In search of a liberal polity: the Rukh Council of Nationalities,the Jewish question,and Ukrainian independence

By circumstances of history The Popular Movement of Ukraine, more frequently referred to simply as Rukh, became a critical part of the effort to consolidate Ukraine's early independence. A broad, grassroots coalition established in 1989 to support Gorbachev's policies to revitalize Soviet society, Rukh's original appeal called for respect and friendship among ethnic and national groups and the development of deep understanding between them, values that guided the work of Rukh's Council of Nationalities. This account focuses particular attention on the Council's involvement with the nascent Jewish revival in Ukraine. The original strength of Rukh was its emphasis on inclusion. However, competing interests intervened and Rukh was transformed from a popular coalition into a center-right political party. By 1993, the Council of Nationalities had ceased to exit. This firsthand account by the former chair of the Council of Nationalities recounts the interplay from 1989 to 1993 between the aspirations of Rukh, its Council of Nationalities, the Jewish community, the rapidly developing events that led to Ukraine's independence and their immediate aftermath for Rukh and the Council.     

Concurrent cognitive task may improve motor work performance and reduce muscle fatigue

Performance of certain cognitive tasks either during physical load or in rest pauses between boosts might lead to slowing of muscle fatigue and fatigue related decline in performance. Seventeen right-handed healthy volunteers (age 24 ± 1.4, 8 males) participated in this study, aiming to investigate the effect of the level of the cognitive information processing - 1) passive perception of audio stimuli, 2) active stimuli discrimination, 3) active stimuli discrimination following motor response - on motor task performance (handgrip test 30% and 7% of MVC) and muscle fatigue development. Cognitive tasks show the following effects on motor work: i) Perceived fatigue during 30 % MVC (fatiguing) condition developed slower if participant pressed button in response to deviant acoustic stimuli, as compared to passive listening. Counting task, an active task without motor component, took the intermediate position and did not differ significantly from two other cognitive tasks. ii) MVC after 30% MVC (fatiguing) condition tended to decrease stronger when accompanied with passive listening in comparison with both active tasks. iii) Motor task performance during 30% MVC (fatiguing) condition was better for active cognitive task with motor component than for passive task. Active task without motor component took the intermediate position and did not differ significantly from both the other cognitive tasks.     

Civilizational Nationalism

“Civilizational nationalism,” the view that Russia follows a special path that predisposes it to authoritarian government, affects both the country's prospects for full-fledged democracy and the way in which academic and political circles discuss those prospects.     

The Antiutopia Factory

A "dystopian discourse" has emerged in Russian literature of the mid-2000s in novels shot through with negative images of present-day Russia and haunted by a profound historical pessimism and "eschatological alarmism."     

COLLABORATE OR CONSOLIDATE: ASSESSING THE COMPETITIVE EFFECTS OF PRODUCTION JOINT VENTURES

We analyze collaborations in which two firms facing external competition reorganize to form an input joint venture as an alternative to horizontal merger. Under standard regularity conditions, the collaboration can lead to higher profits than a horizontal merger, though the effect on prices, quantities, and welfare depends on the form of downstream competition. In light of our results regarding profits, we provide reasons why firms might still wish to merge: imperfect information, cost synergies, and organizational asymmetries. We further consider how our comparisons change with the managerial structure of the joint venture (i.e., by delegation of input pricing). (JEL L13, L23, L42)     

Factoring Turbulence Out: Diaspora Regulatory Mechanism and Migration Development Bank

The ongoing economic crisis has shifted much of the policy debate to problems of financial sector regulation, productive capacity collapse, among others. However, this leaves unattended the real situation with labour migration, which directly impacts social and economic inner components of being of millions of individual families across the world. The somewhat ad hoc nature of the process poses several policy issues for the home and host economies alike. Immediate concerns relate to streamlining migrants and remittances flows. This involves sensitive aspects of inequality in migrant workers’ labour efforts vis‐à‐vis domestic workers; migrants’ social and legal status; and less obvious, but still profound, unproductive misallocation of labour resources. Derived from this premise and recognizing the need for an institutional approach, this paper offers alternative policy solutions to temporary labour migration regulation. This research’s original propositions include a Diaspora Regulatory Mechanism and a Migration Development Bank, both operating within a state‐managed temporary labour migration regime. Fiscal action, including multilateral agreements, is crucial. The functionality of these mechanisms will directly impact infrastructure, human capital and entrepreneurial projects development in both home and host economies. Discussion is inspired by the analysis of actual circumstances in the economies of the Commonwealth of Independent States, where migration is a social, economic, and increasingly political issue. In the interlinked world, diasporas become dominant actors across all society strata. The development plateau of the post‐socialist states offers a rich economic and social soil to conduct responsible policy with future outlook. Moreover, conditions of ongoing economic crisis offer a unique opportunity for daring research to propose and for a motivated decisionmaker to implement original, proactive, and beneficial policy solutions aimed at streamlining the (temporary) labour migration process. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on topics of diaspora, labour migration, and remittance flows.     

Eurasian Integration,Its Prospects and Possibilities

The article describes various considerations in relation to the past, present, and future of the Eurasian integration process.     

In Search of an Effective Coercive Strategy to Deter the Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction

The study of suicidal behavior (actual suicides, attempts, or simulated attempts on one's life) touches upon the profound question of the purpose and meaning of human existence. In the words of Vladimir Solov'ev, "There are serious people among those who deny any meaning to life: there are those who consummate their denial with action, suicide, and there are people who are not serious, who deny the meaning of life only through arguments and whole spurious philosophical systems" (quoted in [1]). The problem of suicide has regularly attracted the attention of philosophers, theologians, writers, and scholars since the times of Plato and Aristotle.