Area Crisis Research Articles

Social Entrepreneurial Projects Evaluation in Crisis Areas Through Multi-Criteria Decision Making

The aim of this article is to examine humanitarian actors’ attitudes towards the factors that should be considered and the methodology that should be applied in the evaluation process of social entrepreneurial projects. In line with this, an online questionnaire was conducted on attitudes towards the current way utilized in the crisis areas. The results indicate that the majority of actors are using the methodology of the sum weighted model and the more-experienced actors are tending to include more criteria compared with the less-experienced actors. The article concludes that more awareness should be raised among the humanitarian actors to enable them to conduct the evaluation more effectively. In order to develop the effectiveness of the studies in this area, it is recommended that a more dedicated policy should be created and training should be conducted in place.

A Qualitative Study on the Motivation to Go to Work by Workers in Crisis Areas Like the Southwest Region of Cameroon

This research is motivated by the desire to understand what motivates people to go to work despite the prevalence of the ongoing socio-political upheavals plaguing some regions of Cameroon and the southwest region in particular. The achievement of this main objective led us, through the interpretavist research design, to adopt the qualitative method. Through the interpretavist research design and based on the qualitative research method We did carry out our empirical data using a semi-structured interview guide administered to 16 teachers working in the said region through the purposive random sampling method and based on proximity. Our data was analysed using the manual data treatment method. The results of our analysis indicated that, there are various reasons that motivate workers to go to work. Prominent among the reasons is the learners’ future, self-satisfaction (intrinsic motivation) as well as administrative constraints (extrinsic motivation).

The growing water crisis in Central Asia and the driving forces behind it

Central Asia (CA) is one of the most severe water crisis areas on earth, which has seriously limited the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the region. However, a multi-perspective analysis on the process and driving factors of the water crisis in CA has not been conducted. Therefore, we assess the water crisis from multiple perspectives using the water stress index (WSI), safe drinking water and water pollution indicators, and quantitatively analyze the impact of climate change, population growth, poverty, urbanization and transboundary river management on the water crisis. Results show that the water crisis in CA is intensifying. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan belong to the “severe water stress” category, and the WSIs are increasing in both countries. Tajikistan is classified as “high water stress”. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan both exhibit “moderate water stress”. Moreover, the proportion of the rural population with access to safe drinking water is significantly lower than that of the urban population in all the CA countries. The impact of human activities on water crisis in CA is more significant than that of climatic factors. Both cultivated land area and population are significant factors affecting the water crisis in CA (p < 0.05), with the regression coefficients of 0.62 and 1.62, respectively. Our research provides an essential reference for the sustainable management of water resources and warns that the water security situation in CA will worsen if no effective action is taken.

Noticing, monitoring and observing: Interactional grounds for joint and emergent seeing in UN military observer training

UN military observers patrol crisis areas in small teams. Their task is to determine whether seen military activity constitutes a violation to ceasefire agreements. Failing to see or establish a shared understanding of the activity can be damaging to the mission or put the teams in danger. We use ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to analyse how military observers verbalise and categorise military activity in ‘noticings’. The data are video recordings collected in car patrols in a training course. The analysis is based on fifty-three episodes of the patrols encountering unexpected military activity. The analysis focuses on the design features of and categorisation practices in noticing actions. It also shows how the noticings invite seeing the noticed feature from a particular perspective and in this way build a context for the joint and emergent activities of ‘monitoring’ and ‘observing’. The findings showcase how noticing actions and monitoring and observing are accomplished in interaction. They highlight the role of talk and embodiment as part of military observers’ professional competence and for maintaining situational awareness. The findings are relevant for and can be integrated in UN military observer training.

