De Gruyter Contemporary Social Sciences Handbooks – serie

Globalisation, regionalisation, new technology, demography, voters’ expectations and re-structuring of societies are expected to influence welfare state development for years to come. This handbook analyses how different welfare state models and regimes will be able to cope with contemporary and future challenges, providing a variety of evidence based tools that make it essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers alike.

Globalisation, regionalisation, new technology, demography, voters’ expectations and re-structuring of societies are expected to influence welfare state development for years to come. This handbook analyses how different welfare state models and regimes will be able to cope with contemporary and future challenges, providing a variety of evidence based tools that make it essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers alike.

In 2010, 60 states had a military drone program. Today at least 113 countries and 65 non-state actors now have access to weaponized drone technologies. Alongside this, established ‘drone powers’ – the U.S., China, Turkey, and Iran – have expanded their own use of military drones, increasing the sale and deployment of drones around the world. In the De Gruyter Handbook of Drone Warfare, drone expert, policy adviser, and historian, Dr James Patton Rogers, brings together 37 of the world’s leading voices on the growing issues of commercial and military drone technologies. From the origins of military drones in the early 1900s and the resurgence of drone use during the War on Terror, through to the global proliferation of drones across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, this handbook explores the moral, ethical, technological, legal, military, geopolitical, social, and strategic issues at the heart of drone warfare. The first handbook of its kind, the volume also addresses Russia’s offensive war against Ukraine, the rise of Iranian and Houthi drones, and provides a focused analysis of the future of drone warfare and the opportunities and perils of AI, autonomy, and swarming technologies in the coming Third Drone Age.

Accelerating climate change is widely predicted to have profound impacts on human mobility over the coming decades. Climate mobilities and immobilities invoke issues of justice and social inequality and pose numerous socio-cultural, health, economic, legal and political challenges. Current international legal frameworks and national governance mechanisms provide insufficient protection for people displaced by climate change who are often subjected to health risks, psychosocial trauma, human rights abuse, and even new climatic risks. At the same time, there is a need to better understand how climate change interacts with other mobility drivers and why many climate-affected people decide to stay put or remain trapped in at-risk locations. Drawing on a wide range of disciplinary traditions and featuring Indigenous voices and youth perspectives, this book introduces new conceptual frameworks and empirical studies to examine the unique challenges facing people on the move and those staying behind.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Humor Studies consolidates the cumulative contributions in theory and research on humor from 57 international scholars representing 21 different countries in the widest possible diversity of disciplines. It organizes research in a unique conceptual framework addressing two broad themes: the Essence of Humor and the Functions of Humor. Furthermore, scholars of humor have recognized that humor is not only a universal human experience, it is also inherently social, shared among people and woven into the fabric of nearly every type of interpersonal relationship. Scholars across all academic disciplines have addressed questions about the essence and functions of humor at different levels of analysis relating to how narrowly or broadly they conceptualize the social context of humor. Accordingly, the editors have organized each broad thematic section into three subsections defined by level of analysis. The book first addresses questions about individual psychological processes, then discusses text properties, and finally moves to questions involving broader conceptualizations of the social context addressing humor and social relations, as well as humor and culture. By providing a comprehensive review of foundational work as well as new research and theoretical advancements across academic disciplines, the De Gruyter Handbook of Humor Studies will serve as the foremost authoritative research handbook for experienced humor scholars as well as an essential starting point for newcomers to the field, such as graduate students seeking to conduct their own research on humor. Further, by highlighting the interdisciplinary interest of new and emerging areas of research the book identifies and defines directions for future research for scholars from every discipline that contributes to our understanding of humor.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Criminology examines how digital devices spread and cut across all fields of crime and control. Providing a glossary of key theoretical, methodological and criminological concepts, the book defines and further establishes a vibrant and rapidly developing field. At the same time, Digital Criminology is not only presented as a novelty, but also as a continuation of the discipline's history. Each chapter can be read as a free-standing contribution or texts can be combined to gain a more holistic understanding of Digital Criminology or to design a research project. Expert contributions vary from Criminology, Sociology, Law, Science and Technology Studies, to Information Science and Digital Humanities. Together, these supply readers with rich and original perspectives on the digitization of crime and control. All contents of the De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Criminology are openly accessible. Open access has been funded by the European Research Council, as outlined in the respective chapters, and by the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo. 　　　 Mareile and Heidi would like to thank Vilde B. Winge for her commitment and excellent research assistance in the realization of this book project. Thanks are also due to Gerhard Boomgaarden and his team at De Gruyter who saw this book through to production.

