Challenges of the 21st Century: Democracy, Environment, Inequalities, Intersectionality  

This IV ISA Forum of Sociology will be our first virtual Forum, with over 800 sessions, more than 3,000 papers and the participation of sociologists from 125 countries.

This Forum will be a unique opportunity to gather our research results and analyses of the extraordinary time we live and study, of its impact on individuals and societies and on four global challenges it has intensified: democracy, environment, inequalities and intersectionality.

During six days, hundreds of panels will explore the world in the pandemic and the world that may come out of it based on research grounded in the field and topics of the ISA Research Committees, Working and Thematic groups. Young researchers and experienced scholars from different regions of the world will expose their analyses of societies and sociology in the pandemic. Leading scholars from different continents will share their perspectives in the Forum’s Opening and Closing Plenaries: Michael Burawoy, Isabel Casimiro, Manuel Castells, Ashish Kothari, Rita Segato, Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Maristella Svampa. This Forum will also be an opportunity for our global community to pay tribute to three of our most distinguished colleagues to which special panels are dedicated: Immanuel Wallerstein, Erik Olin Wright and Marielle Franco.

The pandemic has stressed how deeply interdependent we have become and accentuated the need of a more global sociology. Epistemologies of the South and intersectional perspectives on democracy, ecology and social justice are more than alternative options for sociology in the 21st century. There are at its core and have deeply transformed it. Opening more spaces for our colleagues from the Global South has been a central goal in this Forum. We are particularly pleased to host semi-plenary sessions set up by the Brazilian Sociological Society with the Porto Alegre Local Organizing Committee, by the Latin American Sociological Association and by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, and that the president of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa will join us in the closing session.

Sari Hanafi, President of the ISA Geoffrey Pleyers, President of the IV ISA Forum of Sociology

Coherently organised into seven parts, the book provides a structure through which EU-Russia relations can be studied in a comprehensive yet manageable fashion. It provides readers with the tools to deliver critical analysis of this sometimes volatile and polarising relationship, so new events and facts can be conceptualised in an objective and critical manner. Informed by high-quality academic research and key bilateral data/statistics, it further brings scope, balance and depth, with chapters contributed by a range of experts from the EU, Russia and beyond. Chapters deal with a wide range of policy areas and issues that are highly topical and fundamental to understanding the continuing development of EU-Russia relations, such as political and security relations, economic relations, social relations and regional and global governance.

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.

The book addresses one of the most relevant issues on the current social agenda – the building of an inclusive society. It covers income, gender and age equality, disability rights, immigrant and language minority rights, inclusive education, body positivity and animal rights. The book is based on up-to-date authentic texts (official documents, newspaper and magazine articles, public speeches) and contains a system of exercises aimed at enhancing communication skills, expanding vocabulary and developing analytical and critical thinking skills.

The book is targeted at graduate students of the foreign language faculties.

This book explores the contradictory development of gender roles in Central and Eastern Europe including Russia. In light of the social changes that followed the collapse of communism and the rise of new conservatism in Eastern Europe, it studies new forms of gender relationships and reassesses the status quo of female empowerment. Moreover, leading scholars in gender studies discuss how right-wing populism and conservative movements have affected sociopolitical discourses and concepts related to gender roles, rights, and attitudes, and how Western feminism in the 1990s may have contributed to this conservative turn.

Mainly focusing on power constellations and gender, the book is divided into four parts: the first explores the history of and recent trends in feminist movements in Eastern Europe, while the second highlights the dynamics and conflicts that gained momentum after neoconservative parties gained political power in post-socialist countries. In turn, the third part discusses new empowerment strategies and changes in gender relationships. The final part illustrates the identities, roles, and concepts of masculinity created in the sociocultural and political context of Eastern Europe. 

The Law and Policy of New Eurasian Regionalization: Economic Integration, Trade, and Investment in the Post-Soviet and Greater Eurasian Space makes several unique contributions to the literature. First and foremost, most of the current literature is in either economics or politics, with only a secondary focus on legal and institutional matters. Secondly, and consequently, the book is accessible and relevant to readers both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the boundaries of the Eurasian area: not only geographical boundaries, but also legal, geopolitical, geoeconomic, cultural, and, indeed, disciplinary boundaries. Drawing on international, transnational, and comparative legal scholarship, this rich volume offers the insights by a plethora of leading international scholars in economics, institutional theory, area studies, international relations, global political economy, political science, and sociology. The contributors come from four corners of the globe, including Asia, Europe, and North America.

