Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy” is one of the longest novels in the English Literature published by an Indian Novelist. It was published in the year 1993. The story of the novel is based on the 18th century Chinese novel “The Story of the Stone” written by Cao Xueqin. Daniel Johnson wrote in The Times: “A Suitable Boy is not merely one of the longest novels in English: it may also prove to be the most fecund as well as the most prodigious work of the latter half of this century - perhaps even the book to restore the serious reading public's faith in the contemporary novel. I have little doubt that... Vikram Seth is already the best writer of his generation”, while Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post compared Seth favourably to Tolstoy. The novel is set in a newly Post- independence or Post-Partition India. The novel alternately offers satirical and earnest examinations of national political issues and reality in the period leading up to the first Post-Independence National Election of the year 1952, which include Hindu - Muslim strife, the status of lower caste peoples specially Indian Dalit community such as the Jatav, Land reforms and the eclipse of the feudal princes and landlords, academic affairs, abolition of the ‘Zamindari system’, family relations and a range of further issues of importance to the character. The novel deals with the most eventful period of Post - Partition Indian history.

Postcolonial literary criticism has initially focused on nationhood and sovereignty from human-centred perspectives. It usually highlights on political leaders, colonial administrators, and nationalist movements. The idea of non-human forces such as objects, landscapes, animals, technologies, and cultural systems challenges the anthropocentric models of posthuman theory in the recent days. These non-human elements play a major part in shaping the political realities. This paper presents a speculative posthuman analysis of Gita Mehta’s Raj (1989), describing sovereignty not as human construct but as a phenomenon from the relationship between people and other forces. The novel is set during British colonial rule in India and the fall of princely states. Raj novel explains the political power intersects between human actions and various material, ecological, and cultural factors. Using the concepts humanist thinkers such as Rosi Braidotti, Jane Bennett, and Bruno Latour, as well as postcolonial and decolonial theorists the novel Raj undermines the anthropocentric concepts of nationhood. The paper also shows how Mehta’s writings presage the discussions on posthuman sovereignty. It provides a decolonial criticism of colonial modernity and nationalist historiography by examination of landscapes, palaces, weapons, animals, and colonial technologies.

Abstract This study uncovers a previously overlooked chapter in the historiography of civil disobedience: Menachem Begin’s resistance to Israeli emergency legislation between 1948 and 1954, which he argued undermined foundational democratic principles. It presents the first scholarly analysis of Begin’s resistance, contending that it constitutes a clear instance of civil disobedience, embodying its core tenets. At the heart of this historical case study lies a paradigmatic question: how can laws that erode foundational—yet abstract—democratic principles, such as the separation of powers, be effectively resisted, and can such resistance be accommodated within traditional frameworks of civil disobedience? Begin’s struggle brings these questions into sharp relief, illuminating longstanding critiques of the framework’s overly restrictive boundaries and underscoring the tension between theoretical frameworks and political reality. More broadly, the article engages central debates at the intersection of law, politics, and democratic thought. By examining the democratic convictions of a prominent right-wing leader, it contributes to historical scholarship on the role of conservative and right-wing movements in shaping democratic ideologies, while also providing a historical reference point for subsequent ideological transformations and radicalization processes within these movements. Finally, by illuminating the complexities inherent in opposing laws that erode core-yet abstract-democratic principles, this study resonates with contemporary debates on democratic backsliding, offering a historical lens through which civil disobedience has served as a principled response to such challenges.

This article argues that the da’wa movements initiated by Islamic mass organizations such as Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) through the concept of Islamic locality constitute one of the key factors contributing to the failure of the caliphate idea in Indonesia. This locality is characterized by the synthesis of Islamic theology, law, and practice with the sociocultural, political, and historical realities of the Archipelago. Employing a historical–sociological method and document analysis, this article traces how these da’wa movements have embedded a distinctly Indonesian notion of Islamic locality. The findings reveal that through the establishment of socio-educational institutions (schools, hospitals, pesantren), cultural adaptation, and participation in the nation-building project, these Islamic da’wa movements have addressed the social and spiritual needs of Indonesian Muslims within the framework of the nation state. Therefore, the failure of the caliphate idea is not due to a lack of religiosity of Indonesian Muslims, but rather because localized Islamic understanding has rendered the caliphate not only irrelevant but also theologically incongruent with the perspectives of the majority of Indonesian Muslims.

