Open Conflict Research Articles

The new tax and investigation (criminal) amnesty in Albania – Some legal and economic considerations in comparison with the Italian case

The Albanian Government intends to undertake a comprehensive tax and criminal amnesty, which is totally different from the two previous ones, which were not only partial and not truly tax amnesties but lacked the criminal component. This paper tries to shed light on key economic, financial and legal inconsistencies and pitfalls such draft law contains in the proposed form. Notwithstanding its good intentions, going down to practical and legal grounds, the amnesty that is being proposed constitutes in itself a very complex and difficult decision, for the very twilight landscape it depicts. Also, as the legal analysis shows, the proposed fiscal and criminal amnesty creates open conflicts with other organic laws (Criminal Code and Civil Code) and the respective legal framework that regulates the aspects of prevention and money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Furthermore, using a comparative analysis with the Italian fiscal and penal amnesty, it results that in case of the Albanian draft law on the (fiscal & criminal) amnesty, the inconsistency between the entities to which the voluntary declaration can be applied, the general exemption from criminal liability in case of declaration of assets, regardless of the source of their creation, leaves clear space for abuse and leaves a path for this procedure to return to fertile territory for money laundering. We conclude that, despite the fact that undertaking of a fiscal and criminal amnesty should not be considered a taboo in itself, a successful fiscal and criminal amnesty should be based on an in-depth analysis of the market’s needs, it must avoid conflicts with the existing legal framework in Albania, and respect the constitutional principles and the concepts of guaranteeing the rule of law and the fight for the prevention of crime and forms of laundering the products of criminal activity.

Introduction

Scholarly and public interest in the nexus of capitalism and global governance has intensified in recent years. The persistence of economic inequality, the rise of populism, the backlash against globalization, the Covid-19 pandemic and supply chain fragility, the resurgence of open conflict in Europe, and the urgency of the climate change crisis have only drawn further attention to the relationships of markets and trade to norms and institutions. Solutions to many of these challenges, which are closely tied to capitalist dynamics, require interventions on a scale that only institutions of global governance can provide. At the same time, these challenges compromise governance institutions by making them susceptible to private influence. Moreover, critics have raised alarm about the ways some forms of global governance – such as powerful philanthropic institutions, private summitry forums, and international organizations that enforce economic globalization on nation-states – evade democratic accountability. Such developments have prompted scholars to analyze the entangled histories of capitalism and global governance and the evolution of the global economy and its regulation as well as collective efforts to provide for the well-being of humans and their environments.

The Carmelites of the Ancient Observance and St. Szczepan Parish in Krakow in the 19th and early 20th century

Towards the end of the 18th century the authorities of the Austrian invaders of Poland made the decision to pull down the St Stephen Parish Church in Krakow and then to transfer the parish to the Church of the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance “na Piasku”. For over a hundred years two church communities coexisted under one roof and ran their own separate activities. At first the cooperation went well. With time, it became weaker and after several years, it turned into an open conflict. The issue involved church and lay institutions as well as the general public. Numerous attempts undertaken for years in order to resolve the dispute were not effective.

The Сoncept of Power in Medieval Western Theology

The article is devoted to the study of the political and religious foundations of the origin of the phenomenon of power and belongs to the field of research of political theology. The study of the theological foundations of the phenomenon of power was carried out within the framework of a neo-institutional methodological paradigm, taking into account the data of hermeneutic analysis, which is an applied aspect of the work. The phenomenon of power is considered within the framework of a broader aspect - the ontology of the social, as part of the fundamental layer of being. The authors examined the basic ontological concepts of the phenomenon of power within the framework of the theological paradigm. In the political and philosophical theory of the Middle Ages, the concept of «power» was conveyed by four main Latin words: auctoritas, potestas, dominium and imperium, each of which illuminated one of the facets of the phenomenon of power. «Auctoritas» – authority, potestas» – power, «dominium» – possession, «imperium» – command. At the same time, the first two words – auctoritas and potestas – were, of course, key to understanding the essence of the medieval concept of power. This work reveals the specific features and mechanisms by which medieval Western European monarchies interacted with the Catholic Church, preventing open conflicts, mitigating mutual claims and even organizing cooperation between spiritual and secular authorities at the highest political level Various positions are considered on understanding the essence of political power, as well as on the origin of this phenomenon in a historical and theological way; the works of both domestic and foreign experts are studied.

