Purpose Companies certified under the Authorised Economic Operator Program (AEO) typically receive priority in customs control and access to additional trade facilitation when crossing borders. However, the cost-effectiveness of obtaining certification, such as AEO, remains unclear. Many companies do not participate because the benefits are neither clearly measured nor well defined. This research aims to examine the primary motivations driving companies to join the programme and evaluates operators’ perceptions of its effects. The research instrument was developed based on literature concerning ISO standards. Design/methodology/approach The methodology combined quantitative and qualitative methods, structured in four stages: (i) a survey of certified companies to identify internal and external motivations; (ii) interviews with experts during the AEO World Customs Organisation Conference; (iii) a seminar with representatives from the private sector, consultants and the Brazilian Customs administration; and (iv) a focus group involving the customs authority, consultants and representatives of certified companies. Findings The results indicate that motivations are linked to recognition as a secure operator, image enhancement, risk reduction and strengthening the culture of compliance. However, the perceptions reveal that not all expectations are met, especially regarding competitiveness, cost reduction and market share. Practical implications For companies, this study enhances understanding of the factors influencing AEO membership and may assist in evaluating the attractiveness of potential new members. For governments, the findings offer a strong justification for strengthening the programme. This research may affect society by providing a rationale for participation in the AEO programme. Originality/value The analysis, grounded in organisational isomorphism, shows that coercive, mimetic and normative institutional pressures shape motivations and perceptions. However, this study offers a new perspective on the interconnected concepts of the iron cage and institutional theory by providing a positive reinterpretation of the theoretical framework. AEO certification promotes organisational similarity, enhances supply chain predictability and demonstrates improvements in process efficiency.

Amid record-low confidence in parliaments, courts and media across consolidated and emerging democracies, citizens simultaneously elevate "honest leadership" above economic growth as a political priority. This paper examines the relationship between trust mechanisms and moral leadership in democratic societies. Drawing on Weber, Foucault, Machiavelli and Schmitt, this paper develops a dialectical framework that treats institutional trust and moral leadership as co-constitutive yet chronically tense: rationalised rules supply legitimacy and predictability, while ethical leadership animates and repairs trust when it falters. It argues that institutional trust and moral authority exist in a dialectical relationship of symbiosis and tension. While rationalized institutions provide legitimacy and boundaries for leadership, moral leadership activates and sustains institutional trust. However, this relationship is challenged by Weber's "iron cage," Foucault's "disciplinary power," Machiavelli's "realpolitik," and Schmitt's "friend-enemy distinction." The paper concludes that resilient democracy requires balancing institutional innovation (citizens' assemblies with veto power, time-sunset emergency clauses) with an ethic of responsibility that binds leaders and citizens to verifiable accountability and inclusive deliberation.

Purpose – This study examines the phenomena of rationalization and bureaucratization in the Indonesian education system, focusing on teachers’ administrative burdens and complaints related to educational digitalization. The study is grounded in the growing implementation of efficiency-oriented, technology-driven education policies that aim to simplify bureaucracy but are often perceived by teachers as increasing administrative burdens. Methodology – A qualitative research design with a document analysis approach was employed. Data were collected from online media reports published by KOMPAS and Kompas.id using purposive sampling to select articles addressing teachers’ administrative workloads, bureaucratic simplification, digital education applications, and policy responses. Data were analyzed using thematic content analysis, including data reduction, categorization, and thematic interpretation, guided by Max Weber’s concept of the iron cage of bureaucracy. Findings – Policies emphasizing efficiency, accountability, and administrative modernization paradoxically expanded teachers’ administrative workloads. Digitalization has generated new forms of bureaucracy that demand continuous adaptation, increase work pressure, and shift teachers’ focus from pedagogical practices to documentation and reporting tasks. Consequently, teachers’ professional autonomy is diminished, revealing a misalignment between policy objectives and teachers’ lived experiences. Novelty – This study contributes original insights by combining media discourse analysis with Weberian bureaucratic theory to reveal the unintended consequences of digitalization on teacher professionalism and identity. Significance – The study has significant implications for policymakers, school administrators, and education researchers by highlighting the need to reorient policy to prioritize pedagogical quality and teacher autonomy.

