Friendship as a Political Concept: A Groundwork for Analysis

What kind of a concept is friendship, and what is its connection to politics? Critics sometimes claim that friendship does not have a role to play in the study of politics. Such objections misconstrue the nature of the concept of friendship and its relation to politics. In response, this article proposes three approaches to understanding the concept of friendship: (1) as a ‘family resemblance’ concept, (2) as an instance of an ‘essentially contested’ concept, and (3) as a concept indicating a problématique. The article thus responds to the dismissal of friendship by undertaking the groundwork for understanding what kind of a concept friendship might be, and how it might serve different purposes. In doing so, it opens the way for understanding friendship’s relation to politics

Controlled Experiments of Hillslope Coevolution at the Biosphere 2 Landscape Evolution Observatory: Toward Prediction of Coupled Hydrological, Biogeochemical, and Ecological Change

Understanding the process interactions and feedbacks among water, porous geological media, microbes, and vascular plants is crucial for improving predictions of the response of Earth’s critical zone to future climatic conditions. However, the integrated coevolution of landscapes under change is notoriously difficult to investigate. Laboratory studies are limited in spatial and temporal scale, while field studies lack observational density and control. To bridge the gap between controlled laboratory and uncontrollable field studies, the University of Arizona built a macrocosm experiment of unprecedented scale: the Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO). LEO comprises three replicated, heavily instrumented, hillslope-scale model landscapes within the environmentally controlled Biosphere 2 facility. The model landscapes were designed to initially be simple and purely abiotic, enabling scientists to observe each step in the landscapes’ evolution as they undergo physical, chemical, and biological changes over many years. This chapter describes the model systems and associated research facilities and illustrates how LEO allows for tracking of multiscale matter and energy fluxes at a level of detail impossible in field experiments. Initial sensor, sampler, and soil coring data are already providing insights into the tight linkages between water flow, weathering, and microbial community development. These interacting processes are anticipated to drive the model systems to increasingly complex states and will be impacted by the introduction of vascular plants and changes in climatic regimes over the years to come. By intensively monitoring the evolutionary trajectory, integrating data with mathematical models, and fostering community-wide collaborations, we envision that emergent landscape structures and functions can be linked, and significant progress can be made toward predicting the coupled hydro-biogeochemical and ecological responses to global change

Leo Strauss and International Relations: The politics of modernity's abyss

This article argues that an engagement with the political philosophy of Leo Strauss is of considerable value in International Relations (IR), in relation to the study of both recent US foreign policy and contemporary IR theory. The question of Straussian activities within and close to the foreign policy-making establishment in the United States during the period leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been the focus of significant scholarly and popular attention in recent years. This article makes the case that several individuals influenced by Strauss exercised considerable influence in the fields of intelligence production, the media and think tanks, and traces the ways in which elements of Strauss’ thought are discernible in their interventions in these spheres. It further argues that Strauss’ political philosophy is of broader significance for IR insofar as it can be read as a securitising response to the dangers he associated with the foundationlessness of the modern condition. The article demonstrates that the politics of this response are of crucial importance for contemporary debates between traditional and critical IR theorists

Tree Mortality Decreases Water Availability and Ecosystem Resilience to Drought in Piñon-Juniper Woodlands in the Southwestern U.S.

Climate-driven tree mortality has increased globally in response to warmer temperature and more severe drought. To examine how tree mortality in semiarid biomes impacts surface water balance, we experimentally manipulated a pinon-juniper (PJ) woodland by girdling all adult pinon trees in a 4 ha area, decreasing pinon basal area by similar to 65%. Over 3.5 years (2009-2013), we compared water flux measurements from this girdled site with those from a nearby intact PJ woodland. Before and after girdling, the ratio of evapotranspiration (ET) to incoming precipitation was similar between the two sites. Girdling altered the partitioning of ET such that the contribution of canopy transpiration to ET decreased 9-14% over the study period, relative to the intact control, while noncanopy ET increased. We attributed the elevated noncanopy ET in the girdled site each year to winter increases in sublimation and summer increases in both soil evaporation and below-canopy transpiration. Although we expected that mortality of a canopy dominant would increase the availability of water and other resources to surviving vegetation, we observed a decrease in both soil volumetric water content and sap flow rates in the remaining trees at the girdled site, relative to the control. This postgirdling decrease in the performance of the remaining trees occurred during the severe 2011-2012 drought, suggesting that pinon mortality may trigger feedback mechanisms that leave PJ woodlands drier relative to undisturbed sites and potentially more vulnerable to drought.DOE Office of Science TES [SC DE-SC0008088]; NSF Ecosystems [NSF-DEB-1557176]; Pacific Northwest National Lab's LDRD program; Los Alamos National Lab; College of Arts and Sciences at the University of New Mexico6 month embargo; published online: 29 December 2017This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]