Multilateral Relationship Research Articles

Türkiye Multilateral Relationship: The Case of East Africa, IGAD, and EAC

The 21st century geopolitical landscape has experienced a significant shift towards multidimensional cooperation and partnerships that transcend traditional borders. Türkiye, with its unique geographic position bridging Europe and Asia, has emerged as a prominent player in fostering diplomatic and economic relationships across continents. In recent years, Türkiye has particularly focused on East Africa, as well as its associations with regional bodies such as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the East African Community (EAC). This commentary examines the opportunities and challenges that characterize Türkiye’s interactions with these regions, evaluating the potential benefits and areas of friction in advancing these partnerships.

La práctica de los CEO experimentados: Líderes relacionales ante situaciones de crisis

Background: Most studies on leadership mainly focus on the role of the leader, seeking to understand the most appropriate style of behavior to lead, considering leadership a one-sided phenomenon. As a result, they end up neglecting some important roles among those led, such as, for example, the reciprocal relationship between leaders and followers and the influence of organizations in this relationship. Moving from the understanding of a traditional leadership to a Relational Leadership becomes, therefore, an important step towards understanding the phenomenon of leadership. Purpose: This article analyzes how highly successful and experienced CEOs who have been leading large corporations perceive the influence of Relational Leadership to overcome moments of organizational and personal crisis. Method: In the qualitative research, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 CEOs (9 men and 3 women, around 60 years old) that have been leaders of several corporations in Brazil and abroad for more than 30 years. Results: The results show that the CEOs perceived the strong and positive influence of relational leadership to successfully face economic, political and personal crisis. The CEOs practices are related to the Relational Leadership Theory: 1) multilateral relationship; 2) human social construction; 3) relationships based on trust; 4) collective dimension; 5) communication to foster better decisions. These practices were also identified as antidotes to the solitude of power inherent to the CEOs` position. Conclusions: Successful CEOs who have walked a long road leading corporations perceive the strong and positive influence of Relational Leadership to face crisis. So, the study has theoretical implications when it points out Relational Leadership as effective in crisis situations, since the literature relates crisis with transformational leadership in most cases.

중국과 주변 접경국 간 경제 관계를 통해 본 북·중 경제 관계 평가

This study poses the research question, “How would North Korea-China economic relations, which have traditionally been evaluated from a bilateral perspective, be different if they were evaluated from a multilateral standpoint with one of China’s bordering countries?”. Based on analysing of economic relations, including foreign trade between China and its 14 bordering countries and foreign direct investment in China’s 13 bordering countries, this study examines North Korea-China economic relations from a multilateral viewpoint. In conclusion, North Korea-China economic relations are seen to be based on the homogeneity of “socialism” and the strategic management of North Korea risks for China’s “core interests” and North Korea’s strategic interests of regime stability and economic development. Compared to the economic relations between China and its other bordering countries, the analysis does not reveal any differentiating factors that make the DPRK-China economic relationship a unique economic relationship based on the traditional bilateral relations of blood ties and nepotism. Rather, China has reaffirmed that it prioritizes its core interests in expanding economic ties with its bordering countries.
 Under President Xi Jinping’s third term, China’s internal and external projects, including the Belt and Road Initiative, a comprehensive version of the country’s open door policy, have gained more momentum under the umbrella of great nation building. Economic relations between China and its neighboring countries have entered the “do-or-die” phase. However, North Korea-China economic relations are still at the stage of dawangyanghui (韜光養晦) and are likely to continue their quiet cooperation for the future. China’s embracing of North Korea, despite the current international political and the economic situation can be interpreted as a management decision to minimize risks to its core interests based on socialist homogeneity.
 In response to the changing international political and economic environment, China has moved away from the traditional blood brotherhood and hammer-and-sickle relationship with North Korea to develop a new, forward-looking relationship with the DPRK that is in line with the current international order. Therefore, it is necessary to objectively and comprehensively evaluate the economic relationship between North Korea and China from the perspective of a multilateral relationship as one of the bordering countries facing China, rather than the traditional, unique relationship.

