Juozas Gabrys and Lithuania at the League of Nations: Press, Business, Politics

The activity of Juozas Gabrys and his colleagues at the League of Nations in Geneva from 1927 until 1939 is the main subject of this article. The questions about this group of people are analyzed through several perspectives, such as journalism, business, and politics. The territorial and ethnical problems which were addressed by Lithuania at the League of Nations and the decisions of Lithuanian diplomats and politicians were overviewed in the press publications of Gabrys in various Lithuanian newspapers. In these texts he mostly focuses on two main topics in international interwar Lithuanian politics – the question of Vilnius its regarding mutual relations with Poland and the question of Memel and its region, which was intensely disputed by Lithuanian and German influences. Simultaneously, Gabrys had the intentions to develop business relations between Lithuania and Switzerland. He and his family worked in the fields of real estate and money exchange. Also, he established the Lithuanian Information Bureau in Geneva, which received irregular donations from the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, yet most of the publications were funded by Gabrys himself. The answer to the question of Gabrys’s real influence on Lithuanian foreign policy could be given only partially. As for now, the possibility to measure this influence is limited only to the press and information field, as Gabrys’s work in those fields, although forgotten and underestimated nowadays, was observed and evaluated by his contemporaries. Due to his publications, Lithuanians could form an opinion about the League of Nations and its decisions as well as the situation on the level of European policy.

Cross-Cultural Pragmatics

This book provides a cutting-edge introduction to cross-cultural pragmatics, a field encompassing the study of language use across linguacultures. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics is relevant for a variety of fields, such as pragmatics, applied linguistics, language learning and teaching, translation, intercultural communication and sociolinguistics. Written by two leading scholars in the field, this book offers an accessible overview of cross-cultural pragmatics, by providing insights into the theory and practice of systematically comparing language use in different cultural contexts. The authors provide a ground-breaking, language-anchored, strictly empirical and replicable framework applicable for the study of different datatypes and situations. The framework is illustrated with case studies drawn from a variety of linguacultures, such as English, Chinese, Japanese and German. In these case studies, the reader is provided with contrastive analyses of language use in important contexts such as globalised business, politics and classrooms. This book is essential reading for both academics and students.

DfMA: Towards an Integrated Strategy for a More Productive and Sustainable Construction Industry in Australia

Design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) is an important part of the future of the construction industry due to the promise of speed of project delivery, quality control, worker safety, and waste minimization onsite via the purposeful design for manufacture and assembly offsite. However, the adoption of DfMA in Australia has been slow. This paper investigates the barriers prohibiting widespread uptake and how digital construction will be a catalyst for improving use on commercial-scale projects. A total of six leading experts were interviewed to elicit their opinions, and seven recent case studies of high-rise modular apartment and hotel buildings constructed by Hickory were cross-referenced as evidence of DfMA capability. The experts suggested that the reasons for slow adoption in Australia were community mindset, government regulations and incentives, planning and building codes, unionization and business politics, finance, and supply chain management. The case studies suggest that compatible building type and transportation distance are also factors. These barriers can be addressed by the clever integration of building information modelling tools with lean construction processes as part of a proposed strategy leading to smarter (more productive) and better (more sustainable) outcomes predicated on growth in digital construction practices. The paper concludes with a proposed framework for change that conceptualizes the ‘ecosystem’ needed to support widespread DfMA in the Australian context, including the paradigm shift from building to manufacturing/assembly, the displacement of workers from onsite to offsite activity, and the expansion of interdisciplinary design and construct collaboration.

'New Gustavians'

The early 1990s saw Sweden severely hit by financial crisis, electoral upheaval and a swift reorientation within political elites resulting in an application to join the European Union (EU). Focusing on the Swedish blockbuster exhibition project Le Soleil et l’Etoile du Nord (The Sun and the North Star) in Paris during spring 1994, this paper argues that the early 1990s represent a key transition period for the renegotiation of the relationship between business, politics and culture in Swedish foreign promotion and cultural diplomacy. In a wide-ranging campaign launched in France ahead of the EU membership, political communication, cultural heritage narratives, and export promotion were brought together in an ambitious national identity political project that showcased a new, liberal-conservative and inherently European Sweden.

Random Actions in Experimental Zero-Sum Games

A mixed strategy, a strategy of unpredictable actions, is applicable to business, politics, and sports. Playing mixed strategies, however, poses a challenge, as the game theory involves calculating probabilities and executing random actions. I test i.i.d. hypotheses of the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium with the simplest experiments in which student participants play zero-sum games in multiple iterations and possibly figure out the optimal mixed strategy (equilibrium) through the games. My results confirm that most players behave differently from the Nash equilibrium prediction for the simplest 2x2 zero-sum game (matching-pennies) and 3x3 zero-sum game (e.g., the rock-paper-scissors game). The results indicate the need to further develop theoretical models that explain a non-Nash equilibrium behavior.

Inactivity of Parliamentarians in National Parliament of Bangladesh: Impacts on Parliamentary Democracy

There is a growing interest in the inactive role of parliamentarians in measuring the success of parliamentary democracy. In this research firstly, it explored the inactive role of the parliamentarians among the eighth, ninth and tenth parliament of Bangladesh national parliment, where it observed that the parliamentarians of both oppositions and the ruling party remained inactive in lawmaking to oversight functions. The main causes of this inactivity of the parliamentarians are apathy to discuss and debate in the parliament, seventy articles of the constitution, the dearth of knowledge of the parliamentary norms, and business politics nexus. The impacts of this inactivity of the parliamentarians are the declining of parliament, which is taking place by the executive and this inactivity serves as a barrier to the process of institutionalization of parliamentary democracy.

