Suchergebnisse

In this paper we propose that a crisis can be avoided by taking countermeasures, which are informed by an Early Warning System. An Early Warning System can help lessen the impact of crisis episodes and provide a systematic approach to the response of small business owners to challenges in their business environment. Following a review of the literature, we undertook data collection in two stages. In stage one, focus groups were conducted with small business owners in four European countries. In stage two we worked with an expert panel to refine and develop a set of indicators for an Early Warning System. It is envisaged that the set of indicators will serve as the basis for further thought and empiricism. We argue that a delay in crisis recognition curtails the scope and time for corrective action.

Abstract
This paper presents the history of the gramophone industry and Chinese records in pre-war Singapore, through exploring the position of Singapore in the global commercial networks of transnational gramophone enterprises, and the local consumption of Chinese music records. At the turn of the twentieth century, the emergence of gramophone companies in the United States and European countries enabled Chinese opera and music in different regional languages to be manufactured into records, and consumed as commodities by Chinese communities all around the globe. Shaped by multiple routes of trade and cultural connections, the Chinese records sold in Singapore were of diverse historical origins and regional languages that catered to the different Chinese dialect groups. By the 1920s and 1930s, the popularization of gramophones and Chinese records had engendered an unprecedented sonic experience in Singapore.

The article is devoted to the study of France's participation in NATO military operations conducted since the date of the alliance's foundation in different parts and regions of the world. The interaction between France and NATO at different stages of the formation of this military organization and the reasons for the change in the position of the French state in the North Atlantic Alliance are also analyzed. The ambiguity of cooperation between France and NATO is demonstrated in the context of certain disagreements in matters of European and international security, including the participation of the United States in this structure. Authors demonstrate the importance of the role of France in the implementation of NATO military operations, in particular, in the Middle East countries, as well as its activation in issues of ensuring security in Eastern Europe.

Since the Byblos "pseudohieroglyphic" signs are graphically almost identical with the Vinča (Danube/Old European) pre-script (which originally appeared in the central Balkans, then spread to the Danube valley, southern Hungary, Macedonia, Transylvania, and northern Greece, and has also been recorded in distant countries such as the Ukraine, Spain and Portugal), the author applies his knowledge in deciphering this pre-script in order to read more than fifty lines of the Byblos signs. Thus, at least some of the Byblos "pseudohieroglyphs" appear to constitute a restricted system of mythographic "eidograms" (halfway between pictograms and ideograms) used for the invocation of goddesses throughout the Old World, rather than a syllabary, as erroneously believed by George Mendenhall, Brian Colless, Jan Best, Fred Woudhuizen and others, or an alphabet (Malachi Martin).

This article addresses the relation between the design of regulatory agencies and efficiency, arguing that authority concentrated to a single individual outperforms more collegial decision-making when the regulated firms' interests are aligned. The tentative explanation is that concentrated leadership reduces the risk for capture. This argument is developed from an empirical case on the markets for mobile and fixed broadband. In the mobile market, the regulated firms are similarly positioned, whereas in the fixed broadband market, the firms typically have adversarial positions, with an incumbent being challenged by entrants. A statistical analysis of regulatory agencies in 33 European countries lends support to the argument that regulation of mobile broadband benefits from having a single decision-maker whereas a bureaucratic regulation with more collegiality functions as well for the fixed broadband.

AbstractWhile coalition agreements are significant in structuring government behaviour, their comprehensiveness varies considerably across cabinets. We argue that the average correspondence between parties' priorities and portfolio allocation is important in explaining the comprehensiveness of coalition agreements because coalition parties that have obtained their preferred portfolios have less incentive to negotiate a detailed coalition agreement. We test our argument by combining newly collected data on coalition agreements drafted by 218 cabinets in 24 Western and Eastern European countries from 1945 to 2014 with data on the distribution of ministerial portfolios. We find that the shorter and less comprehensive the agreements, the higher the correspondence between parties' priorities and portfolio allocation. Our results have important implications for our understanding of coalition governments and the relationship between government formation and cabinet governance.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, providing digital texts as learning material had become a common practice in academia. But little is known about who profits from and who loses out when moving from print to digital reading in higher education. In this study, we connect digital reading to digital divides, and draw on a unique data set of university students digital reading practices obtained by a quantitative survey during the lockdown semester in three European countries. Based on the statistical results for digital reading access, attitudes, motivation, skills, behavior, and support, we argue that varying digital reading experiences of students are linked to inequalities in higher education opportunities. In conclusion, our results contrast current digital policies of merely improving access to digital texts in academia to democratize higher education.

