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Today's academic institutions are strongly involved in the modern globalization process. The aim of the paper is to investigate if small-sized universities face particular challenges and if they obtain some advantages or are adversely affected by the ongoing process. The focus is on Europe and, specifically, on Italy, one of the signatory countries of the Bologna Declaration, that has implemented the European international reform process. Based on official data from the Italian Ministry of University and Research, first we analyse university characteristics and then we calculate performance selected indicators that are informative of a few key aspects, such as teaching quality and internationalisation and look at student satisfaction. Results show that teaching quality in small-sized public universities is similar to that in big-sized public ones whereas small-sized private universities perform better than big-sized private ones. Attractiveness for students abroad is greater for smaller and more specialized universities, and this is especially evident for private universities. Satisfaction as well is higher for students studying in small-sized universities. However, doubts exist for the future due to the possible negative effects of the very complex and strict administrative procedures of the current organization and evaluation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research objectives:The European market for football club investors is undergoing a significant transformation, with German clubs opening up for strategic investors, French clubs being taken over by private majority investors, and English top-league clubs experiencing an influx of foreign investors. Economic and legal politics have played an important role in the deregulation of closed member associations. Research methods:This paper aims to summarize the history and market situation of the ‘Big Five’ European leagues, review available theory and empirical evidence on incorporations and public and private investors, and suggest research gaps that deserve further attention. The authors have also constructed a unique database covering all owners in the two premium divisions in England, France, Germany, and Italy for the period from 2003 to 2014. Results and findings:The available articles in the growing research field of football club investors cover various theoretical areas, such as the application of property rights theory to European football clubs. In addition, several empirical papers analyze the financial and sporting impact of domestic and foreign private investors and public listings. All these studies highlight the increasing importance of club ownership in the rat race of European football. Implications:Nevertheless, some research gaps remain to be studied at an appropriate depth. First, further empirical studies should analyze the impact of incorporations in German football and the entry of private majority investors in France. Furthermore, future research may address the paradox of de-listings in England and additional listings in continental Europe. Finally, this article identifies the impact of foreign investors and multi-ownership synergies as promising research fields. In this respect, the article provides some managerial implications for football club owners, managers, and regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the factors which determine the impact of network communication and network connections on the likelihood of contracting the new coronavirus in the European and Latin American countries. The author presents several data sets to prove the following suggestions: 1) The generalized indicators of economic development and society's globalization are not indicators of how vulnerable a country's population may be in a pandemic; 2) Not the economy as such, but the conventional way of life of people, their daily behaviour and habits have a decisive influence on the disease spread; 3) Factors of prevention of illness and health promotion such as the habit of exercise, distance, and network communications use modern online services to become protective factors against the risk of infection only at a certain level of development of the country; 4) In the developed countries, a much broader set of factors than in the developing countries determine protection against disease risk; 5) The evolution of a networked society opens up significant opportunities for the developing countries to improve the quality of life, and the emergence of new, progressive traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to perform a systematic cross-country comparison of key features of industrial relations in Europe in a context where consolidated post-war institutions are under attack on many fronts. The author discusses a number of key similarities and differences across the countries of Europe, and end by considering whether progressive alternatives still exist.Design/methodology/approach This paper draws upon academic literature and compares the contributions to this special issue in the light of common problems and challenges.Findings The trend towards the erosion of nationally based employment protection and collective bargaining institutions is widely confirmed. In most of Central and Eastern Europe, where systems of organised industrial relations were at best only partially established after the collapse of the Soviet regime, the scope for unilateral dominance by (in particular foreign-owned) employers has been further enlarged. It is also clear that the European Union, far from acting as a force for harmonisation of regulatory standards and a strengthening of the “social dimension” of employment regulation, is encouraging the erosion of nationally based employment protections and provoking a growing divergence of outcomes. However, the trends are contradictory and uneven.Originality/value This paper contributes to an updated cross-country comparative analysis of the ongoing transformations in European industrial relations and discusses still existing progressive alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acclaimed Scottish playwright David Greig depicts contemporary mobility of various kinds. Focusing principally on mobility and travel in David Greig's Europe, this paper aims at exploring the notion of "geopathology" in Una Chaudhuri's sense, and thus brings a new perspective in the interpretation of the play. Chaudhuri has appropriated the term "geopathology" and "geopathic disorders" to describe the suffering caused by one's location. Greig is fascinated with the contemporary world which is determined by actual dislocations of immigration and refugehood. His 1994 play Europe alludes to the Balkan unrest in the 1990s, and this paper attempts to explore such isues as geopathology, mobility, travel, and identity as the connecting substance of Greig's Europe. The paper describes