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AbstractReconstructing dynamics of complex systems from sparse, incomplete time series data is a challenging problem with applications in various domains. Here, we develop an iterative heuristic method to infer the underlying network structure and parameters governed by Ising dynamics from incomplete spin configurations based on sparse and small-sized samples. Our method iterates between imputing missing spin states given current coupling strengths and re-estimating couplings from completed spin state data. Central to our approach is the novel application of adaptive $$l_1$$

l
1

regularization on updating coupling strengths, which features an automatic adjustment of the regularization strength throughout the iterative inference process. By doing so, we aim at preventing over-fitting and enforcing the sparsity of couplings without access to ground truth parameters. We demonstrate that this approach accurately recovers parameters and imputes missing spins even with substantial missing data and short time series, providing improvements in the inference of Ising model parameters even for relatively small sample sizes.

The study investigated the effect of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) on the welfare of retirees of tertiary institutions of education in the Southwestern zone of Nigeria. Using the Taro Yamane formula and a multi-level sampling technique, a sample size of 125 retirees was obtained from three tertiary institutions of education in the Southwestern part of Nigeria as follows: Osun State College of Education, Ilesa (41), Lagos State University of Education, Lagos (36) and Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo (48). The main instrument of data collection was a set of questionnaire which was administered to the retirees to collect relevant data. The instrument was validated and its reliability coefficient calculated to be 0.82 using the Cronbach Alpha formula. The data collected was analysed using the Chi-square and the one-sample t-test statistics. The results showed that the contributory pension scheme did not have significant effect on the welfare of the retirees (t = .207, p < 0.05). Useful recommendations were made based on this finding.

This essay reviews the following works:
The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia. By Teo Ballvé. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020. Pp. 228. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781501747540.
Paramilitarismo. Balance de la contribución del CNMH al esclarecimiento histórico. By Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (CNMH). Bogotá: Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, 2018. Pp. 234. Free e-book. ISBN: 9789585500051.
Agrarian Capitalism, War and Peace in Colombia: Beyond Dispossession. By Jacobo Grajales. New York: Routledge, 2021. Pp. 190. $44.95 paperback. ISBN: 978036775707.
Clientelistic Warfare: Paramilitaries and the State in Colombia (1982-2007). By Francisco Gutiérrez Sanín. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019. Pp. 480 pages. $72.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781787073654.
Borderland Battles: Violence, Crime, and Governance at the Edges of Colombia's War. By Annette Idler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 496. $29.00 paper. ISBN: 9780190849153.
Organized Violence after Civil War: The Geography of Recruitment in Latin America. By Sarah Zukerman Daly. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. 344. $25.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781107566835.

The author raises the problem of the relevance of educational means tested by law to the information agenda. The online world has presented legal theory and legal practice with difficult questions. The well-trodden strategies of legal positivism are programmed for a different status state of society than the state of a network-type society. Previous approaches are not always effective regarding communication processes. Information law, more than other legal disciplines, feels the need for creative research tools. Its use is associated with certain risks. However, the formulation and solution of non-trivial cognitive problems requires the reinforcement of traditional methodological strategies with innovative ones. Information-legal, synergetic, phenomenological and other approaches, mastering axiological techniques and convergent techniques are called upon to replenish the heuristic resource of formal dogmatic means. Fidelity to the authority of traditions, together with a readiness to verify unknown research experience, is the way to increase scientific knowledge.

AbstractThe externalization of migration control undermines the protection of victims of trafficking in human beings. Pushbacks and pullbacks at sea, as well as simplified or accelerated identification procedures, exacerbate the risk of trafficking and retrafficking and prevent victims from accessing the protection to which they may be entitled in European States. In this scenario, the European Court of Human Rights can play a crucial role among international bodies and courts in ensuring effective remedies for victims in case of repatriation to their countries of origin and transit. This study examines the applicability of the prohibition of slavery, servitude and forced labour enshrined in Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights—whose scope now undisputedly includes trafficking in human beings—in the context of the externalization of migration control. It demonstrates that litigating unlawful refoulements under Article 4 ECHR might be very worthwhile to raise awareness of migration-related risks for victims, to strengthen the legal framework of positive obligations in trafficking cases, and to ascertain violations of anti-trafficking international obligations by European States.

