Introduction museums and material religion

Introduction Recent changes in diplomatic practice include a marked increase in peace and reconciliation efforts by third parties aimed not at interstate, but at intrastate, conflict. One immediate observation is that as war itself has shifted from being less of an interstate and more of an intrastate phenomenon, efforts to mediate have followed suit. A general one is that the shift from interstate to intrastate peace and reconciliation efforts also dovetails with a wider change in global politics, which has seen interaction change from being state-to-state (international) to being multi-actor and multiaxial (global). This chapter treats third-party mediation of civic conflict as what, with Andrew Abbot, we refer to in the Introduction as a “thing of boundary,” that is, as a phenomenon over which a new profession, in this case diplomats, tries to claim authority, so that the profession's turf may expand. Where such practices come from will vary empirically. The case at hand in this chapter is the pioneer in institutionalizing this new set of diplomatic practices, namely Norway. Norwegian diplomacy seems first and foremost to be propelled by an interest in systems maintenance. Systems maintenance is of the essence for an agent such as Norway that, as a small state with an open economy, stands to gain a lot from upholding the system and has little or nothing to gain from its transformation. The Introduction's emphasis on the need to see change in diplomatic practice not only in functional but also in constitutive terms invites us to pin down the nature of this change in diplomatic practice. A functional reading would note that the mentioned change in the system has thrown up new sand for diplomacy to grind. The set of agents in global politics has grown into something more manifold, and diplomats have followed suit. The intensity with which established great powers such as the United States but also Great Britain and France engage with third-party roles is increasing. So is the number of engaged actors. A constitutive reading would see this change in diplomatic practice not as a task-solving response to wider change, but as a constitutive part of that change.

Legal regulation of exploration and exploitation of oil and gas resources in marine areas, which are subject to the sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the Russian Federation, is of great practical importance for our country, Russian legal entities and individuals. This is confirmed by the Strategy for the Development of Maritime Activities in the Russian Federation until 2030, the Energy Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period until 2035 and the Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation, which were adopted in 2019 - 2022. These issues are no less important for foreign entities in connection with their participation in oil and gas marine projects in these territories.The scientific significance of the study is related to the development of International Energy Law, a significant amount of the rules of which are applicable to oil and gas activities in marine areas. The purpose of the study is to comprehensively analyze the development of legal norms of the Russian Federation governing the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas resources in marine areas, which are subject to the sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the Russian Federation, in the period 2014 - 2023, as well as identifying trends in their development in connection with measures taken by unfriendly states against Russia, Russian legal entities and individuals. The objectives of the study include identifying and analyzing trends in the development of legislation of the Russian Federation governing the exploration, exploitation and transportation of oil and gas resources in the specified marine areas, the interconnection of legislative innovations with changes in world politics and international legal problems that arose during this period.The methodological basis of the study is comparative legal and formal legal. The article identifies and analyzes certain trends in the development of legislation of the Russian Federation related to the restriction of the rights of foreign entities in the implementation of subsoil use in offshore subsoil areas of federal significance, the regulation of artificial islands, installations and structures, as well as support for the Russian flag and the domestic manufacturer of sea vessels within the framework of oil and gas activities in the specified marine areas. The author concludes that it is necessary to take timely legislative measures and an integrated approach to the legislative regulation of the issues under consideration.

The study of global politics is frequently organized around fields, but the boundaries of these fields are little understood. We explore the relationship between two proximate fields, human rights (HR) and democracy promotion (DP), in order to understand the emergence and maintenance of field boundaries. The two fields are closely linked in international law and practice, yet they have remained largely separate as fields of action, despite vast changes in global politics over four decades. The disjuncture has been largely maintained by HR organizations who police the boundary to keep DP out. We identify differences in anchoring norms as the key factor driving boundary maintenance. Actors in the two fields hold different foundational ideas about how to protect and advance rights, norms that we describe as cosmopolitan and statist. This account is superior to alternate explanations that emphasize functional demands or resource flows, and complements historical institutionalist accounts. Our research offers a theoretical contribution to the study of fields and practical insight into two important areas of global practice. Our qualitative research is supplemented by digital annotations, supported by the Qualitative Data Repository.

