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1
Caron, Franco. Managing the Continuum: Certainty, Uncertainty, Unpredictability in Large Engineering Projects. Milano: Springer Milan, 2013.
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2
Unpredictability and presence: Norwegian kingship in the High Middle Ages. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
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3
Leonard, Elysse, and Michael Tau. Redirecting the Clinical Gaze. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190849900.003.0002.
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Film has been used in medical education for many years to teach both medical students and residents. This has taken many forms, from informal “movie clubs” to organized seminars embedded into curricula. This chapter reviews the literature on the use of film in medical education. It then presents a unique model for how films can augment postgraduate training. Using an example of a close reading of the film Son frère (2003), the chapter suggests that film can be used to provoke reflection on certain characteristics of clinical work, including the unpredictability and irrationality of illness and the experience of not-knowing. Experimental and nonlinear narratives can amplify these themes by challenging viewers’ expectations. The chapter then discusses various practical considerations for teaching using cinema, including film and venue selection, screening rights, and community partnerships. Lastly, sample lesson plans and suggested resources are provided as examples to aid curriculum development.
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Orning, Hans Jacob. Unpredictability and Presence: Norwegian Kingship in the High Middle Ages. Ebsco Publishing, 2008.
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5
Honig, Dan. How to Know What Works Better, When. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190672454.003.0005.
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This chapter develops testable hypotheses of when Navigation by Judgment will be more or less successful. It develops theory as to why environmental predictability and project external verifiability play important mediating roles in the relationship between navigation strategy and success. The chapter argues that returns to Navigation by Judgment will rise as environmental unpredictability rises and as task verifiability falls. The chapter also introduces the quantitative and qualitative data that will be used in chapters 6 and 7 and discusses quantitative and qualitative data-collection methods at some length. The chapter also operationalizes for quantitative analysis the key variables, including Project Success, the propensity of international development organizations to Navigate by Judgment, and environmental unpredictability.
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Heyde, Neil, Christopher Redgate, Roger Redgate, and Matthew Wright. Intervention. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199355914.003.0026.
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Four highly experienced contemporary musicians—cellist, violinist, oboist and turntablist—who had never previously played together as a quartet discuss a public performance of free-improvisation. The conversation ranges across unpredictability and technology, composition and improvisation, and the rewards of getting to know one another through music.
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Tapscott, Rebecca. Arbitrary States. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198856474.001.0001.
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In recent years, scholars of authoritarianism have noted a trend in which institutions designed to check arbitrary power have been hollowed out to facilitate its exercise. As they grapple with how to understand the disjunct between state institutions and enforcement power, scholars of sub-Saharan African states have been doing so for decades. Based on in-depth field research on local security in Museveni’s Uganda, Tapscott offers an innovative and provocative contribution to studies of authoritarianism and state consolidation: rulers maintain control by creating unpredictability in the everyday lives of local authorities and ordinary citizens. In this type of modern authoritarian regime, rulers institutionalize arbitrariness to limit the space for political action, while they keep citizens marginally engaged in the democratic process. By showing not just that unpredictability matters for governance, but also how it is manufactured and sustained, this book challenges and extends cutting-edge scholarship on authoritarianism, the state, and governance.
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Sprigings, David. Dealing with uncertainty. Edited by Patrick Davey and David Sprigings. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199568741.003.0002.
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Uncertainty is a frequent and often uncomfortable element in the physician’s professional life. Its many overlapping sources range from biological variation in patients and diseases, to the inherent unpredictability of the future. This chapter focuses on dealing with uncertainty in diagnosis, prognosis, and management. How can good judgements be made and wise decisions taken when the information on which they are based is incomplete?
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Byers, Mark. Difficulties of Discovery. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198813255.003.0006.
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The uncertainty of the glyph, reflecting a new commitment to the unpredictability of history and the fallibility of scientific reason, is shown in this chapter to have generated a major avant-garde interest in modern physics, particularly quantum mechanics. The chapter charts cognate developments in Olson’s work and that of Wolfgang Paalen, an Austrian-Mexican painter who had a decisive influence on abstract expressionism through his journal Dyn. Both Olson and Paalen are shown to have turned to post-classical physics—particularly Heisenberg’s ‘uncertainty principle’—as a platform for a new late modernist art that would break with both the political and the aesthetic principles of high modernism.
