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There is a growing recognition that participation in ‘shadow’ structures such as youth councils, forums and parliaments does not meet all of young people’s needs for action and engagement, and a growing emphasis on finding and recognising opportunities for young people to move out of these structures and initiate their own forms of democratic action for change. This chapter, co-written by academics and young researchers recruited from a youth council, tells the story of an action research project set up under the auspices of PARTISPACE which aimed to learn about the dynamics of self-initiated and autonomous youth participation beyond the confines of formalised youth participation structures. In this chapter, the authors explain what we all brought to the project, reflect from different perspectives on the process we went through, the challenges we encountered, the outcomes we achieved, and make sense of what we, collectively and individually, learned from the experience about different processes of participation.

Perhaps the weakest dimension of the ‘triple bottom line’ understanding of sustainable development has been the ‘economic’ dimension. Much of the thinking about the appropriate ‘political economy’ to underpin sustainable development has been either utopian (as in some ‘green’ political views) or ‘business as usual’ approaches. This chapter suggests that ‘ecological modernisation’ is the dominant conceptualisation of ‘sustainable development’ within the United Kingdom and illustrates this by looking at some key ‘sustainable development’ policy documents from the UK Government. Although critical of the reformist ‘policy telos’ of ecological modernisation, supporters of more radical version of sustainable development also need to be aware of the strategic opportunities of this policy discourse. In particular, the chapter suggests that the discourse of ‘economic security’ ought to be used as a way of articulating a radical, robust and principled understanding of sustainable development, which offers a normatively compelling and policy-relevant path to outline a ‘green political economy’ to underpin sustainable development.

This chapter investigates whether non venture-backed, venture-backed and bridge financed companies going public on Germany’s Neuer Markt differ with regard to issuer characteristics, balance sheet data or offering characteristics. Moreover, this chapter contributes to the underpricing literature by focusing on the role of venture capitalists and underwriters in certifying the quality of a company. Companies backed by a prestigious venture capitalist and/or underwritten by a top bank are expected to show less underpricing at the Initial Public Offering (IPO) due to reduced ex-ante uncertainty. This analysis provides evidence to the contrary: VC-backed IPOs appear to be more underpriced than non VC-backed IPOs.

The ‘Transition Town’ (TT) movement pioneered by Rob Hopkins initially in Kinsale (Ireland) and Totnes (United Kingdom) has become the fastest growing environmental movement in the global north (Hopkins, 2008). With over 30 official TT initiatives in the United Kingdom, the concept is now spreading into New Zealand, Canada, and many more countries.¹ The movement starts from two premises: (i) the reality and implications of rapid and potentially catastrophic climate change; (ii) the reality of ‘peak oil’ – an imminent, permanent short fall in oil supply, increasing year on year with massive geo-political, economic and social consequences.² Whilst supporting national and multilateral efforts to reduce emissions and to develop new energy technologies and infrastructures, TT leaves climate change protest to environmental campaigning groups, NGOs and activists oriented towards a global civil society. Acknowledging the need for ‘government and business responses [to climate change and peak oil] at all levels’, the role of TT is to ‘create [a] sense of anticipation, elation and a collective call to adventure’ and that this grass-roots bottom-up, local activism could potentially prepare the way for more directly political action at the level of national government (Hopkins, 2008, p. 15).

Inhibitory control (IC) is a central executive function that shows significant development throughout the preschool years. IC is known as a factor that underlies the ability to self-regulate in daily situations. This ability is challenged when a child faces negative emotions; a challenge that is seen in children’s IC performance and brain activity. This chapter elaborates on the effects that negative emotional experiences have on children’s IC functioning. Moreover, previous studies regarding the way emotional experiences are reflected in brain activity are included. Additionally, this chapter will offer a comprehensive review of the factors affecting individual differences in IC, including the role of children’s temperamental effortful control and negative affectivity. Further, the role of parenting behaviors will be discussed, focusing on the way in which maternal self-regulation influences child inhibitory control, including related educational implications.

Purpose – To better understand the relation between Friedrich Hayek's “theoretical psychology” and contemporary connectionist theories of mind.

Methodology/approach – There is much in The Sensory Order that recommends the oft-made claim that Hayek anticipated connectionist theories of mind. To the extent that this is so, contemporary arguments against and for connectionism, as advanced by Jerry Fodor, Zenon Pylyshyn, and John Searle, are shown as applicable to theoretical psychology. However, the final section of this chapter highlights an important disanalogy between theoretical psychology and connectionist theories of mind.

Findings – While Hayek can be construed as a connectionist, it is argued that Hayek's ontological presuppositions are not shared by contemporary theorists of mind. In particular, modern critiques of Hayek's theoretical psychology qua connectionism assume that he attempts to provide an account of the mind within the confines of scientific naturalism. This essay argues that this assumption is false. Hayek's ontological presuppositions are more akin to Kant's, implying that Hayek's question is importantly different from those asked by contemporary theorists of mind.

Originality/value of the chapter – At a certain level of abstraction, a Hayakian machine is not unlike certain versions of a connectionist machine. However, to adequately assess the significance of The Sensory Order on its own terms, Hayek's project must be disentangled from our own ontological preoccupations.

Purpose – This chapter aims to critically examine how Hayek's philosophical psychology helps defend his liberalism.

Methodology/approach – It is commonly argued that The Sensory Order enables Hayek to strengthen the epistemological theses of his social philosophy against constructivist rationalism by demonstrating why the mind as a complex order can never fully explain itself and why only “explanation of the principle” is possible for complex phenomena. Building on this argument, the chapter attempts to show that we can reconstruct a liberal conception of man who is distinct, creative yet culturally embedded from Hayek's philosophical psychology.

Findings – This chapter contends that a better understanding of Hayek's liberal self not only can enrich our analysis of the strengths and problems of Hayekian liberalism but also help counter some of the major criticisms against The Sensory Order.

Research limitations/implications – The findings of this chapter suggest that while Hayek's epistemological defense of liberalism is both powerful and thought-provoking, there is a danger that he tends to treat individual liberty as an instrumental value without adequately taking into account the intrinsic value of individuality. This chapter tries to offer some preliminary analysis of this problem and points to the direction that thinkers sympathetic to Hayek's liberalism can further develop his defense by making good this inadequacy in future research.

Originality/Value of the chapter – This chapter attempts to reconstruct a liberal self from Hayek's philosophical psychology and subject such a conception to critical scrutiny in the light of Hayek's defense of liberalism. This is an area that is relatively neglected and needs to be better explored by Hayek scholars.