Social Sciences

Abstract: Bilateral strategic partnerships (BSPs) have become a pivotal instrument of interstate cooperation, yet the concept remains undertheorized and systematic cross-case analysis of partnership structure and resilience is scarce. This study constructs a four-axis analytical framework distinguishing BSPs from cognate forms of cooperation and applies it, through reflexive thematic analysis and structured focused comparison, to four paradigmatic models—Franco-German, U.S.–Japan, Sino-Russian, and Saudi–U.S.—drawing on treaty texts, joint communiqués, official policy documents, institutional statistics, and peer-reviewed scholarship from 2015 to 2025. Three findings emerge. Partnership durability rests on four interdependent enabling conditions, of which institutional architecture alone discriminates among outcomes and alone compensates for weakness elsewhere in the system. Dimensional balance is analytically distinct from dimensional depth, and balanced partnerships absorb shocks that skewed partnerships do not. Typological placement is dynamic rather than fixed: the Saudi–U.S. case demonstrates how a partnership anchored historically in a single functional domain can be deliberately broadened into a multidimensional framework through a national transformation strategy, exercising strategic agency over the terms of its most consequential external relationship. The study concludes that BSPs function not merely as bilateral instruments but as constitutive building blocks of a polycentric international order, while cautioning against the inflationary deployment of the partnership label.

Abstract: Most formal models of governance treat governance as a single-level phenomenon and permit jurisdictions to advance their own flourishing at the expense of others. This paper extends the General Governance Success Model (GSM) to multi-level governance under a bounded non-exploitation constraint: no jurisdiction may impose uncompensated, non-trivial sacrifices on another for its own benefit. The extension introduces justice as a sixth governance capability, decomposed into distributive, procedural, recognition, corrective, and intergenerational dimensions. Justice is treated as a productive, fragile, multi-level capability that co-evolves with accountability, competence, cohesion, continuity, and learning—not merely as an external normative constraint. Four constraints govern the justice subsystem: bounded non-exploitation, a dimension-specific justice floor, vulnerability-sensitive non-exploitation, and vertical alignment enforced dimension-wise. A signed justice interaction matrix captures synergies and tensions between dimensions; the matrix is disciplined by bounded support, sign priors, and a hierarchical Bayesian identification protocol. Cross-level accountability is specified at the dimension level, so that recognition and intergenerational shortfalls cannot be masked by high distributive performance. Constraint enforcement is modelled as policy intervention with designated authority, implementation cost distributed across multiple capability channels, finite horizon, and passive recovery, yielding an endogenous frequency ceiling on aggressive justice improvement. A dimension-specific prioritarian welfare function completes the architecture. GSM-J is a conditional normative systems model: it makes value commitments explicit and swappable, but does not derive them. Its contribution is a formal substrate for a computational theory of normative governance systems. The model is released as an open-source Python library, gsm-governance.

Abstract: Governments now routinely unmask the hacktivist personas that states use as fronts for cyber operations, yet many of these personas keep operating after they have been exposed. This article asks why states keep wearing a disguise that no longer disguises anything. It argues that a persona does two jobs. It conceals the sponsor's hand, and it presents the sponsor's actions through a public voice the sponsor does not have to avow: a voice that claims operations, issues threats and releases stolen material, and that accumulates an audience over time. Credible public attribution destroys concealment value but leaves presentation value largely intact. Personas built for a single operation or event therefore lapse when it ends, whether or not they have been exposed, while personas built as open-ended campaign brands survive exposure and can be revived when a new conflict restores demand for them. The argument is developed as typological theory and examined against the universe of hacktivist-branded personas publicly attributed by governments to state sponsors since 2014. None of the eight personas active at the time of attribution was retired by attribution itself. The three that lapsed were event-bound; the four that persisted were campaign brands; one event-bound persona was revived during a later war, and one persisting persona broke away from its sponsor. The findings extend Canfil's account of the decline of plausible deniability by explaining why insourced cyber operations keep their non-state costumes, specify what implausible deniability is still worth once a secret is out, and suggest that the success of public attribution should not be measured by whether a persona disappears.

