The future of war and defence in Europe
We face a critical challenge: unless Europeans do far more for their own defence, Americans will be unable to defend them; but there can be no credible future defence of Europe without America!
Disability, access, and the virtual conference
Creating access for people with disabilities sometimes means fundamentally changing the nature of the thing that is made accessible. When we change the nature of the thing made accessible, we don’t just create access and inclusion for people with disabilities—we often create a new kind of experience altogether.
Why borders are built on ambiguity
During the nineteenth century, Britain, Canada, and the United States began to construct, in earnest, a border across the northern part of North America. They placed hundreds of markers across the 49th parallel and surveyed the land around them. Each government saw the border as a symbol of their sovereignty, a marker of belonging, and as the basic outline of their nation-states.
SHAPE today and tomorrow: Q&A with Sophie Goldsworthy and Julia Black (part two)
This second part of our Q&A with Sophie Goldsworthy, Director of Content Strategy & Acquisitions at OUP, and Professor Julia Black CBE FCA, Strategic Director of Innovation and Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and President-elect of the British Academy, reflects on how SHAPE disciplines can help us to understand the impact of the events of the pandemic and look towards the future of SHAPE.
“The Real America”: immigration and American identity
A new, in both tone and aspirations, presidential administration has taken office in the United States, and the prospect for significant change in the approach to immigration, one of the hot button issues advanced by President Donald Trump, is present at its inception.
UK pensions provision has been imperilled by an epidemic of misunderstanding
Pensions provision in the UK has been quietly revolutionised in recent years. However, far from rescuing pensions from demographic doom, recent policies have in fact further endangered our ability to secure a decent retirement income for citizens—in ways, I believe, many policy-makers are barely cognisant of.
The horizontal agency problem and how China deals with it
Economies cannot grow unless they have well-functioning stock markets. Up until now, China was a striking exception to this rule. However, for China’s growth to continue, it recognizes that a well-functioning stock market must play a major role. Therefore, two important questions are the following. First, what is the nature of the agency problem in China? Second, what is the potential solution to this problem?
Nine books to make you think about gender politics in the political sphere
For Women’s History Month, we have compiled a reading list of titles that explore women’s representation in politics and present bold ideas to improve the future for us all.
Republicans at a crossroads? Probably not
How did the Republican Party arrive at such a confused and divided state that Sen. John Thune had to ask whether it wanted “to be the party of limited government and fiscal responsibility, free markets, peace through strength and pro-life” or “the party of conspiracy theories and QAnon”? In reality, the party is both, and it has been so for some time.
Introducing SHAPE: Q&A with Sophie Goldsworthy and Julia Black (part one)
OUP is excited to support the newly created SHAPE initiative—Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts for People and the Economy. SHAPE has been coined to enable us to clearly communicate the value that these disciplines bring to not only enriching the world in which we live, but also enhancing our understanding of it. In the first instalment this two-part Q&A, we spoke to Sophie Goldsworthy and Professor Julia Black to find out more about SHAPE and what it means to them.
John Rawls: an ideal theorist for nonideal times?
John Rawls’s “A Theory of Justice” was published fifty years ago. What is the connection between Rawls’s abstract theorizing about justice and work aiming to address real-world injustices?
Tips for adapting the elementary music curriculum to online teaching
Teachers of the performing arts are adapting their classes to go online. The problems and challenges range from ensuring enough physical space for movement around each student’s computer to overcoming audio and video syncing delays during the live feed. But what about elementary music?
The ruins of the post-Covid city—and the essential task of rebuilding
We are in the midst of a Covid economy that has decimated the cities of America. It’s essential for us all to recognize that we’re in this together and to support local and national efforts to rebuild, on the basis of a unified public consciousness that has been markedly absent from our divided nation in recent years.
Why we can be cautiously optimistic for the future of the retail industry
Before COVID-19 struck with such vengeance, the retail industry globally was already in a state of accelerated and highly disruptive change, enabled by the transformative impacts of technology in general and digital connectivity in particular.
Is the “distant sociality” and digital intimacy of pandemic life here to stay?
Pandemic life has underscored how digital technology can foster intimate connections. As citizens of a world that suddenly feels both more alienated and radically—dangerously—connected, the term “social distancing” has been added to many of our vocabularies.
Safety first? Considering protest reasoning 10 years on from the Arab Spring
Could we expect new mass protests to mark the ten-year anniversary of the Arab Spring? New research investigates the cognitive processes underlying the protests, especially how the desire for “safety and stability” impacts the decision to protest or abstain.