GATE- DERIVATIVES FORMED IN 2018-2019 IN RUSSIAN DISCOURSE

Статья посвящена изучению гейт -производных (слов с интернациональным компонентом - гейт в значении ‛ скандал’) 2018-2019 гг. в русском дискурсе. Источниками материала послужили российские электронные газеты, сайты, блоги. В исследовании подвергались анализу данные поисковых систем Яндекс и Google. Методом сплошной выборки было выявлено 28 языковых единиц. В статье ставится цель - дать разноаспектную характеристику гейт- производных за указанный период. Последовательно рассматривается таксономия языковых единиц. Установлено, что преобладают гейт -производные, образованные на русской почве (72%); заимствованные единицы составляют 28%. Сделан вывод о том, что отсутствие в материалах российских электронных источников за 2018-2019 гг. метаязыковых контекстов (рефлексивов) - высказываний, в которых содержится информация о значении, происхождении, сфере употребления гейт -производных - свидетельствует о закреплении элемента - гейт в словообразовательной системе русского языка. Выявлено 7 тематических групп гейт -производных: «Шоу-бизнес», «Политика», «Государственная и муниципальная служба», «Спорт», «Экономика», «Журналистика», «Наука и образование». Изучение структурных особенностей дериватов с элементом -гейт показало, что в качестве первого компонента гейт -производных выступают антропонимы (фамилия), топонимы, эргонимы, прагматонимы, псевдонимы, апеллятивы. Выявлены общие черты дериватов 2018-2019 гг. и корпуса гейт -производных с 1970-х гг. по 2017 г.: 1) преобладание гейт -производных, образованных на русской почве; 2) широкие сочетательные возможности элемента - гейт ; 3) высокочастотное употребление фамилии в качестве первого компонента гейт -производных; 4) разнообразие тематических групп гейт -производных. Наиболее актуальной для русского дискурса становится тематическая группа «Шоу-бизнес», что является особенной чертой дериватов 2018-2019 гг. The article is devoted to the study of gate- derivatives (words with an international component -gate , meaning ‘scandal’) formed in 2018-2019 in Russian discourse. The sources were electronic versions of Russian newspapers, websites, blogs. In the study we analyzed data from search systems Yandex and Google. The continuous sampling method revealed 28 language units. The goal of the article is to give a diverse aspect of the gate- derivatives over the specified period. The taxonomy of linguistic units is sequentially considered. It was established that gate- derivatives which are formed domestically prevail (72%); borrowed units make up 28%. It is concluded that the absence of metalanguage contexts (reflexives) - statements that contain information about the meaning, origin, sphere of usage of gate derivatives - in Russian electronic sources over 2018-2019 testifies to the fixing of the gate- element in the word-formation system of the Russian language. Seven thematic groups of gate derivatives were identified: “Show business”, “Politics”, “State and municipal service”, “Sport”, “Economics”, “Journalism”, “Science and education”. The study of structural features of derivatives with the gate- element shows that the first component of the gate derivatives is anthroponyms (last name), toponyms, ergonyms, pragmatonyms, pseudonyms, appellatives. We identified common features of derivatives formed in 2018-2019 as well as a set of gate- derivatives formed in 1970s - 2017: 1) the predominance of gate- derivatives formed domestically; 2) the wide combining capabilities of the gate- element; 3) high-frequency use of a surname as the first component of gate- derivatives; 4) a variety of thematic groups of gate- derivatives. The most relevant topic for Russian discourse is the “Show business” group, which is a special feature of the de, 2020 rivatives formed in 2018-2019.

On the “Public-ness” of the State

This concluding chapter explains that far from having fulfilled the trumpeted promise of clarifying the respective roles of the state and the marketplace, the neoliberal turn has given birth to a space of mingling and exchange that has no precedent. An extraterritorial zone has grown up at the margins of business, politics, and government. In this new framework, confusion of roles and mixing of genres are not individual deviations from the norm or symptoms of occasional administrative anomalies. On the contrary, they constitute the new normal when it comes to the functioning of the state in its relationships with the market economy. This book, in the end, tells the story of a “black hole” that has appeared at the very heart of our democracies: its birth in a blind spot hidden from the view of professional regulations and political oversight, the expansion of its gravitational pull at the core of the state, and the ensuing political and democratic costs that we face today.

State-business Relations and Industrial Upgrading in the Digital Era: The Cases of Software and Aerospace Sectors in Mexico (2000–2012)

Developing countries face the daunting challenge of stimulating innovation-intensive sectors to increase their participation in the knowledge economy. In this context, two pressing questions arise: What types of state-business relations foster the adoption of industrial upgrading policies? And, what are the mechanisms through which some state-business relations configurations shape the likelihood of policy adoption under more democratic and open conditions? Bridging developmental state and business politics literature, this paper presents a novel framework that posits that the levels of bureaucratic quality and business cohesion generate diverse industrial upgrading policymaking patterns, and thus outcomes. An in-depth case study of the software sector and a cross-case comparison of the aerospace sector in Mexico during the 2000s illustrate and refine the framework. This article makes three main contributions. First, it expands extant political economy theories of industrial upgrading in developing democracies. Second, it improves our understanding of the private sector by carefully analyzing sectoral business cohesion. And third, the paper specifies the mechanisms through which bureaucrats and firms in democratic developing countries collaborate to enact programs that spur high-tech industries in the twenty-first century.