Solidarity is a collective moral relation, and political solidarity, more specifically, is “a committed unity of peoples on a range of interpersonal to social-political levels” connecting their actions for a cause. Collective action to bring about social change in political solidarity includes a variety of potential harms for participants and for the collective whole. Although numerous accounts of solidarity describe the assumption of collective risks, I demonstrate that the solidary relation also includes a willingness to take up associated commitments meant both to mitigate social risks from the larger society within which it forms and ensure the ability for some members to contribute from their particularity. In addition, the relation of solidarity itself carries its own set of risks that participants accept with the belief that collective action offers a better prospect for social change than acting alone. Using examples to illustrate what is at stake, I discuss four facets of risk in solidarity: collective risk, personal risk, social risk, and relational risk. Assessing the potential for harm or exposure to danger in solidarity offers a way to think about expectations against domination and fostering trust within the moral relation.

Remote working – strongly widespread during the covid-19 pandemic –is today one of the main forms of innovation in the world of work. As always, within innovation phenomena we have static elements, from the past, and dynamic elements, looking to change the status quo. Consequently, the evaluation of remote work may be either conservative or innovative. Remote work can be considered as a simple re-proposition of the Fordist-Taylorist Enterprise that does not actually change the characteristics of employment as a not democratic relationship involving the worker submission to the employer managerial, control and disciplinary power. On the other hand, remote work can be recognized as the symptom of a broader cultural, organizational and process change in the firm, allowing the worker to conquer new spaces of freedom and autonomy, which not only allow for a new balance in the relationship between work and life, but also redefine both the factual and juridical connotations of subordination. This chapter analyzes this second perspective and, on the basis of legislation and collective bargaining, tries to define the elements of change in the concept and morphology of subordination within the employment relationship.

This chapter analyzes how social policy in China has contributed to the well-being of the middle class and their trust of the government. The author argues that if we examine not just China’s earlier reform period (1978–2003) and the fast-growing era (2003–2012), but also the sharp Left Turn in recent years (2012–present), it is hard to fit China’s social policy into the theories of productivism or developmental welfare state that are often associated with the East Asian countries. China’s welfare system is an instrumentalist model which is centered on maintaining the leadership of the Communist Party of China. With this in mind, social policies have been actively used in the past few years to support two mutually independent but intersecting intermediate goals: maintaining economic development and social stability. Both are vital to the party’s authority.

This chapter dives into one of the most difficult clinical ethics consultations in the author’s career. A vibrant patient suffers a cardiac arrest and severe anoxic brain injury on their way to dialysis. After weeks of ICU treatment, the family came when the patient was liberated from the ventilator. The daily spontaneous breathing trials made everyone think (and prepare) that the patient would only have minutes to live after extubation. Yet, the patient began to breath. When the minutes turned into an hour, the yelling began. The ethics pager went off moments later, and no one could have be prepared for journey ahead. Trust was gone, and the current course of comfort care would bring an irreversible outcome. The effort to buy time in the face of uncertainty resulted in a complex sequence of events that unfolded over months. The author reflects on the case and shares the opportunity to learn by failing forward.

Clinical ethics prides itself on communication, collaboration, interdisciplinary cooperation and mediation. But what happens when all those skills and efforts fail? This chapter describes a difficult situation fraught with clinical uncertainty and complicated by an unbridgeable cultural divide that left the clinical parties feeling as if they failed the patient. This case demonstrates that sometimes there is no real closure, no understanding, and no sense of having been helpful. These are the kinds of cases that haunt us.

Chapter 3 explores the role of small group dynamics and collective emotions in facilitating group theorizing, provoking unconventional scientific thought, and facilitating the rise of new scientific movements. It describes RA’s idioculture, their context of theoretical discovery, and the socio-emotional practices Holling used to spark transformative scientific creativity – a process that he called “island time.” I show how holding short, energetic meetings on remote islands with group rituals, personality selectivity, social bonding, charismatic leadership, and inductions to a secret scientific society created what I call “hot spots and hot moments.” These are brief but intense bursts of collective emotion, intersubjectivity, group creativity, and exceptional scientific performance where transformative science is conducted and faith in the group and its ideas were generated. This highlights new aspects of theory group dynamics, including the bursty nature of creative production within them, and the role of collective emotional states, relationships, and evocative locations for producing innovative scientific knowledge that can support new scientific movements.

