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Henrich, Heine, and Norezayan (2010) published 'The weirdest people in the world?' in Behavoral and Brain Sciences (as of March, 2023 it has been cited 11 800 plus times in scholar.google). The paper introduced the concept of Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Developed (WEIRD) countries/cultures and research subjects. It makes a cogent case for research based on those samples being unrepresentative of, and not useful to inform policy/behavior change/etc. of non-WEIRD countries. With this paper Henrich, Heine, and Norezayan (2010) have asked psychology and all social sciences to reflect on whether our findings represent the world, or just one small part of it. Macromarketing's assumptions and beliefs about fundamental human behavior have been shaped by psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy learning from other international contexts is an important strategy during the sports policymaking process for the government of Taiwan, and recent research has examined potential parallels between Taiwan and Scotland with regards to sports policy. Although the status of Taiwan and Scotland is not the same, interesting comparisons can be made given their shared status as 'contested nations' that are often in the shadow of their closest neighbours with whom there is an uneasy political relationship – respectively, China and England. As a consequence, sport is regarded in both countries as an important vehicle for establishing and promoting a distinctive identity, albeit with contrasting political and policy considerations. Drawing upon 15 semi-structured interviews with sports policymakers and politicians from both Taiwanese and Scottish contexts, this paper critically examines the similarities and contrasts with regards to the political considerations which shape and constrain the nature of sport policy in each context. This analysis will focus on the role of central government, local government, sport policy organisations, and sporting National Governing Bodies in both Taiwan and Scotland, with particular emphasis on the position of sport within the broader policy, political, ideological and constitutional considerations for policymakers in each context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the central predictions of the new economic geography (NEG) is that the removal of trade barriers and other such frictions should lead to the geographical concentration and specialisation of economic activity, both between and within nations. This prediction has been used to argue that as the European Union becomes more integrated, economic activity would become more regionally concentrated and specialised. Using relative entropy measures applied to a new regional data set for the period of 1985–2019, this paper finds that between 1985 and 2000 localisation and specialisation between European countries increased to some extent but with a widespread fall in specialisation and concentration within countries. After 2000, and particularly after 2007 and the Global financial Crisis, the spatial distribution of economic activities in Europe appears to have become more complex, with some degree of concentration, agglomeration and specialisation both across and within countries. Overall, however, we find little long-run support for the NEG prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the political attributes of emigrants and how their departure affects the electoral outcomes in their home countries. I argue that emigrants are different from those who remain in their political preferences as well as economic attributes, such that large-scale emigration changes the distribution of voters in sending countries. Emigration can also directly affect the policy preferences of individuals who stay in their home countries. I test these arguments in seven Central and Eastern European countries, using individual-level surveys and region-level data on emigration and elections. To address potential endogeneity issues, I use instrumental variable analysis, leveraging the surge of Polish emigration to the United Kingdom after the EU enlargement. I find that emigrants from Central and Eastern Europe tend to be younger, highly educated, and politically more progressive and that the vote shares of far-right parties are larger in regions with higher emigration rates. Also, I find that exposure to large-scale emigration affects the vote choices of individuals who remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Africa Spectrum is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

International migration has continued to increase over the years. As people relocate to seek opportunities, their hopes and aspirations for a better life become a driving force. The extent to which their expectations are achieved is not documented in South Africa. This paper examines the expectations versus experiences of international immigrants in South Africa using Cameroonian and Democratic Republic of Congo immigrants residing in Cape Town. A qualitative approach with snowball sampling selected key informants from Cameroonian and Congolese nationalities in Cape Town. Results suggest that most immigrants did not meet their expectations for migrating, due to migration policy limitations of the host country exempting them from opportunities. The results align with both the Capability Approach theory and Lee's model of migration. Most of the immigrants showed despondency but do not prefer the option of returning to their home country. This is because they have not attained their goals for migration. The paper recommends that policy discussion between the South African government and stakeholders has become imperative to obtain an informed perspective on the dynamics of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political communication refers to developing and exchanging political ideas and opinions among the general public, elected officials, political parties and affiliated organisations like the media. Recent years have seen an enormous amount of literature in the area of political communication owing to the growing interest of academics in the subject. Using the R package bibliometrix and the Visualisation of Similarities viewer programme, this study aims to enhance graphical mapping of the bibliographic data for political communication publications in