Students protests at the Kyiv Theological Academy in 1859: causes, course, consequences

This article tries to reconstruct and analyze the conflict between students and administration in 1859 at the Kyiv Theological Academy. This conflict was different from the rest because it was not typical for this educational institution and, finally, grew into an open protest of students by XX and XXI courses against the administration of the educational institution. This is the first open protest of students, which, among other things, was made known outside the Academy.In 1861 the newspaper “Kolokol” published a collective statement from 1859 of the students of the Kyiv Theological Academy, addressed to the Russian emperor. It talked about the unsatisfactory conditions of providing students. It was not stated how this document ended up in the hands of the editors. The fact that the text appeared in a popular edition banned in the Russian Empire, which, moreover, was republished in Soviet times, shaped the approach to assessing the conflict in the Academy. On the one hand, the student performance remained almost the most famous page not only of the “revolutionary” but also of the everyday history of the Kyiv Theological Academy. On the other hand, most currently known works are not separately about the conflict of 1859. Instead, this is covered in general research on the Kyiv Theological Academy. A main feature of the research that mentions the conflict of 1859 is the emphasis on the superficial causes and consequences of the conflict (there were complaints from students about housing, living conditions, and studying process. Students entered into open conflict, that is why they were expelled from Kyiv Theological Academy). However, this is only a small part of the story. Other studentsʼ motives recede into the background or are not taken into the investigation at all. The article involves personal documents and archival materials (including behavior journals, decisions of the Academic Сouncil, individual notes of the students, etc.), which demonstrate another view of the conflict of 1859. The conflict is able to show the problems in the structure of the Academy, the reactions of the students, and the methods of solving them on the part of the Academy’s employees and teachers. It is proposed to outline the list of participants, trace the actions of students and the administration, and highlight the causes and consequences of conflict for both sides.

UKRANIAN FACTOR IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF RUSSIAN IDENTITY

The transformation of Russian identity in the last 30 years has been influenced by both internal and external factors. As a rule, researchers attribute the policy of the West towards Russia to the most important external factors. In the opinion of the authors of this article, events and processes in the post-Soviet space, especially those taking place in Ukraine, are of no less importance. The article characterizes the impact of changes in political courses on the identification strategies of the political class of Russia and Ukraine, as a result of which they turned out to be not just different, but multidirectional. The work uses the traditional socio-constructivist approach for identity studies and the concept of identification matrices; discursive analysis was used as a method, the source base is presented both by publications and speeches of representatives of the political elite, and by data from public opinion polls and sociological surveys, which are secondary in nature. The conducted discursive analysis confirms that the most important point of divergence between the identification of Russia and Ukraine was the events that received the name “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and caused value contradictions that contributed to the transition between the two countries into an open conflict after 2014. The severity of the reaction of Russian society to these discrepancies is explained by the stable traditions of perceiving Ukraine as a neighbor, as “Own”, due to which the change in value orientations and the political course of the Ukrainian elite towards Euro-Atlantic integration, accompanied and encouraged by anti-Russian rhetoric, the presentation of Russia as an oppressor and colonizer, began to be perceived and evaluated as a betrayal of the “brotherly” people, which destroys the Russian identity matrix .

Avoiding Japanese Intervention in New Caledonia: June and July 1940

ABSTRACT In June and July 1940, Australia feared that a dispute over New Caledonia could spark open conflict between the British Empire and Japan. New Caledonia’s endowment of resources, particularly nickel, made it an important supplier of strategic metals to Japan and gave Tokyo a legitimate stake in the future of the archipelago. Canberra, in partnership with London, recognized the danger of Japan’s access to the archipelago’s resources but did not want to provoke the Japanese government. This article demonstrates that avoiding conflict with Japan became an important pre-occupation of Canberra and London in this period.

