Hibernation in pygmy lorises (Nycticebus pygmaeus)–what does it mean?

Torpor use in primates appeared to be restricted to African species and was only recently discovered in a species from Asia, the pygmy loris (Nycticebus pygmaeus). This finding has considerable implications for our perception of torpor in this mammal group and demonstrates that torpor is probably more widespread in mammals than commonly thought. This article summarizes the current knowledge on the use of torpor in the pygmy loris and places it into the context of ongoing research on this topic

Global citizenship as the completion of cosmopolitanism

A conception of global citizenship should not be viewed as separate from, or synonymous with, the cosmopolitan moral orientation, but as a primary component of it. Global citizenship is fundamentally concerned with individual moral requirements in the global frame. Such requirements, framed here as belonging to the category of individual cosmopolitanism, offer guidelines on right action in the context of global human community. They are complementary to the principles of moral cosmopolitanism – those to be used in assessing the justice of global institutions and practices – that have been emphasised by cosmopolitan political theorists. Considering principles of individual and moral cosmopolitanism together can help to provide greater clarity concerning individual duties in the absence of fully global institutions, as well as clarity on individual obligations of justice in relation to emerging and still-developing trans-state institutions

Integrity in democratic politics

The complaint that many professional politicians lack integrity is common. However, it is unclear what such a judgement amounts to. Taking various codes of political ethics in the United Kingdom as my starting point, I examine the extent to which we can understand political integrity as a matter of politicians adhering to the obligations that official codes of ethics prescribe and, in a more general sense, the public-service ethos that underpins these codes. I argue that although this way of approaching the issue usefully draws our attention to an important class of positional duties that apply to politicians, commitment to principled political causes plays a further, indispensable role in coherent assessments of political integrity. In consequence, I claim that politicians of integrity succeed in furthering their deepest political commitments while avoiding malfeasance or misconduct. As such, the ascription of political integrity can often only be made when assessing a long train of action

Hegel, Adorno and the origins of immanent criticism

‘Immanent criticism' has been discussed by philosophers of quite different persuasions, working in separate areas and in different traditions of philosophy. Almost all of them agree on roughly the same story about its origins: It is that Hegel invented immanent criticism, that Marx later developed it, and that the various members of the Frankfurt School, particularly Adorno, refined it in various ways, and that they are all paradigmatic practitioners of immanent criticism. I call this the Continuity Thesis. There are four different claims that interest me. (i) Hegel is the originator of immanent criticism. (ii) Hegel's dialectical method is that of immanent criticism. (iii) Adorno practises immanent criticism and endorses the term as a description of his practice. (iv) Adorno's dialectical method is fundamentally Hegelian. In this article, I offer an account of immanent criticism, on the basis of which, I evaluate these four claims and argue that the Continuity Thesis should be rejected

Sphingosine 1-phosphate modulates antigen capture by murine langerhans cells via the S1P2 receptor subtype

Dendritic cells (DCs) play a pivotal role in the development of cutaneous contact hypersensitivity (CHS) and atopic dermatitis as they capture and process antigen and present it to T lymphocytes in the lymphoid organs. Recently, it has been indicated that a topical application of the sphingolipid sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) prevents the inflammatory response in CHS, but the molecular mechanism is not fully elucidated. Here we indicate that treatment of mice with S1P is connected with an impaired antigen uptake by Langerhans cells (LCs), the initial step of CHS. Most of the known actions of S1P are mediated by a family of five specific G protein-coupled receptors. Our results indicate that S1P inhibits macropinocytosis of the murine LC line XS52 via S1P2 receptor stimulation followed by a reduced phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) activity. As down-regulation of S1P2 not only diminished S1P-mediated action but also enhanced the basal activity of LCs on antigen capture, an autocrine action of S1P has been assumed. Actually, S1P is continuously produced by LCs and secreted via the ATP binding cassette transporter ABCC1 to the extracellular environment. Consequently, inhibition of ABCC1, which decreased extracellular S1P levels, markedly increased the antigen uptake by LCs. Moreover, stimulation of sphingosine kinase activity, the crucial enzyme for S1P formation, is connected not only with enhanced S1P levels but also with diminished antigen capture. These results indicate that S1P is essential in LC homeostasis and influences skin immunity. This is of importance as previous reports suggested an alteration of S1P levels in atopic skin lesions