Constructing Ocean and Polar Governance

The governance of ocean and polar regions is among the most relevant challenges in the combat against global environmental degradation and global inequalities. Ocean and polar regions are climate regulators and very much affected by climate change. They are an important source of nutrition for life in and above the sea. At the same time, they are subject to an increasing number of geopolitical and geo-economic conflicts. Due to the lasting virulence of many security issues, economic conflicts, legal disputes, new technological developments, and environmental crises in global marine areas as well as the intricate overlap of sovereign, semi-sovereign, and global commons territories, the relevance of ocean and polar governance is bound to rise. This thematic issue sketches important trends in research on these issues and identifies future avenues of inquiry. In this editorial, we first provide an overview of governance challenges for ocean and polar regions and their relevance for geopolitical and geo-economic conflicts. In a second step, we present the eight contributions that make up the thematic issue by clustering them around three themes: (a) challenges to norm-creation in ocean governance, (b) the impact of territorialisation on governance and the construction of authority, and (c) the effectiveness of regimes of ocean and polar governance.

Learning from Neighbors: The Spatial Spillover Effect of Crisis Learning on Local Government

Accident prevention is an important prerequisite for achieving sustainable development, and effective crisis learning is a necessary path to it. This article focuses on whether local governments in non-accident areas learn from crises in accident areas, that is “learn from the mistakes of neighbors” and “grow in wisdom.” Using panel data from 2006–2017 for 30 provinces in China, our empirical test discovered that there is not a one-to-one relationship between “learning from neighbors” and “growing in wisdom”; it is a U-shaped relationship between the frequency of major accidents and the crisis learning effect of local government. When the occurrence frequency of major accidents is low, the regulatory effect caused by major accidents leads to the effective crisis learning of local governments. However, when major accidents occur frequently and reach a certain threshold, the crisis learning effect will deteriorate due to an excessive deterrent effect. In this non-linear relationship, the impact of political pressure occurs on two fronts, a gentle U-shaped curve and a shift in the inflection point to the left, implying that political pressure plays a dual role in the crisis learning process of local government. Accordingly, local governments should fully seize the window of time to initiate crisis learning with regulatory effects and delegate political authority to supervise local crisis learning with reasonable compliance.

Housing affordability and commute distance

ABSTRACT The growing affordable housing crisis in high-cost metropolitan areas may force households to seek lower cost housing in the outer reaches of metropolitan areas contributing to the recent increase in commute distance. To explore this assertion, we test the relationship between the availability of affordable housing relative to jobs and commute distance in two diverse metropolitan statistical areas in Southern California: Los Angeles-Orange (higher cost, coastal, older, more urban) and Riverside-San Bernardino (lower cost, inland, newer, more suburban). A worse “fit” between the number of low-wage jobs and affordable housing rentals is associated with longer commute distances in LA-Orange, but is not statistically significant in Riverside-San Bernardino. This study’s findings highlight the differences in housing dynamics and commute distances between higher cost coastal regions and lower cost inland regions—and underscore the importance of protecting and expanding the supply of affordable housing in job-rich neighborhoods located in more expensive, coastal cities.

Determinants of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs); Evidence from Banking Sector of Pakistan

The main aim of the current study is to theorize an inclusive assessment of the factors of non-performing loans from banking sector in the setting of Pakistan. In this connection, adequate criticism of contemporary literature is being provided in context of relevant macroeconomic indicators which might aggravate the level of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) in the conventional commercial banks of Pakistan as well as other regions. As per the study of literature, it has been found that corruption, political stability, accountability, investment profile, credit bank to private area and energy crisis affects the NPLs of conventional banks. In addition, factors like lending interest rate, unemployment, GDP and inflation do explain the variation in NPLs of the banking sector. Political stability, lack of capital capability, lack of efficiency, nominal emphasis on NPLs and lack of efficiency are the present issues being faced by the country. On the other hand, an increase in NPLs affects the internal factors including efficiency, profitability, bank size and capital. It has also been found that NPLs surge through inaccurate decisions by the organizations and political intervention in the banking sector. As per the outcomes of the studies, it has been observed that operational productivity and effectiveness have an adverse and significant relationship with NPLs. The lawmakers should accomplish a vigorous financial state of banks through manufacturing extra revenues. In this way banks will be in a better position to explore the credit worthiness of the creditors which will be ultimately helpful for better loan management. Once the key factors for increase in NPLs are determined, the banks will establish stable and efficient policies for loan management. The purpose behind determining these internal as well as external factors is not mere to highlight their significance but to chalk out measures and directions to control the stability of banking sector and the financial structure.

