The Role of Microfinance in Africa

This chapter examines the role of microfinance in developing countries, particularly Ghana and Nigeria. The chapter begins with an overview of the link between microfinance, poverty, and women empowerment in the chapter introduction. The background to the chapter sets out the main difference between microfinance and microcredit. The role of microfinance in contemporary development finance is then discussed. In this context, existing literature on the role of microfinance in reducing poverty, women empowerment, and microenterprise growth is extensively reviewed. Key solutions and recommendations are then presented next, followed by future research direction and the chapter conclusion.

New Architecture of Pacific Asia in the 21st Century : Opportunities and Challenges for Mongolia and Pacific Russia

The article attempts to compare the geopolitical conditions of Mongolia and Pacific Russia contemporary development considering both of them as integral parts of a common space of Northeastern Eurasia. The author highlights several fundamental trends that crucially influence the situation in the region and which, among other factors, entail the strengthening of regional multipolarity by growing the independence of individual players, including Mongolia. According to the author, Pacific Russia and Mongolia can hardly find the worthy place in American or Japanese concepts of Free and Open Indo-Pacific, Chinese “belt and road” initiative or the Russian Greater Eurasia project. Being economically less developed parts of Eurasia, Mongolia and Pacific Russia are at the same time are the most politically stable segment and promising areas of the continent for the application of financial and human capital, intellectual resources and scientific and technological achievements, self-fulfillment of people and implementation of ideas. So they have to use their advantages to meet the challenges of their development.

Russian Strategic Culture: Why the Past Matters

Today, strategic culture becomes an essential element of the national security policy of the Russian Federation. While absorbing some modern aspects, its strategic culture reflects historical lessons learnt by the Russian Empire and the USSR. Russia still cannot refuse from the idea to restore its superpower status and to fight for new territories. Thus, we can define a number of essential elements of the Russian strategic culture formed in relation to the historical and contemporary development of this state. Throughout the history, the Russians have legitimized the decisions and activities of the ruling elites. As the Russian leadership has long built up powerful associations which had taken root in the minds of people while remembering patriotism and love for their Motherland, the Russians believe in the importance of maintaining and enhancing patriotic feelings. While cultivating its civilizational and cultural detachment, Russia continues developing its own messianic idea which envisages the views of the special historical kismet of Russia. In order to fulfill its global tasks, Russia uses the policy of military interventions and violates state sovereignty of other countries, since the ‘militant’ political culture of its leaders has always militarized the strategic culture of the RF. So, the strategic culture of Russia emanates from the unique position and history of this state which manages to adapt it to the new realities. However, Russia’s aspirations to reclaim its status as a global superpower at any cost do not allow its strategic culture to be changed or even to be altered.

Organizations Decentered: Data Objects, Technology and Knowledge

Data are no longer simply a component of administrative and managerial work but a pervasive resource and medium through which organizations come to know and act upon the contingencies they confront. We theorize how the ongoing technological developments reinforce the traditional functions of data as instruments of management and control but also reframe and extend their role. By rendering data as technical entities, digital technologies transform the process of knowing and the knowledge functions data fulfil in socioeconomic life. These functions are most of the times mediated by putting together disperse and steadily updatable data in more stable entities we refer to as data objects. Users, customers, products, and physical machines rendered as data objects become the technical and cognitive means through which organizational knowledge, patterns, and practices develop. Such conditions loosen the dependence of data from domain knowledge, reorder the relative significance of internal versus external references in organizations, and contribute to a paradigmatic contemporary development that we identify with the decentering of organizations of which digital platforms are an important specimen.

