Starting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and continuing up to the present, Imagining the Balkans covers the Balkan's most formative years. From the down fall of the Ottoman Empire, through the turbulent nationalist years of the nineteenth century, up to World War I, the idea of the Balkans was fiercely, often violently, contested. In the wake of WWI, the beginnings of a tradition, largely enforced by academics, emerged stigmatizing the Balkans. Since then, the region has suffered from the neglect, abuse, and scant regard of both western Europe and the world. The result has been in many direct ways to compound the Balkan's poverty, internal violence, and lack of national self-image. A startling history of ideas, Imagining the Balkans provides a much needed exploration into a region too long neglected.

/pdf/imagining-the-balkans-3w5cwlvm3q.pdf

Imagining the Balkans

Gorikhovsky M.V. Strategic management of the farms competitiveness. Мanuscript. The dissertation for the degree of candidate of economic sciences, specialty 08.00.04 «Economics and management of the enterprises (according to the types of economic activity)». – State agrarian and engineering university in Podilya, Kamenets-Podolskyi, 2018. In the dissertation theoretical generalizations were made and the new solution for the actual scientifically-engineered task of problem concerning strategic management of competitiveness of farms is proposed. Solving this task will help strengthen the competitive position of the farms in the region with regard to direct and potential competitors. The obtained scientific results give grounds for the following conclusions. Taking into account the peculiarities of the development of the agrarian sector of the economy and the strengthening of the competitiveness of agro holdings, the existence of many obstacles and problems in the development of farms (unsatisfactory technical and technological support, under-priced sales of own products, complications in marketing and product sales, constant seasonal inflation processes, inaccessible credit resources and state subsidies , which led to a decrease in their competitiveness), the question arises of the strategic management of their competitiveness. In this context, the term "strategic management of farming" is considered by the author as "a set of knowledge, skills and abilities of farmers in the adoption and implementation of strategic decisions that are developed under conditions of uncertainty and instability of the external environment, usually using only their own labor, production and financial resources" . At the same time, operational management, strategic planning and farmer policy are considered as components of strategic management, and not their derivatives. On the basis of the generalization of existing methodological approaches to the assessment of the competitiveness of farms found that most of them are oriented to indicators of their resource availability, resourcefulness, resource efficiency, profitability. In this context, the methodical foundations for assessing the competitiveness of farms are improved on the basis of systematization and supplementation of existing Foresight Forecasting and Data Mining Classifications, the use of a generalized EBITDA, which includes a multicriteria dimension of the functional components of a farm, which enables the analysis and forecasting of key competitive advantages and secondary characteristics , which in their totality have a significant influence on solving problems of strategic management of competitiveness of farms. The methodology for researching strategic management of the competitiveness of farms involves the formation of general principles, management methods, specific requirements that are put forward in the management system of different types of farms. On this basis, scientific approaches to the classification of farms have been improved, taking into account the size of the land bank, the level of agricultural cooperation, the level of specialization, the level of product marketability, the form of creation, ownership, formation, division of labor, the provision of means of production, which increases the level of validity of management decisions defined alternative directions of strategic development of farms and types of their behavior in the market. Based on the methodology proposed in the dissertation on the assessment of the state of strategic management of the competitiveness of farms through the integrated indicator of EBITDA, which takes into account the parameters of profitability, land security, reproduction of fixed assets, financial obligations, the directions of their strategic development were substantiated. The study of the dynamics of the EBITDA indicator in the investigated farms of the Khmelnitsky region has made it possible to establish that the main reason for the growth of the analyzed indicator at the present stage of their development are intensive growth factors such as crop yields, fundraising, profit, cost savings. The effectiveness of using the potential of land resources of farms has been researched in the context of dynamic agricultural development and it has been established that the efficiency of farming in these farms depends to a large extent on the size of the land bank, but also on the rational use of land, fertilizers, capital and labor resources. Practical use of methodological provisions for assessing the level of competitiveness of farms on the basis of adapted SWOT analysis methods, Modern portfolio theory (BGM matrices) of the investigated farms in the aggregate allowed to determine the key problems and directions of strategic development of farms, aimed at increasing their competitiveness in the external environment. The key role in external regulation of the process of forming the competitiveness of farms must be played by an institutional environment whose elements are intended to reduce farmers' informal lack of knowledge and transaction costs by creating adapted business plans and behavioral models for farms. Strategic analysis based on the systematic approach of studying the interconnections of quantitative and qualitative characteristics of farm development taking into account restrictive factors of competitiveness, which include insufficient demand for products, weather conditions, labor shortages, limited access to materials and equipment, financial constraints and level of managerial competence , allowed to formulate goals that together allow to solve key problems and to identify reserves for improving the efficiency of the economy the activities of farms in accordance with the state of their internal and external environment. Application of the AGMEMOD model enabled Ukraine to forecast the development of farms in the context of sustainable development of rural areas, namely: yield, gross crop and sown area of main crops, EBITDA, changes in demographic indicators and GDP of the Khmelnitsky region in a basic and optimistic variant of the forecast, the results of which gave the opportunity to substantiate competitive strategies, the implementation of which will ensure an increase in volumes of sales, profits, market share and penetration to new market segment and more. The proposed conceptual approach to strategic farm management competitiveness is a set of interconnected forms, methods and values that contribute to satisfying the needs of increasing the competitiveness of farms, on the basis of which a power strategy for the development of farms is carried out and the identification of potential opportunities for its implementation. The dissertation defines the components of ensuring the implementation and development of advanced technologies for the development of farms, which include: technical and technological (skills of working with statistical data and other information, introduction of the latest innovative strategies and concepts, application in the production of high technology and innovative technologies, etc.), legally -scientific (understanding of the legislative framework of Ukraine, knowledge of laws and possible legislative changes, study of foreign experience in the construction and implementation of a strategist ) and (knowing the potential for regional development, local needs awareness, communication and farmers government, solidarity and responsibility for the community, administrative skills, management style, competence). It is proved that in order to increase the competitiveness of farms, it is expedient to create agro-industrial associations whose activities are carried out on the basis of a non-profit partnership, which will promote the attraction of additional resources, optimization of processes of sale and processing of products, the formation of its own budget, etc. The proposed approach is based on the phased implementation of alternative strategies for individual groups of farms and the development of possible variants of their development based on a reasonable structural and logical scheme for their creation and functioning.

