Person:

Li, Hansong

Whereas the mental health and personal safety of pedestrians have been the subject of both debates in the public sphere and discourses in social sciences, the interpersonal dynamic of citizens on foot remains so far unexplored. This paper takes a game-theoretical approach to the psychology, behaviour, and welfare of pedestrians, who experience different levels of mutualised anxiety and confidence in spontaneous encounters with strangers on the road. Through a combined method of survey, modelling, and theory, it proposes an equilibrium-analysis of interpedestrian signalling, as well as a set of public policy recommendations aimed to reduce unnecessary frictions, improve information transparency, and therefore promote public safety.

Background: The distribution of healthcare resources across local and global communities has triggered alarms throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Injustice and inefficiency in the transfer of lifesaving medical supplies are magnified by the urgency of the public health crisis, ramified through pre-existing socioeconomic tensions, and further aggravated by frictions that plague international cooperation and global governance.

Aim: This article explores the ethical and economic dimensions of medical supplies, from the microcosm of distributive algorithms to the macroscope of medical trade.

Methods: It first analyses the performance, strategy, and social responsibility of ventilator-suppliers through a series of case studies. Then, the authors seek to redress the need-insensitivity of existing distributive models with a new price-based and need-conscious algorithm. Next, the paper empirically traces the exchange of medical supplies across borders, examines the effect of trade disputes on medical reliance and pandemic preparedness, and makes a game-theoretical case for sharing critical resources with foreign communities.

Conclusion: The authors argue that the equitable allocation of medical supplies must consider the contexts and conditions of need; that political barriers to medical transfers undermine a government’s capacity to contain the contagion by reducing channels of access to medical goods; and that self-interested public policies often turn out to be counterproductive geopolitical strategies. In the post-pandemic world, the prospect of medical justice demands a balanced ethical and economic approach that cuts across the borders of nation-states and the bounds of the private sector and the public sphere.

As the “Indo-Pacific” concept gains currency in public discourses on foreign policy, it remains poorly understood as an idea, due to inadequate surveys of its intellectual origins and international visions in global contexts. This article studies Karl Haushofer's theory of the “Indo-Pacific” as an organic and integral space primed for political consciousness. Haushofer not only laid the oceanographic foundation of the “Indo-Pacific” with novel evidence in marine sciences, ethnography, and philology, but also legitimated it as a social and political space. Mindful of Germany's geopolitical predicament in the interwar period and informed by sources in indology and sinology, Haushofer envisaged the political resurrection of South, East, and Southeast Asia against colonial domination, and conceived the “Indo-Pacific” vision for remaking the international order.

As the “Indo-Pacific” concept gains currency in public discourses on foreign policy, it remains poorly understood as an idea, due to inadequate surveys of its intellectual origins and international visions in global contexts. This article studies Karl Haushofer's theory of the “Indo-Pacific” as an organic and integral space primed for political consciousness. Haushofer not only laid the oceanographic foundation of the “Indo-Pacific” with novel evidence in marine sciences, ethnography, and philology, but also legitimated it as a social and political space. Mindful of Germany's geopolitical predicament in the interwar period and informed by sources in indology and sinology, Haushofer envisaged the political resurrection of South, East, and Southeast Asia against colonial domination, and conceived the “Indo-Pacific” vision for remaking the international order.

With a global oceano-political turn amid intensifying Arctic rivalries, it is prime time to reappraise polar perspectives on international politics. Taking an intellectual-historical approach, this essay explores the thought-world of the Arctic-explorer-turned High Commissioner for Refugees, Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930). By a contextual and connective interpretation of Nansen's writings, this essay argues that the Norwegian polymath and Fram captain's Arctic oceanography informed a circumpolar worldview as an interconnected oceanic space. Moreover, Nansen mixed environmental determinism with cultural relativism into an ethical and epistemic framework, through which he defended Inuit norms against democratic domination by the forstanderskaber (local council). Finally, extending his advocacy for Greenland to other peoples and polities, especially the migrants and minorities from the Mediterranean to the Black Seas, Nansen argued against coercive state practices in favour of international movement and resettlement. In this series of argumentative moves, Nansen drew from ecology to legitimate international projects amid public humanitarian crises. Nansen's maritime international thought cautions us on the promise and peril of not only the past, but also the present rush to the unfreezing Arctic, as the once forsaken prophecy of the ‘Open Polar Sea’ gains fresh water, enabling future navigation and naval competition. Amid global displacements, by climate and by war, we have much to learn from Nansen's approach to epistemic justice and collective actions.