Search

This article is written within a conceptual space that considers engineering as a heteronomous discipline. In this context, we analyse how the state has intervened in the development of the body of knowledge of engineering discipline in a developing country in a process known as decolonisation and the political dynamism this has created. We take the case study of Kenya where the state has intervened in the development of engineering education by creating new universities with new schools to teach engineering. The expansionist education policy on the other hand raised questions of quality assurance. Particularly, who has the right to accredit engineering education became politically controversial question that was debated in courtrooms through litigations, on the floor of Parliament through legislations, and in the print media. These three form the multiple case study research based on document analysis in a situation where the regulator of engineering practice claims accreditation rights against universities themselves and the regulator of university education. The study reveals a fragile situation in a developing country where accreditation is construed as a matter of mandatory state regulation and recommends that developing countries should voluntarily rely on regional or, where possible, technical accreditors, instead of state regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: After a period of institution-based mental health care, in which the asylum system was the way in which the mental patients were treated, deinstitutionalization brought a set of significant changes and transformations in the conceptualization of mental illness and, by extension, the traditional therapeutic settings in which those in most need were assisted. However, this shift in the psychiatric domain was not only accompanied by valued achievements, but also by difficulties and challenges, as has been evidenced today. Aim/objective: The aim of this paper is thus to examine the pros and cons of the closure of asylums, and the subsequent implementation of deinstitutionalization over the 60 years or so of such important transformations in the field of psychiatry. Methods: In considering this question, I examine in detail recent works of literature based on scholarly knowledge. In addition, I identify various issues involved, as well as ways of confronting these so as to attempt to overcome the difficulties they present. Results and conclusions: As I show here, the changes in the treatment and care of the mentally ill after asylum and deinstitutionalization brought a new air of hope to patients and their families, but also had undesirable effects. The paper also considers how mental health professionals today try to solve these effects on behalf of patients and society as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been observed that the task of imagining and building African feminism as a community of theory and praxis "is very hard work." Alongside this, it could be argued that a decolonial approach to African feminism is even harder work. This is, in part, because colonial knowledges are built upon the erasure of the histories and knowledges of most of the world. The work, therefore, of reconstituting what has been erased or vulgarised is actually more difficult than what it took to put together the colonial canon. My present contribution to these debates addresses this decolonial predicament through a critique of structural violence. My particular concern is with the relationship between the modern state and gendered violence, and, to some extent, the ways in which the problem of care (the contemporary reproductive crisis) emerges within this structural relationship. The paper examines the emergence of this tension through the lens of the colonial state in Africa and its implications for feminist organising in Africa in the contemporary period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reveals the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine regarding everyone’s right to information. Attention is focused on information that is collected by state authorities, local self-government bodies, institutions and organizations, and which is not a state or other secret protected by the Law of Ukraine «On Information» and which every person has the right to familiarize himself with. Separate attention is focused on confidential information (information with limited access). One of the types of confidential information is medical information, which, on the one hand, in special cases provided for by the Fundamentals of the Health Care Legislation of Ukraine, can be disclosed to family members or a legal representative of the patient, and on the other hand, in accordance with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights person in the case of «M.K. against Ukraine» confirmation by a doctor of a patient’s illness to a member of his family, even if he learned about it from the patient himself, is an interference by the state in a person’s right to private life, and in the case of infectious diseases, it is qualified as not carried out «in accordance with the law». Attention is focused on the fact that such situations arise more and more when military personnel undergo medical examinations and that there are prohibitive norms of a special law that forbid the disclosure of medical information regarding a certain list of diseases of a military personnel to his employer (military unit), commander, family members of the military personnel. Regarding the confidentiality of information and about a person who holds a position related to the performance of the functions of the state, local self-government bodies, and about members of his family, the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine are established: absolutely in each specific case it is determined whether information about a person belongs to confidential; there are guarantees of protection of the rights of the above-mentioned persons, and additional legal burdens, and therefore the state is called upon to ensure a balance of public and private interest. The article also draws attention to the fact that even under martial law conditions, control (direct; indirect) by institutions of public power is prohibited both in terms of content and dissemination of information, even if the state pursues such a goal as protecting the information space from what is considered harmful by the state information that is not necessary for society. The practice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on this issue is established. Attention is focused on the fact that censorship cannot be used in Ukraine to protect the information field of the state even in war conditions - it is prohibited in part 3 of Art. 15 of the Constitution of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accompanying the "China Dream" as a symbol of the advent of Chinese transnational infrastructural capitalism, a new project of subject making is emerging: an increasing number of Chinese youth, especially those from working-class backgrounds, have entered the expanded urban vocational education system for training as future workers. As a national project attempting to (re)invent educated, skilled labor subjects to serve the state goal of industrial upgrading, vocational education is geared toward entrance into the labor market, producing valuable "marketable subjects" specifically for the enhancement of the export manufacturing sector and a new service sector now increasingly extending to overseas markets. Engaging in a participatory action project in vocational schools between 2016 and 2019, this article's authors studied students' learning experiences and examined how the larger structural, political, economic, and cultural forces shape the girls' and boys' educational and occupational decisions. To understand the subject making of young Chinese workers, the concept of "clashing gender" is used to illustrate how gender plays a central yet conflicted role, torn between forces of state, market, school, and individual desire, during these young people's years of vocational training. The article thus illustrates how the postsocialist state's linking of China's new economic sectors into the circuits of transnational capitalism produces intimately gendered and subjective effects for working-class youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Value and wealth creation, capture and protection are important features of contemporary global capitalism. However, global value chains and global wealth chains have been studied mostly in isolation from each other. In this article, we address this limitation by revealing the entanglements of value and wealth in the gold sector. We develop a typology of state action and inaction in value and wealth chains to explain how the state shapes the mobilisation and management of tangible and intangible assets. In our empirical analysis, we chronicle the creation of a 'gold hub' in Singapore that pulls together value and wealth functions, and highlight the various roles of the Singaporean state – as facilitator, deregulator-cum-redistributor, and direct actor. We show that entanglements of value and wealth are shaped by specific configurations of state action and inaction, and are built upon intangible dimensions of legal affordance and cultural practice coupled with very tangible facilities and infrastructure. Our