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Conca, Ken, and Erika Weinthal, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199335084.001.0001.
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This handbook gathers a diverse group of leading scholars of water politics and policy. Authors were tasked to present forward-looking chapters in their areas of expertise, flagging key trends in both research and practice. The volume is organized into six sections: poverty, rights, and ethics; food, energy, and water; water and the politics of scale; law, economics, and water management; the politics of transboundary water; and the politics of water knowledge. Cross-cutting themes include governance challenges rooted in the mobility, unpredictability, and public-goods dimensions of water; tensions and synergies among equity, efficiency, and sustainability; the distributive consequences of water governance; the design and performance of water institutions; and the implications of climate change.
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Howe, Justine. Conclusion. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190258870.003.0009.
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The conclusion examines the significance of third-space religious communities for religious studies, American religions, and the study of American Islam. It argues that scholars should be more attentive to these marginal communities to more adequately account for the contingency and unpredictability of lived religious practices. Looking beyond more visible institutions and dense urban neighborhoods enables researchers to track the ways in which communities are formed, how they seek to create a space of belonging for their members to inhabit, and how these attempts to create community simultaneously reinforce discourses of exclusion and marginalization. The chapter concludes with reflections on the possibilities and constraints of American Muslim selfhood and identity as Barack Obama’s presidency came to a close.
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Simon, Gleeson. Part II Commercial Banking, 7 Credit Risk. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/law/9780198793410.003.0007.
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This chapter discusses the concept of credit risk. Of all the risks that banks are exposed to, credit risk is the most important and the most intuitively obvious. It is important to remember that credit means more than simply loans. At the heart of financial transactions are credit exposures. For an economist, the function of a bank is maturity transformation and intertemporal transfers of resources. But in a world where debts were always repaid, these functions would be as mechanical as the transmission of water or electricity. It is the unpredictability of credit that differentiates banking from other businesses. The remainder of the chapter covers risk weighting of assets, valuation of exposures, and provisioning and expected loss.
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Reyes, Hernán, and Metİn Bașoğlu. Control as a Defining Characteristic of Torture. Edited by Metin Başoğlu. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199374625.003.0002.
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An analysis of the Kubark interrogation techniques clearly demonstrates that they are specifically designed to induce helplessness in detainees by enhancing the unpredictability and uncontrollability of captivity stressors. By providing examples of how various aspects of life in captivity (e.g., deprivation of sleep, food, personal hygiene, medical care, social contact, communication with the outside world, and other basic needs) can be manipulated to maximize helplessness, the Kubark manual lends support to a learning theory formulation of torture as “helplessness under the control of others.” It also demonstrates that “severe mental pain or suffering” is caused by the cumulative helplessness effects of all aspects of life in captivity and not just the captors’ “intentional” behaviors during discrete interrogation sessions.
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Greenwood, Emily. Thucydides on the Sicilian Expedition. Edited by Sara Forsdyke, Edith Foster, and Ryan Balot. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199340385.013.25.
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This chapter analyzes Thucydides’ account of the Athenian invasion in Sicily in Books 6 and 7 of his History, focusing on the interpretative consequences of Thucydides’ Athenian focalization and the fact that the success of his account has obscured alternative perspectives on this invasion. Particular attention is paid to the narrative patterning of the Sicilian invasion as a “double war” that runs parallel to the main, overarching war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians. This “double war” structure, in which the war ends disastrously for the aggressors, only for them to keep on fighting the other war with renewed vigor, allows Thucydides to illustrate the open-ended unpredictability of war in real time and the constant revision of expectations on the part of those involved.
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Honig, Dan. Journey without Maps. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190672454.003.0006.
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This chapter brings quantitative and qualitative empirics to bear on the relationship between environmental predictability, navigation strategy, and international development organization (IDO) Project Success. The chapter first examines quantitative data on IDO Project Success, as environmental unpredictability varies along with the role that the Navigation by Judgment propensity plays in this relationship. It then turns to qualitative cases, which compare U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) performance in Liberia’s unpredictable environment as both IDOs attempt to achieve similar goals in health and government capacity-building interventions. The discussion draws on the quantitative Project Performance Database and two pairs of case studies comparing USAID and DFID projects in relatively unpredictable Liberia. The chapter finds that Navigation by Judgment is associated with relatively better project performance in unpredictable contexts.
