The Catholic Reformation: A Very Short Introduction

James E. Kelly traces the Catholic Reformation from its beginnings in the first half of the sixteenth century, through the years of unrest in Europe, to its global expansion in the Americas, Asia and Africa, and its continued influence and legacy into the twentieth century

State-owned Enterprises

Despite three decades of extensive state reform and privatization, State-owned enterprises (SOEs) remain key players in the global economy. The expansion of SOEs’ global footprint has caused widespread concerns about their implications for fair competition, national security, reciprocity, transparency, corruption, the function of the free market at home, and the future of the rule-based liberal international economic order. Concurrently, there is a growing perception that current international economic rules are neither conceptually coherent nor practically effective for tackling SOEs. This chapter maps out the new SOE rules emerging in free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties, such as the (Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the EU-China Comprehensive Investment Agreement (CAI), and more importantly, to assess critically to what extent the new SOE rules are able to address the Chinese SOE problem

The age of hand stencils in Maltravieso cave (Extremadura, Spain) established by U-Th dating, and its implications for the early development of art

U-Th dating of associated carbonate crusts has been applied to date parietal art in Maltravieso cave, Extremadura, Spain. Known for its large collection of red hand stencils (≥60), one example previously dated to >66.7 ka was taken to suggest Neandertal authorship. Here we present a more detailed U-series study of hand stencils within the cave, and place the results in the context of the chronology of these motifs worldwide. Twenty-two carbonate samples overlying pigment of hand stencils were dated from the cave’s Sala de las Pinturas and the Galería de la Serpiente. Minimum ages for the art range from the Holocene to the Middle Palaeolithic. Alongside published dating results from other sites, this demonstrates that Neandertals as well as modern humans could create these motifs

"Comforting, Reassuring, and…Hot": A Qualitative Exploration of Engaging in Bondage, Discipline, Domination, Submission, Sadism and (Sado)masochism and Kink from the Perspective of Autistic Adults.

There is a lack of research on autistic intimacy; however, a small body of research suggests that bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism and (sado)masochism (BDSM)/kink may be appealing to autistic people. We aimed at exploring how engagement in BDSM/kink related to autistic identity, using a phenomenological approach. We recruited six autistic adults through purposive sampling on social media. All participants took part in a one-to-one spoken interview about their engagement in BDSM/kink and how it related to their sense of identity. We used interpretative phenomenological analysis to analyze the data and found three key themes. Theme 1, "Practicing safe 'sex'" highlighted how the clear communication and explicit focus on consent present in BDSM/kink facilitated a feeling of safety. Theme 2, "So many ways to touch and be touched" was focused on the sensory draw of BDSM/kink, and how it provided exciting ways to explore sensory joy (and sometimes revulsion). Theme 3, "Subverting (neuro)normativity" showed how autistic people can find pleasure in intimate practices that transgress normative expectations. Our findings highlighted the importance of exploring the perceptions of autistic adults in relation to their own intimate practices. Autistic intimacy is an emerging area of research, with very little focus on lived experience. Although engagement in BDSM/kink may appear niche, our findings suggest that there are aspects which are inherently appealing to autistic people. These findings can be used to destigmatize both autistic intimacy and engagement in alternative intimate practices more broadly. [Abstract copyright: Copyright 2024, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Conceptual and Measurement Issues in Assessing Democratic Backsliding

During the past decade, analyses drawing on several democracy measures have shown a global trend of democratic retrenchment. While these democracy measures use radically different methodologies, most partially or fully rely on subjective judgments to produce estimates of the level of democracy within states. Such projects continuously grapple with balancing conceptual coverage with the potential for bias (Munck and Verkuilen 2002; Przeworski et al. 2000). Little and Meng (L&M) (2023) reintroduce this debate, arguing that “objective” measures of democracy show little evidence of recent global democratic backsliding.1 By extension, they posit that time-varying expert bias drives the appearance of democratic retrenchment in measures that incorporate expert judgments. In this article, we engage with (1) broader debates on democracy measurement and democratic backsliding, and (2) L&M’s specific data and conclusions