Significant Actors Research Articles

Arazi Yönetim Paradigması: Küresel Gündem ve Türkiye’deki Durum

Property ownership rights cannot be officially used for 70% of the world. Global calls for action have been made to create and protect property rights, particularly for the last three decades. Under the leadership of the United Nations, the issue of land management was examined from the economic, social, and environmental perspectives considering knowledge transfer, capacity building, and international cooperation, and efforts have been made to integrate global approaches with national conditions. Sustainable Development Goals and their implementation guides in terms of land management, i.e. Integrated Geospatial Information Framework and Framework for Effective Land Administration, are significant actors on the global agenda. This article reveals the concepts that emerged as a result of the global agenda, the development of land management and calls for action, higher education opportunities, and the main issues of the agenda. The study examines the global agenda considering the conditions of Türkiye and concludes that the successful Turkish Land Administration, which has many years of experience, should be modernized considering the new developments, and the clutter in geospatial data production should be eliminated and the efforts should be combined under a single corporate structure.

Becoming musical performance artists – Challenging organisational norms and traditional Municipal Arts School structures

Music educational researchers in the Nordic countries have pointed out how municipal arts schools are organised based on, and tend to reproduce, anthropocentric values and approaches, and that such unequal norms and structures are to be challenged. Taking a border-crossing musical comedy project as a starting point, the specific aim of the current study is to illuminate how, and on what levels, organisational norms and traditional structures can be challenged, and what possibilities and new challenges that occur in a project taking place beyond the Anthropocene. To be able to grasp the aspects of becoming within the project and how that is related to aspects of organisation, we created a research entanglement based on post-human theory. Hence, situations seen as webs of relations were created, including the actors: humans with intellectual disabilities, musical performance students, educators, artists, researchers, and varied digital communication tools. Observations, video recordings, collaborative writing, qualitative surveys, and interviews produced material for analysis. Actor-network theory was applied aiming to describe how the constantly performed intra-active networks were constituted, as well as how the actors influenced each other. The results identify significant actors and trajectories in Sammankonst, that in turn challenge anthropocentric organisational structures of municipal arts schools.

Assessing Agency in Colonial Africa: Pan-Africanism as African Agency

Abstract This article critically examines the contributions of Pan-Africanism to the nexus of African agency debate in the broader spectrum of great power-small power relationships, particularly during the era of colonialism. The article puts special emphasis on the colonial empire as a great power and Africa as a small power in the tussle of what was known as the “gunboat diplomacy.” What were the approaches; who were the actors; what were the grand geopolitical strategies employed in exerting influence in the complex relationship between the colonies and the colonialists? Relying on archival records (online), interviews, speeches, and other publications, sifted through the functionalism and neo-functionalism theories, the article contends that the Pan-African thinkers and advocates were significant actors in the fight against European dominance in Africa and provided a gateway for the final nationalist movement and liberation of the continent.

Changing the gendered status quo in engineering? The encouraging and discouraging experiences of young women with engineering aspirations.

Young women remain underrepresented among engineering bachelor's degree holders. While there is a relatively large body of extant research on the many factors that curtail young women's interest in pursuing engineering, less is known about high school girls who are on an engineering pathway. Therefore, this study focuses on a select group of precollege young women who express a strong interest in engineering. Specifically, informed by theories of gender as a social system and previous empirical research, this mixed-methods study explores the constellation of significant actors within the daily lives of these young women, to understand from whom and how they are supported in pursuing this gender-atypical field, and simultaneously, from whom and how they are discouraged. To do so, the researchers analyzed survey and interview data from a sample of diverse high school girls who participate in the Society of Women Engineers' (SWE) SWENext programme. Quantitative results indicate that young women report high levels of encouragement from most sources, including parents, teachers, and other young women. However, across various peer contexts, they receive much more support from other young women than from young men. Qualitative results further reveal that parents and teachers stand out in young women's recollections of encouragement, often through advocating their participation in engineering activities or providing mentoring support. In contrast, young men in engineering spaces were recalled as particularly discouraging of their engineering participation, by socially or physically excluding them or refusing to provide recognition. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