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Ghebrehewet, Sam, Alex G. Stewart, and Ian Rufus. Key principles and practice of health protection. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198745471.003.0003.
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As a result of the unpredictability in time, space, and scope of health protection issues, the provision of a 24/7 local service across the three domains of health protection—communicable disease control, environmental public health, and emergency preparedness, resilience and response (EPRR)—is essential. This chapter outlines the essential principles that are applied in the organization, development, and delivery of all three domains of health protection, whether dealing with individual issues and cases or large incidents and outbreaks: (1) planning and preparedness; (2) prevention and early detection; (3) investigation and control; and (4) wider public health management and leadership (including communication to professionals and the public). It also describes how these principles translate into key elements of health protection practice across the three domains. An integrated public health risk assessment that embraces an all hazards approach to risk assessment is also discussed.
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Woloch, Nancy. Conclusion. Princeton University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691002590.003.0010.
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This concluding chapter examines the nature of protective law, the crucial historical issue of overtime, and public policy after the dismantling of women-only protective laws. Over the course of a century, protective laws for women workers left a double imprint on U.S. history. The laws set precedents that led to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and to modern labor law; they also sustained classification by sex, a tradition of gendered law that abridged citizenship, impeded equality, and endured until late in the century. One variable facet of the protective agenda was the interplay between women-only protective laws and “general” wage-and-hours law that affected men. The long history of overtime, its role in shaping gendered law, and its ramifications over time suggests both the unstable nature of protective law and the unpredictability of its consequences.
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Cesar, Gabriel T., and Scott H. Decker. Cold-Blooded and Badass. Edited by Wim Bernasco, Jean-Louis van Gelder, and Henk Elffers. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199338801.013.30.
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Carjacking is a bold crime characterized by unpredictability and danger. Media reports have identified carjackings throughout the world, and estimates suggest 34,000 occur annually in the United States alone. Research with active offenders has examined carjacking in the context of US street crime, but official reporting inconsistencies and a focus on instrumental motivations hinder a more comprehensive understanding of this crime. The lack of a theoretical framework to analyze the decision-making behaviors of carjackers further complicates the development of effective means to deal with carjacking. With this in mind, this chapter synthesizes the current literature about carjacking and then integrates that synthesis with van Gelder’s “hot/cool” approach to offender decision making. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of this framework for carjacking policy and prevention, and it suggests directions for future research.
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Tarrow, Sidney. Rhythms of Resistance. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190886172.003.0010.
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In the current alignment in American politics, polarization sharply divides Americans. But party loyalties are permeable to change; movement loyalties, in contrast, are impervious to political currents. This chapter regards Trumpism as such a movement, and the Resistance as the countermovement it has triggered. This gives the Resistance both the advantage of having Trump as a focal point but the cost of his unpredictability and volatility. The chapter employs the concept of “cycles of contention” to understand this conjuncture. Its outcomes depend less on the initial shock than on three important mechanisms that it has triggered—the amplification of initial cleavages, the spillover from one sector of conflict to others, and a shift in scale both upward to the national level and downward to states and localities. These mechanisms have expanded the cycle but have also created rifts in the Resistance.
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Kalb, Rosalind C. Living with Multiple Sclerosis. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199341016.003.0028.
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This chapter describes the challenges experienced by individuals and families after diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, as the disease progresses, and in the face of significant disability. Common emotional reactions such as grief, anxiety, anger, and guilt are described, along with specific recommendations for physicians, rehabilitation professionals, and mental health professionals on how to support their patients throughout the disease course. Challenges related to diagnosis, disclosure, and treatment decisions, as well as the variability and unpredictability of the disease are highlighted. Understanding disease progression, communicating one’s needs, and utilizing assistive technology are the focus as the disease progresses. Redefining one’s sense of self, independence, and control are the primary challenges for those with more advanced multiple sclerosis. For families, the recommended interventions are designed to support healthy, balanced care partnerships; address the needs of children and elderly parents; and promote effective planning and problem-solving.
21
Freedman, Linda. ‘Energy is Eternal Delight’. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198813279.003.0007.
