8,504 research outputs found
What were the French telling us by voting down the 'EU constitution'? A case for interpretive research on referendum debates
How to make sense of a popular vote is a question raised once again by the prospect of a Brexit referendum. To date the French rejection of the European Union constitutional treatyâs ratification has been one of the most consequential electoral statements in the history of European integration. Still, what its actual message was con- tinues to puzzle analysts. What were the French telling us? The article approaches this question of from the angle of the discursive processes of meaning making in the public sphere, through arguments, narratives and images. Complementing available explanatory accounts based on survey date or quantitative textual analysis, it presents a non-quantitative interpretive discourse analysis of political ideas providing structures of meaning in the debate around the treaty, as it was reflected in the press. The focus is on discursive and narrative techniques of meaning making and knowledge production. These are situated against embedding webs of beliefs, languages, and traditions. The reading offered pre- sents the debate as structured (i) by the motif of an open-ended search for a better Europe, rather than an outright rejection of the integration project (ii) by a deep opposition between âsocial Europeâ and a world where political agency over market forces is lost, and (iii) by an overarching discourse about reclaiming this agency
Public opinion in the EU institutionsâ discourses on EU legitimacy from the beginnings of integration to today
This article offers a long-term historical account of changing and competing references to public opinion and âwhat the people wantâ, and of the projected relationship between the two, in legitimation discourses by EU or Community institutions from the 1950s to today. It describes shifts from taking a generally permissive public opinion for granted, over an increased emphasis on the need to act upon and shape it, to a distinct turn, starting in the mid-1970s and in full swing by the 1980s, towards centring any claims regarding Community legitimacy on citizen expectations. The next chapter in the history of discourses around public opinion was marked by the growing and incontrovertible politicization and polarization of public opinion. This came to a head in the context of the constitutional, euro, refugee, and most recently Brexit crises, but was already beginning to show at the times of the Maastricht and constitutional treaties. By now the discursive balance of plausibility has irrevocably been tilted in favour of discourses acknowledging the political nature of the stakes of EU politics, as opposed to de-politicising them. The challenge is to develop mechanisms of channelling and reconciling clashing preferences, interests, and identities, recognising differences without claiming to harmonise them // Lâopinion publique dans les discours des institutions europĂ©ennes sur la lĂ©gitimitĂ© de lâUE, des dĂ©buts de lâintĂ©gration europĂ©enne Ă aujourdâhui
Cet article dĂ©veloppe une perspective historique de longue durĂ©e sur les rĂ©fĂ©rences, changeantes et concurrentes, Ă lâopinion publique et Ă âce que veut le peupleâ dans les discours de lĂ©gitimation de lâUE et des institutions communautaires, des annĂ©es 1950 Ă nos jours. Il rend compte du passage dâune premiĂšre sĂ©quence, oĂč le consensus permissif de lâopinion publique Ă lâĂ©gard de lâintĂ©gration europĂ©enne est tenu pour acquis, tout en insistant de plus en plus sur la nĂ©cessitĂ© dâagir sur cette opinion publique et de la façonner, Ă une deuxiĂšme sĂ©quence, suite Ă un tournant important Ă partir du milieu des annĂ©es 1970 et surtout des annĂ©es 1980, durant laquelle toutes les revendications relatives Ă la lĂ©gitimitĂ© communautaire se fondent sur les attentes des citoyens. Le chapitre suivant dans lâhistoire des discours sur lâopinion publique a Ă©tĂ© marquĂ© par une politisation et une polarisation croissante et incontestable de cette opinion publique. Cette tendance est apparue flagrante dans le contexte des diverses crises â constitutionnelle, de lâEuro, des rĂ©fugiĂ©s, et plus rĂ©cemment du Brexit â qui traversent lâUE mĂȘme si elle commençait Ă ĂȘtre visible dĂšs le traitĂ© de Maastricht et le traitĂ© constitutionnel. DĂ©sormais, lâĂ©quilibre discursif penche irrĂ©vocablement en faveur des discours reconnaissant la nature profondĂ©ment politique des enjeux de la politique de lâUE, plutĂŽt que de ceux visant Ă les dĂ©politiser. Le dĂ©fi consiste alors Ă dĂ©velopper des mĂ©canismes permettant de canaliser et de concilier des prĂ©fĂ©rences, des intĂ©rĂȘts et des identitĂ©s contradictoires, en reconnaissant ces diffĂ©rences, sans pour autant prĂ©tendre les harmoniser
Ideologies and Imaginaries of Legitimacy from the 1950s to Today: Trajectories of EU-Official Discourses Read against Rosanvallon's Democratic Legitimacy
This chapter traces changes in EU-official discourse around EU legitimacy since the 1950s, relating them to the trajectory described by Pierre Rosanvallon in Democratic Legitimacy (2011a). Accordingly, the legitimacy of modern democracies broke down in the 1980s owing to a loss of faith in its two main foundations in elections and bureaucracy. This gave rise to the emergence of alternative modes of legitimation, classed under the ideal types of impartiality, reflexivity, and proximity. This chapter plays Rosanvallonâs analysis, which draws on national experiences, against the EU context. It finds important differences, in particular regarding the balance between electoral and bureaucratic legitimacy in the earlier years of integration - as well as significant similarities and interaction, manifested in a striking resonance between particular strands in EU-official legitimation strategies and Rosanvallonâs ideal types. The ways in which they played out in the case of the EU point to dangers inherent to them; of highlighting proximity over actual influence and control; making democratic forms so complex and âreflexiveâ that they become unintelligible, and unaccountable; or replicating bureaucratic thinking that obscures choices and judgments behind claims to independence and impartiality. What is more, the discursive history of contests over EU legitimacy illustrates a predisposition of Rosanvallonâs account of democratic legitimacy towards âunpolitical democracyâ, rooted in its attempt to contain the threat of populism. His goal is to politicise the indirect institutions of impartiality, reflexivity and proximity rather than democratic procedures such as voting and majority rule, with the effect that deliberation is used strategically as an alternative to electoral and partisan democracy