This article challenges conventional opinions that assume ever-presence of anti-Americanism among Turkish socialist leftist groups and that sees the Marxist account of the international as must-be theoretical tool of socialist leftists by investigating how they perceived the US and Soviet Russia during the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, as well as how they evaluated the pre-Second World War world order and changes in global politics after the war. It finds that leftists considered the existing inter-imperialist rivalry-driven international structure to be the main cause of world wars but expected that the US would replace it with a cooperation-based structure that would lead to lasting peace. They characterized the US as a peacemaker, as an anchor for democratization in Turkey, and saw the USSR as being pro-peace and viewed with suspicion Soviet demands for land from Turkey. Lastly, the article explores socialist leftists’ eclectic theoretical framework, which was a combination of imperialism theory, realism, and liberalism, as a window onto their views of international relations.

The central claim of the paper is that the European Union, understood through the concept of Normative Power Europe, is a sui generis global actor that will not be successful in achieving its international goals unless it upholds its foundational values at home. Internal disputes among Member States over fundamental and core values weaken the organisation’s international standing, which may lead to the risk of the European Union losing its comparative strength that differentiates it from other global powers and that gives it a unique place in international politics. This is particularly important in the times of constant change in global politics and new security, political and economic challenges, such as the role of China, democratic backsliding in the Global South countries and the Russian aggression against Ukraine. All these call for a strong and effective European Union, which, we argue, will not be possible, unless the organisation is able to keep internal disputes at check by ensuring compliance with the values it is based on. Based the case study of Poland, the paper demonstrates that it may be difficult, if not impossible, for the European Union to effectively uphold the respect for its fundamental norms, principles and standards among its members. This in turn will impede the Normative Power Europe status.

This study assesses the journalistic sources contributing to international climate change op-eds in tandem with narratives arising from this prominent platform for media elites and institutions. Through a theoretical lens of ecological modernization, this paper conducted a mixed methodological analysis featuring descriptive quantitative analysis and a subsequent narrative analysis. The authors first analyzed a dataset of 305 op-eds published by the New York Times and China Daily between January 2016 and October 2019. The authors also assessed the narratively-constructed themes embedded within selected op-eds leading up to the United States’ departure from the Paris Agreement. These narratives, which featured appeals to a global ecological modernization, are (1) Humankind's shared economic destiny; (2) The new globalization and diplomacy; (3) The looming climate catastrophe. While the New York Times and China Daily featured different op-ed contributors and climate topics, both publications helped to construct larger unifying narratives about the role of climate change in global politics, economy, and society.

Abstract:Following a successful armed resistance against a dictatorial state regime, a new government of former rebels took control of the national state in Ethiopia in 1991. Prompted partly by unfolding sea changes in global politics in the early 1990s, the new Ethiopian government pledged to undertake radical governance reform. More than twenty years after the new government took office, contested assessments of its record vis-à-vis its human and minority rights pledge, among other issues, have generated waves of debate, criticism, controversy, and global protests. Based on observations from southern Ethiopia, this article takes an ethnographic look at both the process and the outcome of Ethiopia's experiment with ethnic self-government, with a special focus on understanding the value of minority rights as an ideological construct. Conceptually, the paper attempts to explain a disjuncture between the globally prescribed ideal of human/minority group rights and the realities of governance on the ground.

Targeted activist strategies propel social justice movements to devise creative mechanisms in an effort to gain momentum. This discussion paper will analyze if cyberactivism can effectuate global political change. Varying views will be illustrated demonstrating the efficacy and the lack of efficacy of cyberactivism in its attempt to impact global political change. Comparisons and data analyses will assess the impact of communication media and the Internet, Internet connectivity of people, and impact of online technology on social movements. Research studies will gauge online communication tools, benefits/wins and challenges of cyberactivism, and future assumptions. Examples of cyberactivism strategies will illustrate how online technology has impacted political change in different regions of the world. The available evidence suggests that cyberactivism has created new ways for people to connect for the purpose of change despite where they live or identity differences. Although researchers may disagree about the efficacy of cyberactivism on global political change, the Internet still provides the essential platform for debate and information sharing.

