Fiction, Moral Reform, and Religion – Finnish Feminists at the Turn of the Century

This article examines how the Finnish women’s rights movement perceived the relationship between fiction and religion from the late 1880s until the First World War. For this purpose, the women’s press provides a good vantage point. The analysis shows that it was mainstream to award an ideological and pedagogical function to literature – literature was not purely perceived as art. Literature and authors had a duty to contribute to societal development and transformation. Good literature had to serve women’s rights and society’s progress. They were seen as dependent on high moral standards. Fiction had to defend women’s interests – that is, absolute sexual morality – and women writers were expected to put themselves in the service of ideologically correct literature. Christianity, properly understood, was interpreted as a support to progress at all levels of society. Essential in assessing the morality of fiction was to pay attention to how things were described. “Dirty” things could be represented as long as it was done in the right spirit. Women were not alone in the service of progress. The contributions from male authorities with the same message were highly appreciated, and their publications used as a strategy. It was perceived as a joint effort to envision and gradually, realize a woman-friendly future.

Audience costs and the risk of war under effective brinkmanship deterrence

This study, using a game-theoretic model between two nations (a challenger and a defender) presented by Yamamoto (2024), clarifies how the creation of audience costs affects the escalation of brinkmanship and the probability of war under incomplete information regarding the challenger’s resolve (weak or strong). Numerical simulations suggest that, when audience costs are high enough, the defender may stochastically combine insufficient coercion with appeasement in response to the challenger’s escalating military provocations. This randomization is adopted to prevent the weak challenger from completely deviating to escalating provocations by pretending to be strong in his resolve. However, in addition to accidental war resulting from the failure of appeasement, it could cause deliberate war as a result of the failure of coercion. While the expected level of military provocations by the weak challenger has an inverted V-shaped relationship with audience costs, the probability of war is positively correlated with these costs.

Paying the full blood tax: combat exposure and mortality among French WW1 soldiers

Based on individual-level data from military registers, this paper explores the trajectories of French conscripts during the Great War. The sample studied consists of more than 20,000 men of the recruitment classes of 1900 to 1914. Besides a descriptive analysis, which aims at providing both a statistical portrait of conscripts and an insight into their wartime paths, regression analyses are carried out to identify factors associated with (1) fitness for armed service, (2) assignment to a civilian position, (3) infantry assignment, and (4) war mortality. The main focus is on whether there were inequalities in combat exposure and mortality in relation to socioeconomic status. The results suggest that some social groups were more exposed to war violence than others. In particular, farmers were more likely to be considered fit to fight than industry/craft workers and (most of) men working in the tertiary sector. They were also more likely to join the war as infantrymen and less likely to move to a civilian position. All this partly explains why mortality was higher in this group. The differences in mortality risk according to socioeconomic status were, however, of lower magnitude than those associated with military characteristics.

Can Sanctions Backfire?

The use of economic sanctions has significantly risen in the past few years, most recently as a reaction towards the war between Russia and Ukraine. A future increase seems plausible given the global level of geopolitical tensions. In particular, sanctions among major powers cause major economic disruptions at the global level. Against this background, this article develops a quantitative model for estimating the economic effects of sanctions. It exerts production shocks on a detailed representation of the world economy and minimises economic disruption to determine its post-shock state. We apply the model to two scenarios: the Russia–Ukraine war and a possible conflict across the Taiwan Strait. In both scenarios, the Global South is the main loser. For the West, a potential embargo of Mainland China results in higher losses than those from the Ukraine war, because of the West’s asymmetrical dependence on Mainland China’s manufacturing. Interestingly, Mainland China suffers the least in both scenarios. As a consequence, the analysis cautions that the use of sanctions as an instrument of Western politics has severe limitations as sanctions, especially against Mainland China, can be costly and painful for the sending states. Furthermore, it significantly hurts third states which raises severe normative issues.

There is no way to peace – peace is the way in Amhara, Ethiopia

This article sheds light on the ongoing conflict in Amhara, illustrating how the war is shattering families, severing social ties, and leaving hundreds of thousands of people in dire living conditions. It analyses how the continued warfare and tactics employed by both parties have exacerbated the situation, while also assessing the peace efforts made so far and their prospects for success. Given the current complexity and dynamics of the conflict, a complete military victory by any of the parties involved is unlikely. This reality necessitates a politically negotiated settlement to halt the increasing suffering of the people and the escalating social crisis. The study is based on two rounds of field visits and data collected through numerous conversations, discussions, and exchanges with residents from various parts of the region as well as leveraging the author's personal experiences, and long-term scholarship in the region.