This article examines how oral histories of twentieth-century human genetics in Brazil reveal the politics of memory of fieldwork. Through a comparative analysis of interviews with prominent geneticist Francisco M. Salzano and technician Girley V. Simões, who worked with him for most of his career, this study explores the narrative strategies each employed to establish their historical accounts. Attending reflexively to the oral history encounters, the analysis examines how each narrator negotiates professional identity and moral legitimacy in light of changing ethical norms surrounding research with Indigenous communities. Simões's vivid recollections foreground invisible forms of technical and logistical labor, offering him the opportunity to recast his position as one of active knowledge-making. Salzano's controlled and diplomatic accounts, by contrast, illustrate how the senior scientist curated memory to stabilize his professional legacy and defend disciplinary ethics in the wake of controversy. Contrasting Salzano and Simões's approaches to describing their shared experiences drives home the complex social and political realities of narrating fieldwork, as well as the political valences of remembering and documenting these histories in the present.

This study aims to analyze the implementation of Regional Regulation Number 15 of 2015 in regulating street vendors in Bojonegoro Regency and to identify key factors that shape the gap between regulatory objectives and practical outcomes within a decentralized governance framework. The research employs a qualitative descriptive design. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, non-participant observation, and document analysis involving Satpol PP officials and street vendors. The analysis is guided by Van Meter and Van Horn’s policy implementation model, focusing on policy standards and objectives, resources, implementing agency characteristics, implementer disposition, inter-organizational communication, and the social, economic, and political environment. The findings indicate that policy standards are clear and institutional capacity is relatively adequate, supported by systematic socialization, staged enforcement, and structured organizational arrangements. However, implementation remains only partially effective due to strong external constraints. Economic insecurity among street vendors, limited political engagement, and low social acceptance significantly undermine compliance and lead to recurring violations. The study concludes that effective public order policy implementation depends not only on administrative capacity but also on the alignment of policy demands with socio-economic and political realities. Strengthening participatory approaches and livelihood-sensitive strategies is essential for more sustainable outcomes.

This study aims to describe the internal structure and syntactic functions of noun phrases in online news articles about demonstration actions published by Detik.com in August 2025. This research employs a qualitative descriptive approach, with observation and note-taking. Data were obtained from five news articles discussing demonstrations, then analyzed to identify the core elements (head) and modifiers, and to determine the syntactic functions of the phrases within sentences. The analysis results show that the most frequently encountered noun phrase pattern is Noun + Noun (N + N), with modifiers on the right that provide explanations of identity, location, or ownership. The most common syntactic function found is as the subject, followed by the object and adverbial of place. These findings confirm that noun phrases play an important role in explaining information and sentence structure in online news texts. Additionally, the use of noun phrases also reflects the media's language strategy in constructing social and political realities through concise, efficient, and information rich language.

This study examines the critique of the representation of marginalized communities in the lyrics of Humood al-Khudher's song "Falasteen biladi" through Gayatri Spivak's postcolonial theoretical framework, particularly the concepts of subalternity and representation. The purpose of this study is to critically analyze the representation of marginalized Palestinian communities. This study uses a qualitative approach with critical textual analysis methods. The research method is a literature review. The main data source is the lyrics of the song Falasteen biladi, both in Arabic and in translation. The secondary data source is Gayatri Spivak's theoretical book, specifically her essay entitled “Can the subaltern speak?” The data collection techniques are documentation, literature study, and contextual research. Data analysis uses three main analytical frameworks, namely Darstellung, Vertretung, and Epistemic Violence. The findings of this study show that the lyrics of this song. The findings show that the lyrics of this song depict Palestine more as an abstract collective subject, thereby ignoring the diversity of individual experiences and the complexity of the social and political realities they face. In addition, there is a dominance of narrative representation over political representation, which tends to reduce the Palestinian struggle to aesthetic symbolism rather than concrete political advocacy. Finally, this song reveals the limitations in expressing authentic subaltern voices, where what stands out is the cultural elite's perspective on marginalized communities. Despite attempting to foster solidarity, this song maintains epistemic silencing, where subalterns remain voiceless due to the dominance of a strong hegemonic narrative. The implications of this research emphasize the importance of critical reflection on the politics of representation in popular cultural productions about marginalized communities.