On the Composition of Gauge Structures
A formulation for a non-trivial composition of two classical gauge structures
is given: Two parent gauge structures of a common base space are synthesized so
as to obtain a daughter structure which is fundamental by itself. The model is
based on a pair of related connections that take their values in the product
space of the corresponding Lie algebras. The curvature, the covariant exterior
derivatives and the associated structural identities, all get contributions
from both gauge groups. The various induced structures are classified into
those whose composition is given just by trivial means, and those which possess
an irreducible nature. The pure irreducible piece, in particular, generates a
complete super-space of ghosts with an attendant set of super-BRST variation
laws, both of which are purely of a geometrical origin.Comment: Few elaborations are added to section 4 and section 5. To be
published in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General. 21 page
Continuous monitoring of the lunar or Martian subsurface using on-board pattern recognition and neural processing of Rover geophysical data
The ultimate goal is to create an extraterrestrial unmanned system for subsurface mapping and exploration. Neural networks are to be used to recognize anomalies in the profiles that correspond to potentially exploitable subsurface features. The ground penetrating radar (GPR) techniques are likewise identical. Hence, the preliminary research focus on GPR systems will be directly applicable to seismic systems once such systems can be designed for continuous operation. The original GPR profile may be very complex due to electrical behavior of the background, targets, and antennas, much as the seismic record is made complex by multiple reflections, ghosting, and ringing. Because the format of the GPR data is similar to the format of seismic data, seismic processing software may be applied to GPR data to help enhance the data. A neural network may then be trained to more accurately identify anomalies from the processed record than from the original record
Inflating Fat Bubbles in Clusters of Galaxies by Precessing Massive Slow Jets
We conduct hydrodynamical numerical simulations and find that precessing
massive slow jets can inflate fat bubbles, i.e., more or less spherical
bubbles, that are attached to the center of clusters of galaxies. To inflate a
fat bubble the jet should precess fast. The precessing angle should be
large, or change over a large range (depending also on other parameters), where is the symmetry
axis. The constraints on the velocity and mass outflow rate are similar to
those on wide jets to inflate fat bubbles. The velocity should be v_j \sim
10^4 \kms, and the mass loss rate of the two jets should be 2 \dot M_j
\simeq 1-50 \dot M_\odot \yr^{-1} . These results, and our results from a
previous paper dealing with slow wide jets, support the claim that a large
fraction of the feedback heating in cooling flow clusters and in the processes
of galaxy formation is done by slow massive jets.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
Symmetric mixed states of qubits: local unitary stabilizers and entanglement classes
We classify, up to local unitary equivalence, local unitary stabilizer Lie
algebras for symmetric mixed states into six classes. These include the
stabilizer types of the Werner states, the GHZ state and its generalizations,
and Dicke states. For all but the zero algebra, we classify entanglement types
(local unitary equivalence classes) of symmetric mixed states that have those
stabilizers. We make use of the identification of symmetric density matrices
with polynomials in three variables with real coefficients and apply the
representation theory of SO(3) on this space of polynomials.Comment: 10 pages, 1 table, title change and minor clarifications for
published versio
Optimal measurements for relative quantum information
We provide optimal measurement schemes for estimating relative parameters of
the quantum state of a pair of spin systems. We prove that the optimal
measurements are joint measurements on the pair of systems, meaning that they
cannot be achieved by local operations and classical communication. We also
demonstrate that in the limit where one of the spins becomes macroscopic, our
results reproduce those that are obtained by treating that spin as a classical
reference direction.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, published versio
Radiation Therapy and Patient Fear
Radiation therapy and the fears that patients may experience
Field measurements of the fluid and sediment-dynamic environment of a benthic deposit feeder
Field measurements of flow and sediment transport at an intertidal site in False Bay, San Juan Island, Washington, U.S.A., revealed an environment dominated by wind wave-generated oscillatory flows and discrete sediment suspension events. Time series data showed that within a few tenths of a second, near-bottom suspended sediment concentrations can rise to 10 g lâ1. These rapid erosion events are correlated with peak wave velocities and are followed by a more gradual (tens of seconds) decline in sediment concentration due to settling and advection. Large suspension events mixed detect able quantities of sediment to a height of 20 cm above the bottom. Flow and sediment transport rates are controlled by local weather and vary on time scales ranging from that of individual waves to that of atmospheric storm systems and seasonal changes in weather patterns. Advection of sediment can exceed individual deposit feeding rates by a factor of 103â104. An empirical relationship developed from weather records, together with previously published observations of detrital transport, suggests that sediment transport is rarely small enough in magnitude to be ignored as a source of food particles for surface deposit- and suspension-feeding spionid polychaetes like Pseudopolydora kempi japonica.
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