The intellectual legacy of Confucianism has loomed large in efforts to understand China's past, present, and future. While Confucian ethics has been thoroughly explored, the question remains: what exactly is Confucian political thought? Classical Confucian Political Thought returns to the classical texts of the Confucian tradition to answer this vital question. Showing how Confucian ethics and politics diverge, Loubna El Amine argues that Confucian political thought is not a direct application of Confucian moral philosophy. Instead, contrary to the conventional view (...) that Confucian rule aims to instill virtue in all members of society, El Amine demonstrates that its main aim is to promote political order. El Amine analyzes key aspects of the Confucian political vision, including the relationship between the ruler and the people, the typology of rulers, and the role of ministers and government officials. She also looks at Confucianism’s account of the mechanisms through which society is to be regulated, from welfare policies to rituals. She explains that the Confucian conception of the political leaves space open for the rule of those who are not virtuous if these rulers establish and maintain political order. She also contends that Confucians defend the duty to take part in government based on the benefits that such participation can bring to society. Classical Confucian Political Thought brings a new understanding to Confucian political theory by illustrating that it is not chiefly idealistic and centered on virtue, but rather realistic and driven by political concerns. (shrink)

We investigate whether the distinct nature of multinational firms (MNC) differently influence the governance-performance relationship compared to the local firms in Pakistan. We used a dynamic system GMM estimator that produces consistent and efficient estimation after controlling for dynamic endogeneity and simultaneity. Our results demonstrate that corporate governance (CG) has a significant positive impact on firm financial performance whilst CG practice of MNC firms is more effective than local firms in Pakistan. We observed two distinct financing behaviours, i.e., ‘pro-active investment (...) behaviour’ of MNC firms and ‘conservative investment behaviour’ of local firms. We conclude that a well-established corporate culture, significant financial worth and firms’ higher growth rate are key determinants of better CG practice. (shrink)

One of the most remarkable manifestations of social cohesion in large-scale entities is the belief in a shared, distinct and ancestral past. Human communities around the world take pride in their ancestral roots, commemorate their long history of shared experiences, and celebrate the distinctiveness of their historical trajectory. Why do humans put so much effort into celebrating a long-gone past? Integrating insights from evolutionary psychology, social psychology, evolutionary anthropology, political science, cultural history and political economy, we show that the cultural (...) success of historical myths is driven by a specific adaptive challenge for humans: the need to recruit coalitional support to engage in large scale collective action and prevail in conflicts. By showcasing a long history of cooperation and shared experiences, these myths serve as super-stimuli, activating specific features of social cognition and drawing attention to cues of fitness interdependence. In this account, historical myths can spread within a population without requiring group-level selection, as long as individuals have a vested interest in their propagation and strong psychological motivations to create them. Finally, this framework explains, not only the design-features of historical myths, but also important patterns in their cross-cultural prevalence, inter-individual distribution, and particular content. (shrink)

In the 1940s, Georges Canguilhem has established the concept of biological normativity on the level of the organism in his key work on “ The Normal and the Pathological ”. We would like to present a contemporary analysis of Canguilhem’s work, set it in context with more recent results from the field of complexity and immunology, and evaluate the problematic whether normativity is a genuine capacity of the organism. Based on Canguilhem’s conditions of the definition of biological normativity, we show (...) that the immune system as one of the complex systems of the living equally shares the capacity to be normative. We will then conclude that normativity can also be conceptually independently displayed on the level of complex systems of the living. (shrink)

Sociological studies of culture have made significant progress on conceptual clarification of the concept, while remaining comparatively quiescent on questions of measurement. This study empirically examines internal conflicts (or “infighting”), a ubiquitous phenomenon in political organizing, to propose a “resinous culture framework” that holds promise for redirection. The data comprise 674 newspaper articles and more than 100 archival documents that compare internal dissent across two previously unstudied lesbian and gay Marches on Washington. Analyses reveal that activists use infighting as a (...) vehicle to engage in otherwise abstract definitional debates that provide concrete answers to questions such as who are we and what do we want. The mechanism that enables infighting to concretize these cultural concerns is its coupling with fairly mundane and routine organizational tasks. This mechanism affords one way to release the culture concept, understood here as collective self-definitions, from being “an amorphous, indescribable mist which swirls around society members,” as it was once provocatively described. (shrink)

