Moving away from the grassroots version of events, this chapter explores the official colonial narratives created about the 1935 rebellions and the nature of British imperialism, arguing that the colonial government essentially operated as an extension of the sugar estates. Because of the entrenchment of racial stereotypes, the cross-racial cooperation fundamental to the rebellions seemed implausible to colony officials and was therefore rendered invisible. This chapter demonstrates the racial and ideological anxieties of colonialism itself and the global fractures within the British Empire during this period, where activists made connections between fascism and colonialism.

With the rise of cloud computing, digital technologies now often involve data-driven supply chains of interconnected systems controlled by multiple actors – offering remote access to centralised hardware resources or software functionalities – whose interaction produces outcomes and functionalities. Generally invisible to application users, these supply chains are key infrastructures in informational capitalism – important both for data production and distribution and for constructing platforms and services – and a primary means by which technology companies enclose and restructure social and economic life, extract value, and concentrate power. In this chapter, I argue that understanding supply chains through the lens of interdependence helps explain their role as important sites of distributed governance in contemporary societies. By focusing on the interdependencies which construct supply chains, we can understand how providers’ position and power arises through relations heavily shaped by law and other factors, and how law and regulation might begin to rein in that power.

Prisons were emblematic of early modern state formation, expanding in tandem with the growing impingement of state officers and the legal system on everyday life. Chapter 1 focuses on the institutional development of prisons, the officers who ran them and their place within the officeholding state. It surveys the variety of prisons in England, the product of gradual and uneven development that gave rise to institutions that operated within a series of overlapping jurisdictions and that struggled with a rapidly expanding carceral population. This decentralised carceral infrastructure – so typical of the early modern state – also posed challenges for prison governance and regulation, opening the system to claims of corruption and profiteering. Thus, this chapter explores the place of the gaoler within the wider dynamics of early modern officeholding authority and the disciplinary maintenance of economic and social stability. It argues that as unpopular state agents, gaolers posed challenges to political legitimacy, in extreme cases generating hostility towards state and legal authority.

This chapter examines the role of technology in public health. It notes that much of the dramatic improvement in life expectancy over the last century stems from technological innovation and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The chapter defines health technology broadly as knowledge applied in reproducible ways to improve health. It describes the life cycle of innovation – the process by which a technology is invented, selected, initially adopted, produced, goes into widespread use and is adapted or retired. Finally, this chapter discusses the benefits of health technologies, but also their potential risks, and strategies societies use to mitigate them.

The Philippines offers a distinctive case for examining China’s influence in Southeast Asia. While China has become a key economic partner, territorial disputes continue to dominate bilateral relations. This makes the Philippines a critical test for Beijing’s strategic intentions of securing a peaceful periphery for shared prosperity, while countering Western efforts to contain its rise. Building on Filipino scholarship, this chapter underscores how the Philippine domestic context creates significant obstacles to translating Chinese influence into mutually beneficial outcomes. Institutions, perceptions, national identity, and persistent governance problems have consistently blunted the positive effects of China’s outreach. By tracing key moments and patterns across five decades of official ties, the chapter demonstrates how these domestic factors repeatedly condition China’s limited success. It offers insights into enduring local constraints that define the scope of China’s expanding influence in the Philippines, and what this means for China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia.

This chapter introduces Governance by Emulation, a framework analyzing how public law models, particularly administrative and constitutional mechanisms like individual rights adjudication, are reproduced in private and regulatory governance. Focusing on corporate-controlled content moderation, it examines the European Union’s out-of-court dispute settlement bodies (ODSs) under the Digital Services Act and Meta’s Oversight Board–conceptualized as Emulated Guardians. These institutions borrow the legitimacy of courts to regulate novel, bureaucratic private power structures while addressing public demands for accountability. Grounded in law, sociology, and political science, the chapter outlines the book’s methodology and contributions. It delves into four inquiries: the actors involved, their tasks, the power they seek to discipline, and how public law principles are adapted for private governance. These dynamics highlight emulation’s duality: it promises innovation yet risks performative legitimacy devoid of substantive reform. By situating Emulated Guardians within broader global governance challenges, this chapter frames content moderation as a microcosm of future issues in sectors like AI, biotechnology, and space exploration. It concludes that while governance by emulation addresses urgent accountability demands, its efficacy depends on public engagement and institutional evolution, offering a critical lens to assess emerging accountability structures beyond state control.