Abstract: The restructuring of industrial cities follows various paths depending on local conditions and choices. A novel idea of a local industrial restructuring is to link the industrial park development with the circular economy. The park formations that are based on local government initiatives combine public and private interests, which poses a governance challenge, as they must generate both public value and profits for businesses. In this article, we will focus on the city government’s role and relations with key stakeholders in the building of the green growth coalition around recycling industrial district. Our research is based on single case study methodology. The case is the largest recycling industrial district in Japan, the Kitakyushu Eco-Town. Our interest is in the role of city government as a key player of the green growth coalition. The results show that the city government can effectively build a growth coalition that eventually contributes to the green restructuring. Building a green growth machine is, however, contingent, i.e. the success of the coalition is conditioned by local leadership and endogenous factors as well as their connections with exogenous factors from national governments to global economic and technology trends.

Abstract: Local-government autonomy is intended to strengthen subnational discretion over public resources, but greater financial access does not necessarily produce substantive autonomy or better budget implementation. This study examines Nigeria's 2024 local-government autonomy reform using Gombe State as a subnational case. A mixed-methods design combines financial records for all 11 LGAs in 2023–2024 with semi-structured interviews on fund control, state–LGA relations, budget implementation and accountability. Quantitative analysis uses descriptive statistics, year-on-year changes, Pearson correlations and principal component analysis across 22 LGA-year observations. Mean total revenue increased from 3,423.14 in 2023 to 5,126.46 in 2024, while actual expenditure rose from 3,085.93 to 4,716.27. However, IGR remained about 1% of total revenue, while revenue and expenditure implementation declined from 80.44% to 65.64% and from 72.55% to 59.07%, respectively. Financial responses were highly heterogeneous, particularly in IGR growth and capital expenditure. IGR share was not significantly associated with implementation, whereas revenue and expenditure implementation were strongly associated. Interviews indicate that financial access remained shaped by administrative procedures, state–LGA relations and accountability constraints. The findings show that financial expansion alone did not produce substantive autonomy, highlighting the need to align financial discretion, implementation capacity and accountability.

Abstract: Public expenditure has long been a concern, particularly under the monarchy. This is the first cost-benefit analysis of the Coronation of a Monarch. Focusing on new media (YouTube, X, and Instagram) and mass-media (Newsstream database), this study estimated the benefits of the coronation at Westminster Abbey using mathematical models. The social and mass media generated \(7.34 × 10^16(\)9.17 × 10^16; $6.05 × 10^16) in marketing, contributing to a benefit-to-cost ratio of 680 million: 1. The sensitivity of upper and lower estimates is 1.01 billion and 4.84 million, respectively. Therefore, it is recommended that other Commonwealth nations with King Charles III as their ceremonial monarch establish similar coronations, unique swearing/oath ceremonies, featuring appropriate, homegrown, and inspired crowns, to benefit from substantial economic, soft-power, rebranding, and intangible benefits during the first artificial intelligence revolution while reinforcing the commitment of the monarch to their own unique constitution.

Abstract: Mass polarization is often considered a partisan phenomenon, but is partisanship a necessary condition for mass polarization? To answer this question, we examine whether policy disagreement, specifically opinion divergence, can contribute to affective polarization independently of partisanship. We test three theoretical and empirical premises of partisan-centric accounts relating to opinion divergence. First, we test whether opinion divergence has remained stable, as previous conclusions of stability were instrumental in leading subsequent theories to de-center policy disagreement and prioritize partisanship. Using the Wasserstein Bipolarization Index that axiomatizes the distributional intuitions of bipolarization, we find increasing opinion divergence in the general electorate contrary to previous findings. Second, we test whether this increase extends beyond partisans by examining non-leaning Independents, whom partisan-centric models assume remain centrist over time. We find that non-leaners diverge comparably to weak partisans and leaning Independents, demonstrating that opinion divergence is not confined to the partisan framework. Third, to examine whether non-leaners' policy opinions have affective consequences, we test their association with affective differentiation based on agreement or disagreement and find a positive and growing correlation. Together, these findings provide evidence consistent with opinion divergence operating as a path to affective polarization independently of partisan identity. To reconcile this pathway with existing partisan-centric models, we propose a substantive-identity dual model of polarization.