The role of community entrepreneurs in depleted communities: A case study of Father Greg MacLeod’s ‘action research’ in Cape Breton

Community Business Entrepreneurs are significant actors in many depleted communities – towns, cities and regions which have lost much of their rationale as economic spaces as a result of disinvestment by capital, resulting in job losses, high unemployment and a declining population as younger people leave, but which retains high social attachment to place. This paper reviews two books about Father Greg MacLeod, a catholic priest, professor and prominent community business entrepreneur in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, a region whose once thriving resource-based economy was devastated by the contraction and ultimate closure of its coal and steel industries in the final decades of the 20th century. Government initiatives to create replacement jobs were largely ineffective. MacLeod played a key role in establishing several community businesses, notably New Dawn and BCA Holdings, using what was at the time the innovative structure of the company limited by guarantee. The paper reviews his ‘entrepreneurial experiments’ – which he described as ‘action research’.

Followership: a review of current and emerging research

PurposeOver time, the role of followers within leadership discourse has gained greater status, leading to followers being acknowledged as significant actors in the leadership process. This has led to the development of follower-centric leadership studies, as well as the more emergent research area of followership, with followership research having the specific intention to find out about followers from the perspective of followers. In this paper, the authors provide a review of role-based followership approaches, and implicit leadership and followership theories as a basis to build a case for follower implicit followership theories (FIFTs) as a focus area for future research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a review of seminal and current role-based followership literature, with a specific focus on FIFTs and followership studies conducted within the African context.FindingsImplicit theories have been an area of leadership research that has added much value, and as such could do the same for development of followership research. FIFTs as a research area are nascent and, as such, should continue to be explored in order to expand our understanding of followership.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the first literature reviews to have a specific focus on FIFTs, as well as on followership research conducted within the African context.

Internet of Things enabled real time cold chain monitoring in a container port

Abstract Purpose Seaports are regarded as significant actors in global logistics and supply chains since a large part of the cargoes carried over the globe are being processed there. When the cold chain broken down during transport and storage in the ports, the humidity, nutrition, temperature and time conditions to be required for the growth of the bacteria occur, and rapid reproduction occurs and the properties of the products are rapidly deteriorating. It is imperative that especially medicines, some chemical substances and foodstuffs need to be transported without breaking the cold chain in the logistics. The monitoring and control of the temperature and humidity level is important in the time period between the loading of these containers in special areas in ports, the loading of freight in open areas, or the loading of freight on roads and railway carriages. For this reason, precise monitoring and control of the system is vital in the port logistics management. Method In this study, an IoT-enabled system is designed for Container Ports by developing software, interface and equipment that will enable remote monitoring of temperature, humidity and other necessary key status parameters. Findings The developed IoT-based system provides audible and visual warning, e-mail and SMS communication, similar to a monitoring screen such as a heart graph monitor, when the instant values of the refrigerated container are transmitted to the database, when the defined upper and lower values are approached. All these data and major change information are archived in the database and retrospective situation analysis and data analysis can be performed. Conclusion Using technologies such as Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and RFID, an IoT-enabled Cold Chain Logistics system has been proposed that provides real-time monitoring of products in containers at ports, providing DS services to logistics providers and customers. In this context, it was explained how the ambient parameter values were collected in real time using WSN and IEEE 802.15.4, how the collected data was sent to the server via the GSM gateway. In the port scenario, activation devices such as IEEE 802.15.4 and RFID were modeled using the OPNET simulator. The developed model was carried out in accordance with the principles of EPCglobal Gen 2. With the proposed approach, smart solutions provide a smarter flow of information. The results show that IoT- enabled cold chain systems have a great potential for managing, monitoring, receiving and determining abnormal events related to temperature-sensitive products in real time.