Abstract
The United States has successfully prevented the military conflict between China and Taiwan since the 1980s through the Strategic Ambiguity (SA) strategy, which discourages both sides from deviating from the status quo by not committing to defend or not to defend Taiwan. The recent US–China tensions and the rising nationalism in China and Taiwan drew critics to SA and suggested it be replaced with the strategic clarity strategy. We argue that the choice of Dual Clarity (DC)—the United States promises to defend only if Taiwan does not unilaterally declare de jure independence—is widely ignored. We examine the psychological mechanisms behind the three strategies through a pre-registered, within-subject survey experiment in Taiwan (n = 910). The result shows that DC can keep the status quo similar to SA—respondents lowered their support of independence in both DC and SA conditions. The results hold through robustness checks and formalized by a game-theoretical model.

Across much of the South, digital technologies are increasingly central to the expansion of state social protection systems. Supported by major development agencies, many of these distributive technologies are developed and implemented by financial technology companies with the specific aim of accelerating financial inclusion. While researchers have documented the influence of these financial actors and logics over social policy, we know less about how these interventions are transforming the experience of receiving social protection. Based on qualitative and observational research with social grant recipients in South Africa, this research demonstrates how digital and financial technologies produce confusion, informational opacities and new forms of exclusion among grant recipients. It suggests that the increasingly prominent role of financial technologies in the delivery of social protection undermines state capacity and further entrenches the influence of neoliberal logics over social policy. Finally, the article suggests that these technologies may be transforming the nature of social citizenship in South Africa, undermining efforts to advance universal and redistributive social protection policies.

In recent years, feminist scholarship has contributed gender perspectives to examine extremist narratives, motivations and recruitment, as well as gender-responsive strategies to counter extremism. A systematic framework for analysing how gender operates at multiple levels to promote or counter extremisms, however, does not exist. To address this need, we offer a typology with three dimensions drawn from feminist theory: gendered identity, referring to the concept of a person's gender; gendered ideology, referring to the role gender plays in the mobilising myths of states and non-state organisations; and gendered power dynamics, referring to the hierarchical order of femininities and masculinities structuring the environments in which extremism takes root. The article applies the gender typology to far-right, Buddhist and Islamist extremisms, illustrating the analytical power of gender to explain and interpret diverse extremisms while highlighting patterns and relationships across them in broader global politics. We argue that it is vital to study the intersecting dynamics of gender in order to both understand and challenge extremisms that are increasingly prevalent globally.

We introduce a new framework of the functions of direct democracy within a democratic political system. These are: (1) channeling political input into the decision-making arenas by circumventing organized interests (input function), (2) channeling political issues out of the representative decision-making system (exit function), and (3) producing decisions about political questions (decision function). Based on the analysis of 277 instruments of direct democracy on the national level in 103 countries around the world, we find that the input and exit functions are rather unbalanced in their dynamics. The exit function shows a tendency to strengthen the concentration of power, whereas the input function rarely allows for access to both decision-making arenas. However, once issues reach the referendum, the impact is often strong, and only a small minority of states conduct referendums without any formal consequences. Beyond these results, the presented approach allows to start long-time observations of the state of direct democracy in democratic systems.

Abstract
Bribery and other forms of petty corruption typically arise in bureaucratic encounters and are a common element of the everyday experience of the state in many countries, particularly in places with weak institutions. This type of corruption is especially troublesome because it creates direct costs for citizens when accessing services and benefits to which they are formally entitled. However, only a few studies deal with how situational attributes of bureaucratic interactions create incentives for citizens to pay bribes and opportunities for street-level bureaucrats to demand them. We contribute to filling this gap by providing evidence that administrative burdens increase the chance of bribery. We do so by analyzing the prevalence of (attempted) bribery in more than 63,000 interactions across 20 different types of bureaucratic encounters, ranging from paying taxes to accessing essential services, using multilevel logistic regression analysis. Our study contributes to understanding the possible consequences of administrative burdens and the factors conducive to petty corruption in specific citizen–state interactions.

