"Good" and "bad" billionaires in post-soviet Russia (1997–2020)

The article shows the idea of American economist Ruchir Sharma about "good" and "bad" billion-aires in relation to modern Russia, indicates the criteria proposed by Ruchir Sharma for classifying billionaires as "good" and "bad". The ratio between "good" and "bad" billionaires in modern Russia is studied for the period from 1997 till 2020. To identify "good" billionaires, their list for 2008, 2015 and 2020 is given, indicating companies and industry. For the same years, the shares of "good" billionaires in the total amount of billionaires and their total property were calculated. Sig-nificant growth of a number of "good" billionaires and their share in their total amount and total property of billionaires has been found. The main factors that determined the dynamics and share of "good" billionaires are indicated: the dynamics of world oil prices and the maturity of the Russian bourgeoisie. The share of "good" billionaires in Russia is being compared with the remaining 19 countries analysed by Ruchir Sharma. It turns out that even in the best year of 2020 for Russia in terms of the share of "good" billionaires, it was far behind other countries. Objective and subjective reasons for Russia’s catastrophic lag in the share of "good" billionaires are shown. Objective reasons include the youth of Russian capitalism and the huge demographic losses of Russia in the XX century, especially among the creative part of the population. Subjective reasons include the vices of the carried out in post-Soviet Russia political and economic reforms and the resulting economic and political structure. The negative consequences of the small share of "good" billionaires are analysed. These include the economic crisis in Russia in 2008 and the unsatisfactory structure of the Russian economy, as well as a huge social differentiation. The author proposes measures for accelerated modernization of the Russian economy, creating the most favourable conditions for the growth of "good" billionaires.

Plurilingual literary spaces

In this article, I define the notion of a plurilingual literary space. While drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, I adopt a critical stance towards the highly autonomous, territorialized, and monolingual French case that he studied. Even though language is the material that the writers work with, the legitimate representation of the nation remains the major issue for non-central literary spaces, among which are plurilingual spaces. I elaborate on a typology of plurilingual literary spaces, which are heavily related to the political structure and language policies of the state. Then I concentrate on one of the types, that of plurilingual literary fields, where the language issue is the most significant. I argue that tensions or collaborations between the different linguistic groups depend on the symbolic balance of power between them as well as on official language policies. The most autonomous writers do not always desire to build bridges across language barriers, and they would sometimes rather create identity walls. I distinguish between unitarian policies that lead some linguistically dominated writers to reject collaborations and monolingual policies which lead the autonomous writers to reject the linguistic divisions.

Anticipation and Mechanisms for Resolving Interethnic Conflicts

The formation of a harmonious environment that promotes personal development is a necessary component for each person and for the functioning of the community, regardless of the form of its political structure. Creating a harmonious environment includes, among other things, working to maintain a positive inter-ethnic environment. To do this, it is necessary to conduct constant monitoring and work to support a harmonious inter-ethnic background. The article deals with the peculiarities of the influence of immersion in the interethnic environment and self-determination in the community on the individual, the influence of the communicative connection between representatives of different ethnic groups on the functioning of the community.

An Asymmetric Strategy for US-China Competition

Chapter 13 outlines a US response to China’s ambitions for displacing the United States from regional and global order. This approach would address the China challenge not through changing China’s internal political structure or reassuring it through a grand bargain, but by limiting China’s ability to convert its power into regional and global order. Given the scale of China’s challenge, the United States needs an asymmetric response, one that strengthens the “forms of control” upon which American order depends while undermining those that Chinese order will soon require. It shows how the United States can avoid competing dollar-for-dollar, ship-for-ship, or loan-for-loan by adopting an asymmetric approach that blunts Chinese advances at lower cost than China expends in generating them, all while reinvesting in the sources of American order that generate disproportionate advantage relative to the costs of maintaining them. The chapter discusses military, political, and economic components of these asymmetric approaches.

