The Critical Break

With this chapter, the book’s major focus shifts from the whole world to Europe, where sustainable capitalist economic development first takes off. After Rome’s disintegration, due to Western Europe’s geography and level of military technology, no European state could gain a hegemony on power. The resulting intense and ever-present state competition fueled an arms race and technological innovation while keeping rulers in need of revenue. They found additional resources in the expanding commerce, manufacturing, and capitalist institutions that accompanied an emerging bourgeoisie. Consequently, uniquely in Europe a bourgeoisie sustainably managed to survive its own self-destructiveness and the hostility of a hereditary landed aristocracy. The growing muscle of the bourgeoisie expressed itself in increasingly successful demands for greater freedoms, privileges, status, and political power commensurable to their wealth. The unique sustainable success of the European bourgeoisie and capitalist institutions constitutes a historical singularity, paving the way for today’s riches and freedoms.

The Shari’a Mandate and Yugoslav Nation-Building

What did it mean to have a Shari’a judiciary in a centralizing European state? How did it operate? This chapter explores early conflicts over the nature of the Shari’a judiciary and Islamic institutions and their place in Yugoslav nation-building. It illuminates how Muslims found spaces for agency within the new system to shape Muslim societies and concepts of political belonging while at the same time facing tremendous pressures from Yugoslav state authorities, who sought to seize on the Shari’a judiciary as a mechanism to intervene in and supervise Muslims’ lives. The chapter also illuminates rifts occurring among Muslim leaders over how to respond to the demands of modernization and nationalization.

How cultural dimensions are shaping social expectations: the case of European state-owned enterprises' nonfinancial reporting

PurposeThe purpose of the research is to shed light on how the mandatory regulation on nonfinancial information has changed European state-owned enterprises' (SOEs) disclosure levels. In addition, the present research aims to demonstrate, under the lens of legitimacy theory, how Hofstede's cultural dimensions shape social expectations that may have suffered changes after the introduction of a mandatory regulation on nonfinancial reporting.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a mixed approach. First, it employees the content analysis to investigate the disclosure level on 22 of the 24 European SOEs. Second, the authors demonstrate how cultural dimensions take a different role when a change in regulation is introduced using the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).FindingsThe results reveal a slight increase in disclosure from the year before introducing the directive. Additionally, the results demonstrate how none of Hofstede's cultural dimensions is responsible for high disclosure levels. Although, the sufficiency analysis outlines several combinations of different cultural dimensions that lead to high disclosure levels. In particular, results demonstrate how the core dimensions leading to the outcome changed once the European Union Directive (EUD) has entered into force.Research limitations/implicationsDespite the contributions, the present study is not free of limitations. As the investigated sample is limited to a small number of SOEs, the content analysis adopts a dichotomous approach. The analysis is conducted on integrated reporting, and the fuzzy set QCA results cannot be used for generalization but refer only to the investigated sample. Consequently, further studies should investigate a broader sample of SOEs and organizations that adopt other nonfinancial reporting frameworks. Additionally, a qualitative approach to the reports' analysis is recommended.Practical implicationsIt demonstrates how the EUD on nonfinancial information has impacted the disclosure levels of European SOEs. It adopts a fresh methodology rarely used in accounting. It demonstrates how cultural conditions influence social expectations that determine corporations to disclose more information after the introduction of a regulatory framework.Originality/valueThe paper's theoretical contribution refers to its focus on the public sector, and it adopts a methodology rarely used by accounting scholars.

PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF STEM EDUCATION IMPLEMENTATION IN UKRAINE

It has been established that despite significant obstacles and stereotypes regarding the introduction of STEAM education in Ukraine, this process is inevitable, as leading Ukrainian educators claim that the previous Soviet concept of education is utopian and ineffective. It is determined that if Ukraine aspires to become a leading European state, then changing the education system is the main factor of success. It is stated that in the conditions of transition to the New modernized Ukrainian school the introduction of STEM education remains the most priority direction of the educational system of Ukraine. It is determined that due to the consolidation of efforts the introduction of STEAM education is becoming one of the real goals of the New Ukrainian School. Only in the last few years, the legal framework for the implementation of STEAM in Ukraine has been created, the Web-STEAM-school is working, the collection of materials "STEM-week" is published, scientific conferences are systematically held, a virtual STEM-center is opened, which is a huge step forward.