The authors introduce ongoing child welfare reform in Russia, consider the international and national context, as well as the main drivers of these reforms and their current results. In addition, a literature review of field is also provided. Child welfare reform in Russia builds on the idea of every child’s right to grow up in a family. The main aim is to deinstitutionalize the child welfare system by promoting adoptions and fostering, restructuring the remaining residential institutions into home-like environments and creating community-based family support services. The chapter introduces the main concepts and terminology used to describe the child welfare system, the research questions of the volume, and employs a neo-institutionalist framework as the theoretical framework of the book. The volume analyses how reform is implemented, which echoes a fundamental change in the ideological premises of child welfare policy. Thus, the reform has shifted the course of the child welfare policy in Russia. The volume examines how the reforms are affecting the institutions and practices of child welfare in Russia, what kind of institutional change has followed the shift in the ideals, and what are the intended and unintended consequences of these reform processes. Finally, the chapter gives a brief overview of the chapters in the volume.

This handbook presents an international state-of-the-art book on love in research and practice. It is anchored in classical, contemporary and postmodern perspectives and various disciplines. The book expands previous theoretical, empirical and applied research by presenting new transcultural and transdisciplinary approaches. The authors describe concepts and theories of love from cultural viewpoints with regard to manifestations of love in digital, social, cultural and political contexts. They also focus on love in the context of religion, belief systems, family and intergenerational relations, in the context of counselling, therapy and psychiatry. Additionally, authors explore love in the context of globalisation, in the literature, in workplace and business contexts and with regard to its dark side.

This volume is a must for scientists, researchers and practitioners interested in positive emotions, love, as well as cultural and international perspectives.

How does peripherality challenge methodology and theory-making? This book examines how the peripheral can be incorporated into ethnographic research, and reflects on what it means to be on the periphery—ontologically and epistemologically. Starting from the premise that clarity and fixity as ideals of modernity prevent us from approaching that which cannot be easily captured and framed into scientific boundaries, the book argues for remaining on the boundary between the known and the unknown in order to surpass this ethnographic limit. Its ethnographic case studies engage with a series of empirical and theoretical issues, including: What is at the centre and what is at the periphery of what we do? How can we represent what lies beneath the threshold of verbal reasoning, or does not respond to the criteria for widely recognised forms of knowledge? Does learning entail unlearning? Peripheral Methodologies shows that peripherality is not only to be seen as a marginal condition, but rather as a form of theory-making and practice that incorporates reflexivity and experimentation.

This book presents the very first, interdisciplinarily grounded, comprehensive appraisal of a future “Common European Law on Investment Screening”. Thereby, it provides a foundation for a European administrative law framework for investment screening by setting out viable solutions and evaluating their pros and cons.

Daimler, the harbour terminal in Zeebrugge, or Saxo Bank are only three recent examples of controversially discussed company takeovers in Europe. The “elephant in the room” is China and its “Belt and Road Initiative”. The political will in Europe is growing to more actively control investments flowing into the EU. The current regulatory initiatives raise several fundamental, constitutional and regulatory issues. Surprisingly, they have not been addressed in any depth so far. The book takes stock of the current rather fragmented regulatory approaches and combines contributions from leading international academics, practitioners, and policy makers in their respective fields. Due to the volume’s comprehensive approach, it is expected to influence the broader debate on the EU’s upcoming regulation of this matter.

The book is addressed to participants from academia as well as to representatives from government, business, and civil society.

This book serves as a reader exploring the scholarly inquiry, professional education, and practice of Russian public relations and advertising in multiple contexts. It examines significant parts of what can be encompassed under the umbrella of strategic communications, including public relations and advertising, rather than investigating all areas of communication in Russia. Within the context of Russia's history, culture, and ideology, the book begins by tracing the development of communication as a field, as a discipline, and as a social institution in Russia. It then samples current studies in Russian strategic communications, examining this professional specialization's current state and likely future directions. The book's authors are mostly Russians who are experts in their specializations. Chapters are predicated upon the premise that this is an exciting time of great opportunity for Russian strategic communications. However, in Russia, exploiting such opportunities for strategic communications scholarship, education, and professional practice presents challenges within the context of that nation's cultural, historical, and ideological heritage that presently may be unique. The book concludes with a prognosis of the future of Russian strategic communications. The book is recommended reading for a worldwide audience of strategic communications scholars, educators, students, and practitioners. Such readers will find the book of interest and of unique value as the book will help them to better understand, appreciate, and respect Russian strategic communications, its genesis, and present state. © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Katerina Tsetsura and Dean Kruckeberg. All rights reserved.