In recent years, predatory journals, conferences, and publishers have turned to an inevitable threat in scientific publishing. Researchers, regardless of their disciplines, should be aware of these predators and have to be able to recognize them. The main aim of the present paper is to raise awareness about the growing menace of fake invitations to speak at a scientific conference organized by predatory organizers and publishers. Some subtle signs to identify the fake invitations from the authentic ones have been introduced (...) and discussed. (shrink)

This paper discusses to what extent, if any, recent street uprisings in Iran have been fuelled by gender inequalities; and, what the legal challenges of transforming such gender equality demands into the constitution are. I argue that a demographic transition that commenced two decades ago in Iran changed the status of women in family and society. Such a transition has unavoidably increased the presence of women in the public sphere and challenged gender presumptions within the law. To give a constitutional (...) response to such demands, I argue, the Iranian Constitution must re-examine the correlation between women and men as biological and/or social groups, and the relationship among women themselves as a group consisting of diverse identities. Moreover, equal attention must be paid to women’s norm, diversity, and agency. (shrink)

Emotion has a substantial influence on the cognitive processes in humans, including perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving. Emotion has a particularly strong influence on attention, especially modulating the selectivity of attention as well as motivating action and behavior. This attentional and executive control is intimately linked to learning processes, as intrinsically limited attentional capacities are better focused on relevant information. Emotion also facilitates encoding and helps retrieval of information efficiently. However, the effects of emotion on learning and (...) memory are not always univalent, as studies have reported that emotion either enhances or impairs learning and long-term memory retention, depending on a range of factors. Recent neuroimaging findings have indicated that the amygdala and prefrontal cortex cooperate with the medial temporal lobe in an integrated manner that affords (i) the amygdala modulating memory consolidation; (ii) the prefrontal cortex mediating memory encoding and formation; and (iii) the hippocampus for successful learning and long-term memory retention. We also review the nested hierarchies of circular emotional control and cognitive regulation (bottom-up and top-down influences) within the brain to achieve optimal integration of emotional and cognitive processing. This review highlights a basic evolutionary approach to emotion to understand the effects of emotion on learning and memory and the functional roles played by various brain regions and their mutual interactions in relation to emotional processing. We also summarize the current state of knowledge on the impact of emotion on memory and map implications for educational settings. In addition to elucidating the memory-enhancing effects of emotion, neuroimaging findings extend our understanding of emotional influences on learning and memory processes; this knowledge may be useful for the design of effective educational curricula to provide a conducive learning environment for both traditional “live” learning in classrooms and “virtual” learning through online-based educational technologies. (shrink)

Samir Amin depicts a world in which NATO has taken over the role of the United Nations, in which US hegemony is more or less complete, in which millions are condemned to die in order to preserve the social order of the US, Europe and Japan. Amin's analyses of the Gulf War, the wars in former Yugoslavia and the war in Central Asia reveal the scope of US strategic aims. He argues that the political and military dimension of (...) US dominance is as significant as US economic preponderance in determining the future of capitalist development. (shrink)

Peace, the article shows, is achieved by culturally evolved institutions that incentivize positive-sum relationships. We propose that this insight has important consequences for the design of human social cognition. Cues that signal the existence of such institutions should play a prominent role in detecting group membership. We show how this accounts for previous findings and suggest avenues for future research.

Los más diversos teóricos de la modernidad suelen presentar este período como un proceso continuo de desarrollo tecnológico y económico, progreso en las artes y las ciencias, expansión de la democracia y racionalización de las instituciones y las costumbres. Sin embargo, persisten las contradicciones del capitalismo, el colapso de la civilización es inminente y el Pueblo no vive ni ha vivido en la modernidad tal y como sus teóricos la describen. Esto es tanto más cierto en nuestro país, habitado por (...) una suerte de magdaleniense o pre-Tartessos lleno de cacharritos con iconos, llamadas, avisos, avatares, tamagotchies, móviles y juegos online integrados sin la menor discrepancia sobre una capa de rituales del año de la polka, fetiches, incienso, lágrimas, sangre, joyas, ofrendas, sacrificios, reliquias de miembros de santos y matriarcas fenicio-neolíticas devenidas madres de Cristo al tiempo que supporters del equipo de fútbol local. El ultrarracionalismo se presenta como un nuevo método y movimiento filosófico cuya voluntad es afrontar los desafíos del futuro sin dejar de hacer justicia a esta auténtica marejada de lo grotesco. (shrink)