Freedom and Desire: A Quest for Spiritual Journey in James Joyce’s Novel Ulysses/A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This study, Freedom, and Desire: A quest for a spiritual journey in the novel by James Joyce, describes the journey of the main character of the story from his adolescence to the best way of conceptualizing the dynamic, multilateral relationship between individual experience and socio-cultural scope, since it recognizes the causal significance of culture but also recognizes individual choice and changes. The researcher examines the true desire which enables him to embrace his creative spirits “the actual experiences” which also symbolize freedom. This claim is formed by contemplating how many historical shifts in the socio-cultural context, i.e. the increase in freedom of choice, the shift in interpersonal patterns, the loss of traditional values, the loss of religious understanding, and the increasing conflict between the desire for individuality and the complexity of achieving it, have led to changes in the essence of true intentions and modern personhood. For this research, a qualitative method is adopted in the framework of Locke on Freedom (2015). It also points out and aims at the need to establish a new perspective on the provision of spiritual treatment in the field of freedom and desire, which focuses on improving the particular spiritual journey of the person, rather than simply reassuring spiritual distress. A man should not have to restrict himself to limited ideas, for this one has to go beyond limitation to change his mind which is the ultimate reality of advancement in life.

Types of legal relationship arising on the blockchain platform

The article is devoted to the justification proposed by the author of the system of legal relations arising between various participants in applications operating on the blockchain platform. There are three types of legal relations on the blockchain platform: firstly, legal relations between the platform participants regarding the protocol; secondly, legal relations between the platform participant — the owner of the token, and all other third parties; thirdly, this is the legal relationship between two or more participants of the platform regarding various virtual objects of civil law. The first type of legal relationship is organizational in nature. Between all users of this platform, a multilateral legal relationship of an organizational type arises based on a multilateral agreement. In accordance with this agreement, participants in the blockchain platform mutually recognize the protocol used on the platform as a regulator of relations between them. The second group of legal relations between the “owner” of the token and all third parties. These relationships are absolute relationships. By absolute digital rights it is permissible to understand only those civil rights that are certified in cyberspace, including through blockchain technology, but only in relation to digital property that can exist only in cyberspace. The third group of legal relations is the result of the conclusion by the platform participants of an appropriate civil contract of any type. These legal relations are relative obligatory legal relations.

Signals and Metrics Identifying Partnerships for Innovation

The global science and technology landscape is rapidly changing. In an environment where collaboration is necessary for scientific and technological innovation, it is nonetheless challenging to identify and establish relationships between international partners, especially in emerging technological fields where no country has yet demonstrated a clear advantage. This article describes a model to facilitate a quantitative assessment and ranking of national innovation potential based on the integration of established measures (e.g., patents and peer-reviewed publication counts) as well as nonobvious or subjective measures (e.g., national attitudes toward particular veins of research) to predict future performance. Such an assessment can provide a helpful step toward improving projections of scientific performance, particularly for those countries with a relatively limited footprint in the scientific landscape. Modeling can help identify and engage newcomers early in the innovation process to maximize benefits from a potential bilateral or multilateral relationship.

Regulating Undercover Policing: Subjects, Rights and Governmentality

One of Foucault’s many unfinished projects was an analysis of the links between law, power and subjectivity. This article aims to make a contribution to Foucauldian jurisprudence by asking the question: in what ways does law construct identity? Using the regulation of undercover police investigation as an example, this article considers the intersection between three core rationalities within legal systems—rights, derogation and authorization—as critical moments in the governance of human beings, mobilized through legal architectures. Here, we find identities constructed, tested and applied in a multilateral relationship as intended and unintended consequences of the technologies of law. In this space, we not only see the mechanisms of law operating for the purpose of mobilizing power relations, but we also observe the myriad ways in which the architecture of law promoting rights operates as a system of governance that reveals rights claims as hollow, impeachable and ephemeral. The article concludes by considering rights, derogation and authorization as key components of Foucauldian jurisprudence—a distinct governmentality, where law articulates what rights are available and their associated mechanics, the mechanisms of adjudication and exception, and the formal modes of counter-conduct.

Hypergraph Spectral Clustering for Point Cloud Segmentation

Hypergraph spectral analysis has emerged as an effective tool processing complex data structures in data analysis. The surface of a three-dimensional (3D) point cloud, and the multilateral relationship among their points can be naturally captured by the high-dimensional hyperedges. This work investigates the power of hypergraph spectral analysis in unsupervised segmentation of 3D point clouds. We estimate, and order the hypergraph spectrum from observed point cloud coordinates. By trimming the redundancy from the estimated hypergraph spectral space based on spectral component strengths, we develop a clustering-based segmentation method. We apply the proposed method to various point clouds, and analyze their respective spectral properties. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed segmentation method.

The Impact of Immigration on Firm-Level Offshoring

This paper studies the relationship between immigration and offshoring by examining whether an influx of foreign workers reduces the need for firms to relocate jobs abroad. Using a Danish natural experiment and their employer-employee matched data set covering the universe of workers and firms (1995–2011), our findings show that an exogenous influx of immigrants into a municipality reduces firm-level offshoring at both the extensive and intensive margins. While the multilateral relationship is negative, a subsequent bilateral analysis shows that immigrants have connections in their country of origin that increase the likelihood that firms offshore to that particular foreign country.