select countries of Asia. The results show that, especially since 2016, scholars have been paying more and more attention to the study of political communication in the age of fake news, hyperpolarization, etc. They also show that research publications on the topics of communication, China, Taiwan, India, the USA, social media, articles, politics, the internet, decision-making, democracy, governance and elections are gaining momentum in recent years. Additionally, the findings show that the top three nations for publishing articles on political communication are the USA, China and Russia. The findings also reveal that even scholars from non-democratic or less democratic countries have made substantial attempts to improve political communication studies, despite the fact that political communication is one of the most crucial components in democratic countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, with Viktor Orbán's return to power, Hungary has progressively turned into an antidemocratic regime through a well-thought process of state and democracy capture. This slide has come along with chimeric narratives about national identity. Consecutive narratives about the nation and the country's sense of belonging have given the impression that Hungary is moving on the map, as the Orbán regime has been locating itself more and more explicitly against the West. During the migration crisis, 'Central Europe' was at the centre of Orbán's cultural map, as he extrapolated his ideology to the East-Central European macro-region, hoping to turn it into a region against the European establishment. Budapest's tactical moves in the Western Balkans have gained importance as Orbán is increasingly isolated in the EU community. On the global scale, the regime has mixed trade and diplomacy with tying political alliances in Central Asia and beyond. These narratives do not result in a system. However, there is a common denominator in Orbán's consecutive discourses on Hungary's geopolitical place and role: anti-Western and anti-EU convictions flow through the opportunistic contradictions of national propaganda. In a contradictory way, only an EU member state could proceed to state and democracy capture and become famous for it, giving the impression that the small, peripherical Eastern European state is more important than it is. It is an EU member that has fallen into Russia's arms to propagate pro-Kremlin narratives in and outside the EU. In this paper, I will examine the geopolitical narratives used by the Orbán regime and show how Budapest's very sense of scale has got lost in the process. Indeed, it is Hungary's precarious location on the map that the regime seems to have forgotten about and has reached this point at the time of renewed Russian aggression in Hungary's direct neighbourhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The naturalization of athletes for the purpose of participating in the Olympics is a noticeable feature of today's superdiverse sporting contexts. Focusing on the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, in this paper, I explore how North American-born male ice hockey players who have become naturalized into South Korea are reproduced in media coverage of Canada and South Korea. Applying insights from critical discourse studies, transnationalism, and critical multiculturalism, I specifically examine how each country re/forms its own imagined community through these transnational sporting migrants and the ways that concepts of immigration, citizenship, whiteness, masculinity, and multiculturalism are linked, fused, and/or conflicted within it. Analysis suggests that in both countries, the hockey migrants have been illuminated as new national symbols enhancing the multicultural national brand of each country, whether as immigrants or emigrants, solidifying in the process the hegemonic position of whiteness as a global phenomenon beyond the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring the ability of governments to implement policy remains one of the most significant questions of political science. This paper presents the latest iteration of the Relative Political Capacity (RPC) dataset and introduces the Absolute Political Capacity measure. It then investigates the trends in political performance measures across time and space, and different political and economic characteristics. Covering 168 countries from 1960 to 2018, the RPC offers a comprehensive measure of state capacity that allows direct comparisons to be made across countries from all levels of development and will help researchers explore different dimensions of capacity and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the article is to describe and interpret the national aspirations of the part of Kashubian leaders. The discussions concerning the ethnic character of the community have been taking place for the last three decades. Different voices could be heard, among which there is one claiming that the Kashubs are a separate nation. In my paper, I focus on three issues. First of all, I analyze how a nation is conceptualized by them, generally. Secondly, I show how they are talking about their group of belonging, what vision of their own nation they share, how they define criteria for membership and how they construct symbolic boundaries. Thirdly, I concentrate on the process which can be named as the mechanics of construction of a nation. This concept well described in sociological and anthropological literature (i.a. A.D. Smith, R. Brubaker, C. Calhoun, T.H.Eriksen. E. Gellner, B. Anderson), still evokes some questions, especially if it is applied to rather new phenomena, as the Kashubian case. At the end, I will deliberate whether the concept of nationalism or the concept of identity politics better explains current ethnic/national processes, especially in the discussed group. The analysis of this case enable not only to show the example of national process taking place in this part of Europe, but also to formulate some general conclusions concerning ethnicity nowadays. An empirical material which will be the base of this paper comes from my field work which I have been conducting since 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facemasks have been proven an effective non-pharmaceutical measure against coronavirus disease-19. Against the backdrop of global mask shortages, Taiwan