The transformation of emerging markets in recent decades has generated a new, growing, and very large middle class market, also known as the middle of the pyramid. This market segment, which is middle by the standards of emerging markets yet low by the standards of advanced economies, is extremely attractive for firms, but still understood and underserved. This volume presents detailed analyses of exemplary firms that have innovated products, services, and business models to fulfil the needs and desires of these new middle classes. It provides useful insights for managers, consultants, researchers, and students interested in emerging economies, and actionable lessons on how to innovate for a new and expanding market segment.

Working Title: From Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Social Liability

Subtitle: A Socio-Legal Study of Corporate Liability in Global Value Chains

Series: N/A 

 

The opening chapter of Public Administration: Perspectives, Management and Challenges is devoted addressing new challenges in public administration in Russia, including law requirements regarding the transparency of public policy and the difficulties surrounding their implementation. Following this, the authors assess historical and contemporary examples of innovation in Norwegian municipalities. The criticisms and limits of the results management model implemented in the Brazilian subnational units are analyzed based on specialized literature and three case studies. In closing, in the context of spatial integrated complex solutions regarding the poverty alleviation and social cohesion needs increasing in rural areas in Romania, the authors suggest a conceptual and analytical framework based on risk identification.  

Humanity is going through one of the most important information revolutions, after the emergence of speech and writing – the revolution of Arti- ficial Intelligence. It was foreseen by Lev Vygotsky and artistically described by Andy Clark and Michel Serres. This revolution brings with it an extremely rapid and radical extension of the human mind. The report examines necessary implications of this extension for education systems. Neglection of these impli- cations cause dramatic decrease of effectiveness of learning and teaching as we see clearly in the Coronavirus epidemy. A key example of mathematics educa- tion is considered. Today it is oriented on pen-and-paper computational skills and memorizing geometrical theorems. This cause losing motivation to educa- tion of millions of kids. Using existing environments of computer-based algebra and dynamic geometry an extended human can develop computational thinking along with rigor reasoning, pre-adaptivity and interest to math. Priorities in math education including assessment should be shifted from accuracy and speed of hand calculations to sensitivity to feedback self-evaluation and ability to improve your work.

This book develops the concept of China’s model of modernization in three key fields – economic, political and military. Explanations of the Russian analysts are original because of their first-hand knowledge of China and their unique professional experience. It is an original research product, it has insights on the issue of China’s model of modernization, and it is related to policy and practice and touches upon policy as well as practice. The book concentrates on the most important issues of modernization. The book has an impact on analytical and policy-making community because it explains the key issues of China’s modernization and its consequences in the most important spheres.

This book examines the Chinese model of modernization in three key fields – economic, political and military. The explanations provided here, prepared by Russian analysts, are original because of the authors’ first-hand knowledge of China and their unique professional experience. They share essential insights on China’s model of modernization and its connections to both policy and practice. Focusing on the most vital issues surrounding modernization, and on its impacts on the most important spheres in China, the book offers a valuable asset for the analytical and policy-making community.

Articles of the collection are devoted to the analysis of trends and directions of research in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. The issues of the current state of development of entrepreneurship, innovation, human resource management, marketing, regional development, public administration, under conditions of digitalization and pandemic COVID-19 are investigated. The collection is of interest to economists and sociologists, teachers, students and postgraduate students.

This paper examines the transformations of contemporary cultural policy in the Russian Federation on three basic levels: organizational, politico-discursive, and legislative. It also establishes the continuity and differences in that policy vis-à-vis the Soviet period. The principal thesis of this article is that the organizational behavior of the state sector of cultural policy currently seeks to reproduce the model that emerged in the final period of the USSR’s existence. State cultural organizations competing for state resources publicly demonstrate ritualistic ceremonial behavior in relation to political discourse and the established legal system, but at the same time avoid direct ideological instrumentalization of their activities, while seeking to support, update, and expand their network.

The research presented here reports the process of adapting the Male Role Norms Inventory-Revised (MRNI-R) for use in Russian. The full (MRNI-R) and short form (Male Role Norms Inventory-Short Form; MRNI-SF) versions of the Inventory were tested in two studies. There were 1,016 participants in Study 1 and 1,038 participants in Study 2, which investigated second-order, seven-factor, and bifactor models. The analysis of construct validity indicated that the MRNI-R did not fit the data. Therefore, we developed a Russian-language MRNI-SF which fit the data well. The modified bifactor model of the MRNI-SF, which contained two covariances among the latent factors, demonstrated good construct validity and fit the data better than the unidimensional, seven-factor, second-order, oblique, and pure orthogonal bifactor models. Configural, metric, and scalar measurement invariance were supported for the modified bifactor model. The analysis of the MRNI-SF’s convergent validity demonstrated that traditional masculinity ideology (TMI) was related to stereotypes about men, ambivalent attitudes toward them, and negative attitudes toward homosexuals. Taken together, we concluded that the Russian-language MRNI-SF might be used for a reliable assessment of TMI among groups based on gender and sexual orientation.

