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In 2004, South Africa was awarded the opportunity to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The opportunity to reshape their national identity in the spotlight of the World Cup came at a particularly useful time for South Africa. Despite the country's seemingly miraculous transition from apartheid to democracy—a transition lauded around the world—the country's reputation was soon dragged down by concerns about crime, unemployment, and a rising rate of HIV infections. Although a number of scholars have looked at the long- and short-term effects of South Africa's effort at creating a national identity during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, questions of process remain to be explored. What rhetorical strategies were employed to build this national image? What role did developing social media platforms play in the World Cup campaign? What were the communication tactics that led to a successful World Cup campaign? Using the theory of dialectical vernacular, I argue that South Africa was able to use the stage and emotional setting of the World Cup, in combination with a unique moment in time in branding and social media, to cultivate and deploy user-generated content to create a sense of authenticity that successfully sold a positive image of South Africa to the world. Essentially, South Africa was able to take digital material that was submitted by citizens around the country, and around the world, and use it to build a campaign that was vernacular, transnational, and embodied in nature. This allowed them to manufacture a national identity that effectively (at least in the short term) redirected conversations away from the more complicated issues affecting the country to, instead, showcase South Africa as a successful democratic nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IntroductionSmall bowel obstruction (SBO) is one of the most common causes for hospital admission in Ethiopia. The use of water-soluble contrast agents (WSCAs) such as Gastrografin to manage adhesive SBO can predict nonoperative resolution of SBO and reduce decision time to surgery and length of hospital stay. However, nothing is known about practice patterns and Gastrografin use in low-income settings. We sought to characterize current management practices, including use of WSCAs, as well as outcomes for patients with SBO in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.MethodsWe conducted a mixed-methods study consisting of a survey of surgeons throughout Ethiopia and a retrospective record review at five public, tertiary care-level teaching hospitals in Addis Ababa.ResultsOf the 76 surgeons who completed the survey, 63% had heard of the use of WSCAs for SBO and only 11% used oral agents for its management. Chart review of 149 patients admitted with SBO showed the most common etiology was adhesion (39.6% of admissions), followed by small bowel volvulus (20.8%). Most patients (83.2%) underwent surgery during their admission. The most common diagnosis in patients who did not require surgery was also adhesion (68.0%), as well as for those who had surgery (33.9%), followed by small bowel volvulus (24.2%).ConclusionsThe etiology of SBO in Ethiopia may be changing, with postoperative adhesions becoming more common than other historically more prevalent causes. Although a Gastrografin protocol as a diagnostic and potentially therapeutic aid for SBO is feasible in this population and setting, challenges can be anticipated, and future studies of protocol implementation and effectiveness are needed to further inform its utility in Ethiopia and other low-income and middle-income countries.

This article provides an overview of public spending effectiveness (performance) and efficiency across the European Union over a decade (2007–2019) using a composite indicator. The results show an improvement of public spending effectiveness over time and a deterioration of the efficiency for most countries. Policies should be geared towards increasing the efficiency of government spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Filamentous fungi, mainly those belonging to genera Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Penicillium, the main producers of mycotoxins and responsible for food and feed contamination, exhibit metabolites that are highly toxic to animals and humans. This scoping review compiles data on occurrence of mycotoxins in fish feed, assesses distribution of metabolites across continents by the hierarchical cluster analysis, and establishes risks posed to the main global orders of farmed fish by exposure to mycotoxins. Resulting data showed that fish of different orders in both fingerling and juvenile phases are exposed to high concentrations of mycotoxins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first half of the nineteenth century, Vietnam was considered the "center" of the "tributary system" in mainland Southeast Asia. As a major country in the region at that time, Vietnam tried to fulfill its responsibilities in the role of mediator to settle disputes and conflicts between countries, typically conflicts between Siam and Chenla and Siam and Van Tuong. In the context of being an equal country with Siam in terms of potential, and a "superior" country in relation to the "vassals" of Chenla and Van Tuong, it was not easy for the Nguyen Dynasty to find a suitable countermeasure to mediate these conflicts. However, with the policy of "positive neutrality," the Nguyen Dynasty achieved great success in dissolving the contradictions between these relationships at that time. These successes have left many valuable lessons for Vietnam in its diplomatic behavior with countries in the region and in the world today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the NATO member nations have committed to a coordinated approach to strengthening resilience among the Allies, including the development of National Resilience Plans (NRPs). The Allies outlined the extent to which the robustness of their respective