Plus d’une trentaine d’années après la création des premières structures dédiées à sa promotion, l’intégrité scientifique s’est progressivement constituée en tant que thématique de recherche à part entière. Aujourd’hui, une communauté scientifique et académique est réunie autour de cet objet, comme en témoignent la publication d’un nombre croissant d’articles, la création de revues spécialisées ou encore l’organisation de conférences spécifiquement dédiées. Néanmoins, rares sont les travaux qui ont cherché à proposer une vue d’ensemble de la littérature académique relative à l’intégrité (...) scientifique. C’est dans cette perspective que cet état de l’art s’inscrit et entend apporter une contribution. Avec la volonté de rendre compte des principales tendances de la recherche en la matière, nous avons principalement ciblé dans ce travail des articles, des commentaires ou encore quelques documents institutionnels qui ont cherché à approfondir la compréhension que l’on a de l’intégrité scientifique, à explorer les diverses façons de la promouvoir, à mieux cerner l’occurrence des manquements qui y sont liés, ou encore à proposer une lecture de ces questions sous un angle spécifique. Certaines des thématiques qui sont abordées dans cet état de l’art sont incontournables dans le paysage de la recherche et font l’objet d’une attention marquée depuis longtemps, à l’image de l’étude des manquements à l’intégrité scientifique. D’autres, à l’instar des études historiques de l’intégrité scientifique, représentent des pistes de recherche un peu moins explorées mais dont l’intérêt nous semble assez important pour appeler à davantage de développements. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper was to introduce some online-based approaches to evaluate scientific journals and publishers and to differentiate them from the hijacked ones, regardless of their disciplines. With the advent of open-access journals, many hijacked journals and publishers have deceitfully assumed the mantle of authenticity in order to take advantage of researchers and students. Although these hijacked journals and publishers can be identified through checking their advertisement techniques and their websites, these ways do not always result in (...) their identification. There exist certain online-based approaches, such as using Master Journal List provided by Thomson Reuters, and Scopus database, and using the DOI of a paper, to certify the realness of a journal or publisher. It is indispensable that inexperienced students and researchers know these methods so as to identify hijacked journals and publishers with a higher level of probability. (shrink)

In _Civility, Nonviolent Resistance, and the New Struggle for Social Justice_, contributors expose the roots of injustice and violence, and propose civil, nonviolent ways of challenging them.

Apocalyptic thinking has a long religious and political tradition, but what place does it occupy within the temporal universe of contemporary capitalism? In this essay, we use the figure of the eschaton to draw out the loaded and ambiguous character of the future as it emerges through the condition of indebtedness. This entails a departure from political economy accounts of capitalist futurity, which stress the structural logic of financial speculation, in favour of an existential account that begins instead with the (...) cosmology of money and debt. We argue that finance capital’s fixation on the future has produced a very specific form of apocalyptic imagination, characteristic of financial society and built on a libidinal economy of leverage. Rather than offering an ecstatic end to the global process of financialization, financial eschatologies bind the contemporary subject to debt and indebtedness to the very end: an endless apocalypse, premised on the ends of finance itself. (shrink)

The UNESCO research projects focusing on The Silk Routes and The Slave Routes were launched at just the right time to remind us that globalization is not a novel dimension of the history of humanity. Not only am I among those who analyze capitalism as a worldwide system from its very inception, but I have also found it pertinent to recall that prior to the sixteenth century, societies were not at all isolated from one another but rather competing within regional (...) systems (and perhaps within one global system). To underestimate this fact is to condemn ourselves to a misunderstanding of the very dynamics of change within societies. At the same time, I maintain that in the history of the world, capitalism represents a qualitative rupture that had its beginnings around 1500. Accordingly I emphasize the distinction that must be made between the integrated structure of the worldwide capitalist system and the protocapitalist elements that are to be found in earlier societies; I also underline the specificity of the contrast between centers and peripheries, which is unique to global capitalism and which differs from previous forms of polarization. (shrink)

Kolmogorov complexity was originally defined for finitely-representable objects. Later, the definition was extended to real numbers based on the asymptotic behaviour of the sequence of the Kolmogorov complexities of the finitely-representable objects—such as rational numbers—used to approximate them.This idea will be taken further here by extending the definition to continuous functions over real numbers, based on the fact that every continuous real function can be represented as the limit of a sequence of finitely-representable enclosures, such as polynomials with rational coefficients.Based (...) on this definition, we will prove that for any growth rate imaginable, there are real functions whose Kolmogorov complexities have higher growth rates. In fact, using the concept of prevalence, we will prove that ‘almost every’ continuous real function has such a high-growth Kolmogorov complexity. An asymptotic bound on the Kolmogorov complexities of total single-valued computable real functions will be presented as well. (shrink)