What channel partnerships represent is initially focused upon. To reinforce the meaning even more, three different types of indirect channel relationships are identified, including arm’s-length relationships, strong inter-firm relationships, and partnerships. Emphasis is given to key features of strong channel relationships, which can evolve into partnerships. Then, the major determinants of channel partnerships are covered. Why building and maintaining trust is so important to effective channel partnerships concludes the chapter.

Through investigating how exactly bribery take place, this chapter examines why guanxi is a necessary conduit of corruption in China. I argue that guanxi-practice embodies an alternative contracting mechanism of corruption with three functions. First, it allows corruption practitioners to communicate their intent to exchange without explicitly expressing it. Second, it minimizes the otherwise prohibitively high transactional costs and reduces the moral and cognitive barriers of corruption. Third, it contains a self-enforcing mechanism that allows the terms of corruption to be negotiated and enforced. Performed with tactics and etiquettes, guanxi-practice seamlessly grafts a corrupt and immoral agreement upon a social setting, in which venality is neutralized and rationalized. In this redefined social reality of corruption, an instrumental relationship is perceived or at least presentable as a reciprocal relationship based on social commitment. Lastly, I draw attention to the emergence of professional guanxi-brokers that has marketized guanxi and extended the otherwise highly restricted opportunity to engage in parochial corruption to a much-broadened user base.

What happened when people did not pay their debts? Debts Unpaid argues that conflicts over small-scale unpaid debts were a stress test for the economic order. To ensure the wheels of petty commerce continued to turn in Mexico, everyday debtors and creditors had to believe that their interests would be protected relatively fairly when agreements soured. A resounding faith in economic justice provided the bedrock of stability necessary for the expansion of capitalism over the longue durée. Introducing the two-hundred-year period of massive economic transformation explored throughout the book, this chapter presents the text’s key historical and theoretical interventions from the late eighteenth century to the first decade of the twenty-first. As the capitalist credit economy grew, especially through modern financial institutions, ordinary people used new financial tools and navigated increasingly opaque and impersonal credit relations. This Introduction outlines the dynamics of change and the challenges and opportunities they posed for the world of small-scale debtors and creditors.

This book places the troubles of ordinary people at the centre of economic change in Mexico, arguing that conflicts over small-scale unpaid debts were a stress test for the economic and political order. Studying malfunction – what happened when contracts broke or soured – exposes the ways in which debt trouble became a driving force in the history of accumulation and justice in the modern world. This concluding chapter offers final thoughts on the book’s core proposal: that a broad sense of fairness and justice provided a bedrock of stability that allowed for massive economic transformation over a long chronological horizon.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of disinformation in the digital era and its implications for freedom of expression. It explores how the rapid dissemination of false, manipulated, and misleading information – termed a ‘disinfodemic’ – poses threats to human rights, democracy, and public trust. The chapter outlines the historical roots of disinformation, the technological factors that enable it, and the responses by public and private actors to mitigate its harmful effects. The chapter differentiates between disinformation (intentional), misinformation (unintentional), and malinformation (genuine information used to harm), while highlighting their diverse forms, such as fake news, deepfakes, and conspiracy theories. Disinformation erodes public trust, affects electoral integrity, threatens public health, and harms individuals’ rights to information and privacy. The chapter emphasises the necessity of finding a balance between combating disinformation and preserving freedom of expression.

This chapter examines the philosophical and practical foundations for state regulation of the internet, focusing on the interplay between individual rights and societal interests. It argues that the digital realm introduces unique challenges that require state intervention to preserve the integrity of public discourse and democratic values. Drawing on legal theory, particularly the ideas of Lon L. Fuller, the chapter emphasises the importance of fostering trust, maintaining the rule of law, and balancing power between states, private actors, and users in internet governance. The chapter critiques the traditional view of rights as individualistic and argues for a more community-focused approach, emphasising that human rights should serve the common good. Trust is highlighted as a cornerstone of effective internet governance. The chapter underscores that moving online fundamentally alters the scope, impact, and mechanisms of regulation. Human rights law and governance frameworks must adapt to preserve trust, community, and the integrity of public discourse in the digital age.