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Why have states throughout history regularly underestimated dangers to their survival? Why have some states been able to mobilize their material resources effectively to balance against threats, while others have not been able to do so? The phenomenon of \"underbalancing\" is a common but woefully underexamined behavior in international politics. Underbalancing occurs when states fail to recognize dangerous threats, choose not to react to them, or respond in paltry and imprudent ways. It is a response that directly contradicts the core prediction of structural realism's balance-of-power theory--that states motivated to survive as autonomous entities are coherent actors that, when confronted by dangerous threats, act to restore the disrupted balance by creating alliances or increasing their military capabilities, or, in some cases, a combination of both. Consistent with the new wave of neoclassical realist research,Unanswered Threatsoffers a theory of underbalancing based on four domestic-level variables--elite consensus, elite cohesion, social cohesion, and regime/government vulnerability--that channel, mediate, and redirect policy responses to external pressures and incentives. The theory yields five causal schemes for underbalancing behavior, which are tested against the cases of interwar Britain and France, France from 1877 to 1913, and the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) that pitted tiny Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Randall Schweller concludes that those most likely to underbalance are incoherent, fragmented states whose elites are constrained by political considerations.

Securitizing Balance of Power Theory: A Polymorphic Reconceptualization by Ilai Z. Saltzman examines different reactions to changes in the balance of power and the way different states formulate their grand strategies in order to engage these changes. Saltzman offers a neoclassical realist interpretation of the balance of power theory, making the case for a more inclusive theory which considers balance of security as well. The text empirically examines this new theory using two sets of historical cases: the British and Soviet responses to Nazi Germany, and the American and Chinese responses to the rise of Imperialist Japan, both during the interwar period. The second set of cases considers the Russian, North Korean, Chinese, and European Union’s response to post-Cold War America.

The mechanism of land value capture (LVC) for financing urban transport, which supports the cost of transit infrastructure through the revenues of land and property, has generated a substantial body of research. However, the literature on transit-related LVC has paid little attention to the politics and strategies of value capture. This article intends to shift the focus towards the governance of LVC, based on the case study of the Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC) in Hong Kong. It argues that the evolving balance of power within Hong Kong’s growth coalition has entailed a transformation of the MTRC’s business model, prompting the transit agency to shift from the development of new real estate projects to the management of existing property assets. This work provides empirical evidence of an emerging ‘management-based’ value capture strategy, which is adapted to steady or slow growing urban contexts. 关于城市交通的土地价值获取（LVC）融资机制（通过土地和物业的收入支撑交通基础设施的成本），已有大量的研究。然而，关于交通相关LVC的文献很少关注价值获取过程中的政治和策略。本文拟根据港铁的案例研究，将重点转向LVC的治理。本文认为，香港增长联盟内不断演变的权力平衡要求港铁转变业务模式，促使该公共交通机构从新房地产项目的开发转向现有房地产资产的管理。我们的研究工作提供了一种新的“基于管理”的价值获取策略的经验证据，该策略适用于稳定或缓慢增长的城市环境。

The large-scale integration of renewable energy sources introduces significant uncertainty into modern power systems, posing new challenges for reliable and economical operation. Effective scheduling therefore requires accurate monitoring of uncertainty and efficient handling of nonlinear system dynamics. This paper proposes an optimization-based scheduling method that combines sensor-informed monitoring of photovoltaic (PV) uncertainty with advanced processing of nonlinear hydropower characteristics. A detailed hydropower model is incorporated into the framework to represent water balance, reservoir dynamics, and head–discharge–power relationships with improved accuracy. Nonlinear constraints and uncertainty are addressed through a unified approximation scheme that ensures computational tractability. Case studies on the modified IEEE −39 system show that the proposed method achieves effective multi-source coordination, reduces operating costs by up to 2.9%, and enhances renewable energy utilization across different uncertainty levels and PV penetration scenarios.

International wars and interstate rivalry have been at the center of our understanding of the origin and expansion of state capacity. This article describes an alternative path to the development of state capacity rooted in domestic political conflict. Under conditions of intra-elite conflict, political rulers seize upon the temporary weakness of their rivals, expropriate their assets, and consolidate authority. Because this political consolidation increases rulers’ chances of surviving an economic elite’s challenge, it enhances their incentives to develop state capacity. These ideas are evaluated in post-revolutionary Mexico, where commodity price shocks induced by the Great Depression affected the local economic elite differentially. Negative shocks lead to increased asset expropriation and substantially higher investments in state capacity, which persist to the present.