From Collective Consent to Consultation Platform: An Experience of Indigenous Research Ethics in Makota’ay

In 2015, six organisations, including the Makota’ay Community Development Association, Hualien Tribal College (HTC), and the project team of Dynamics of Eastern Taiwan in the New Century at National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) co-signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at Makota’ay, a Pangcah2 tribal community on the east coast of Taiwan. The MoU establishes a community-focused interactive paradigm that aims towards collaboration in the promotion of indigenous education. By agreeing upon the MoU, the parties become partners in research. This moved research away from conventional paradigm where Indigenous peoples are subjects, and put Makota’ay’s input and aspirations towards constructing local knowledge at the centre of the multilateral relationship. One of the purposes of the MoU is to enact Article 21 of The Indigenous Peoples Basic Law, which mandates that research involving indigenous peoples should obtain the consent of the individual, and collective consent of the indigenous community.

The multilateral relationship between oil and G10 currencies

The relationship between oil and currencies is expected to be multilateral in nature. However, the use of the US dollar price of oil to measure this relationship can suffer from aggregation bias, which is caused by the well-known numéraire effect: the quotation of oil in US dollars. In this paper, we remove the numéraire effect from the US dollar price of oil by creating a global (multilateral) price of oil, which is quoted relative to multiple currencies. This allows us to estimate an unbiased multilateral relationship between oil and G10 currencies. We find that the global price of oil moves multilaterally with a group of “oil” currencies: the Norwegian krone, the Australian dollar, the Canadian dollar and the British pound. In contrast, the Japanese Yen and the Swiss Franc move multilaterally against the group of oil currencies and not against the global price of oil.

South Africans xenophobic attack on Nigerians: Should Nigeria’s Afrocentric foreign policy continue?

Diplomatic relationship is built on mutual understanding with accruing mutual benefits. No nation goes into bilateral or multilateral relationship without thinking of its national interest first. In contradistinction to the above, Nigeria appeared to be championing the course of Africa without corresponding benefit to her national interest. From independence to 2015 when South Africans intensified their xenophobic attacks on Nigerians, Nigeria had expended enormous amount of her national wealth on various countries in Africa. It is on record that Nigeria spent Sixty-One Billion US Dollars in fighting apartheid in South Africa. She has been in the fore front in peace keeping operations in Africa with devastating effect on her human and material resources. Yet she is not recognized by African countries that benefited from her magnanimity and therefore challenged her interest at regional and international levels. The topical issue is the South Africans xenophobic attacks on African immigrants with Nigerians mostly affected. This paper using print and electronic materials examined the South Africans xenophobic attack on Nigerians and concluded that Nigeria should rather develop her domestic economy than making Father Christmas to African countries without reciprocal returns. Keywords: Africa, Brotherhood, Xenophobic Attack, Nigerian Foreign Policy

Large group size promotes the evolution of cooperation in the mutual-aid game

Our society is based on group cooperation, but this remains an unsolved problem from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology and the social sciences. Group cooperation is often studied through the public goods game, and it has been shown that large group size never promotes the evolution of cooperation. We consider the mutual-aid game, in which one member of the group is chosen randomly as the aid recipient, and other members decide whether to help the recipient. This game can describe the early stage of insurance provision in England, for example. With reference to existing indirect reciprocity studies, we investigate what promotes the evolution of cooperation in the mutual-aid game by means of replicator equations and agent-based simulations.Our key findings are as follows. In a multilateral relationship in which members play the mutual-aid game in a group whose size is greater than two, once two or more defectors are in bad standing, they remain bad under the rule that a donor's bad reputation remains bad, whether or not the donor helps a recipient with a bad reputation. Then, cooperators never help them, and mutation helps the invasion of rare cooperators more when the group size is larger in the finite population, even when implementation and perception errors occur. Meanwhile, this rule never helps the invasion in the bilateral relationship in which the group size is two. Our results suggest that large group cooperation can be sustainable if social institutions are equipped with systems such as those in the mutual-aid game.

The Impact of Immigration on Firm-Level Offshoring

This paper studies the relationship between immigration and offshoring by examining whether an influx of foreign workers reduces the need for firms to relocate jobs abroad. We exploit a Danish quasi-natural experiment in which immigrants were randomly allocated to municipalities using a refugee dispersal policy and we use the Danish employer-employee matched data set covering the universe of workers and firms over the period 1995-2011. Our findings show that an exogenous influx of immigrants into a municipality reduces firm-level offshoring at both the extensive and intensive margins. The fact that immigration and offshoring are substitutes has important policy implications, since restrictions on one may encourage the other. While the multilateral relationship is negative, a subsequent bilateral analysis shows that immigrants have connections in their country of origin that increase the likelihood that firms offshore to that particular foreign country.