analysis pinpoints the co-dependence of value creation and wealth protection systems as vital to processes of accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Émile Durkheim's collaborations with other French intellectuals during the war in various committees and polemical pamphlets, editorials, and scholarly essays are treated here as both a continuation of and a challenge to ideas he had developed earlier concerning social solidarity, the science of sociology, socialism, the modern state, and, ultimately, the moral foundations of civilization itself. Writing on behalf of the French war effort and against German "barbarism," he tacitly or explicitly developed insights from his books On the Division of Social Labour, Suicide, The Rules of Sociological Method, and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, and he elaborated on themes from his lecture courses on socialism, professional ethics and civic morals, and education. Although his wartime writings were largely commissioned, written, and published as propaganda, they also provided him with an opportunity to test, refine, and in some instances revise sociological arguments he had been working on throughout his career. Rather than bringing Durkheim's scholarly production to an abrupt halt or signaling a gradual decline in his intellectual capacities, the war provoked him to rethink some of his key sociological ideas and inspired him to take his research program in new directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we study the set of MV-algebras with given prime spectrum and we introduce the class of spectral MV-algebras. An MV-algebra is spectral if it is generated by the union of all its prime ideals (or proper ideals, or principal ideals, or maximal ideals). Among spectral MV-algebras, special attention is devoted to bipartite MV-algebras. An MV-algebra is bipartite if it admits an homomorphism onto the MV-algebra of two elements. We prove that both bipartite MV-algebras and spectral MV-algebras can be finitely axiomatized in first order logic. We also prove that there is only, up to isomorphism, a set of MV-algebras with given prime spectrum. A further part of the paper is devoted to some relations between bipartite MV-algebras and their states. Recall that a state on an MV-algebra is a generalization of a probability measure on a Boolean algebra. Particular states are the states with Bayes' property. We show that an MV-algebra admits a state with the Bayes' property if and only if it is bipartite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States with colonial legacies invest significant resources to control Indigenous lands. This article examines how state land control operates in the creation of conservation law in Chile. It analyzes Indigenous consultation applied to the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service (2016–2017) and examines how the state dismissed Indigenous proposals to protect biodiversity. Based on interviews and the analysis of parliamentary reports, and drawing from theories of colonialism, the article argues that the state's neglect worked to lower the risk of land recovery and Indigenous disruption. The findings highlight the role of state environmental institutions in Indigenous dispossession and land grabbing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cuba stands out among Latin American nations for its efforts to institutionalize food sovereignty (FS) through the promotion of alternative small‐scale farming, making it a prime case study for this model. This paper examines the extent to which Cuba has institutionalized FS and the factors driving this process from an agrarian political economy perspective. Public policies, sustainable practices and key actors—including a ‘partner state’—have advanced agroecology as a core strategy to reduce food imports since the early 1990s. However, other entities, such as the military enterprise Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), may be seen as obstacles to this strategy. Whilst these struggles and tensions are not unique to Cuba, the island stands out for its decisive steps in institutionalizing FS. Cuba has achieved significant ‘pockets’ or ‘spaces’ of FS, despite lacking a fully consolidated domestic food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ahmed Bey implemented various reforms in Tunisia from 1837 to 1855, including military reforms. He constructed barracks, towers, and fortresses, and renovated many of them. He also doubled the army's size, purchased weapons, and established factories for weapon manufacturing. However, he faced a lack of frameworks and thus founded the Bardo Military School, employing European teachers, particularly the French. However, research and study reveal that this school utilized Ottoman books, whether for military terminology, laws, or teaching materials--all were translated from Ottoman Turkish. This is corroborated by archival documents. The translations from Ottoman Turkish to Arabic were necessitated by the fact that many Tunisians were proficient in Ottoman Turkish but not in French during the 1840s. This was because the Ottoman state had pioneered military reforms and the establishment of a regular army, even though it also utilized French laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores Machiavelli's perspective on the interplay between religion and political rule. Rather than being an enemy of religion itself, we argue that the Florentine thinker was critical of its particular interpretations and applications. Specifically, Machiavelli highlights the detrimental effects of certain religions and denominations (particularly Catholic Christianity) on virtue and political engagement, which (in his perspective) foster passivity and fatalism. On the other hand, Machiavelli sees religion as a tool for rulers to serve and defend their power. By dissecting Machiavelli's views, we unveil his nuanced approach to the political value of religion. In short, we will argue that Machiavelli diverged from classical Greek and Roman philosophical systems; his view of Christianity as a tool for civil obedience marks an important shift towards modern political thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the conflict between President Mokgweetsi Masisi and his predecessor, Ian Khama, in Botswana. It argues that the conflict is a struggle for the control of the Botswana state and its resources. Ian Khama, whose family has controlled the state since independence, sought to oust his successor so he re-gains control. To achieve this, Khama employed three strategies: supporting his successor's challenger within the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in 2019, forming a loose alliance with the opposition during the 2019 general election, and conducting an international campaign against the regime of his successor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity metrics are increasingly in demand for informing government, business, and civil society decisions. However, it is not always clear to end users how these metrics differ or for what purpose they are best suited. We seek to answer these questions using a database of 573 biodiversity-related metrics, indicators, indices, and layers, which address aspects of genetic diversity, species, and ecosystems. We provide examples of indicators and their uses within the state–pressure–response–benefits framework that is widely used in conservation science. Considering complementarity across this framework, we recommend a small number of metrics considered most pertinent for use in decision-making by governments and businesses. We conclude by highlighting five future directions: increasing the importance of national metrics, ensuring wider uptake of business metrics, agreeing on a minimum set of metrics for government and business use, automating metric calculation through use of technology, and generating sustainable funding for metric production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on feminist political economy and social reproduction theory, we propose an accounting framework for understanding the distributional role of household production, employment, remittances and government social transfers in the social reproduction of the Cuban people. We apply this quantitative framework to available data and produce estimates for 2016. Our findings demonstrate that households – both domestic and diasporic – were the largest contributors to social reproduction in Cuba. Our empirical exercise reveals how the actual distributional arrangements underlying Cuban social reproduction differ from the official commitments and goals of the Cuban Revolution. The relative contributions in 2016 signal several potentially unsustainable self-reinforcing dynamics that undermine efforts to achieve gender and racial equality on the Island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States not only govern markets, but they also create them, often with the intention of expanding or improving the delivery of specific policy objectives. This article outlines one way they do this: prefiguration. States prefigure markets, and private market actors, when they imagine and instantiate new market products, logics, and practices. I illustrate prefiguration through an analysis of the history of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the federal program that underwrites flood insurance in the