distinguished herself from other countries in that Taiwan took a whole-of-nation approach to masks and mobilized the society quickly to become self-sufficient in masks. This paper argues that successful virus securitization as a threat to national security was what enabled Taiwan to effectively mobilize the private sector to carry out the state's will in ensuring adequate mask supply. Moreover, Taiwan securitized the virus more successfully than many other countries because the virus was connected to China, the nation's existing security threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the fairness of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying competition via Monte Carlo simulations. The qualifying probabilities are calculated for 102 nations, all teams except for African and European countries. A method is proposed to quantify the degree of unfairness. Although the qualifications within four FIFA confederations are constructed fairly, serious differences are found between the continents: for instance, a South American team could have tripled its chances by playing in Asia. Choosing a fixed matchup in the inter-continental play-offs instead of the current random draw can reduce the unfairness of the competition. The move of Australia from the Oceanian to the Asian zone is shown to increase its probability of participating in the 2018 FIFA World Cup by about 65%. Our results provide important insights for the administrators on how to reallocate the qualifying berths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on public attitudes to the death penalty has been predominantly understood through single nation-states, especially within the USA. Examinations of international differences in citizens' support for the death penalty have been scarce, particularly among continents with a high volume of retentionist nations (e.g. Asia). In this paper, we draw on a dataset of 135,000 people from across 81 nations to examine differences in death penalty support. We find that residents of retentionist nations are generally more supportive of the death penalty than those from abolitionist nations. But this general difference masks important differences both within and between countries. At the country-level, residents of abolitionist nations with autocratic political systems and those with higher homicide levels were more likely to support the death penalty than residents of other abolitionist nations. At the individual level, greater support for a strong dictatorial-type leader and perceptions of political corruption are associated with increased support for the death penalty, but only in abolitionist nations. By contrast, more frequent religious worship, perceived egalitarianism in a nation, and support for the political performance of government reduced death penalty support in abolitionist nations but increased support in retentionist nations, while belief in individual responsibility and critical views towards ethnic minorities increased support for the death penalty across both abolitionist and retentionist nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper entails a comparative study between a country that has criminalized stalking for almost three decades (the U.S.) and a nation that just recently outlawed the phenomenon (Spain). Employing a sample of American and Spanish university students, we examined the prevalence and types of stalking behaviors and victims' emotional responses to their victimization. We also explored whether experiencing a particular category of stalking behaviors (i.e., surveillance and approach stalking) triggers specific emotional responses similarly among American and Spanish victims. We found more than two-thirds (36%) of the Spanish students (n = 638) and almost half (48%) of the American students (n = 411) reported that they have experienced the unwanted or intrusive behaviors included in our study. We also found relative to Spanish victims, American victims were significantly more likely to encounter approach stalking and report feeling anxious, angry, depressed, sick, and suicidal as a result of their victimization. Implications of our findings and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands Kilian's (2008) original time series of exogenous oil supply shocks along two dimensions. First, we extend the sample period to include production shortfalls in OPEC member states during 2004:10-2019:12. Second, we also consider production shortfalls in non-OPEC countries. Our extended time series of exogenous oil supply shocks displays statistically significant correlation with alternative estimates of oil supply shocks based on vector-autoregressive models. At the same time, it requires a limited number of assumptions about the counterfactual evolution of production in the countries under consideration and escapes thus the current debate about the validity of common identifying restrictions in multivariate structural models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of literature on civil–military relations has focused on coups d'état. Yet, studying lesser forms of military insubordination can offer valuable insight into the true condition of states' civil–military relations. This paper introduces a data collection effort on mutinies across Africa from 1950 to 2018, revealing several interesting trends. First, most African countries have experienced mutinies, with these events increasing in frequency in the post-Cold War period. Second, while mutinies rarely escalate into coups, they are associated with an increased likelihood of coups in the future. This dataset provides a useful tool to explore the complexity of states' civil–military relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the 'backward' form of import-substitution industrialisation (ISI) in countries integrated into the global economy as exporters of primary commodities, using the example of the car industry in Uzbekistan. This form of incorporation defines the way in which all manufacturing capitals, regardless of 'nationality', accumulate at the average rate of profit via raw material rents, as mediated by specific state policies. This has been the case of Uzbekistan's state-owned car manufacturer UzAvtoSanoat, in joint-venture with Korean Daewoo Motor Company and American General Motors in the 1992–2016 period. Orthodox ('neoliberal') economists view the Uzbek car