Publications

Brazil's Movimento de Trabalhadores Sem Teto (MTST, Homeless Workers' Movement) has grown dramatically in recent years. This growth was partly provided for by the use of a large government housing programme, Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV, My House My Life), which allowed the MTST to construct housing for its members and swell its ranks with thousands of new members. Yet some have argued that the MCMV programme used by the MTST may compromise the autonomy of civil society organisations. This article, by contrast, argues that while the MCMV programme encouraged bureaucratic practices, it also helped to promote the cultural politics of the MTST.

Re-using and regenerating derelict and abandoned areas constitutes an important element in sustainable land use policy and planning. This paper explores the phenomenon of derelict farm premises in South Bohemia, the Czech Republic. It analyses the origin and extent of this phenomenon as well as land use targets applied to such sites by planning documents. A large number of derelict farm premises have emerged on former collectivized lands. According to local territorial zoning plans, agricultural use prevails as the reuse designation for these sites. However, they are still significantly less frequently planned to be used in agriculture than areas currently in active agricultural use and are more frequently planned to be converted into housing, public buildings, or industrial activities. Overall, strategies for the planned utilization of derelict premises are found to be contingent on temporal and spatial factors. While many long-term derelict premises are planned to be converted into non-agricultural use, newly emerged ones are more likely to retain the agricultural designation. In terms of spatial diversity, rural municipalities of the inner peripheries emphasize housing development rather than industrial activity. Further, by analysing successful regeneration projects accomplished for abandoned premises since 2004, it is found that they generally adhere to the requirements of territorial zoning plans.

This textbook on political geography is devoted to a discipline concerned with the spatial dimensions of politics. This course is an introduction to the study of political science, international relations and area studies, providing a systemic approach to the spatial dimension of political processes at all levels. It covers their basic elements, including states, supranational unions, geopolitical systems, regions, borders, capitals, dependent, and internationally administered territories. Political geography develops fundamental theoretical approaches that give insight into the peculiarities of foreign and domestic policies. The ability to use spatial analysis techniques allows determining patterns and regularities of political phenomena both at the global and the regional and local levels.

Research on individual differences in the fields of chronobiology and chronopsychology mostly focuses on two – morning and evening – chronotypes. However, recent developments in these fields pointed at a possibility to extend chronotypology beyond just two chronotypes. We examined this possibility by implementing the Single- Item Chronotyping (SIC) as a method for self-identification of chronotype among six simple chart options il- lustrating the daily change in alertness level. Of 2283 survey participants, 2176 (95%) chose one of these op- tions. Only 13% vs. 24% chose morning vs. evening type (a fall vs. a rise of alertness from morning to evening), while the majority of participants chose four other types (with a peak vs. a dip of alertness in the afternoon and with permanently high vs. low alertness levels throughout the day, 15% vs. 18% and 9% vs. 16%, respectively). The same 6 patterns of diurnal variation in sleepiness were yielded by principal component analysis of sleepiness curves. Six chronotypes were also validated against the assessments of sleep timing, excessive daytime sleepi- ness, and abilities to wake or sleep on demand at different times of the day. We concluded that the study results supported the feasibility of classification with the 6 options provided by the SIC.

This work is devoted to the methodology for identifying structurally close objects of the type “country_year” based on a system of indicators characterizing the state capacity 1996–2015. A comparison of clustering methods (including hierarchical clustering) with methods of analyzing patterns based on a pairwise comparison of indicators, ordinal-fixed and ordinal-invariant pattern clustering, is proposed. The possibility of sharing the methods of clustering and pattern analysis to obtain interpretable results from the point of view of political science is demonstrated. Groups of countries with similar development paths by reference years on the basis of a dynamic analysis of patterns are identified. The dynamic change in state capacity (from the point of view of the selected indicator system) of 166 countries of the world is determined.

В центре внимания данной монографии находятся дестабилизационные процессы, протекающие в модернизирующихся социально-политических системах. Настоящая работа представляет собой попытку учесть, насколько это возможно, влияние демографических, культурных, политических и экономических факторов на дестабилизацию такого рода систем. Монография состоит из трех частей. В первой части рассматриваются теоретические аспекты модернизации стран мир-системной периферии и полупериферии, а также связь модернизационных процессов с дестабилизационными. Во второй части представлены результаты количественного анализа и моделирования социально-политической динамики модернизирующихся систем. Наконец, в третьей части анализируется социально-политическая динамика отдельных стран и регионов. Монография будет интересна не только специалистам, но и всем, кто интересуется дестабилизационными процессами и революциями, их причинами, факторами и механизмами.