United States. From the time of the NFIP's establishment, policymakers and officials have fashioned and continuously reformed a public program, and an insurance product, in ways that emulate an imagined primary private flood insurer. In doing so, though, they have gradually established the conditions under which private flood insurers can do business. This article contributes to scholarship on state 'marketcraft'. Whereas many scholars have addressed why governments turn to markets in the first place, and the consequences of doing so, this article offers a closer examination of what takes place in between: the specific activities that governments undertake as they pursue market creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2024 sees Lesotho celebrate 200 years since the formation of Basotho as a nation. In these 200 years, the church has played a significant role in nation building and development. This article explores and seeks to locate the voice and presence of the church both as an ecumenical body and as a prophetic voice within the tumultuous history of Lesotho's politics with a specific timeframe from 1833-2002. A literature review of relevant academic articles as well as historical works is used to ensure that the accounts recorded are factually correct. The formation of Basotho in the 18th century is a direct result of violence and war in the form of Lifaqane. King Moshoeshoe I, founder of the Basotho nation believed that peace could be procured via the presence of missionaries, therefore denoting the establishment of the church as an important factor. Within Lesotho's mainstream history, the role played by the church has often been referred to in passing. Common sayings like "Baruti ba Moshoeshoe (Moshoeshoe's pastors/ministers), and Lesotho ke naha ea Bokresete (Lesotho is a Christian nation)" are often quoted, and yet the actual role that the church has played and continues to play in Lesotho's history and development has been an after-thought. In light of this, this article locates the role that the church has played in different eras of Lesotho's history. From the establishment of the 1st church (Protestant Church) in Morija, to the formation of ecumenical bodies such as The Heads of the Churches and Church Council of Lesotho to the current emerging coalition democracies under the constitutional monarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts in Africa have brought the fragmentation of the monopoly of violence to the fore. In conflicts such as those that occurred in Sudan and Sierra Leone, militias play a significant role in the state's strategy against the rebels. In the literature on civil wars, little attention is paid to groups fighting alongside the state and their effects on conflict outcomes. While all militias share the ability to use organized violence, some of them can also be a source of security for local communities. However, the relationship between states and pro-government militias can affect the stability of the state. This study focuses on militia groups acting alongside the state and examines the extent to which the dynamics of collaboration between the states and militias affect state fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite international efforts to address human-caused climate change, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. However, existing literature often overlooks the role of the state and social actors in exacerbating or mitigating emissions. This study adopts the political-economic embeddedness perspective to argue that the role of the state and social actors cannot be separated in the greenhouse gas economy. Specifically, we explore how the embeddedness within the Taiwanese state and private corporations enables resistance to greenhouse gas reduction policies. Through an analysis of greenhouse gas emissions data and examination of corporate characteristics among major emitters in Taiwan, we find that two key legacies of Taiwan's developmental state period, family-controlled firms and private corporations with more governmental directors, tend to have higher emissions levels. Importantly, these legacies persist even after neo-liberal reforms. This study's findings have implications for developing countries, particularly in Asia, that employ developmental state strategies. It underscores the need for countries to consider the potential negative impacts of state intervention and market dynamics on greenhouse gas emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial introduces the Special Issue on public value, urging scholars to ask fundamental questions about what public value organizing entails. It proposes key conceptual dimensions to foster public value thinking, highlighting the contested nature of the concept and the subjective understanding of public value among different publics. Themes emerging from the contributions to the Special Issue include re-imagining the State's role in post-capitalistic regimes, re-designing approaches to economic planning, and re-experiencing public value through transforming relationships between planners and the planned, practicing active citizenship endeavors, and integrating environmental concerns into processes and systems of valuation. Problematizing the neoliberal misrecognition of the State as a legitimate institution for wealth creation, this special issue showcases its key role in fostering post-capitalist possibilities. The articles offer evidence and inspiration regarding innovating the ways we plan, design, produce and account for public value by leveraging what we conceptualize as new collaborative governance possibilities. Overall, we call for establishing stronger connections between existing studies on alternative economic, political, and democratic organizing with scholarship on public policy, strategic public management, transformative social innovation and social movements. Four areas for future research on post-capitalist governance are also proposed: State-businesses relationships beyond capitalism; changing conceptions of value including the value of care; municipal approaches toward community wealth building; re-imagining new public institutions for more participatory democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the management of the government debt portfolio in the Russian Federation, focusing on the significant macroeconomic challenges and structural imbalances within the debt portfolio. Specifically, it addresses issues such as increasing debt levels, the growing burden of debt payments, and the imbalance in the composition of debt obligations. The study emphasizes the necessity of adopting new management approaches to mitigate significant economic and financial risks. It proposes a comprehensive method for targeted risk management, which includes optimizing the debt portfolio structure, coordinating state-level cash flows, and employing an improved system of debt load indicators. To minimize currency risk, the study introduces an approach to determine the optimal debt portfolio structure by balancing the impact of various borrowing currencies on debt payments. The results suggest substantial changes in public borrowing policy, advocating for a significant reduction in US dollar-denominated debt, diversification of the currency structure by increasing borrowings in other currencies, and enhancing the share of debt obligations in rubles and euros. These recommendations aim to create a more stable and balanced government debt portfolio, reducing vulnerability to external economic shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research examines the concept of “Asabiyya”, its historical and semantic meaning, which goes back to the teachings of the outstanding Arab Muslim thinker Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406). Particular attention is paid to the understanding of Asabiyya as a methodological principle for analyzing the historical process, which is based on the idea of a special form of community of people. Asabiyya is the single basis for the existence of a certain mental reality on which this community is based, ensuring the maintenance and reproduction of social ties, that is, Asabiyya as a term can be considered as the personification of the high consciousness of unity, the unity of the tribal and consanguineous spirit that underlies social solidarity and group consciousness, blind adherence to this unity. Asabiyya as a theory of state formation by Ibn Khaldun's student Ibn al-Azraq (1427-1491) is seen as the main driving cyclical force of the historical process, which Ibn Khaldun first described for understanding the history of the Maghreb and North Africa. It is important to note that Ibn al-Azraq, in his political theory, considered the cyclical nature of Asabiyya as the main reason for the emergence, flourishing and decline of the state. A feature of the concept of the state of Ibn al-Azraq is that the historical cycles in it are not absolutely closed; therefore, there is the possibility of continuity between the dying and the new emerging dynasties. The founder of a new dynasty develops the customs and traditions of the previous one. In addition, the institutions of the state, in his opinion, will have to be updated and improved within the framework of continuity, provided that they still retain the basic forces for development, the most important of which is the power and authority of Asabiyya.