The number of organization theorists and sociologists studying innovation and entrepreneurship has grown rapidly over the past two decades, yet it has been roughly 15 years since any volume has attempted a comprehensive review of the state of the literature. In addition to having grown rapidly, the sociological literatures on entrepreneurship and innovation have evolved relatively independently. However, there are intellectual synergies to be gained in connecting these two literatures. A large share of innovation happens in the context of startups and a large share of startups pursue innovation through the commercialization of products and services. Featuring engaging contributions from leading scholars in the field, the De Gruyter Handbook of Sociology of Innovation and Entrepreneurship is a must-have and up-to-date summary of the literatures on the sociology of entrepreneurship and innovation. It is a comprehensive reference work, highlighting emerging areas and cutting-edge research, while also providing a vibrant agenda that empowers scholars and students to generate new ideas and knowledge.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Political Parties in the Global South provides a survey of the literature that illuminates a worrying blind spot in current research. While our knowledge of parties and parliamentary democracies in the West is rich and nuanced, the same cannot be said about parties in the Global South. This handbook defines what constitutes a party in practice beyond the borders of the West and the confines of Western academia, particular in non-democratic states. It analyzes parties’ way of organizing and their relationship with society. With contributions by leading scholars in the field as well as up-and-coming scholars, this volume examines parties in the Global South from various perspectives and in the eyes of both the citizenry and the state.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of key concepts, debates and cutting-edge research in ocean governance and maritime affairs. Due to their increasing economic significance, it is valuable to provide insights into contemporary maritime issues. This handbook explores how the ocean is being used and governed, and analyzes the future challenges in its management. Organized into five themed parts, the book explores political economy, techno-economic developments, green transitions, infrastructure, and geopolitics. International contributions from leading researchers across disciplines offer perspectives on topics such as the control of sea lanes, sanctions, infrastructure and ports, supply lines, the production and transmission of energy, the production and extraction of resources, green initiatives, ocean management and sustainability.

This is the first handbook to focus exclusively on youth activism, to outline the current state of research and identify promising emerging areas, and to forecast what new developments one might anticipate in the future. It provides a comprehensive introduction to theoretical and methodological approaches, as well as insights into the directions of both the scholarly field and the phenomenon of youth activism itself within the context of global power relations. Youth political socialization, civic engagement, and citizenship attributes have frequently been highlighted as arenas of global concern, often by pundits and politicians declaiming the supposed ‘democratic deficit’ amongst more recent generations. Youth activism scholarship has often engaged with these debates, providing critical responses to more mainstream analyses of young people as apathetic, apolitical, or unconcerned about the society in which they live. In its place, youth activism scholarship provides more nuanced accounts of the possibilities and potentials for meaningful youth engagement in political social change, and, conversely, the barriers and proscriptions that prevent some young people from taking up a place within the polity.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Health and Society explores how digitalization is reconfiguring practices of health and medicine. Digitalisation requires health and medical practices to address and utilise the interrelated challenges posed by increased quantification (e.g., data-intensive medicine), ubiquitous connectivity (e.g., remote access to care providers), and the unprecedented power of algorithms (e.g., communicative AI). Developing important social scientific analyses of the contemporary sociotechnical configuration of health knowledge, therapeutic relationships and medical decision-making, the handbook puts forward theories and methods to inform the development, implementation and governance of Digital Health. It will therefore be an invaluable resource for shaping desirable futures in health and care.

This handbook is a comprehensive and timely contribution to building the field of Conflict and Health, which has yet to be recognized as a key component of public health by professional associations, state health agencies, donors, health research agencies, university accreditors or publishers.It covers fundamentals such as food security, the decolonization of aid and international governance structures, but also topics less covered such as violence as contagion, siege warfare, street medics, the involvement of combatants in humanitarian operations, intergenerational consequences of violence, bereavement, and military involvement in academia, among many other critical issues.

Feminist Political Geography is a relatively new, but rapidly growing, area of interest in Geographical scholarship. It emerged from feminist engagement with the sub-discipline of Political Geography, which broadly concerns the intersection of politics, power, and space, and it responds to silences and absences in this sub-discipline as well as wider silences in Geography scholarship. While early scholarship in Feminist Political Geography concentrated on including women’s bodies and lives in scholarship, its focus has evolved and expanded over time. Today, Feminist Political Geography scholarship advances broader goals that do not necessarily entail a research focus on women, but push us to think about other lives and bodies that are traditionally absent from analysis. It challenges us to reimagine and build just futures. Like all feminist analysis, this body of scholarship is not content with describing or explaining injustices: it advances a normative critique of injustice and overtly commits itself to the project of justice. In this book, the reader will find chapters authored by leading scholars who interrogate key ideas, debates, and developments, with a particular focus on intersectional ideas. Structured into four sections that go from the origins of Feminist Political Geography to its futures, this handbook is the definitive, state-of-the-art survey of this vibrant sub-discipline.