Closing Ranks

Soon after his arrival as newly appointed governor of Iraq, al-Ḥajjāj (d. 95/714) faced a standoff with a prominent member of the Baṣran garrison, Ibn al-Jārūd al-ʿAbdī (d. 76/695). In this article, I track the course of this rebellion as an example of a political system that, lacking a hegemonic system of coercion and control, was rather characterized by multiple overlapping centers authority in which the caliph, his governor, and those under their rule all played a part. Within this system, power was in an ongoing state of contestation as it was conceived of in different ways by the various stakeholders. Ibn al-Jārūd’s rebellion thus operated as a form of political negotiation, following established, if fragile, norms of communication within which violence was a calculated gambit, one of a repertoire of available and accepted tactical options. Indeed, despite the violent death of Ibn al-Jārūd and a number of his close followers, his supporters, high-ranking commanders among them, were reintegrated into the caliphate and were soon participating again in the political system, including through rebellions. The article thus argues for a re-evaluation of revolts and for their conceptualization not as a breakdown of government structures or as a rejection of them by those rebelling but rather as an understood and even inevitable feature of a political system in which certain tensions between different centers of authority and instruments of control could be mediated and resolved only through open conflict.

Creating Enemies and Building Bridges: Representations of Hungary in the Ukrainian Media

Creating Enemies and Building Bridges: Representations of Hungary in the Ukrainian Media

Language conflicts and securitization in multilingual societies

Abstract Societal multilingualism is an essential aspect of political communication. This applies in particular to the management of security issues and language conflicts in multilingual states. As this article demonstrates, these processes of securitization set in much earlier than just in situations of open conflict. They can lead to a spiral of competitive securitization. It is therefore surprising that so far hardly any theoretical considerations have been made to explore the intersection between conflict dynamics, securitization processes and multilingualism. This article therefore examines this theoretical gap and identifies questions and requirements for future theoretical work. The aim is to open new avenues for studying multilingualism through the prism of securitization and conflict theory.

Open science and conflict of interest policies of medical and health sciences journals before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A repeat cross-sectional study: Open science policies of medical journals.

To audit the transparent and open science standards of health and medical sciences journal policies and explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Repeat cross-sectional study. 19 journals listed in Google Scholar's Top Publications for health and medical sciences. Blood, Cell, Circulation, European Heart Journal, Gastroenterology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, PLoS ONE, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Translational Medicine, The British Medical Journal, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, The Lancet Oncology, and The New England Journal of Medicine. We used the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guideline and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) requirements for disclosing conflicts of interest (COIs) to evaluate journals standards. TOP scores slightly improved during the COVID-19 pandemic, from a median of 5 (IQR: 2-12.5) out of a possible 24 points in February 2020 to 7 (IQR: 4-12) in May 2021, but overall, scores were very low at both time points. Journal policies scored highest for their adherence to data transparency and scored lowest for preregistration of study protocols and analysis plans and the submission of replication studies. Most journals fulfilled all ICMJE provisions for reporting COIs before (84%; n = 16) and during (95%; n = 18) the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of practising open science. However, requirements for open science practices in audited policies were overall low, which may impede progress in health and medical research. As key stakeholders in disseminating research, journals should promote a research culture of greater transparency and more robust open science practices.

Global Politico-Economic Dynamics during a Local Conflict: Reciprocal Patterns of Cooperation and Sanctions

Abstract Employing global daily news coverage on interactions between stakeholders in G20 countries, this research offers a near-real-time analysis of changing interaction patterns between Russia and other G20 economies after the onset of open military conflict. Building on an event study over eight months, further analyses of reciprocal response dynamics point to potentially costly short-term consequences of sanctions, such as the breakdown and diversion of international cooperation amongst major economies in a broader sense. Once such a reciprocal cooperation decay has set in, re-establishing international cooperation between major societal actors may take considerable time.

Myths and Realities of the Salt Lake Temple Foundation

Myths and Realities of the Salt Lake Temple Foundation

China’s Responses towards The US Pivot to Asia: “The Dialectics of Hedging and Counter-Hedging”

The US pivot to Asia, which encompassed the strategy of shifting the US focus on deploying the strategic-military, diplomatic, and economic assets to the Asia-Pacific region, had generated enormous debates among scholars and Chinese state officials. Such development then raises questions about their responses to such a US strategy in Asia. In regards to this question, this article evaluates that the US pivot to Asia had devised two primary responses in mainland China, ranging from hardline and moderate stances in Chinese scholars and officials. The hardliners stood for perceiving the US pivot to Asia as a strategy to contain China's rise, which has multiple potencies to trigger an open confrontation. In contrast, the moderates viewed the US pivot to Asia through the elements of cooperation and competition. Despite these contentions, this article argues that the US pivot to Asia had further triggered China's increasing military, diplomatic, and economic capabilities. It also sees the Sino-American relations through dual track reciprocal relations comprising the competitive-negative and cooperative-symbolic elements which had been restraining each other from going into open conflict yet were still tensioning. Therefore, to further analyze China's responses, this article will simultaneously use the concept of hedging and the “use of force” by Art and Jervis.

