The review of the financial strategies of Polish pulp and paper companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange

The review of the financial strategies of Polish pulp and paper companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the financial strategy undertaken by the polish pulp and paper companies listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2018 - 2020. In this paper three most frequently used indicators characterising company’s financing strategy were analysed, namely: equity capital share in total capital, equity capital share in fixed assets and long-term debt share in total debt. The calculations used data from publicly available quarterly financial statements of the analysed enterprises for the period from 1st quarter of 2018 to 3rd quarter of 2020. The calculations showed that Kompap has a more moderate policy of financing its activity. The second company, Arctic Paper, was characterized by a more risky approach to the financing strategy.

Explaining the moderate platform of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood: Against the inclusion-moderation hypothesis

<p>Throughout its existence, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB) has consistently maintained a moderate policy on governance. The main aim of this study is to explain this moderation. Previous literature has usually explained moderation in similar movements by an “inclusion-moderation hypothesis”, which holds that moderation results when movements have the opportunity to participate in pluralist political processes. However, the SMB has been progressively excluded from the Syrian political arena since 1963. The inclusion-moderation hypothesis implies, as its converse, that exclusion leads to radicalisation. This study shows that contrary to this expectation, the SMB’s ultimate exclusion from the Syrian political arena in 1982 was in fact the primary driver of its moderate policy. The SMB also participated in parliamentary politics in its early history, and therefore has not moderated over time, as the inclusion-moderation hypothesis would require. Thus, the inclusion-moderation hypothesis does not work for this case, and this dissertation advances an alternate explanation for the SMB’s continued commitment to a moderate policy on governance. This study’s central thesis is that the SMB’s moderate policy on governance can be explained by the Brotherhood’s primary target audience, that is to say, the political force which, in the SMB’s view, can deliver its political objective. As this definition implies, the target audience shifts over time, in accordance with changing circumstances. In 1980, the primary target audience comprised diverse actors in opposition to the al-Asad government: the Fighting Vanguard, the Syrian ulama, and the secularist opposition. In 2001, the audience was the Bashar al-Asad government. In 2004, it was the secularist opposition; and in 2012, it was the foreign sponsors of the secularist opposition.</p>

Explaining the moderate platform of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood: Against the inclusion-moderation hypothesis

<p>Throughout its existence, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB) has consistently maintained a moderate policy on governance. The main aim of this study is to explain this moderation. Previous literature has usually explained moderation in similar movements by an “inclusion-moderation hypothesis”, which holds that moderation results when movements have the opportunity to participate in pluralist political processes. However, the SMB has been progressively excluded from the Syrian political arena since 1963. The inclusion-moderation hypothesis implies, as its converse, that exclusion leads to radicalisation. This study shows that contrary to this expectation, the SMB’s ultimate exclusion from the Syrian political arena in 1982 was in fact the primary driver of its moderate policy. The SMB also participated in parliamentary politics in its early history, and therefore has not moderated over time, as the inclusion-moderation hypothesis would require. Thus, the inclusion-moderation hypothesis does not work for this case, and this dissertation advances an alternate explanation for the SMB’s continued commitment to a moderate policy on governance. This study’s central thesis is that the SMB’s moderate policy on governance can be explained by the Brotherhood’s primary target audience, that is to say, the political force which, in the SMB’s view, can deliver its political objective. As this definition implies, the target audience shifts over time, in accordance with changing circumstances. In 1980, the primary target audience comprised diverse actors in opposition to the al-Asad government: the Fighting Vanguard, the Syrian ulama, and the secularist opposition. In 2001, the audience was the Bashar al-Asad government. In 2004, it was the secularist opposition; and in 2012, it was the foreign sponsors of the secularist opposition.</p>

The Winning Party Platform: Voter Perceptions of Party Positions and Voting in Urban Africa

Previous literature suggests that some African parties employ non-valence positional issues in their party platforms and that this practice is more prevalent in some countries than in others; however, no quantitative research has analysed the electoral effects of non-valenced campaigns. How do African voters perceive parties’ policy positions? Who uses party platforms to choose candidates? Using data from an original survey experiment conducted in Nairobi, we examine voter perceptions of party platforms and their behaviour in the 2017 Kenyan presidential elections. We find that the opposition party’s clearer messaging helps average voters recognise and characterise the party, compared to the incumbent’s moderate policy stance. Moreover, while both parties’ policy positions positively affect voting, non-partisan voters are more likely to support a candidate advocating moderate policies. This implies an incumbency advantage: incumbents’ broad-appeal strategies help maximise their votes, whereas opposition parties have limited strategy options.