Policy researchers have used various categories of variables to explain why policies change, including those related to institutions, interests and ideas. Recent research has paid growing attention to the role of policy networks—the actors involved in policy-making, their relationships with each other, and the structure formed by those relationships—in policy reform across settings and issues; however, this literature has largely ignored the theoretical integration of networks with other policy theories, including the ‘3Is’ of institutions, interests and ideas. This article proposes a conceptual framework integrating these variables and tests it on three cases of policy change in Burkina Faso, addressing the need for theoretical integration with networks as well as the broader aim of theory-driven health policy analysis research in low- and middle-income countries. We use historical process tracing, a type of comparative case study, to interpret and compare documents and in-depth interview data within and between cases. We found that while network changes were indeed associated with policy reform, this relationship was mediated by one or more of institutions, interests and ideas. In a context of high donor dependency, new donor rules affected the composition and structure of actors in the networks, which enabled the entry and dissemination of new ideas and shifts in the overall balance of interest power ultimately leading to policy change. The case of strategic networking occurred in only one case, by civil society actors, suggesting that network change is rarely the spark that initiates the process towards policy change. This analysis highlights the important role of changes in institutions and ideas to drive policymaking, but hints that network change is a necessary intermediate step in these processes. Les chercheurs en stratégies politiques ont utilisé diverses catégories de variables pour expliquer pourquoi les stratégies changent, notamment celles ayant un lien avec des institutions, des intérêts et des idées. Des recherches récentes ont accordé une attention croissante au rôle des réseaux politiques - les acteurs impliqués dans l’élaboration des politiques, leurs relations les uns avec les autres, et la structure formée par ces relations - dans la réforme des stratégies politiques dans tous les contextes et enjeux; cependant, cette littérature a largement ignoré l’intégration théorique des réseaux avec d’autres théories politiques, y compris les « 31 », à savoir, les institutions, les intérêts et les idées. Le présent article propose un cadre conceptuel intégrant ces variables et le teste sur trois cas de changement de stratégie politique au Burkina Faso, répondant à la nécessité de l’intégration théorique avec les réseaux ainsi qu’à l’objectif plus large d’analyse de la politique de recherche en santé fondée sur la théorie dans les pays à revenu faible et intermédiaire. Nous utilisons le répérage du processus historique, un type d’étude comparative de cas, afin d’interpréter et de comparer les documents et les données des entretiens en profondeur dans et entre les limites des cas. Nous avons constaté que les modifications du réseau ont en effet été associées à la réforme de la stratégie politique, et que cette relation a été modifiée par une ou plusieurs institutions, intérêts et idées. Dans un contexte de forte dépendance des bailleurs de fonds, les nouvelles règles des donateurs ont affecté la composition et la structure des acteurs dans les réseaux, ce qui a permis l’entrée et la diffusion de nouvelles idées et des modifications dans l’équilibre global du pouvoir de l’intérêt, qui en définitive aboutit à un changement de politique. La mise en réseau stratégique est survenue dans un seul cas, par le biais des acteurs de la société civile, ce qui laisse supposer que la modification du réseau produit rarement l’étincelle qui déclenche le processus menant au changement de stratégie politique. Cette analyse met en évidence l’important rôle de l’évolution des institutions et des idées devant aboutir à l’élaboration des politiques, mais laisse supposer que le changement de réseau est une étape intermédiaire nécessaire dans ces processus. Los investigadores de políticas han utilizado diversas categorías de variables para explicar por qué las políticas cambian, incluyendo aquellas relacionadas con las instituciones, los intereses y las ideas. La investigación reciente ha prestado cada vez más atención al papel de las redes de políticas -los actores involucrados en la formulación de políticas, sus relaciones entre sí, y la estructura formada por aquellas relaciones- en la reforma de políticas en todos los entornos y los problemas; sin embargo, esta literatura ha ignorado en gran parte la integración teórica de las redes con otras teorías políticas, incluyendo las ‘3Is’ de las instituciones, intereses e ideas. Este artículo propone un marco conceptual integrando estas variables probándolas en tres casos de cambio de políticas en Burkina Faso, abordando la necesidad de una integración teórica con las redes, así como con el objetivo más amplio de investigación de análisis de políticas de salud basada en la teoría en los países de ingresos bajos y medios. Utilizamos el rastreo de un proceso histórico, un tipo de estudio comparativo de casos, para interpretar y comparar los documentos y los datos de entrevistas en profundidad dentro y entre los casos. Se encontró que mientras los cambios de la red estuvieron vinculados a una reforma de la política, esta relación estaba mediada por una o más de las instituciones, los intereses y las ideas. En un contexto de elevada dependencia de los donantes, los nuevos reglamentos de los donantes afectaron la composición y la estructura de los actores en las redes, lo que permitió la entrada y difusión de nuevas ideas y cambios en el equilibrio total del poder de los intereses conduciendo finalmente a un cambio de política. El caso de interconexiones estratégicas ocurrió sólo en un caso, por los actores de la sociedad civil, lo que sugiere que el cambio de la red rara vez es el factor desencadenante que inicia el proceso hacia el cambio de política. Este análisis destaca el importante papel de los cambios en las instituciones y en las ideas para impulsar la formulación de políticas, pero insinúa que el cambio de red es un paso intermedio necesario en estos procesos. 政策研究者使用不同类别下的变量来解释政策变化, 包括与制 度、利益和想法的政策变化。最近的研究增加了对政策改革 中政策网络的关注——政策制定过程中的参与者, 他们之间的 关系, 这些关系构成的结构。然而, 这忽略了与其他政策理论 的理论整合, 包括制度、利益和想法的 “3LS” 。本文提出一 种整合这些变量的概念框架, 并在布基纳法索的三个政策变革 的例子中试验, 旨在提出对理论整合的需要以及在低收入和中 等收入国家以理论为导向的医疗政策分析研究的需要。我们 使用历史过程回溯, 一种案例比较研究, 解释和比较案例中的 文件和深度访谈得到的数据。我们发现随着政策变革网络确 实有所变化, 这种关系被制度、利益和想法中的一个中和了。 在高度依赖捐赠者的情境下, 新的捐赠规则影响网络中参与者 的组成和结构, 这样使新的想法能够进入或者渗透进来, 影响 利益力量的平衡, 最终引起政策变化。策略社交只在一个例子 中出现, 通过公民社会参与者, 这表明网络的变化很少是促进 政策变化的动因。本分析强调了制度和想法在政策制定中的 重要促进角色, 但是网络也是这些过程中必需的中间步骤。