military capacities requires the designed resilience of systems that bridge civilian and military domains. This article outlines the role that resilience plays in supporting tactical and strategic measures of national security and defense within military and civilian domains. This exploration provides an outline of how resilience is currently applied in practice by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and NATO. Building on this diversity of applications, various categorical forms of resilience drawn from the empirical science of resilience are positioned within NATO's emerging frame for 'layered' resilience. This article reinforces the scientific debate that an optimal orientation to resilience leaves open the door for the transformative adaptation of function and identity when the single-equilibrium processes of resilience reach their limits. This article concludes with a normative perspective on how military and civilian resilience planning could support the development of NRPs that would amplify the Allies' collective capacity to face shared security threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses and contextualizes U.S. foreign policy preferences towards Belarus. It analyses how traditional and modern foreign policy instruments can be used to hold authoritarian rulers accountable for violations and anti-democratic practices; how U.S. actions may counter such regimes. It interrogates how the U.S. prioritizes countries for diplomatic engagement. Our emphasis is on engagement with Belarus, given its distance from the U.S., but proximity to increasingly authoritarian Russia. Indeed, there are many reasons to renew strategic U.S. diplomacy there, though interest in Belarus abated following the return of its nuclear weapons to Russia. Factors such as Belarus' economic dependence on Russia, its annihilation of civil society and open support of Russian aggression in Ukraine, among others, signal a need for the U.S. to reconsider a renewed alliance with the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium is the result of a call for papers organised to answer a core question: How do state-owned multinational enterprises (SOMNEs) behave once they internationalise, that is, go "abroad"? To organise the research, papers used the FESPET framework to analyse SOMNE behaviour abroad from the Financial, Environmental, Social, Political Economy and Technology perspectives. The contributions to this project fill an important gap in the literature with the aim of improving our understanding on the consequences of the internationalisation of State-Owned Enterprises from key, selected countries that are important but currently under-researched: Brazil, India and Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study departs from earlier studies by incorporating nonlinearities, asymmetric structures, cross-sectional dependence, and policy variations across countries into the remittance-poverty causal nexus. Due to the high incidence of extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) despite the persistent remittance inflows to the region, data on SSA for the periods 1981–2020 are analyzed using the Hatemi-J data decomposition procedure, a battery of second-generation estimators, and Dumitrescu-Hurlin heterogeneous panel Granger non-causality test. The findings, unlike prior studies, confirm the existence of cross-sectional dependence, as well as the need for policy diversity among SSA countries. The research outcomes also differ from previous research in that they reveal multiple features of asymmetries in the causality between remittances and poverty reduction which vary across SSA countries. Policy differences among SSA nations to address country-specific peculiarities are attested by symmetric causality. In certain countries, remittance inflows are stimulating factors that induce poverty reduction, whereas, in others, the high incidence of extreme poverty is a causal agent that pushes Africans in the diaspora to send money home to help alleviate poverty. Only a few instances of bidirectional causality have been established. Evidence of no causality is found to exist in some countries. The outcomes of nonlinear and asymmetric causalities are more diverse. All of the pairs of positive and negative components show strong evidence of asymmetric causality, which varies across SSA countries with more informative and robust policy dimensions. The imperative policy implications of the research outputs for poverty reduction are drawn and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to examine whether aid for trade can help recipient countries improve their ability to meet the non-tariff measures imposed by trading partners and alleviate these measures' negative impacts on their exports. For this purpose, we examine the impacts of technical barriers to trade that raise special trade concerns (TBT-STC), aid for trade and their interactions on the manufacturing exports of aid-recipient countries. The main findings are that the highly restrictive TBT measures have seriously hindered the manufacturing exports of recipient countries; however, aid for trade not only directly promotes exports of recipient countries but also helps alleviate the negative impact of TBT-STC on their exports. This result provides empirical evidence to support the proposal. We attempt a more-detailed analysis to assess the heterogeneity of the above-mentioned mechanisms on countries' income levels and the types of aid for trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether, and if so how, it is possible to design a system characterised by coordination across sectors and levels of governance aimed at governing AMR. The ambition is, firstly, to analyse how coordination problems materialise in the governing of the AMR problem, and secondly, with an emphasis on the structure of decision-making and communication processes, to probe into how coordination of AMR governance is achieved. The paper's focus is on Norway, which stands out as one of the better performing countries for