Abstract: The western populist radical right has turned culture oriented. With this comes an increased focus on religion, particularly Christianity. Previous studies tend to see the relationship between the populist radical right and Christian theology as a case of hijacking where religion is abused. This review article takes another perspective and analyses the relationship between Christian theology and practice on the one hand, and the populist radical right politics as strategy and style in governance. The analysis centres around five interlinked core traits of nasty politics. It is found that the strategies and styles applied by populist radical right leaders and parties in Europe as well as the US, as manifested in the core traits, are well established in Christian theology and practice. Power over thought, dualistic polarisation and persuasion are found more generally in different mainstream Christian theologies and practices. Punishment and disruption are less articulated in mainstream Christianity but are central in American evangelical Christianity. The study adds new knowledge, first from its focus on politics as strategy and style rather than politics as ideology, second from its identification of Christian influence not only within a country, but from other countries and continents through an international networked movement.

Abstract: Hybrid warfare has become a defining feature of twenty-first-century conflict, yet scholarly and policy analysis remains disproportionately anchored in state-centric models. This qualitative study addresses that gap by investigating the role of non-state actors as both perpetrators and instruments of hybrid warfare. Employing a multi-case qualitative design grounded in thematic analysis, the paper examines three principal dimensions of non-state participation: private military companies as extensions of state power, cyber mercenaries and the construction of plausible deniability, and influence operations conducted through non-state media networks. Drawing on documentary analysis, policy documents, open-source intelligence reporting, and peer-reviewed scholarship published through 2024, the study develops an original typology of state–non-state hybrid warfare relationships spanning five modalities: direct proxy, contractual delegation, ideological franchise, tacit enablement, and autonomous convergence. The findings indicate that the deliberate blurring of state and non-state boundaries functions as a strategic asset rather than an analytical inconvenience, enabling actors to circumvent international legal frameworks, evade attribution, and operate below the threshold of conventional armed conflict. Recent evidence further suggests that the deniability dividend is conditional and diminishing, as improvements in public attribution and forensic capability erode the space between political knowledge and legal proof. The paper concludes with policy-relevant recommendations for counter-hybrid strategy, the regulation of private military and commercial cyber capabilities, and the development of international norms adequate to the evolving architecture of contemporary conflict.

Abstract: The intersection of climate change and international security has emerged as one of the most consequential analytical frontiers in twenty-first-century international relations. This paper develops a multidimensional framework for analyzing how environmental stress shapes interstate conflict and cooperation, advancing beyond existing scholarship that treats climate as a background variable. Drawing on securitization theory, environmental peacebuilding literature, and the most recent empirical syntheses of climate–conflict linkages, the paper articulates seven interconnected dimensions of climate security—resource competition, migration pressures, territorial change, food security, cooperation opportunities, securitization dynamics, and infrastructure vulnerability—situated within a multilevel structure spanning local, national, regional, and global scales. Through comparative analysis of transboundary water governance, climate-induced migration, Arctic geopolitics, food-system disruption, and environmental peacemaking initiatives, the paper identifies both pathways to conflict and opportunities for cooperation. The findings indicate that climate security outcomes are contingent rather than deterministic, mediated by political institutions, economic conditions, and social structures; that institutional density determines how much climate stress a domain can absorb; and that conflictual and cooperative trajectories frequently co-occur within the same regions and dyads. The paper contributes to international relations theory by bridging materialist and constructivist perspectives on climate security, offering policy-relevant insights for diplomatic practice, international law, and multilateral governance. It concludes by identifying priority areas for future research, including the climatization of security institutions, the legal implications of disappearing states, the security externalities of mitigation policy, and the potential for climate cooperation to serve as a confidence-building measure in contested geopolitical environments.

Abstract: International seminars and conferences have moved from the periphery of diplomatic life to its centre, becoming instruments through which states project soft power in an era of geostrategic transformation. Drawing on a qualitative, multi-method analysis of major international forums held between 2020 and 2024, this study examines how nations strategically leverage convening platforms to shape global narratives, cultivate alliances, and advance national interests beyond the reach of traditional hard-power instruments. Using case-study, comparative, and thematic analysis grounded in Nye’s soft-power theory and complex-interdependence and constructivist perspectives, the research identifies a qualitative shift in conference function. Contemporary forums operate as hybrid diplomatic–commercial platforms that integrate agenda-setting, convening power, thought leadership, and strategic signalling. The findings show that established powers use conferences to reinforce institutional leadership and norm-setting, whereas emerging powers tie convening strategies directly to economic integration, investment attraction, and national transformation agendas. Technological innovation—particularly the post-pandemic turn to hybrid formats—has both democratised participation and produced new digital hierarchies. The study concludes that the capacity to convene, moderate, and shape international discourse now constitutes a strategically consequential form of power, and it offers a weighted framework for assessing conference effectiveness as a soft-power instrument.