The study focuses upon ‘city public groups’ (‘gorodskie pabliki’, local newsgroups on social networking sites) – the new entrants in the local media space of the Russian province that have recently become important actors of regional public communication. Such groups combine news posting and citizen discussions, report on local affairs and gossip, and entertain. Some groups are based on user-generated content; others create their own content or act as aggregators. Being non-registered and grassroots initiatives, these media enjoy higher freedom in comparison to official local newsrooms. 

Given the popularity of city public groups among local citizens and local authorities’ interest toward them, owners and moderators of these media are playing an influential role for local mediated discourse. Based on the gatekeeping theory and its extensions for digital space, this paper explores the emerging roles of these new gatekeepers in the local communities. Based upon 28 in-depth interviews collected by the author in Russian towns in 2017 to 2018, the paper also analyses the professional norms and values of the owners and moderators of local city groups that they employ to perform their gatekeeping function.  

The implementation of information systems is aimed at improving the financial performance of a company, creating a transparent reporting system and improving many other competitive factors. However, the acquisition of these benefits does not negate the complexity of making a decision whether or not to implement a particular IT project. The total cost of ownership of the information system throughout the life cycle is usually not considered in comparison with the expected benefits from the use of the system, due to the uncertainty of such benefits. Comparative certainty of approaches and methods is present only in terms of costs, both for a priori (planned) and a posteriori (actual) assessment. It is possible to determine both capital and operating costs accurately enough. Indirect definition of the positive influence of an information system on the activity of the organization also seems possible. However, there are currently no generally recognized methods for analyzing the expected positive effect of an IT project. At the same time, large companies, in accordance with the requirements of the respective regulators and / or due to internal management considerations, build a risk management system to determine the level of capabilities, losses and to prevent adverse events. This study considers the feasibility of an approach to analyze the effectiveness of the implementation of the information system on the basis of the company’s risk reduction, leading to a decrease in economic benefits. It takes into account the internal risks of the information system that occur during the installation of the system, its operation and the termination of work with the system.

This article discusses constitutional (statutory) electronic justice in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation as a method of organizing judicial activity based on information technologies, which aims to ensure the operation, mainly, of the principles of publicity and openness, transparency, and accessibility of information from constitutional (statutory) legal procedures as a variety of the latter in the Russian Federation. In the methodological of use the technique of documentary observation. Indeed, electronic (statutory)constitutional justice in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation has a multifaceted nature and characteristic, as it can be considered in several contexts, including the attribution to the group of additional constitutional guarantees of human and civil rights. It is concluded that electronic constitutional justice brings spaces of justice closer to individuals and communities, making it easier to exercise their rights and duties.

In this paper, we test whether sanctions applied to an entire group on account of the free-riding of one of its members can promote group cooperation. To measure the efficiency of such collective sanctions, we conducted a lab experiment based on a standard public good game. The results show that, overall, collective sanctions are ineffective. Moreover, when subjects are able to punish their peers, the level of cooperation is lower in the regime of collective sanctions than under individual sanctions. Both outcomes can be explained by a general disapproval of the collective responsibility for an individual fault: in the post-experimental survey, an absolute majority evaluated such regimes as unfair. While collective sanctions are not an effective means for boosting group compliance, there are nevertheless two insights to be gained here. First, there are differences across genders: under collective sanctions, men’s level of compliance is significantly higher than under individual sanctions, while the opposite is true for women. Second, there were intriguing differences in outcomes between the different regime types. Under collective sanctions, a person who is caught tends to comply in the future, at least in the short term. By contrast, under individual sanctions, an individual wrongdoer decreases his or her level of compliance in the next period.