This article offers a multidisciplinary analysis of Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, positioning the text not merely as a collection of strategic prescriptions, but as an empirical and philosophical framework that reflects fundamental structures of human behavior, institutional dynamics, and socio-political control. Rather than treating the work as a normative or instrumentalist manual, we investigate whether Greene’s conceptualization of power is grounded in rational deduction, observational learning, or biologically embedded psychological drives. Utilizing methodologies from political philosophy, behavioral psychology, rhetorical theory, and historical analysis, this study draws upon foundational thinkers—Aristotle, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Foucault, Laozi, and Sun Tzu—to interrogate the ontological status of power. We explore Greene’s aphoristic methodology, which fuses narrative history, cognitive bias theory, and tactical realism, and examine how each law functions as both a behavioral heuristic and a reflection of evolved social instincts. A key focus is the dual nature of Greene’s laws: they are simultaneously descriptive of real-world dynamics and performative tools that shape behavior when internalized. By assessing the psychological, ethical, and philosophical implications of selected laws—such as those governing secrecy, deception, emotional control, and dependency—we argue that power, in Greene’s formulation, operates as a morally agnostic but structurally embedded force. Ultimately, the article contends that Greene’s work reflects a hybrid epistemology: a convergence of evolutionary psychology, classical political realism, and rhetorical performance. Through this lens, power is understood not only as a tool for dominance, but as a constitutive mechanism of human social organization and leadership systems

This paper (The Concept of Freedom Between Struggle and Awareness in Kurdish Modern Poetry- 1920-1965) is concerned with analyzing the concept of freedom in Kurdish modern poetry. It examines the issue of freedom between physical-political struggle and intellectual awareness. It aims to understand and deal with the different meanings of freedom which is considered as a major poetic theme of the time. Relying on poetic examples, the study illustrates how freedom equates with the meaning of liberation and political freedom. The study attempts to answer four broad questions: Does the concept of freedom as a physical goal take shape only in a political context? Does the concept of freedom go beyond the resistance of physical struggle? Which of the poetic texts sees freedom as the establishment of individual and national awareness? 4) Does the lack of coordination and parallelism between freedom as a political goal and freedom as a developed process of self-, moral and intellectual awareness affect political and social reality and how? If freedom in the physical sense is taken away on the basis of sacrifice and physical and armed struggle, on what basis can freedom in the philosophical and essential sense be established and begin to develop? To answer these questions, we will try to present the concept of freedom in poetry as both a goal (liberation from oppression) and a process (deepening awareness). Through poetic texts. First, we will explain the concept of freedom in the context of political liberation struggle, because in general, in Kurdish modern poetry, freedom is viewed as the product of sacrifice, resistance and courage. These texts present armed struggle and sacrifice as an inevitable means of achieving national freedom and national destiny. In this sense, the meaning of freedom is expressed through symbols such as “blood”, “mountain”, “torch”, “campaign”, or sacrifice, etc., which emphasize the physical aspect of struggle. Next, the concept and the meaning of freedom is explicated based on the notion of independent mental awareness Less than the examples of the previous theme, poets emphasize the importance of achieving inner freedom, which is often associated with individual spiritual awareness and assuming the moral and ontological responsibilities of human existence. This is often depicted through symbols and metaphors such as "light, hope of love, sunrise, breeze, horizon, air of freedom, etc. The importance of this study is that it shows that the embodiment of the first meaning of freedom does not only require to reflect the collective experience of an oppressed nation in history, but also as a determinant of national identity; it reflects the meaning of Kurdishness. What deepens this concept and makes it an international issue and a human and universal responsibility is this individual human consciousness, without which all freedom can be achieved without its establishment and weaponization among individuals; it remains incomplete. In addition, this study encourages us to consider the role of literature not only as a means of expressing political resistance, but also as a platform for promoting the human spirit.

