Suchergebnisse

Despite the decrease in tension between East and West, the world is still faced by many threats to international security: a deteriorating environment, terrorism, drug trafficking, humanitarian emergencies, serious human rights violations and mass exoduses of populations. There is a growing need to devote more attention to how these international security challenges can be dealt with; piecemeal approaches and strategies no longer suffice. The interaction of security issues, and their global nature, call for broad and integrated strategies of management and of governance. States are now discovering that if they are to protect their own interests, they will need to entrust to the international community, through the agency of international organizations, competences for the protection of the common interest and human welfare. The United Nations will be called upon to operate an integrated global watch in the environmental, military, political, economic, social and humanitarian sectors: a system of early-warning can prevent potential political conflicts or humanitarian emergencies. The present work sheds some light on the principles of international law for the conduct of early-warning and preventive diplomacy, and shows the urgent need for the establishment of a true Global Watch. The world is now threatened by problems never experienced before in the history of the international community, and partnership and cooperation will be crucial if the international security challenges of the future are to be addressed successfully

The purpose of the paper is to assess the arguments of the critique of functionalism by Anthony Giddens and Norbert Elias. After being subject to severe criticism, terminology of functionalism is still a part of the lexicon of social scientists nowadays. Functionalist reasoning and concepts of functionalism are used in sociology, political science and economics, even though often without full awareness of its theoretical implications. Recent revival of interest in the works by Elias is connected with the search for a new theoretical and methodological foundation of sociology but his views on functionalism have remained largely unexplored. For the analysis presented in this paper, main theoretical works by Giddens and major works by Elias have been used. Positions of the authors have been analysed with respect to main concepts and principles of functionalism, such as function, needs, internalization of values, consensus, equilibrium, and the notions of power and individual. The study shows that while Giddens strived to reject functionalism and the concept of social function altogether, in the figurational approach developed by Elias it is possible to use some of the concepts of functionalism without necessarily accepting its controversial tenets.

Abstract
Management consultancy has long been a contested terrain in the sociology of the professions. Although the professionalism of management consultants has always been emphasized by practitioners themselves, the lack of a strong community of peers has been an impediment to their professionalization. In this article, I argue that professionalism is not the outcome of a process of regulation and institutionalization but that it has to be conceived a discourse comprising norms, worldviews, and values that define what is appropriate for an individual to be considered a competent and recognized member of this community. Given the diversity characterizing the field, there are multiple discourses surrounding professionalism of management consultants, and these discourses are shaped by work settings. Work settings are a combination of the type of organization professional partnership or professional service firm and the employment status (employee or self-employed). Drawing on the empirical evidence from various work settings (professional service firms, professional partnership, and self-employment), I investigate four clusters of practitioners identified in 55 biographical and semi-structured interviews conducted with management consultants in Italy. Four types of professionalism emerge from the clusters. Organizing professionalism is the sole professionalism that appears in all work settings. Other discourses (corporate, commercialized, and hybrid professionalism) are context-dependent and more likely to be found in specific work settings.

"Critically examines theories of cosmopolitan justice grounded in the major traditions of moral philosophy. Drawing upon the international ethics tradition, this book presents an argument for the validity of obligations of social justice between countries"--Provided by publisher

BEPS Action 5 is one of the four BEPS minimum standards which all Inclusive Framework members have committed to implement. One part of the Action 5 minimum standard relates to preferential tax regimes where a peer review is undertaken to identify features of such regimes that can facilitate base erosion and profit shifting, and therefore have the potential to unfairly impact the tax base of other jurisdictions. This progress report is an update to the 2015 BEPS Action 5 report and the 2017 Progress Report. It contains the results of review of all BEPS Inclusive Framework members' preferential tax regimes that have been identified since the BEPS Project. The results are reported as at January 2019. In addition, the Inclusive Framework agreed on a new standard for substantial activities requirements for no or only nominal tax jurisdictions. This report includes the details of this new standard and the other work on additions to and revisions of the harmful tax practices framework. Finally it contains next steps for the work on harmful tax practices.

