Australia. A bootstrap analysis of the R. f. greyii nematode community indicated that 91.3% of species had been found. No core species were revealed. The Trichostrongylidae dominated with Nippostrongylus magnus, and Odilia emanuelae occurring in all the populations. Nippostrongylus magnus, 43% prevalence, in Victoria and Physaloptera troughtoni, 42% prevalence, in South Australia were secondary species. Sorensen’s indices indicated that R. f. assimilis and R. f. coracius had the most similar nematode communities, 54.8%. Overall, the Northern and Southern Queensland populations were most similar (77.3%) and the New South Wales and South Australian populations least similar (22.9%). The identifications of Heterakis spumosa, Physaloptera troughtoni, Rictularia mackerrasae, and Pterygodermatites pearsoni were confirmed. The species composition of the nematode community of R. fuscipes suggested a scenario of coevolution, host switching, recently acquired and occasional infections in a community of cosmopolitan, regional, and indigenous species. Species throughout the component communities of R. fuscipes indicated that climate and habitat were also determinants of species composition.