industry as inefficient due to state intervention. Heterodox ('developmental state') scholars hail it as an example of export-oriented industrial upgrading. Neither explain, however, why leading MNCs would invest in such an inefficient market (as per the former), given its low scale of production that is mostly purchased domestically (pace the latter). Instead, I contend that all manufacturing capitals in the country could stay profitable only via rent subsidisation, the main reason for leading MNCs to invest in it. As such, 'backward' manufacturing ISI in Uzbekistan epitomises a specific national form taken by the global process of capital accumulation in resource-rich countries of the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending and building on previous work on the merits of Grace Davie's theory about 'believing without belonging', this paper offers a comparative analysis of changes in the relationships between 'believing' and 'belonging' across countries. In doing so, two renditions of the theory that co-exist in Grace Davie's work are distinguished, i.e., the typically foregrounded version about a de-institutionalization of Christianity and its often unnoticed counterpart about a spiritualization of religion. Societal growth curve modelling is applied to the data of the European Values Study for twenty European countries (1981–2008) to test hypotheses derived from both theories. The findings suggest that the typically foregrounded version of a de-institutionalization of Christianity needs to be rejected, while the typically unnoticed version of a spiritualization of religion is supported by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this commentary, I reflect on the papers in this special issue that describe inclusion in five countries. More specifically, I highlight several themes among the authors’ descriptions of both progress and challenges as their respective countries try to provide students with disabilities a stronger, more inclusive educational experience. I compare and contrast this effort to efforts in the United States to properly understand and implement an inclusive education that benefits all children and youth with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic and institutional determinants of income inequality had been robustly examined. However, the impact of uncertainty, which is more volatile than other economic indicators, on income distribution, has been largely understudied within the literature. Using new data on economic policy (EPU) uncertainty constructed by Baker et al. (2013), and the World Inequality Database (WID), this article examines the impact of U.S. EPU on income inequality in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries since 1980, using an error correction model (ECM). It is found that U.S. EPU dynamics can widen the income inequality gap in GCC. JEL Codes: D31, D63, D80 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study analyzes the asymmetric nexus of coal consumption with environmental quality and economic growth. In this context, the study focuses on eight leading emerging countries that take place in BRICS, E7, and Fragile Five groups. Also, the study uses yearly data from 1989 to 2021 and performs novel quantile methods, such as Granger Causality-in-Quantiles and Quantile-on-Quantile Regression (QQR). Also, quantile regression is used for robustness check. The results present that (i) there are causalities from coal consumption to both environmental quality and economic growth at 10% significance, whereas quantile and country-based results differ; (ii) effects of coal consumption on environmental quality are much stronger in lower quantiles for Brazil, Indonesia, India, South Africa, and, Turkey, but in higher quantiles for China, Mexico, and Russia; (iii) effects of coal consumption on economic growth are much stronger in lower quantiles for Brazil, Indonesia, India, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey; in higher quantiles for China; lower and middle quantiles for Russia; and all quantiles for Mexico; and (iv) the robustness of the QQR results are validated. Hence, empirical outcomes underline the highly crucial effects of coal consumption on environmental quality and economic growth in the countries. The results imply that policymakers should focus on efforts to decrease coal consumption gradually by applying a macro transition plan to increase environmental quality without causing economic decline by considering changing effects of coal consumption at quantiles and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine greed and grievance mechanisms that connect illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and piracy. We use several cases (e.g. Somalia, Nigeria) to illustrate these mechanisms and empirically examine the relationship between IUU fishing and state-year piracy events from 1990 to 2015. We find that countries experiencing significant levels of IUU fishing face much greater risks for piracy. We also evaluate several mediating conditions of our theory with interaction terms (state capacity, state fragility, and legal fishing incentives) and find that the relationship between IUU fishing and piracy is strongest for moderately developed states with greater state fragility and higher fish catch values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At first glance, there appear to have been few changes in the gold supply industry in the past 25 years – compared with 1989, South Africa is still the number one producing country, South African and North American gold producers dominate the industry, unit operating costs are around US$250/oz and the gold price is US$420/oz. However, under the surface, there are some fundamental changes in the industry – it is bigger, more globally diverse, more valuable and dominated by some companies which were not around in 1989. Although average production costs seem to have stood still, they have in fact fluctuated enormously over the years and now have different dynamics to the 1980s. Importantly, the international gold price is moving in the opposite direction to what it was 15 years ago. This paper looks at the structure of the industry, as it was in 1989 and as it is now, and explains what has happened in the intervening years by analysing the main industry forces in the context of countries, companies, consolidation and