Donald Trump, Silvio Berlusconi, Marine Le Pen, Hugo Chávez—populists are on the rise across the globe. But what exactly is populism? Should everyone who criticizes Wall Street or Washington be ...called a populist? What precisely is the difference between right-wing and left-wing populism? Does populism bring government closer to the people or is it a threat to democracy? Who are "the people" anyway and who can speak in their name? These questions have never been more pressing.In this groundbreaking volume, Jan-Werner Müller argues that at populism's core is a rejection of pluralism. Populists will always claim that they and they alone represent the people and their true interests. Müller also shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, populists can govern on the basis of their claim to exclusive moral representation of the people: if populists have enough power, they will end up creating an authoritarian state that excludes all those not considered part of the proper "people." The book proposes a number of concrete strategies for how liberal democrats should best deal with populists and, in particular, how to counter their claims to speak exclusively for "the silent majority" or "the real people."Analytical, accessible, and provocative, What Is Populism? is grounded in history and draws on examples from Latin America, Europe, and the United States to define the characteristics of populism and the deeper causes of its electoral successes in our time.
Constitutional Patriotism offers a new theory of citizenship and civic allegiance for today's culturally diverse liberal democracies. Rejecting conventional accounts of liberal nationalism and ...cosmopolitanism, Jan-Werner Mller argues for a form of political belonging centered on universalist norms, adapted for specific constitutional cultures. At the same time, he presents a novel approach to thinking about political belonging and the preconditions of democratic legitimacy beyond the nation-state. The book takes the development of the European Union as a case study, but its lessons apply also to the United States and other parts of the world. Mller's essay starts with an engaging historical account of the origins and spread of the concept of constitutional patriotism-the idea that political attachment ought to center on the norms and values of a liberal democratic constitution rather than a national culture or the "global human community." In a more analytical part, he then proposes a critical conception of citizenship that makes room for dissent and civil disobedience while taking seriously a polity's need for stability over time. Mller's theory of constitutional patriotism responds to the challenges of the de facto multiculturalism of today's states--with a number of concrete policy implications about immigration and the preconditions for citizenship clearly spelled out. And it asks what civic empowerment could mean in a globalizing world.
Against the background of recent developments in Hungary, the article discusses the question whether the European Union ought to play a role in protecting liberal democracy in Member States. First, ...it is argued that the EU has the authority to do so, both in a broad normative sense and in a narrower legal sense (though the latter is more likely to be disputed). The article then asks whether the EU has the capacity to establish a supranational militant democracy; here it is argued that at the moment both appropriate legal instruments and plausible political strategies are missing. To remedy this situation, the article proposes a new democracy watchdog, analogous to, but more powerful than, the Venice Commission. Finally, it is asked whether EU interventions would provoke a nationalist backlash. There is insufficient evidence to decide this question, but the danger of such a backlash probably tend to be overestimated.
The book is concerned with the statistical theory for locating spatial sensors. It bridges the gap between spatial statistics and optimum design theory. After introductions to those two fields the ...topics of exploratory designs and designs for spatial trend and variogram estimation are treated. Special attention is devoted to describing new methodologies to cope with the problem of correlated observations. A great number of relevant references are collected and put into a common perspective. The theoretical investigations are accompanied by a practical example, the redesign of an Upper-Austrian air pollution monitoring network. A reader should be able to find respective theory and recommendations on how to efficiently plan a specific purpose spatial monitoring network. The third edition takes into account the rapid development in the area of spatial statistics by including new relevant research and references. The revised edition contains additional material on design for detecting spatial dependence and for estimating parametrized covariance functions.
Polyphosphate (polyP) is a physiologically occurring polyanion that is synthesized especially in bone-forming osteoblast cells and blood platelets. We used amorphous polyP nanoparticles, complexed ...with Ca(2+), that have a globular size of ∼100 nm. Because polyP comprises inorganic orthophosphate units that are linked together through high-energy phosphoanhydride bonds, we questioned whether the observed morphogenetic effect, elicited by polyP, is correlated with the energy-generating machinery within the cells. We show that exposure of SaOS-2 osteoblast-like cells to polyP results in a strong accumulation of mitochondria and a parallel translocation of the polyP-degrading enzyme alkaline phosphatase to the cell surface. If SaOS-2 cells are activated by the mineralization activation cocktail (comprising β-glycerophosphate, ascorbic acid and dexamethasone) and additionally incubated with polyP, a tenfold intracellular increase of the ATP level occurs. Even more, in those cells, an intensified release of ATP into the extracellular space is also seen. We propose and conclude that polyP acts as metabolic fuel after the hydrolytic cleavage of the phosphoanhydride linkages, which contributes to hydroxyapatite formation on the plasma membranes of osteoblasts.
The present study aims to estimate the minimum number of accelerometer measurement days needed to estimate habitual physical activity (PA) among 6- (2010), 18- (2011) and 30- (2012) year-old ...participants, belonging to three population-based Brazilian birth cohorts.
PA was assessed by triaxial wrist-worn GENEActiv accelerometers and the present analysis is restricted to participants with at least 6 consecutive days of measurement. Accelerometer raw data were analyzed with R-package GGIR. Description of PA measures (overall PA, moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA), light PA (LPA)) on weekdays and weekend days were conducted, and statistical differences were tested with chi-squared and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Spearman Brown Formulae was applied to test reliability of different number of days of accelerometer use.
