Contributions To Special Issue Research Articles

Introduction to the Special Issue on Under Communism’s Shadow

Perhaps no topic could be more crucial to the concept of “post-communism” than how the Soviet past is commemorated, challenged, or forgotten. The study of historical memory is often correctly tied to identity politics and nation-building. While the usable past framework is broadly applicable to all modern states, in the Russian case a degree of alarmism and negativity surrounds interpretations of how the country has managed its communist past, particularly its violent parts. A significant element to this is a teleological view of progress and the salience of the transition paradigm. In memory studies, this is manifested in the dominance of the cosmopolitan memory mode as the correct way the violent past should be commemorated. The introduction reviews the existing literature on Russia’s memory politics and highlights three limitations: (1) overemphasis on the political center and the failure to capture the diversity of regions, (2) too much focus on the supply side of memory politics, and (3) one-sided presentations of the role the Great Patriotic War plays in Russian memory politics. The introduction reviews how the special issue contributions address these limitations in the literature and shows how, taken together, they offer ideas for new research on memory studies. A case is made for how this new research agenda can better understand memory processes and how they relate to broader ideological, cultural, social, and political change in Russia.

Women Thinking in Public: An Introduction

Abstract: This introduction teases out the productive tension between female characters in modern fiction and the implied author as modeled by Mary Mc-Carthy's The Group . Fiction writers dramatize both women's intellection and self-expression and the barriers to that public role. Modern and contemporary women writers blur the lines between essay writing and fiction, professional and intellectual personae, and novelistic narration. Feminist theory also adapts fictional modes to speculate about living otherwise. Our special issue contributions feature collaboration, archives, praxis, the corporeal, and the posthuman. We highlight contemporary fictional modes of women thinking in public, particularly the weird and the everyday.

Power shifts in international organisations: China at the United Nations

AbstractThe People's Republic of China is central to current debates about power shifts in international organisations, but a systematic and comprehensive assessment of China‐related shifts has been missing. As Special Issue introduction, this article contributes to addressing this gap and examines whether, how and to what extent China‐related power shifts have unfolded at the United Nations (UN) over the last two decades or so. We define power shifts as changes in the ability of actors to shape others' capacities to act and outline a framework that builds on Barnett and Duvall's four power types of compulsory, institutional, structural and productive power. Drawing from Special Issue contributions, our analysis covers empirical insights from the UN's three main pillars – peace and security, development and human rights – and paints an uneven picture. Despite continuing Western dominance, China is mobilising more compulsory power means than two decades ago. Chinese attempts to enact institutional power have also increased but mostly unfold in multilateral niches and remain cautious. While China's structural power position has expanded, China‐related effects in productive power have so far remained limited and scattered. We conclude with a combined assessment of changes across power types and discuss research and policy implications.

Multinational corporations and grand challenges: part of the problem, part of the solution?

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to address the relationship between multinational corporations (MNCs) and grand challenges. Stressing the moderating impact of stakeholders and governments, it frames and introduces the six contributions of the special issue, equally divided into those illustrating how MNCs contribute to the existence of grand challenges and those exploring how MNCs contribute to addressing grand challenges.Design/methodology/approachBased on a review of the existing literature on the relationship between MNCs and grand challenges and recent developments in mainstream international business, the viewpoint emphasizes the need to move beyond a one-sided focus on the positive contributions of MNCs to grand challenges.FindingsThe special issue contributions reveal that even established MNCs are actively engaged in strategic efforts to perpetuate unsustainable practices and minimize the impact of societal rules and stakeholders. The contributions also highlight the complications when MNCs aim to tackle grand challenges.Practical implicationsDisplaying positive practices of how MNCs contribute to the solution of grand challenges should not be considered a functional substitute for regulatory action, contrary to the frequent assertion of MNCs and their political representatives.Originality/valueThis special issue is the first one in IB to address the relationship between MNCs and grand challenges from an empirical vantage point.

A farewell to welfare? Conceptualising welfare populism, welfare chauvinism and welfare Euroscepticism

This conceptual article and special issue introduction argues for the importance of studying three policy paradigms surrounding welfare policy opposition. The first is welfare populism, the opposition to welfare policies that do not benefit the ‘common people’. The second is welfare chauvinism, the opposition to welfare policies for non-natives within a nation-state. The third is welfare Euroscepticism, the opposition to welfare policies at the European Union level. These paradigms have distinct causes and consequences that should be studied in more detail across different political actors. And while welfare policy opposition may not lead to a complete farewell to welfare, they have been shaping and will continue to shape welfare state recalibration. This article offers summaries of the special issue contributions with empirical snapshots of welfare policy opposition and concludes with avenues for future research.

