Articles In Issue Research Articles

Regulation and development: Theoretical contributions and empirical lessons from Latin America

AbstractHow do regulation and development relate to each other? Despite the centrality of this question to the worlds of research and practice, surprisingly little scholarship has reflected on the nexus between regulation and development. Existing studies are mainly concerned with the design and operation of regulatory institutions and instruments in developed countries. Regulatory propositions about “developing” countries have, however, remained at a rather general level. This introductory article and the following set of contributions intend to broaden our understanding on how regulation and development relate to each other with a particular emphasis on Latin America. This article introduces key debates and themes as well as an analytical framework that incorporates the various dimensions of the regulation‐development nexus. It also discusses the literature on regulation in Latin America. Following a brief overview of the articles in this special issue, we conclude with reflections regarding future research on the relationship between regulation and development.

COVID-19, Satirical Activism, and Chinese Youth Culture: An Introduction

This article introduces the key theme of the special issue on “satirical activism and youth culture in and beyond COVID-19 China.” It contextualizes the case studies offered by the five articles in the special issue in three key terms: COVID-19, satirical activism, and Chinese youth culture. It asks: What are the new and evolving forms and genres of satirical activism in China, and what is the implication of satirical activism on Chinese youth culture? The article points out the significance of the study of dynamics and politics of the relationship between humor and satire, youth, popular culture, and citizen activism in the era of digital connectivity and vernacular creativity; it calls for more research on the roles of humor and satire in manufacturing and managing consent and opinion.

Reforming Japanese capitalism: introduction

ABSTRACT Is Japan creating a new economic model through digital and green transformation which will overcome its ‘lost decades’ lethargy and demographic challenges? Do Society 5.0, DX, GX, ‘new/sustainable capitalism’, Digital Garden City Nation and other initiatives represent a well-intentioned mish-mash, or something new and potentially coherent which other countries should take notice of? These questions animated a conference held in Oxford in February 2023, and subsequently informed the 11 articles in this special issue by European and Japanese academics and policy makers. The collection identifies tensions and contradictions but also significant changes in in corporate governance, innovation, public policy and human resources, which may point to a new direction for Japanese capitalism.

Disenchanting Educational Policy and Leadership: An Introduction

This introduction provides an overview of the articles in the special issue. Drawing on Sylvia Wynter’s notion of disenchantment, the articles in this special issue interrogate power and inequity in education. They question the given assumptions of education policy and aim to reorient us toward justice and educational transformation, pushing back against claims of “neutrality” or educational projects that reinscribe harm.

Pluralising China as method: Between exceptionalism and universalism

To not only celebrate the launch of this double special issue, but also to shine a spotlight on the variety of China as Method epistemological approaches shared by the special issue’s editors and authors, the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Hong Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies, the University of Amsterdam’s Media Studies Department, and Global Media and China, co-organised a hybrid symposium to generate intellectual exchanges on such a de-westernising mode of knowledge production. While the research articles in this double special issue extensively examine ‘distinct’ characteristics of China, in this introduction, we reflect on if we are essentialising China. We do not want to apply a universalist logic that exists in theories by and from the Global North to be ‘experimented on’ in the Global South; yet, we also seek to move away from ‘China exceptionalism’ and express the stance that China can only be understood in its positionality to other areas (and modes of knowledge production) of the world. Thus, this special issue seeks to further deconstruct China as Method, challenge the existing power imbalance, and pluralise knowledge production.

Advances in Understanding the Interplay between Dietary Practices, Body Composition, and Sports Performance in Athletes.

The dietary practices of athletes play a crucial role in shaping their body composition, influencing sports performance, training adaptations, and overall health. However, despite the widely acknowledged significance of dietary intake in athletic success, there exists a gap in our understanding of the intricate relationships between nutrition, body composition, and performance. Furthermore, emerging evidence suggests that many athletes fail to adopt optimal nutritional practices, which can impede their potential achievements. In response, this Special Issue seeks to gather research papers that delve into athletes' dietary practices and their potential impacts on body composition and sports performance. Additionally, studies focusing on interventions aimed at optimizing dietary habits are encouraged. This paper outlines the key aspects and points that will be developed in the ensuing articles of this Special Issue.