Abstract Purpose This paper explores the phenomenon of ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new overseas subsidiaries and demonstrates the possibility of modifying such ceremonies to place greater emphasis on intra-organizational communications. Design/methodology/approach A careful study of 200 videos on 73 ribbon-cutting ceremonies in Russia between 2012 and 2018. Findings Under the current prevalent design, ribbon-cutting ceremonies mostly entail interorganizational communication, i.e., communication between foreign investors and representatives of the authorities of the host country. Meanwhile, in addition to the standard ribbon-cutting ceremonies, we observe several videos on intra-organizational communication, i.e., pseudoformal meetings between the team from the corporate headquarters and employees of a newly built factory. During such meetings, top corporate executives express the importance of the factory vis-à-vis the future of the whole corporation, state their expectations for the further development of the factory’s production facilities, postulate the desired working atmosphere in the factory, and appeal for the commitment and assistance of the employees in safeguarding the future of the investment. Originality/value The findings provide a basis for a broader discussion on the role of ribboncutting ceremonies as staged large-scale events organized by firms to articulate, highlight, disseminate, rationalize, as well as mobilize internal and external support for their strategy.

The paper presents the results of a study conducted in 2018 in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia. The big part of the territory of this region is located in the Arctic, which has a low population density and large distances between settlements, which increases the importance of public consent for the effectiveness of public administration. The aim of the study was to determine the level of transparency of public authorities in their interaction with civil society. The authors did a corpus-based content analysis of administrative regulations and conduct the questionnaire survey (N=439). It has been established that Russian civil society has a request to participate in the adoption of state decisions, but at the same time, citizens are not ready to fully implement public control.

Objective: The objective of the article is to prove the empirical and predictive value of the aggregate opinions of businesses and households for expanding cyclical macroeconomic data in Russia, especially during the coronavirus shocks.

Research Design & Methods: We use qualitative information from surveys that cover about 24,000 organisations and 5100 households in all Russian regions. The total economic sentiment indicator (TESI) combines information on 18 survey-based indicators. Cross-correlation analysis, Hodrick-Prescott filtering, and a vector autoregressive (VAR) model with dummy variables are used as the research methods.

Findings: The study confirms an almost synchronous cyclic conformity of the gross domestic product (GDP) growth and TESI dynamics for the period of 1998–2020. Probable GDP growth until the end of 2021 is estimated based on the expected impulses in the TESI dynamics, including those due to the sudden impact of the coronavirus.

Implications & Recommendations: Assessments of business and household activity are reliable and available much earlier than quantitative statistics on GDP growth. Therefore, we advise using them as an early warning system about economic growth and take them into account in policymaking.

Contribution & Value Added: We are the first to confirm the effectiveness and reliability of TESI as a leading indicator of GDP growth in Russia, using data from large-scale business surveys and with a focus on crisis shocks.

The guarantee of an anonymous mechanism is the worst case welfare an agent can secure against unanimously adversarial others. How high can such a guarantee be, and what type of mechanism achieves it? We address the worst case design question in the n-person probabilistic voting/bargaining model with p deterministic outcomes. If n is no less than p the uniform lottery is the only maximal (unimprovable) guarantee; there are many more if p>n, in particular the ones inspired by the random dictator mechanism and by voting by veto. If n=2 the maximal set M(n,p) is a simple polytope where each vertex combines a round of vetoes with one of random dictatorship. For p>n>2, we show that the dual veto and random dictator guarantees, together with the uniform one, are the building blocks of 2 to the power d simplices of dimension d in M(n,p), where d is the quotient of p-1 by n. Their vertices are guarantees easy to interpret and implement. The set M(n,p) may contain other guarantees as well; what we can say in full generality is that it is a finite union of polytopes, all sharing the uniform guarantee.

Globalisation has provoked a deep transformation in international law, political affairs and governance with contradictory consequences. It has stimulated the cosmopolitan project of global constitutionalism, transnational integration and the unification of democratic standards. However, it also resulted in the fragmentation of international affairs, the deterioration of constitutional democracy and a feeling of a growing shortage in democracy on national and international levels of governance. The international debate on global legal stability therefore cannot ignore the problem of constitutional transformation. The most simple solution to the dilemma consists in the polarised opposition of two trends in the development of the international legal order, namely, integration (in the form of the constitutionalisation of international law) and its fragmentation (in form of the separation of different global constitutional regions, supra-national actors or regimes). According this view, the two rival trends cannot be coordinated and a sharp collision cannot be avoided. The result could be described as a “zero-sum game”, as progress in integration means an equal regress in fragmentation and vice versa. This approach is therefore useful as a methodological presumption grounded on the very abstract, linear and teleological vision of globalisation considering its development from a black and white perspective and associating it strictly with positive results—progress in human rights protection, the supremacy of law and law-based states. The current global pandemic, however, reveals the other side of globalisation—economic recession, legal contradictions, the prevalence of egoistic motives, and the perceived interests of separate regions and national states over general international values or a different interpretation of its content and “common” character. That simple fact makes it important to reconsider the complex character of legal globalisation and the reciprocal relations between its opposite sides—constitutionalisation and the fragmentation of international constitutionalism. Trying to balance the impact of these two opposing trends, the author analyses the positive and negative effects of globalisation on constitutional development regarding such issues as transnational constitutionalisation, democracy and national sovereignty, the changing place of multilayer constitutionalism, the international separation of powers, and the system of global governance in the establishment of transnational constitutional democratic legitimacy. From this point of view, the populist backslide in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) looks dangerous and unforeseen, but it is a systemic and potentially predictable reaction of global regions on the uneven character of integration, the lack of democratic legitimacy and a new answer to the contortions and dysfunctions of global governance. An adequate response to these challenges could be found in a new concept of constitutional integration based on ongoing dialogue between the transnational and national actors of legal globalisation. This dialogue is possible by using a conflict-mediation strategy, elaborated by international experts, especially, for the deliberation of complex and protracted conflicts, which have no clear practical solutions in the short to medium term.