Differences between week and weekend days regarding LPA, MVPA and overall PA, were only observed among 30-year-olds. Higher levels of MVPA (p = 0.006) and overall PA (p<0.001) were identified on weekdays. For overall PA, to achieve a reliability coefficient >0.70, two and three days of measurement were needed in adults and children, respectively. For LPA, a reliability coefficient >0.70 was achieved with five days in 6-year-old children, three days in 18-year-old young adults, and four days in 30-year-old adults. Considering MVPA, four days would be necessary to represent a week of measurement among all cohort groups.
Our results show that four and five measurement days are needed to estimate all habitual PA constructs, for children and adults, respectively. Also, among 30-year-old adults, it is important to make efforts towards weekend days measurement.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
It has become conventional wisdom that populism is on the rise across the West. In Latin America, where populism is often perceived as a long-standing political tradition, leaders often described as ...populist have recently occupied center stage (and office) in a number of countries. The usage of the word populism signals anxieties both by liberals about democracy and by democrats about liberalism. Adapted from the source document.
Galectins are widely distributed sugar-binding proteins whose basic specificity for β-galactosides is conserved by evolutionarily preserved carbohydrate-recognition domains (CRDs). Although they have ...long been believed to be involved in diverse biological phenomena critical for multicellular organisms, in only few a cases has it been proved that their in vivo functions are actually based on specific recognition of the complex carbohydrates expressed on cell surfaces. To obtain clues to understand the physiological roles of diverse members of the galectin family, detailed analysis of their sugar-binding specificity is necessary from a comparative viewpoint. For this purpose, we recently reinforced a conventional system for frontal affinity chromatography (FAC) J. Chromatogr., B, Biomed. Sci. Appl. 771 (2002) 67–87. By using this system, we quantitatively analyzed the interactions at 20 °C between 13 galectins including 16 CRDs originating from mammals, chick, nematode, sponge, and mushroom, with 41 pyridylaminated (PA) oligosaccharides. As a result, it was confirmed that galectins require three OH groups of
N-acetyllactosamine, as had previously been denoted, i.e., 4-OH and 6-OH of Gal, and 3-OH of GlcNAc. As a matter of fact, no galectin could bind to glycolipid-type glycans (e.g., GM2, GA2, Gb3), complex-type
N-glycans, of which both 6-OH groups are sialylated, nor Le-related antigens (e.g., Le
x, Le
a). On the other hand, considerable diversity was observed for individual galectins in binding specificity in terms of (1) branching of
N-glycans, (2) repeating of
N-acetyllactosamine units, or (3) substitutions at 2-OH or 3-OH groups of nonreducing terminal Gal. Although most galectins showed moderately enhanced affinity for branched
N-glycans or repeated
N-acetyllactosamines, some of them had extremely enhanced affinity for either of these multivalent glycans. Some galectins also showed particular preference for α1-2Fuc-, α1-3Gal-, α1-3GalNAc-, or α2-3NeuAc-modified glycans. To summarize, galectins have evolved their sugar-binding specificity by enhancing affinity to either “branched”, “repeated”, or “substituted” glycans, while conserving their ability to recognize basic disaccharide units, Galβ1-3/4GlcNAc. On these bases, they are considered to exert specialized functions in diverse biological phenomena, which may include formation of local cell-surface microdomains (raft) by sorting glycoconjugate members for each cell type.
Abstract
This reply to Gila Stopler’s provocative piece on the possible complicity of political liberalism and right-wing populism welcomes Stopler’s strategy of identifying structural weaknesses in ...liberal theory. But it also presents three specific disagreements: first, it is argued that Rawls is much less of a defender of the status quo in really existing liberal democracies than Stopler makes him out to be; second, the argument is advanced that political liberalism has significant resources to counter right-wing populism; and, third and most important, it is claimed, following the work of philosophers such as Gina Schouten, that political liberalism can (and must) incorporate feminist concerns.
Inorganic polyphosphates (polyP) consist of linear chains of orthophosphate residues, linked by high-energy phosphoanhydride bonds. They are evolutionarily old biopolymers that are present from ...bacteria to man. No other molecule concentrates as much (bio)chemically usable energy as polyP. However, the function and metabolism of this long-neglected polymer are scarcely known, especially in higher eukaryotes. In recent years, interest in polyP experienced a renaissance, beginning with the discovery of polyP as phosphate source in bone mineralization. Later, two discoveries placed polyP into the focus of regenerative medicine applications. First, polyP shows morphogenetic activity, i.e., induces cell differentiation via gene induction, and, second, acts as an energy storage and donor in the extracellular space. Studies on acidocalcisomes and mitochondria provided first insights into the enzymatic basis of eukaryotic polyP formation. In addition, a concerted action of alkaline phosphatase and adenylate kinase proved crucial for ADP/ATP generation from polyP. PolyP added extracellularly to mammalian cells resulted in a 3-fold increase of ATP. The importance and mechanism of this phosphotransfer reaction for energy-consuming processes in the extracellular matrix are discussed. This review aims to give a critical overview about the formation and function of this unique polymer that is capable of storing (bio)chemically useful energy.
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