We prove a synthetic Bonnet–Myers rigidity theorem for globally hyperbolic Lorentzian length spaces with global curvature bounded below by K < 0 and an open distance realizer of length $L=\frac{\pi}{\sqrt{|K|}}$: It states that the space necessarily is a warped product with warping function $\cos: (-\frac{\pi}{2},\frac{\pi}{2})\to\mathbb{R}_+$. From this, one also sees that a globally hyperbolic spacetime with curvature bounded above by K < 0 and an open distance realizer of length $L=\frac{\pi}{\sqrt{|K|}}$ is a warped product with warping function cos.

This article explores Eric Mascall’s contribution to theodicy and (possibly) providence. It offers a taxonomy of Christian responses to the problem of evil: those which see suffering as instrumental to the purposes of God, those which see suffering as inevitable within the purposes of God, and those which see suffering as inimical to the purposes of God. It offers a critique of all three families of such responses. It then locates Mascall’s theodicy on that ‘map’. It argues that Mascall’s proposal, if accepted, removes the main argument against the inimical family of responses, which it sees as fitting best with the healing ministry of Jesus, as being most unambiguously committed to the goodness of God, and as being the most pastorally sensitive of the three categories. It also raises, without advocating, the possibility that all divine action may be indirect, thus safeguarding the non-coerciveness of God without compromising eschatological hope.

This Comment derives from a group discussion, generously funded by the Transactions Workshop Grant in 2023, to reflect retrospectively on the nature and degree of interaction among six trailblazing women members of Pakistan’s constituent assembly of 1972–3 (‘women constitution-makers’) within and without the assembly against the backdrop of their life histories. I refer to this group discussion as a ‘collective reflection’ to describe its open-ended structure of snowballing conversations among a small cohort of oral history narrators on the women constitution-makers as well as archivists whose work engages with material on or related to Pakistan’s enduring Constitution of 1973. The objective of the collective reflection was twofold: to provide an interactive mnemonic context for storytelling on the women constitution-makers and their personal and political associations; and to explore the extent to which these six women acted in concert in their constitution-making role on the question of women’s political representation. In relation to the former, the collective reflection yielded valuable observations. With respect to the latter, however, it presented a mixed picture and struck a note of caution in reading strong inferences into documentary archives – in this case, the constituent assembly debates.

The Gezi Park protests that erupted in spring 2013 sparked renewed interest in social movements and collective action in Turkey. While much of the literature has emphasized the novelty and spontaneity of these protests, this article situates them within a broader context and historical framework of social movements in Turkey. It argues that the events surrounding the demolition of Gezi Park should be understood as a cycle of protest, best analyzed in relation to earlier cycles to gain deeper insights into the culture and agency of social movements in the country. In this regard, the article posits that the Turkish manifestations of the Global Justice Movement in the late 1990s and early 2000s provided crucial precedents for the Gezi Park protests, offering an organizational infrastructure, collective frames for mobilization, and adaptable models for action.

Task-sharing approaches that train non-specialist providers (NSPs), people without specialized clinical training, are increasingly utilized to address the global mental health treatment gap. This review consolidates findings from peer reviewed articles on the impact of task-sharing mental health interventions on NSPs at the individual, family and community level. Studies that highlighted facilitators, barriers and recommendations for improving the experiences of NSPs were also included in the review. Fifteen studies, conducted across eight countries, met the inclusion criteria. Seven studies were conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, six in South and Southeast Asia and two studies were conducted in high-income countries in Europe. Benefits for NSPs included personal application of mental health skills, elevated community status and increased social networks. Challenges include burnout, lack of career progression and difficult workplace environments. Findings indicate that while there were many positive impacts associated with NSPs’ work, challenges need to be addressed. Safety and harassment issues reported by female NSPs are especially urgent. Supervision, certifications, increased salaries and job stability were also recognized as significant opportunities. We recommend future intervention studies to collect data on the impact of intervention delivery on NSPs. Research is also needed on the impact of various supervision and health systems strategies on NSPs.