This book presents a survey of contemporary research investigating the psychological processes related to media consumption. As a rapidly growing and changing sub-discipline of mass communication, Media Psychology analyzes how media facilitate communication and how communication, in turn, shapes attitudes, emotions, and behavior. The handbook addresses leading ideas and debates in media psychology, persisting lines of inquiry and new areas of interest. Adopting an organizational approach that embraces a dynamic systems perspective, the book is subdivided into sections that examine nested components of the larger system in question, such as audiences, messages, content and context, while also acknowledging that they do not function in isolation.

This book establishes a new, and much-needed, interdisciplinary field of Political Control. The Earl and Braithwaite layered model of repression integrates previously siloed areas into a larger study of Political Control, connecting research spanning a variety of disciplines (Sociology, Political Science, Communication), interdisciplinary fields (Law and Society, Internet Studies, Surveillance Studies), and various area studies (American studies, China studies). Instead of treating the study of repression as beginning and ending with the direct surveillance and suppression of social movements, nonviolent resistance, and violent contention (e.g., civil wars, terrorism), the layered model of repression broadens the lens to examine how quiescence may be produced and maintained through political controls directed at entire societies and/or minoritized populations and operating through political institutions and/or civil society. This more comprehensive understanding of political control allows scholars to identify the broader strategies and tactics that governments and non-governmental authorities use to prevent, and lacking that, reduce or eliminate dissent. The layered model also highlights how activists and dissidents have countered these attempts at control. By organizing and relating these literatures using the layered model under the umbrella of political control, this volume provides the most comprehensive and wholistic view of the context in which movements form, operate, and dissolve and the overall control complex movements face.

As Digital Cultures becomes the dominant term used by many across a variety of intellectual fields to describe the social, aesthetic, and political impact of digital media, it is necessary to provide a reference volume that specifies and defines the bounds of scholarly debates and curricular outlines for an otherwise amorphous interdisciplinary space. This handbook provides a comprehensive reference for the varied methodologies, historical frames, and theoretical perspectives essential for the study of Digital Cultures today. In outlining these foundations, it serves as a practical guide for educators and students into the broad range of perspectives grouped together for the critical, historical, and social scientific study of digital media. It also looks into the future and outlines an agenda for future research by examining not only the origins of the concept of Digital Culture, but emerging topics and themes still in development, such as the relation between digital technology and climate change, artificial intelligence and knowledge, sensation and aesthetics, and the rise of new infrastructures reinventing not only the built environment, but the boundaries of nations and sovereignty.

This handbook brings together an interdisciplinary roster of scholars to address a broad range of pressing contemporary issues and debates that are raised by contemporary political, economic, institutional, and technological changes. These changes include:Increased democratic instability, with many once-stable democracies appearing to lose their footing, and political leaders with clear anti-democratic tendencies finding greater success in achieving powerA rapidly evolving media ecosystem, that has seen increased economic instability for legacy journalism, the rise of alternative (and more partisan) news sources, and increases in the production and circulation of disinformationTechnological changes such as the rise of digital platforms as gateways to news, and the emerging role of artificial intelligence in the realms of media, politics, and cultureIn response to these developments, the contributions to this volume address a wide range of topics, including: revisiting key norms and theoretical frameworks that guide research and policymaking; exploring causes and consequences of established and emerging inequities in media technology access and usage; examining the evolving dynamics of content creation; exploring the uses and abuses of data; analyzing the uses and impacts of artificial intelligence in the realms of media and politics; assessing the evolution of the production, circulation, and impact of disinformation; and considering the governance implications and strategies raised by these and other issues.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Eastern European Politics, Society and Culture provides a comparative analysis of why the region is at the forefront of a momentous turn in European history. It takes stock of the ways in which Eastern Europe has evolved since the region was incorporated into the post-communist order, taking stock of major political, social and cultural developments. Employing a mix of social science research designs and methodologies, this volume discusses key contemporary issues, such as the fate of liberal democracy in the region, the rise of conservative populism, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO expansion, the repression of the LGBT community, the social effects of post-twentieth-century deindustrialization, the role of oligarchs, and migration.