Abstract: Despite significant advances in the measurement of state fragility, existing assessment frameworks remain primarily descriptive, identifying symptoms of institutional weakness without adequately explaining the systemic interactions that generate national vulnerability. Dominant approaches, including the Fragile States Index and state capacity measures, typically aggregate indicators of political instability, economic decline, insecurity, and governance deficits but provide limited guidance for diagnosing the underlying mechanisms that inhibit national adaptation and regeneration. This article introduces the Nationesis Diagnostic Matrix (NDM), a complexity-based diagnostic framework grounded in the theory of Nationesis. Rather than measuring fragility as a static condition, the NDM conceptualizes fragility as an emergent property of interacting failures across institutional, cognitive, social, ecological, economic, technological, and symbolic systems. The paper develops the theoretical foundations of the matrix, proposes its multidimensional architecture, explains its diagnostic methodology, and illustrates how it can support adaptive governance, institutional reform, and strategic policy design. The NDM complements the Nationesis Index by shifting analytical attention from measuring regenerative capacity to identifying the systemic constraints that prevent political communities from achieving long-term transformation.

Abstract: Contemporary approaches to comparative national assessment have produced a wide range of indicators measuring governance quality, human development, institutional effectiveness, innovation performance, and state fragility. Although these frameworks have significantly advanced comparative political analysis, they remain primarily oriented toward assessing current conditions, institutional outputs, or accumulated capacities. They provide limited insight into a fundamental question facing political communities in an era of systemic disruption: why do some nations successfully renew themselves while others remain trapped in cycles of decline, fragility, and institutional stagnation?This article introduces the Nationesis Index (NI), a novel composite framework designed to conceptualize and measure national regenerative capacity. Building on complexity theory, adaptive governance, institutional evolution, resilience studies, and theories of collective intelligence, Nationesis conceptualizes nations as complex adaptive political systems capable of learning, reorganizing, innovating, and transforming under conditions of uncertainty. The article develops the theoretical foundations of national regeneration and proposes eight interconnected dimensions of the Nationesis Index: institutional regeneration, cognitive capacity, innovation capacity, social cohesion, adaptive governance, ecological resilience, economic transformation, and symbolic legitimacy.Methodologically, the article presents a framework for index construction based on indicator selection, normalization procedures, multidimensional weighting, composite aggregation, sensitivity analysis, and expert-based validation. A preliminary illustrative application demonstrates the potential of the NI for comparative political analysis while acknowledging the need for further empirical testing. Unlike conventional indices that primarily evaluate how well nations perform at a given moment, the Nationesis Index addresses a different analytical challenge: how capable nations are of regenerating themselves through learning, adaptation, and systemic transformation.By introducing national regeneration as a distinct analytical construct, this article contributes to debates on political development, state capacity, resilience, and adaptive governance. It proposes a new research agenda for understanding nations not only as institutional arrangements but as evolving living systems.

Abstract: This article examines whether Turkey’s defense-industrial transformation constitutes an observable precursor to formal disengagement from NATO’s integrated military command — a process the authors term denatofication. The study addresses a gap in the strategic autonomy literature, which describes Turkey’s hedging behavior without specifying the institutional mechanism by which its structural contradiction (simultaneous NATO membership and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation aspirant status) could be resolved. Using comparative historical case study design, the article analyzes two historical precedents (France 1966–2009; Greece 1974–1980) and applies a three-dimensional sovereignty framework (infrastructural, institutional, narrative) to Turkey’s defense-industrial record from 2000 to 2026. The principal finding is that material denatofication — defense localization exceeding 80%, the sovereign Steel Dome air-defense network, the KAAN fifth-generation fighter, the Anadolu drone-carrier, and autonomous mobilization legislation — precedes and enables institutional denatofication. The Incirlik Paradox (U.S. B61 warheads; GE engines for KAAN) identifies the two residual dependencies that define the unfinished frontier of Turkish strategic autonomy. The NATO Ankara Summit (July 2026) provided real-time confirmation of both the paradox and Turkey’s structural ambivalence. Policy implications bear on NATO cohesion, SCO expansion, and Greater Eurasia architecture.