El Diamante de Porter en los convenios bilaterales: Colombia

<p>El éxito internacional de una industria, según el Diamante de Porter, está en función de la dotación de los factores de producción, de las condiciones de la demanda nacional, de las industrias conexas y del apoyo y rivalidad nacional. Al observar el mundo real diríamos que Colombia debería exportar los productos de aquellas industrias competitivas, por tener desarrollados los atributos de la teoría de Porter, e importar las mercancías donde los atributos no son favorables.</p><p> </p><p>Los convenios bilaterales o multilaterales modifican las preferencias arancelarias y nos recuerdan que el beneficio arancelario es en ambos sentidos, tanto para exportaciones como importaciones. La pro- ducción nacional perderá la protección y</p><p> </p><p>la competencia se manifestará en los precios; los productores nacionales deberán <em>diferenciar </em>la pro- ducción del resto de países del mundo con la aplicación de los fundamentos de la teoría de Porter.</p><p> </p>En la relación económica bilateral y multilateral de Colombia, los productores deben desarrollar la creatividad comercial en función de la oferta nacional y la demanda mundial con estrategias que permitan <em>singularizar </em>los productos colombianos frente a los de América Latina a pesar de ser los mismos.

Perceptions of Rice Farmers towards Production Constraints: Case Study of Niger State of Nigeria and Hainan of China

Rice yield is still low in Nigeria despite the ecological advantages. Several challenges has been traced it production. The study intend to investigate if other rice producing nations are faced with similar challenges and at what magnitude and more importantly, what can be learn to improve the rice yield in Nigeria. Based on 2013/2014 survey, a total sample of 400 famers were randomly interviewed; 164 from Niger State of Nigeria and 236 from Hainan province of China. The study collate the perception of farmers to rice production constraints categorized into biotic, abiotic and socioeconomics. Biplot analysis was employed to examine multivariate pattern of their perceptions towards production constraints. The multivariate technique simultaneously displaying different yield levels and factor constraints in data matrix providing the inter-unit distances, variance and correlations of variables. According to the study, Niger state farmers identified socioeconomic constraint as the major factors to production and attributed it to lack of or insufficient investment while the Hainan farmers majorly identified abiotic constraints. The study also indicated that great potential remain to further improve rice yield in both regions especially in Nigeria given the appropriate investment on essential inputs. This study is of great use to extension officers more so, given the investment in Africa, policy makers take advantage of the bilateral and multilateral relationship to invest ease transfer of agricultural information and technologies between or among partners.

Alcohol drinking behaviors and alcohol management policies under outsourcing work conditions: A qualitative study of construction workers in Taiwan

BackgroundWorkplace alcohol policies are crucial for workers’ health and safety. The practice of outsourcing is gaining popularity around the world and was found to be associated with poorer health in the working population. This study aimed to examine how outsourcing complicates the implementation of workplace alcohol policies and affects workers’ drinking behaviors. MethodsIn-depth interviews were conducted with 16 outsource workers, 3 subcontractors and 3 worksite supervisors. Information regarding workers’ drinking behaviors, their knowledge, and attitudes toward workplace alcohol policy were analyzed using a qualitative thematic analysis. ResultsFactors associated with poor workplace alcohol management included smaller size and private ownership of outsourcers, subcontractors’ own drinking behavior and positive attitude to alcohol, and precarious employment conditions of outsourcing workers. The multilateral relationship between outsourcers, subcontractors, and workers complicated and impaired the implementation of workplace alcohol policies. ConclusionThe implementation of workplace alcohol management policies was hampered in outsourcing work conditions due to poor coordination of supervisors in the subcontract chain. The enforcement of alcohol policies in the workplace should be strengthened by consolidating management responsibilities of outsourcers and subcontractors.

Flexible Housing: The Role of Spatial Organization in Achieving Functional Efficiency

According to inhabitants’ dimensions and various aspects of human life, flexible spaces are used as a solution in social housing due to the lack of space that architects always confront. In fact, flexible housing responds to inhabitants’ needs throughout time. In other words, it evolves from the change in residents’ requirements and promises adaptability to their living conditions. This spatial adaptability replaces spatial hierarchy and enhances life quality. The main purpose of spatial organization is to plan an interior space in order to create functional efficiency in a dwelling layout. This study attempts to research less-focused concepts so as to establish guidelines for future flexible housing design. Encompassing two case studies regarding Dutch housing, this study aims to understand how interrelated space planning enhances spatial arrangements to achieve an efficient spatial configuration. Spatial organization is delved with in depth to understand how functional efficiency can be achieved in flexible housing. Finally, interrelated spatial organization is believed to contribute to placing spaces according to their function by creating a multilateral relationship that responds to the inhabitants’ ever-changing needs.