Организационно-стратегические проблемы «Братьев-мусульман» после военного переворота в Египте 2013 года

The author considers the activities and the organizational structure of the Muslim Brother-hood international religious and political association in the period from 2013 to 2021. The relevance of this issue is due to the difficult political situation in the countries of North Africa and the signifi-cance of one of the oldest opposition movements in Egypt with a large number of adherents in the Middle East for the socio-political life of the country. The author consistently describes the events, starting with the military coup of 2013, after which the organization was recognized as a terrorist one and banned, and up to the open conflict and the change of leadership of the movement in the 2020s. She identifies the structural problems that led to the crisis of the association and notes the main external and internal reasons for the split within the movement and a significant decrease in its influence on the public, especially on young people. The author outlines the prospects for the activities of opposition parties in Egypt and makes forecasts regarding the future of the Muslim Brotherhood, taking into account the current political course of Egypt and the trends in the devel-opment of the conflict in the leadership of the movement. Proceeding from the analysis, the author proposes the following ways to prevent the collapse of the organization: uniting the association un-der one leader, taking the initiative to release political prisoners, strengthening international rela-tions, active work with young people and the improvement of the movement’s reputation.

A method for identifying conflict relations between business process subjects based on paired correlations of mutual assessments

In this paper, a method of identifying conflict relations between the subjects of business processes is presented. The proposed solution seems quite important due to the high sensitivity of modern high-tech enterprises’ business processes to negative factors, as well as the need to develop correct management decisions in conflict situations. A company’s ability to identify internal conflicts and to take them into account during management decision-making is a feature of an effective business process. Modern methods of conflict detection that are available for practical use are able to identify conflict situations only at the stage of open conflict. In this case, the impact of the conflict on the business process is already material and may lead to deterioration in the company’s performance. Unfortunately, existing methods have a significant disadvantage: they are not able to identify conflicts at an early stage, when the impact of the situation on the business process is not noticeable. An innovative approach based on analytical processing of survey-based data is proposed. This approach is able to identify hidden conflicts among employees of the enterprise. Identifying a conflict situation at an early stage makes it possible to manage conflict and reduce subsequent financial loss.

International economic relations

Methods. Generalization and system analysis made it possible to determine that one of the urgent problems of our time is the provision of stable development of societies with energy resources. Currently, this development is taking place under conditions of uncertainty and under the influence of geo-economics and geopolitics. The processes that form such uncertainty include high growth rates and changes in regional proportions of energy consumption, increased competition for scarce resources, which implies increased contradictions between the main representatives of the sector in the fuel and energy markets, lack of stability and independence of the energy product. To do this, it is necessary to use tools for generating new ideas for the formation of an economic ideology of energy security as a vector for the development of the state in conditions of constructive destabilization. Results. The author of the article determined that the growing importance of the convergent communication basis for the formation of the economic ideology of the energy security of the state, uniting common or regional infrastructures, can act as tools of economic, technological, military, diplomatic, informational or other influence, which can develop into open conflicts. , the growth of political risk forces The development of state systems in the field of energy security management of Ukraine in conditions of constructive destabilization, including also innovative enterprises, scientific organizations, financial institutions in order to increase the competitiveness of the economy. The gradual transformation of society leads to a reduction in auxiliary labor flows, as well as an increase in decarbonization processes in the strategies of leading oil and gas and energy companies, which are influenced by the main factors that change the activity of the fuel and energy complex. Novelty. It has been determined that there is a trend towards finding solutions to existing problems and resolving crises both at the global and regional levels. At the same time, the failure of the existing global and regional architecture, as well as the imperfection of legal instruments and mechanisms, increasingly threaten the energy security of the country. It is revealed that in this regard it is necessary to develop a unified approach to energy security as a component of the national security system. National energy security consists of components that are interconnected and interact with each other, in other words, national energy security is a functional system that reflects the processes of interaction of interests and threats. The economic ideology of the energy security of the state in the conditions of constructive destabilization is proposed. Practical value. It has been established that maintaining a stable pace of economic development in unstable conditions, the implementation of the planned modernization and innovative development of the country largely depends on the quality of the changes that support these processes. The fuel and energy complex of the country, the potential of which is represented mainly by large corporations - natural monopolies, which, together with other similar complexes, are the basis for the revival and further development of the domestic industry and ensuring the economic security of the state.