the Europe myth both as utopia and dystopia with the following themes: Europe as a symbol of geopathology, Europe as the embodiment of a utopic future, and Europe as the language of homelessness, rootlessness and hence mobility. It will be argued that the play incorporates "geopathology" as a dramatic and structural device and calls for an urgency for the contemporary refugee problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translations from the English language domain are reportedly declining, thus suggesting that there is a counter trend in publishing where Anglophone markets are coexisting more favourably alongside small-nation book trades. This article, however, argues that the threat of globalization is growing, with readers bypassing translations of fiction titles and consuming English language editions in their original form. This paper focuses on the relationship European fiction markets have with English language fiction. Initially, a summary of the debate surrounding the prevalence of English language texts in Europe will be presented. Discussion then moves on to consider three book market perspectives on the role of English language fiction in Europe: the UK, Sweden and France. Empirical research includes a range of original interviews with publishing experts from each of the three book markets and seeks to determine whether translations from English are diminishing while consumption of English language export editions is increasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptions of the United States in European public opinion greatly improved around 2008, while perceptions of China simultaneously deteriorated. The Transatlantic and Sino-European relationships stem from radically different historical contexts. Yet could the image of China and the image of the U.S. be related in the eyes of Europeans? This paper examines whether attitudes toward China have contributed to determining attitudes toward the U.S. in Europe by analyzing data from the Transatlantic Trends survey taken in 2010, a critical juncture in Europe's relations with both the U.S. and China. We investigate three hypotheses about this relation: the 'yin and yank' or negative correlation (the more Europeans fear China, the more positive they become about the U.S.; the more favorably Europeans view China, the more negatively they see the U.S.); the 'open vs. closed' or positive correlation (the more favorably Europeans see China, the more favorably they see the U.S.; the more negatively they see China, the more negatively they see the U.S.); and no relation (European attitudes toward China and the U.S. are independent). To the question of whether anti-Chinese sentiment has the potential for replacing anti-Americanism in Europe, our main conclusion is that positively correlated attitudes toward the U.S. and China reveal a deep cleavage in Europe between those who are 'in' and those who are 'out' of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the assumed ideological divide between cosmopolitans and communitarians as part of a new globalisation-related cleavage in Europe. First, the central values and attitudes that form the foundation of the ideological divide are identified. Then, a new methodological approach is proposed, in order to identify the ideological divide using two different classification approaches. Based on data of the European Social Survey 2016, latent-profile-analysis is used to identify societal groups, with similar attitudes regarding six globalisation-related items. The results show, that on the one hand, there are indications of a new ideological divide along attitudes towards globalisation, which also coincide with structural traits. On the other hand, there is a clear distinction between people with very strong positive/negative globalisation-related attitudes, and those with more moderate opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the middle of the 20th century, economic theories predicted an evolution towards development that involved the tertiarization of the productive structure, with industry losing weight to the benefit of commerce and services. This model justified the deindustrialization of countries when, promoting globalization, large companies relocated production phases to third countries to take advantage of lower labor costs. Since the Great Recession and aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic and other economic factors, globalization seems to be entering a new phase in the third decade of the 21st century, in which Global Value Chains are changing to become even more regional and reshoring is a strategy increasingly employed by large European and North American companies. In the medium term, this global change will have a considerable impact on land systems on a global scale in what could be a new reindustrialization of the old continent. The article presents an investigation carried out on the impact of reshoring in leading European companies in six different industrial branches. The results of the research show how the relocation of the industry in the most developed countries is an incipient trend practiced by the leading European companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is one of the oldest, largest, and most emblematic European research infrastructures. Its history, as expressed through narratives of its own organizational identity, does not only reflect the development of its technoscientific activities but also strongly references a multiplicity of performances of Europe. By analysing these narratives of organizational identity over nearly seven decades, it is possible to observe an ongoing coproductive relationship between technoscientific and sociopolitical orders—more specifically between particle physics and Europe. Furthermore, there has been a considerable shift in the justificatory and explanatory relationship between these orders. In its first three decades, CERN was envisioned as an organization in which European unity could be accomplished through science. A broad vision of science as a common European language contributed to an imaginary of postwar Europe (re-)united through its cultural/scientific roots. Roughly since 1990, however, CERN has been presenting itself as a 'laboratory for the world', thereby constructing a new imaginary of Europeanness as an organizational and cultural resource to support global particle physics. Thus, there has been a narrative shift from European collaboration being promoted through science, to science on a world scale being promoted by a specific idea of Europeanness. Studying the temporal dynamics of coproductive relationships like these sensitizes us to shifts of balance between sociopolitical and technoscientific orders: it reveals which orders are narrated as drivers and which as driven as well as how this opens up or closes down justificatory narratives and ways of