The paper discusses interregional differentiation in the distribution of electronic purchases among the population in Russia. The aim of the work is to find out what factors are primarily responsible for interregional gaps in the level of online channel use in consumer retail purchases. The study focuses on regional drivers and barriers for the spread of e-commerce. The results show that shares of users of stationary computers (desktops), users of smartphones, and gross regional product per capita are the main positive factors, and lack of trust in e-commerce channels is the main obstacle, while Internet access, age structure, educational level, urbanization, aggregated regional preferences for personal purchases and physical availability of retail trade outlets were found to be irrelevant.

Past evidence on fertility responses to external shocks, including economic recessions and the outbreaks of infectious diseases, show that people often put their childbearing plans on hold in uncertain times. We study the most recent data on monthly birth trends to analyse the initial fertility responses to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research, based on new Short-Term Fertility Fluctuations (STFF) data series (https://www.humanfertility.org/cgi-bin/stff.php), embedded in the Human Fertility Database (HFD), shows the initial signs of the expected “birth recession”. Monthly number of births in many countries fell sharply between October 2020 and the most recent month observed, often bringing about a clear reversal of the previous trend. Across 17 countries with lower fluctuations in births, the number of births fell on average by 5.1% in November 2020, 6.5% in December 2020 and 8.9% in January 2021 when compared with the same month of the previous year. Spain sustained the sharpest drop in the number of births among the analysed countries, with the number of births plummeting by 20% in December 2020 and January 2021. The combined effect of rising mortality and falling birth rates is disrupting the balance of births and deaths in many countries, pushing natural population increase to record low levels in 2020 and 2021.

Drawing on foundational arguments from the literature on emerging market institutional strategies, and employing a realist historical analysis, we present a retrospective on the Russian automotive industry. We begin by tracing the origins of the sector and synthesizing salient post World War II developments. We then recount the subsequent expansionary decade of the 1960s, followed by the stagnation of the late 1980s, culminating in the eventual collapse of socialism and the breakup of the USSR. Attracted by both the rapid growth in the local market, and the preferential tax rates that accompanied investments, we then document the swift expansion of production facilities in Russia by major global manufacturers in the 2000s. We show how eventually an ensuing sharp halt in local market growth, and an accompanying rise in spare production capacity, saw most manufacturers pursue institutional strategies aimed at obtaining new tax concessions and leveraging intra-industry cooperation, rather than divesting their recently established production facilities. Overall, our retrospective, in particular, calls attention to how global manufacturers were able not only to acquire and rejuvenate existing production facilities or install new greenfield ones, but also to exercise their agency in shaping the broader policy framework and in fashioning new sectoral institutions designed to buttress and sustain the industry.

The article analyses the short-term effects of aggregate economic sentiment on the expected GDP growth in Russia based on the results of regular large-scale surveys of business activity of the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation for the period 1998-2020. The main purpose of the study is to substantiate the predictive value of the opinions of economic agents in expanding macroeconomic information, including in crisis periods. The authors calculate a composite economic sentiment indicator (ESI), which combines quarterly information for the analysed period on 18 indicators of surveys with a sample of about 24,000 organizations of all size in basic kinds of economic activity, and 5,000 consumers in all Russian regions. The authors prove the possibility of using a vector autoregression model (VAR) with dummy variables to measure the relationship between GDP growth and ESI time series. Scenario estimates of GDP growth until the end of 2021 are based on the expected impulses in the ESI dynamics at the end of 2020, which differ in the amplitude and duration of their impact on economic growth, primarily due to the coronavirus effect. According to the results, under all possible scenarios for the development of business trends, national economic growth can exceed the level of the end of 2019, starting from the third quarter of 2021.