costs. Using World Gold's 6D life-cycle model of the industry – Detection, Discovery, Definition, Design, Development, Depletion – the paper suggests what all this could mean for the future of the gold mining industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Africa Spectrum is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As a less-powerful state threatened by a rising China in both security and economic domains irrespective of increasing economic cooperation and sharing a border and political affinity with China, Vietnam is expected to warmly welcome the United States (US) -led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) The country, nonetheless, has remained low-key in responding to the IPS. The article argues that Hanoi is truly interested in a regional rules-based order promoted in the IPS, but it has proposed a hedging response to this strategy through cautious statements and limited engagement in into this strategy. Vietnam’s hedging response to the IPS is framed by its post-Doi Moi foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, multilateralisation, and diversification. The year 2023 marks a milestone in bilateral relations between the US and Vietnam as both states upgraded their diplomatic relations to comprehensive strategic partnership which is the highest level in Vietnamese diplomatic ranking. This may become a favourable catalyst for further cooperation between Washington and Hanoi under the IPS within the context of a rising China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of research ethics committees (RECs) face a number of ethical challenges when reviewing genomic research. These include issues regarding the content and type of consent, the return of individual research results, mechanisms of sharing specimens and health data, and appropriate community engagement efforts. This article presents the findings from a survey that sought to investigate the opinions and attitudes of REC members from four Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, and Jordan) toward these ethical issues. Our findings suggest that efforts are required to better familiarize REC members with the requirements for ethical biobank research. Additionally, we recommend that further research is undertaken with REC members regarding the main items that should be present in the Material Transfer Agreements /Data Transfer Agreements in their corresponding countries and the type of consent that should be used in genomic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to avert global climate change, the promotion of renewable energy is getting more attention from government and policymakers. There are many factors that can account for the determinant of renewable energy development. While the drivers of renewable energy development have been extensively examined, the influence of governance quality on renewable energy development is very scanty. To fill the gap in the literature, this study examines the influence of governance quality on renewable energy development in 42 African countries over the period 1996–2020. The empirical evidence is based on the panel corrected standard errors (PCSE) estimation technique to account for cross-sectional dependence. The results show that the impact of governance quality on renewable energy development is negative and statistically significant. This means that as governance quality increases, renewable energy development decreases. This is not surprising given the fact that governance quality in Africa is substantially low. In other words, the results imply that governance quality in most African countries still promote non-renewable and energy intensive production system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most countries of the world seek to improve their performance to achieve prosperity for their citizens, the performance of some other countries is still disappointing and has witnessed a deterioration in recent years due to civil wars, poverty, and failure to identify shortcomings and work on them. Many global indexes are concerned with ranking and evaluating the performance of countries, the most prominent of which is the Legatum prosperity index. This study presents a novel tool based on the MCDM approach under uncertainty. Twelve pillars were considered as criteria for evaluating the performance of the 19 poorest-performing countries globally, according to the 2021 Legatum prosperity index. The rough-entropy and rough-TOPSIS methods were used to assess the performance of countries and analyze the pillars of prosperity to determine their shortcomings. Further, a comparison with the 2021 Legatum prosperity index and sensitivity analysis is conducted to validate the obtained results. This study analyses and identifies that South Sudan gets the worst ranking while Cameroon is the best. Likewise, the results indicate that the worst performance pillar was the governance pillar, while the best pillar was the health pillar at the level of the studied countries. The proposed approach is essential for researchers working on performance measurement and ranking, as it ensures the robustness and realism of the results. It also gives a glimpse to the leaders of the countries about the actual situation of their countries to work on addressing the failures. In addition, it makes a significant contribution to the current scientific knowledge by providing a novel tool for evaluating performance indexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examine how new forms of multicultural intimacy are imagined in contemporary Britain, and how they are invested with particular ideals of mixing, loving thy neighbour, and feelings for the nation. I trace these discursive themes in a myriad of social locations and forms—a television documentary titled The Last White Kids, reviews of the documentary in the press, and government policies on community cohesion. A key point of this paper is that racial, ethnic, and cultural relations are not only negotiated and 'managed' in literal spatial locations, but also imagined through specific emotional and ethical injunctions, such as 'embracing the other' and loving they neighbour. Moreover, these injunctions are imagined in the ambivalent spatial terms of obligations to, and dangers of, proximity—an ambivalence that is inflected with articulations of 'race', class, and gender. The analysis