Enquête Nationale Confidentielle sur les Morts Maternelles en France, un système de surveillance améliorée depuis 25 ans, indispensable pour la caractérisation fiable des décès maternels

Although maternal mortality is rare in wealthy countries, it remains a fundamental indicator of maternal health. It is considered to be a “sentinel event”, the occurrence of which indicates dysfunctions, often cumulative, in the healthcare system. In addition to the classic epidemiological surveillance findings – number of deaths, maternal mortality ratio, distribution of medical causes, sub-groups of women at risk – its study, through a precise analysis of the history of each woman who died, enables to highlight areas for improvement in the content or organisation of care, the correction of which will make it possible to prevent not only deaths but also upstream morbid events involving the same mechanisms. To achieve this dual epidemiological and clinical audit objective, an ad hoc “enhanced” system is needed. France has had such a system since 1996, the Enquête Nationale Confidentielle sur la Mortalité Maternelle (ENCMM), under the joint supervision of Santé Publique France and Inserm. The ENCMM method aims to identify maternal deaths exhaustively and reliably up to 1 year after the end of pregnancy, and to document each death as fully as possible. The 1st step is the multi-source identification (direct declaration, death certificates, linkage with birth certificates, hospital stay database) of women who died during pregnancy or in the year following its end. The 2nd step is the collection of detailed information for each death by a pair of clinical assessors. The 3rd step is the review of these anonymised documents by the National Expert Committee on Maternal Mortality, which establishes the maternal nature of the death (causal link with pregnancy) and, with a stated aim of improvement rather than judgement, assesses the adequacy of care and the preventability of the death. The summary of the information gathered for maternal deaths in the 2016–2018 period is presented in the other articles of this special issue.

Local Structures in Proteins from Microsecond Molecular Dynamics Simulations: 2. The Role of Symmetry in GTPase Binding and Dimer Formation.

The Rho GTPase binding domain of Plexin-B1 (RBD) prevails in solution as dimer. Under appropriate circumstances, it binds the small GTPase Rac1 to yield the complex RBD-Rac1. Here, we study RBD dimerization and complex formation from a symmetry-based perspective using data derived from 1 μs long MD simulations. The quantities investigated are the local potentials, u(MD), prevailing at the N-H sites of the protein. These potentials are statistical in character providing an empirical description of the local structure. To establish more methodical description, a method for approximating them by explicit functions, u(simulated), was developed in the preceding article in this journal issue. These functions are combinations of analytical Wigner functions, DL,K, belonging to the D2h point group. The D2h subgroups Ag and B2u are found to dominate u(simulated); the B1u subgroup contributes in some cases. The Ag (B2u) functions have axial or rhombic symmetry. For the first time, local potentials in proteins can be quantitatively characterized in terms of their strength (rhombicity) evaluated by axial Ag (rhombic Ag and B2u) contributions. Until now, the chain-segment [β3-L3-β4] and to some extent the α2-helix have been associated with GTPase binding. Here, we find that this process causes an increase (decrease) in the potential strength of β3 and β4 (the preceding L2 loop and the remote chain-segment [(α2-helix)-(α2/β5-turn)-(β5-strand)]), suggesting effects of counterbalancing and allostery. There is evidence for the L2 loop being associated with RBD-GTPase binding. Until now only the L4 loop has been associated with RBD dimerization. The latter process is found to cause an increase (decrease) in the potential strength and rhombicity of the L4 loop (the adjacent chain-segment [(α2-helix)-(α2/β5-turn)-(β5-strand)]), suggesting counterbalancing activity. On average, the RBD dimer features stronger local potentials than RBD-Rac1. The novel information inherent in these findings is mesoscopic in character. Prospects of interest include exploring relation to atomistic force-field parameters.

Preface

While infrastructures are governed by institutions and rules, they also govern us, as social actors, by their very design. This special issue is dedicated to the study of the governance embedded in infrastructures, as opposed to the governance of the effects they might produce. From machine learning to artificial intelligence, from gig economy platforms to the infrastructures used by governments for advertising or social security, the articles in this special issue highlight the digital governance we are subject to, while exploring alternatives we might consider.

Grounding legal geography: Conversations on law, space, and power across disparate geographies

Legal geographic research is a heterogeneous and lively academic field that, for decades now, has offered a wide array of critiques to hegemonic takes on ‘law’, ‘space’, and ‘power’, and the relation among them. Nonetheless, a broader engagement with legal geographic scholarship beyond the Anglosphere has not been fully embraced. This article introduces a set of contributions to grounding legal geography: First, as a set of practices that situate us in particular places, or severs the connections we have with those places; and second, as a form of knowledge, constituted in particular places, in distinctive ways. In centering Colombian legal geographies, the articles in this theme issue offer a nuanced understanding of legal formations and practices that shape territory, property, mobility, security, formality, and legality, among other key issues in the study of law, space, and power.