acting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, authors attempt to provoke the need of renewed understanding and researching related to the mythologization of the Balkans in Postmodern period. In the midpoint of this article is postmodern critic of international experts for legitimacy in 'new state democracy' (for example Bosnia and Herzegovina). Authors will try to make distinction between what is reality on the ground and what is the desirable model of Bosnia and Herzegovina for Europe. Regardless of various processes that are ongoing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is not possible to move away from mythological narratives and concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Globalization and World City Research Network classifies global cities according to their connectivity through advanced producer service activities. Recent studies have suggested there is scope to develop a new classification of cities based on advanced logistics services. Within this framework, the aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to develop an interlocking Logistics Global Network for advanced logistics in Europe and measure the Logistics Global Network Connectivity (LGNC) of the host cities; (ii) to explore the variables explaining each the cities' score on the LGNC. The aim is achieved by means of a mixed methodological approach based on Taylor's Interlocking Network Model and via econometric analysis through Ordinary Least Square regression (OLS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European cities may be regarded as having formed a system of well-interconnected entities over many centuries. The peculiarities of their hierarchical functional organization and territorial patterns have been extensively analysed. This study details a few contributions from the science of complex systems meant to formalize this knowledge. This includes a representation of the metropolisation process occurring within a system of cities with the help of scaling laws and network analysis. We define the metropolisation process - not at the local level of one metropolitan area but at a macro-geographical level - as the ability of larger cities to capture the activities related to innovation waves and to be the first to benefit from these in terms of population growth. A series of urban attributes are used to quantify, through exponents of scaling laws the differentiated behaviour of urban hierarchies when opening up to the global networks that characterize the most recent wave of innovation. Network analysis provides another type of formalism that helps us construct a better understanding of how globalization processes, especially the spread of multinational firms, have diffused in the Eastern part of the European urban system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review the literature on the rise of identity politics and populism in Europe. Populist parties have gained large vote shares since the Great Recession of 2008. We observe in many countries, and even in the European Parliament, a transformation of the main dimension of politics from the left right cleavage to a new cleavage opposing the mainstream parties to populist parties. We examine how this transformation relates to changes in voter attitudes and the adjustment of political parties to these changes. Two main types of causes for the rise of populism have emerged: economic and cultural. In reviewing the evidence, we find a complex interaction between economic and cultural factors. Economic anxiety among large groups of voters related to the Great Recession and austerity policies triggers a heightened receptivity to the messages of cultural backlash from populist parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction – and deconstruction – of Europe is a spatial democratic process, and public opinion is central to it. One part of public opinion is fuelled by pragmatic – either economic (the search for prosperity) or strategic (the need for security) – arguments. Another is fired by political, moral and religious ideologies and identities (and utopian views of Europe in particular). Attitudes concerning Europe were never identical in the Western or Eastern halves of the continent, or in Britain. They evolved in connection with processes of economic change (from the second to the third phase of the Industrial Revolution), and latterly in relation to globalization and its geographic impact. Euroscepticism demands a deep adjustment of Europe to its current political-intellectual scene and geographic organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literary transnationalism is a relatively new term critically mediating the relationships between national literatures and the wider forces of globalizing culture. ‘Literary’ or ‘critical’ ‘transnationalism’ describes aspects of literary circulation and movement that defy reduction to the level of the nation-state. The term originated in American Studies as a means of bringing American literary discourse into a new relationship with the world that it inhabits. Can the concept of ‘transnationalism’ help in broader discussions of world literature and literary globalization? Literary transnationalism in this sense would identify that point at which two or more geo-cultural imaginaries intersect, connect, engage with, disrupt or conflict with each other in literary form. In this article I discuss transnationalism in terms of its origins and intellectual history in order to suggest ways in which transnational theory might be developed as an analytical tool of both global breadth and historical depth with particular reference to European literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing emphasis today on different forms of evidence-based policy in education. Several authors address the related emergence of new patterns of governing and describe forms of governing by numbers and related practices of governing by comparison. There is, however, less focus on the governmental use of soft evidence such as examples of good practice. Drawing on the analysis of governing practices in Belgium (Flanders) and Europe, this article attempts to examine in detail how soft evidence, among other elements, constitutes the current governing configuration. It is argued that this configuration includes several mechanisms that appear as evident but have far-reaching consequences: imposing spaces of meaning and discussion, deciding on what is within one's control and what is not, making people believe there is no longer something beyond themselves that is an excuse for actual self-improvement. What takes shape as part of techniques of contextualization, personalization, and permanent monitoring is ‘the power of the example’: learning from examples in view of increased performance. The conclusion expresses some concerns about the tendencies toward a manipulative society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]