In Margaret Atwood's powerful novel Handmaid's Tale,1 the heroine Offred, a member of a new class of two legged wombs in a dystopian society, often thinks to herself, Context is all. Offred reminds us of an important truth: at each moment of our lives our every thought, value, and act?from the most mundane to the most lofty?takes its meaning and purpose from the wider and social reality that constitutes and conditions us. In her newly reduced circumstances, Offred comes to see that matters beyond one's immediate purview make a great deal of difference with respect to living a more or less free and fully human life. But her realization comes too late. Unlike Offred, feminists have long recognized as imperative the task of seeking out, defining, and criticizing the complex reality that governs the ways we think, the values we hold, and the relationships we share, especially with regard to gender. If context is all, then feminism in its various guises is committed to uncovering what is all around us and to revealing the power relations that constitute the creatures we become. The personal is the political is the credo of this critical practice.
Authoritarian ruling parties are expected to be exceptionally resistant to democratization. Yet some of the strongest authoritarian parties in the world have not resisted democratization, but have embraced it. This is because their raison d'etre is to continue ruling, not necessarily to remain authoritarian. Democratization requires that ruling parties hold free and fair elections, but not that they lose them. Authoritarian ruling parties can thus be incentivized to concede democratization from a position of exceptional strength as well as extreme weakness. This “conceding-to-thrive” scenario is most likely to unfold when regimes (1) possess substantial antecedent political strengths and resource advantages, (2) suffer ominous setbacks signaling that they have passed their apex of domination, and (3) pursue new legitimation strategies to arrest their incipient decline. We illustrate this heretofore neglected alternative democratization pathway through a comparative-historical analysis of three Asian developmental states where ruling parties have democratized from varying positions of considerable strength: Taiwan, South Korea, and Indonesia. We then consider the implications of our analysis for three “candidate cases” in developmental Asia where ruling parties have not yet conceded democratization despite being well-positioned to thrive were they to do so: Singapore, Malaysia, and the world's most populous dictatorship, China.
This chapter discusses the elements of an alternative Marxist theory of the state. It shows that critiques of orthodox Marxist theory of the state are flawed by their acceptance of the idea of a class-conscious ruling class. The chapter argues that there is a basis in Marx's writing for rejecting the idea of a class-conscious ruling class. The major development in the Marxist theory of the state in recent years has been the formulation of a critique of instrumentalism. The way out of this theoretical bind, the way to formulate a critique of instrumentalism that collapse, is to reject the idea of a class-conscious ruling class. The chapter also argues that a viable Marxist theory of the state depends on the rejection of the idea of a conscious, politically directive, ruling class. Substantial progress has been made in formulating a critique of orthodox Marxist formulations that reduce the state to a mere reflection of economic interests.
We explore the sources of durability of party-based authoritarian regimes in the face of crisis. Recent scholarship on authoritarianism suggests that ruling parties enhance elite cohesion—and consequently, regime durability—by providing institutionalized access the spoils of power. We argue, by contrast, that while elite access to power and spoils may ensure elite cooperation during normal times, it often fails to do so during crises. Instead, the identities, norms, and organizational structures forged during periods of sustained, violent, and ideologically-driven conflict are a critical source of cohesion—and durability—in party-based authoritarian regimes. Origins in violent conflict raise the cost of defection and provide leaders with additional (non-material) resources that can be critical to maintaining unity and discipline, even when a crisis threatens the party's hold on power. Hence, where ruling parties combine mechanisms of patronage distribution with the strong identities, solidarity ties, and discipline generated by violent origins, regimes should be most durable. We apply this argument to four party-based competitive authoritarian regimes in post-Cold War Africa: Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In each of these cases, an established single- or dominant-party regime faced heightened international pressure, economic crisis, and a strong opposition challenge after 1990. Yet whereas ruling parties in Kenya and Zambia were organized almost exclusively around patronage, those in Mozambique and Zimbabwe were liberation parties that came to power via violent struggle. This difference is critical to explaining diverging post-Cold War regime outcomes: whereas ruling parties in Zambia and Kenya imploded and eventually lost power in these face of crises, those in Mozambique and Zimbabwe remained intact and regimes survived.