AMR governance. Drawing on literature on coordination and governance, the paper argues that effective coordination of AMR governance is more likely to follow a 'bottom-up' sequencing pattern. It thus provides a study of the systems for governing AMR in a multi-level setting. Through public documents, literature and interviews with key officials involved in AMR management, the paper illustrates the importance of – and organisational barriers to – inter-sectoral cooperation and coordinated strategies and actions at different levels of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates which countries are seen as leaders in combatting AMR in Europe, and why they are seen as leaders. We do this by testing the explanatory capacity of three models specifying features of leaders attractive to followers. They are (1) performance, (2) power and (3) common interests. We use data from a survey among experts in the AMR field in 29 European countries, along with empirical indicators, to measure the three models. Our findings show that only eight of the 29 European countries are seen as leaders and that Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands are considered the three top AMR leaders in Europe. Denmark is the top leader in the animal sector and Sweden in the human sector. We also find demand for several possible types of leadership and followership in the AMR problem. Performance explains the leading role of the top three countries, as they all score low on indicators of the severity of AMR. Power and influence explain why France, Germany and the UK are seen as AMR leaders. We also find support for the role of common interests. This factor may explain why neighbouring countries are often seen as leaders in AMR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several authors have argued that socially significant places such as countries, cities and establishments are immaterial objects, despite their being spatially located. In contrast, we aim to defend a reductive materialist view of such entities, which identifies them with their physical territories or premises. Accordingly, these are all material objects; typically, aggregates of land and infrastructure. Admittedly, our terms for these entities may also sometimes be used to denote their associated groups of people. But as long as countries, cities and establishments are understood as places, we submit, they are all material objects: the physical territories or premises of their associated groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyse current trends, patterns, growth barriers, and potential future research of integrated reporting (IR) research. Using VOSviewer and R-package, a bibliometric analysis examined 605 Scopus articles (2011–2021). It identifies influential documents, authors, institutions, and countries based on citations/publications, along with their geographical and network significance. Furthermore, areas with less research attention and potential future research areas are identified. Recent scholarly work has focused on topics such as sustainability communication, IR's development, quality of disclosure, impact on business performance, and quality assessment using the International Integrated Reporting Council framework. Due to its unique reporting function in organizations, the study provides future research avenues to expand IR research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdsourcing strategies are useful in the development of public health interventions. Crowdsourcing engages end users in a co-creation process through challenge contests, designathons or online collaborations. Drawing on our experience of crowdsourcing in four African countries, we provide guidance on designing crowdsourcing strategies across seven steps: deciding on the type of crowdsourcing strategy, convening a steering committee, developing the content of the call for ideas, promotion, evaluation, recognizing finalists and sharing back ideas or implementing the solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In this research, we explore the adverse impact of foreign ownership on operational security, a critical operational implication of the liability of foreignness (LOF). Design/methodology/approach: The empirical analysis is based on a multi-country dataset from the World Bank Enterprises Survey, which contains detailed firm-level information from over 8,902 firms in 82 emerging market countries. We perform a series of robustness checks to further confirm our findings. Findings: We find that a high ratio of foreign ownership is associated with an increased likelihood of security breaches and higher security costs. Our results also indicate that high levels of host countries' institutional quality and firms' local embeddedness can mitigate such vulnerability in operational security. Originality/value: This study is one of the first to uncover the critical operational implication of the LOF, indicating that a high ratio of foreign ownership exposes firms to operational security challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designation of protected areas has enjoyed global application as a means of biodiversity conservation for over 100 years. National conservation policy is essential as a means of protecting biodiversity, but is contingent on, amongst others, changing values and international drivers, and remains dynamic in many countries. As conservation policies evolve, the role of pre-existing protected areas within broader strategies for conservation can become unclear, with consequences both for the ability of the conservation policies to achieve their stated goals, and also for biodiversity outcomes within a nation. In order to map evolving inconsistencies between conservation policy and the role of protected areas within it, we develop a conceptual conservation policy framework synthesised from different policy orientations reported in the literature. Using South Africa as a case study, the conceptualisation is used to characterise the policy goals for protected areas in the recently