Global health and its role

Global health and its role

Economic Transformations and Environmental Crises in Lombardy's Extractive Areas: The Case of Wood (Late Eighteenth to Mid-Nineteenth Centuries)

Abstract The article explores the transformations that occurred in Lombardy's extractive peripheries, which supplied wood for trade and manufacturing purposes, from the last decades of the eighteenth century to the Italian national unification. In this period, the management of Lombardy's woodland heritage emerged as an issue of strategic concern, with economic, social and environmental consequences. The aim of this contribution is to outline the causes and effects of the increasing demand for wood in ancien régime Lombardy, focusing on the role played by this resource in influencing the relations between the political, urban and economic centres of the region and the extractive peripheries supplying the raw material.

Arms Exports: The Normality of a Scandalous Subject: A Comment

Arms Exports: The Normality of a Scandalous SubjectA Comment Michael Geyer (bio) On February 19, 2022, just a few days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a German opinion poll found that 63 percent of respondents opposed sending weapons into "war and crisis areas," against 34 percent who thought this might be justified in some cases. A mere 3 percent did not know.1 The surprisingly high level of certainty in matters of arms transfers suggests deep-rooted convictions. A similar poll some five years earlier counted a whopping 83 percent who said they were opposed.2 These polls must be taken with a grain of salt, but they do confirm the overall sense, reinforced by still more polls, that Germans want their foreign relations to be peaceful, or, as one op-ed remarked, "want to do good in the world, but preferably the soft way."3 When on Sunday, February 27, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced in a policy statement to the Bundestag the rearmament of the Bundeswehr and direct, if still tightly circumscribed, arms exports to Ukraine in light of the Russian invasion on February 24, this was an epochal change—in the first place because it met with the overwhelming approval of the German public.4 Much will be written about this policy statement and what may come of it. Skeptics were quick to point out that nothing much or not enough came of it in the immediate aftermath, while critics feared that too much was happening already.5 Their call for prudence (Besonnenheit) instantly produced a media storm of indignation.6 Retrospectively, on the question of arms exports, the more tantalizing and, for a historian, more answerable question runs as follows: How did Germany emerge as one of the world's top arms exporters—reaching an all-time high in 2021—even though German opinion roundly rejected such exports on principle?7 This contrast need not be understood as contradictory, but the simultaneity of a high level of arms exports and widespread skepticism about them requires explanation. The argument here is that in order to find an answer to this apparent paradox we must examine the arms (export) control policy and [End Page 241] the politics of the social-liberal coalition governments of Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt in the long 1970s, a model that is unraveling before our very eyes in 2021/22 at the hands of another socialdemocratic-liberal-green coalition under Chancellor Scholz. Implicit in this argument is a historical-temporal proposition. I will take the half century between the 1970s and 2020s as a single unit of analysis,8 viewed as a fifty-year European interregnum. As an effect of détente, Germany and Europe in those years began to move beyond the Yalta/Potsdam truce in Europe that facilitated a tense, conflictual and highly militarized, but experientially "miraculous" postwar reconstruction. Typically, this period is associated with the uncertainties of rapid globalization (1970s–2008) on the one hand and the end of the Cold War in Europe in 1989/1991 on the other hand, with the 1989/1991 caesura as the main turning point. But I agree with those who mark 1979 as a watershed year, and while this may have appeared as a mere periodization game, the events in 2022, foreshadowed in developments since 2008, suggest otherwise.9 This framing might appear as somewhat of an overreach for a comment on a set of papers about German and Austrian arms exports and their control, but not if we consider that one, if not the key feature of the 1970s–2020s interregnum was the making and unmaking of a Europe-wide arms control and disarmament regime that reduced force levels in Europe—notwithstanding the continuing presence of tactical nuclear weapons—to an all-time low, at least by twentieth-century standards.10 Arms export controls are an altogether minor, though not negligible, aspect of this overall regime of arms control. They can serve as a point of entry into the European arms control and disarmament regime that defined the era. This approach may even make sense of the initial puzzle of Germany and Austria "after the boom" with their simultaneous arms (export...