Approximately twenty years ago, Laurent Itti and Christof Koch created a model of saliency in visual attention in an attempt to recreate the work of biological pyramidal neurons by mimicking neurons with centre-surround receptive fields. The Saliency Model has launched many studies that contributed to the understanding of layers of vision and the sphere of visual attention. The aim of the current study is to improve this model by using an artificial neural network as the spatial component of a model that generates saccades similar to how humans make saccadic eye movements. The proposed model uses a Leaky Integrate-and-Fire layer for temporal predictions, and replaces parallel feature maps with a deep learning neural network in order to create a generative model that is precise for both spatial and temporal shifts of attention. Our model was able to predict eye movements based on unsupervised learning from raw image input, combined with supervised learning from fixation maps retrieved during an eye-tracking experiment. The results imply that it is possible to match the spatial and temporal distributions of the model to spatial and temporal human distributions.

The article examines the self-identification and professional values of the university community in post-Soviet Russia. On the basis of the corpus of the interviews, which were recorded by the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities (Moscow) in the 2010s, the authors analyse how the contemporary Russian scholars consider the problems of university autonomy and university management, as well as the criteria to define an ideal University and an ideal Professor. Instead of the unique perceptions on the specifics of research and educational characteristics of university space and people, the present investigation represents the problematization of the basic definitions of university and its purposes by the contemporary Russian scholars.

Commuting is linked to fertility through demographic, social, and economic mechanisms. Average differences in first-birth rates of young, working women are estimated by a bivariate model with endogenous commuting. Empirical evidence based on administrative data (Sweden) reveals that commuting women have a lower probability of a first birth between 21-28 years of age and a higher probability between 29-32 years. Therefore, commuting women likely postpone their first child. Additional direct and spillover effects of commuting on fertility appear in income cross-municipal flows, diffusion of fertility norms across space, and changes in gender structure of the population of fertile age. A positive effect on relative income and social norms and a negative sex ratio effect are found significant both for commuting women and those who work in the municipality of their residence. Marginal effects for commuters are greater in magnitude.

This research is based on theories of federalized party systems, second-order elections and nationalization of party system comparing long-established democratic federations in terms of actual autonomy of their subnational party systems. The study shows that despite obvious prerequisites for subnational autonomy (such as federal institutions, different timing of elections, freedom to establish regional parties and blocs) most federations have created solidly nationalized party systems. Nevertheless, we explore striking differences among the federations in terms of presence and strength of regional parties, while our thorough comparative analysis of electoral turnout and parties support at federal and regional levels of elections reveals that federations are very different and sometimes unique. Also, we see that the theory of second-order elections does not work consistently which in our point of view means the decisive role of regional agenda and emphasizes the presence of national parties consistently inclined to local politics. We conclude that the development of partially autonomous subnational party systems and biases of electoral outcomes in federal and regional elections depend on the historical evolution of political institutions in the state rather than create similar patterns across the federations.

Economic and sociological research that touches upon the determinants of alcohol consumption is mostly centered on the traditional factors of human capital (e.g., education). While much attention is given to education as a valid instrument to reduce alcohol misuse, less is given to the impact of non-cognitive skills. Data are collected from a nationally representative Russian panel survey, 2016–2018. We estimate a random-effects probit model for the probability of abstinence and a random-effects tobit model with a Heckman correction for the volume of alcohol consumption. Non-cognitive skills are consistent predictors of drinking in Russia. In both genders, conscientiousness and extraversion have strong connections to the probability and the volume of alcohol consumption, while openness to experience and neuroticism only affect the volume. The estimates for education differ substantially when the Big Five variables are excluded from the model, which suggests that a major part of the effect of education on alcohol consumption patterns may be mediated through non-cognitive skills. Although educational interventions are often seen as a method of solving excessive drinking problems, introducing personality traits into the analysis raises the question of the effectiveness of such interventions.

This paper studies the e¤ects of consumer income heterogeneity on monopolistically competitive product markets and individual welfare in the context of non-homothetic pref- erences. When expenditure of richer individuals is less sensitive to price change compared to poorer ones, a mean-preserving contraction of income distribution makes firm revenue less sensitive to price changes. This entices firms to charge higher prices. As a result, new firms enter the market, broadening product diversity. General equilibrium e¤ects have a negative impact on poorer individuals and, in specific circumstances, on richer individuals. Furthermore, reduced income inequality may shift the market equilibrium further away from optimal product diversity. In open economies, lower income inequality in a country creates a price divergence between countries and decreases trade volumes and values. Those general equilibrium e¤ects are shown to be quantitatively non negligible.