Risks of digital addiction in primary school children

Introduction. The noticeable growth of e-learning, the widespread penetration of various digital devices into the daily lives of children in some cases can provoke the formation of dependent behavior, which necessitates research aimed at early identification of risk factors for digital addiction in younger schoolchildren. The purpose of the study is to identify the features of the use of digital devices by children of primary school age. Methodology. 103 4th grade students took part in the study. To identify the structure of digital addiction of younger schoolchildren, the "Digital Addiction Scale" was used by N.S. Hawi et al., which allows children to identify the degree of addiction according to 9 criteria, such as fascination with a digital device; the amount of "screen" time; frustration when unable to use a smartphone; problems arising from digital addiction; conflicts with parents and their deception; isolation from family, hobbies, studies; the desire to constantly return to the smartphone; improved mood when using it. The results of the study. The results show that 11.7% of primary school students can be classified as dependent on digital devices. The most pronounced indicators in children are those associated with mood changes due to the inability to use a digital device (average score 8.1); isolation from family, narrowing of the circle of interests (average score 7.0). At the same time, younger schoolchildren rarely come into open conflict with their parents (an average score of 3.5) and resort to deceiving adults about the amount of time and what they do on their digital devices (an average score of 3.0). A weak difference in digital dependence between boys and girls was revealed. The relationship between the degree of digital dependence and individual parameters of divergent thinking of the child is also shown (rs = - 0.45; p <0.01). Conclusion. The results of the study show that already at primary school age, the risk of digital addiction is quite high. The results show that the problematic behavior of children in relation to digital devices indicates a significant role in reducing some parameters of divergent thinking.

Examining the Conceptual Model of Potential Urban Development Patch (PUDP), VOCs, and Food Culture in Urban Ecology: A Case in Chengdu, China

In China, traditional food is a significant element of culture that affects human behaviors. The point of interest (POI) of traditional food restaurants’ location and their volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions affect the urban ecology. Rather than examine potential urban development patch (PUDP) based on land use data, the perspective of this paper is to examine the PUDP, air quality, and food culture in urban ecology in Chengdu, China. Methods: First, the research identifies three types of PUDP models (open PUDP, landscape PUDP, and conflict PUDP) with the weighted overlay of land use data, then uses machine learning to examine the relationship between PUDP, POI of traditional food restaurant, and VOCs. Results: The study generates three types of PUDP which are open PUDP, landscape PUDP, and conflict PUDP. VOCs and POI of traditional restaurant have a strong correlation, and both have a significant negative correlation with open PUDP. However, the landscape PUDP and conflict PUDP do not show an obvious relationship with food POI and VOCs. Conclusion: The results indicate that the future urban ecology should consider restaurant location, VOCs from restaurants, and their relationship to urban land use data as they have a strong relationship.

Mészáros’ Structural Limits to Capital and the Limits to the War on China

Critical Political Economy analysts have addressed the similarities between the US–China hegemonic confrontation as contemporary parallels to previous global rivalries which led to open conflict. Noticing the distinctive patterns through which the capitalist crisis presented itself, István Mészáros proposed a theoretical elaboration linking the overproduction characteristic of the crisis to the material conditions presented by capitalist reproduction within a limited biosphere and with concrete, existing human beings. Capitalism, thus, could not be reformed away from its own physical limits. This paper’s objective is to offer a partial re-interpretation of Mészáros’ 1980s thesis on the Structural Limits to Capital. This paper looks at the developments of nuclear warfare, addressing the contradiction between the necessity of war as a means for the disposal of exceeding capital and the existence of nuclear weapons as a structural limit itself. This is done in a way to propose an addition to Mészáros’ list of four limits stressed out as core contradictions to capital reproduction, which enacted in the 1970s the structural capitalist crisis that continues to this day.