Environmental policy in all of its dimensions represents the response to the clearest and most urgent existential threat to the well-being of the planet and all of the species inhabiting it. The European Union (EU), as both a leading historical and current contributor to this global threat as well as arguably the most consistent global political leader in the last 3 decades for the environmental response, demands scrutiny and understanding of its processes and outlook.This handbook provides a vital contribution in both introducing and giving critically important and cutting-edge analysis of these two key elements of modern global politics. Authored by a diverse group of distinguished scholars in the field, chapters in this handbook isolate the key dynamics that drive environmental policymaking. They focus on the political behavior and interaction of a diverse set of policy actors, while also reflecting on and framing the potential directions of analytical, conceptual and empirical innovation in EU Environmental Policy research.

Post-Soviet Eurasia is one of the world’s most geopolitically consequential and rapidly transforming regions. Developments across it increasingly reshape political, economic and social relations far beyond its borders. Understanding these dynamics is therefore both intellectually urgent and analytically demanding, requiring an interdisciplinary approach capable of moving beyond established categories and fragmented national perspectives.This handbook provides a wide-ranging comparative account of post-socialist transformations across Eurasian societies. It brings together diverse theoretical approaches and research methods, offering on-the-ground perspectives from anthropology, political and cultural sociology, comparative criminology, human geography, urban studies, gender studies and cultural history.Written by leading scholars, the chapters examine how societies and social groups respond to, negotiate and actively shape wider transformations in political economy. The chapters address a variety of important topics: marginalisation, rights and freedoms; gender and politics; protest and activism; welfare and social protection; crime; labor, migration and mobility; identity, class and inequality; and the remaking of Eurasian cities under capitalism. Taken together, the contributions recast the region’s development from the ground up, challenging established interpretations and unsettling dominant narratives.By situating developments within individual countries in broader historical, regional and comparative contexts, this timely handbook also opens new ways of thinking about political-economic change and social restructuring elsewhere in the world.

Blockchain technology has the potential to influence many aspects of society, including the way we conduct business, manage our personal lives, and interact with one another. It might revolutionise diverse activities such as medicine, financial regulation, supply chain integrity, property and art markets, voting, and many more. The central concerns of blockchain have for many been on matters such as cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance, and while they are important, the social and cultural aspects of blockchain will be even more significant.This will become apparent as people seek robust ways to conduct life in an uncertain world, with automation becoming a crucial part of this shift. For example, we will see smart cities incorporating blockchain and artificial intelligence; increased mobility of people will demand better and secure access to medical, and other private, records around the world; and essential utilities will require transparent means of distribution.This handbook is an interdisciplinary reference work which brings together social, legal, cultural, arts, ethics, politics, and health perspectives in alliance with blockchain. With contributions by leading scholars, this timely volume explores the theoretical, substantive, and methodological aspects of blockchain by situating the chapters in the phenomena of the everyday world.

Fake news and associated concepts such as misinformation and disinformation are not new phenomena. The use of deception and psychological manipulation to influence a target’s behavior are evident throughout human history. What has changed within recent years is the reach that fake news can have, and how quickly it can spread in society. This is, in part, due to the increasing pervasiveness of digital devices and internet connectivity. Additionally, cognitive biases can promote the spread of many potentially fake news items through social media.The De Gruyter Handbook of Fake News, Misinformation, and Disinformation provides a much-needed holistic overview of the psychology of fake news, set within the context of the geopolitical and socio-technical systems that shape cognitions and behavior, and encompassing all the elements and actors that are involved in the fake news ecosystem. With contributions from leading experts in the field, this volume is a must-have resource for educators, researchers, students, and policy makers.

Although interest in social epidemiology has grown exponentially over the past three decades, there is a glaring need for an edited handbook that provides a contemporary, comprehensive, and state-of-the-art interdisciplinary survey of established and emerging areas of study to better support the training and research activity of scholars and students.The De Gruyter Handbook of Social Epidemiology is an indispensable reference work that brings together the contributions of leading social epidemiologists from around the world. Our interdisciplinary approach represents a range of approaches to social epidemiology, including anthropology, demography, gerontology, medicine, psychology, public health, social work, and sociology. By highlighting established and emerging areas within the field of social epidemiology, this volume offers an invaluable resource for scholars and students who are interested in the ways in which population health intersects with aging, socioeconomic determinants, race and ethnicity, migration, sex and gender, sexual orientation, social relationships, religion, neighborhood context, environmental ecology, area income inequality, and political determinants.

Critical Data Studies as a field looks at data as an instrument of power, making it a focal point for a number of important discussions about our increasingly datafied realities. This handbook presents a comprehensive overview of the current state of Critical Data Studies, looking at data as a site of contested meanings and politics. Its chapters reflect a multidisciplinary approach that includes a diverse set of perspectives from academic fields like Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, Information Science, Political Economy, Digital Humanities, and Media, Environmental, Feminist and Postcolonial studies. The handbook’s five sections focus on contextualizing Critical Data Studies, discussing its methodologies, situating its economic and legal dimensions, presenting multiple case studies and examples, and examining the forms of resistance that it can engender. Readers will benefit from exposure to diverse frames of analysis that seek not only to examine the current ways in which data impacts our lives, but to provide models for thinking about practical responses to these processes.