thus explores how the imperative of neighbourly love refers to both the desires for and anxieties about what the intimacy stems from and fosters. Who gets close to whom, and under what circumstances, is not left to chance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins as an investigation of the spatiality of the state in Turkey. In everyday life the state is experienced and recognized through a multiplicity of sites, agents, institutions, techniques, and regulatory capacities. Given this fragmentation, I ask how it is that the state is conceptualized as having a reality beyond its incoherence. Through a discursive analysis of focus-group discussions with lower-class and lower-middle-class men and women in Istanbul, I trace the spatial-temporal techniques through which state power is enacted. I argue that this power operates through referral and deferral, circulation and arrest; it is the power both to set in motion and to suspend the circulation of people, documents, money, and influence that marks out the space-time of the state. Further, my reading of focus-group texts suggests that it is through the operation of the space-time of the state that individuals both submit to state power and become subjects of rights—that is, citizens. At once establishing the authority of the state and the self-recognition of the subject, the Althusserian turn towards the law is a gesture of conscience or guilt. However, I argue that not all subjects are equally guilty in their imagined relationship to the state, some are more guilty than others, and, in this inequality, difference enters into the process of subjection. Focus-group participants discuss how acts such as showing identity cards or performing labor function both to assert their innocence and to mark them as guilty. By tracing out how spatial techniques of power and processes of subjection are discussed among particular groups of people in Istanbul, I hope to speak in an alternative voice to the usual top-down narration of the Turkish 'strong state'. Finally, this paper is an attempt to wrap an argument around the secret of the state, around the desire, despair, and guilt that infuse the relational production of citizen and state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns a group of educated women of independent means and their relationship to a Norfolk village and its people in the early 20th and mid-20th century. The focal figure is Marietta Pallis (1882-1963), ecologist and artist, who rented and then owned the marshland property of Long Gores, Hickling. In this paper we consider Pallis and friends' engagement with land and its management, their relationship to the locality as residents and employers of servants, and their literary consideration of local culture in terms of architecture and dialect. We emphasise the currencies of the local informing their actions, and reactions to them, and the related geographies of private life. Pallis and friends' relationship to land, their relationship to people, and their commentary on local character and identity make sense through and foster geographies of local life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western travelers move throughout the world-especially to places in 'the East'-believing themselves to be harbingers of modernity, spreading capitalism, socioeconomic development, Western culture, and other promises of modernization to places they assume are existing in states of pristine Otherness. In this paper I look at interactions between travelers and locals that reveal differing spatial imaginaries of 'modernity', and at how these reflect and produce different narratives of who is modern and where modernity exists. By using ethnographic material, I examine discursive and material interactions surrounding modernity through the examples of travelers' practices of photography, dress, and knowledge of Muslim women's veiling. In this paper I look to a located, gendered, and particular expression of an Islamic modernity, one that embraces improvements in quality of life that modern technologies of health care, agricultural production, and sanitation may bring, and which simultaneously embraces nonsecular ways of being in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nation branding and nation brand are two different concepts. A nation has a brand image with or without nation branding. This paper examines the concept of nation branding, focusing on the central question of what is being branded. It differentiates nation branding from product branding, and draws comparisons between nation branding and product- country image. Paradoxical issues around the concept and the wider context in which nation branding can be applied are also discussed. More research is needed to find out if and how nation branding could help economic development in a country. As many other non-marketing factors also affect a nation's image, the role played by nation branding may turn out to be only a modest one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) have highlighted the potential for conflict in MSPs, and particularly at the global–local interface has been identified as a key source of tension for partnerships in global value chains. This article uncovers the nature of global–local conflicts, how these conflicts can play out in global MSPs, and how this can lead to the emergence of local competing initiatives. Based on three cases of global MSPs (on palm oil, soy, and ethical trade), the article identifies a set of four global–local tensions, which led to repeated disagreement and contestation in the studied MSPs. As the responses by MSPs to these tensions were insufficient to resolve conflict, local rival initiatives were created in all cases by previously participating Southern actors. These were driven by a combination of strong disagreement over time, coalition-building among Southern actors along national lines, and increased legitimacy of solutions outside the established MSPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examines the extent to which mega sport events play a role in connecting people from different countries, using the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics as its case study. The analysis examines social connection (on Twitter) between Chinese and Russians and whether these connections are more likely to occur among the followers of the @Beijing2022 