Contested agri-food futures: Introduction to the Special Issue

Over recent decades, influential agri-food tech actors, institutions, policymakers and others have fostered dominant techno-optimistic, future visions of food and agriculture that are having profound material impacts in present agri-food worlds. Analyzing such realities has become paramount for scholars working across the fields of science and technology studies (STS) and critical agri-food studies, many of whom contribute to STSFAN—the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network. This article introduces a Special Issue featuring the scholarship of STSFAN members, which cover a range of case studies and interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary engagements involving such contested agri-food futures. Their contributions are unique in that they emerged from the network’s specific modus operandi: a workshopping practice that supports the constructive, interdisciplinary dialogue necessary for critical research and rigorous analyses of science and technology in agri-food settings. This introduction offers an overview of STS and critical agri-food studies scholarship, including their historical entanglements in respective studies of food scandals, scientific regimes and technological determinism. We illustrate how interdisciplinary engagement across these fields has contributed to the emergent field of what we term agri-food technoscience scholarship, which the contributions of this Special Issue speak to. After a brief discussion of STS concepts, theories and methods shaping agri-food policy, technology design and manufacturing, we present the eleven Special Issue contributions in three thematic clusters: influential actors and their agri-food imaginaries; obfuscated (material) realities in agri-food technologies; and conflictual and constructive engagements in academia and agri-food. The introduction ends with a short reflection on future research trajectories in agri-food technoscience scholarship.

Artificial intelligence on the advance to enhance educational assessment: Scientific clickbait or genuine gamechanger?

AbstractContributions in the Special IssueThe special issue assembles papers centring around log data analysis, natural language processing, and machine learning used to advance educational assessment. They demonstrate how semi‐ and unstructured data such as log and text data can, despite their challenging nature, be handled appropriately to benefit educational assessment. In this editorial, we contextualize the special issue's contributions within the diverse field of modern technology‐based assessments.Reflection on TerminologyMoreover, we raise concerns about nowadays' use of the term artificial intelligence (AI) in scientific communication. While the contribution of AI to scientific progress is indisputable, the mere use of methods that have evolved within AI research does not necessarily render tools or studies AI‐related. We argue that academics have the social responsibility to adopt accurate terminology, given it is integral to scientific rigour and proper scientific communication.ImplicationsIn view of the inflationary use of the term AI in science, we propose a scheme to locate one's research in the field by focusing on (1) the type of data, (2) the processing involved, and (3) the output of a study and the actions derived from it, which are situated within the (4) scope of a study.

Climate policy: from complexity to consensus?

ABSTRACT Most governments aim for net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, but none know fully how to get there. The papers in this special issue examine the role of climate governance for climate action, addressing three research questions: a) what characterizes enduring climate governance, b) which factors drive climate governance developments, and c) how can these be sustained within the polity? In this introductory article, we present three ideal-typical models of climate governance that provide answers to these questions. The models are, respectively, the market failure, the socio-technological transition, and the public support models. Political science, as a discipline, is ideally suited to contribute to the further development of the public support model, which bears much promise for sustaining the climate and energy transition. The models and the special issue's contributions highlight two concepts as crucial regarding climate governance: complexity and consensus. These concepts can be mutually constitutive: policy packages addressing the complexity of the climate question, including its (heterogenous) societal dimensions, will have a greater chance of being more efficacious and less contested.

Postscript: A pandemic read on African health and environmental histories.

This postscript reflects on this special issue's contributions for readers preoccupied with the COVID-19 pandemic. First, these articles on African environment and health underscore that past process of and interventions into land use and human health have cumulative effects on disease emergence and re-emergence. Relatedly, although multiple epidemics have affected the African continent and other parts of the world over the past century, global health institutions and actors have sidelined or forgotten these epidemics. These analyses draw our attention to the historical production and mobilization of specific concepts which frame what questions are asked, how they are answered, and the material solutions provided or withheld. And finally, these pieces highlight the ethical stakes of agricultural, conservation, and health interventions, reminding us that the African continent's histories are fraught with inequities from colonial and postcolonial extractive relations and racist assumptions that have undermined livelihoods, food security and health. As African states, institutions, and global health critics politick for vaccine equity and deplore the inequitable access to COVID-19 vaccines in African countries compared to the rest of the world, these articles remind us that these long-standing inequities should catalyze fundamental change.

