From Techne to Poiesis

Discovery of the Lower-Middle Jurassic high potential source rocks based on the geochemical investigation from the Indus Basin, Pakistan

How might we understand the maintenance of political order in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas from Pakistani Independence until the mid-2000s, when all the factors used to explain the current insurgency have been present for decades? This article argues that particularistic institutional arrangements between the state and tribal structures—what I call “hybrid governance”—established and maintained political order in the region. It develops a conceptual framework for the creation and maintenance of hybrid governance—where the state explicitly shares coercion with societal elites—as a specific kind of indirect rule. Through archival, documentary, and interview-based research, the article then demonstrates the utility of hybrid governance concept in explaining the establishment and operation of political order, and how the marginalization of the agents of hybrid governance is a major causal factor in the onset of the insurgency. The article concludes with some comparative reflections on the sources of political order outside the state’s monopoly of force.

The Dongpu Depression, containing huge amounts of hydrocarbons, is a typical petroliferous province in the Bohai Bay Basin, east China. As one set of the main source rocks, the first member of Shahejie Formation (E2s1) shows huge exploration potential with approximately 0.83 × 108 t resources remaining to be discovered. However, the geochemical characteristics and thermal evolution history of E2s1 source rocks have still not been determined. In this study, the sedimentary features were firstly analysed based on the geological data. Then the organic matter abundance, kerogen type, and thermal maturity of E2s1 source rocks in the present day were evaluated according to the Rock‐Eval pyrolysis, micro‐components of kerogen, total organic carbon (TOC), and vitrinite reflectance analysis. Furthermore, the evolution of thermal history and hydrocarbon generation was determined using the PetroMod procedure. The results show that dark mudstones and salt rocks were well developed in E2s1, which are propitious for organic matter to grow and preserve. E2s1 source rocks contain abundant organic matter and moderate to good generative source rock potential. E2s1 source rocks mainly consist of Type II kerogen and have entered early to maturation stage for hydrocarbon generation. Due to the limited buried depth, E2s1 source rocks only attained lower thermal maturity and generated finite hydrocarbons. The initial rapid subsidence and the second rift after uplift erosion resulted in the higher geo‐temperature at the end of E3d and the present day. Corresponding to the geo‐temperature evolution, there are two stages of hydrocarbon generation for E2s1 source rocks: The first stage was in the late E3d period, and the late stage was from the late Neogene to the present day. Moreover, the hydrocarbon generation rate and quantity of the late stage are much higher than the first stage, indicating the major hydrocarbon generation stage. Due to the limited hydrocarbon generation capacity, oils generated from E2s1 source rocks are low maturity; thus, it cannot migrate for a long distance and only accumulated around the sag belts.

Journal Article The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide Get access Valerie M. Hudson Donna Lee Bowen and Perpetua Lynne Nielsen, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2020, 606 pages, $28 paperback, $40 hardcover, $27.99 e-book. Thomas S Worth Thomas S Worth University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA tsworth@wisc.edu https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2992-1455 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Review, Volume 26, Issue 1, March 2024, viad058, https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viad058 Published: 27 December 2023 Article history Revision received: 07 July 2023 Received: 16 November 2023 Accepted: 05 December 2023 Published: 27 December 2023

This article assesses whether a regulatory law and higher quality regulatory governance are associated with superior outcomes in the electricity industry. The analysis, for 28 developing economies over 1980–2001, draws on theoretical and empirical work on the impact of telecommunications regulators in developing economies. Controlling for privatization and competition and allowing for country-specific fixed effects, both regulatory law and higher quality regulatory governance are positively and significantly associated with higher per capita generation capacity. This positive impact increases for more than 10 years, as experience develops and regulatory reputation grows. The results are robust to estimating alternative dynamic specifications (including error correction models), to inclusion of economy governance political risk indicators, and to controlling for possible endogeneity biases. The article concludes with a short discussion of causality in panel data modeling of governance models and the policy...

The strategic autonomy of African countries is the starting point for understanding their pursuit of an autonomous development path. The great-power game is placing greater demands on African ownership. African countries' autonomy is mainly manifested in economic self-improvement, security governance and balanced diplomacy. In the United Nations General Assembly, African countries are able to maintain a certain degree of autonomy and independence in political, economic and security issues according to their own interests and merits. The reason for this is that there are certain limitations in the assistance of big powers; the types of issues and the pressure from the United States have also acted as catalysts; and the competition between the big powers of China and the United States has to a certain extent given free space to African countries. In the future, in China-Africa cooperation, China needs to respect and support the autonomy of African countries in their construction, build a community of human destiny with African countries, continuously strengthen cooperation and interoperability with countries of the South, lead in development, and strive to build a new international political and economic order.