AbstractIn European Union member states, the community‐led local development (CLLD) approach implemented through Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs) represents different social organisational and democratic traditions. Hence, FLAGs operate and apply local development strategies and strengthen the role of fishing communities and the fishing industry under the influence of nationally contingent factors. Based on document analysis and mixed methods data, this article addresses the role of input legitimacy in FLAGs in Denmark and Finland. The findings show that Danish FLAGs demonstrate input legitimacy, while the fishery sector's interests are relatively weakly represented on FLAG boards. In Finland, the FLAG institutional system is perceived to be more flexible, demonstrating a lower level of input legitimacy, while the fishery sector's interests are substantially represented on FLAG boards. The comparison provides an analytical basis for member states financing CLLD through EMFAF and paves the way for reflexion on the FLAG governance system based on different programming periods and institutional contexts.

AbstractIn recent decades, the relationships between religion and politics, particularly between religion and the state, have been widely discussed, yet relationships between authoritarian rulers and religion have not received their due attention. This fourth article in the 2024 World Affairs special issue addresses this lacuna and argues against the conventional wisdom that these two entities are always hostile to each other. The study contends that authoritarian rulers have used three strategies vis‐à‐vis religion as an ideology and religious actors as a political force. Autocrats have adopted repression and cooptation strategies to deal with religious actors and utilized religion as a tool of legitimation. The article offers a case study of Bangladesh which has witnessed the growing salience of religion in politics since 1976, although its 1972 constitution pledged secularism as a state principle. The article examines the strategies used during three phases of military and civilian authoritarianism—1976–1981, 1982–1990, and since 2011—and discusses the relationship between the authoritarian rulers and religion.

I examine the effect of the policing capacity of traditional authorities (TAs) on communal conflict. TAs of ethnic groups use distinct customary laws and dispute-resolution mechanisms. Their coexistence with national norms and those of other TAs results in parallel legal systems. I argue that this generates uncertainties about norms and vertical and horizontal jurisdictional conflict, which increases the risk of communal conflict. However, this effect can be dampened by state-level rules on norm collisions, which lead to a system of co-production and less violence. To investigate these claims, I use global georeferenced expert survey data on customary policing of TAs and data measuring their constitutional regulation. I show that customary policing can have an adverse effect on communal peace. More subgroups of the larger ethnic group with policing institutions increase the risk of conflict. State-level regulation moderates these relationships. Additional evidence suggests that policing increases communal conflict through vertical jurisdictional conflict but otherwise achieves its intended purpose of providing security.

Abstract
In this paper, I attempt to explain one of the most controversial views attributed to the Stoic Chrysippus: that the impossible can follow from the possible. My solution finds in Chrysippus a distinction later made by the medieval logician John Buridan: that between being
possible (there being a state of affairs that may occur) and being
possibly-true (there being some proposition whose truth-conditions are that state of affairs). Buridan and Chrysippus have radically opposing views on the nature of propositions. What their conceptions share is the conclusion that at least some propositions must be contingent beings. They argue for this while maintaining a rigorous commitment to the view that propositions are strictly bivalent. In 2. I explain the Chrysippean passage in terms of a distinction Buridan makes explicitly. In 3. I show how the distinction follows implicitly from the Stoic theory of quantification. In 4. I compare the modality with other aspects of Stoic logic. In 5. I discuss how the distinction behaves in the future tense.

AbstractMadrid is the first region in Spain whose government has managed to dismantle an already existing LGBTI legal framework, going against the recently voted Legal Gender Identity and LGBTI Law that applies at a State level (4/2023). The conservative government of Madrid has modified two regional laws to re‐establish gatekeeping and gender surveillance, thus putting the depathologization and self‐determination of gender identity at stake. LGBTI minors are particularly exposed to this measure, as the partial derogation of aspects of the Madrid law directly affects their autonomy and self‐determination. Our policy analysis examines the contradictions and severe effects of this law reform. We employ a cross‐reading of the State and regional statutory terms that are being jeopardized, to reveal the different levels of policy making in which the Spanish trans community is obliged to obey. We further call for further analysis and follow up of the consequences of these law reforms and the impact on LGBTI people of all ages.