Civil–Military Relations and Russia’s Post-Soviet Military Culture: A Belief System Analysis

This article studies the role of military culture in defense policymaking. It focuses on Russia’s post-Soviet civil–military relations and military reform attempts. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia’s armed forces were in a state of despair. Despite having relative institutional autonomy, the military neither made itself more effective before minister Serdyukov nor tried to overthrow the government. The paper uses the advocacy coalition framework’s belief system approach to analyze data from military memoirs, parliamentary speeches, and 15 interviews. The research shows that the military’s support for institutional autonomy, combined with its elites’ self-serving bias, critically contributed to what I term an “imperfect equilibrium” in Russian civil–military relations: the military could not reform itself and fought back against radical, though necessary, changes imposed by civilian leadership.

Transcultural Networks and Connectivities: The Circulation of Mathematical Ideas between India and England in the Nineteenth Century

The nineteenth century has been characterised as a period in which mathematics proper acquired a disciplinary and institutional autonomy. This article explores the intertwining of three intersecting worlds of the history of mathematics inasmuch as it engages with historicising the pursuit of novel mathematics, the history of disciplines and, more specifically, that of the British Indological writings on Indian mathematics, and finally, the history of mathematics education in nineteenth century India. But, more importantly, the article is concerned with a class of science and mathematics teaching problems that are taken up by researchers—in other words, science and mathematics teaching problems that lead to scientific and mathematical research. The article argues that over a period of 50 years, a network of scholars crystallised around a discussion on mathematics proper, the history of mathematics and education. This discussion spanned not just nineteenth-century England but India as well, involving scholars from both worlds. This network included Scottish mathematicians, East India Company officials and administrators who went on to constitute the first generation of British Indologists, a group of mathematicians in England referred to as the Analytics, and traditional Indian scholars and mathematics teachers. The focus will be on the concerns and genealogies of investigation that forged this network and sustained it for over half a century.

Fortifying boundaries

This article examines how recent changes in the hybrid media environment have led media actors to define the “how and why” of their practices. We consider the discussion on the differences and similarities surrounding both the legacy media, and newcomers such as countermedia, to be part of journalism’s boundary work: the ongoing, yet temporally fickle, process of marking the boundaries between journalism and non-journalism. We demonstrate how both legacy and countermedia actors drew boundaries through vocabulary, institutional reflection, demarcation practices, and ethos. While the Finnish media underlined its institutional autonomy and dominance by defending the social good of journalism and dubbing countermedia as fake media, countermedia actor MV-lehti drew its own boundaries by ridiculing media professionals, media institutions, and journalists. Our findings illustrate how these actors consistently asserted the flawed ideological foundations of “the other”, with the consequence that boundaries have become fortified, rather than crossed or blurred.

Developing epistemic impartiality to deliver on justice in higher education South Africa

In South Africa, the scholarship of epistemic justice has taken on an historical gaze with higher education framed as a social institution that might ameliorate the historical traumas of colonialism. Undoing the legacies of colonialism has been framed as the democratisation of the knowledge project. Using the White Paper 3 of 1997 that posits academic freedom, institutional autonomy and public accountability as fundamental to institutional governance, in part I of this analysis I broadened public accountability to include the social, political and economic factors that inhibit or act as catalyst to the attainment of educational desire. In this second part publication, I am interested in developing and proposing epistemic impartiality. This concept is developed from Mitova’s proposition of ‘decolonising knowledge without too much relativism’, which ultimately fosters epistemic justice through rigorously scrutinising each epistemic tradition. My suggestion is that epistemic impartiality enables dialogue between divergent traditions.

The Modern Challenges of Higher Education Institutions in Armenia

The article discusses the modern key issues hindering the development of higher education institutions in Armenia. The article also refers to the issues related to the legislative regulation of the higher education sphere in Armenia, the internationalization of state universities, the institutional autonomy, the formation of governing councils, educational programs, accreditation, the connection of higher education institutions with the labor market, as well as the funding sources of higher education institutions and the research activities. As a result of the analysis, certain suggestions have been outlined, which, according to the authors, can contribute to the solution of the issues under discussion.

