Kremlin tightens grip on Russian regional governance

Significance The legislation is the most radical and comprehensive reform of centre-regional relations since Vladimir Putin became president in 1999. Formalising and consolidating a steady process of political centralisation, it further shifts powers from the regional heads and assemblies to the president and the federal executive. Impacts After years of attempts to forge a Russia-wide ethos, local identity politics will become more visible. The September regional elections are another opportunity to pre-select regional leaders before they are approved by voters. Regional leaders removed and replaced ahead of the elections may include the Communist head of Khakassia, Valentin Konovalov.

Smart City Development in Korea and Its Implications for Cooperative Governance

This chapter dealt with the characteristics, the governance structure, policy-making process, the main thrusts, and regional governance of Korean smart cities. Korea defined a smart city as a platform to improve the quality of life for citizens, enhance the sustainability of cities, and foster new industries by utilizing innovative technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution era. The smart city consists of three components including technologies, services, and applications, and legislation. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport has been in a position to play a leading role in developing smart cities and has accordingly been pushing for deregulation while other ministries have been devoted to the programmes under the inter-agency collaboration framework. The Seoul smart city initiatives are reviewed in terms of policy process including policy formulation, policymaking, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. The chapter also suggests ASEAN regional cooperation types in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Challenge of Sustainability of High-Cost Oncological Drugs: A Budgeting Model in an Italian Cancer Center

In Italy, drug expenditure governance is achieved by setting caps based on the percentage increase in hospital spending compared to the previous year. This method is ineffective in identifying issues and opportunities as it does not consider an analysis of the number of treated cases and per capita consumption in local and regional settings. The IRCCS (Scientific hospitalization and treatment institute) Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori (IRST) “Dino Amadori” in Meldola, has developed and adopted an effective management model designed to oversee pharmaceutical expenditure, guarantee prescription appropriateness and quality of care to patients. The budget setting follows a structured process which evaluates determining factors of the expenditure such as expected patients calculated according to the epidemiology and to national and regional indications of appropriateness, mean cost per patient calculated on the average period of demonstrated efficacy of the drug and use of drugs with the best cost-effectiveness ratio. Strict monitoring and integrated purchasing processes allow for immediate corrective actions on expenditures, as well as a continuous dialogue with the region in order to guarantee consistent funding of IRST activities. The model, presented in this article is efficient and implements concepts beyond the conventional “silos” approach and national and regional governance tools, in terms of patient centricity.

Challenges to Substantive Demilitarisation in the Antarctic Treaty Area

The demilitarisation provisions of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty are limited and contingent. Critically, a functional gap is enabled within the key Article I, which both prohibits ‘measures of a military nature’ and sanctions the use of military personnel and equipment in pursuit of ‘peaceful purposes’. None of the key terms and concepts are defined. With increasing focus on and in the Antarctic Treaty Area on interstate competition around resource access and regime control, and in particular the rapidly increasing geopolitical struggle between ‘the West’ and China both globally and within the Antarctic, and the transformation of what military activity actually entails, the existing demilitarisation principles are now inadequate. The failure to update these in the 60 years since the Antarctic Treaty was adopted, the lack of confidence that the historic Antarctic Treaty model of regional governance can itself manage the struggle, and indications over recent years that some states are even increasing the level of military entanglement with their Antarctic programmes, suggest it is now timely to reassess and respond to the case for substantive demilitarisation in the Antarctic Treaty Area.

Eight New Challenges Faced by Global Economy

Due to COVID-19, the world has experienced the most severe economic recession since the Second World War. Some "unconventional" monetary policies have been enforced in order to stimulate the economy, and their effectiveness is positively regarded by the IMF. However, this paper identifies two negative effects of these measures. Firstly, they exacerbate policy instability; secondly, they will be detrimental to the fundamentals of monetary policies in the long term. In addition, the world economy is also confronted with many challenges, including global inflation expectations, the trends of dollar as a currency, restructuring of global supply chain, volatility of asset prices and commodity prices, and global and regional governance.

Is Russia a “good CBSS citizen”?