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Gary Snyder’s ecopoetical reading of Blake married Blake’s energetic principle with anarchist politics and a deep appreciation of Zen Buddhism and contrasted it with the deadening impact of fossil fuel technology on the earth. Michael McClure equated Blakean delight with animality and biological unpredictability which he used to oppose the uncompromising rigidity of political ideology and systemic control. Latent in the history of the earth, animal sensuality, and continually shifting systems of biological reorganization, McClure and Snyder perceived Blakean delight as the energetic lifeblood of the world. The outrage to Blake’s thinking is not as strong as first appears. Blake opposed the idea that you could learn anything from the natural world but he enjoined his readers to marry vision with action. Juxtaposing Snyder and McClure with George Oppen shows how broadly Blake inspired poets who wanted to fight the real and pressing problems of their day.
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Esposito, Elena. Predicted Uncertainty. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198820802.003.0010.
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The chapter analyses the way in which structured finance manages and controls the openness of the future as a source of profit. Financial modelling relies on a specific form of fiction, based on the careful construction of a present image of the future and its uncertainty—expressed by the evaluation of implied volatility. The problem with this approach is that it fails to take account of the reflexive way in which the fictitious future it constructs affects the (not-yet-existing) future reality. This chapter highlights the dual nature of the future as intersection and combination of both the present future and the future present. It concludes that structured-financed models—despite their attempt to control risk by making calculations in the present about the future and about current market expectations of the future—may, in times of turbulence, increase the indeterminacy and unpredictability of future reality.
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Hutchinson, G. O. Conclusion. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198821717.003.0026.
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Form, on the most detailed level, turns out to be inextricably connected with expression, meaning, and larger structure. Perhaps modern scholars underestimate form, as is apparent from the greater importance of metre in ancient conceptions of poetic genre. Rhythm plays an important part in building up the worlds of the rhythmic narrative writing that has been considered. At climactic moments of Chariton, rhythm intensifies the supremacy of love in the erotic scheme of values; in the moments of Plutarch, it helps the presentation of a broader scheme of values, where politics is not simply set aside, but where the individual can transcend powerlessness and death. Philosophy, comparison, the evolution and unpredictability of people are presented the more forcefully through passages heightened by rhythm; rhythm as elsewhere marks meaning and expresses thought. The greatness of Plutarch’s writing emerges much more strongly when we start to read him rhythmically.
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Yvonne, Baatz. Part II To Arbitrate or Not to Arbitrate? The Grey Area of Contracts of Carriage, 7 Incorporation of a Charterparty Arbitration Clause into a Bill of Lading and its Effect on Third Parties. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/law/9780198757948.003.0007.
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This chapter discusses the practice of incorporating charterparty arbitration clauses into bills of lading and examines recent decisions of the English courts which have tended to take a flexible and liberal approach in determining the effectiveness of such incorporation. It notes that a restrictive approach to the recognition of the validity of such arbitration clauses results in a highly uncertain position for a carrier who may find itself having to arbitrate in different locations to respond to different claims arising out of the same incident. It also criticizes the European Court of Justice’s decision in Allianz SpA (formerly RiunioneAdriatica di SicurtaSpA) v West Tankers Inc (The Front Comor). The case has created the potential of much confusion on the enforceability of a charterparty arbitration clause incorporated into a bill of lading, and creates unnecessary unpredictability and the heightened potential of litigation costs to determine preliminary issues.
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Sang, Deborah Tze-lan. Eileen Chang and the Genius Art of Failure. Edited by Carlos Rojas and Andrea Bachner. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199383313.013.39.
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A favorite with critics intent on theorizing a female literature in Chinese, Eileen Chang’s works offer fertile ground for investigating the gender politics of representation. Ironically for one of the most acclaimed twentieth-century Chinese writers, Chang was obsessed with failure. Although failure is fascinating precisely because of its unpredictability—one can fall short of or deviate from the definition of success in such a multiplicity of ways that it is difficult to generalize—we can note that it is often through failure and a panoply of negative emotions that Chang calls gender and sexual norms into question. In another twist, Chang’s fascination with failure manifests itself as a repeated exploration of the romantic, moral, and political failings of the modern girl, an exploration that implicitly responds to the discourse on the shortcomings of the modern girl that ran rampant in the Chinese media throughout the 1930s–1940s.
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Wagenaar, Hendrik, Helga Amesberger, and Sietske Altink. Summary and conclusion. Policy Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447324249.003.0007.