This commentary argues that bureaucratic time theft is a form of postcolonial governance that extracts citizens’ time, energy, and dignity through redundant administrative procedures rooted in colonial mistrust. Using higher education as a key site, it shows how such systems sustain structural inequality and proposes pathways to escape this “iron cage” through trust-based and transparent institutional reform.

The present study evaluated the impact of different stocking densities (SD 10, SD 20, and SD 30 fish m −3 ) on the growth, survival, physiological responses, and economic returns in Amur carp ( Cyprinus carpio haematopterus ) reared in cages for 180 days. The juveniles of Amur carp (12.27 ± 0.31 cm; 35.6 ± 3.16 g) were stocked in galvanised iron cages in triplicate and fed with a floating pellet diet (28% CP, 4% CF) at a gradually reduced rate, from 5 to 3% of body weight per day during the culture period. Growth attributes, including final weight, weight gain, specific growth rate, and feed utilisation indices, declined significantly ( p < 0.05) with increasing stocking density. The survival rate was noticed to be lower at higher densities. Although biomass was higher at SD 30, physiological and biochemical analyses indicated crowding stress, with increased levels of serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT), serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT), glucose, cortisol, and antioxidant enzymes. Conversely, serum proteins, lipids, thyroid hormones, and immune markers were decreased with density. Poor digestive enzyme activities in terms of amylase and protease were noticed at higher densities, resulting in lower muscle protein content at SD 30. Haematological parameters like red blood cells (RBC), haemoglobin, haematocrit, and platelets increased with density, whilst white blood cells (WBC) remained unchanged. Water quality parameters remained within optimal ranges with minimal variation between inside and outside the cages. The calculated benefit–cost ratio was highest at SD 10 (1.38). Correlation analysis and Integrated Biomarker Response (IBR) indices confirmed density-induced stress, identifying 10 fish/m 3 as the optimal stocking density for Amur carp in tropical Indian reservoir cage culture. These findings support evidence-based management strategies that enhance fish welfare and farmer profitability whilst minimising ecological impacts, thereby promoting responsible aquaculture and advancing sustainable food production in line with global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

ABSTRACT The European Union recently approved and adopted a new regulation for artificial intelligence (AI) that represents a watershed approach. It is the first regulation valid for all Member States, also affecting providers of AI operating outside Europe but providing AI services/applications for the EU market. The regulation, to be adopted within 2 years by the Member States, outlines a new regulatory apparatus based on a risk management approach, with high‐level principles such as human centricity, and at the same time, very specific technical requirements to manage future risks. However, AI applications are malleable and evolving. Moreover, an original AI application can be taken and used to build another application, thereby continually expanding AI tools and reach. In this article, we focus on the challenges for the public sector, ostensibly the orchestrator of regulatory apparatus implementation proceeding at the time of this article. This article's specific focus is on risk management and the emergence of another malleable concept—trustworthiness. It offers insights and guidance for public sector researchers and policymakers, highlighting the distinctive characteristics of AI and the European AI Act and warning of the danger that the apparatus could become an iron cage of specific requirements that fail to contain AI, which can behave like water unconstrained by a regulatory iron cage.

The focus of my contribution is on George Ritzer's McDonaldization thesis, his analysis of the ways of working and processes introduced by McDonald's fast-food franchise and engagement with relevant aspects of the work of Max Weber on processes of rationalization. Critical consideration is given to the ‘iron cage’ metaphor and associated matters of translation, economic imperatives driving processes of McDonaldization, and associated environmental consequences.

This historical-philosophical and sociological investigation addresses the fundamental dialectical tension in the human existential condition: the search for individual realization (personal achievement) against the unavoidable confrontation with solitude, nihilism, and the absurd. The study posits that the construction of the sense of personal achievement emerges as a metaphysical and ethical response to the collapse of traditional teleologies, with a significance that transcends the mere attainment of utilitarian results. The analysis traces an arc beginning with the Greek areté as civic virtue and eudaimonia (Aristotle), moving through the transcendent teleology of St. Thomas Aquinas and the break towards the secular efficacy (virtù) of Machiavelli. The study delves into Modernity with the rational subjectivity of Descartes and Kant (moral duty and autonomy), the incessant drive (Streben) of Goethe, and the Nietzschean Will to Power, which reframes achievement as the self-creation of value in the face of the "death of God." The thesis examines the sociological critique that institutionalizes the void, from Weber's instrumental rationalization and the "iron cage" to Foucault's biopower discipline and Marcuse's one-dimensional man. As a counter-response, the existentialist current (Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus) transforms solitude and anguish into the necessary condition for authenticity and radical responsibility. Finally, achievement is articulated as the hermeneutical construction of the ethical narrative identity (Ricœur) within liquid modernity (Bauman), contrasting with the conscious dissolution into the Eastern Nothingness (Nishitani).The conclusion asserts that true realization lies in the conscious integration of finitude, transforming the existential void from an obstacle into a catalyst for inner growth and the fullest expression of an ethically self-legitimized existence.