Орфоепічна та орфофонічна варіативність англійського мовлення британців, американців і канадійців (експериментально-фонетичне дослідження) . – На правах рукопису.

According to social identity theory, identity competition plays a central role in the inception and escalation of intergroup conflict, even when economic and political factors also are at play. Individual and group identity competition is considered a byproduct of individuals' efforts to satisfy basic human needs, including various psychological needs. Religions often serve these psychological needs more comprehensively and potently than other repositories of cultural meaning that contribute to the construction and maintenance of individual and group identities. Religions frequently supply cosmologies, moral frameworks, institutions, rituals, traditions, and other identity-supporting content that answers to individuals' needs for psychological stability in the form of a predictable world, a sense of belonging, self-esteem, and even self-actualization. The peculiar ability of religion to serve the human identity impulse thus may partially explain why intergroup conflict so frequently occurs along religious...

/pdf/ours-is-the-way-of-god-religion-identity-and-intergroup-3si9bn8txg.pdf

`Ours is the Way of God': Religion, Identity, And Intergroup Conflict

Party discipline and parliamentary government

Introduction 1. Bridging the East-West divide: the Helsinki Final Act negotiations 2. 'A sort of lifeline': the Helsinki Commission 3. Even in a Yakutian village: Helsinki monitoring in Moscow and beyond 4. Follow-up at Belgrade: the United States transforms the Helsinki process 5. Helsinki watch, the IHF, and the transnational campaign for human rights in Eastern Europe 6. Human rights in East-West diplomacy 7. 'A debate in the fox den about raising chickens': the Moscow conference proposal 8. 'Perhaps without you, our revolution would not be' Conclusion.

/pdf/human-rights-activism-and-the-end-of-the-cold-war-a-48v1f9krka.pdf

Gabriel Partos

Papers

Hungary's negotiated revolution: economic reform, social change and political succession

Return to diversity: a political history of East Central Europe since World War II

Albania: from anarchy to a Balkan identity

Yugoslavian inferno: ethnoreligious warfare in the Balkans

The new parliaments of central and eastern Europe