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At the very moment that humanity is facing a broadening ecological crisis, and that both policy makers and civil society are calling for a transition towards more sustainable societies, modern science seems incapable of providing operational solutions for managing this transition. In this context, both Noble prize laureates and high-level science officials have stressed the need of an in depth transformation of the modes of organization of scientific research for governing the transition to sustainable societies. However, existing analyses of on-going initiatives show that most of the barriers to a major, consolidated effort in sustainability science will not be removed without far-reaching institutional change. To address this challenge, this paper proposes an incremental institutional change approach, based on a gradual institutionalization process of existing initiatives. The analysis in this paper shows that strategic research for sustainability and reform of research funding mechanisms will only be effective if they are supported at the same time by reforms of career and training paths at higher education institutions. To promote this vision, the paper proposes a set of capacity building measures that can be undertaken at the level of research funding, higher education institutions and networking.

After years of political crises and negotiations, the deep-rooted conflict between Dutch- and French-speaking parties recently led to the 2011 agreement concerning a further reform of the Belgian state. This reform mainly furthers decentralises the – already federal – state structure, including the allocation of additional competences and fiscal powers to sub-national entities (Regions and Communities). But this new state reform also brings about a radical reform of the upper house: the Belgian Senate. Since 1995, the Senate was composed of three different types of members: Senators directly elected by two linguistically separated electorate (the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking electorates), Senators indirectly elected by the Community parliaments and Senators coopted by the two other types. The French- and German-speaking linguistic minorities had a fixed amount of seats in this assembly. The reform of the state radically changed the legislative competences of the Senate and its composition as its members will now be designated by Regional and Community parliaments (plus 10 coopted senators). Broadly speaking, the appointment of the majority of the Senators moved from a system of direct and language-based election to a system of indirect and mixed regional and language-based designation. This change is not without consequence for the representation of linguistic minorities. In May 2014, regional, community and federal elections will be organised in Belgium, testing for the first time this new system of designation of Senators by regional and community parliaments. This paper intends to present the 2013 reform of the Senate in Belgium and its consequence for the representation of linguistic minorities. The situations before and after the reform of the Senate will be compared, not only in terms of the way Senators are appointed but in terms of its consequence on the linguistic aspects of the regional and community elections campaign and of the profile of the appointed Senators.

Ever since the 1990's, deliberative theory has been heralded as the most promising new theory on political legitimacy. Democratic deliberation, conceived as the rational exchange of arguments, is claimed to improve the quality of democratic decision making because it instigates a more considered judgment; it allows citizens to hear other perspectives to a problem and to question their own opinions. However, deliberation's beneficial effects do not come about easily. If deliberative mini-publics want to contribute to the legitimacy of political decision making, they have to reflect the principles of legitimacy in their own functioning. It is therefore crucial to assess the internal legitimacy of deliberative mini-publics before making claims about their contribution to the legitimacy of the political system as a whole. In this paper, we set out to assess the input, throughput and output legitimacy of four deliberative events, namely the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly, the Irish "We, The Citizens"-project, the Belgian G1000, and the Dutch Burgerforum. Based on a most-similar comparison of these cases, we argue that their internal legitimacy differs a great deal, and that this is due to factors relating to their process design, such as funding, recruitment and moderation.

"In Agter slot en grendel - lesse uit die grendeltyd, het Justin Dreyer het vir oor die 50 Suid-Afrikaanse Christene gevra om te skryf oor hoe die Covid-19-grendeltyd van 2020 hulle geraak het. Elke persoon wat deelgeneem het, vertel hoe hulle geaffekteer is, wat hulle daaruit geleer het en hoe hulle ander wil bemoedig. Die verhale is verteenwoordigend van soveel ander persone se ervarings regoor die w©®reld. Dit is dalk ook verteenwoordigend van jou eie verhaal. Of dalk n©♭t die bemoediging of inspirasie wat jy vandag nodig het"--Back cover