adopted conservation policy, and the pre-existing protected areas system which remains on the statute books. The results indicate that the conceptual conservation policy framework can be used identify misalignment between policy and practice, and has enabled a mismatch to be identified between South Africa's pre-existing protected areas system and its contemporary conservation policy, which suggests that the management of protected areas is likely to significantly change towards greater access and monetisation at the expense of their intrinsic value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Nordic school leaders and how rural principals experience autonomy and control in current governance regimes using a sample of principals in the very north of Norway and Sweden as a case. An analysis instrument constituting four different schooling domains (educational; social; developmental; administrative) and the ways in which autonomy and control are perceived within each domain structured the analytical work. The analysis showed that both Norwegian and Swedish principals experience a high degree of autonomy within the four domains. Regarding control, principals of the two countries intimated that control is generally more evident within the educational and administrative domains and less evident within the developmental and particularly within the social domain. Regarding differences between the two countries, Norwegian principals experienced more control from regional and local municipal level compared to their Swedish colleagues. The findings add important pieces to the current body of research on rural principals and school system governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study investigates the finance-investment nexus in sub-Saharan Africa using data from 41 countries spanning the period from 2000 to 2022. The central question addressed is whether there is a "too little" or "too much" finance problem in the region. Design/methodology/approach: This study employs a system-generalised method of moments (GMM) approach to analyse the association between finance and private investment. Additionally, a dynamic threshold regression model is used to uncover potential nonlinearities in this relationship. Findings: Initially, the study identifies a negative correlation between increased finance and private investment. However, further analysis using the dynamic threshold regression model reveals a critical threshold level of finance. Specifically, the threshold is found to be 6.52% of domestic credit to the private sector and 23.18% using the financial development index. Below this threshold, finance negatively impacts private investment, while surpassing this threshold leads to positive growth in private investment. These findings indicate an issue of "too little" finance in the finance and private investment nexus in sub-Saharan Africa. The results are robust across different model specifications. Research limitations/implications: The implications of this study highlight the importance of identifying critical thresholds for financing to enhance investment expenditures in the region. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by uncovering nonlinearities in the finance-investment nexus in sub-Saharan Africa. The identification of critical thresholds provides valuable insights for policymakers, emphasising the need to strengthen the financial sector in countries operating below these thresholds to promote private investment and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 utilized data from 63 countries and economies to generate research questions that centered on the contribution of mathematics self-efficacy, opportunity to learn (OTL), and how their interplay affected students' mathematical performance. This study reveals that in a majority of the surveyed countries/economies, students' OTL can enhance the positive relationship between mathematics self-efficacy and mathematical performance. Path analysis further demonstrates that in 61 out of the 63 countries/economies, students' OTL positively affect their mathematics self-efficacy, which subsequently enhances mathematical performance. It was observed that students with more OTL typically exhibit higher math performance, but this effect is explained by the mediating influence of having more mathematics self-efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional quality has received considerable attention in recent years as a potential determinant of variation in the level of financial development across countries. The current paper critically reviews the literature linking formal and informal institutions and financial development. It discusses the main theories in this regard—namely, legal origins theory, the new political economy of finance, and cultural finance. The paper provides an overview of the latest empirical research in each of these areas with a focus on the data and methods used. The directions for further research are also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how stakeholders (n = 74) in the United Kingdom, Finland and Norway perceive security authorities' online surveillance capabilities, and how these perceptions form patterns transcending national borders and organisational boundaries. Using a Q-methodological approach, we found variation within and between nations that is usually obscured in the polarised public debates. Furthermore, our stakeholders presented areas of consensus not usually apparent in public discourses. We argue for using awareness of this nuance and areas of convergence as platforms on which to build more effective public debates to further principles of deliberative democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores intelligence in the English-speaking West Indies by examining institutions, capabilities, and objectives. It highlights how the British Overseas Territories and independent nations separately and collectively gather and utilize intelligence. The article argues the territories and countries' sizes and resources as well