The research is devoted to the coverage of the essence and role of the language policy of Russia at the present stage of development of the state. The author notes that international and domestic historical experience proves the decisive role of the linguistic factor in ensuring stable political development and tangible improvement in the country’s social sphere. The constituent elements of the trends in ensuring the effective system of regulation and development of language policy in the Russian Federation are: the study of the language situation, codification of language norms, determination of the basic principles and ways to improve language policy, as well as the practical implementation of the goals of the policy and the planned program of the state actions in the framework of ensuring national unity.

The current development of Russian state, society, and law is dynamic but ambiguous. The author studied the Russian law-making system through the prism of legal co-creation between official public authorities and civil society that join forces to create laws that meet the interests of both the state and the society. Legal co-creation is an essential resource for optimizing and improving the law-making system. General scientific and special scientific methods made it possible to establish the importance of legal co-creation of the authorities and the population as part of the domestic law-making system with its theoretical constructs and practical benefits. A constructive dialogue between the government and the society in the law-making sphere produces co-creative law-making decisions. This opinion is supported by domestic jurists and politicians. In addition to the general theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of legal co-creation, the author selected opinions of like-minded foreign researchers. Mechanisms of legal co-creation in the law-making system have good prospects and need to be developed.

This article is a critical analysis of the historical and sociological works of the American political anthropologist J. S. Scott (1936–2024). His works were largely related to the study of the contradictions of social development between the city and the village. This topic is presented especially deeply and comprehensively in Scott's monographs of his late intellectual period: ‘From the Point of View of the State’ (1998), ‘The Art of Being Ungovernable’ (2006), and ‘Against the Grain’ (2016). In these works, Scott analyzed—practically in retrospective order—several key rural-urban contradictions and paradoxes of social development from the era of high modernism of the 19th–20th centuries to the era of the emergence of the first city-states in the 6th millennium BC. Scott based his analysis on extensive regional comparative studies and interdisciplinary research at the intersection of history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, ecology, and political science. The problem of the formation, development, and expansion of state power in matters of regulating relations between city and countryside are core themes of these works. On the other hand—in matters of state-controlled relations between city and countryside—Scott highlights the influence of a third force, a third party: the so-called stateless, unsettled barbarism and anarchy that wedges itself into the regulation of rural-urban contradictions.