FEUILLETON IN SERBIAN PRESS

The feuilleton is one of the most specific and oldest genres in journalism, but also one of the least analyzed and defined. Often appropriated as a literary genre in journalism, it has changed its form, style and content throughout history in order to adapt to the current circumstances in the media world. In keeping with the contemporary development of digital platforms, online journalism and sensational, fast-paced reporting, its specifics and peculiarities bring new challenges. The aim of the paper is to note the use, specifics, topics and the position of this genre through the analysis of feuilletons in the serious, semitabloid and tabloid daily press in Serbia. Additionally, the goal is to observe potential differences in relation to the type of press, but also the ways in which this newspaper genre is implemented in online newspaper portals. In accordance with these goals, the method of descriptive and comparative content analysis as well as the statistical method were used in the paper. The research was conducted on four daily newspapers, Danas, Politika, Večernje novosti and Blic, in the period from January 24, 2020 to January 30,2020. Twenty seven issues of these newspapers were analyzed, including 2,230 media texts, 30 of which were feuilletons. Research has shown that this genre is more common in serious than in semi-tabloid and tabloid press, that the most common topic covered through this genre is politics and that there are significant differences between the same feuilletons in printed newspapers in comparison to online editions.

The Concept and Functions of a Universal Language of Law

The subject of the article is the concept of a universal language and a reflection on its importance for law. The starting point is a presentation of the history of the concept of a common language for all mankind, a concept that has always accompanied man – it is present in the Bible, in the ancient writings of Near Eastern peoples, it was alive in the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, and it experienced its particular heyday – among other reasons because of the gradual abandonment of Latin as the language of science – in the seventeenth century, an age that was reformist by definition. Since its inception, the concept of a universal language has been inextricably linked with the idea of world peace and universal happiness for all people. It is significant that in most universal language designs, regardless of the era, there were, to a greater or lesser extent, references to the utility of such languages for law. The author, tracing the development of the concept of a universal language, focuses on its fullest contemporary development: Esperanto. Esperanto, like previous universal language designs, places particular emphasis on ideas linked to the concept of a universal language, especially the idea of peaceful coexistence and understanding between peoples. In this context, it is reasonable to ask what role Esperanto can play in the development of certain branches of law, especially international law. Given the position of English as the language of legal acts of international importance, the answer to this question is currently not clear.

Participation, Power and Practice in Development: A Case Study of Theoretical Doctrines and International Agency Practice in Tuvalu

<p>This research examines the conventions and understandings of ‘good’ development practice surrounding consultation, participation and their relationship to aid effectiveness and absorptive capacity in the context of a small island developing country, Tuvalu. The study will identify contemporary development intervention patterns in Tuvalu and will explore tensions emerging within the Tuvalu Government as it services the needs of its population as a sovereign nation while also servicing the needs of a multiplicity of development partners.</p>

Participation, Power and Practice in Development: A Case Study of Theoretical Doctrines and International Agency Practice in Tuvalu

<p>This research examines the conventions and understandings of ‘good’ development practice surrounding consultation, participation and their relationship to aid effectiveness and absorptive capacity in the context of a small island developing country, Tuvalu. The study will identify contemporary development intervention patterns in Tuvalu and will explore tensions emerging within the Tuvalu Government as it services the needs of its population as a sovereign nation while also servicing the needs of a multiplicity of development partners.</p>

EARLY AND MIDDLE BRONZE AGE CHRONOLOGY OF THE CARPATHIAN BASIN REVISITED: QUESTIONS ANSWERED OR PERSISTENT CHALLENGES?

ABSTRACT The Early and Middle Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin is often viewed as a long period of transition from a dispersed form of land occupation to one of increasing aggregation, ultimately resulting in the formation of tell settlements and large cemeteries. This developmental trajectory remains a legacy of early 20th century archaeology, where the similarity of material culture recovered from cemeteries and settlements was used to develop a multi-linear scheme of progression of regional chronologies tied to specific archaeological cultures. While typologically conclusive, the recent increase in the availability of radiocarbon determinations suggests that these sequences represent a priori interpretation of social development rather than empirically verified observations. In order to do so, it is necessary to re-evaluate the existing dataset in order to determine whether the formation of tells was a chronologically contemporary development and whether the regional chronological sequences are supported by independent dating.