Russia Today’s strategy and effectiveness on YouTube

Many countries now operate state-funded international broadcasters, communicating directly with foreign publics to promote a variety of foreign policy goals. RT (formerly known as Russia Today) is currently one of the most prominent broadcasters in a crowded field. What is RT’s strategy, the size of its audience, and the effectiveness of its broadcasts in implementing its strategy? To answer these questions, we explore a case study of RT’s YouTube programming utilizing a new dataset of 70,220 video titles spanning the 2 years from February 2015 through January 2017. RT’s three-prong strategy focuses attention on strategic groups outside the West, including Arabic, Russian, and Spanish speakers, circumvents local media in target countries to promote Kremlin aims, and spreads a positive image of Russian accomplishments, particularly in Syria, which it considers a foreign policy success. The data presented here show that RT’s strategy is only partially successful since it underperforms among Arabic speakers, its main target, while doing relatively better among Russian, global English, and Spanish audiences.     

Trust,institutions, and indigenous self‐governance: An exploratory study

Trust is important to the institutions that make societies successful. Globally, Indigenous peoples are actively building institutions for self‐governance, but there remains little empirical work on trust in this context. To address this gap, we use a mixed methods approach to explore three levels of trust among individual members from three related, but politically distinct First Nations (Indigenous peoples) in British Columbia, Canada. British Columbia offers a unique and dynamic context to explore trust and its relationship with the diverse institutional choices among First Nations. Survey results show that trust is low among respondents and individual variables predictive of trust in mainstream contexts, like education and employment, are not determinative. However, interpersonal trust and political trust were highest in the First Nation most active in institution building, and who linked this with a cultural revitalization narrative. Interviews suggested a bidirectional relationship between individual and collective drivers of trust in this context.     

Private provision of public services: Contracting by large local governments

This study examines public service delivery by counties and municipalities of over 500,000 popula tion, through the practice of contracting out with the publicsector. It is based on responses to a question naire sent to purchasing officials in American and Canadian cities, counties, and state governments Results indicate the types of services contracted out the frequency of contracting out, procedures utilized and administrative attitudes. We find that a diverse group of non-professional,non-construction services are being provided by private contractors for these jurisdictions, but the jurisdictions are not providing a majority or even a significant portion of their services in this manner.     

Das einheitliche Bestandverhältnis

Bei Vorliegen eines Bestandverhältnisses und gleichzeitiger oder nachfolgender Inbestandnahme eines weiteren Objektes stellt sich die Frage, ob zwei getrennte Vertragsverhältnisse oder ein einheitliches Bestandverhältnis vorliegen. Diese Frage ist zB für das Vorliegen der Zulässigkeit der Aufkündigung der Objekte relevant, die im Fall eines einheitlichen Bestandverhältnisses im Allgemeinen nur einheitlich erfolgen kann, sowie für die Mietzinsbildung und das Vorliegen des Kündigungsschutzes des MRG. Die Kriterien, die die Rsp für die Beantwortung der Frage, ob ein einheitlicher Vertrag oder zwei gesonderte Verträge vorliegen, aufstellt und welche Rechtsfolgen sich im Einzelfall daraus ergeben, werden hier kurz dargestellt.     

Change in the Australian Electricity Industry: A Case Analysis

In this article a contextualist framework is used for theoretical analysis, in which context, content and process are linked over time. Within this framework we begin with the contextual factors which appear to be significant in restructuring the electricity industry, then outline the pathway taken by reform in the United States of America, United Kingdom and Australia, before describing the principal changes to one organisation and the management issues which have arisen as a result of these changes.     

Community Sustainability and Land Use

Books reviewed:
Timothy Beatley, Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities
Amer El-Ahraf, Mohammad Qayoumi and Ron Dowd, The Impact of Public Policy on Environmental Quality and Health: The Case of Land Use Management and Planning
Daniel A. Mazmanian and Michael E. Kraft, (eds.) Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy
Kee Warner and Harvey Molotch, Building Rules: How Local Rules Shape Community Environments and Economies