The article examines state policy as an organized and purposeful activity of the state, which provides for the protection of public interests, ensures the adoption of balanced and justified state decisions, and contributes to the stable development of Ukrainian society. Issues of state policy formation in the system of planning and implementation of development plans of modern society are considered. It was determined that with the transition from bureaucratic forms to innovative methods of managing the state and society, state policy acquires certain signs of publicity, due to the involvement of both state and non-state public organizations in its implementation. It has been proven that the European integration of Ukraine is accompanied by changes in state policy, which is based on European values ​​and standards for the formation of a legal, social and democratic state. Therefore, it is better to use the term «public policy», as active purposeful actions of the state based on the cooperation of state institutions, civil society institutions, as well as non-state organizations and individual citizens. It is noted that the participatory theory of democracy should become a universal principle of organizing the public policy of the Ukrainian state. Because the basis of the effective functioning of participatory democracy is a developed civil society, as well as public trust in the activities of state and public institutions, that is, citizens' confidence in the correctness of the actions of public authorities to implement the goals announced by the state. It is substantiated that modern state (public) policy, firstly, is designed to ensure public expression of will, expression of interests and needs of the population and their practical implementation at the level of power institutions; secondly, it should be based on the principles of: openness, transparency and democracy; thirdly, in the process of development and implementation of political decisions, civil society institutions should be involved in this work. The specific characteristics of state policy as an active activity are singled out, which distinguish it from a whole array of other types of policies. In further studies, it is suggested to pay attention to the normative and legal regulation of state policy.

How do the relationships between the concept of being indigenous and the processes of ethnoeducation manifest in southwestern Colombia? This ethnographic study explores the complexities of constructing ethnic identity among the indigenous peoples of Nariño, focusing on the implementation of educational programs driven by a population perspective. By questioning the foundations of ethnoeducation from the late 20th century to the early 21st century, we establish a dialogue among various institutional agents within the broader framework of ethnic-based social organization. We also examine the historical relationships, institutional archaisms, and contemporary challenges faced by ethnic educational processes in Nariño. We conclude with insights into the construction of ethnic identity and its implications for the social order governing the interactions between community members and government representatives. We conceptualize the relationship between the State, school, and ethnic identity as a fundamental part of Colombia’s modern project, which has been in development since the republican era. The institutional framework has fluctuated between protectionist, paternalistic, and cultural assimilation policies. However, the current threats to the physical and cultural survival of ancestral peoples must be addressed through the State’s institutional mechanisms and governance technologies. These mechanisms are designed to tackle the challenges of interculturality within a complex and often contradictory framework of relationships.

A central debate in contemporary Latin American social sciences revolves around the enduring presence of colonial patterns, practices, and forms of domination in research methodologies and the subjective framing of societal issues. However, decolonizing initiatives are emerging, concurrently, to challenge the ways coloniality has been entwined with the expansion of capital in the 21st century. This introductory article explores the key debates surrounding colonial persistence and decolonization within the social sciences. The dossier employs a methodology centered on documentary analysis and participatory social and political reflection, particularly through experimental approaches. The articles reviewed reveal that colonial persistence and decolonization are inherently dialectical, contradictory, and conflict-ridden, manifesting across diverse social, cultural, economic, and political domains. The uniqueness of this thematic issue lies in its ability to weave together a theoretical and conceptual discourse on symbolic and imaginary aspects within culture, spanning anthropological, legal, and educational dimensions. The analysis underscores that these issues are pluralistic and deeply intertwined with struggles over land and natural resources, enriching interdisciplinary understanding of the complex dialectical relationships between social, anthropological, economic, and political factors, alongside the aesthetics of cultural practices.

The artile examines the phenomenon of digital citizenship in legal science. Interest in digital citizenship is driven by the rapid development of digital society and technology, radical transformations of individuals’s identity and legal culture in this era, ambiguity between universal and national understanding of digitalization, interdisciplinary disagreement in scientific views on this phenomenon, and its varying sectoral legal interpretations. The purpose of the study is to identify the legal issues of digital citizenship as a direct subject of study for legal science. Methods applied include formal-legal, socio-legal, concrete sociological, comparative legal, statistical, modeling, forecasting, and cultural studies. Three of the most relevant legal issues of digital citizenship are examined as a legal construct, a comprehensive legal institution, and a distinct phenomenon of modern legal culture. The legal construct of digital citizenship allows for the generalization of typical elements of diverse phenomena and situations united by the attribute “digital” in a citizen’s life. Elements of the digital citizenship construct are proposed as follows: digital education, digital literacy competence, digital identity, digital thinking and digital behavior. A comprehensive legal institution of digital citizenship will ensure the unity of scientific, legislative and applied approaches in precise and effective legal regulation of all areas of public life where digital technologies are integrated. The comprehensive legal institution of digital citizenship may include institutions of e-democracy and e-voting, e-business, e-government, e-justice, and others. Digital citizenship as a phenomenon of legal culture can be measured using quantitative and qualitative methods, reflecting the level of a citizen’s digital maturity through established legal knowledge, skills, values, reflection, and practical experience in the digital environment.

This article examines the legislative, investment and policy environment that the Zimbabwean state is spearheading to transition the country from an overreliance on fossil fuels in response to the drawbacks of climate change. The need for this energy transition has become even more urgent due to decreasing water levels that can no longer sustain the country’s hydroelectric power outputs. A transition to other renewable energy sources and biofuels will lower the country’s carbon emissions. The article observes that while a lack of capital in large part hinders the country’s energy transition to invest in big renewable energy projects, the few small-scale projects underway are very opaque, (occasionally) transient and indistinct to the point of obscuring many potential benefits for the country’s citizens. This article relies on a review of primary material and sources from various repositories and a thorough review of secondary literature.