ABSTRACT This paper responds to Adesina’s (2022) call for an African sociology that affirms African ontological positions for purposes of epistemological rupture. Its main aim is to challenge the epistemological blockages that delay the maturity of African sociology. Thus, we employ the philosophical contributions of Jonathan Chimakonam as a means for overcoming these blockages. Chimakonam’s views on the dual-triadic nature of reality to resolve the universality-particularity question are foregrounded. Furthermore, we employ Chimakonam’s view on the logic and cultural criterion of disciplines to support Adesina’s (2018) definition of African sociology. Lastly, we use Chimakonam’s eight principles of conversationalism to develop adjudicatory principles for compiling texts that may be considered African sociology to enable us to move outside the iron cage of canonicity. In conclusion, we show how the relationship between sociology and philosophy previously served as a basis for epistemological and methodological ruptures in Western sociology and argue for the same approach for African sociology.

Novel monoribbed-functionalized iron(II) cage complexes with optically active and/or terminal biorelevant group(s) were designed and prepared by two-step nucleophilic substitution of their mono- and dichloroclathrochelate precursors. The single-crystal XRD structures of all of them and those of known leader iron(II)-centered cage bioeffector and of its reactive monochloroclathrochelate precursor were solved. These experimental data were used for theoretical quantum chemical calculations of electrostatic potentials for their 3D-shaped molecules. This allowed to localize the peripheral (exterior) biorelevant group(s), which are responsible for supramolecular binding of thus designed clathrochelate guests to globular proteins as the hosts. Host-guest binding in aqueous solutions between the unfolded protein macromolecules and all the aforementioned iron(II) complexes was studied by the circular dichroism method. An inherent chirality of the metalloclathrochelates with optically active ribbed substituent and a metal-centered chirality of all the prepared macrobicyclic compounds, induced by their supramolecular clathrochelate-to-protein binding, were observed.

Children have the right to participate in public matters. While children’s participation has been widely studied in various fields, its realisation and conceptualisation in the specific context of law-making remains limited and under-examined. Law-making is typically shaped by bureaucratic procedures, which often result in the exclusion of children and young people. However, the growing emphasis on a ‘participatory turn’ suggests that citizens, including children, should be actively involved. This article explores the capabilities lawmakers need to enhance the participation of children in vulnerable positions in legislative processes. The study draws on interviews with 22 Finnish child welfare experts, analysed using thematic content analysis. The findings reveal that both external and internal capabilities are necessary for lawmakers to promote children’s participation. These capabilities include knowledge of children’s rights, practical know-how, and enabling structures. While bureaucracies have their strengths, lawmakers must break free from the ‘iron cages of bureaucracy’ and seek a better balance between bureaucratic processes and participatory practices to ensure the inclusion of children in vulnerable positions in law-making.

This study explores how Vietnamese civil servants address the complex paradoxes created by the “iron cage” of bureaucracy, particularly within the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment of modern public administration. Using in-depth qualitative interviews with 30 public officials from diverse regions and roles, this study uncovered a nuanced spectrum of adaptive strategies, including compliance, accommodation, collectivization, inertia, and distortion. By integrating classical and contemporary bureaucracy theories with real-world accounts, this study highlights how traditional hierarchical cultures and rigid procedures simultaneously support stability and impede effective adaptation. Comparative analysis of global and regional public sector reforms reveals both the unique and shared dilemmas faced by Vietnamese officials. The findings have significant implications for policy reforms, organizational change, and future research on state capacity, accountability, and innovation in developing countries. This paper argues that successful bureaucratic adaptation in a VUCA world requires balancing institutional orders with responsible discretion and fostering a culture of learning, resilience, and ethical public services.