Risk of Global Economic Crisis in 2022 and the Mechanism of Transmission of Economic Shocks between the Main Areas of the Global Economy

Goal – the aim of the study is to analyze the main economic areas of the global economy in terms of the possibility of transferring the crisis in relation to the current global economic situation. Research methodology – the analysis conducted was based on literature research; the empirical analysis used causation in the Granger sense and Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient. Score/results – The existence of the so–called “locomotive effect” was observed for a group of countries: USA–CSSA, CSSA–USA, EA–LA, EA–CSSA, LA–EA, CSSA–EA, MECA–LA, MECA–CSSA, LA–MECA, CSSA–MECA, EDA–CSSA, CSSA–EDA, LA–CSSA, CSSA–LA, meaning a positive domestic shock transmitted to the economic partner, among the countries studied, the analysis is carried out based on annual data of GDP values as a measure of economic activity. CSSA remains the safest economic area and also the most neutral in view of the current global economic and political situation. In the WPE, there is a maximum [full] correlation of 1 for: EDA–USA, MECA–EA, EDA–EA, MECA–EDA and EDA–MECA. These are currently the most dangerous and crisis–prone areas, with potential for transferring crises between them. It is facilitated by territorial cohesion and the geopolitical situation between countries in these economic regions. Relatively high correlations can also be observed in these areas between the analyzed factors: IMP, IMG, IDCF and PC. The risk of transferring a crisis resulting from war between the areas mentioned is the highest here. Other correlations in terms of: USA–EA, USA–LA, EA–USA, LA–USA, LA–EDA, EDA–LA remain at weak or average levels. This is influenced by geographic distance and the lack of strong economic and political ties. Originality/value – the originality of the study results from the topic undertaken. Identification of potential crisis areas and channels of crisis transmission in the current global geopolitical situation constitutes an added value.

A GIS-Based Risk Assessment Approach for Evaluating Shelters in Crisis Areas: Case of Idleb/Syria

Millions of people escaped the country, and numerous individuals were displaced since the crisis in Syria started on March 15, 2011. Particularly, internally displaced persons confront troubles in the sense of shelter and housing requirements. The aim of this paper is to propose a new approach for risk assessment in selecting shelters at humanitarian context in crisis areas by employing real data from the region. We included conducting risk assessment in crisis areas, identifying the risks/criteria using the Delphi technique, prioritizing risks using Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (IT2F-AHP), and finally selecting the shelters with lower risk values. For this purpose, we created risk maps for each individual risk/criterion by employing the Geographic Information System (GIS) and merged the risks’ maps into a single final risk map by overlaying them utilizing the weights produced from F-AHP to discover the complete risk value for each area in the study region. Lastly, we extracted and ranked the final risk values for the shelters to enable the decision maker to consider the lower-risk value shelters, as it can aid in expediting and facilitating the housing solutions at times of disasters and crisis.

Natural reduction of Ukraine’s population: Regional dimensions of the national threat

A significant decline in Ukraine’s population is mainly due to its natural decrease, which began in the 1970s and 1980s in the rural areas and had been determined by the objective trends in demographic transition, the inertia effect of the demographic losses in the past and the social policy of the political regime at that time. Likewise, the social and economic crisis of the 1990s deepened the depopulation processes. In the present research, correlation analysis demonstrated a relationship between the current dimensions of natural population decline and a number of socio-demographic factors (proportion of the rural population, mean age of the population, divorce rate and the mean age at first marriage). In recent years, the effects of the demographic crisis have been particularly acute in North-eastern and Central Ukraine, due to the deepening disproportions in the age and sex structures of the population. However, in the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, and in some western regions, the natural decrease in population is less acute because of more balanced social and demographic indicators. Although religious and ethnic factors contribute to some extent to greater natural population growth, especially in the western and south-western regions, their impact on the processes of population reproduction in Ukraine is generally not significant. To sum up, in order to stop natural population decline in Ukraine, it is important to ensure more favourable conditions for demographic development in the economic, social, informational and cultural spheres of society. Furthermore, in areas of acute demographic crisis, it is important to raise the issue of rural reconstruction involving a variety of organisational and economic mechanisms.