We analyze the conditions for public debt-to-GDP ratio stability extending the Domar's approach by including the interaction between the government's reaction function and the private sector's reaction function, and considering the impact of 2020–2021 pandemic shock and the monetary and fiscal policy responses, with simulations applied to the Italian case. The outcomes of the numerical simulations show the crucial importance of ECB extraordinary monetary policies, of the NGEU and, to lesser extent, of national expansionary fiscal policies adopted during pandemic shock; both European wide monetary and fiscal policies actually increase the sustainability area avoiding the high risk of sovereign debt crisis in Italy (and other peripheral Eurozone countries). The stabilizing effect of GDP growth, hopefully resulting from the NGEU policy, is also simulated in the paper.

It has become cliché to argue that Turkish-Iranian relations oscillate between a con­trolled rivalry and limited cooperation. However, in Iraq and Syria, rising tensions between Turkey and Turkey-affiliated groups on the one hand and Iran and Iran-backed groups on the other, have put the two countries on a collision course. Con­flictual relations between Turkey and Iran have the potential to destabilise the Middle East and the South Caucasus, spawning additional security risks as well as waves of migration towards Europe. Such a situation could also complicate matters related to European energy security. Europe should remain alert and help to ease tensions through de-escalation mechanisms. In this regard, efforts to strengthen Iraqi sover­eignty may serve as a pre-emptive measure. (author's abstract)

Cross-border, transnational regional development in the Rhine-Alpine EU transport corridor represents an ongoing challenge. With 18 partners from five countries, the Rhine-Neckar regional association (Verband Region Rhein-Neckar, VRRN) therefore initiated an EU-funded project along the corridor to tackle the task. The INTERREGfinanced project used the acronym 'CODE24' and developed a joint strategy for developing the Rhine-Alpine Corridor from the perspective of the regional-municipal level. To ensure the continuation of this successful cooperation beyond the running time of the project, a new, permanent organisation was founded: the Interregional Alliance for the Rhine-Alpine Corridor. A European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) was chosen as the legal form. The organisation was founded on 24 April 2015 in Mannheim and was the first EGTC established in Germany, which now comprises 19 members.

This article analyses the consequences of recent changes in cleavage structures in German society for civil society, democracy, and social cohesion. It argues that the emergence of a new 'demarcation-integration' cleavage has politicised civil society in Germany in several ways. As a result, the role of civil society for the future development of German democracy has become highly ambivalent. The article is organised into four parts. First, recent transformations in political conflict structures in Western European countries are outlined. Second, the article presents data on the manifestation of this conflict in Germany after the so-called 'refugee crisis.' Third, the consequences of these new conflicts on civil society are analysed. Fourth, the relationship between civil society and democracy is discussed. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.

Russia is the world's largest energy exporter by a wide margin. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Western sanctions against Russia will therefore affect many parts of the global energy system. Worldwide investments in renewable energy will be incentivized by the higher fossil fuel prices. Petrostates will likely benefit from higher oil and gas prices for a few years, only to eventually experience a steeper decline than previously foreseen. Germany and other European countries may find that they are no longer suitable locations for energy-intensive industries. China might find itself in an advantageous position, importing fossil fuels cheaply from Russia even as international demand for clean energy equipment made in China skyrockets. The outlook for blue hydrogen has worsened, while that for green hydrogen has improved.

The repository contains the cleaned and labelled data, the codebook, and the sample questionnaire of a 2018 public opinion survey conducted in six Southeast European countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia.



This survey captures the experiences of respondents and people close to them during the wars that followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and how they look back on these conflicts. In addition, the data contains people's political views on issues such as nationalism, patriotism, economic policy, and interethnic relations. Finally, the survey measures the political behavior of participants, such as their electoral choices, news and media consumption, and the forms of political participation they engage in.



The survey is part of the project "Electoral Legacies of War: Political Competition in Postwar Southeast Europe" (ELWar).

This article deepens the analysis of the effects of immigration on the vote for Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, focusing on education levels of both natives and immigrants. By analysing the immigrant population in 101 regions from 11 European countries, we show that in contexts with a large immigrant presence, the low-educated voters tend to support Populist Radical Right Parties to a greater degree than those who are more educated. However, when the ratio of skilled immigrants is high, also the more educated population tends to support these parties. Hence, our analysis adds insight into the relationship between immigration, education and Populist Radical Right Parties voting, highlighting the need of focusing at lower levels of aggregation and combining the characteristics of both foreign-born and host populations.