Trade Integration in the Asia-Pacific Region: Decomposition of Effects

The article uses international statistics to make a comparative assessment of the effects of integration within the Asia-Pacific region, the Western and Eastern macro-zones of the Asia-Pacific region, in terms of the contribution of the processes of globalization and regionalization in 1994–2018 due to trade agreements and their expansion. The resulting assessment of the effects of integration indicated a greater contribution of the globalization process to the growth of trade in the Asia-Pacific region (APR), especially for the countries of the Eastern macro-zone. It was found that in the Eastern macro-zone, the impact of trade agreements hindered the positive effects of integration. The author discovers fundamental differences between the effects occurring from expanding trade agreements. The process of globalization prevailed over regionalization only in the exporting countries of the Eastern macro-zone; the effects from regionalization were stronger for the importing countries compared to the exporters, which indicates the manifestation of the effect of trade diversion in the Eastern macro-zone. Obtained estimates indicate that from 1994 to 2018, the globalization process acted as a necessary condition for the expansion of trade in both the APR as a whole and in its Western macro-zone, while the process of regionalization played an important supporting role. In the Eastern macro-zone the positive effects of globalization compensated for the ambiguous effects of the regionalization, which, possibly, was the reason for the unsuccessful attempts to create trade mega-formats within this macro-zone. At the same time, the Eastern macro-zone countries that were expanding trade agreements (based at the economic framework) have achieved noticeable increase in trade interactions, especially exports. This is why it is assumed that the quality of the trade agreements, which affects the impact from their realization, is crucial as the assessment of the effects from proliferation of trade agreements demonstrate implicit discrimination of the countries that implement moderate policy of reducing trade barriers through trade agreements. Given the small size of domestic markets, the APR countries implementing such policy can only rely on the effects from globalization, which tend to diminish over time

NEW LEFT RADICALISM AND POPULISM IN WESTERN EUROPE: WHAT'S NEW?

The article is devoted to the study of the features of the new left radicalism in Western Europe on the example of three parties: SYRIZA (Greece), "Unconquered France" (France) and "Podemos" (Spain). In 2012 - 2019 these three left-wing radical parties made a rapid political and electoral spurt. The first and main feature of these parties, which largely predetermined their successes, is populism. As an ideological platform, they chose left-wing populism in the form as it was justified by E. Laclau and consisting in the rejection of the class approach and in the persistent opposition of "we" - "they", "people" - "caste", "oligarchs" etc. The discursively constructed "people" are supposed to be honest, pure and poor, the "caste" or "oligarchy" is corrupted and depraved both politically, economically and morally. The second feature is the widespread use of Web 2.0, various digital technologies, platforms and social media, with the help of which thousands of party members could submit their proposals and discuss them. Rising on a wave of dissatisfaction with austerity policies, SYRIZA and Podemos were able to really participate in the formation of the government (and Unconquered France - to claim that its candidate would become one of the two or three main contenders for the presidency). However, radical socio-economic reforms are likely not included in the plans of the current Western European radical left. Judging by the rapid decline in the tone of the election campaigns, their goal was to oust and replace the existing Social Democratic parties (which SYRIZA succeeded in) and to pursue a moderate policy in a neo-Keynesian spirit.

Looking Beyond GINA: Policy Approaches to Address Genetic Discrimination

Concerns about genetic discrimination (GD) often surface when discussing research and innovation in genetics. Over recent decades, countries around the world have attempted to address GD using various policy measures. In this article, we survey these approaches and provide a critical commentary on their advantages and disadvantages. Our examination begins with regions featuring extensive policy-making activities (North America and Europe), followed by regions with moderate policy-making activities (Australia, Asia, and South America) and regions with minimal policy-making activities (the Middle East and Africa). Our analysis then turns to emerging issues regarding genetic testing and GD, including the expansion of multiomics sciences and direct-to-consumer genetic tests outside the health context. We additionally survey the shortcomings of current normative approaches addressing GD. Finally, we conclude by highlighting the evolving nature of GD and the need for more innovative policy-making in this area.