COMMON LAW IN MEDIEVAL HUNGARIAN SOURCES

This work examines the issues of consolidation of customary law in medieval Hungarian sources. The relevance of the study of customary law as the most important part of the socio-normative culture and the traditional legal regulator, normatively fixing ethnic identity, expressed not only in the national-cultural worldview, but also in the written medieval Hungarian sources that operated for many centuries, starting from the origins of the creation of the Hungarian state until the beginning of the XVI century, no doubt. The aim of the work is to study customary law, its institutions in the sources of law of medieval Hungary. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that it analyzes the empirical historical and legal material, which makes it possible to identify the institutions of customary law in the medieval Magyar sources of law. In a comprehensive study of customary legal aspects, in Hungarian sources of law, it is important to be guided not only by the formational approach, which makes it possible to understand the changes that took place in the medieval period, during the emergence and development of feudal relations in the Western European state, but also by the civilizational approach, revealing the historical, political, socio-cultural components of the feudal Christian state. The methodological basis of this research is formed by a system of cognitive methods developed by various modern sciences. Thanks to the application of the systemic method, the customary law of the Hungarian people is important to consider as an element of the legal space of Hungary as a Central European state. The study shows that the Hungarians had a law as their initial act. Many Hungarian customs and customary legal institutions found their fixation precisely in written sources of law.

Radiological survey on radon entry path in an underground mine and implementation of an optimized mitigation system

Background The European Union council has introduced the basic safety standards (EU-BSS) for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionizing radiation by laying down a new radon reference level at workplaces. In this regard, all European state members must establish a national reference level based on all pre-defined requirements. After implanting the directive 2013/59/Euratom by European state members, new challenges have been revealed to mitigate radon appropriately in underground workplaces due to the exciting limitations (e.g., ventilation system, dust dispersion, air injection, etc.). Therefore, a conceptual design of an environmental radiological survey was defined and implemented by examining the hypothesis to find practical solutions following EU-BSS. The main objectives of this study were to identify the potential radon entry paths, utilize an optimized ventilation system, and carry on long-term radon monitoring in an operational underground manganese mine. Results The mullock rocks (the geological structure of the mine walls) contained a small amount of Ra-226 (2–4 Bq kg−1). On the other hand, the mine ore (black shale, underlayer black shale, and carbonate ore) has shown the highest concentration of Ra-226 (12–16 Bq kg−1) and the highest radon exhalation (1.2–1.6 mBq s−1 m−2). The surface radon exhalation from the mine walls was in the range of 0.7 ± 0.1 and 1.5 ± 0.2 mBq m−2 s−1. It was found that shortly after mining activity was undertaken, radon concentration increased dramatically with an average of about 5900 ± 420 Bq m−3 near the freshly broken walls. The optimized mobile mitigation system reduced radon concentration to 250 ± 41 Bq m−3 on average. Conclusion Apart from the fact that aged walls were involved in the radon accumulation, considering the mine ventilation performance and the total active surface area, the exhaled radon from the aged walls could not be the primary potential source of high radon concentration when mining activity was undertaken. According to the obtained results, the ores, recently fragmented during the course of mining operations, were the primary path. Therefore, after successfully identifying the radon entry path, radon concentration could be reduced to meet the EU-BSS requirement by implementing the developed mitigation system.

Muhammad Between East and West

Most observers of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political situation have focused only on the problems that the Dayton Peace Accord created for the normal functioning of this Southeastern European state, but a workable solution is yet to be proposed. The Accord achieved peace by blocking any ability for effective governing and by diminishing the Bosnian state capacity through an excessive dispersion of power with an uncommon constitutional focus on internationalism, and an erroneous type of pluralism that undermines the normal functioning of a democracy. The solution for these problems is to be found by adjusting the procedural selection of the United Nations High Representative, who is the primary actor directly responsible for the implementation of the Accord, both in terms of the letter and intent of the document, and this paper explains how that change can be made and what problems it will resolve.

A concrete proposal to upgrade the Dayton Peace Agreement

Most observers of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political situation have focused only on the problems that the Dayton Peace Accord created for the normal functioning of this Southeastern European state, but a workable solution is yet to be proposed. The Accord achieved peace by blocking any ability for effective governing and by diminishing the Bosnian state capacity through an excessive dispersion of power with an uncommon constitutional focus on internationalism, and an erroneous type of pluralism that undermines the normal functioning of a democracy. The solution for these problems is to be found by adjusting the procedural selection of the United Nations High Representative, who is the primary actor directly responsible for the implementation of the Accord, both in terms of the letter and intent of the document, and this paper explains how that change can be made and what problems it will resolve.