Measuring international trade-related technology spillover: a composite approach of network analysis and information theory

The study of international technology spillover focuses on bilateral relationship between host country and home country, and the study of transnational technology network focuses on the position and power of individual country in a network. Introducing the network model and information theory into the research framework, we propose a new measure of international technology spillover in this present article, in which the bilateral relationship was transformed to multilateral relationship between countries, and network features at the whole network level were investigated instead of at the individual level. By using data from CHELEM-International Trade Database, we measure three transnational spillover networks in the high-tech field from 1979 to 2009, and analyze the results of various technology networks at different time points.

Books Received

Books Received Blair P. Turner General America’s Army: A Model for Interagency Effectiveness. By Zeb B. Bradford, Jr. and Frederic J. Brown. Westport, Conn.: Praeger International Security, 2008. ISBN 978-0-313-35024-5. Figures. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xiv, 250. $49.95. This team produced The U.S. Army in Transition in 1973; in this book, they argue that the new army—improved since their last volume—can serve as a model for all kinds of government security programs, not just military ones. Combat: A Neglected Area of Military History. An Investigation into Eye-Witness Reports from the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) and the First World War (1914–18). By Stefan Felleckner. Translated by John Murdoch. Berlin, Germany: Pro Business, 2006. ISBN 978-3-939000-87-6. Battle plans. Notes. Pp. 140. Paper. €15.95. The title of this brief work is misleading; what the authors seek to do is narrate “what actually took place in the fighting” without reference to any further context or analysis. Hell Hath No Fury: True Stories of Women at War from Antiquity to Iraq. By Rosalind Miles and Robin Cross. New York: Crown Publishing, 2008. ISBN 978-0-307-34637-7. Index. Pp. xx, 395. Paper. $14.95. The authors offer an ecelectic collection of sketches of hellions mythical and real: from Amazons to Molly Pitcher to Mata Hari to Tammy Duckworth. Mathematics and War. Edited by Marnhelm Booß-Bavnbek and Jens Høyrup. Basel, Switzerland: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2003. Photographs. Illustrations. Tables. References. Pp. viii, 416. Paper. An International Meeting on Mathematics and War in Sweden in 2002 produced these twenty papers; some are predictable discourses on technology and war; some are rocket science esoterica. Bring your calculator. Nation-Building and Stability Operations: A Reference Handbook. By Cynthia A. Watson. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International, 2008. ISBN 978-0-275-99218-7. Glossary. Appendix. Resources. Index. Pp. xvi, 153. $55.00. A senior professor at the National War College notes the increasing importance of nation building as a legitimate role for the United States and offers observations on the nature of the process and prescriptions for its successful implementation. Nationalism in the New World. Edited by Don H. Doyle and Marco Antonio Pamplona. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8023-2820-0. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Index. Pp. 315. Paper. $22.95. A series of essays offer a comparison of nationalism and the independence experiences of the countries of the Americas both as distinctive New World phenomena and as models for the emerging modern world. Neorealism, States, and the Modern Mass Army. By João Resende-Santos. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-521-68965-6. Tables. Figures. Notes. Index. Pp. xii, 321. Paper. $29.99. The author uses three case studies from the Southern Cone—Argentina, Brazil and Chile—to argue that military institutions emulate successful international [End Page 987] models and create themselves not according to national ideals but in response to their “external security environment.” Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism. By Michael C. Desch. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8018-8801-4. Maps. Tables. Notes. Index. Pp. x, 232. $45.00. Democracies may have been generally triumphant in wars over non-democratic powers since 1815, but ideology is not the reason; cold material superiority is. The United States, NATO, and a New Multilateral Relationship. By Frank R. Douglas. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International 2008. ISBN 978-0-313-34476-3. Maps. Tables. Charts. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. x, 237. $75.00. Eisenhower’s fear that the U.S. would be trapped into a permanent military presence in Europe after World War II proved true until the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union; now the U.S. faces the challenge of reconstituting NATO based on a different, multilateral model and with a new purpose. Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth Nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence. By Leigh A. Payne. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8223-4082-9. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 374. Paper. $23.95. Public confessions and truth commissions have not brought relief or closure in places...