Environmental Justice and its geographical aspects in Hungary

In recent decades, environmental justice has become a defining concept in socio-spatial inequality research, political debates, and activism. Environmental justice research, which is essentially based on theories of social and spatial justice and providesa normative framework for thinking, focuses on the unequal distribution of environmental harms and risks and their social consequences. Environmental justice research aims to explore the economic, social, health, and legal differences that individuals and groups face in their environment as a result of environmental processes, decision making, power relations, and law enforcement practices. This is largely related to the subjective perception of individuals and the perception of injustices by different actors. In the vast majority of environmental justice studies, spatiality provides a framework for interpreting and understanding environmentally unjust situations and processes. Environmental justice is therefore not only a natural, but also a socially dependent phenomenon, in which the key element is nevertheless the non-human factor (e.g. environmental events such as floods), which affects individuals and groups indifferent ways. As a result, an environmentally unjust state and situation may occur. The evolved injustices also interact with inherited spatial inequalities, existing socioeconomic systems, and the institutional structures that originally shape them. This paper summarizes the theoretical framework of environmental justice in geography and spatial sciences. The study adapts the theory of justice to post-socialist and Hungarian specificities and forms of environmental injustice, and examines decision-making processes and the perception of risks. In Hungary social problems and differences have been increasing in recent decades, and marginalisation and polarisation processes have added new spatial patterns to existing inequalities, directly and indirectly affecting environmental processes as well. Attempts at eliminating environmental injustices have resulted in new injustices, or deepened existing ones, due to the lack of a complex socio-environmental spatial approach of interventions. The solution to these injustices presupposes the effective and meaningful involvement of the affected people in policy-making and implementation processes, regardless of gender, age, origin, identity, or income. Otherwise, the unjust situation will persist and crisis areas affected by environmental injustices may develop.

Rural youth attitudes towards immigrants

The aim of this study is to research the attitudes towards immigrants among rural Finnish second grade students. The study was carried out in Southern Ostrobothnia region which is strongly countryside and where the number of immigrants is the lowest in Finland. Also, the level of education in the region is the lowest in Finland. During the next decades, immigrants will be an important source of labour, since the population in Finland is getting older - faster than in any other European country. The data (n=275) was collected from colleges and upper secondary schools. The analysis showed that gender, parents level of education and the multicultural connections had an effect on persons attitudes towards immigrants. Youths´ attitudes also varied towards different immigration groups and nationalities. Attitudes towards the immigration of children and labour for example, were more positive than attitudes towards unemployed migrants and refugees. In terms of nationalities, Western immigrants were more positively welcomed than immigrants from war zones and those from the crisis areas. Answers to the open-ended question in the end of the questionnaire showed that the attitudes towards immigration were particularly concerned with refugees and the policy of immigration. Open answers included both racist and negative statements as well as statements to helping refugees. The results of this study may be of use when the new refugee policies are implemented in near future. The increase in immigrant labour requires respect, cooperation and cultural tolerance. To stabilize the economy in Finland and to be able to work in the future, new, more tolerant attitudes are needed.

