Book review: Syriza: inside the labyrinth by Kevin Ovenden

In Syriza: Inside the Labyrinth, the first book to be published as part of the relaunched Left Book Club, Kevin Ovenden gives an on-the-ground account of Syriza’s rise to power following the party’s election victory in Greece in January 2015. By tracing the heavy compromises and strategic decisions made by the party during its defining first six months in office, Ovenden’s book not only captures the complexity of recent Greek politics, but also speaks to the question of whether radical change can be mobilised on both the streets and through the ballot box, writes Nicolas Schneider

Book review: strangers at our door by Zygmunt Bauman

In this new short book, Strangers at our Door, Zygmunt Bauman examines the origins, contours and impact of the present-day moral panic around the ‘migration crisis’ in Europe. He explores the fear generated by political campaigns, arguing that this ‘crisis of humanity’ instead requires a ‘fusion of horizons’ through dialogue. While Nicolas Schneider suggests that a more systematic and detailed analysis of how to oppose this emergent dynamic of dehumanisation within contemporary politics might be required, he finds that this text nonetheless offers a valuable introductory glimpse into the complexities of the issue

Book review: undoing ties: political philosophy at the waning of the state by Mariano Croce and Andrea Salvatore

If the state is in decline, what are the consequences of loosening the linkages between traditional political institutions and citizens? Undoing Ties: Political Philosophy at the Waning of the State offers an overview of the paradigms through which transformations to the role of the state have been understood, with Mariano Croce and Andrea Salvatore particularly focusing on the ‘reviviscence’ of sub-state and supra-state groups as political actors. This highly elucidating insight will help readers to adopt a differentiated perspective on one of the core issues in contemporary political theory, writes Nicolas Schneider

Le castellum de La Malène en Gévaudan. Un " rocher monument " du premier Moyen Age (VIe-VIIe s.)

Présentation des premiers résultats de la fouille programmée conduite entre 2008 et 2011 sur un établissement perché et fortifié (V-VIIe s.) des gorges du Tarn en Lozère. La mission de terrain s'est déroulée dans le cadre du programme "Oppida et castra du premier Moyen Age en France méditerranéenne" initié par le CNRS

COVID-19 Vaccination in Palestine/Israel: Citizenship, Capitalism, and the Logic of Elimination

Despite Israel’s responsibility under international law to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics in its occupied territories, Israeli officials have refused to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Through a critical discourse analysis of Israeli officials’ statements regarding Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, this paper explores how Israel evades this responsibility while presenting itself as committed to public health and human rights. We find that Israeli officials strategically present Palestinians as an autonomous nation when discussing COVID-19 vaccinations, despite Israel’s ongoing attempts to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Relatedly, Israel justifies its refusal to vaccinate Palestinians on the grounds of the Palestinian Authority’s economic independence, thereby obscuring Israel’s control over the Palestinian economy. In this way, Israel relies on citizenship and economic inequality, as internationally sanctioned forms of exclusion, to deny Palestinians their right to health. Drawing on theorists such as Michel Foucault, Achille Mbembe, and Jasbir Puar, we argue that withholding vaccines from Palestinians reveals the ways that Israel furthers its settler-colonial aims under the guise of liberal humanitarianism and economic growth. Instead of directing these conclusions toward Israel as an exceptional case, we contend that these processes reveal how settler-colonial societies use liberal frameworks of citizenship and capitalism to carry out their racialized projects of elimination

The Relative Humidity in an Isentropic Advection–Condensation Model: Limited Poleward Influence and Properties of Subtropical Minima

An idealized model of advection and condensation of water vapor is considered as a representation of processes influencing the humidity distribution along isentropic surfaces in the free troposphere. Results are presented for how the mean relative humidity distribution varies in response to changes in the distribution of saturation specific humidity and in the amplitude of a tropical moisture source. Changes in the tropical moisture source are found to have little effect on the relative humidity poleward of the subtropical minima, suggesting a lack of poleward influence despite much greater water vapor concentrations at lower latitudes. The subtropical minima in relative humidity are found to be located just equatorward of the inflection points of the saturation specific humidity profile along the isentropic surface. The degree of mean subsaturation is found to vary with the magnitude of the meridional gradient of saturation specific humidity when other parameters are held fixed. The atmospheric relevance of these results is investigated by comparison with the positions of the relative humidity minima in reanalysis data and by examining poleward influence of relative humidity in simulations with an idealized general circulation model. It is suggested that the limited poleward influence of relative humidity may constrain the propagation of errors in simulated humidity fields

Decarbonized energies and the wealth of three European nations: a comparative nexus study using Granger and Toda-Yamamoto approaches

Considering the actual debate nuclear vs renewable that divides the green transition of the EU member states, this paper investigates the dynamic interactions between two sources of decarbonized energy (renewables and nuclear) and economic growth for three distinct economies: France, Spain, and Germany, all differing in their respective long-run nuclear planning. A complex methodological framework is employed to consider stationary (Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, Phillips-Perron test, Dickey-Fuller test, Elliott-Rothenberg-Stock test, Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin test, Zivot and Andrews test with structural break), cointegration (Johansen and Juselius test of cointegration, Gregory and Hansen cointegration test with breaks based on regime-trend shifts), long-run convergence (Vector Error Correction Model), causality (Granger causality test, Toda-Yamamoto non-causality test, and variance analysis (Impulse Response Functions) Empirical results for the period 1983–2019 fail to support the existence of statistical causality between renewable energy use and economic growth in France and Spain, which is congruent with the “neutral hypothesis”. Besides, while a weak one-way link is revealed from renewable energy use to GDP in Germany only, economic growth is found to substantially trigger nuclear energy consumption in Spain but not vice versa, thus corroborating the “growth hypothesis”. Accordingly, country-specific insights are provided to deploy low-carbon sectoral facilities in Spain, enhance the channels of radioactive waste treatment in France, and secure the nuclear phase-out in Germany