as their geographic locations significantly shape intelligence networks that collect, share, and use vital security information. In doing so, this article provides the first academic analysis of the region's intelligence as a whole in understanding how intelligence is viewed, utilized, and shared within territories and countries that are not usually examined in the intelligence studies literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tackling climate change requires both systemic changes and individual lifestyle changes. Are those best placed to understand the risks and solutions to climate change acting on their knowledge? In a large-scale study of N = 9220 researchers across 115 countries, we found that climate researchers reported engaging in considerably more advocacy and activism on climate change and, to a lesser extent, high-impact lifestyle changes than non-climate researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the extent to which participating in Independence Day practices influences people's national identity while taking into consideration the differences between public top‐down practices and private bottom‐up habits. It is a longitudinal study that uses a four‐wave panel survey to inspect levels of national identity across time as well as participation in various Independence Day practices over two successive years. There was an increase in the levels of some dimensions of national identity among those who participated in Independence Day practices – both top‐down and bottom‐up – while there were no changes in these levels among those who did not participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students in Confucian culture are typically high-achieving on international assessments such as PISA and TIMSS. To explore factors that may explain the high performance of Confucian students, the present study compared the latent subpopulations of school resources and disciplinary climate in two Confucian countries and two Anglo countries. Using Latent Profile Analysis, the results identified the same number of school profiles in the two countries in the two cultures, and these profiles were similar in their levels of disciplinary climate and school resources. The percentage of high-discipline school profiles is about 11.72% higher in Confucian countries than in Anglo countries. In addition, in both cultures, students who attended high-discipline schools were from higher socioeconomic status (SES) families and performed better in science. These results revealed the importance of the disciplinary climate for a school to be effective and provided evidence indicating that Confucian culture has more schools with a positive disciplinary climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mining has played an important role in the economies of South American countries. Although industrial mining prevails in most countries, the expansion of garimpo activity has increased substantially. Recently, Brazil exhibited two moments of garimpo dominance over industrial mining: 1989–1997 and 2019–2022. While industrial mining sites occupied ~ 360 km2 in 1985 but increased to 1800 km2 in 2022, a 5-fold increase, garimpo mining area increased by ~ 1200%, from ~ 218 km2 in 1985 to ~ 2627 km2 in 2022. More than 91% of this activity is concentrated in the Amazon. Where almost 40% of the sites are five years old or younger, this proportion increases to 62% within Indigenous lands (ILs). Regarding the legal aspect, at least 77% of the 2022 extraction sites showed explicit signs of illegality. Particular attention must be given to the Kayapo, Munduruku, and Yanomami ILs. Together, they concentrate over 90% of the garimpo across ILs. 91% of Brazil's garimpo activity is in the Amazon, where almost 40% of them are five years old or younger. This paper finds in 2022, 77% of the detected garimpos showed explicit signs of illegality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions are an important determinant of long-run economic growth. However, most studies only examine this relationship over a relatively short period and do not regularly include institutional variables in growth models. This article applies the pooled mean group (PMG) estimator to a panel of 18 OECD countries over 138 years. We find evidence that institutions matter for economic growth in the very long-run and conclude that economists should include them in any empirical application of the neoclassical growth model. Our result is robust to various robustness checks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adopted a content-analysis method to examine the differences in how the topic of functions was handled by Finnish, Singaporean, and Taiwanese middle-grade mathematics textbooks for children aged 13–15 (seventh-ninth grade). The results showed that the three countries' textbooks used different methods to introduce the concept of functions, with the Finnish ones using function machines with input and output tables; the Taiwanese ones, verbal and visual representations; and the Singaporean ones, verbal representations only. In all three countries, most function-related mathematics problems were provided in a purely mathematical form. However, the Finnish textbooks were more balanced in this regard, including some problems presented visually or verbally, whereas the Taiwanese and Singaporean textbooks were inclined to use purely mathematical presentations. The Singaporean textbooks featured more open-ended problems than the Finnish or Taiwanese textbooks did. And, as compared with the textbooks from the two Asian countries, the Finnish ones included both a greater overall number of problems and less difficult problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigated how accounting quality, corporate governance, and financial market efficiency attract Chinese FDI (CFDI) in the context of IFRS adoption among forty-three BRI economies from 2007–2018. The generalized linear model estimates demonstrated that (i) IFRS adoption negatively affected CFDI; (ii) accounting information quality had