Critical inertia can be defined as the minimum kinetic energy stored in generators that should be kept for maintaining the frequency stability of the power system. As the frequency control performance of the power system is maintained according to its control criterion, during the inertia response time frame, the expected energy imbalance can be calculated by accumulating the imbalanced power caused by the credible contingency and calculating the available inertia response by considering the allowable operating limit of the frequency. Since the frequency control criterion can be met when the available inertia response becomes larger than the expected energy imbalance, the critical inertia can be calculated by the kinetic energy of the generators, of which the available inertia response is equal to the expected energy imbalance due to the contingency. With this in mind, this paper derives the energy balance condition for the frequency stability in the inertia response time frame based on the frequency control criterion and calculates the minimum inertia, which should be kept in the generators from the energy balance condition for meeting the criterion. In addition, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through various case studies employing Korean power systems.

Purpose Input parameters required to quantify environmental impact in life cycle assessment (LCA) can be uncertain due to e.g. temporal variability or unknowns about the true value of emission factors. Uncertainty of environmental impact can be analysed by means of a global sensitivity analysis to gain more insight into output variance. This study aimed to (1) give insight into and (2) compare methods for global sensitivity analysis in life cycle assessment, with a focus on the inventory stage. Methods Five methods that quantify the contribution to output variance were evaluated: squared standardized regression coefficient, squared Spearman correlation coefficient, key issue analysis, Sobol’ indices and random balance design. To be able to compare the performance of global sensitivity methods, two case studies were constructed: one small hypothetical case study describing electricity production that is sensitive to a small change in the input parameters and a large case study describing a production system of a northeast Atlantic fishery. Input parameters with relative small and large input uncertainties were constructed. The comparison of the sensitivity methods was based on four aspects: (I) sampling design, (II) output variance, (III) explained variance and (IV) contribution to output variance of individual input parameters. Results and discussion The evaluation of the sampling design (I) relates to the computational effort of a sensitivity method. Key issue analysis does not make use of sampling and was fastest, whereas the Sobol’ method had to generate two sampling matrices and, therefore, was slowest. The total output variance (II) resulted in approximately the same output variance for each method, except for key issue analysis, which underestimated the variance especially for high input uncertainties. The explained variance (III) and contribution to variance (IV) for small input uncertainties were optimally quantified by the squared standardized regression coefficients and the main Sobol’ index. For large input uncertainties, Spearman correlation coefficients and the Sobol’ indices performed best. The comparison, however, was based on two case studies only. Conclusions Most methods for global sensitivity analysis performed equally well, especially for relatively small input uncertainties. When restricted to the assumptions that quantification of environmental impact in LCAs behaves linearly, squared standardized regression coefficients, squared Spearman correlation coefficients, Sobol’ indices or key issue analysis can be used for global sensitivity analysis. The choice for one of the methods depends on the available data, the magnitude of the uncertainties of data and the aim of the study.

With carbon neutrality as a target and the increased penetration of renewable energy, the operational flexibility of power systems has begun to face challenges. In order to explicitly represent the operational flexibility of power systems, two types of flexibility indexes and corresponding models for their evaluation are established in this paper. One of the indexes is the supply–demand balance, which evaluates the adequacy of operational flexibility at the system level. The other is the availability of flexible resources, which comprehensively quantifies the flexibility of the power system from the perspectives of power generation, load, and energy storage. In the case study presented here, the proposed evaluation method is illustrated and validated based on a provincial power system in China. Next, the role of energy storage in enhancing flexibility is quantitatively analyzed using the proposed indexes. Then, the economic model reveals the nonlinear decline in the marginal benefit of investment in energy storage. Energy storage alone cannot fully meet the requirements for supply–demand balance in the power system, necessitating a comprehensive consideration of the available capacity for flexibility from the perspectives of generation, load, and energy storage. Analysis of a typical scenario shows that the provincial power system has 5000 MW of upward and downward flexibility in capacity. The numerical results highlight the critical importance of integrating flexibility across all components.