Twitter account, if compared with Twitter users in these countries who do not follow this account. The choice of the Russians and the Chinese also stems from their countries' united front against those Western countries whose diplomats boycotted the games. The analysis reveals that, in cases where two people follow @Beijing2022, the likelihood of there being a connection between them increases by 8%, as compared with those people who do not follow this account, while controlling for other relevant variables. The findings indicate that mega sport events which take place under a boycott have the ability to be enhancers of international social connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shrinking of civil society—a problematic trend in a growing number of countries—often involves enacting legal measures to curtail the activity of civil society organizations and vilifying and/or harassing such organizations. Poland has been at the forefront of this trend since 2015. This article examines the mechanisms promoting elite replacement in Polish civil society, with a specific focus on the ways in which civil society actors have responded to these changes and the effectiveness of the state's efforts to establish new hierarchies of power. The article discusses the complex relation between research on civil society and elite theory, and examines the anti-elitist discourses concerning Polish civil society and the strategies employed by the state to gain more control over the third sector. Next, the analytical section focuses on the ways in which civil society actors respond to state-sponsored elite change and examines three types of relations between the state and NGOs in contemporary Poland: (1) resistance, (2) assimilation, and (3) opportunistic synergy. In closing, the article shows ways in which analyses of the transformation of civil society in Poland and other countries can be enriched by drawing on elite theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet offers low-cost ways to participate in political life, which reduces the motivation required to participate and thus potentially reduces inequalities in participation. I examine online and offline contacting of elected officials using original survey data from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States collected in 2019 and 2021. Education is a consistent positive predictor of contacting in all countries as well as both modes of contact (online and offline). Income differences are small. Younger people are more likely to contact officials, online and offline, compared to older people. Females are less likely to contact officials, online and offline, compared to males. While political interest, efficacy, online information consumption, and online group ties are believed to lead to more equity in online communication, I do not see strong differences in these variables for online and offline contacting. I conclude by discussing the implications of exclusively online contacting of officials when this form of contact is devalued by elected officials, as well as the implications of participatory inequalities with respect to influencing public policy and access to government services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the mango diplomacy of South Asia's mango exporting countries. Diplomatic gifts are a common feature of public diplomacy of diplomatic missions globally. There are many prominent examples of that including China's panda diplomacy and mango diplomacy of South Asia's mango exporting countries like Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Based on the analysis, this study argues that Pakistan is a dominant actor in terms of mango diplomacy and has an extensive strategy, for example, including mango exhibitions, to increase its mango exports and goodwill in target countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors study the effect of corporate board gender quotas on firm performance in France, Italy, and Spain. The identification strategy exploits the exogenous variation in mandated gender quotas within country and over time and uses a counterfactual methodology. Using firm-level accounting data and a difference-in-difference estimator, the authors find that gender quotas had either a negative or an insignificant effect on firm performance in the countries considered with the exception of Italy, where they find a positive impact on productivity. The authors then focus on Italy. Using a novel data set containing detailed information on board members' characteristics, they offer possible explanations for the positive effect of gender quotas. The results provide an important contribution to the policy debate about the optimal design of legislation on corporate gender quotas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apologies by political leaders to the citizens of a victimized country have attracted attention in recent years as a means of improving relations between nations. Existing studies have identified several elements that make such an apology effective, but from the politician's point of view, it is difficult to issue a statement containing all these elements, and they must then be chosen while considering domestic backlash and relations with countries other than the victimized one. However, it is not sufficiently clear how the victimized country's citizens weigh the elements of the apology when they accept it and how the nature of the harm caused changes this. Therefore, we conducted a survey experiment in Japan, adopting a conjoint design using scenarios depicting fictional US presidential apologies to Japan. Our experiment demonstrated three attributes particularly regarded as important in determining whether people would accept an apology: the reparation amount, whether the apology was official (formality), and the voluntariness of the apology. However, when something that people consider "sacred" has been harmed, reparation proposals are counterproductive, and the optimal apology form may depend on the nature of the harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This response is based on Reyna Hernández de Tubert two articles: The Mexican social unconscious—Part I: The roots of a nation' and 'Part II: Politics and group analysis' (Hernández de Tubert, 2021). It discusses the role of the myth of mestization and the myth of conquest in the Mexican social