Constructing an Artworld Influencer Network by Mining Social Media

Abstract The author demonstrates a methodology for constructing a network map of the artworld. She uses tweets posted by a manually composed set of exemplar artworld actors and Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods to identify significant artworld actors, including those without Twitter accounts. Identified artworld actors form communities detected using the Louvain method, and their authority is evaluated with the HITS centrality method. The resulting artworld network exhibits the ability to proceed from a small original set of exemplar actors to identify new artworld actors and provides a wealth of data that would be difficult to collect otherwise.

РЕГИОНАЛИЗМ И МНОГОУРОВНЕВАЯ ПОЛИТИКА ПО ЯЗЫКОВОМУ ВОПРОСУ В СТРАНАХ ЕВРОПЫ

Introduction: European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, adopted by the Council of Europe, has become an important regulator of language policy in the signatory and ratifying countries. As a result, language policy towards minorities, turns out to be a bright example of multi-level governance (MLG) – a new pattern of political interactions, which is characterized not by hierarchical system of subordination to one center (the state), but pluralistic, dispersed activity of many actors interacting at different and interconnected levels of power. MLG, however, differs across various regions, since subnational actors intend to be self-sustained players of political interactions to varying degrees. Objectives: to identify the mechanisms of regionalist parties’ impact of on the involvement of regional actors in multi-level governance and to determine how it influences on the strength of language policy towards minorities. Methods: large-N comparative analysis and comparatively oriented case-study. Results: a large-N comparative analysis of 134 regions from countries that have ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages has confirmed that the strength of regionalist parties has a positive effect on the scope of guarantees and preferences that minority languages receive in regions. The case-study of the Serbian Vojvodina, the most typical case, allows to expose the mechanisms of the impact of regionalists. Being represented in the regional authorities, regionalist parties not only promote language issues on the public agenda, but also achieve more energetic involvement of regional actors in policy formulation and making decisions on language policy at the national level. At the initiative of regionalist parties, first in Vojvodina, and then throughout the country, ethnic councils were institutionalized as significant actors in language policy. Thus, non-state actors are actively involved in the language policy, which is fully consistent with the MLG approach. Conclusions: regionalist parties and movements have a significant influence on the strength of language policy towards minorities. Its strength demonstrates a stable and statistically significant impact both on the volume of obligations undertaken in relation to regional languages, and on the degree of their implementation. Another significant factor is the presence of a kin-state among the linguistic minority.

THE IMPACT OF SINGLE-PARENT FAMILIES’ SOCIAL VULNERABILITIES ON CHILDREN

The current work describes the single-parent family in theory from the perspective of the vulnerable social group, which requires state intervention for protection and specialized and adapted support. The characteristics of social vulnerability and the types of vulnerabilities are being presented synthetically in order to identify the vulnerability of the social group of the single-parent family. Among elements of vulnerability of the single-parent family a special presentation is given to those that negatively impact the shaping of children character educated amidst such groups, as they emerge from the specialized studies on the matter. We are aiming the low academic achievement of such children, more prevalent criminal behaviour, integration problems in the school environment and in the students’ group, features that may be influenced by the absence of a parent, by financial and emotional problems of family members. The single-parent family stands for a social unit with a more and more prevalent identification in contemporary society, which makes up for a legitimate object of interest as to knowing data on its functionality, the difficulties it faces, the quality of its relations with society, the positive and negative elements that mark childrens’ life. The profile of the single-parent family and membership to this type of family may have an influence through destructured internal family social capital, so that the family’s structural deficiencies, family relations that do not match an optimal family environment, lead to medium and long-term effects on child development. By acknowledging the effects of family structure on the behaviour of single-parent family children, a certain framework of potential actions and steps may be outlined which can provide them with a safety net and can ensure them with the fundamentals of an adequate social, academic and professional life. On the ground of shared responsibility, this approach must involve all significant actors that have potential of active and proactive involvement in relation to the issue of children from single-parent families.