This paper examines the structural similarities between jails, schools, and hospitals as instruments of state coercion, drawing on Goffman's analysis of total institutions [1], Szasz's critique of psychiatric power [2], and Foucault's genealogy of disciplinary mechanisms [3,4]. Through comparative institutional analysis, we demonstrate how these ostensibly distinct domains operate through parallel techniques of surveillance, normalization, and bodily control that systematically strip individuals of agency while producing docile subjects. Building on contemporary critical scholarship this analysis argues for the urgent need to develop alternative therapeutic spaces that transcend the coercive logic of institutional medicine. The paper concludes by outlining principles for transformative healing environments that honor human dignity, agency, and the integration of mind, body, and spirit.

The integration of Zero Trust Architecture and Microsegmentation represents a fundamental evolution in network security, particularly relevant to government organizations. This article examines how these complementary approaches create a robust defense framework that addresses the inherent weaknesses of traditional perimeter-based security models. Zero Trust's philosophical foundation of "never trust, always verify" combined with Microsegmentation's technical implementation of network isolation creates an "iron cage" defense model that significantly restricts lateral movement and enhances breach containment. The synergistic relationship between these approaches delivers enhanced security outcomes across multiple dimensions, including threat detection, incident response, and attack surface reduction. Despite implementation challenges—particularly in government contexts with legacy systems, budget constraints, and complex compliance requirements—strategic deployment approaches can yield substantial security improvements while maintaining operational effectiveness. This integrated framework provides government organizations with a proportional security model that aligns protection mechanisms with the sensitivity of the resources being secured. The transition from perimeter-focused defenses to this layered approach represents not merely a tactical shift but a strategic imperative for government entities seeking to protect critical data and infrastructure in an increasingly hostile threat landscape where traditional boundaries continue to dissolve and attack vectors multiply exponentially.

В статье предложено рассматривать цивилизацию как адаптацию к структурному перенаселению в условиях монокультурного хозяйства. Осмыслены результаты анкетирования заключенных одного из исправительных учреждений Иркутской области. Сделан вывод о высокой нуждаемости отбывших наказание в социальном обеспечении. Представлены соображения о связи депопуляции, социальной сферы и трансформации «железной клетки» Макса Вебера в цифровую форму. The article proposes to consider civilization as an adaptation to structural overpopulation in the conditions of a monocultural economy. The results of a survey of prisoners from one of the correctional institutions in the Irkutsk region are analyzed. The conclusion is made about the high need of those who have served their sentences for social security. Considerations are presented about the connection between depopulation, the social sphere and the transformation of Max Weber’s “Iron cage” into digital form.

The United States is undergoing a remarkable religious transformation: in just a few decades, the proportion of religious “nones” surged from 1 in 20 to more than 1 in 4. Through four waves of National Study of Youth and Religion surveys and in-depth interviews (2003–2013) linked with administrative data, this study follows a cohort of adolescents coming of age during the rapid rise of the “nones” and shifting social values, including growing support for same-sex marriage. When young people perceive religious institutions as stifling self-actualization, marginalizing sexual minorities, constraining women, or demonstrating hypocrisy, they experience conflict between their religious commitments and deeply held values related to concern for others and the sacredness of the individual. Many manage this conflict by disengaging from religious institutions while reimagining spirituality on their own terms. The findings reveal individuals breaking free from modernity’s iron cage of bureaucratization and rationalization, seeking self-actualization and a more authentic connection to others and to the sacred. The authors propose that these trends represent the individualization of American religion, a transformation that illuminates how personal quests for authenticity can fundamentally reshape the religious landscape.

Abstract This article uses the theoretical framework of “performative sovereignty” to analyze the role of sovereignty in the Palestinian Authority’s interactions with human rights treaty bodies and to the judicial decisions of the Palestine Supreme Constitutional Court. We argue that, in contrast to dominant views of sovereignty as a threshold, sovereignty is performed through a series of discrete (yet related) interactions and practices that—when accepted by their designated audience—result in rights and privileges being granted, accompanied by sovereign status. Analyzing both Palestinian communications with human rights treaty bodies and cases brought before the Palestinian Supreme Constitutional Court, we argue that the drive to perform sovereignty helps explain states’ actions in joining and reporting to human rights treaty bodies and the responses those actions have elicited. We also find that sovereignty operates as an iron cage—an almost ubiquitous framework—that structures (both constrains and enables) the possible actions of different actors in the field of human rights. The inquiry deepens our understanding of the development and operation of human rights and the role of statehood in shaping the global legal order.