The article discusses the factors affecting the stock market. The relevance of this topic is growing more and more in the background of modern processes, crises, pandemics and war in the world. In particular, the article talks about the Russia-Ukraine war, which shook the global economy and hampered the operation of the stock market. The Russia-Ukraine crisis escalated on February 21, 2022, when Russia recognized Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk regions as independent states. World leaders called the action an act of war. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has created geopolitical risks. In Summary, the development of the securities market is the most important factor for economic health and strength. Even the slightest changes in global politics affect them. Therefore, naturally, the Russia-Ukraine war had an impact on the functioning of the stock market. The reason for this is that all investors, throughout the year, carefully observe the events and processes taking place in the world and take them into account when making decisions. Keywords: stock market, securities, impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, stock index, geopolitical threat.

CHAPTER ONE. In Whose Benefit? Explaining Regulatory Change in Global Politics

Purpose: This review paper presents an overview of changes in agricultural extension on a global scale and helps to characterise on-going developments in extension practice.Design/methodology/approach: Through a critique and synthesis of literature the paper focuses on global political changes which have led to widespread changes from production- to market-oriented extension systems and goes on to discuss pressures on unsustainable public extension systems to reform.Findings: It is estimated that there are over 800,000 official extension personnel globally, most of whom work in the public sector in developing countries. This review highlights the important consequences for developing countries of global extension reform and the high percentages of farmers reliant on agriculture, making effective agricultural extension a key strategy in tackling poverty and strengthening rural development. It outlines the manner in which governments around the globe have experimented with alternative approaches to extension reform, such as privatisation and cooperatives, and demonstrates how public sector extension has come to be viewed as problematic.Practical implications: This paper identifies the practical realities of adopting alternative approaches to extension, especially in the context of poverty. It considers the challenges in reforming extension to act as facilitator and enabler, rather than as service provider, and the difficulties in moving towards reforms that promote pluralism and innovation.Originality/value: This paper contributes to current global debates on reforming agricultural extension by providing learning of how extension services have changed. The paper provides new insights from which lessons can be drawn for future extension reform.

Unraveling the complexity! Exploring asymmetries in climate change, political globalization, and food security in the case of Pakistan

The evolutionary paradigm for global politics here presented consists of four key propositions: (1) The global political system is a population of policies or strategies; (2) global politics constitutes a complex system that evolves in specifiable conditions; (3) accounting for global political evolution is a four-phased learning process whose key operators are variation (innovation), cooperation, selection, and reinforcement; and (4) global politics coevolves with global economics, community, and opinion et cetera. The evolutionary paradigm sheds light on two processes in particular: the formation of institutions at the global level, and the rise and decline of world powers (the long cycle). Two propositions are central to this article: 1. The institutions of world politics evolve, that is, they undergo change subject to identifiable evolutionary processes; and 2. The rise and decline of world powers (the long cycle) is a mechanism of global political evolution. By institutions of world politics we mean constitutive and widely accepted arrangements in respect to war and peace, nation-states, alliances, and international organization, and to global leadership and international law. If we consider these arrangements in a sufficiently long perspective, say, over the span of the past millennium, we cannot but help noticing significant changes that have occurred in relation to these, that continue to affect them, and that therefore need to be understood and explained. We need a structural-historical theory of world politics. The rise and decline of world powers, which has been the lead story over the past few centuries of world politics, also needs to be understood in a wider framework. It is not the case of some eternal struggle for power but rather that of a mechanism that in the recent past has mediated major changes in world political and social organization. We need to see the long cycle not in isolation but as a feature of world institutional growth. That is why, to better understand world politics in its time dimension in particular, we require an evolutionary framework. What might be the salient features of such a paradigm?