The impact of colonialism on policy and knowledge production in International Relations

Abstract Is there an academic–policy divide, and does that gap need to be bridged? For decades, International Relations (IR) scholars have reflected on their roles and responsibilities towards the ‘real world’, while policy-makers have often critiqued the detachment of academic research. In response, there have been increased calls for academics to descend from their ‘ivory tower’. However, the articles in this 100th anniversary special issue of International Affairs interrogate this so-called theory–policy divide and problematize the exchange of knowledge between academics and practitioners, highlighting the colonial underpinnings of their historical entanglements. In this introductory article we bring together the core arguments of the special issue contributions to delineate three prominent dynamics in the academic–practitioner nexus: the role of academia as a supplier of knowledge for colonial policies; the influence of imperial practice and policy-makers in shaping IR and academic knowledge production; and the contestation from academics and/or practitioners against racial hierarchies in knowledge production and policy-making. Confronting the exclusions, amnesias and denials of colonialism in the theory and practice of International Relations is the necessary first step in any process of repair towards a more just and viable politics.

Modeling from a cognitive perspective: theoretical considerations and empirical contributions

ABSTRACT Mathematical modeling and applications are an important part of curriculum and considered to be important for students’ current and future lives. In this contribution, we focus on mathematical modeling from a cognitive prospective. Following embedding the cognitive perspective within the discourse of mathematical modeling, we describe some of the current thinking on modeling activities and review empirical results. Subsequently, new findings and implications for research offered by the contributions of the current special issue are described. The contributions of this special issue refer to the relation between cognitive and metacognitive modeling activities to (a) mathematical thinking during building a modeling example, (b) strategic knowledge within modeling activities, (c) solving of data-rich modeling problems and their status from a meta-perspective and (d) individual and social metacognition.

A society that values it's children should cherish their parents: A move to considering the attachment network.

This comment on the Special Issue contributions regarding the attachment network addresses the clinical implications of the findings from three perspectives: (1) the need to look beyond maternal influences on child developmental outcomes; (2) to be open to every seemingly peripheral influence on the child as this may have a central impact on the child, for example, grandmothers, the parental couple relationship, and others not living in the child's home but nonetheless influential; and (3) identify and cultivate security spreading effects that help change not only the child, but the child's relationships with others in and outside the family-to the benefit of all. Some evidence-based attachment-based interventions are highlighted.

Advancing Process Representation in Hydrological Models: Integrating New Concepts, Knowledge, and Data

AbstractModel fidelity and accuracy in process representations have been the crux of scientific hydrological modeling, creating a pressing need for a better linkage between the development of hydrological models and the growing number of data sources and measurement techniques. Improved representation of process dynamics in hydrological models can provide new insights into complex hydrological systems and point out less understood natural phenomena that need further investigation. This special issue includes contributions that offer potential solutions and strategies to improve and test the representation of hydrological processes. We have organized the special issue contributions into four topical categories: (a) Beyond streamflow, which looks into the power of complementary data sources in addition to traditionally used streamflow for process inference. (b) Challenge of subsurface hydrology, that reflects on lesser understood processes under the surface and their impact on the model structure. (c) Evaporation in hydrological modeling, linking ecological aspects to the hydrological functioning of the natural system. Finally, (d) top down vs. bottom up modeling approaches, relied upon for process representation analysis. The special issue and our reflection on the contributions present a snapshot of ongoing efforts for integrating new concepts, knowledge, and data in process representation in hydrological models.

Technologically mediated human resource management in the gig economy

Gig work accessed through the medium of digital platforms has become an increasingly researched and debated topic owing to several features which distinguish it from other variants of temporary work. It represents a form of working that typically falls outside the standard boundaries of the organisation and employment relationships and where technology has a most pervasive role. This paper, alongside five special issue contributions, explores the enactment of technologically mediated HRM in the gig economy. We make the case for enhanced research efforts on HRM without employment contexts. More specifically, there is a need for greater appreciation of the diversity within the digital platform classification, and what this may mean for the role and value of HRM. While gig workers tend to fall outside the HRM field’s remit, we expose how this is problematic given the presence of several activities and practices that one traditionally associates with the HR function.

Analysing how crises shape mass and elite preferences and behaviour in the European Union

The COVID-19 pandemic proved the latest stress test for the European Union, after Brexit, the Eurozone crisis and the large influx of refugees. This highly relevant and well-timed special issue examines how past crises have left an imprint on the opinions and behaviour of ordinary citizens and political elites regarding the European Union. This Forum article reviews the special issue contributions by spelling out which lessons we can learn from each of them and which paths for future research they have opened up. In terms of a path forward, I argue that scholars ought to pay more attention to (a) the role of political elites, (b) political opportunity structures, and (c) heterogeneity both between and within member states.

