Ibn Khaldûn’s life (1332–1406). The plague. How power and society are connected. The theory does not match Western history. It might be more relevant for our time and the times to come.

The chapter defines theory and establishes how it informs discourse analysis. Theory is defined as an idea that explains what discourse is, how discourse should be understood, or both. Conversely, a theory is not an opinion, thought, or belief, which are simply intuitions without an explanatory framework. Topics discussed in this chapter include theories of knowledge and applied theories. After reading this chapter, readers will know how to define theory; understand how theory relates to the analytic process; know the difference between a theory of knowledge and an applied theory; and be able to identify the different types of applied theory that exist.

This chapter summarises the key aerodynamic theory of horizontal-axis wind turbine rotors. The actuator disc concept leads to the relationships between induced velocity, axial thrust, and power extraction. The theory is extended to multiple streamtubes, which combined with 2D wing theory establish the basis of blade element momentum (BEM) theory. A straightforward mathematical treatment of BEM theory is included, with an iterative procedure suitable for coding. Measurements from a full-scale rotor illustrate the applicability of BEM theory but also its fundamental limitations: the latter are described, and measures outlined to compensate for them in practical BEM codes. Simple relationships are given for the axial and tangential load distributions on an optimal HAWT blade. The structure of the rotor wake is described, leading into a description of vortex-wake theory, which provides a more physically realistic description of the airflow. Vortex wake codes are described in non-mathematical terms. The chapter includes wake measurements from full-scale wind turbines and small models. Vorticity maps from the latter verify the underlying mathematical model of a helical vortex wake.

This chapter develops the main argument of the book. It posits that some displacement strategies – namely, forced relocation – act as a mechanism for sorting the population in wartime. The argument focuses on how the territorialization of political identity in civil wars and the tendency for combatants to utilize informational shortcuts impels them to use relocation to identify opponents through “guilt by location.” It also shows that relocation can create “zones of appropriation” that facilitate the mobilization of the population into the war effort, without requiring combatants to invest in resource-intensive methods of territorial occupation. To demonstrate the logic and plausibility of each aspect of the "assortative" theory of displacement and illustrate its central causal claims, the chapter provides empirical examples from a wide range of civil wars, from the Revolt of the Camisards in eighteenth-century France, to colonial wars in British, French, Japanese, and Portuguese territories, to modern conflicts in Angola, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka. The chapter also discusses a set of hypotheses and observable implications of the theory.

This chapter takes seriously the concerns of Eliot’s early reviewers with a tension in her fiction between the devoted depiction of life later associated with realism, and a didactic impulse to which they increasingly felt she succumbed. Asking why Eliot interrupted representation with theorisation, the chapter takes as a case study her alternating dramatisation and analysis of incongruous versions of history in Chapter 20 of Middlemarch. It traces the lineage of such alternation, via an allusion to her friend John Sibree’s translation of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, into one of the notebooks Eliot used as she developed Middlemarch, which is read less as a source for either the novel’s theories or its facts than as a laboratory for its experiments in moving between them. The chapter suggests that Eliot valued the dissonance her reviewers detected when dogma intruded upon depiction. It thereby elucidates her contribution to the dialectical novel of ideas this book explores.

Early childhood education as a field has heavily relied on theories from developmental psychology since the 19th century to inform pedagogy and practice. The use of developmental theories has been significant in assisting the field to raise its professional status, however, an over-reliance on these theories alone has contributed to marginalising children with rich cultural, linguistic and religious diversities. This chapter will focus on exploring co-constructed pedagogies as creating inclusivity in early childhood education (birth to age 8). In particular, co-constructed pedagogies engage children, educators/teachers, families and community in dialogue to inform curriculum and practices that reflect diverse learning communities. It is argued that co-constructed pedagogies are not only important in early childhood education but also offer insights that can support inclusivity in primary and secondary education.

This chapter first develops a theoretical framework on the behavioral dynamics behind voters’ responses to different mobilization strategies and their different effects on voter preferences and party identification. It then goes on to explore why these different strategies are available to new parties in the first place. It develops a theoretical model that focuses on the period before a new party contests its first major election to show how the intra-elite dynamics during these founding moments shape early on which mobilization strategies the party adopts.

Chapter 1 explores the link between the research process and theory and the role of statistics in scientific discovery. Discrete and continuous variables, the building blocks of methodology, take center stage, with clear and elaborate examples and their applicability to scales of measurement and measures of central tendency. Understanding statistics allows us to become better consumers of science and make better judgments and decisions about claims and facts allegedly supported by statistical results.

This chapter summarizes the main points of the book and reflects on possible ways ahead for experimental sociology.

This chapter examines the relationship between “critique” as a mode of literary work and digital literary studies. It provides a brief genealogy of the origins of critique in early modern textual criticism and eighteenth-century disputes over autonomous criticism, and connects that genealogy to contemporary schools of critique. The debates over critique in digital literary studies are surveyed, along with a range of work in feminist, postcolonial, intersectional, Marxist, and other forms of cultural critique. It analyzes the recent turn to work in “postcritique” and allied theoretical modes, and indicates areas of shared interest as well as boundaries between digital literary studies and the cultures of critique.

This chapter examines several feminist approaches to the study and practice of international relations. It highlights the similarities between these approaches, but also the differences. It does this first by tracing the interventions made by feminists into international relations and the creation of a distinctly feminist IR agenda. Second, it uses the ‘gender lens’ to demonstrate and analyse how experiences and understandings in international relations can be ‘gendered’. Finally, it explains and examines the critiques made by the different feminist approaches to international relations.

The Cold War was the most important feature of the international system in the second half of the twentieth century. The rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States shaped the contours of conflict and cooperation among states and peoples between 1945 and 1991 and its dynamics permeated almost all corners of the globe. Whether in Baghdad, Bangkok or Brussels, the influence of geopolitical and ideological conflict was unmistakable. The Cold War created rivalries and political faultlines that have continued to shape international relations years after its passing. Sino-American competition has become so intense that many think the world is on the brink of another period of bipolar rivalry.

This chapter considers the relevance of postcolonialism to the discipline of ‘international relations’ (IR). It argues that postcolonialism advances a powerful critique of traditional approaches to IR (see chapters on realism and liberalism) since it calls into question the discipline’s foundational ontological and epistemological assumptions. In particular, it challenges the dominant assumption that states are the basic units of IR and that we should examine the relations between these units in the context of an anarchical system. Postcolonialism refocuses our attention on the constitutive role played by colonialism in the creation of the modern world and sees international relations as hierarchical rather than anarchical. It sees academic disciplines such as IR – and Western rationalist, humanist and universalist modes of thinking in general – as complicit in reproducing colonial power relations and seeks normatively to resist practices of colonialism in its material and ideational forms, whether political, economic or cultural.

How would our understanding of the history of literary theory change if we focused on the seminal essays, rather than the monumental books and monographs? It would surely seem more variegated and provisional, less finished and definitive, more of a process of trying out ideas and defending interests, more motley, confusing, and elusive, a bit like the essay form itself. This chapter examines the rise and fall of theory in the UK inside and outside the academy, beginning with its origins in the British New Left, which looked to continental Europe for intellectual sustenance. It traces the institutional influences and pressures exerted on the essay form as it migrates across the Channel, arguing that while critique could be amenable to the norms of tough-minded knowledge acquisition, the more oblique and personal voice that we associate with essayism has, until recently, often been eschewed in universities.