Irish rural social enterprises and the national policy framework

Abstract There is a growing recognition of the role that social enterprises play in rural areas. In Ireland this is formally acknowledged in recent social enterprises and rural development policies which commit to developing a suite of supports to realise the potential of social enterprises and strengthen their contribution to place-based sustainable rural development. However, these policies offer a generalised approach to social enterprises, compounded to date by the considerable gaps in our knowledge of these organisations. The main purpose of this article is to fill a gap in our understanding of Irish rural social enterprises. Using Defourny & Nyssens’ meso-level framework (2017), this paper presents an analysis of surveys completed by 258 Irish rural social enterprises. Our findings illustrate five clusters which represent different types of Irish rural social enterprises. The findings confirm the validity of applying a meso-level approach for capturing in-country heterogeneity within the social enterprise sector and for informing policy supports for these significant actors in place-based sustainable rural development.

How Riots Spread Between Cities: Introducing the Police Pathway

Waves of riots are politically and psychologically significant national events. The role of police perceptions and practices in spreading unrest between cities has been neglected in previous research, even though the police are significant actors in these events. We examined the role of police interventions in the spread of rioting to one English city in August 2011 by triangulating multiple data sources and analyzing police accounts and community‐participant interviews. Rioting in other cities had relatively little direct influence in the community, but it led to heightened vigilance in the police. The resultant police mobilization inadvertently created a large gathering in a local community with a history of hostile relations with police. Police attempts to disperse the crowd affected many more people than those originally intending to riot, leading to collective conflict. These findings support a new theoretical account of the role of policing in riot spread. Complementing existing accounts of diffusion, our study helps explain how self‐fulfilling prophecy can operate to spread conflict between cities.

Regional intergovernmental organizations in the Global South: Emerging education policy nodes between the global and the national

Regional Intergovernmental Organizations (RIGOs) play unclear roles in education policy making and transfer. Much comparative education scholarship on the topic focuses on exploring the interplay between global and local/national actors in education policy, overlooking regional dimensions. To deepen our understanding, we analyzed the strategic plans of four RIGOs in Africa, the Arab and Islamic worlds, and Southeast Asia. Qualitative policy analysis is employed to reveal the roles RIGOs aspire to play in educational development. Of the what, how, and why dimensions of policy, this study focuses on the last two, as they reveal the rationales the RIGOs provided to justify their organizational positioning, their strategies to contribute to education policy, and their mediations with the national and the global. Our analysis has showed that RIGOs position themselves as significant actors in educational development in their respective regions, playing several complementary and sometimes conflicting roles. Analysis via institutional theory of the interplay of national, regional, and global contexts has revealed organizational isomorphism, decoupling between policy and practice, expansive structuration, otherhood engagements, and scientization and rationalization of organizational work. The RIGOs view themselves as elaborators of global models and, simultaneously, promoters of regionalism. Implications for education policy and research are identified.

One Hand Giveth, the Other Taketh Away

This article presents a feminist perspective on polity, religion, and gender in the Yishuv. It analyzes how each of these three categories is shaped by its intersection with the others while simultaneously constituting the whole. Two major decisions that were enacted in the 1920s—women’s right to vote and the institutionalization of the Chief Rabbinate—serve as case studies of the formation of these categories, as well as of the creation of social boundaries, the politics of inclusion and exclusion, and the culture of political arrangements in the Jewish state-in-the-making. Women were both the focus of and significant actors in these multi-dimensional conflicts. They won their rights for equal citizenship in terms of suffrage, but lost their personal status rights as a result of the institutionalization of the Chief Rabbinate.

On the landscape of youth participation in science policy

Despite being important policy stakeholders, the youth remain largely absent from policy building and implementation. However, the growing literature has vividly illustrated the capacity of the youth from diverse age groups to make meaningful contributions to policy. In particular, university students are emerging as significant actors in science policy owing to their unique perspectives and knowledge. By drawing from the literature, we emphasize that the youth are capable of directly contributing to diverse policy matters while also indirectly benefiting from their participation. Consequently, there is a crucial need for initiating programs for promoting youth participation. Furthermore, to ensure the fruitfulness of such programs, more systematic research ought to be done with regards to the accomplishments and challenges of youth participation.