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The final chapter of the book summarises its main results and conclusions. It formulates two insights. First, prostitution policy is fragile. Legalisation and decriminalisation are easily reversed, and revert back to criminalisation and heavy-handed regulation and control. This is a complex process that, triggered by the ever present sigma on prostitution and a dominant neo-abolitionist discourse, largely occurs at the local level, thereby deviating from, and even undoing, national policymaking. Second, without a detailed exposition and analysis of the design and implementation of prostitution policy at different scales of governance, statements about its nature or outcomes remain necessarily superficial and are at worst misleading. We conclude with the question: What can policy makers do to negotiate the complexity and unpredictability of the prostitution domain? Stimulating variation, facilitating new communication lines and selecting and promoting solutions that work are general strategies for effectively navigating such complexity. This requires the inclusion of stakeholders, particularly of more vulnerable groups such as sex workers, in policy formulation and implementation.
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Bașoğlu, Metin. A Theory- and Evidence-Based Approach to the Definition of Torture. Edited by Metin Başoğlu. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199374625.003.0001.
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Any attempt to define torture requires a sound theory-based understanding of the psychological mechanisms by which it induces “severe mental pain or suffering.” Among the different theories advanced for this purpose, learning theory of trauma is the one that has been most extensively tested and empirically validated. Substantial research with both animals and humans has shown that the unpredictability and uncontrollability of stressor events lead to helplessness and hopelessness responses, including anxiety and depression. This chapter presents a learning theory model of trauma, provides a definition of “pain or suffering,” demonstrates a contextual/cumulative approach to captivity stressors, and describes a methodology for assessment of captivity-induced pain or suffering. It also proposes a learning theory formulation of torture as “helplessness under the control of others” and reviews its implications for the distinction between torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and emerging trends in international law in interpretation of torture.
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Chodat, Robert. Puzzles, Pawnshops, and Improvisation. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190682156.003.0005.
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In his 2010 memoir Little Did I Know, Stanley Cavell challenges two misleading pictures prevalent in analytic philosophy. One suggests that human behavior could be fully explained and predicted, much in the way that a picture puzzle has only a single solution. A second suggests that the unpredictability of human actions means that they are wholly random, unaccountable, even irrational. In both the form and content of the memoir, Cavell suggests a different view: that our speech and lives are always poised between the purposeful and the accidental, and that genuine action is improvisatory. Such a standpoint is markedly different from that of certain well-known philosophical associates of Cavell—Quine, Derrida—who have also ventured to compose autobiographies. Little Did I Know, however, also highlights the philosopher’s distance from the social, economic, technological, and cultural changes that have marked the last few decades of American life. It thus risks shielding itself from the full range of “accidents” that mark a human life today.
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Ruzicka, Jan. A Plea for Restraint. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198779605.003.0008.
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This essay reconstructs Hedley Bull’s position on nuclear proliferation in The Anarchical Society. Avoiding the extremes of nuclear optimism and pessimism, Bull provided nuanced arguments about the relationship between nuclear proliferation and international order. Bull remained agnostic as to what the world of many nuclear powers would look like. He used this unpredictability to emphasize the notion of restraint involving both superpower cooperation to prevent states from going nuclear as well as the exercise of self-restraint on the part of superpowers. Showing restraint was crucial to the continued existence of the states system. Bull worried that proliferation represented a particular threat to it. Nuclear weapons exposed states to the prospect of sudden and complete destruction. This could lead to the abolition of the state system and its replacement with world government, to which Bull was strongly opposed. The conclusion illustrates Bull’s relevance in relation to the recent pursuit of non-proliferation.
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Eller, Jonathan R. New York, 1951. University of Illinois Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/illinois/9780252036293.003.0038.
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This chapter focuses on Ray Bradbury's 1951 trip to New York, describing it as more personally stressful than any of his previous visits. While in New York, Bradbury wrote two new pages for “The Magical Kitchen” and produced a new page for a very short time-travel piece titled “The Dragon.” He also felt that he could handle the unpredictability of the New York publishing world this time around. This chapter begins with a discussion of Bradbury's itinerary in New York, including meetings with magazine editors such as Eleanor Stierham of Today's Woman and a lecture on writing at Columbia University; he also watched a first-run performance of Darkness at Noon, the Sidney Kingsley adaptation of Arthur Koestler's novel. The chapter then turns to a series of unpleasant encounters that unnerved Bradbury, particularly the four editorial parties he attended and his confrontation with a group of ballet dancers. Bradbury articulated his feelings in “A Flight of Ravens,” his highly autobiographical story of the final days of his New York trip.