The East Asian democracies (EAD) of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have received little attention from the international political science community working on populism. By analyzing the last two to three decades of research on EAD we look for clues to help us explain why there is so little interest. In our review we encounter cases of eclectic conceptualization, suboptimal data, innovative categorization, binary analytics, and even political bias, all of which may weaken the persuasiveness of the respective research in the eyes of critical colleagues. Our key finding, however, is that all studies on EAD implicitly refer to local political standards as the baseline from which alleged populist behavior is identified and labeled. In direct comparison, the populist characteristics of East Asian politicians appear to be less pronounced than those of sledgehammer populists like Donald Trump, Hugo Chavez, or Boris Johnson. Consequently, scholars working on the latter may be less curious about the former. Our findings, therefore, confront us with the question of what to use as a baseline for the measurement of potentially populist phenomena. We argue for the application of what is locally considered standard political behavior and conclude that such a practice has the potential to draw more attention to cases from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

English-speaking children sometimes make errors in production and comprehension of biclausal questions, known as “Scope-Marking Errors”. In production, these errors surface as medial wh questions (e.g., What do you think who the cat chased? (Thornton, 1990)). In comprehension, children respond to questions like How did the boy say what he caught? by answering what was caught (de Villiers & Roeper, 1995). These errors resemble wh-scope marking questions, attested in languages like German. Together, these errors suggest temporary adoption of multiple UG-licensed grammars (e.g., Yang, 2002). However, Lutken et al. (2020) found that children who make these errors in production do not necessarily make errors in comprehension and vice versa. They suggest these errors stem from children’s immature processing mechanisms. This article examines children’s production, comprehension, and processing capabilities, specifically working memory (WM). We find a correlation between WM and error rate and suggest separate causes for production and comprehension errors.

An article reviewing the work of Eric Mascall and suggesting that he is developing an Anglican nouvelle théologie. The importance of Mascall’s work on Christ and the Church is also explored.

The securitization of Russian-speakers has been central to nation-building in Estonia and Latvia since they regained their independence in 1991. Securitization at the levels of discourse and policy varies over time as a result of historical legacies, Russia’s kin state activism, and the minority protection requirements of European institutions. This article introduces a typology that links discursive frames with policies to map securitizing trends in Estonia and Latvia after the Soviet collapse: securitizing exclusion — less accommodating policies are justified by presenting the minority as a threat to the state or core nation; securitizing inclusion — more accommodating policies are justified to “win over” the minority in order to decrease the threat; and desecuritizing inclusion — more accommodating policies are justified on grounds of fairness or appropriateness without reference to security. The utility of the typology is demonstrated by analyzing frames in the public broadcast media and recent policy developments in Estonia and Latvia immediately following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The analysis points to increasing convergence across countries in favor of securitizing exclusion. The analysis points to increasing convergence across countries in favor of securitizing exclusion. We conclude by evaluating these trends in light of minority mobilization and recent data on support for the active defense of the state among Russian-speakers and titulars.

We prove that virtually free groups are precisely the hyperbolic groups admitting a language of geodesic words containing a unique representative for each group element with bounded triangles. Equivalently, these are exactly the hyperbolic groups for which the model for the Gromov boundary defined by Silva is well defined.

This paper seeks to understand modern comparative reflections on John Hart Ely’s work through Comparative Political Process Theory or Comparative Representation-Reinforcing Theory, and how such approaches can be augmented through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence. It argues that the legitimacy of courts’ actions (or inactions) in such settings can be understood through their potential to strengthen democratic institutions rather than do them harm, acting as a re-set or recalibration of the democratic landscape. By buttressing representation-reinforcing approaches with therapeutic understandings, curial interventions designed to shift longstanding democratic impasses or blind spots are likely to carry much greater institutional legitimacy. By applying this lens to a series of case studies, the paper highlights the normative contribution that therapeutic jurisprudence can provide to representation-reinforcing action and to the design of such approaches.