Post Decentralization Corruption: A study on perpetual corruption at the local level in West Lombok

The current article aims to explore corruption at the local level. There are two main discourses that set the background for this study. First, corruption is considered a result of decentralization, which opened up the local political structure. Second, corruption happened as a result of a societal shift along the prismatic continuum. These two main discourses serve as the theoretical background in research to find the meanings behind the reality of perpetual corruption occurring at the local level. The research employed the theory of decentralization and a prismatic society approach as analytical tools along with a phenomenological approach. The study found linkages in decentralization as a new reason for the growth and development of corruption at the local level on account of the prismatic structure empowering elite rulers to replicate corrupt practices.

CHINESE ENGAGEMENT IN LATIN AMERICA AND EUROPE: INSIGHTS FOR ROMANIA

This paper examines Chinese commercial, political, and security engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean, comparing it with similar engagement in Europe. It findsevidence that PRC engagement globally is driven by a strategy focused on re-orienting the world to the economic benefit of the PRC, with nonetheless important political, institutional,and security engagement in support of these objectives and the consequences of their pursuit. It finds common elements in China’s pursuit of secure sources of supply, markets andtechnology across regions, its use of the PRC government supporting roles, with differences reflecting the governance and political structure of each partner, the economic opportunitiesavailable, and the imperatives of geography. It finds that PRC “soft power” over political and business elites in both regions is significant, based more in the expectation of benefit than analignment of values, and thus can coexist with mistrust of the PRC. It finds that Europe can not only gain insights from examining Chinese engagement in Latin America, but that engagementimpacts Europe directly through the roles of its companies as both competitors and partners of European ones in the region, and through intraregional supply chains and the flows of fundsthrough mergers and acquisitions by China of stakes in European companies.Keywords: PRC, China, Latin America, Belt and Road, BRI, Infrastructure, Security Engagement.

ONE ARMY, TWO SYSTEMS. MILITARY JUSTICE IN TRANSYLVANIA, DURING THE SECOND CAMPAIGN OF THE WAR OF REUNIFICATION 1918-1920

In the middle of the campaign for Transylvania’s liberation, Consiliul Dirigent (the political structure designated to temporarily govern the province) of Sibiu had decided to support the efforts of the Romanian army and ordered the establishment of a Territorial General Commandment meant to begin recruitment in Transylvania, Banat and within the territories in Hungary inhabited by Romanians, in order to constitute some volunteers’ units. Out of their ranks, 6th and 7th Army Corps were established, recruited exclusively from Transylvanians regardless of their nationality. Based on 1st Decree passed by the Consiliul Dirigent of Sibiu, all the former Austro-Hungarian laws, ordinances, regulations and legal statutes issued prior to December 18th1918, when Transylvania was proclaimed independent of Budapest, were kept temporarily in force. Within this context, militaries of the divisions recruited from Transylvanian were subject to military jurisdiction under Austro-Hungarian Military Criminal Code of 1855, whereas Romanian militaries who were under the command of Transylvanian Headquarters were subject to the jurisdiction of Romanian laws, implicitly to the Code of military justice

THE NOVELTIES OF CONSTITUTIONAL CONTROL IN THE ALGERIAN CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT 2020

We consider constitutional review one of the main pillars of a state of law; it is a guarantee of the supremacy of the constitution, and a total respect of its provisions on one hand and a full protection of individual rights and liberties which are cited on the other hand. Algeria always relied on constitutional review in the development of its constitutions since its independence (except the constitution of 1976) through a political structure called the constitutional council, but the latter was renowned for its inactivity and ineffectiveness, that is why the constitutional founder was oblige to intervene within the framework of global constitutional reforms that the country has known in recent years, in order to concretize its role and achieve its objectives and the principles of legal security However these reforms have proved their failure including in the positive changes made to the amendment of the constitution of the year 2016 , that was the reason that lead the constitutional founder of 2020 think of make a full change of the nature of the body in charge of constitutional review, by creating the constitutional court with a completely different members, is this constitutional court will succeed to purify the national legislative organization, and to clean it from the unconstitutional provisions and to guarantee a full protection of individual rights and liberties?.