Lithuanian Political Parties in the Age of Populism: Content Analysis of the 2016 and 2020 Seimas Election Programmes

During the spread of populism in politics, we know little about the prevalence of populism in the discourse of Lithuanian political parties. This article presents a content analysis of Lithuanian political parties’ manifestos for the 2016 and 2020 parliamentary elections. The results show that references to the people as a homogeneous unit are relatively widespread, but the number of anti-elitist paragraphs in party programmes is lower. We can divide the parties into three groups according to the level of populism. The most populist parties, located at the fringes of the party system, received little support from the voters in the Seimas elections. Parties that presented relatively high numbers of people-centrist paragraphs and a relatively moderate criticism of the elite proved to be much more successful in the election.

Scotland as a Political Community

Modern perspectives on Scotland see it neither as an undifferentiated part of a unitary nation state, nor as a radically distinct or ‘ethnic’ community. Rather it is a component nation within a union, which itself changes over time. Since the late twentieth century, Scotland has become more important as a political community and at the end of the century it gained an autonomous Parliament. It is not a homogeneous unit but a space in which political contestation takes place. Even as it increasingly resembles the rest of the UK in its economic and social structures and values, it is politically differentiated. Devolution in 1999 started an institutional dynamic whose effects are still being worked out. Scotland now has a distinct party system. Its constitutional future is unresolved after the independence referendum of 2014 and the European referendum of 2016, in which Scotland voted to remain in the European Union whilst England and Wales voted to leave.

An Epitome of Building Floor Systems by Means of LCA Criteria

Studies of the elements that make up the structure of a building have generally focused on topics related to their physical and structural capacities. Although research has been carried out into environmental impact during the life cycle stages, the environmental profile is far from established. This research aims to reduce the gap in the knowledge of this subject, offering useful information to professionals in the construction industry, which will enable them to consider environmental aspects when choosing the best construction systems. The present study applies the methodology of the life cycle assessment (LCA), to analyze and compare four floor construction systems in two different scenarios (“A” with a functional homogeneous unit of 1 m2 and “B” with 1 m² made up of the percentages of the floor system and the special areas of the building). The analysis is performed using the LCA Manager software, along with the Ecoinvent 3.1 database and with a cradle to handover perspective (A1–A5). Comparison was made using two environmental impact methodologies, Eco-indicator 99 and CML 2001. The results highlight the stages A1–A3 as those that generate the greatest environmental impact. Comparing the environmental profiles of the different floor systems, one-way floor systems I and II had the best environmental scores, 30% less than two-way floor system III and 50% less than slab floor system IV.

Li–Yorke Chaos in Globally Coupled Map Lattice with Delays

Delay coupled smooth maps over a ring network with global coupling have been considered. Proof of the existence of chaos in the sense of Li–Yorke in the globally coupled smooth maps with homogeneous unit delay has been given by defining a suitable matrix norm. Conditions for the existence of Li–Yorke chaos depending on the coupling strength, map parameter and lattice size have been derived analytically. Chaotic regions in the parameter space are plotted numerically for delay coupled logistic maps.

Ending Racial Profiling in the Church: Revisiting the Homogenous Unit Principle

The “homogeneous unit principle” (HUP) has informed evangelical mission praxis in the United States for decades. While many see this as a pragmatic approach to spreading the gospel more expediently, others argue that it mirrors processes of racialization in the society at large, while reinforcing hyper-segregation in the church. In this paper, I suggest that the American evangelical church needs to re-examine, and ultimately, shed the exclusionary mission practices informed by the HUP if it is to faithfully embody the unity and reconciliation achieved through Christ’s work on the cross in its racialized mission context (Eph 2:11–22).

Interpreting Women, War, and Feminism

Chapter 2 foregrounds the discussion of policy impact by individual foreign policy leaders. It explores the varied perspectives toward war and equality that are associated with women in Western cultures. The discussion shows how efforts to present half of humanity as a homogeneous unit have fallen short—whether those attempts portray the group as consistently pacifist, feminist, or otherwise. The chapter develops a normative proposition that in liberal democratic systems, executives should ideally carry forward disparate outlooks that roughly approximate the distribution of policy views in the general population. It argues that positions toward political conflict and women’s rights are ideally considered along a spectrum or continuum of opinion.