Abstract: Susceptibility to misinformation threatens democratic processes, yet the differential predictive role of authoritarianism subdimensions remains understudied. This study integrates data from two independent Romanian samples collected during the 2024–2025 electoral cycle (N = 597), examining how aggression, conventionalism/traditionalism, and submission/conservatism predict two distinct outcomes: accuracy in identifying false news (Study 1, N = 427, RWA-15) and belief in conspiracy statements drawn from the annulled Romanian presidential election (Study 2, N = 170, VSA-6). Hierarchical regressions revealed a striking dissociation: authoritarian submission was the dominant predictor of fake news detection deficits (β = −0.41, p < .001), while traditionalism was the dominant predictor of conspiracy belief (β = +0.39, p < .001). Aggression failed to predict either outcome after controls. Fisher's z tests confirmed systematic cross-study differences (both p < .001), consistent with distinct cognitive and ideological routes to misinformation susceptibility. Person-centered analyses replicated the variable-centered findings. Cross-instrumental convergence was partial: the traditionalism/conventionalism equivalence replicated consistently, while submission/conservatism showed less stability. These findings suggest that prebunking interventions should be tailored to authoritarian profiles: cognitively oriented training for submission-dominant individuals, and value-based argumentation for traditionalism-dominant ones.

Abstract: International Political Economy (IPE) confronts a moment of genuine intellectual reckoning. The theoretical frameworks that defined discipline during the three decades following the Cold War—anchored in liberal assumptions concerning convergence, institutionalized cooperation, and the pacifying logic of economic interdependence, are increasingly strained by a world they were not constructed to explain. The 2020s have delivered a compounding cluster of structural disruptions: systemic rivalry between liberal and non-liberal states, the distributional politics of the green energy transition, the deliberate weaponization of economic interdependence, the emergence of an intangible platform economy that defies established regulatory categories, and the deepening entanglement of geopolitics with international finance. Against this backdrop, this paper identifies and analyzes five foundational research gaps that collectively define the frontier of contemporary IPE scholarship: (a) the retreat of liberal ontology and the ascendance of non-liberal economic orders; (b) the material politics of climate change and the green transition; (c) the return of interstate war and the re-militarization of economics; (d) the analytical challenge of digital sovereignty and the intangible economy; and (e) the imperative to re-center politics in the study of global finance. Drawing on a systematic synthetic literature review and comparative conceptual analysis of scholarship published between 1970 and 2026, the paper integrates twenty-three analytical tables and two original figures as structured devices for mapping conceptual terrain. The paper argues that none of these gaps can be addressed through incremental refinement of existing frameworks; each requires a more fundamental rethinking of the ontological and epistemological commitments that have shaped IPE over five decades. Addressing them demands genuine methodological pluralism—the productive integration of quantitative, formal, qualitative, and historical approaches. The crisis of relevance confronting IPE is real, yet it is simultaneously an opportunity to construct a discipline more intellectually honest and analytically adequate to the world it seeks to explain.

Abstract: This working paper offers a compact academic statement of the CIRIT conceptual framework — a pentagonal geometry of five civilisational poles of Greater Eurasia (China, India, Russia, Iran, Türkiye) organising the outer contour of the Eurasian architecture, with five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) constituting the inner core. The paper justifies the abbreviation through a dual etymology (the Turkic equestrian game cirit, inscribed by UNESCO in 2017, and the Sanskrit kirīṭa, meaning "crown"), establishes the structural properties of the proposed geometry (a complete nuclear-threshold contour, strategic ambivalence, an operational C5 × CIRIT core), and positions the concept against existing Eurasian frameworks (SCO, EAEU, OTS, BRICS). The paper develops the framework through five analytical dimensions: definitional and etymological grounding; structural properties of the geometry; comparative positioning against extant formats; historical and civilisational underpinnings of each pole; and implications for Central Asian agency. This preprint registers conceptual priority on the terminology and geometry for subsequent extended publication.