Set up to fail: The politics, mechanisms, and effects of mass incarceration

The rise of the citizen security paradigm has complemented, rather than curtailed, authoritarian legacies in Latin America and the Caribbean. Notably, criminal justice and law enforcement policies continue to feed a wave of mass incarceration, evidenced in a dataset on incarceration in 21 countries for 1995–2020. El Salvador stands out as a unique case study, with the second-highest incarceration rate in the world. We analyze four key mechanisms driving mass incarceration in the country—increasing discretionary arrests, diluting due process guarantees, escalating criminalization, and harshening of sentences—, and unpack its uses and effects. Mass incarceration has criminalized transgressive identities and the poor, strengthened gangs organizationally, made gangs’ criminal activity more complex, and turned them into significant actors in Salvadoran political life. These effects are hallmarks of El Salvador’s notoriously failed “mano dura” strategy and pose major obstacles for desistance from crime and violence, as well as reentry after incarceration.

Agencies’ Reputational Game in an Evolving Environment: Europol and the European Parliament

With European Union agencies becoming increasingly significant actors in European governance, further research is needed to understand how they interact with their environment. Applying the ‘reputation’ literature to Europol, this article examines in greater detail how agencies behave with their ‘informal’ audiences in comparison with the formal ones. It demonstrates that agencies are deeply invested in the shaping of their reputation, including towards their informal audiences especially if the latter represent ‘reputational threats.’ Based on a quantitative analysis of activity reports and on a qualitative study of the face-to-face engagements of Europol with the European Parliament over time, this research sheds light on the complementary communicative strategies agencies can use to (re)present themselves depending on the dimension of their reputation at stake.

A Quick Guide to Somalia in 2026: Business as Usual

ABSTRACT The political and developmental challenges confronting Somalia are entrenched and unlikely to change significantly over the next five years. This is notably so for the transfer of security and policing responsibilities from international organizations to Somali authorities. Consequently, seeking to distinguish between Somalia’s current and future challenges is an artificial exercise that has more to do with the aspirations of the international community than with local realities. Change will undoubtedly occur, but while the strategic issues dominating the international agenda in 2026 will be different from those prioritized in 2021, the underlying trends and issues influencing the goals and behavior of Somalia’s powerbrokers and significant security actors will be much the same as they are today: the security marketplace will continue to reflect the primacy of clan-based calculations and internecine rivalries. In other words, it will be business as usual.

RESILIENCE TECHNIQUES OF INTERNATIONAL COURTS IN TIMES OF RESISTANCE TO INTERNATIONAL LAW

AbstractInternational courts are increasingly called upon to adjudicate socially divisive disputes. They are therefore exposed to a heightened risk of backlash that questions their authority and impedes the implementation of their judgments. This article puts forward an analytical framework for mapping the resilience techniques used by international courts to counter this growing resistance. Case studies involve the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has been cautious in its stance regarding democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland, and the Caribbean Court of Justice, which has engaged in legal diplomacy while adjudicating both on the land rights of indigenous groups and on Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) rights. It is argued that, in order to effectively avoid and mitigate backlash, international courts should deploy resilience techniques that go beyond merely exercising their judicial function. The successful deployment of resilience techniques can allow international courts to become significant actors in global governance during a time of crisis for the international liberal order.

Belonging and its frames: Rural employers' boundary construction concerning immigrant employees

AbstractRural employers can be significant actors in defining who is welcomed to the local community and under which conditions. Despite their importance, however, the role of rural employers in the belonging process of immigrant employees is not widely known. In this study, we focused on the discursive boundaries that rural employers (re)produce when speaking about immigrant employees. The empirical data of our study consists of 35 interviews in small and medium‐sized enterprises. We identified three frames within which employers’ carry out boundary work. These frames are dealing with work ethics, workplace rules and local community. We argue that belonging was constructed in these frames ambiguously, and highlight immigrants’ hard‐working attitude, cultural discretion and local stability. We also found that the idea of belonging was not built solely on immigrants’ adaptation but that conventional boundaries were also flexible.