Egypt was the first country in Africa and the Arab World to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. In 2016, the official visit of President Xi Jinping to Egypt began a new chapter in the two countries’ relations and will open a brand-new page in their foreign affairs. This paper, based on the changes that have taken place in Egypt’s diplomacy, highlights the core concepts of Egypt’s diplomatic strategy towards China and focuses on how these outlooks can be compatible with China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative (BRI). Egypt boasts many important features: a unique geographic location which makes Egypt the meeting point of the Arab World, Africa, Asia, and Europe through the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea; a unique civilisation and culture, with a longstanding history and interactions throughout millennia with the empires of Greece, Persia, Rome, Turkey, and more. Egypt is also considered a converging point of Islam and Christianity, boasting a relatively stable political and social order, and a fully-fledged economic system. All these features help Egypt to have global outreach; it contributes great value to China’s BRI and enables Egypt to play a key role in the world with China as a strategic partner. This paper also analyses the characteristics of Egypt’s new diplomacy and how they lay a solid foundation for the development of Sino-Egyptian relations. The strategic vision between Egypt and China is not limited to trade and investments, but there are still missing pieces to fill in which depend on the regional and global arenas, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Middle East security governance, national defense, and counterterrorism.

Chapter VI - China

This thesis explores the potential and the limits of the ‘turn to the local’ in approaches to promote more inclusive forms of order and peace in conflict and post-conflict settings.As a consequence of the apparent limitations of liberal peace approaches that inform international peace and security interventions, recent discursive and practical shifts indicate a move away from imported institution-building and toward working through and upon local societal dynamics and socalled non-state actors. Thereby, logics of hybridity, non-linearity and resilience are incorporated into new governing rationalities of intervention policies. As a result, the concepts of ‘hybrid political orders’, ‘the everyday’ and ‘hybrid peace’- which were introduced into the debate as critiques of the liberal peace and state fragility discourses - no longer stand in univocal critical opposition to the liberal peacebuilding discourse. Rather, in the context of the ‘turn to the local’, hybridity is now both a concept informing critical peace and conflict analysis and a new terrain for policy discourse which opens up ‘the local’ as a key domain for intervention. This thesis examines how the ‘turn to the local’ and the associated approaches to hybrid governance work and are legitimized. It explores the agendas that underpin these emerging shifts and the accompanying dynamics and effects within local settingsThis is explored through case study research focusing on the context of Somalia in which top-down approaches have consistently failed, while sub-national and local actors and institutions have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to craft alternative governance arrangements. International actors have shown increasing interest in engaging local actors and governance arrangements. Somalia is thereby not only an exemplary case with regards to failures of intervention, but is also at the forefront of the less explored rise of localized governance arrangements and the employment and testing of new intervention approaches that work upon and through governance beyond the state. The first case study chapter focuses on local internal approaches in response to violent state collapse beyond conventional statebuilding. The analysis substantiates and elaborates central themes of the ‘hybrid political orders’/’hybrid forms of peace’ literature. The subsequent case study chapters explore what happens when ‘the local’ and notions of hybridity and the everyday are incorporated into intervention rationales. Each case study chapter analyzes a particular aspect of peace and security interventions in the context of the ‘turn to the local’, namely governance, security/justice and counterinsurgency. Taken together, the analysis covers central dimensions of the ‘turn to the local’ as well as different geographical contexts (Somaliland, Puntland and South regions) in Somalia.The findings demonstrate that while decentered and hybrid governance approaches in the context of internal reconstruction have yielded peaceful outcomes, and while the ‘turn to the local’ may open avenues for external engagement that builds on rather than contains or ignores existing practices, emerging policy discourses centering on ‘the local’ also signify new ways of legitimating social engineering informed by liberal peace thinking. Moreover, adding a security-specific angle to the question of hybrid governance, the thesis demonstrates how the ‘turn to the local’ involves new trajectories of counterinsurgent warfare through which military force is injected into the fabric of local communities. The thesis thereby highlights the importance of acknowledging and critically examining the specific geopolitical and policy contexts in which the terms of the debate on ‘hybridity’ and ‘bottom up’ concepts circulate, as well as the different agendas such proposals become entwined with. Through case study analysis it reappraises central aspects of the ways in which peace and security interventions and hybridity, non-state governance and local forms of peace are currently debated and represented. Moreover, whereas scholars have pointed to problems of holding local ‘non state’ actors accountable, the thesis draws specific attention to challenges related to holding international interveners accountable.

From the Editor

Digital transformation has become imperative in education policy, yet implementation effectiveness varies significantly across nations. This study examines governance mechanisms and success factors shaping digital education policy implementation in 15 OECD countries (2020-2024). Employing mixed methods, the research combines quantitative analysis of OECD/UNESCO indicators with case studies of five countries representing diverse governance models. Data include policy documents, 45 elite interviews, and digital infrastructure metrics. Results demonstrate that adaptive governance structures achieve 34% higher digital adoption rates than rigid hierarchical systems. Multi-stakeholder coordination strongly correlates with implementation success (r=0.72, p<0.001), while infrastructure investment explains 48% of outcome variance. Hybrid governance models combining centralized strategy with decentralized implementation yield superior effectiveness (7.8/10) compared to purely centralized (6.2/10) or decentralized approaches (5.9/10). Teacher digital competency programs emerge as the strongest predictor, with countries investing >3% of education budgets in professional development showing 2.3 times higher student digital literacy. The study develops an integrated framework accounting for contextual variables, stakeholder dynamics, and technological infrastructure, offering evidence-based guidance for balancing standardization with local adaptation while ensuring equitable digital transformation.