The article describes the development of local self-government in Russia over the past three decades. Stands on the basis of the ideas of J.C. Stott about the good intentions of the state attempt not only to generalize the description of the changes, but also to reconstruct the logic of the legislator was made. The post-Soviet Russian Central government as much as possible separated itself from local self-government, using municipalities as a protection against the population claiming social guarantees. This is largely why local self-government in the 90s - early 2000s was quite independent and extremely diverse. The history of transformation of Russian local self-government over the past 20 years can be described as an attempt to restore local order by the Central government and restore social justice in the interpretation of the rent-oriented part of the population in a fairly high passivity of residents and a gradual transformation of the settlement structure. In the current reality, this restoration of order has resulted in the simplification and de facto nationalization of local self-government (in the near future, formal nationalization is also expected).

However, when local government is integrated into a unitary state structure, it is separated from the population itself, and the transparency of independent socio-economic processes in society for municipal managers is reduced.

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to determine the scenarios innovational development of the Russian AIC in the conditions of the EAEU and to develop a competitive model of this development. Methodology: The authors use the method of qualitative scenario analysis for determining the scenarios of innovational development of the Russian AIC in the conditions of the EAEU and the method of modeling of socio-economic processes and systems and the method of formalization (graphic presentation of the results of modeling) for creating a competitive model of innovational development of the Russian AIC in the conditions of the EAEU. Results: Three scenarios of innovational development of the modern Russia’s AIC are determined–technical modernization, ecologization, and transition to AIC 4.0–each of which envisages narrow specialization and cannot guarantee high competitiveness of the studied complex. For receiving the highest advantages from innovational development of the modern Russia’s AIC, it is offered to combine all three scenarios that have to determine the directions of this development. Due to this, the manufactured food products will be diversified and, therefore, will be less dependent on the change of consumer preferences in separate segments of the market and fluctuations of the world prices for food. This will ensure high global competitiveness of development of the Russian AIC, as the platform of the EAEU will provide export to the participants of this integration union and to the world markets. Recommendations: A competitive model of innovational development of the Russian AIC in the conditions of the EAEU is developed and recommended for practical application. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.

This Article seeks to examine the idea of ‘protection’ which was developed in 19th century positivist legal thought in the attempt to expand the imperial interests of European nations during the colonial period. In particular, this Article unfolds how the notion of protectorate was subtly implemented by British rule with the aim to subjugate the Kingdom of Kandy in Sri Lanka in 1815. The British Empire took advantage of the internal disputes existing between the Sinhalese Kandyan aristocrats and the King (originally from South India) for imperial reasons.

The idea of state of exception and sovereignty presented by Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben in the aftermath of post September 11 context generated a new discourse in the realms of public law and political philosophy on how law and its protection becomes invalid under state of exception as Agamben showed how suspension of constitutional liberties within so called state of exception legally erases any status of an individual regardless international legal or constitutional norms. However, this article seeks to examine how Agamben had excluded the nature of state of emergency doctrine in colonial societies under European colonialism, where emergency regulations were frequently adopted by colonial masters in subordinating the colonized and at the same time this article will focus on the racial element appeared behind enacting state of emergency in both colonial era and modern states. The objective of this article lies in underpinning much important, yet neglected two factors in whole state of emergency scenario. The results emerging from this article will demonstrate how Eurocentric academic thinking has abandoned some real pertinent issues in constructing the notion on state of emergency

Regional authorities consider the expediency of developing a new cargo transportation hub in the region in which it would provide transshipment services. It is considered that each transportation operator working in the region will use these services only if they are competitive with the currently existing ones. This competitiveness for a particular cargo means that the total transportation tariff for moving this cargo does not exceed (substantially or in principle) the (minimal) currently existing one as a result of including a transshipment via the hub in the transportation scheme for the cargo. A verifiable sufficient condition for the transshipment service competitiveness is proposed. Its verification consists of establishing the solvability of a system of linear inequalities being part of the system of constraints in the problem of finding optimal competitive transshipment tariffs for a set of cargoes expected to be moved via the hub. The latter problem is formulated as a quadratic programming one.

This article analyzes the ideational consensus that has taken shape in contemporary Russian politics, including its key components, and factors both of stability and of potential erosion. Noting the extraordinary durability of this consensus, which is supported by factors including the duration of the regime itself, its support among elites and the bureaucracy, effective mobilizational propaganda and conservative orientations among the middle classes and dominant public opinion, the author draws attention to several factors – as yet less evident – that may in the future change the situation. Among these are the volatility of public opinion, potential intra-elite dynamics, and the internal contradictions of the neo-conservative idea itself.