an insignificant effect on CFDI; (iii) corporate governance and financial market efficiency had a significant positive role in attracting FDI. Further, the sample was divided into IFRS and non-IFRS BRI Countries. The results were highly robust in economies that practiced IFRS, whereas accounting information quality became significant and positive in economies with no-IFRS practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring educational innovations from other countries enriches our own practices by introducing diverse perspectives and cutting-edge strategies that can drive meaningful improvements and foster global collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research examines the recent Iranian-Israeli escalation that occurred against the backdrop of the Israeli army targeting the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which sparked the anger of the Iranian government and it announced that it would respond with full force and decisiveness. And the resulting Iranian response to what happened. Accordingly, the Israeli government also announced that it would respond to what happened and would not remain silent about this attack. These events and their impact on the current situation were analyzed. We relied on what was published in the media as it was a new event on the scene. The most important results as follows: -Neither Iran nor Israel will undertake any escalation that would lead to an all-out military confrontation. -The United States of America will calm the situation so that there is no all-out war in the region. -Iran will establish relations with Middle Eastern countries, especially Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arab-Israeli conflict is considered one of the longest and most difficult conflicts that the Middle East is still going through. After the October 6, 1973 war, which was a turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict, countries and regular armies withdrew from the military conflict, and the resistance factions and various organizations took over the management of the conflict, opening the door to It is wide open to intermittent or fleeting wars raging on Palestinian land, between the Palestinians and the Israeli army. The images of these wars took different shapes. Because we are facing two different parties, a resistance and a regular army. Consequently, the mechanisms of confrontation differed from time to time, and were also longer or shorter from time to time. This study raises the question about the mechanisms that Israel used in managing the conflicts that took place in the Palestinian territories, and how did the resistance confront it? Are there different mechanisms that Israel violated according to the nature of each conflict and the differences in its elements? Or are there multiple mechanisms that differed depending on the conflict? What mechanism can Israel take if the resistance launches a war similar to the AlAqsa Flood? The study is divided into four sections: The first section: The Israeli approach to the conflict before the Al-Aqsa flood The second section: The Israeli approach to the conflict during the Al-Aqsa flood The third section: anticipating Israel’s management of the conflict Fourth section: The repercussions of the Al-Aqsa flood [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe current study examined the migration decision-making process of refugees from Ukraine who arrived in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Israel following the Russian-Ukraine war. Sixty semi-structured interviews with refugees from Ukraine were conducted, with 20 interviews in each country. The findings revealed that the war was perceived as a surprise and led to unplanned waves of departure and decisions based on coincidence. By analyzing different dimensions of proximity―geographical, cultural, and social―we present the complexity of the process in its various stages and the factors that led to the decision to immigrate to each of the countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political polarization has been growing in many countries, including the United States, within recent years. Scholars note how, if not addressed, growing trends can compromise fundamental pillars of a functioning democratic society. While efforts have grown in researching how integrative complexity can successfully mitigate polarizing tensions in political divides, there is a lack of scholarly attention on how conscious and unconscious dimensions of integrative complexity affect such processes. This article proposes a framework to ground future research in this direction as well as inform depolarizing interventions on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Türkiye's increasingly complex relations with Asia from a political economy perspective, capitalizing on the notions of semi-periphery and sub-imperialism in an era marked by the crisis of globalization and a relative decline of US economic and technological power. It contends that the complexity of Türkiye-Asia relations and associated changes in Turkish foreign policy should be examined within the shifting global and domestic political-economic conditions and the changing relations between countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the political landscape of Latin American and the Caribbean region is changing, intelligence democratization remains a constant challenge. The majority of the countries in the region have not achieved a tradeoff between operational effectiveness and democratic transparency and accountability. Militarism and militarization policies and practices—along with weak and ineffective institutions and corrupt, apathetic, and inexpert leaders—greatly contribute to this constant challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Football migration, including flows and effects, is measured over the first 27 years of the independent Czech Football League. Hierarchical multi-level analysis is used to test previous sport migration effects. Particular attention is paid to the economic and