The Abolition of Slavery in Africa's Legal Histories

AbstractThis introduction contextualizes the special issue's articles in the broader continental dynamics. It discusses the Eurocentric bias of the historiography and suggests that the view that Europe was responsible for the legal abolition of slavery in Africa should be nuanced and qualified. Some independent African polities abolished slavery before Europe's colonial occupation. Nowhere did European abolitionists encounter a tabula rasa: African polities had complex jurisdictions, oral or written, which formed the normative background against which slavery's abolition should be studied. To do so, however, it is misleading to imagine abolitionism as a unitary movement spreading globally out of Europe. What happened differed from context to context. Normative systems varied, and so did abolition's legal processes. This introduction examines the dynamics that led to the introduction and implementation of anti-slavery laws in African legal systems. It recenters the analysis of the legal abolition of slavery in Africa around particular African actors, concepts, strategies, and procedures.

Visualizing Systemic Change Through Group Counseling: Established and Emerging Approaches

In this editorial, we introduce snapshots of the entire set of published articles in this special issue of Professional School Counseling. We also incorporate our own individual and collective journeys reading, digesting, editing, and reacting to this material. We take the opportunity to present our impressions both visually and narratively to demonstrate how group counseling in schools remains relevant and continues to expand while holding on to salient foundational concepts. In particular, these articles are visually situated in relation to the multitiered systems of support (MTSS) framework as a way to demonstrate the impact groups can have on entire schools and communities. Throughout this introduction, we raise questions that have yet to be answered and challenge scholars to explore others not addressed by this compilation of articles. Finally, we conclude by offering several questions for the reader to consider in their own group counseling practice endeavors.

Entrepreneurship as collective action: The next frontier

Analyses of collective action in entrepreneurship are lacking in the extant literature. Despite entrepreneurship research progressively moving away from a focus on the lone heroic entrepreneur, scholars have yet to absorb the full potential of entrepreneurship as collective action. Also missing is a collective stance on key entrepreneurship concepts such as opportunity discovery or construction and entrepreneurial agency. Accordingly, this article reviews and critiques five articles that constitute this Special Issue seeking to establish ‘entrepreneurship as collective action’ as the next frontier of entrepreneurship theory development. The articles in this Special Issue each investigate a specific instance of collective action in entrepreneurship. This article contributes to extant scholarship by highlighting transversal themes and offering further research avenues.

Afterword: Dialogic space

ABSTRACT This final article in this special issue on dialogic space discusses some of the themes raised and points towards the future. It begins with a brief recollection of how the idea of dialogic space as a guide to teaching began in the 1990s in research on classroom talk. The articles in this issue show some of the ways in which the use of dialogic space has expanded since then to provide a range of pedagogical tools and insights in different contexts. While rooted in practice, dialogic space also suggests a new theory of education pointing to the importance of not just transmitting knowledge and skills but also expanding dialogue. Challenges to the application of dialogic space theory in education are reflected upon, and the growing role of technology is considered. The paper ends with the relevance of research on dialogic space in education as a way of responding to some of our most pressing problems.

A Conservative (R)Evolution? Constitutional–Political Crises, Trumpism, and Long-standing Trends of Conservative Transformations in the United States and Beyond

Starting from the most current developments in the legal and political processing of Donald J. Trump’s (post)presidency, this contribution highlights the persisting challenges to the constitutional, social, and political stability of democracy in the United States (U.S.). In particular, it outlines several dimensions of an enabling environment in which Trump(ism) could thrive. A key feature of this is the thorough and ever-growing asymmetry that has come to characterize the partisan political context in the United States and that directs our attention to the conservative side of the political spectrum: the Republican Party as its major organizational embodiment, as well as broader trends of conservative (trans)formation, including those related to the electorate, policies, institutions, civil society, and the media. Thus, this contribution underlines the importance of the multiple and often longer-term influences, conflicts, institutions, and conditions conducive to current developments, including, in particular, the range of actors that have been relevant in shaping them. Asymmetric polarization, economic inequality, and nationalist and anti-government (authoritarian–populist) tendencies and movements are among the factors that together pose the most serious threat to liberal democracy in the United States—and in “the West” more broadly. The introduction illustrates the importance of studying and reflecting upon the implications of the above trends, actors, and conditions for Germany and other European states, for transatlantic cooperation, and even for the global multilateral system as a whole. It concludes with an overview of the research articles in the special issue, outlining their individual as well as overlapping analytical interests and contributions.