Afterword: Documenting Performance across the Medieval/Modern Frontier

As an afterword to the special issue of JMEMS “Performance beyond Drama,” this essay reflects on the complex ways that premodern performances and their embodied actors are captured in, mediated by, or dependent on the texts that we use to study them, and on the special importance of examining this process across a temporal framework—the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries—that challenges the periodizing schema of modernity. In particular, three major systemic changes impacted European performance practices and their documentation during this era: the more widespread availability and manufacture of paper, which made writing easier and reading cheaper, coupled with the introduction of print technology after 1455; the upheaval of the Protestant Reformation and its Catholic counterpart, and the bloody aftermath of religious wars, persecutions, and witch hunts that (re)shaped performance traditions; and the commodification and policing of entertainment through enclosure and regulation. Taken together, this special issue's contributions reveal fascinating convergences and continuities in performance across the medieval/modern frontier, while also showing how some medieval practices were made to conform with postmedieval political and religious projects, thereby obscuring or blurring the evidence for those earlier practices.

#Hackademics: Hacks toward success in academia.

The Sausage of Science is a podcast for the Human Biology Association and the American Journal of Human Biology through which we introduced a special series called #Hackademics. The podcast was initially used to highlight the scholarship and humanity of fellow human biologists through interviews about "how the sausage is made" in research-that is, the nuts and bolts that go into our publications. However, we soon realized there is much more a weekly podcast can do to help colleagues in our interrelated fields. Here we introduce the different contributions to this #Hackdemics special issue. Through #Hackademics, we address under-discussed topics in academia such as work-life integration, hostile academic environments, decolonization of research and teaching, and science communication, among others. The feedback received from listeners for the #Hackademics series reinforced a need for more tools for navigating the academic side of our disciplines. Furthermore, there was a need to decentralize what is often termed "institutional knowledge" by sharing it in a more authoritative medium-a special issue of peer-reviewed articles in our Association's esteemed journal. This special issue's contributions also elevate diverse voices with multiple authors at different career stages. Using the institutional credibility of peer-review to legitimize these topics, this issue's articles can be a resource for those looking to initiate conversations or change within their departments or institutions with the hope of creating a kinder, more respectful, collaborative, equitable, and accessible academic environment.

A Governance Approach of Emotion in Family Business: Towards a Multi-level Integrated Framework and Research Agenda

AbstractWhile emotion in family business is beginning to garner closer attention among researchers, the nexus of emotion management and governance has received little attention to date. In this essay, we reflect on and extend the Special Issue contributions by integrating the emotion management literature with the family business and governance literatures. We suggest a governance approach of emotion through a multilevel integrated framework. We introduce “emotion governance” as an overarching set of informal and formal mechanisms that are rooted and developed in the embedded family business contexts. We argue that emotion governance influences the explicit emotion management strategies of family business members at different stages:ex-ante(incentive alignment), during the process (education and support), andex-post(monitoring). It thereby contributes to ensure their accountability in line with family business continuity. Considering the heterogeneity of family businesses, we capture nuances in our framework across family business archetypes through a series of propositions. We chart an agenda for future research to advance the development of a theory of family business governance inclusive of emotion.

Postcolonial history education: Issues, tensions and opportunities

This paper introduces a journal special issue devoted to an exploration of post-colonial history education with contributions from Ghana, Uganda, New Zealand, Canada, Botswana, Nigeria, Cyprus, Lebanon and London. It provides an overview of key issues, tensions and opportunities around decolonising the history curriculum. Relevant contexts such as the ‘History Wars’, subaltern studies, the conception of decolonising the mind and the possibilities of de-colonising pedagogies are explored. History education lenses around critical historical literacy, historical consciousness, multidimensional identities and multi-perspectivity are brought to bear upon the question of re-thinking forms of postcolonial history education. Specific political circumstances inform the nature of history education in every national jurisdiction; here the contemporary Black Lives Matter campaign, the fallout from the mismanagement of the fate of the ‘Windrush’ settlers in the UK and the recent focus of protestors globally upon colonial oppressors memorialised in statues frame the authors’ reflections. However, echoing the optimism of most of the special issue contributions, opportunities to build bridges between divided communities, open up more inclusive history curricula to student voices and nuance and complicate homogeneous national narratives are identified and recommended.

Multivariate Analysis Applications to Crystallography

The Special Issue contributions cover the main themes related to the applications of multivariate analysis to crystallography [...]