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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the uptake of supply chain integration (SCI) principles internationally and the resultant integration maturity.Design/methodology/approachA rigorous supply chain diagnostics methodology called the Quick Scan is used to assess the integration maturity of 72 value streams located in New Zealand, Thailand and the UK.FindingsThe majority of the organisations studied are struggling to turn the SCI concept into reality. Supply chains on average are poorly integrated. However, there exist a handful of exemplar cases that provide guidance; levels of integration maturity appear not to differ internationally.Research limitations/implicationsOnly three nations are compared, hence the sample is not fully representative of all countries and industries. There is a significant gap between supply chain rhetoric and practice; clear guidance on how to enable effective integration is required. National settings do not appear to affect the extent of application of supply chain management concepts.Practical implicationsSCI is a very difficult undertaking. Indifferent practice is the norm. If organisations can attain even the middle ground of internal integration they will outperform many of their competitors.Originality/valueThe paper presents an international benchmark of SCI maturity involving three triangulated measures of supply chain performance.

The comparative analysis of diverse constitutional orders enables a more sophisticated evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of different models and solutions. Quite often it also serves practical objectives, providing the impulse for improving our own legal system by carefully adopting institutions and procedures that have proven themselves elsewhere. In the case of the Swiss Constitution, the influence of thoughts and concepts developed during the French Revolution and by the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Constitution is quite obvious. More recently, international influences are most apparent in the field of fundamental rights and freedoms.

In this article, we seek to understand the gap between a broad scientific consensus on the hazards of climate change and limited action on the part of policymakers. Given that climate change poses a severe threat to ecosystems and to humanity, and that there is widespread scientific agreement about the problem, why has there not been more cooperation in crafting a comprehensive deal? In what follows, we will first discuss the current research on climate change, noting both the impacts to the physical environment and to human communities. Then, we will discuss the reasons for the failure at Copenhagen, and the political obstacles to future action on this issue. Finally, we will outline a number of policy recommendations that may help to bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and policy outputs. Adapted from the source document.

The main hypothesis of this article is that transgovernmental interaction among central banks and finance ministries of industrialized countries was as significant in economic policy formation as intergovernmental interaction. Elite interview data indicate, however, that the international consultative process among deputy central bank governors and deputy finance ministers conformed more closely to the intergovernmental image of international politics than had been expected. Both interaction patterns within the deputies' consultative group and the impact of international consultations upon national economic policies could be explained moderately well in terms of a unified rational actor model. Examination of the transgovernmental interaction does suggest ways to systematically modify and improve interpretations based upon the rational actor model. In addition, the degree of politicization of issues may prove to be a reliable guide when deciding whether the transgovernmental dimension of an issue requires detailed study.

The article is devoted to the evaluation of the role of colonial policy in the works of historians of the English School of international relations. The aim of the article is to highlight the main stages in the study of colonial problems in the concept of international society and to show the specifics of the evaluation of colonialism in the historiographic aspect. The sources of the work were texts of leading representatives of this scientific community. The historiographical analysis shows that there are three stages in the study of colonial issues in the English School of international relations. They reflect both the processes of historical development of Great Britain in the second half of the 20th century, and the internal line of evolution of the school concept. At the first stage (1950-1970), the colonial problem did not have an independent significance for the analysis of international relations. The second stage (1980-1990) is characterized by the recognition of colonial policy as an institution for the development of international society in history, although it is evaluated inconsistently. The third stage is modern and it shows the important role of the former colonies in the structure of modern international society. The article analyzes the key arguments in assessing the role of colonies for each stage based on the work of leading representatives of the community. The main conclusion of the article is that the ability to change attitudes to colonialism in the analysis of international society explains the growing interest in the concept of school in modern Asian countries.).

AbstractAntonio Gramsci's thought has strongly influenced the fields of IR and IPE through the work of Robert Cox, Stephen Gill, Kees van der Pijl and others, engagements often gathered (not uncontroversially) under the rubric of an ostensibly unified 'neo-Gramscian' position or 'the Italian School'. The emergence of such interventions into IR/IPE has sparked controversy regarding whether Gramsci's work can be legitimately applied to 'the international', both from within IR and in other fields. This article examines the validity of such critiques of 'neo-Gramscian IPE', which we argue rely on problematic characterisations and little evidence from Gramsci's writings. More substantively, we provide an exegesis of the role of the international dimension in the construction of central categories of Gramsci's thought and his approach to nation-state formation and international organisations such as the Catholic Church and the Rotary Club, which have been regrettably neglected by all facets of these discussions. We demonstrate that Gramsci can indeed be understood as a theorist of the international, whose approach is particularly salient for the present historical conjuncture.