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Courtenay Botterill, Linda, and Melanie Fisher, eds. Beyond Drought. CSIRO Publishing, 2003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/9780643090972.
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The unpredictability of Australia’s climate poses real challenges for practices that were developed based on the relative predictability of a European climate. More recently, policy has been moving towards accepting drought as a reality, rejecting the notion that it is a natural disaster in favour of an approach based on risk management.
However, the level of public debate during a drought event suggests that this policy approach has not been widely understood or accepted. Media reporting of drought rapidly adopts disaster-related language and the organisation of relief appeals reinforces the impression that drought is an aberration rather than a normal part of Australia’s climate patterns.
Beyond Drought provides a multi-disciplinary discussion aimed at increasing the level of understanding of drought’s many facets and its impact on the environment, communities and the economy. It introduces a range of perspectives in order to emphasise the complexity of drought policy. The book cuts through the often emotional debate that occurs during a drought event, aiming to stimulate reasoned discussion about the best way that Australian farmers and the broader community can live with the vagaries of an uncertain climate.
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Johnson, Dominic D. P. Strategic Instincts. Princeton University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691137452.001.0001.
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A widespread assumption in political science and international relations is that cognitive biases — quirks of the brain we all share as human beings — are detrimental and responsible for policy failures, disasters, and wars. This book challenges this assumption, explaining that these nonrational behaviors can actually support favorable results in international politics and contribute to political and strategic success. By studying past examples, the book considers the ways that cognitive biases act as “strategic instincts,” lending a competitive edge in policy decisions, especially under conditions of unpredictability and imperfect information. Drawing from evolutionary theory and behavioral sciences, the book looks at three influential cognitive biases — overconfidence, the fundamental attribution error, and in-group/out-group bias. It then examines the advantageous as well as the detrimental effects of these biases through historical case studies of the American Revolution, the Munich Crisis, and the Pacific campaign in World War II. The book acknowledges the dark side of biases — when confidence becomes hubris, when attribution errors become paranoia, and when group bias becomes prejudice. Ultimately, it makes a case for a more nuanced understanding of the causes and consequences of cognitive biases and argues that in the complex world of international relations, strategic instincts can, in the right context, guide better performance. The book shows how an evolutionary perspective can offer the crucial next step in bringing psychological insights to bear on foundational questions in international politics.
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Maiden, Martin, Adina Dragomirescu, Gabriela Pană Dindelegan, Oana Uţă, and Rodica Zafiu. The Oxford History of Romanian Morphology. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198829485.001.0001.
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Romanian is one of the most morphologically complex Romance languages. This book is the first ever comprehensive and accessible account of how that morphological system evolved. Here are some of the most salient morphological traits distinctive of this language: it possesses an inflexional case system; unlike other Romance languages, it has an inflexional vocative; the morphological marking of number reached such a level of unpredictability that, for most nouns (and for many adjectives), the form of the plural must be independently specified alongside that of the singular; in addition to masculine and feminine, it seems to possess a third gender, often referred to as a ‘neuter’; its verb system contains a non-finite form, which apparently continues the Latin supine; the infinitive has undergone a morphological split such that one form functions now purely as a noun, while the other remains purely a verb; the distinctive morphology of the subjunctive has largely disappeared; lastly, noun and verb morphology are deeply permeated by the effects of successive sound changes, which have created remarkably complex patterns of allomorphy. The origins of many of these developments are problematic, indeed controversial. Moreover, they are problematic in ways that are of interest not only to broader historical Romance linguistics but, even more broadly, to morphological theory tout court. The Oxford History of Romanian Morphology shows how the features listed here are relevant to students and scholars interested in historical morphology generally no less than they are to Romance linguists.
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Keymer, Thomas. Poetics of the Pillory. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198744498.001.0001.