Cold war museology edited by Jessica Douthwaite, Holdger Nehring and Samuel J. M. M. Alberti, Abingdon, Routledge, 2024, £108.00 (hardback), https://www.routledge.com/Cold-War-Museology/Douthwaite-Nehring-JMMAlberti/p/book/9781032690407?srsltid=AfmBOoqLcGidcD7o03PfcT8xWP8og86wyhkttC6giskmddbMSiVZZXqC , ISBN 9781032690407 (hardback)

“The algorithm loves the war”: ambivalent visibility in content creator practices during war

Content creators in war zones are critical in shaping global perceptions of conflict. Through social media, they document real-time events and reach audiences beyond the traditional news frameworks. Based on an ethnographic study of Czech and Ukrainian TikTok creators sharing war-related content from Ukraine, we introduce the concept of ambivalent visibility – a condition shaped by the conflicting demands creators face in balancing algorithmic amplification, audience engagement and ethical responsibility. In conflict zones, ambivalent visibility emerges as creators integrate war-related content into platform vernaculars, such as native templates and viral formats, while negotiating the risks of trivialization and misinterpretation. We identify three forms of ambivalence: (1) tension between raw immediacy and platform-friendly visibility, where creators balance the urgency of documenting war with the need to remain legible to the algorithm; (2) blurred boundaries between digital storytelling and journalism, as creators navigate dual roles as informal correspondents and narrative influencers; and (3) a virality paradox, in which tragedy becomes a driver of engagement, propelling content not despite its emotional gravity, but because of it. We conclude by positioning these creators as contemporary war communicators, bridging journalism and personal stories to reframe how conflicts are witnessed and understood in the platform age.

Enacting and rearticulating “accountability”: reactionary watchdogs and the staging of anti-woke culture wars

A commitment to the principle of political accountability is part of the common sense of liberal democratic societies that is particularly important to journalists. It shapes the adversarial posture of a fourth estate narrative where journalists act as watchdog critics “holding power to account” on behalf of the public. This paper examines how the political meaning of accountability talk is “conceptually flipped” in an atmosphere of culture war conflicts where the very idea of critique takes on a reactionary valence. I introduce the concept of the reactionary watchdog – my shorthand for capturing forms of accountability work and (quasi)journalistic practice that normalize a horrific far-right representation of left-wing identities. The notion of reactionary watchdogism blurs any neat distinction between “liberal” and “illiberal” politics and resonates with sedimented institutional logics that are part of the political legacy of neoliberalism. I support the conceptual argument by discussing the case of Christopher Rufo, the US “anti-woke” activist who first came to national prominence by spearheading the attack against critical race theory. I focus on two podcast interviews Rufo did with another exemplary culture war figure, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.

Pawns of war: misogynoir, hip hop and cancel culture

This article uses the 2024 rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake to examine the entanglement of misogynoir, hip hop, and cancel culture. The month-long sparring included a series of allegations, ranging from cultural appropriation, domestic violence, and anti-Black misogyny. We contextualize this dispute within cancel culture which has increasingly been used to describe accountability practices against public figures for wrongdoing. The emphasis on lyrics and symbolism within rap makes a semiotic analysis fitting, and we conduct a content analysis of the song lyrics and cover art to understand what linguistic and visual signs were used to articulate cancel discourses within the feud. We end by discussing how cancel culture is complicated within a misogynoir-istic hip hop culture where violence against women, Black women in particular, is often normalized. In their attempt to bash and expose each other to the public, both rappers use women as weapons against the other without an actual call for redress to the victims of the violences they are detailing. This feud was thus not driven by a concern for the alleged victims' safety or a call for accountability, but a game of heteropatriarchal showmanship wherein Black women are merely pawns of war.

The Anglosphere, France and the coming war in the British Party in the media

This article illustrates and analyses right-wing opinion-formers’ threat perceptions concerning national cohesion within and across the Anglosphere in the immediate post-Brexit period among the British ‘party in the media’. This influential part of the right-wing milieu in Britain is an integral extension of the Conservative party and, increasingly, radical right politics. By analysing opinion on the Anglosphere in ‘the party in the media’ with a focus on the announcement of AUKUS, the Ukraine war and Gaza, this article analyses the worldview promoted by the Anglosphere’s advocates in the face of both external and internal challenges. First, the analysis reveals a novel ambivalence towards the Anglosphere itself. Although the Anglosphere is presented as a natural security community superior to anything that Europe could create, it is also portrayed as being undermined from within by the rise of ‘woke-ism’ across its constituent nations. This perceived challenge created a paradoxical attitude towards France amongst opinion formers. France was depicted simultaneously as an unreliable security ally and at the same time as a model of national cohesion worth emulating. Thus French republican nationhood offered a counterpoint to the self-critical, ‘woke’ tendencies seen as weakening the Anglosphere at a time of impending geostrategic conflict.