The role of the state in shaping the internationalization of firms in the twenty-first century

The year 2020, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent crises, highlighted the significance of state intervention in shaping firm competitiveness. However, unprecedented government support for businesses has left us puzzled about the state’s role in firm internationalization, especially in emerging markets and the Global South, where government involvement has been accompanied by democratic backsliding and rising authoritarianism. Our Special Issue moves the current debate forward by exploring how the state’s changing role affects firm internationalization. The objective of this editorial is twofold: stimulating theory development by scrutinizing state intervention in emerging markets in recent decades and introducing the Special Issue articles. Contributions investigate how governments support the internationalization of their domestic businesses by focusing on firms’ institutional embeddedness and the impact of institutions as both resources and constraints to their internationalization. By linking the discourse on state capitalism with business internationalization, our empirical studies advance research on political economy and the state’s role in innovative ways, reflecting on recent geopolitical developments. Our introductory article situates the Special Issue papers in the state capitalism and firm internationalization literatures and discusses their implications for future research.

Preliminary Translation of the Tianhui Laoguanshan Manuscript on Piercing as Therapy

Abstract This translation forms a triptych with the following two articles in this double special issue: Gu Man, Zhou Qi, and Liu Changhua, “Techniques for Piercing the Mai Recorded in the Laoguanshan Han Tomb Bamboo Slips” and Zhou Qi, “Research on the Lacquered Channel Figurine Excavated from a Han Tomb in Tianhui.” Here you can read an entire Tianhui Laoguanshan text in translation on the subject of therapeutic piercing. The contribution by Gu, Zhou, and Liu positions the therapy in relation to ideas and techniques in other manuscript texts contemporary to the one translated here and the printed classics of Chinese medicine. These articles are accompanied by opinion pieces written by current practitioners of Chinese medicine as expert witnesses to the evolution of the techniques and their relevance, or not, to modern practice. Together, we present an interdisciplinary analysis that we hope will engage the reader actively in the process of multifocal interpretation. The text here is introduced by a translator’s introduction that reflects broadly on the unique challenges of rendering this fascinating work into English.

Focusing the ecosystem lens on innovation studies

For nearly a century, the key role of innovation in economic growth has been acknowledged and studied. Today, innovations are increasingly understood as being embedded in ecosystems of autonomous actors, whether firms, other organizations, or individuals. These actors contribute in complementary ways to create a value proposition that is greater than the sum of the parts, with the integration of their products and processes made possible by modular interfaces between actors. Here we review the emergence of the ecosystem lens within innovation studies in the context of the Special Issue on Innovation Ecosystems and Ecosystem Innovation. After summarizing the history of the special issue, we review the nine articles in the special issue and show how they relate to defining the actors, joint value creation by the actors, coordinating the actors, value capture by the actors, and then the large issue of analyzing ecosystems as the unit of analysis. From this, we offer suggestions for future ecosystem research, including opportunities to combine the ecosystem lens with other lenses used in innovation studies, and new methods for studying ecosystem phenomena.

What We Do and Do Not Know about Democratic Backsliding

We are humbled by the quantity and quality of the commentaries on our article in this special issue. Our goal was not to answer definitively how global democracy has changed in recent years but rather to provoke a debate about how we collectively can improve the scholarship on this question. The range of viewpoints raised in this special issue have made important advances on this goal.

Home as a site of resistance: Editorial

This special issue intervenes in the scholarship on domestic space on screen by adopting a specific focus on the home as a space of resistance across different geographies and time periods, from the 1960s to today. The articles utilise a mix of research methods, from archival to participatory documentary. Considering debates from fields such as home movie studies, virtual reality, media activism, and the relationship between film and urbanism, the articles in this special issue demonstrate how film and media can address resistance centred around the concept of home. They also challenge and offer alternative views to white, heteronormative, middle-class representations of domestic life. These articles provide insights into the challenges and importance of home for marginalised groups, suggest new ways for film and media studies to approach representation, and centre the portrayal of often overlooked communities. Central to these articles is the idea of home and the use of media as a form of resistance and agency that can be used to contest mainstream perspectives. Each article looks at what home means, whether it’s a place of safety, precarity, identity, or memory, with each essay looking at how media shape or challenge our views of home and social identity.