This volume focuses on the 2016 Presidential campaign from a communication perspective, with each chapter considering a specific area of political campaign communication and practice. The first section includes chapters on the early candidate nomination campaigns, the nominating conventions, the debates, political advertising and new media technologies. The second section provides studies of critical topics and issues of the campaign to include chapters on candidate persona, issues of gender, wedge issues and scandal. The final section provides an overview of the election with chapters focusing on explaining the vote and impact of new campaign finance laws and regulations in the 2016 election. All the contributors are accomplished scholars in their areas of analysis. Students, scholars and general readers will find the volume offers a comprehensive overview of the historic 2016 presidential campaign.--

The field of climate and security has matured over the past 15 years, moving from the margins of academic research and policy discussion to become a more prominent concern for the international community. The practice of climate and security has a broad set of concerns extending beyond climate change and armed conflict. Different national governments, international organizations, and forums have sought to mainstream climate security concerns emphasizing a variety of challenges, including the risks to military bases, existential risks to low-lying island countries, resource competition, humanitarian emergencies, shocks to food security, migration, transboundary water management, and the risks of unintended consequences from climate policies. Despite greater awareness of these risks, the field still lacks good insights about what to do with these concerns, particularly in 'fragile' states with low capacity and exclusive political institutions.

Abstract
Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht's short-lived project for a critical theory journal, Krise und Kritik, foundered in 1931 on the shoals of positivism. Since then, a series of anti-foundational challenges to traditional critical theory has fragmented the landscape of critical theory and, especially, critical praxis, leaving us disarmed today, in these unprecedented times. This essay offers a way forward by means of what it calls "counter-critical theory": a critical method that indexes the original impulse of critical theory, but liberates it from its foundation in order to allow for a more open-ended and permanent re-examination of how power circulates and recirculates throughout society. Counter-critical theory is a pure theory of illusions and calls for a strategic, ecumenical practice of political disobedience, accompanied by an unrelenting and resolute deployment of interpretation and resignification.

Drawing upon talks delivered at the Second Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes conference, held in Manila 2016, this paper examines the extent to which the Asia Pacific region has begun to translate its commitment to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) into practice. It finds that the so-called "East Asian Peace" has transformed the region from one of the world's deadliest to one of the world's most peaceful. But many key challenges remain and there is much to be done to make R2P and atrocity prevention a daily lived reality. This article proceeds in three parts. The first briefly describes the dramatic decline of atrocity crimes in East Asia. The second points to some key challenges on the ideational and institutional fronts. The third section turns specifically to the need to develop national architectures for atrocity prevention.

Judicial review may be the most publicly contested aspect of American constitutionalism. When courts void legislation, they implicitly seem to strike at the heart of the principle of separation of powers. The act inherently suggests that the elected legislature is not always the legitimate representative of the people and that democratic majoritarianism is not the fundamental principle of American politics. Because judicial review can be described in opposition to ideas often deemed fundamental to American constitutionalism, the origins of judicial review have intrigued scholars of politics, history, and law. For the last century, the origins inquiry has started from the assumption that the origins of judicial review lie in an idea, an intellectual doctrine about judicial power. In fact, the origins of judicial review lie in a pre-Revolutionary practice and idea of limited legislative authority.

AbstractThe growing prominence of women directors has increased interest in their role in firms' social performance. However, knowledge of what impact female directors might have on corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) remains virtually non‐existent. This study aims to fill this gap. Using a sample of 107 Spanish listed non‐financial companies from the OSIRIS database (Bureau Van Dijk) for the period 2014–2022, together with alternative regression methods to account for endogeneity (2SLS, propensity scoring matching and generalised method of moments), our results show an inverted U‐shaped relationship between female directors and CSI. This supports arguments that dominant owners might appoint a small number of female directors symbolically to create a 'halo effect' or to enhance their public image and thus reinforce their entrenchment and divert attention away from CSI episodes. However, the appointment of a critical mass of female directors does evidence dominant owner commitment to move away from irresponsible corporate practices, since the presence of a larger number of female directors encourages the firm's ethical behaviour and increases the costs of penalising CSI episodes in the face of the firm's hypocritical behaviour. This study contributes to the emerging literature on CSI by complementing the knowledge gained from studies on ethical behaviour in a concentrated ownership setting. However, the study is not without limitations, especially in terms of the difficulty of measuring CSI episodes since, despite the work of the media, some socially irresponsible practices may remain hidden.