The Islamic State: A Clash within the Muslim Civilization for the New Caliphate

This study analyzes the political reasons that allowed the Islamic State to expand successfully in Syria and Iraq, by enabling to “franchise” worldwide, and the role of the regional governments in this issue. The article provides a different explanation from the classic approach of the “clash of civilizations” theorized by Samuel P. Huntington, ascribing responsibility for the growth and expansion of the Islamic State to the complex framework of geopolitical alliances within the Muslim civilization and the Arab world. The article highlights the attempt by Turkey to establish itself as a regional power and guidance of the Islamic world, by resurrecting the Caliphate, and, based on this, explains the contrast with the Islamic State, whose goal is the foundation of a globalized Caliphate. The plans of the Turkish President Erdo?an for a Great Turkey, allied with Egypt, have foundered with the coup that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power. The study relates the connection of Ankara with the Kurds, regarding the management of the crisis in Syria and Iraq, and the Turkish liaison with regional powers (Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel) and other powers (Russia, China, and the United States).     

Do Accrual Numbers Really Affect the Financial Market? An Empirical Analysis of ESA Accounts Across the EU

The adoption of a full accrual framework in the public sector is differentiated country by country both for budgeting and for reporting phases. The purpose of this article is to address the following broader research question: How do accrual numbers affect the financial markets? The 10-year average interest rate on sovereign bonds across the European Union is used as a dependent variable. The results of the research show an unclear relation among the variables investigated. Given this evidence, an alignment between micro- and macroaccounting rules could be pursued. We argue the suitability of the Australian experience in this sense.     

Public-Sector Consolidated Financial Statements: An Analysis of the Comment Letters on IPSASB’s Exposure Draft No. 49

Public sector consolidated financial statements can be drafted according to different approaches, especially the “control approach” or “budgetary perspective.” Considering the growing importance of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) in the international scenario, the aim of the article is to investigate these approaches through an analysis of the comment letters submitted to the Exposure Draft no. 49, which will replace the current IPSAS 6. The main finding concerns the acceptance of the key role played by the control approach, even though it needs to be better specified, in order to take into account the public sector characteristics.     

One Plus One can be Greater than Two: Evaluating Synergies of Development Programmes in Malawi

This paper investigates the interplay between the Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP) and the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) in Malawi. We take advantage of data collected from a 17-month evaluation of a sample of households eligible to receive SCTP, which also provided information about inclusion into FISP. We estimate two types of synergies: i) the complementarity between SCTP and FISP, that is whether the impact of both interventions run together is larger than the sum of the impacts of these interventions when run separately, and ii) the incremental impact of receiving FISP when a household already receives SCTP, as well as the incremental impact of receiving SCTP when a household already receives FISP. The analysis shows that there are synergies between the two policy interventions, mainly in terms of incremental impacts of each programme over the other, in increasing expenditure, agricultural production and livestock.     

Darfur and Chad: A fragmented ethnic mosaic

In this article, I examine some of the interactions between the crisis in Darfur and Chad through its increasingly complicated ethnic threads and explain how Chad slid back into authoritarianism in 2004. Factionalism broke down the mesh of ethnic politics into personalised rule and allegiances. The international response to the crisis in Darfur allowed the Chadian leadership to reinforce its position in the country. Ever since, a precarious equilibrium set in. Déby has become the longest-serving president in the history of modern Chad. Previously weakened by interfactional agreements and oil wealth expectations and then by the crisis in Darfur, the regime re-established internal and external means for preserving the status quo. Yet appearances can be deceiving. The argument is based on fieldwork and secondary literature.     

‘Animals first!’ The rise of animal advocacy parties in the EU: a new party family

‘Euro Animal 7’ is the name given informally to 7 animal protection parties which represent voters in Cyprus, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. These parties contested in the 2014 European Parliament (EP) election and gained representation in Germany and the Netherlands. Animal advocacy parties are also represented in the national parliaments of Portugal and the Netherlands.

Animal protection is an emergent issue in international politics and this research offers an account of the political positioning of these animal advocacy parties, analyzing their manifestos and the election results. While acknowledging that some parties have distinct ideological traits and some are still reclusive in the form of a single-issue party, this article argues that animal advocacy parties constitute a new party family in European politics.     

Public debt stabilization: the relevance of policymakers’ time horizons

Policymakers are stuck in time. Political short-termism, policy myopia, policy short-sightedness, and similar words have been coined to emphasize the present-centric policy thinking. Politics tends to produce short time horizons, and as a result, policymakers often fail to use present opportunities to mitigate future harms. Focusing on fiscal and monetary strategic interactions, given different separate decision makers, our paper aims to explore the effects of policymakers’ time horizons on debt stabilization. To formalize our ideas, we use the novel concept of Nonlinear-model-predictive-control Feedback Nash Equilibrium (NFNE) and find that present-centric policy thinking and decision horizons matters under several dimensions.     

White collars and labour history: the contractual regime in Italy from the Liberal to the Fascist era, 1919–1945

This article aims to re-examine the history of non-manual labour, beginning with an analysis of the evolution of general norms governing the contracts of private sector workers in Italy, from the post-First World War period up until the creation of the fascist corporate system in the 1930s. The starting point is the 1919 law that defined the specific characteristics of white-collar workers, expressed as a bond of trust and delegation on the part of employers, from whom legally established and binding guarantees were issued. These guarantees included the offer of permanent employment and the right to compensation should said employment be terminated. This law was reformed during the fascist era, but continued to influence the collective labour agreements stipulated by unions under the regime, contributing to the sustained social status of white-collar workers, particularly in comparison to manual labourers. This article will highlight the difficulties in applying these standards, and the legal and union disputes they generated, exploring an area rarely discussed by historians, while also, as a case study, scrutinizing the more advanced situation of employees in the banking sector – a sector which, from a regulatory and contractual point of view, represented the white-collar élite, as it would continue to do for a long time after the Second World War.