Coming out, or the disclosure of a minority identity, features prominently across disciplines, including several subfields of sociological research. In the context of sexuality, theoretical arguments offer competing predictions. Some studies propose that coming out is increasingly an unremarkable life transition as the stigma associated with non-heterosexualities attenuates, while others posit entrenched discrimination. Rather than testing these theories or providing incremental evidence in support of one position, we use 52 in-depth interviews with recently-out individuals to explain how identity disclosures in (...) the present moment can validate plural possibilities. Our findings show that ambivalence is the core narrative which animates the contemporary coming out process. Respondents identify three interpretive frameworks that structure their experience of sexuality as at once incidental and central: generational differences, identity misrecognitions, and interfacing with institutions. We also detail a fourth theme, intersectionality, which shows the analytic limits of ambivalence in the coming out process. These patterns suggest more broadly that sexuality, like ethnicity, may provide symbolic resources—“distinguishing but not defining”—in the service of crafting a modern sexual self. (shrink)

This study investigated various manifestations of gravestone inscriptions to find different types of moves in the formation of such inscriptions in two Iranian social classes. The sample of the study included forty epitaphs in two shrines in the north and west of Tehran. Each epitaph was then photographed for analysis. Swales’ genre move model was used to analyze the data. The moves involved word choice, content, graphics, socio-cultural values, and written communicative practices. Considering socio-cultural factors characterizing the social classes, the (...) results revealed four moves in the epitaphs in the Shrine located in north of Tehran, and eight moves in the Shrine located in west of Tehran. Out of the total of eight moves observed, three were different in the two classes. Comparing these patterns of moves and their frequencies, various emotional, structural, lexical, gender-specific, and age-specific differences were observed. (shrink)

Prompted by the speed with which, in certain historical moments, the hard-won achievements of anti-racism can be comprehensively undone, this article reflects on the mechanisms that keep racial coding and judgement close to the surface, ready to spring into action. It reads the intensity of race in a given present in terms of the play between vernacular legacies of race-coded reception of visible difference and the conjunctural mobilizations of race by biopolitical regimes — state-regulated systems of governing populations — to (...) maintain collective order. The article explains the contemporary trend in the West towards the ‘racialization of everything’ as the product of mutually reinforcing mischief between vernacular and biopolitical racism. It closes with a discussion of the implications of such conjunctural tightness, one which questions the effectiveness of humanist arguments that have come to the fore in recent years focusing on practices of recognition and reconciliation. (shrink)

Gay neighborhoods across the United States are de-concentrating in today’s so-called “post-gay” era as sexual minorities assimilate into the mainstream and disperse across the city. This context creates a problem of measurement. If by “culture” we mean to say a particular way of life of a group or subgroup of people like sexual minorities, and if that way of life is blending with other aspects of the metropolis, then how can we detect distinct urban sexual cultures? In this article, I (...) use 125 interviews with Chicago residents to propose a two-pronged strategy. First, gay neighborhoods continue to house anchor institutions, despite ongoing residential out-migrations. These are the primary engines of community building, and they locate the material culture of a group in a specific place. Commemorations serve as a second indicator for a culture, and they too put meanings into form. Although it is a fact of city life that all neighborhoods change, anchors and commemorations are analytic devices that scholars can use to observe urban sexual cultures. More generally, they provide a framework for how to measure the shifting geographic profile of a historically stigmatized group as it experiences positive change in public opinion. (shrink)

The novel pandemic called “Coronavirus Disease 2019”, as a global public health emergency and global threat, has affected many countries in unpredictable ways and impacted on physical activity behaviors to various extents. Specific populations including refugees, asylum seekers, and prisoners, are vulnerable groups with multiple complex health needs and worse health outcomes with respect to the general population worldwide and at high risk of death from the “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related Coronavirus type 2”. Governments around the world have been implementing (...) preventive healthcare policies, including physical and social distancing, isolation, and confinement, to mitigate against the burden imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak. This pandemic period is characterized by reduced or lack of movement. During this period of lockdown, PA can represent an immunotherapy and a preventative approach to avoid the harmful effects of inactivity due to the pandemic. Moreover, PA could be prescribed to improve the immune system of specific populations, which particularly experience the condition of being confined. The present narrative review discusses the potential impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on these specific populations’ health status and the importance of performing PA/exercise to reduce the deleterious effects of COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we aim to provide useful recommendations on PA/exercise for these specific populations to maintain their level of independence, physical, and mental health as well as their wellbeing. (shrink)