IntroductionAs society develops, a broad range of types of crime is emerging, encompassing both individual and organized crime. Criminal methods, and the ways in which crime is organized, are directly related to the technological development of society. For this reason, crime is evolving and is increasingly shifting its activity to cyberspace, progressing hand-in-hand with the development of information and communication technologies (ICT), as used in the realm of cyberspace, which is a widely understood concept. This applies both to individual crimes and, increasingly, to organized crime as well. Cyberspace has become the perfect environment for committing crimes as well as for enabling new ways in which to run organized crime and manage new forms of competition for influence. This mainly occurs with regard to the impact of information, both on enemy criminal organizations (competing with each other) and on governments and international institutions combating organized crime. Interactions of this nature bear the hallmarks of a conflict or war for influence conducted in cyberspace, aimed at creating a positive image of a criminal organization, misleading the institutions combating crime and destroying potential competition - and all via the means of information interaction. The scale of this phenomenon will grow as the information society develops and interaction with it will take a variety of forms, both logical and kinetic.Therefore, it is critically important to identify the forms, methods and impact of organized crime in cyberspace, as well as ways to combat it. There will be conflicts in cyberspace, bearing the hallmarks of war, and characterized by asymmetrically weighted opponents, unlimited reach, unknown consequences, and unidentified objectives on the part of the rival.Conflicts in cyberspace will differ in character from the well-known conflicts of the past. This follows the commonly used saying that every age has its own war, consistent with the level of technological and social development. Indeed, this can be observed in the ways in which war is conducted and the measures which are taken during that war. Access to information stored, processed and transmitted via cyberspace has given society a new quality of life, making possible various social functions that were mere star-gazing and fantasy in the nottoo-distant past. It manifests itself not only in the rapid development of society, but also has a considerable economic dimension, as shown by the reduction in the cost of the functioning of society while accelerating the implementation of this functioning.On the one hand, these technologies enable the development of new social forms while, on the other, they raise legitimate concerns regarding their use. The best examples of the impact of modern technology on the functioning of society include the Internet blocks put in place in Estonia in 2007 and in Georgia in 2008. This new dimension, namely, cyberspace, will have a huge impact on the functioning of society, the course of future conflicts and the ways in which organized crime functions. The scope and impact of the competition are mere estimates, based on the above-mentioned examples.The primary aim of this article is to identify possible ways in which organized crime interacts and competes in cyberspace as well as ways in which it can be combated by governments and international institutions.In terms of the activities of organized crime and its impact on global society, it is important to identify the nature of contemporary conflicts and define the very essence of war because the cyberspace activities of organized criminal groups bear the specific hallmarks of a war for influence and profit maximization. The war itself, as a social phenomenon, in the present terms, is difficult to define. It consists of various factors related to, among other things, the incredible acceleration of global economic development, population growth, and political changes in the international arena. …

The subject of the study is the trade and economic relations between Russia and China from the early 1990s to 2024. Their evolution is considered in the context of global economic and political changes, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, China's accession to the WTO, the consequences of global financial crises, and the impact of sanctions on Russia. The article analyzes three key stages of cooperation development: the establishment and barter schemes of the early 1990s, a period of stable growth and institutionalization in the 2000s, and the deepening of partnership in the 2010s and 2020s, characterized by rapid growth in trade turnover and a shift to settlements in national currencies. Special attention is given to the structural features of mutual trade, the role of cross-border interaction, and the influence of foreign policy factors on the dynamics of bilateral relations. The work employs historical-economic and comparative methods, as well as an analysis of statistical data on the foreign trade of Russia and China, which have allowed for the identification of patterns and trends in the development of cooperation. The scientific novelty of this research lies in the comprehensive examination of Russian-Chinese trade and economic relations as a sequential process consisting of three stages, each characterized by its own mechanisms and challenges. Unlike existing works, the emphasis is placed on identifying the contradiction between the extensive growth of trade turnover and the persistent structural imbalance in the commodity nomenclature. The findings of the study confirm that despite record trade turnover and institutional efforts to deepen cooperation, bilateral relations remain vulnerable to external shocks and depend on a limited range of commodity categories. The prospects for sustainable development are linked to the diversification of Russian exports, modernization of infrastructure, expansion of investment interaction, and the development of new mechanisms for protecting economic partnership from sanction pressures.