Abstract The ‘iron cage’ of the (neo‐) liberal‐capitalist system prioritizes economic returns over climate protection. Formerly powerful nation‐states are subordinated to the rule of markets, whereas business elites have been freed from substantial responsibility for social and environmental concerns. While we agree in principle with the Point that a reassertion of state power may facilitate more decided climate action, our Counterpoint adopts a cultural institutionalist perspective that highlights the embeddedness of actors in a broader cultural order. From this perspective, actors enact scripts while often lacking substantive agency towards protecting the natural environment. Cultural change in meanings, myths, practices, and rituals is needed to remodel the currently dominant scripts and templates of modern, liberal‐capitalist ‘world society’, including the script of state actorhood. We suggest the notion of ‘quixotic institutional work’ as a way of envisioning and prefiguring alternative cultural templates when both the physical and the social reality start showing cracks due to the climate crisis. Quixotic institutional work follows the logic of appropriateness rather than consequential purposiveness, and thus constitutes a different, often overlooked and mocked, form of agency for systems change relevant in the light of powerful forces towards maintaining an unsustainable world order.

Purpose:The aim of the paper is to analyze the categories of responsibility, prudence and ecological imagination, their mutual relations and place in the debate on postgrowth.These concepts are analyzed in the context of the issue of departure of growth, contemporary environmental threats and the complex relationship between humans and nature.Methodology: The article uses a review of the literature on postgrowth and degrowth, in particular the publications of the French philosopher, economist and pioneer of the degrowth movement Serge Latouche, the British economist and sustainable development researcher Tim Jackson, and the philosopher and researcher of the rhetoric of the Anthropocene Ewa Biczyk.The literature was analyzed in terms of selected notions and the contexts in which they appear.Finding: In the era of climate threats and environmental challenges, creating alternative postcapitalist visions of the future is a key responsibility of contemporary humanities, social sciences, politics, and economics.The three interconnected themes analyzed in this articleresponsibility, prudence, and ecological imagination -play a key role in understanding of capitalism's harmful delusions and formulating practical solutions for the future.Currently, researchers and humanities scholars engaged in the postgrowth movement play a particularly important role in awakening ecological imagination, preparing the foundations for social change, and creating feasible utopias that take into account environmental costs and planetary constraints. Research Implications:The results suggest that the contemporary climate crisis is not only an ecological and economic crisis but above all a crisis of the social imagination, which is stuck in the irrational "iron cage" of growth.Practical Implications: The visions of a post-growth future by promoting an ecological imagination and an ecological economy, they can initiate a departure of the dominant economic model. Social Implications:The results can encourage a shift in thinking about economic growth, stimulate citizens' imaginations, sensitize them to environmental issues, and inspire education and policies aimed at building a degrowth society.Orginality/value: This article reconstructs the fundamental assumptions of the postgrowth project.It demonstrates that a different economic model based on the pillars of prosperity, sustainability, flow, and a symbiotic relationship between humans and nature, is possible.

Seven hundred sixty-four ticks of Argas persicus have been collected from 390 local chickens at four locations in Mosul city. Ticks have been determined by investigating their existence in different chicken cages. The raised distribution rates through the shelters in the wooden cage reached 61.9%, no presence of ticks appeared in the iron cage 0% as well as the total infestation rate with A. persicus in the shelter was 36.47%. The highest shelter infestation rate was from the eastern areas of the city 11.76%, although the lowest ratio was for those areas located in the west 6.47%. Moreover, the study showed statistical differences in frequency rates between summer 22.2% and autumn 10%. Tick frequency rates through July were elevated 33.4%, matching those for other summer and fall months 20.8, 29.7, 12.4, and 3.7%. A significant difference also could be seen in adult females’ numbers and rates among the disparate months 25.3, 31.6, 34.5, 6.3, and 2.3%. The same applies regarding the nymphs and larvae of A. persicus, with significant differences by month in which the study was conducted for ticks’ males; no noticeable differences have been shown among months of this work. Molecular analysis for 32 specimens of singular ticks was accustomed for extraction of DNA and restrained to PCR utilizing definite primers for exaggeration of sectional fragment of COX1, as well as 16SrRNA genes. All 32 isolates showed effective PCR results following gel electrophoresis with 240 bp and 606 bp product sizes.