The information on extra costs of disability among developingcountries, including Malaysia, is lacking and the issue seems neglected. As aresult, an appropriate amount of monetary assistance that should be providedto the disabled community in Malaysia could not be determined. This paperundertakes a preliminary analysis of the extra costs of having a disability,by taking the staff of International Islamic University Malaysia asthe sample as to calculate the extra costs of having a disability. The standardof living approach is adopted, and the extra (...) costs are calculated by dividingthe estimated coefficient of disability variables by the estimated coefficientof income. This paper analyses the extra costs among households containingone person with disabilities, and also across different severity levels, types ofdisability, according to gender, and residential area. Overall,a household containing one person with disabilities accounted 27.5 per cent outof their monthly income to fulfil disability-related needs. (shrink)

Taking its distance from classical liberalism, political liberalism seeks to avoid controversial metaphysical assumptions by starting from institutional features of modern polities. Political liberalism also extends the limits of liberal toleration by envisioning societies that it considers nonliberal but decent. This article is concerned with the relationship between these two dimensions of political liberalism, specifically as they are instantiated in the work of John Rawls. I show that these two dimensions are in tension with each other. Put simply, if political (...) liberalism is institutional, then decent societies are impossible. Decent societies are only conceivable within the ahistorical realm of values—a realm that Rawls sometimes slips into, even though its avoidance is central to political liberalism’s claim of distinctiveness. Rawls’s appeal to hypotheticals to defend his account of decent societies only serves to mask this tension and to foreclose important avenues of inquiry about the non-Western world. I also deploy throughout the article archival material that evinces Rawls’ concern with ethnocentrism but also the difficulties he faced in coming up with an adequate account of non-Western societies. On the argument I offer here, this intractability is to be expected, since Rawls did not recognize that the problems with his account were not purely philosophical, but in fact, sociological, political, and historical. (shrink)

This article explores the meaning and relevance of the ‘Idea of Europe’ in the context of a multicultural and multi-ethnic continent that increasingly draws on the presence and practices of people from non-European backgrounds. The Idea of Europe, even in its contemporary use, remains an ideal based on a Christian-Enlightenment-Romantic heritage, mobilized by supporters of European integration as the bridge between diverse European national cultures. In a Europe of extraordinary cultural interchange and immigration from all corners of the world, the (...) classical Idea of Europe is strikingly exclusionary and backward looking – a poor motif for the future. The article tries to develop an alternative Idea of Europe, one based on a particular politics of the public domain and a particular ethos of belonging in Europe seen as a migrant space, rather than one based on the enduring cultural values of a body of people called Europeans. It outlines a commons, protected by appropriate EU-level rights, that can both support and bind cultural pluralism and difference, and it proposes democratic vitalism as Europe’s core political project, an idea of becoming European, read as the process of never-settled cultural invention resulting from the vibrant clashes of an equal and empowered multiple public. No myth of origin, no myth of destination, only the commitment to a plural demos. (shrink)

Legal tech is growing, and its growth provokes anxieties about the future of the legal profession as such. In this article, we examine the impact of legal tech on the central role of lawyers at law firms in crafting an imagined ‘right legal answer’ by drawing on Duncan Kennedy’s suggestion that a claim to the rightness of one’s legal propositions is a central characteristic of the legal profession. We first ask how changes in the organisation of legal services affect the (...) ability of lawyers at law firms to produce that ‘right legal answer’. While legal tech only exacerbates already ongoing processes of eradication of routine tasks, we find that it continues to mask the role of ideology in arriving at a right legal answer under a new layer of technological projection. Second, we ask how lawyers’ ability to produce ‘the right legal answer’ is affected by, first, expert systems and, second, a legal tech application named Bryter, representing a no-code system. We find that expert systems do not permit to uphold the unity of the lawyer required for Kennedy’s model of the right legal answer, but that no-code systems as Bryter do so. No-code systems can be reduced to a slogan: Have the lawyer, but evict her ideological temptations more efficiently than before! (shrink)