Tech clusters play a growing role in knowledge-based economies by accommodating high-tech firms and providing an environment that fosters location-dependent knowledge spillovers and promote R&D investments by .rms. Yet, not much is known about the economic conditions under which such entities may form in equilibrium without government interventions. This paper develops a spatial equilibrium model with a competitive final sector and a monopolistically competitive intermediate sector, which allows us to determine necessary and sufficient conditions for a tech cluster to emerge as an equilibrium outcome. We show that strongly localized knowledge spillovers, skilled labor abundance, and low commuting costs are key drivers for a tech cluster to form. Not only is the productivity of the final sector higher when intermediate firms cluster, but a tech cluster hosts more intermediate firms and more R&D and production activities, and yields greater worker welfare, compared to what a dispersed pattern would generate. With continual improvements in infrastructure and communication technology that lowers coordination costs, tech clusters will eventually be fragmented.

This paper examines the FDI entry and exit behavior of Japanese multinational enterprises (MNEs) in foreign markets using firm-level panel data for the period of 1995-2015. We construct “sales verticalness” and “purchase verticalness” for each country, which is a novel index to measure the degree of connection with Japan in terms of overseas affiliate sales and procurement and present several stylized facts. Unlike exporter dynamics, the exit rates of FDI are much lower, but increase with market-specific age, implying larger sunk costs pertaining to FDI. At the country level, the exit rates of FDI increase with distance whereas entry rates show no correlation. Sales verticalness declines with distance exhibiting gravity, while purchase verticalness does not. Probit regression analysis of firm entry and exit of FDI reveals that a firm’s past experience of exporting raises the probability of FDI entry and lowers the probability of exit in the region implying that learning by exporting reduces the uncertainty entailed in FDI. Sales verticalness promotes entry and lowers exit propensity after controlling for country characteristics such as GDP and distance. In contrast, purchase verticalness discourages entry and raises exit propensity.

This paper investigates the role of technology levels in shaping the structure of the global value chain (GVC) at the macro level. We incorporate Ricardian comparative advantage into the production of intermediate goods involving both snake- and spider–type supply chains to capture the overall GVC integration. We analytically find that the country with a higher technology level produces the intermediate inputs at production stages involving a higher degree of difficulty, which is consistent with the real data. Furthermore, we verify how well the model fits the observed data by executing the calibration procedure using data from the World Input–Output Database. Our findings indicate strong correlations between calibrated outcomes and the observed data, as high as 87.3\% for the GVC participation value and 79.3\% for the real wage, proving that our model is a plausible representation of the structure of the GVC.

Updating is an important executive function that is vital for the attainment of goals such as cognitive tasks, daily activities and the regulation of emotion. The ability to update affective content in working memory is said to be influenced by mood. However, little is known regarding influences of mood on the valence of the affective content. We hypothesized that first, negative mood would impair updating of affective information. Second, this impeding impact would be weaker for the updating of negative information due to mood congruence effect. Sixty-three Russian speaking participants were recruited for the experiment. Half of the participants were induced into negative mood by negative pictures; the other half were presented with neutral pictures. All participants performed the affective 2-back task before and after mood induction. The results showed that negative mood impaired the accuracy rates of updating. However, the mood congruence effect was not observed in the updating of positive and negative materials. We recommend that more experiments be conducted with varied affective stimuli and across different populations.

A genuine measure of an ex-ante credit risk links borrowers’ financial position with the odds of default. Comprehension of borrower’s financial position is proxied by the derivatives of its filled financial statements, i.e. financial ratios. To measure an ex-ante credit risk, one needs a forward-looking estimate. We identify statistically significant relationships between the shortlisted financial ratios and the subsequent default events. To estimate the odds of the borrower to default on its obligations, we simulate its probability of default at a horizon of one year. We horse run the constructed PD model against the alternative measures of ex-ante credit risk that the related literature on bank risk-taking widely uses: credit quality groups and credit spreads in interest rates. We compare the results obtained with the PD model, and with the alternative approaches. We find that the PD model predicts the default event more accurately at a horizon of one year. We conclude that the developed measure of ex-ante credit risk is feasible for estimating the risk-taking behaviour by banks and analysing the shifts in portfolio composition with the sufficient degree of granularity. The model could be used in applied research as the tool for measuring ex-ante credit risk based on micro level data (credit registry).