Schools and civil society : corporate or community governance

School improvement depends upon mediating the cultural conditions of learning as young people journey between their parochial worlds and the public world of cosmopolitan society. Governing bodies have a crucial role in including or diminishing the representation of different cultural traditions and in enabling or frustrating the expression of voice and deliberation of differences whose resolution is central to the mediation of and responsiveness to learning needs. A recent study of governing bodies in England and Wales argues that the trend to corporatising school governance will diminish the capacity of schools to learn how they can understand cultural traditions and accommodate them in their curricula and teaching strategies. A democratic, stakeholder model remains crucial to the effective practice of governing schools. By deliberating and reconciling social and cultural differences, governance constitutes the practices for mediating particular and cosmopolitan worlds and thus the conditions for engaging young people in their learning, as well as in the preparation for citizenship in civil society

The sum of its parts? Sources of local legitimacy

The article analyses the sources of local actors’ legitimacy perceptions towards international peacebuilding operations. Local legitimacy perceptions are increasingly recognised as shaping local behaviour towards international peacebuilding, which influences the effective functioning of the operation. Legitimacy debates in peacebuilding are either absent or imported from the literature on domestic legitimacy, without respect to the specific temporal and spatial situation of international operations. The article first explores which legitimacy sources influence local legitimacy perceptions of international peacebuilding operations. It finds that two sources are relevant: output and procedure. Second, it investigates how exactly legitimacy arises from them. In doing so, it demonstrates that output and procedure are umbrella terms comprising several sub-elements which influence legitimacy in different, sometimes contradictory, ways. Finally, the article empirically explores which of the sources are important to local actors’ legitimacy perceptions using field data from the EU peacebuilding operations EULEX in Kosovo and EUPM Bosnia-Herzegovina

Critical political economy, free movement and Brexit: Beyond the progressive’s dilemma

The progressive’s dilemma suggests that a trade-off exists between, on the one hand, labour and welfare rights underpinned by solidarity and shared identity and, on the other hand, open immigration regimes. With reference to debates on free movement in the UK, it is argued: (1) that a progressive European critical political economy literature of the Left has a tendency to accept this dilemma and resolve it in favour of a the former; (2) that it does so because it erroneously conflates the free movement of people with the (increasingly neoliberal) free movement of goods, capital and services; and (3) that it could and should treat human mobility as qualitatively different and, consequently, need not accept the terms of the progressive’s dilemma. The argument has important implications for a progressive politics in general and for the Left’s (particularly the Labour Party’s) position in the UK on free movement (and, by extension, on Brexit)

New Labour's communitarianisms

This article argues that communitarianism can be analysed on different levels — sociological, ethical and meta—ethical — and along different dimensions — conformist/pluralist, more conditional/less conditional, progressive/conservative, prescriptive/voluntary, moral/socioeconomic and individual/corporate. We argue that New Labour's communitarianism is a response to both neo-liberalism and old social democracy. It is sociological, ethical and universalist rather than particularist on the meta-ethical level. Labour increasingly favours conditional, morally prescriptive, conservative and individual communitarianisms. This is at the expense of less conditional and redistributional socioeconomic, progressive and corporate communitarianisms. It is torn between conformist and pluralist versions of communitarianism. This bias is part of a wider shift in Labour thinking from social democracy to a liberal conservatism which celebrates the dynamic market economy and is socially conservative

Assessing the influence of the Responsibility to Protect on the UN Security Council during the Arab Spring

This article challenges those perspectives which assert first, that the Security Council’s engagement with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) during the Arab Spring evidences a generally positive trend, and second, that the response to the Arab Spring, particularly Syria, highlights the need for veto restraint. With respect to the first point, the evidence presented in this article suggests that the manner in which R2P has been employed by the Security Council during this period evidences three key trends: first, a willingness to invoke R2P only in the context of Pillar I; second, a pronounced lack of consensus surrounding Pillar III; and third, the persistent prioritisation of national interests over humanitarian concerns. With respect to veto restraint, this article argues that there is no evidence that this idea will have any significant impact on decision-making at the Security Council; the Council’s response to the Arab Spring suggests that national interests continue to trump humanitarian need