How can we regulate private power in a globalized, digitized world where state-centered sovereignty, territorial boundaries, and traditional legal frameworks fall short? This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book, its arguments, methodology, and contributions, addressing the urgent need for accountability mechanisms to tame the increasingly unilateral global governance by a handful of corporations. Focusing on content moderation, it examines two key case studies: the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and Meta’s Oversight Board. Both exemplify “emulation,” where public law mechanisms, particularly constitutional and administrative, are adapted to private governance.

Analyzing these “Emulated Guardians”–institutions borrowing the legitimacy of courts while operating in private or hybrid contexts–this book highlights their reliance on performativity and public perception to assert authority. Through interdisciplinary analysis, empirical findings, and expert interviews, the book reveals the ambivalent outcomes of emulation: promising tools for accountability yet sometimes lacking practical efficacy. Ultimately, this work frames these mechanisms as harbingers of new accountability norms, arguing that governance in the digital age demands not only novel institutions but also robust public engagement. It situates these developments within broader debates about power, legitimacy, and the evolving role of public law ideals in globalized, networked environments.

This chapter reflects on my experience as the Director of the ACT Parks and Conservation Service, highlighting my involvement in the Mulligans Flat-Goorooyarroo Woodland Experiment at Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary (MFGO) from 2004 to 2022. It discusses the evolution of the Experiment, a long-term initiative aimed at woodland restoration, and its impact on the ACT Parks and Conservation Service. The experiment not only provided valuable insights into woodland management, but also fostered innovation and community engagement.

The chapter emphasises the creation of a predator-proof fence at Mulligans Flat, collaboration with academic researchers, and the integration of evidence-based management practices. Key challenges, such as reallocation of staff and developing specialised knowledge, are explored, as well as the transformation of conservation efforts in the ACT. The Experiment and MFWS has become a model for adaptive conservation, highlighting the importance of partnerships between government, researchers and the community in promoting biodiversity conservation and sustainable land management practices.

This chapter reflects on the future of governance in an era where corporate-driven, private arrangements increasingly dominate key sectors, from artificial intelligence to biotechnology and beyond. While public power still contributes through research funding and normative frameworks, the sheer scale and speed of private actors often surpass traditional regulatory capacities. Governance today rests to a considerable extent with the internal factions of corporations—engineers, compliance teams, and public relations—who shape techno-normative frameworks with little public accountability. The chapter argues that governance by emulation offers a pragmatic, albeit imperfect, path forward. Emulating public law principles—such as accountability, self-governance, and due process—into private contexts can inject public-minded values into profit-driven structures. However, traditional private law mechanisms, such as contracts and fiduciary duties, need repurposing to address the scale and public significance of corporate governance. Similarly, the role of infrastructure, code, and technical frameworks in shaping governance must be acknowledged alongside conventional normative tools. While these developments hold both promise and peril, they also mirror the incremental evolution of liberal public institutions. By embedding public law ideals into emerging governance constellations, we may foster accountability structures capable of addressing the complexities of modern global power dynamics—marking a critical step toward a more balanced and responsive future governance framework.

This chapter introduces Decentralized Finance (DeFi), a rapidly growing area that enables financial transactions such as lending, borrowing, and trading to occur without traditional intermediaries. You will learn the foundational components of DeFi by exploring token standards, such as ERC20 and ERC721, stablecoins and their mechanisms for maintaining price stability, and wrapped tokens that facilitate cross-chain interoperability. The chapter explains how DeFi protocols are structured and how they function, focusing on core areas including decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, derivative markets, and yield farming. You will gain an understanding of key financial concepts adapted to blockchain systems, such as leverage, hedging, and impermanent loss. Particular attention is given to algorithmic innovations like automated market makers, flash loans, and synthetic asset creation. You will also study how oracles feed real-world data into smart contracts and how decentralized governance structures such as DAOs shape protocol evolution. Throughout the chapter, we emphasize the risks, incentives, and architectural trade-offs involved in designing and interacting with DeFi systems.

Chapter 7 examines Gulliver’s Travels Parts II and III, with particular focus on the role of ideology, namely religion and sectarianism, in the context of global politics and trade. Swift saw modern Europe as a once-unified constitutional and ideological system (Christendom) that fell into a state of decay – a process accelerated by ideologies and policies motivated by hubris and aggression, such as absolutism, militarism, colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism. In doing so he illustrated essential dynamics of modernity, science, technology, and globalization and implied that their unrestrained development would lead to conflict rather than cooperation. He painted a picture of Asian governments, namely Japan, as foils to European governments: while they were despotic at home, they followed rational self-interest abroad, enabling cordial trade relations and a balance of power. By contrast, modern European colonial powers are satirized as being blinded by the pursuit of commercial monopolies and hence objects of foreign manipulation.