This study examines Russia’s policies towards and within the Councilof the Baltic Sea States in the aftermath of the Ukrainian and other internationalcrises. More specifically, this paper analyses Russia’s interest in andexpectations from the CBSS, as well as Moscow’s institutional behaviour in theCouncil. The CBSS is viewed by Russia as both a centrepiece and cornerstoneof the regional governance system. Moscow also sees the CBSS as an importanttool for overcoming the politico-diplomatic isolation where Russia founditself with the start of the Ukrainian crisis. With the help of the CBSS, it retainsits ability to influence socioeconomic, political, environmental, and humanitariandevelopments in the Baltic Sea region. Russia supported the Council’sthree long-term priority areas: a regional identity, a sustainable and prosperousregion, and a safe and secure region. Russia favoured further the Council’sinstitutionalization and strengthening of its role in the regional governancesystem. Despite the fact that Russia’s relations with other CBSS member-statesremain tense and that Moscow does not always manage to use the Councilto promote its interests in the region, the CBSS is still seen by Russia as animportant platform for regional cooperation.

The Middle East and COVID-19: time for collective action

Revised: Nov 6 2021The shortfalls of multilateral and regional organizations in respect of handling the COVID-19 pandemic have been well rehearsed by scholars and policy makers in multiple publications and statements. While the World Health Organization (WHO) and its regional offices have coordinated global responses, regional organizations, like the European Union, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or African Union, have played complementary roles. However, the response of different regions has varied, revealing multiple deficits in the structures of regional governance. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a region affected by chronic ongoing conflicts and serious inequalities in health and welfare provision, reflected in the absence of concerted responses to the pandemic. Its young population has meant lower comparative mortality rates, but the socio-economic spill-over effects are grave in terms of interrupted education, high unemployment, particularly in respect to vulnerable communities like refugees and migrant workers. With the current situation remaining critical, this paper reviews the impact of COVID-19 on MENA and considers the variable performance of states and institutions to the pandemic, highlighting the shortfalls, but also opportunities for collective action. Drawing on data from the WHO, United Nations (UN), regional organizations, media and secondary sources, it first discusses the wider global-regional context; second, reviews the actions of regional bodies, like the League of Arab States, Gulf Cooperation Council and the cross-regional Organization of Islamic Cooperation; and third, looks at some country-specific situations where both evidence of good practice and the absence of appropriate regional level provision have exposed deep regional divides. It concludes with a call for more collaboration between states and international organizations: better regional coordination is urgently needed to supplement existing multilateral efforts. A collective local response to the COVID-19 pandemic could help transcend regional divides and spur much-needed security cooperation in other areas.

Strategic imperatives of sustainable economic and social development of the region in transformational conditions

The purpose of the article is to substantiate the strategic imperatives of sustainable economic and social development of the region in transformational conditions. Methodology. The general scientific methods are used in the research, in particular: theoretical generalization – to define the concept of strategic imperatives; methods of positive and normative analysis – to substantiate the strategic imperatives of sustainable economic and social development of the region in transformational conditions. Results. It is proved that the basic strategic imperatives for the development of the region in the strategic perspective are the criteria of sustainability of all formation and implementation processes of regional strategy, namely: ensuring coherence (preferably a synergistic effect) between economic efficiency, social welfare and environmental security. To ensure effectiveness, these imperatives should be specified in certain criteria and norms, which are the main guidelines for goal setting and decision-making at all levels of regional governance. The model provides for that the imperatives of sustainable strategic development of the regions have a pervasive and comprehensive impact on the processes of formation and implementation of socio-economic development strategies. This is done by aligning the decisions taken with the main criteria to ensure a balance between the economic, social and environmental vectors of their implementation. The imperative criteria of sustainable development of the region are systematized; relevant subsystems and tools for their implementation in transformational conditions are identified. Practical meaning. The issue of ensuring the development of the real economy should remain a priority of budget policy in modern conditions, as the formation of the budget is carried out precisely through its functioning. At the stage of formation, budget funds should be primarily directed to investing in infrastructure projects within the region, which will increase the competitiveness of the economy and business activity (economic component), create additional jobs (social component). Prospects for further research. The selection of projects should be carried out taking into account its construction and implementation impact on the ecological state of the territories (ecological component).