The article examines the methods of assessing losses due to war. The focus is on two fundamental approaches in valuation: cost and market. Each approach involves different evaluation methods, which are considered through the prism of their practical application, advantages, and limitations. Cost methods are beneficial for determining compensation for damage and destruction of assets, as they include all costs necessary to restore the lost function of the asset. The market value method determines the current market value of damaged assets, which is relevant for the valuation of residential and commercial buildings. The article emphasizes the importance of adhering to internationally recognized valuation standards to ensure fair and reasonable compensation. Regardless of the legal mechanisms to obtain financial compensation, the assessment process must be transparent and consistent. This quality characteristics is particularly important in international legal institutions, where compensation claims must be admissible to national and international bodies. The results of the study emphasize the relevance of using appropriate assessment methods for developing effective strategies for post-conflict recovery and making informed decisions about allocating resources and planning reconstruction activities.

The relevance of the research is due to the need to implement effective and highquality lawmaking activities in the conditions of modern social and state-legal development, which is largely related to the extent to which public authorities are able to respond to legally significant social needs, claims of people and their communities. It is justified that the expected contact between authorities and society can be achieved through cooperation and solidarity of creative efforts. The scientific significance of the article consists in addressing interdisciplinary and insufficiently studied categories: «legal cocreation » of authorities and society and «culture of lawmaking process» in the contemporary state. The authors emphasize that modern lawmaking process needs to be optimized (improved) through the processes of constructive dialogue and cocreation of authorities and society in the lawmaking sphere, which are an indicator of the culture of lawmaking carried out in the state, an expression of the level of culture of lawmaking activities. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the natural connection of legal co-creation of society and the state with the culture of lawmaking process in the modern state, considering legal co-creation as a manifestation of the culture of modern lawmaking process. The authors use: the dialectical method in establishing the connection between the above-mentioned phenomena; the sociological (socio-legal) approach, which allows to determine the social nature of legal cocreation and the culture of modern lawmaking; the culturological approach that made it possible to consider legal co-creation in the system of social, legal and lawmaking culture. General logical scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, scientific generalization, specific scientific legal and technical method, etc. are also used. Results: the article establishes the importance of the development of algorithms and mechanisms of legal co-creation of authorities and society in the modern lawmaking process and the need to improve socio-legal technologies that contribute to this, which is a direct and characteristic manifestation of the culture of modern lawmaking process that is the basis of socio-leg al changes in the country.

The sense of security constitutes one of the fundamental human needs. Due to the crucial role that security plays in the contemporary world and its impact on states, societies, and individuals, it is often a subject of analysis in scientific literature. The article focuses on the definition of security and its evolution in the context of the individual and society. The security of modern humans is a complex, dynamic phenomenon that goes beyond traditional areas of threats, requiring redefinition in the context of changing social and technological realities. Within this research, the views of representatives from various scientific disciplines are presented, and a new definition of the concept of security is proposed. The author suggests their own definition of security as a state of mind, dependent on the satisfaction of needs in various dimensions (material and immaterial) and in relation to the individual or collective. The dynamic nature of security and its connection to the individual's perception of threats and situations is emphasized.

The article examines the topical issues of doctrine and international judicial practice regarding the determination of the State's responsibility for international wrongful acts, in particular, those related to the activities of foreign non-State armed groups. The authors analyse the international legal framework of State responsibility for international wrongful acts, as well as individual criminal liability of individuals. The paper substantiates a set of economic and legal instruments for the implementation of international responsibility (reparations, satisfaction, restitution, economic sanctions) as a mechanism for ensuring compliance with international law by States. The study identifies the legal positions of the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the European Court of Human Rights and other international judicial institutions on the application of the concepts of "effective control" and "overall control" in judicial practice, as well as problematic issues of law enforcement.

The aim of this paper is to present the situation and create a SWOT analysis organic animal husbandry production in the Republic of Croatia during the last decade, research its development potential, and to make a comparison with the situation in other EU countries. Organic animal husbandry is constantly increasing in the Republic of Croatia (increase in number of cows, sheep, goats and ungulates), as well as in most EU countries. During the last decade, numerous activities/measures were undertaken which led to an increase in the area of used agricultural land under organic production, and now they occupy 8.57% of the total used agricultural area of the Republic of Croatia, while in the EU is 9.9%. The potentials for the development of organic animal husbandry production in Croatia are shown in the SWOT analysis and they are very good; not only because of the wealth of natural resources, various incentive measures, the preservation of numerous protected and GMO-free landscapes suitable for the aforementioned production, the abundance of neglected land areas that quickly could be put into use, regulated legislation; but also because of the emphasis on tourist destinations and friendly farming. In the EU countries, the need for better education of organic farmers as well as consumers of organic animal products is also emphasized, as well as raising the quality of coexistence with animals and the environment while preserving biodiversity, better distribution of incentives for this sector with opportunities for the development of numerous protected and rural areas.

Based on specialized literature, unpublished historical sources (archive materials), speeches of political leaders of the time, press and legislation of the time, memoirs, etc. the evolution of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the post-war period is analyzed; the international and internal factors, radical changes in the life of the largest ecclesiastical institution in Romania. This article presented the influence of the main ruling party (Romanian Labor Party/ Romanian Communist Party) in the life of the Romanian Orthodox Church. A review is made of the main political and repressive instruments (Ministry/Department of Cults) that influenced the course of religious life under the communist regime. The moderate actions, as well as the radical ones used by the political authorities on religious life, were presented. The political discourse related to the edification of Romanian society was analyzed, identifying in this way the place of the Romanian Orthodox Church. In order to survive the new conditions, hostile to religious cults, the clerical institution had to apply different forms of “coexistence” with the political authorities. Although the legislation of the time provided for religious freedom, the political factor kept a close eye on the religious establishment. In the context of the “edification of the multilaterally developed social site society”, the role of the church in society became increasingly uncertain.