RAMAI-RAMAI MENOLAK WISATA HALAL: Kontestasi Politik Identitas dalam Perkembangan Wisata Halal di Indonesia

MasterCard Crescent Rating data in 2019 shows Indonesia is the most popular halal tourist destination, together with Malaysia. Intersetingly, at the same time, in 2019 there was also a rejection of Halal Tourism in several regions in Indonesia, such as in Bali, South Sulawesi, North Sumatra and East Nusa Tenggara. This article tries to analyze why there is a rejection of halal tourism amid the growth of halal tourism in Indonesia. Is it more because of the recent strengthening of the wave of Islamism that has been mounted by practical political interests, so that it presents its antithesis namely phobia as a form of cons of hegemony. In this case, the great potential of halal tourism is no longer seen as a great potential for creating prosper for anyone as a form of the universality of halal tourism. This analytical descriptive research with secondary data, uses a discourse analysis to answer the problem formulation with the concept of hegemony and identity politics. The conclusion of this article is that the rejection of halal tourism is significantly influenced by identity politics associated with political friction at the national level. The moderate policy that can be taken by related parties is to return the essence of halal tourism to the provision of special needs for Muslim tourists; convincing the public that halal tourism has a universal potential for the welfare of the community and change the term "halal tourism" to "Muslim friendly tourism" in some Muslim minority areas.Data MasterCard Crescent Rating 2019 menunjukkan Indonesia menjadi destinasi wisata halal terpopuler bersama Malaysia. Namun di sisi lain, pada kurun 2019 terjadi penolakan atas Wisata Halal di beberapa wilayah di Indonesia sebut saja Bali, Sulawesi Selatan, Sumatera Utara, dan Nusa Tenggara Timur. Artikel ini mencoba menganalisis mengapa terjadi penolakan wisata halal di tengah pertumbuhan wisata halal di Indonesia. Apakah lebih karena menguatnya gelombang Islamisme akhir-akhir ini yang tertunggangi kepentingan politik praktis sebagai wujud hegemoni sehingga menghadirkan antitesisnya yakni fobia sebagai wujud konter hegemoni, sehingga potensi besar dari wisata halal itu sendiri tidak lagi dilihat sebagai potensi besar yang bisa menyejahterakan siapapun sebagai wujud universalitasitas wisata halal. Penelitian deskriptif analitis dengan data sekunder ini menggunakan analisis wacana untuk menjawab rumusan masalah dengan pisau iris konsep hegemoni dan politik identitas. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa penolakan wisata halal secara signifikan dipengaruhi oleh politik identitas yang terkait dengan friksi politik di level nasional dan lokal.

An Empirical Analysis on DPRK: Will Grain Yield Influence Foreign Policy Tendency?

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the hub of Northeast Asia and its geopolitics is of great significance, whose foreign policy trend is not only related to the peace and stability of the region, but also one of the major variables affecting cooperation in Northeast Asia. According to the data on North Korea’s grain yield collected by the Korea National Statistical Office, supplemented by the data on international food aid to North Korea collected by the World Food Programme, and combined with the judgment of 10 experts from China, South Korea and the United States on the Hawk and Dove Index of North Korea’s foreign policy from 1990 to 2018, we use empirical mode decomposition wavelet transform data analysis and feature extraction methods to study the impact relationship, and OLS regression analysis to study the actual cycle of transformation. We found that: (1) North Korea’s grain output is an important indicator that affects its foreign policy tendency (hawks or doves). The hawk refers to those who take a tough attitude in policy and prefer rigid means such as containment, intimidation and conflicts; the dove refers to those who take mild attitude in policy, and prefer to adopt flexible means such as negotiation, cooperation, and coordination. When it comes to grain yield increase, North Korea’s foreign policy tends to be hawkish; when it comes to grain reduction, its dovish tendency will be on the rise. This is because food increase can alleviate grain shortage in North Korea and enhance its ability to adopt tough policies in its foreign policy. However, decreases in grain production will lead to adopt a more moderate policy and seek international cooperation and assistance to ease the internal pressure caused by grain shortage. (2) North Korea’s grain yield influencing its foreign policy (hawks or doves) has a lag phase of about 3 years. Such being the case, the accumulated grain during the production increase period has enhanced North Korea’s ability to cope with grain reduction in the short term. Secondly, the North Korean government blames the reduction on foreign sanctions, which will instead make the North Korean people more determined to resist external pressure. Therefore, we can use the changes in North Korea’s grain output to predict the direction of its foreign policy so as to more accurately judge the development of the Korean Peninsula and more effectively promote the process of peace and cooperation in Northeast Asia. We concluded that grain production will affect its policy sustainability in North Korea.

Bolton’s exit may boost moderate US foreign policy

Headline UNITED STATES: Bolton exit may boost moderate policy