Introduction :An invitation to a conversation /John W. de Gruchy --Section 1: On being human --Exploring contours of being human together /Bernard Lategan --Complexity and being human /Paul Cillers --Neurobiological foundations /Mark Solms--A Christian humanist perspective /John W. de Gruchy --Becoming more fully human /Denise Ackermann --Reflections --At this time and in this place /Bobby Godsell --Where I become you /Antjie Krog --Section 2: On humanism --Reflexive humanism /Wolfgang Huber --The spirit of Islamic humanism /Ebrahim Moosa --The 'dark sides' of humanism in South Africa /André du Toit --Science, technology and humanity /George Ellis --Critical issues for a new humanism /Drucilla Cornell,Kenneth Panfilio --New music for a new humanism /Hans Huyssen --Reflections --Indigenous humanism : manifestations of interconnectedness /Antjie Krog --Towards a new humanism in Africa /Njabulo Ndebele --Reflections --Relational humanism /Jan-Hendrik S. Hofmyer --Section 3: On human dignity and rights --Democracy as a community of life /Achille Mbembe --Enough is enough : recovering humane values /Neville Alexander --Humane justice and the challenges of locality /William Schweiker --Constitutional law and human dignity /Laurie Ackermann --Human complicities /Deborah Posel --An African theory of dignity /Thaddeus Metz --Reflections --A dignity enriched humanism /Russel Botman --Human rights in a more humane world /Mary Burton --To lead for humanity /Peter Willis --The conversation : a narrative of the second symposium /Stephen Martin.

Hierdie boek is toegespits op navorsers en doen verslag oor navorsing wat oor die afgelope paar jaar onderneem is om vas te stel hoe inligtingstegnologie aangewend is en kan word vir navorsingsdoeleindes binne die geesteswetenskappe, sowel as watter implikasies die gebruik van inligtingstegnologie vir die geesteswetenskappe inhou in die inligtingsera. Die beginsels, implikasies, probleme en geleenthede van inligtingstegnologie en die digitale revolusie word teen die agtergrond van grootdata bespreek, en word veral in verband gebring met die geesteswetenskappe in Suid-Afrika.

While a great deal of attention is devoted to the Pacific region as the new chessboard of international politics, Pakistan remains a key actor in terms of both threat and potential. Two observations back this argument: first, Pakistan's fundamental roles as a state are challenged by its ongoing conflict with India and internal insurgencies. Second, due to a power-status gap, Pakistan experiences difficulties in holding specific self-conceived roles. In addition to hampering its socio-economic potential, these developments prevent Pakistan's quest for normalization in the system. As a consequence, we argue that engaging with Islamabad should be a priority for Washington so as to prevent the country from further aligning with Beijing, thus reinforcing China's regional leadership and status as peer-competitor to the United States. Indeed, as the potential for deviance in the international system arises from its normative dimension, the US, as the global leader, counts among its roles that of norm-setter and primary socializer for most states. Our research proposes to look at an old puzzle with new theoretical insights. By addressing the question of Washington's engagement towards non-conforming states, we aim to document a set of socialization processes as intervening variables linking American global role as leader and primary socializer to Pakistan's process of social integration (normalization/deviance). Drawing from sociology and social psychology, the paper seeks to explore the ability of the leader to act as a primary source of role location and status recognition towards non-conforming states so as to integrate them (back) into the US-led system.

Because of its very conception, the G1000 in Belgium cannot be categorized as a form of constitutional deliberative democracy per se. Its grassroots origin never indeed entailed to change the constitution. Yet this chapter contends that there are some constitutional deliberative democracy features in the G1000, which paradoxically were not thought of by its citizen organizers who sought in the first phases of the G1000 to avoid any political and institutional ties. In fact, their focus was much more on a high input and throughput legitimacy, rather than a high output legitimacy. Their goal was to demonstrate that ordinary citizens, randomly selected, had a say about major social and political issues and that they were wiling and able to deliberate about them, should a design conducive to deliberation be put in place. While the G1000 scored highly on the input dimensions – the quality of representation was good and the agenda could not have been more open – and fairly highly on throughput legitimacy – with a clear script and trained moderators, but with processes of aggregation insufficiently transparent –, the outputs were in the short term very limited, which was a major source of criticism as media had fostered a climate of great expectations about the outputs. The absence of formal links to the main political actors meant that the organizers could not guarantee any formal implementation of the results. So the design characteristics that increase input legitimacy also undermine output legitimacy. But on the longer term the political uptake and the social uptake of the G1000 are increasing as, on the one hand, most of the political parties are now advocating some forms of participatory and deliberative democracy and, on the other hand, several experiences inspired by the G1000 have sparked around in Belgium and in neighboring countries. This twofold output consequence of the G1000 seems to indicate that this experience has fostered some sort of constitutional deliberative democracy broadly defined.