Legal traditions and values are an important area of constitutional and legal studies. They affect legislation, law enforcement, and provision of human rights. This study explores the role and significance of legal traditions and values in constitutional legal systems. The author analyzed historical, social, and cultural foundations of their development, as well as their impact on legal norms and institutions, especially on constitutional principles and norms. The article offers an improved definition of the concepts of legal tradition and legal value based on a comprehensive review of scientific publications. The review made it possible to trace the evolution of legal traditions and values in the history of legal systems. The results revealed the role of legal traditions and values in ensuring social justice, legality, and sustainability. However, the effect of legal traditions and values on the governmental legal systems requires further research. This article may offer some useful insight to constitutional law researchers and practitioners who are interested in the relationship between legal traditions and values and constitutional processes. It emphasizes the importance of maintaining the balance between the preservation of legal traditions and the need to adapt to new social and cultural conditions.

State generates its own social and legal structures, which make up challenging research and practice areas. As a multidimensional phenomenon, State is subject to philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, law, political science, etc. Each science applies its own methods and tools to those aspects of State and Law that it focuses on. Yet, the exact subject area between the sciences that study State remains a notorious theoretical issue. The exact spectrum of sciences that form Doctrine of State is yet to be defined. A universal Theory of State might be a solution: it is a prospective umbrella science that covers all scientific stakeholders. This article is an interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological review of genesis, evolution, trends, and prospects of Doctrine of State. According to modern publications, the ultimate political system, i.e., an ideal state, is a futuristic model of non-state nature that has discarded the state form as archaic. Political history cannot explain why the State and its institutions are imperfect and how it can be improved. This problem is generated by the contradictory nature of humanity itself: it is intertwined with human history and can be resolved only beyond the boundaries of state history. This opinion should become a fundamental provision of Doctrine of State.

In essence, the Prosecutor's Office is a judicial institution that carries out the executive function, which is also the guardian of the constitution and the rights of the population and maintains state sovereignty in the field of prosecution which has a central position in the legal system in Indonesia, because in addition to acting as a controller of case handling (dominus litis), the Prosecutor's Office also has the authority as the executor of court decisions that have obtained permanent legal force. Clarity is needed on crimes that cause losses to State Economy, which are handled by the Attorney General's Office, Tax and Customs and Excise Civil Servant Investigators (PPNS), while "In the interest of state revenue, at the request of the Minister of Finance, the Attorney General may stop the investigation of criminal acts in the field of taxation for a maximum period of 6 (six) months from the date of request letter, as well as for excise crimes.

Objective: to substantiate the existence of national cyber sovereignty as a legal concept; by introducing the concept of state cyber interests as an innovative determinant, to review the traditional concepts of national sovereignty and state borders in the context of the dynamic nature of cyberspace and the need to develop a hybrid mechanism for cyber borders protection, based simultaneously on law and technology.Methods: the doctrinal method was used to identify the basic discrepancies in the views of leading scientists in different fields on fundamental theoretical-methodological, conceptual and categorical issues, including the justification of a single algorithm for establishing borders in cyberspace. The doctrinal method is supplemented by the analysis of judicial practice of different countries, which allows considering the courts extending their jurisdiction to disputes related to cyberspace.Results: the study presents the application of traditional and modern legal concepts of sovereignty in the new digital environment, resulting in a combination of legal and technological approaches. The author reveals functional significance of the concept of state cyber interests for demarcating cyberspace and defining the boundaries of national sovereignty. The adaptability of this concept to the technically uncertain nature of cyberspace is shown. The conclusion is made about the main directions in forming the concept of cyber interests in cyberspace and its political and legal implications, based, among other things, on the practice of courts of different countries in resolving cyber disputes.Scientific novelty: the concept of state cyber interests is considered as an innovative method of defining cyber borders. It leads to the transformation of the traditional sovereignty concept and the close national interest concept in relation to cyberspace in the context of fulfilling security requirements and intensifying national defense against cyber threats.Practical significance: the obtained results eliminate existing contradictions in the definition of sovereignty and its spatial limits under the modern technology development; contribute to the elaboration of a disciplinary standard of cyber sovereignty based on a reliable demarcator necessary for the definition of state sovereignty and borders in cyberspace; adapt traditional legal concepts of sovereignty and national interests to the global modern cyber challenges; contribute to the transformation of traditional legal concepts of sovereignty and national interests in cyberspace.

The article reveals the importance of space for national security. The points of interaction between space activities and national security are identified, which reflect the growing importance of outer space for ensuring the security of States and emergency management, the growth of international cooperation in the field of space technologies. The newest possibilities of space to ensure national security (warning and military intelligence systems; communication systems and means of coordination; systems of space monitoring of the environment and resource management; systems of border and maritime surveillance; development of other technologies; development of global cooperation) are revealed. The problems of ensuring the priority of national security in the use of space resources have been formed, with the formation of a global strategy that geopolitical stability and prevention of the militarization of space should become key aspects for ensuring the national security of any State.

