STUDYING THE ESP NEEDS OF STUDENTS OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIO-POLITICAL STUDIES

The article presents a study of the ESP needs of students of economics and socio-political studies aimed at course optimisation. The research includes two stages with the pilot one having finished in June 2021 and involving the students at the University of National and World Economy (UNWE) in Bulgaria as well as the subject and ESP lecturers at UNWE. The second stage is being conducted with students from universities with the profile of UNWE in Bulgaria and worldwide (April-October 2021). The results from the survey of students from the pilot stage are presented and analysed in detail along with a review of the ESP needs analysis studies.

Taking risks and breaking new frontiers: introduction to the Special Issue and the cardinal challenges for policy and politics scholarship

This Special Issue makes a statement about the study of policy and politics, where it has been, how it is done, what it is, and where it is going. When addressing the question ‘who gets to speak for our discipline?’ we respond emphatically – many people, from many places, working in many ways. It comprises scholarship that has rarely been combined to explore some cardinal challenges about our scholarship: (1) How do we conceive of policy and political studies? (2) To what extent should our science be ‘normative’ or ‘objective’ or ‘positive’? (3) Who are our audiences, and how do we engage them? (4) Whose knowledge matters, and how does it accumulate? (5) How should we advance the study of policy and politics? We conclude charging the field to consider different ways of thinking about what we can discover and construct in the world and how we can conduct our science.

Armenia, Caucaso e Asia Centrale. Ricerche 2021

Consistently with a consolidated tradition within the series «Eurasiatica», the volume aims to intercept and represent the main research trends in the academic debate about the region across the Caucasus and Central Asia unfolding in the Italian academic environment and involving both national and international scholars. In this perspective, the volume presents a series of essays that draw inspiration from papers presented in the context of the main annual conferences and conventions focused on Caucasian and Central Asian studies. Accordingly, the volume hosts contributions shaped by different disciplinary matrices, ranging from historical and philological to linguistic, literary and political studies.

Threat and fear: Pragmatic purposes of emotionalisation in media discourse

The impact of mass media on individuals and society is to a great extent based on emotions. We concentrate on fear as it is one of the basic emotions triggered by risk and threat, which is claimed to play a key role in the twenty-first century consciousness (Furedi 20018). The study focuses on the emotionalisation of fear in contemporary media discourse about Russia, more specifically, on constructions of Russian threat and fear of Russia in Anglo-American media texts to highlight pragmatic effects and to speculate on possible purposes of such discourses. The study aims to explore the functioning of the lexemes threat and fear , in textual contexts with the focus on their pragma-discursive characteristics. It identifies the mechanisms as well as linguistic tools involved in media strategies of scare-mongering. The dataset was derived from quality British and American newspapers in the period 2018-2020, and was analysed drawing on an interdisciplinary approach combining critical discourse analysis, pragmatics, medialinguistics, psycholinguistics and the theory of proximisation. The paper argues that appealing to emotions as well as constructing emotions is aimed at enhancing the persuasive function of media and fulfilling their own agenda. The persistent use of the words threat and fear in relation to Russia as well as the obsessive discussion of this topic in media aim to shape a certain negative public opinion of Russia among readerships. The findings show that to achieve this goal different strategies and linguistic tools are used including: exaggeration, repetition, proximisation, interrogative headlines, presupposition, among others. The results go beyond linguistics, and may find implementation in political studies, since they provide researchers with tools for understanding contemporary social and political processes.

Modern Folk Devils: Contemporary Constructions of Evil

The devilish has long been integral to myths, legends, and folklore, firmly located in the relationships between good and evil, and selves and others. But how are ideas of evil constructed in current times and framed by contemporary social discourses? Modern Folk Devils builds on and works with Stanley Cohen’s theory on folk devils and moral panics to discuss the constructions of evil. The authors present an array of case-studies that illustrate how the notion of folk devils nowadays comes into play and animates ideas of otherness and evil throughout the world.Examining current fears and perceived threats, this volume investigates and analyzes how and why these devils are constructed. The chapters discuss how the devilish may take on many different forms: sometimes they exist only as a potential threat, other times they are a single individual or phenomenon or a visible group, such as refugees, technocrats, Roma, hipsters, LGBT groups, and rightwing politicians. Folk devils themselves are also given a voice to offer an essential complementary perspective on how panics become exaggerated, facts distorted, and problems acutely angled. Bringing together researchers from anthropology, sociology, political studies, ethnology, and criminology, the contributions examine cases from across the world spanning from Europe to Asia and Oceania.

MULTIPLE OPTIONS OF POPULISM INTERPRETATION IN THE MODERN POLITICAL STUDIES

Успех популистских партий на выборах в Европейский парламент в 2019 году закрепил положение популистов как нового значимого политического актора в Европейском Союзе. Однако до сих пор в академической среде отсутствует единое мнение о том, что такое популизм и какие политические силы можно охарактеризовать как популистские. В статье делается обзор работ зарубежных и российских авторов о популизме, его истоках и характеристиках. Приводятся основные подходы к интерпретации понятия популизма и его характеристик и делается вывод о том, что сегодня популизм – это не идеология или стиль взаимодействия политика с избирателями, а коммуникационная стратегия.

The politics of presence: Political representation and New Zealand's Asian members of Parliament

<p>In New Zealand, existing studies relating to the political representation of the country’s minority groups are largely confined to that of women and the Māori population. Unsurprisingly then, the representation of Asian-New Zealanders is an area that has been mostly overlooked to date. However, the numerous indicators that allude to the group’s growing social and demographic presence also suggests it is of increasing importance that they are included in New Zealand’s political narrative. This thesis seeks to address the gap by undertaking a case study of current and former Asian-New Zealand members of Parliament, in an attempt to establish their representative role. The complexities of this undertaking are readily recognised. The theoretical component of this thesis draws on a number of concepts from under the umbrella of political representation. Similarly, the primary data gathered from a series of extensive interviews with the intention of supplementing the aforementioned literature review is subject to other factors, including but not limited to political structure and individual perception. In spite of the expansive and subjective area of focus, and while only intended to be an exploratory (rather than exhaustive) work, it is hoped that this thesis will make a meaningful contribution to an understudied field in New Zealand political studies.</p>

The politics of presence: Political representation and New Zealand's Asian members of Parliament

<p>In New Zealand, existing studies relating to the political representation of the country’s minority groups are largely confined to that of women and the Māori population. Unsurprisingly then, the representation of Asian-New Zealanders is an area that has been mostly overlooked to date. However, the numerous indicators that allude to the group’s growing social and demographic presence also suggests it is of increasing importance that they are included in New Zealand’s political narrative. This thesis seeks to address the gap by undertaking a case study of current and former Asian-New Zealand members of Parliament, in an attempt to establish their representative role. The complexities of this undertaking are readily recognised. The theoretical component of this thesis draws on a number of concepts from under the umbrella of political representation. Similarly, the primary data gathered from a series of extensive interviews with the intention of supplementing the aforementioned literature review is subject to other factors, including but not limited to political structure and individual perception. In spite of the expansive and subjective area of focus, and while only intended to be an exploratory (rather than exhaustive) work, it is hoped that this thesis will make a meaningful contribution to an understudied field in New Zealand political studies.</p>