Towards a New Christian Political Realism: The Amsterdam School of Philosophy and the Role of Religion in International Relations, written by Simon Polinder

World Vaccine Congress Washington 2026 takes place March 30–April 2 in Washington, DC. The event brings together senior leaders from governments, global health organizations, academia, and pharma to explore how the vaccine landscape must evolve in response to shifting epidemiological, political, and economic realities.

Given that the recent turn to ‘imagination’ in social and cultural thought is not in all cases based on a clearly political outlook, it is recommendable to revisit Cornelius Castoriadis’s path-breaking political account of social imagination. However, even the latter, it is argued, must be confronted with an understanding of politics more in line with the tradition of political realism. In order to fully activate the political potentials of Castoriadis’s thought, he is situated in a larger contextual network of intellectual reference points. By characterizing Castoriadis’s thought as a post-Marxist theory of radical democracy, based on a post-foundational ontology of imagination, Castoriadis is put in dialogue with other neo- and post-Marxist theorists, such as Antonio Gramsci and Ernesto Laclau, who present us with a more realistic understanding of the political function of imagination.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates interprofessional cooperation in inclusive schooling settings, examining stakeholder experience and perceived collaboration, and how these perceptions relate to the organizational structures and work relationships underpinning effective cooperation. Using data from the large-scale study, “Expert mapping of special education and inclusive practices” (N = 10,387), we analyze how professionals in Norwegian schools, the Educational-Psychological Service, Child Welfare Service, and School Health Service engage in inclusion work. The study highlights tensions between political expectations and practical realities, showing that interprofessional cooperation is not a straightforward solution for inclusion. Instead, collaboration must account for the complexities of both educational and medical paradigms. Friction between professionals may be inevitable rather than exceptional, underscoring the need for a nuanced approach to cooperation in inclusive education.

Abstract After 1945, the risk associated with nuclear war demanded new ways of thinking about victory and defeat on the modern battlefield. President Eisenhower’s strategy of massive retaliation had the paradoxical effect of increasing the need for limitations on the means employed and the objectives pursued in war to avoid escalation to an existential conflict. Scholarship on the theory of limited war in U.S. history has varied over the last eight decades, but the term remains as poorly understood as it is widely used. The tendency to frame limited war in isolation from the political realities of the early nuclear age has led to revisions of its meaning that associate the concept with strategic failure. This perception is detached from the origins of limited war in modern history and deserves reconsideration in scholarly debates about the means, ends, and scope of wars.

ABSTRACT An expert mental model (EMM) explores how U.S. municipalities integrate flood risk management (FRM) into urban planning, offering insights beyond existing literature. Motivated by the challenges urban planners face in balancing flood risk with competing priorities like development, housing, and economic growth, this study combines a literature review, expert interviews, and model analysis to map the influences shaping FRM integration. The EMM highlights an interplay between external (physical risks, societal support, funding), institutional (political will, resources), and process influences (data, collaboration). The model brings forward perception and value influences, individual biases, and shared municipal values, showing how these shape FRM integration alongside technical and institutional factors commonly emphasized in FRM planning literature. External pressures, existing practices, political realities, and internal capabilities all influence urban planners. The model reveals power asymmetry between plan developers and decision‐makers, the limits of technical tools once planning moves beyond analysis, and the strong influence of federal and state guidance, funding, regulations, capacity, partnerships, and physical drivers. By considering institutional, cognitive, and political influences, municipalities can develop more resilient FRM strategies. This approach offers a framework for understanding barriers to FRM integration and can be adapted for use in different municipal contexts.