Уроки пандемии: методологические заметки

Pandemic COVID-19 affected the crisis in many areas of public life – in the economy, politics, family, consumer relations, and culture. It has become a challenge for social sciences, especially for sociology. If in other areas of social research, the meaningful gaps can still be compensated by speculations, the increase in sociological knowledge without empirical research is simply impossible. But in the face of restriction of full-time communications, the use of a number of methods and techniques is either completely impracticable or requires significant procedural correction. In addition, the need to correct the content of sociological representation of the total and local objects becomes obvious. The way, the society as a whole, its subsystems, institutes and cohorts, face the pandemic, requires reformulating the axiomatics, and hypothesis of sociological research. Within the frames of this article, the author focuses on several themes, which relevance is aggravated with shifts in social life caused by the pandemic. The first theoretical and methodological “lesson” is the need to rethink the paradigmatic ratio of illusion / objectivity of social law, since there is no secret that the objective contamination of the population is in close connection with the intensity of generating the spread of various prejudices in the public consciousness. The second “lesson” affects the disciplinary status of sociology of medicine, the significance of which in the regulation of social functioning has immeasurably increased. In this regard, the perception of people as a population is a kind of demand for the paradigm status in terms of the sociology of medicine. The third “lesson” is associated with the problem of the rationality of social behavior of a person, because the social design of the pandemic stroke seriously shakes confidence in the sanity of a man. The fourth “lesson” is an attempt to bring in methodological character into the suspicion of the scenario nature of the unfolding global pandemic. Any scenario has its own scriptwriter who has something to say about social laws in general and about the nature of human capital in particular.

A “new normal” as a “new essential”? COVID-19, digital transformations and employment structures

This paper explores the new policy challenges that have emerged as a result of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The “new normal” should acknowledge the “new essential” in terms of jobs and sectors. First, the paper examines the trade-off between health policies and anti-recessionary policies. It studies the economic impact of lockdown on households and firms and, relatedly, the slowdown in global value chain-related trade. It the examines lessons that can be learned from this crisis in areas that were topical before the outbreak and are likely to be even more so after it. These include the need to steer digital transformation so as to minimize negative impacts on jobs and sectors while reflecting critically on their “essentiality” and the need for concerted policy action to ensure good governance of health data.

Operational site selection for disaster management bases in Tehran, Iran

Natural disasters play a main role in human life. It should be taken into consideration that it is impossible to predict these disasters from happening, but preparation for a good response for these disasters can be a good solution to decrease post-damage casualties in the cities. Herein, Disaster Management Bases in terms of prevention, preparation and dealing with the crisis play a key role, especially in Tehran and in times of natural disasters. There is no doubt that a high level and efficient function of these bases has a striking correlation with the way they are located in both an urban and regional level in a way that in addition to providing security of the bases against disasters, based on the service area they could be able to provide good services for the areas of crisis. This paper tries to use Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques and spatial analysis method in order to assess the effectiveness of these bases. Based on assessments Disaster Management Bases have spontaneously distributed in Tehran and have located in inappropriate places. Thus using MCDM with GIS analysis, the best locations in case study area was proposed.&#x0D;

Overcoming Socio-Economic Problems in Crisis Areas through Revitalization of Cittaslow Towns. Evidence from North-East Poland

The revitalization of small towns is connected with an attempt to find multidirectional solutions to numerous social, economic and spatial problems. It is possible to remove degraded areas and areas with a high risk of social exclusion through coordinated and skillfully planned activities consisting of corrective interventions within these areas and, indirectly, in the whole structure of a small town. There are many studies on improving the quality of life of inhabitants at risk of exclusion in large cities. At the same time, there is a gap in the analyses of this phenomenon in small towns. In this article, we present the results of our observations on changes in the quality and living conditions of residents as a result of social projects implemented as part of the revitalization of marginalized areas in cities associated with the Cittaslow movement. The starting point is to identify the main socioeconomic problems and relate them to the effects of the revitalization activities carried out under the Supralocal Revitalization Program (SLRP). The study analyzed all projects that were a response to social problems in fourteen cities in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (Poland). It was based on a quantitative assessment of the selected socioeconomic indicators and a qualitative assessment based on interviews with local experts. The results of the research indicate a reduction in unemployment in all the cities covered by the study. On the other hand, the results of the expert interview show that it is not directly influenced by the implemented revitalization projects. According to experts, after revitalization, the crime rate decreased insignificantly and the educational and professional involvement of residents from marginalized areas is still low. The results may give rise to the creation of scenarios to deal with the socioeconomic problems of the analyzed examples and recommendations for the revitalization of other Cittaslow towns in the region as well as small towns in Europe and the world.