Military coups happen for various political, economic, and historical reasons. A vast literature investigates the external factors that affect coup vulnerability, including interstate wars, security threats, regional spillovers, and foreign economic linkages. An even more impressive number of studies, going back almost seven decades, focuses on the domestic causes of military coups. These causes of coups can be classified under two broad headings: background causes and triggering causes. Background causes are those structural determinants that generally increase coup vulnerability in a given country and create motives for coup attempts. The most prevalent background causes concern the regime type and characteristics, historical legacies and cultural diversity, and economic conditions. The triggering causes are temporally and spatially more specific conditions that determine the opportunities for coup plotters. Various types of political instability and violence, such as popular protests and civil wars, can become important triggers. Additionally, the characteristics of the military organization and the effectiveness of coup-proofing strategies fall under this category.

An extensive review of the cross-national civil-military relations literature reveals that very few of the proposed determinants survive empirical scrutiny. Three findings stand out as consistently robust predictors of coup activity. First and most notably, there is broad consensus that the “coup trap” is an empirical reality: coups breed coups. This finding is bolstered by the fact that military regimes are especially vulnerable to coup attempts. Second, income and wealth have a strong negative correlation with coup probability. All else equal, poor countries are more coup prone than their richer and more developed counterparts. Last but not the least, political instability and violence increase coup likelihood, although scholars differ on which exact type of instability or popular unrest is the most significant. Many other oft-cited factors such as colonial legacy, culture, ethnic fractionalization, resource wealth, and economic crisis are not consistently robust in global samples. This observation highlights the need for more metastudies to separate the relevant variables from idiosyncratic effects.

Smart city strategies developed by cities around the world provide a useful resource for insights into the future of smart development. This study examines such strategies to identify plans for the explicit deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. A total of 12 case studies emerged from an online keyword search representing cities of various sizes globally. The search was based on the keywords of “artificial intelligence” (or “AI”), and “robot,” representing robotics and associated terminology. Based on the findings, it is evident that the more concentrated deployment of AI and robotics in smart city development is currently in the Global North, although countries in the Global South are also increasingly represented. Multiple cities in Australia and Canada actively seek to develop AI and robotics, and Moscow has one of the most in-depth elaborations for this deployment. The ramifications of these plans are discussed as part of cyber–physical systems alongside consideration given to the social and ethical implications.

A short article on the media response in Bangladesh to the recent election in India.

This article investigates the role of boards in founder-managed firms with concentrated ownership in emerging markets. The literature frequently suggests that in this type of companies, boards have little influence on the corporate decision making. The article conducts a case study of AFK Sistema—a large Russian founder-managed firm with concentrated ownership. We observe that, contrary to the expectations, in this company, the founder provided real authority to the board, at the same time focusing on recruiting independent (mainly foreign) members. Based on this case, we argue that selectively empowering boards in this type of ownership setting could be beneficial for the firm: Selective empowerment is a source of intrinsic motivationfor the independent board members, making them proactively search for new projects and assist in their implementation on behalf of the firm. As a result, the company can overcome a number of important barriers in its development.

A review of Cas Mudde's book "The Far Right Today".

It would not be an exaggeration to remark that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has created a dazzling discourse in academia since its inception in 2013 and that the number of papers, books and monographs written on this gigantic project have shown the good, bad and ugly side of a BRI that encompasses around 70 per cent of the world population. Yet, the Chinese vision of reviving its historical legacy of the silk road and Xi Jing Ping’s dream of China’s participation on the global stage have not received quite the favourable reception it expected around the world with its implications being treated in some quarters even with a strong sense of scepticism.

Background The epidemiological transition of non-communicable diseases replacing infectious diseases as the main contributors to disease burden has been well documented in global health literature. Less focus, however, has been given to the relationship between sociodemographic changes and injury. The aim of this study was to examine the association between disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from injury for 195 countries and territories at different levels along the development spectrum between 1990 and 2017 based on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 estimates.Methods Injury mortality was estimated using the GBD mortality database, corrections for garbage coding and CODEm—the cause of death ensemble modelling tool. Morbidity estimation was based on surveys and inpatient and outpatient data sets for 30 cause-of-injury with 47 nature-of-injury categories each. The Socio-demographic Index (SDI) is a composite indicator that includes lagged income per capita, average educational attainment over age 15 years and total fertility rate.Results For many causes of injury, age-standardised DALY rates declined with increasing SDI, although road injury, interpersonal violence and self-harm did not follow this pattern. Particularly for self-harm opposing patterns were observed in regions with similar SDI levels. For road injuries, this effect was less pronounced.Conclusions The overall global pattern is that of declining injury burden with increasing SDI. However, not all injuries follow this pattern, which suggests multiple underlying mechanisms influencing injury DALYs. There is a need for a detailed understanding of these patterns to help to inform national and global efforts to address injury-related health outcomes across the development spectrum.