Previous research has shown that narcissism is linked to both adaptive and maladaptive forms of interpersonally relevant behaviors, such as charm and aggression, respectively. One line of research that uses styles of humor as the outcome variable found that especially grandiose narcissism is positively related to both adaptive affiliative humor (strengthening interpersonal relationships) and maladaptive aggressive humor (making derogatory fun of others) alike. This seemingly contradictory finding may be explained in two ways. First, particular facets of grandiose narcissism may be related solely to adaptive or solely to maladaptive humor. Second, adaptive and maladaptive characteristics may be expressed by a person to varying degrees depending on their current narcissistic state (i.e., whether the self is faced with ego threats or in a relaxed state). To test these assumptions, the present study applied both a correlational approach with multiple measures of narcissism and an experimental approach that used an intelligence-based ego threat task. The correlational results showed that each facet of narcissism showed distinct correlational patterns with adaptive and maladaptive humor styles. The experimental results showed that ego threat moderated the relationships between narcissism and humor styles. For instance, grandiose narcissism was more strongly positively related to affiliative humor in the nonthreatening condition and was more strongly positively related to aggressive humor in the ego threat condition. These results clarify and explain the previous seemingly contradictory findings and support the importance of differentiating between the facets and states of narcissism, highlighting the complexity of the construct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework lays out an ambitious set of goals and targets aimed at halting and reversing biodiversity loss. The extent of natural ecosystems has been selected as one of a small set of headline indicators against which countries will report progress under this framework. We evaluate the effectiveness with which this indicator is expected to capture the overall scope of the ecosystem‐focused component of Goal A, and interlinkages with the species‐focused component of this same goal, using extensive global data on the integrity, connectivity, and plant species composition of forests. Results generated for all forest‐supporting countries demonstrate that consideration of these additional factors can profoundly alter understanding of the state of forest biodiversity relative to that based on extent alone. Employment of ecosystem extent as a headline indicator must therefore be augmented by appropriate use of component and complementary indicators addressing other key dimensions of ecosystem change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of land as a common practice that is intrinsic to the class construction and way of life of a sub-section of the peasantry. The aim is to understand how the common use of land among the peasant class allows them to escape, albeit relatively, from [End Page 42] the subjection of their income and labor. Grounded in dialectical materialism, we analyze what is common in both its etymological and concrete sense in relation to the experiences of the peasantry. We discuss common land and the imposition of private property as inseparable, and argue that the state acts as a tool for imposing and shaping private property, in a way that strengthens the uneven development of capitalist production. Lastly, we use our analysis to explore the formation of peasant territories in Brazil, which have emerged from land in common use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text responds to the review forum on The Life and Death of States featuring Clara Maier, Kathryn Ciancia, Charles Maier, and Nathaniel Berman. It considers the place of Central Europe and the Habsburg Empire in our geographies of the modern world. Rather than hopelessly hamstrung by backwardness, the empire and its subjects were, in Clara Maier's words, "simply struggling more insistently than complacent Westerners with the perplexities of the modern condition." The text also considers questions of the post-colonial and the post-imperial, literary genre, and the relationship between conceptual clarity and political legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we experience a sudden leap forward with machine learning models put into the decision-making apparatus of the state, social scientists are putting scrutiny on what actually goes into these datasets. Issues of ethics and representational harms are relevant questions that come up in the present day. Against this background, there has been little work thus far, bringing together various trajectories about the interplay between forms of contemporary citizenship and the politics of migration and diversity. Despite the persistent presence of diversity and migration as constructs that shape social relations in modern society, this gap is notable. Given their importance, it is crucial to continue analyzing these factors. This will contribute to more progressive ways of thinking about the relationship between the individual and the state. In this article, I draw attention to the civil registry identity categorizations in The Netherlands to explore some of the complexities surrounding the relationship between digitization and the often absent dynamics in public policy debates about migration and diversity. Drawing on cultural and political themes, I look at the digital as a language that can offer new perspectives on migration. I suggest that technology and its uses may work to enable the state to address and possibly resolve tensions in policy and practice between the intersection of regimes of rights (legal status) and diversity (forms of social cleavages). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We draw on Turkey – a Muslim-majority country governed by the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) for the past two decades – to examine some underexplored implications of the supply-side theory of religion. The longevity and shifting nature of AKP rule provide a unique opportunity to observe the subtleties involved in the noticeable strengthening of Sunni Islam's religious monopoly in a Muslim society. Results from a series of public opinion surveys conducted between 2010 and 2020 show that the AKP rule has caused the religious segment of Turkish society to consolidate around AKP and secular sections to consolidate around the opposition, leading to a significant polarization within the country. We argue this is because hegemonic religious policies may create crosscutting effects which both increase and decrease religiosity. The findings also have political implications that are undertheorized in the supply-side literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion dysregulation (ED) is a vulnerability factor for affective disorders that may originate from deficits in cognitive control (CC). Although measures of ED are often designed to assess trait-like tendencies, the extent to which such measures capture a time-varying (TV) or state-like construct versus a time-invariant (TI) or trait-like personality characteristic is unclear. The link between the TV and TI components of ED and CC is also unclear. In a 6-wave, 5-month longitudinal study, community participants (n = 1281) completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-16), a commonly used measure of ED and measures of CC. A latent variable (trait-state-occasion) model showed that the proportion of TI factor variance (.80) was greater than the TV factor variance (.19). Although TV factor stability was significant, the coefficients were small in magnitude. Furthermore, regression weights for the ED TI factor (average $\beta$ β = −.62) were significant and larger than those for the TV factor (average $\beta$ β = −.10) in predicting latent CC at each of the six-time points. These findings suggest that ED, as assessed by the DERS-16, is largely TI and this TI component is more strongly linked to CC than the TV component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]