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On the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695, Thomas Macaulay wrote in his History of England, ‘English literature was emancipated, and emancipated for ever, from the control of the government’. It’s certainly true that the system of prior restraint enshrined in this Restoration measure was now at an end, at least for print. Yet the same cannot be said of government control, which came to operate instead by means of post-publication retribution, not pre-publication licensing, notably for the common-law offence of seditious libel. For many of the authors affected, from Defoe to Cobbett, this new regime was a greater constraint on expression than the old, not least for its alarming unpredictability, and for the spectacular punishment—the pillory—that was sometimes entailed. Yet we may also see the constraint as an energizing force. Throughout the eighteenth century and into the Romantic period, writers developed and refined ingenious techniques for communicating dissident or otherwise contentious meanings while rendering the meanings deniable. As a work of both history and criticism, this book traces the rise and fall of seditious libel prosecution, and with it the theatre of the pillory, while arguing that the period’s characteristic forms of literary complexity—ambiguity, ellipsis, indirection, irony—may be traced to the persistence of censorship in the post-licensing world. The argument proceeds through case studies of major poets and prose writers including Dryden, Defoe, Pope, Fielding, Johnson, and Southey, and also calls attention to numerous little-known satires and libels across the extended period.
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Wangui, Edna. Adaptation to Current and Future Climate in Pastoral Communities Across Africa. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.604.
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Pastoralists around the world are exposed to climate change and increasing climate variability. Various downscaled regional climate models in Africa support community reports of rising temperatures as well as changes in the seasonality of rainfall and drought. In addition to climate, pastoralists have faced a second exposure to unsupportive policy environments. Dating back to the colonial period, a lack of knowledge about pastoralism and a systemic marginalization of pastoral communities influenced the size and nature of government investments in pastoral lands. National governments prioritized farming communities and failed to pay adequate attention to drylands and pastoral communities. The limited government interventions that occurred were often inconsistent with contemporary realities of pastoralism and pastoral communities. These included attempts at sedentarization and modernization, and in other ways changing the priorities and practices of pastoral communities.The survival of pastoral communities in Africa in the context of this double exposure has been a focus for scholars, development practitioners, as well as national governments in recent years. Scholars initially drew attention to pastoralists’ drought-coping strategies, and later examined the multiple ways in which pastoralists manage risk and exploit unpredictability. It has been learned that pastoralists are rational land managers whose experience with variable climate has equipped them with the skills needed for adaptation. Pastoralists follow several identifiable adaptation paths, including diversification and modification of their herds and herding strategies; adoption of livelihood activities that did not previously play a permanent role; and a conscious decision to train the next generation for nonpastoral livelihoods. Ongoing government interventions around climate change still prioritize cropping over herding. Sometimes, such nationally supported adaptation plans can undermine community-based adaptation practices, autonomously evolving within pastoral communities. Successful adaptation hinges on recognition of the value of autonomous adaptation and careful integration of such adaptation with national plans.
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McEachern, Patrick. North Korea. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/wentk/9780190937997.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
After a year of trading colorful barbs with the American president and significant achievements in North Korea’s decades-long nuclear and missile development programs, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared mission accomplished in November 2017. Though Kim's pronouncement appears premature, North Korea is on the verge of being able to strike the United States with nuclear weapons. South Korea has long been in the North Korean crosshairs but worries whether the United States would defend it if North Korea holds the American homeland at risk. The largely ceremonial summit between US president Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, and the unpredictability of both parties, has not quelled these concerns and leaves more questions than answers for the two sides' negotiators to work out. The Korean Peninsula’s security situation is an intractable conflict, raising the question, “How did we get here?” In this book, former North Korea lead foreign service officer at the US embassy in Seoul Patrick McEachern unpacks the contentious and tangled relationship between the Koreas in an approachable question-and-answer format. While North Korea is famous for its militarism and nuclear program, South Korea is best known for its economic miracle, familiar to consumers as the producer of Samsung smartphones, Hyundai cars, and even K-pop music and K-beauty. Why have the two Koreas developed politically and economically in such radically different ways? What are the origins of a divided Korean Peninsula? Who rules the two Koreas? How have three generations of the authoritarian Kim dictatorship shaped North Korea? What is the history of North-South relations? Why does the North Korean government develop nuclear weapons? How do powers such as Japan, China, and Russia fit into the mix? What is it like to live in North and South Korea? This book tackles these broad topics and many more to explain what everyone needs to know about South and North Korea.