sport position of both sending and receiving nations by examining results through the world-systems theory. Though the number of football migrants continues to rapidly increase, the statistical results of this study indicate that receiving football migrants into the semi-periphery nation of Czech, where football is a primary sport, may increase winning percentage in the short term, but it does not lead to increases in fan attendance or improve the nation's FIFA rankings. Longer term deliberation needs to be taken by individual club teams, as well as national federations, in order maximize the benefits of migration flows in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use a t -measure derived from fuzzy logic to evaluate progress toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations member states. In the first of this two-part series, we examined each of the Sustainable Development Goals individually. We now build a composite index score for 163 countries using the t -measure to examine their progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals as a whole, rank them, and examine the characteristics of highly performing and of poorly performing countries. We also study the impact of income category and region on progress towards the Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International organizations (IOs) are often criticized for insulated decision‐making processes that do not react to the preferences of key stakeholders that are directly affected by them. However, empirical studies probing the degree to which IOs' policies are aligned with the preferences of such key constituencies are scarce. This paper tackles the gap by studying the case of the World Bank. We argue that congruence with stakeholder preferences increases when recipients have institutional means of participation and decreases when donors restrict the purposes of their funds. We utilize survey data from 269 stakeholder surveys conducted in 114 countries between 2012 and 2022 for our empirical analysis. Our findings carry important implications for the responsiveness of IOs to stakeholders in low‐ and middle‐income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a parsimonious mechanism for generating premature deindustrialization (PD). In the baseline model, the Baumol effect drives the hump-shaped path of the manufacturing share. Countries follow different paths due to the difference in the sector-specific adoption lags. The condition for PD under which countries differ only in technology gap implies that the cross-country productivity dispersion is the largest in agriculture. Moreover, when calibrated to match Rodrik's (2016) findings, it is the smallest in manufacturing. In three extensions, we add the Engel effect, international trade, and catching up by late industrializers, to demonstrate the robustness of the mechanism. (JEL F11, L16, L60, O14, O33) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses detailed data on exports from the European Union (EU-28) to non-EU countries to investigate the impact of global production fragmentation on the choice of transportation modes. The article finds a positive relationship between production fragmentation and air transportation. The study also finds that air transportation is more likely to be chosen for high-value products. Additionally, the positive effect of production fragmentation on the likelihood of using air transportation is more pronounced when goods are exported to medium-range markets, upper-middle-income countries, countries with better air transportation infrastructure, and time-sensitive products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the house price convergence across 12 OECD countries over the period 1905–2016. Using novel quantile unit root tests which allow for smooth breaks via a Fourier expansion series, we find that nine countries show the presence of relative house price convergence at all the quantiles. Focusing on several specific quantiles, 11 countries have significant convergence tendencies. Moreover, there are four definite patterns related to shocks in the relative house prices across quantiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys Nordic historic studies on the distribution of income to highlight similarities and differences between Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden in the evolution of income concentration and income inequality over more than 140 years. Our descriptive analysis allows for a decomposition where we identify the contribution of the income share of the richest 1 per cent and the distribution of income among the other 99 per cent to overall inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient. The results show that the evolution of income concentration and inequality can be characterised by episodes rather than by secular cycles, which means that the evolution can neither be summarised by Kuznets' inverse U nor by a U. The evidence on the role played by the share of the top 1 per cent for overall income inequality shows to be mixed and to vary across time and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After more than a decade of inaction or, at best, using soft instruments, the EU has become more assertive against democratic backsliding in member states. This special issue adopts a multi-level perspective to tackle the new research avenues that arise from this change in EU policy. Its contributions investigate two broad questions: first, the causes of this policy change, and second, its potential domestic impact in the backsliding countries. Focused on the EU level, a first set of articles revisits and refines existing accounts of EU inaction in order to explain the EU’s recent turn towards greater assertiveness. A second set of contributions concentrates mainly on the domestic level to explore the potential impact of the EU’s efforts to counter democratic backsliding in the member states that are the targets of EU actions. This introduction identifies the main themes of this new research agenda, provides an overview of the