BACKGROUND: Ruling out acute myocardial infarction (AMI) on the basis of rapid assays for cardiac markers will allow early triage of patients and cost-effective use of available coronary care facilities. METHODS AND RESULTS: We studied the value of myoglobin, creatine kinase (CK)-MBmass, and troponin T in ruling out an AMI in the emergency room in 309 consecutive patients presenting with chest pain. The gold standard for AMI was the combination of history, ECG, and a typical curve of the CK-MB activity (CK-MBact). Myoglobin was the earliest marker, and its negative predictive value (NPV) was significantly higher than for CK-MBmass and troponin T from 3 to 6 hours after the onset of symptoms (myoglobin versus CK-MBmass, P < .03; myoglobin versus troponin T, P < .01). The NPV of myoglobin reached 89% 4 hours after the onset of symptoms. The NPV of CK-MBmass reached 95% 7 hours after the onset of symptoms. Troponin T was not an early marker for ruling out AMI, and NPV changed over time, together with CK-MBact. The early NPV was higher in a subgroup of patients with a low probability of the presence of AMI for the three markers. Cardiac markers rise earlier in patients with large infarcts than in patients with small infarcts as indicated by the cumulative proportion of the marker above the upper reference limit at each time point (myoglobin, P = .04; CK-MBmass, P = .013; troponin T, P = .016). CONCLUSIONS: For ruling out AMI in the emergency room, myoglobin is a better marker than CK-MBmass or troponin T from 3 until 6 hours after the onset of symptoms, but the maximal NPV reaches only 89%. At 7 hours, the NPV of CK-MBmass is 95%. The test characteristics are influenced by the probability of the presence of AMI in the patients studied and by the size of their AMI. Infarct size of AMI patients should be reported in studies evaluating cardiac markers.
Researchers have shown that ultracold atoms can be driven into a strange new quantum state called a fractional Fermi sea, where particles organize themselves in unexpected ways。 The discovery points to a new phase of matter that goes beyond established quantum theories and could expand the possibilities of quantum simulation
NASA’s quiet supersonic flight tests could eventually go on a national tour
A new study suggests Earth may have been sending tiny hitchhikers to Venus for billions of years。 Researchers found that asteroid impacts could launch microbes into space, where some might survive the journey and end up suspended in Venus' clouds。 If future missions detect life there, there's a surprising chance it didn't originate on Venus at all—
A rare meteorite has revealed evidence of a massive lost world that once orbited the young Sun before being destroyed in a catastrophic collision。 The discovery suggests some early planets formed from dramatically different materials than Earth and Mars, rewriting part of the solar system’s origin story
Director Travis Knight is also the creative mind behind 2016's Oscar-nominated Kubo and the Two Strings
A new sunlight-powered material can convert visible light into higher-energy UV light, overcoming a challenge that has frustrated scientists for years。 The breakthrough could enable cleaner air purification, solar-driven chemistry, and advanced manufacturing technologies using nothing more than natural sunlight
Astronomers may be closing in on a long-standing cosmic mystery: why some of the universe’s biggest galaxies seem to have far fewer stars than expected。 Using NASA- and JAXA-supported XRISM observations of a galaxy called NGC 4151, researchers found strong evidence that supermassive black holes can unleash powerful winds that blow away the raw mate
A bold claim that the universe’s accelerating expansion was an illusion has been put to the test—and failed。 Researchers found that the study behind the controversy made key mistakes when analyzing supernova data。 After revisiting the evidence, astronomers concluded that cosmic acceleration remains as strong as ever
A newly proposed quantum sensing technique could make it much easier to identify one of physics’ newest and most intriguing classes of magnets: altermagnets。 These unusual materials, discovered only a few years ago, appear to combine the speed and efficiency of antiferromagnets with some of the useful electronic properties of traditional magnets, m