The shift to hybrid work has introduced new organizational challenges for higher education institutions (HEIs), especially when balancing academic freedom, managerial oversight, digital infrastructure, and global mobility. This study explores how three German universities are developing hybrid work policies in the context of institutional complexity. Using the Field-Level Deduction framework and the institutional logics perspective, we examine how these universities balance professional, managerial, market, and digital logics in their formal policies on mobile work and workation. Drawing on a comparative case study of mobile work agreements and expert interviews with the involved key actors, we identify three emerging modes of creative assembly: (1) flexibility oriented toward academic freedom, (2) structured balance through procedural clarity, and (3) standardization with strong risk aversion. Although these universities operate under the same legal framework, their hybrid work models vary considerably, suggesting different ways in which institutional logics can be selectively coupled. The study provides exploratory insights into the diversity of hybrid work in German HEIs and introduces creative assembly as a conceptual lens for understanding how universities navigate institutional complexity. The findings are not statistically representative but serve the purpose of analytic generalization, offering conceptual insights. These insights lay the theoretical groundwork for future empirical research examining the effects of different assemblies on outcomes such as academic productivity, collegiality, student engagement, and international competitiveness.

Nowadays UPI has become an important source of digital money in our phones. Before that the market of digital money was replaced with plastic money like ATM card, Debit card , Credit card, paper money and metals such as coins of copper, silver and brass.Now time has changed into one small gadget that is our phones or we can say money in our phone . This has replaced digital money into digital payment.While UPI has revolutionized digital payment infrastructure—reaching over 17 billion monthly transactions and powering 62% of digital transactions by early 2025 — recent GST-related enforcement in places like Bengaluru and Hubballi has triggered a reversal among certain vendors who now refuse UPI due to concerns over tax scrutiny. Nowadays because of UPI many cities has turned into cash free city and UPI cities, which have included the app such as phone pay, Google pay, Paytm. This has exchanged the cash system so people can do the payment with their phone but for small payments people are dependent on UPI but this is affecting the server getting more load on the system. In contrast, surveys indicate that over 73% of MSMEs report business growth through digital adoption, with UPI as the most preferred tool . To reconcile these dynamics, the study employs mixed methods: face‑to‑face questionnaires, semi‑structured interviews, and transaction observation across a representative sample of shops.This project shows the customers preferences of cash vs UPI in Small retail shops by considering factors like security,trust,Customer payment behavior, speed of the transaction, and way of using the UPI Key words: Unified Payments Interface, consumer behavior, merchants, UPI, Cashless Economy, Digital Payments, Fintech, Digital payments infrastructure,big tech, financial inclusion, UPI adoption, Merchant payment choice, shopkeepers adaptability, Informal retail , small merchants, Consumer convenience, digital finance, Financial inclusion.

This paper problematizes the dichotomy between neo-liberalism and socialism and the tendency to view the post-socialist condition as a process of convergence with ‘Western’ and ‘global’. It does so by analysing the development and implementation of a quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) policy in school education in the context of the Russian Federation. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian national QAE policy has changed greatly and currently resembles the agendas of transnational organizations in education. At the same time, the national policy and the political discourse on quality continue to draw on Soviet as well as post-Soviet legacies. Juxtaposing the case of Russian QAE policy with theoretical models of post-bureaucratic governance in education, the paper also questions clear-cut distinctions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ governance regimes. The analysis in the paper is guided by two questions: 1) What has changed and what has remained unchanged in Russian education policy with the transition from the Soviet period to current state? and 2) How do different legacies and influences contribute to the QAE policy implemented at the local level? The brief inquiry into the history of Russian QAE policy focuses on three periods: post-war Soviet Russia, the transition period of the 1980–1990s and modern Russia. Recognizing the specific characteristics of each of the reviewed periods, the paper highlights complexities, contradictions and continuities within and between previous and present regimes of education governance in Russia. The analysis of the QAE policy implemented at the local level demonstrates the blending of diverse legacies, and the prevalence of Soviet-era practices in school governance.

In late 2014 and after more than two decades of a ‘semi-authoritarian’ regime, a popular insurrection in Burkina Faso led to the fall of Blaise Compaore, president and leader of the ruling party. Due to — or parallel to — the political transition, factors of insecurity developed or were amplified, leading to a reconfiguration of the provision of security at two levels. At the central state level began a reflection around the governance model of security and the improvement of the practices of state security forces. At the local level, non-state security initiatives have multiplied. Drawing on insights from the study of local security provision and providers in the town of Tenkodogo, located in the Boulgou province (Centre-East region), and on its wider integration into the national framework and response to insecurity in Burkina Faso, this article raises and investigates three major questions. First, how is the governance of security (co)produced by (state and non-state) actors in a specific local configuration in Burkina Faso? Second, in what ways does this local experience compare with the state’s response to insecurity and with the nationwide expansion of the Koglweogo movement? Finally, what new perspectives can such reflection at the local and national levels offer to overcome the limits of current approaches regarding local security?