Shang Yang and Han Feizi advocated performance-based law and excessive punishments, which they believed would prevent people from deceiving the lord and violating the law, thereby creating a crime-free utopia. However, by examining the archaeologically excavated materials and the transmitted sources, the author demonstrates that this brutal instrumentalism and idealism generated a monstrous legal system in real politics that distorted justice. The author argues that the Qin-Han legal system excessively punished administrative mistakes as crimes. Intended to promote efficiency, performance-oriented legislation prescribed rigid, detailed, and high-standard job objectives with absolute liability. A large number of officials, including those industriously devoted to their jobs, violated the law. Excessive punishments caused officials guilty of administrative errors to suffer the same bodily pain and economic loss as those who inflicted serious harm on society through intentional violence. When the punishment was neither deserved nor just, resentment arose against the law, and sympathy for the condemned emerged. This unjust practice triggered heated criticism among scholars, officials, and sometimes emperors, but no efficient legal reforms ever occurred. This article is intended to provoke thought about the dangerous application of perfectionism in the real world and to explain historical roots of the long-standing Confucian tradition against rule by law.

Many countries face prolonged health workforce crises, marked by shortages, maldistribution, skills mix imbalances and attrition. When workforces are overstretched, they become more vulnerable to external shocks and chronic strains, including infectious disease outbreaks, climate-related effects and political instability. This is particularly concerning as an emerging global "polycrisis" means such external pressures increasingly interact and amplify one another in unpredictable ways. Strengthening health workforce resilience must therefore become a priority for policy and planning. To introduce a resilience lens for health workforce policy and planning. This conceptual paper synthesises literature from health workforce and systems research, resilience, and complex adaptive systems theory, complemented by practical insights from workforce planning and governance. The paper introduces the Health Workforce Resilience framework, which illustrates how the multilevel nature of health workforce resilience connects individual health workers, teams and organisations, and the national health workforce level. It shows how shocks and long-term pressures ripple through these interconnected levels, affecting the capacity, composition, and performance of the workforce. Impacts and responses at one level can amplify or dampen effects at others. The framework highlights two critical interfaces: the workforce-community interface, capturing how societal, economic, and security conditions shape workforce motivation, performance, and retention, and the workforce-governance interface, reflecting how institutional arrangements, policies, and decision-making processes enable or constrain workforce system responses. Adopting a resilience lens underscores the need to view workforce planning as a systems approach that emphasises anticipatory, needs-based planning and integrates political, social, and contextual realities to strengthen workforce resilience under pressure.

Collective memory is often taken to be central to the political and epistemic duties of citizens; remembering salient historical events or political labels is essential for understanding ongoing political issues and coming to form our beliefs responsibly. But sometimes—usually in the immediate aftermath of a deep conflict—we are faced with calls to forget aspects of our shared civic life. This article aims to provide a conceptualization and set of justificatory conditions that apply to such cases of political forgetting. I suggest that we should conceive of political forgetting as a coordinated reduction in the salience of particular issues in our civic affairs undertaken by the public in its capacity as the constituting people. I suggest that this is a more effective way of characterizing political forgetting than alternative models—namely, what I call the belief-centered model and the prohibition model. I then outline a set of demanding justificatory conditions that apply to political forgetting: (1) the transformation of the terms of political reality does not obscure issues or events that continue to structure society to the unjust disadvantage of any particular group; (2) that transformation is endorsed by all relevant social groups; and (3) the “forgotten” terms or events can be resurrected by agents in certain conditions.

This article re-examines the contemporary debate between moralistic and realist approaches in political theory through a sociological lens. Rather than treating the controversy as a purely methodological disagreement about whether practical judgement should begin from moral principles or from political reality, it argues that the central issue concerns the social organisation of practical reason. Political judgement is formed under specific social conditions. It is construed within institutional roles and incentives, informational infrastructures, professional vocabularies, and relations of authority that privilege some descriptions of reality while marginalising others. On this basis, the article develops a classificatory scheme that orders contemporary realisms by how they understand “the real” to bear on the practical question “What is to be done?” It distinguishes paralyzing realism, in which the real chiefly disables agency and leaves theory largely non-directive; neutral realism, which treats the real primarily as feasibility constraint and tends to underestimate the socially mediated character of political facts; and activist realism, which treats the real as a contested field of interpretation and a resource for improving judgement from within practice. The article then illustrates what this activist orientation looks like in practice through John Dunn’s account of democracy and the conditions of realistic political judgement. The article concludes that a non-metaphysical, non-foundational account of the theory–practice relation is most compatible with this activist orientation and provides the most plausible basis for reconnecting political theory and political practice without relying on an Archimedean standpoint.