A Struggle over Recognition and Nonrecognition: The Internationalization of the Abkhaz State University

The Abkhaz State University (ASU) is internationally isolated, despite its cooperation with universities in Russia. Georgia combines its refusal to recognize Abkhaz statehood with a policy of nonrecognition of its university, which sets the direction for other countries. But the Abkhaz policies of nonrecognition are also to be taken into account. Abkhazia opposes any form of internationalization of the ASU generating closer ties with Georgia. The article examines how the Georgian and Abkhaz policies of nonrecognition hamper the internationalization of the ASU within the European educational space. It explores a conflict on recognition and nonrecognition of status and identity, where status does not refer exclusively to statehood. In the field of higher education, European integration involves a large number of state and nonstate actors in 49 countries and a wide variety of forms of recognition and nonrecognition, ranging from the certification of individual qualifications and the publication of lists of unrecognized universities, to the setting up of joint educational programs. This integration process is largely state driven but based on the principle of the institutional autonomy of universities. Using the ASU as a case study, the way that policies on nonrecognition affect status in the field of higher education is examined.

Sardinian Lives Matter

Sardinia had five centuries of independence up until the fifteenth century, and thereafter partial institutional autonomy until 1847. With its inclusion in the Italian state, Sardinia’s cultural, economic, institutional and political systems make it uniquely colonial in comparison to other ethnic/national minorities across Europe (Basque, Welsh, Catalan, etc.), leaving limited real choices for development to the locals and constraining what is seen as real and attainable for its future (Escobar 2020). This contribution demonstrates how Sardinia is an internal colony of Italy. We provide examples of decolonisation initiatives and provoke further interrogation on the ways in which the Black Lives Matter movement (and other efforts) are sustaining alternative visions for Sardinians’ political, economic, cultural and social future.

Balancing between accountability and autonomy: the impact and relevance of public steering mechanisms within higher education

PurposeThis article studies the tensions between universities' accountability and autonomy in response to the demands of public steering mechanisms coordinating higher education institutions.Design/methodology/approachDemonstrating the tension between accountability and autonomy, the impact and relevance of public steering mechanisms coordinating higher education are studied via a survey with selected representative Finnish universities. The response rate was an exceptionally high 94%. In addition to the statistical analysis of the survey, open-ended questions were also analyzed to give a more in-depth understanding of the findings. The study uses paradox theory and institutional complexity as its theoretical lenses.FindingsThe empirical analysis of this study shows a considerable gap between the experienced impact and the experienced relevance of the steering mechanisms in higher education. The authors’ further analysis of the open-ended data shows that indicator-based funding allocation has undermined the perceived university autonomy. The authors highlight the paradoxical tensions of university autonomy and higher education institutions' steering mechanisms' requirement for accountability. Finding an acceptable balance between accountability and institutional autonomy plays an important role in designing higher education policies.Originality/valueThe authors found that even if a steering mechanism is experienced as impactful, it is not necessarily considered relevant. One of the key aspects in understanding the reasons behind this mismatch is related to university autonomy. Most impactful steering mechanisms become considered less relevant because they also endanger institutional autonomy. In this sense, it could be expected that steering mechanisms should better balance accountability and autonomy.

THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IN ROMANIA TODAY

Romanian education is a great system that carries out a complex but extremely important process for our society. It seems to work but there is a lot to change even wherethings are seemingly going well. A complete analysis brings to our attention a tumultuous picture of the problems faced by education in Romania in an attempt to fully fulfill the social objective it has assumed. Education is changing with the evolution of technologies, society is changing every day, the global economy needs other skills and the world now needs much more complex things than 20 years ago. The question is, how can education be changed quickly and effectively? In general, the change in education is very difficult, but in order to complete such a process, a real and concrete analysis of what we have now is needed.Keywords: Romania, education, sistem, skills ,economy, educational reforms, Bologna Process, academic mobility, institutional autonomy