unconscious in Mexican tripartite matrices. It also draws attention to Ferenczi's trauma theory—confusion of tongues—exploring the psychoanalytic and group analytic ideas on the 'identification with the aggressor' in association with the concepts of introjection and incorporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's conception of its peaceful role in international affairs, which evolved during the Nehruvian era, is not an end in itself, but rather a wholesome strategic choice consistent with its economic development and great power ambitions. Despite emphasising a radical shift in foreign policy, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi deemed it essential to prioritise peace in international relations, particularly with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The Abraham Accords, involving the UAE and Bahrain, have created a new geopolitical environment that affirms India's conception of security through peace and permits engagement in key areas while ensuring economic gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to evaluate the measurement invariance of an adapted assessment of motivations for social withdrawal (Social Preference Scale–Revised ; SPS-R) across cultural contexts and explore associations with loneliness. Participants were a large sample of university students (N = 4,397; M age = 20.08 years, SD = 2.96; 66% females) from 10 countries (Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, India, Italy, South Korea, Norway, Turkey, and the United States). With this cross-cultural focus, we illustrate the multiple-group factor analysis alignment method, an approach developed to assess measurement invariance when there are several groups. Results indicated approximate measurement invariance across the 10 country groups. Additional analyses indicated that overall, shyness, avoidance, and unsociability are three related, but distinct factors, with some notable country differences evident (e.g., in China, India, and Turkey). Shyness and avoidance were related positively to loneliness in all countries, but the strength of the association between shyness and loneliness differed in Italy and India relative to the other countries. Results also indicated that unsociability was related positively to loneliness in the United States only. Theoretical and assessment implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the Group of 20 (G20; excluding EU economies) were selected as the research objects, and the dynamic network slacks-based model (SBM) was used to evaluate the impact of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and forested area on the efficiency and productivity of the industrial and agricultural sectors from 2011 to 2015. Empirical results showed that: (1) The efficiency of the industrial sector was superior to that of the agricultural sector among the G20 countries. Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, and the US maintained the best industrial sector efficiency values, falling on the efficiency boundary, whereas Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Indonesia, South Korea, Russia, and the US had the best agricultural sector efficiency values. (2) Argentina, Indonesia, and the US had the best overall efficiency value of G20 countries. Saudi Arabia (0.0303), China (0.2721), and the UK (0.2809) had the lowest efficiency values. (3) Only France and Germany had higher than average total factor productivity, while Indonesia and Saudi Arabia had declining industrial and agricultural sector productivity. (4) The proportion of forested area (546.02%) was the most important variable to be improved due to the influence of desert topography, followed by the proportion of agricultural output values (60.86%) and the proportion of industrial output values (38.02%) in some countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies suggest that home countries impose economic sanctions following host state expropriation of home firms. However, and not addressed in the empirical literature, is the possibility that sanctions lead targeted countries to nationalize firms from sender countries. Using bilateral expropriation data from 1985 to 2010, and controlling for endogeneity issues, we find that sanctions significantly increase expropriation risk, encouraging targeted states to inflict pain in a reciprocal manner on sender countries. Expropriations also enable targeted nations to acquire economic assets from foreign firms, undermining the restricting goals of sanctioning states, and provide opportunities for leaders to show political resolve at home by standing up to senders. Our results are robust using monadic or dyadic data and different statistical methods, indicating another sanction-busting strategy used by targeted countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay traces the trajectory of India's first rural development program, the Etawah Pilot program from 1948, which became part of the country's first five-year plans in 1951 with the support of the US government and the Ford Foundation. With a focus on the project's two central actors, US architect-planner Albert Mayer and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the essay argues that the Etawah Pilot program was a modernizing experiment in citizen assimilation that became a trans-national model for postwar development aid with the international architect-planner as the traveling technocrat set to develop expertise for newly independent nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ways in which third countries can engage with, and respond to, European Union policy-making processes. A novel analytical framework based on the concept of network resilience which consists of an institutional, political and policy dimension is operationalised to understand third country access to European Union policy-making. Empirically, the article examines the experiences of three non-European Union countries, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Norway in the context of the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy. The article concludes by presenting a research agenda based on an in-depth analysis of network resilience and reflects on what the findings mean for future research, particularly within the context of understanding the development of UK–EU post-Brexit relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]