The book shines a light on two different perspectives when it comes to the influence that social media has on politics: For advocates of a digital democracy, the abundance of unfiltered information social media provides constitutes a decentralisation of power relations within the body politic, and a removal of old hierarchies. Conversely, critical theorists argue social media has created societal and political dislocations, which have eroded rational debate in favour of ideological polarisation. Celebrity politicians such as Donald Trump and tech giants like Elon Musk are examples of this within electoral and party politics. States and non-state actors have sought to enhance their soft power attraction to foreign publics. This book analyses the transformation in the behaviour of governing institutions, parties and the media through the digital commons.

Cities have been the motive force of globalisation. As cities have grown to sizes unknown in the historical record, they very often dwarf many states in terms of population and economic power, placing our frameworks for understanding the international system under strain. Cities have increasingly tried, often successfully, to translate their new-found heft and economic might into political power – in the halls of international organisations, in the United Nations system, and also through the many hundreds of transnational networks that are having real influence on global governance issues and outcomes in areas such as climate change, migration, global health, and disaster risk management.This volume argues that cities and infrastructures of connectivity – including transportation, digital architectures, computational stacks, and energy infrastructures – are also important components of international order itself – objects and mediums of geopolitical competition. The ‘global’ cities that have emerged in the current round of globalisation are not simply urban phenomena, but have been dependent upon the liberal international order and the powerful states that underpinned it for the international environment in which they were able to thrive – and have in turn underpinned that order. With the rise of China and its immensely ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, we have seen once again this intrinsic connection between geopolitical power and infrastructure and urbanism, as great powers make cities and their connecting infrastructures a central plank of an emerging contestation over the shape of the twenty-first century.This volume assesses the emergence of global cities and their continuing evolution within the international system, and the ways in which such cities challenge our existing understandings of diplomacy, territoriality, sovereignty, legitimacy, international law and agency. Also, importantly, this handbook considers the growing importance of understanding global infrastructures in the twenty-first century, and how they are a little understood and yet critical aspect of international order and competition.

The birth of the newspapers, radio and television in the 19th century brought various interconnected social, behavioral and cultural changes in the lives of the colonizer and the colonized in the economically ‘developing’ nations. Then in the 20th century and now the 21st century, the birth of digital media for political, social, cultural, and economic communications have witnessed divergent results in the West and the non-Western countries. The Global South is currently facing digital divides and issues related to media illiteracy that tend to impact people’s lives more than those in the North. Furthermore, a significant shift in online and offline communicative behavior has had various effects in the way the young and the old, male and female, the haves and the have-nots interact in the media space. This handbook brings together a multidisciplinary group of authors from the Global South and the diaspora to document, examine, expose and critically assess the nature, role and impact of the social changes brought by the emergence of the mediated forms of communication in the Global South. This remarkable volume is a must-have resource for anyone interested in communication and social change, and development and social change in the Global South.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Disruptive Urban Technologies and Society provides an incisive and comprehensive exploration of the revolutionary technologies that are reshaping our urban landscapes, and meets a critical need for an integrated understanding of how these innovations are transforming urban spaces and significantly influencing societal dynamics, public health, and governance.This handbook is the first publication focused on exploring the disruption and change resulting from rapid technological change. It synthesizes, critically evaluates, and advances the field of urban technologies specifically, while highlighting the extent to which these changes will impact society. The volume will provide a dynamic characterization of the constellation of topics associated with urban development and civilization, which essentially touch on every aspect of life.Covering topics from the impact of autonomous vehicles and green transit solutions to the adoption of digital technologies for enhanced city living, the De Gruyter Handbook of Disruptive Urban Technologies and Society will serve as an essential resource for understanding and navigating the complexities of modern urban development. It offers readers a nuanced perspective on how these advancements are shaping the future of our cities.

This handbook offers readers an overview, including policy implications, of research into the psychology of radicalization, terrorism, and response to terrorism. The Editors, themselves leading terrorism scholars, introduce psychological theories of terrorist behavior, examining both risk and protective factors, the role of leadership, environments that can be identified as radicalization breeding grounds, as well as the way that emotions impact radicalization and terrorism. The book not only looks at recent directions of radicalization, and how we can assess or predict their potential for terrorist violence, but also at the latest programs of deradicalization and the psychological tools they employ.