Abstract: This paper introduces the analytical formula "Russian Bayonet, Chinese Yuan" — a conceptual construct describing the stable functional asymmetry between Russia and China in Central Asia over the period 1992–2022. By functional asymmetry the paper means a historically consolidated, structurally reproduced, but never treaty-codified division of dominant roles: Russia as the primary provider of security guarantees and political stability; China as the dominant source of infrastructural financing and economic expansion through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The paper acknowledges that this asymmetry was not absolute: China gradually increased its security presence while Russian economic influence through migration channels remained substantial. The paper is conceptual in character; its aim is to introduce the formula into academic circulation, propose operationalizable proxy indicators for subsequent empirical verification, and map the stress-testing logic using counterfactual cases. The theoretical basis is the author's concept of Infrastructure Projection of Geopolitics (IPG; Rakhimov, 2026). The paper argues that the structural fracture of 2022 initiated a process of reconfiguration of this arrangement — without instantly destroying it.

Abstract: East Asia has been one of the most volatile parts of international politics for decades, with the Taiwan Question being at the center of the geopolitical interactions among great and middle powers within the region. 2016 witnessed a new transfer of power between the two major political parties on Taiwan, from Kuomintang, a pro-status quo party to Democratic Progress Party, a pro-independence party. This new partisan political situation on the island produces worries about the uncertainty of geopolitical development and security situation in East Asia. The fact that America plays an important role in the cross-Strait relations makes policymakers and scholars very much concerned with the development of Sino-US security relationship and the overall trend of East Asian geopolitical evolution. Structural analyses offered by scholars like John Mearsheimer maintain that Washington will eventually forsake Taiwan when the cost to protect the island is too high. However, after exploring how strategic culture shapes and influences American decisions of using military force to achieve its political objectives in important geopolitical issues like Taiwan, this essay argues that American strategic culture will not allow forsaking Taiwan to happen, because the Taiwan question can be a significant strategic card for Washington to serve both purposes of protecting democratic values and holding China at bay. In order to avoid a regional security nightmare in East Asia, maintaining the status quo still remains the most rational and optimal choice for Beijing, Taipei, and Washington, though Tsai and Trump tend to challenge the fact.

Abstract: Food insecurity and undernourishment remain persistent challenges in developing countries, particularly under conditions of economic volatility, income inequality, food price instability, and increasing pressure on food systems. This study examines the macroeconomic and structural determinants of undernourishment in developing countries within the broader framework of sustainable food systems. The analysis focuses on GDP per capita, agricultural value added, and inflation, while urbanization and trade openness are included as control variables. An unbalanced panel dataset covering 72 developing countries over the period 2010–2023 is employed. Fixed effects and random effects panel models are estimated to assess the robustness of the empirical relationships. The Hausman test does not reject the random effects specification, suggesting that the random effects estimator is statistically acceptable. Nevertheless, fixed effects results are also reported to account for unobserved country- and time-specific heterogeneity. The empirical findings show that GDP per capita has a negative and statistically significant effect on undernourishment across both model specifications, indicating that higher income levels are associated with improved food access and better nutritional outcomes. Inflation has a positive and statistically significant effect, suggesting that rising prices may weaken household purchasing power and increase undernourishment. Agricultural value added is positive but statistically insignificant, implying that agricultural expansion alone may not be sufficient to reduce undernourishment unless supported by improvements in productivity, distribution, food access, and institutional efficiency. Urbanization and trade openness generally show negative associations with undernourishment, although their statistical significance varies across model specifications. From a sustainability perspective, reducing undernourishment requires more than aggregate income growth or agricultural expansion. Policies should strengthen resilient food systems, improve agricultural productivity, enhance social protection mechanisms, stabilize food prices, and ensure equitable access to affordable and nutritious food. This study contributes to the literature by providing recent panel-based evidence on the joint role of income, agricultural structure, inflation, urbanization, and trade openness in explaining undernourishment, and by offering policy-relevant insights for designing sustainable and inclusive food systems in developing countries.