individual contributions to the special issue and their main insights, and sketches avenues for further research on countering democratic backsliding in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free church organisations were a vital part of Christian evangelical revivalism in the Nordic countries around the turn of the century in 1900. In this paper, a new piece is added to the puzzle regarding why free churches developed and survived. Against the background of a case study of the Swedish Uppsala Missionary Congregation's cultural economy 1870s–1890s, it is argued that a particular rationality — a sacrificial economy — was an important prerequisite for organisational development. The paper therefore adds a materialist explanatory factor to the organisational development of revivalism in late nineteenth‐century Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the shadow economy and its major determinants has been an important part of economic literature over the past few decades. In this article, we analyse the impact of exchange rate volatility on the presence of the shadow economy for the current 38 OECD countries over the period of 1991–2021 in both a linear and nonlinear manner. We provide the opportunity to test whether an exchange rate adjustment may follow a nonlinear path and analyse the asymmetric impact of exchange rate volatility on the shadow economy. We estimate a linear ARDL model for each country and find support that exchange rate variability significantly affects the shadow economy both in the short run and long run in most countries both in linear and nonlinear models. However, by estimating a nonlinear ARDL model, we find an asymmetric exchange rate volatility effect in all 38 countries concluding that exchange rate volatility and risks associated with it significantly affects the shadow economy. Thus, it is crucial that this group of nations adequately implement financial policies to minimize this risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across countries, mounting housing pressures contribute to a growing number of young adults living in the parental home. Patterns at the micro‐level and cross‐nationally are well charted, but less is known about intra‐country differences. Drawing on the case of the Netherlands, we use full‐population register data to examine co‐residence patterns of 25–34‐year‐olds for the 2005–2020 period. Through descriptive, GIS and multivariate analyses, we explain patterns in co‐residence according to income, across space and over time. Results reveal substantial spatial differences in patterns of co‐residence and rates of growth, with the strongest increases in the largest cities and directly adjacent regions. Patterns are most pronounced and intensified for low‐income young adults, who increasingly struggle to realise residential independence in and around economic pull regions and high‐priced urban areas. These findings point to increasing socio‐spatial inequalities in co‐residence, contributing to literature on the interaction between class and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blackspot identification is a global concern in road safety. The accident-based method has been widely employed over the past few decades but remains reactive, as it depends on accidents occurring and causing harm. To overcome its limitations, proactive methods based on surrogate indicators have emerged. However, apart from Traffic Conflict Technology (TCT), other surrogate indicators lack a comprehensive framework spanning from extraction to practical application, emphasizing a key priority for future research. Despite numerous proposed methods, critical evaluation of their strengths, limitations, and application contexts remains limited. Additionally, the literature often overlooks the measurement of ‘potential accident risk’ in blackspot identification. Due to the rarity and randomness of accidents, even high-risk sections may record accident counts below the threshold during observation. This paper reviews 182 studies, examining blackspot identification methods and exploring potential accident risk through surrogate indicators. It underscores the importance of integrating potential risk into identification processes and summarizes the application of these methods across countries with varying income levels. Finally, it outlines the connection between blackspot identification and accident severity analysis, offering recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we complement a previous study of the UK natural science elite, as represented by Fellows of the Royal Society, with a comparable study of the humanities and social sciences elites, as represented by Fellows of the British Academy. We seek to establish how far similarities and differences exist in the social composition of these three academic elites and in the routes that their members have followed into elite positions. We are also concerned with the consequences of the humanities and social sciences elites being brought together in the British Academy, in contrast with the situation in most other countries where elite natural and social scientists are located in the same academy. We pursue these issues in the context of C. P. Snow's discussion of the social underlay of the cultural disjunction that he saw between the natural sciences and the humanities, while also considering how the social sciences fit in. We find that there is support for Snow's position at the time of his writing. However, a notable development in more recent years is that the growing social sciences elite is moving in its social composition away from the humanities elite and closer to the natural science elite. This is primarily due to changes in the social origins and education of Fellows in those sections of the British Academy that are on the borderline between the social and the natural sciences. A widening difference thus arises with Fellows in the humanities sections most representative of Snow's ‘traditional culture’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]