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The study examines whether consolidating qualified special-purpose entities (QSPEs) under Statement of Financial Accounting Standards Nos. 166 and 167 (FAS 166/167) improves the market reaction to earnings disclosures. We use a difference-in-difference design to compare the change sample, which is defined as banks that consolidate QSPEs after FAS 166/167, with the no-effect sample, which is defined as financial institutions with no QSPEs or banks that do not consolidate QSPEs after FAS 166/167. The results show that, during a short window around earnings announcements, the change sample experiences higher market reaction to earnings surprises than the no-effect sample after the implementation of FAS 166/167. We also find that the effect is more pronounced in banks that engage in securitization and in financial institutions whose securitized loans originate primarily from consumer loans rather than mortgages. Additional analysis also finds that adopting FAS 166/167 enhances the ability of earnings to predict future earnings and future cash flows in banks. The important implication of the study for regulators is that FAS 166/167 improves bank transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has emerged as a prominent actor in the international fight against transnational terrorism in the Sahel region of Africa since 2002, exerting significant political influence on regional affairs. Under the leadership of the United States, a coalition of Sahel countries has collaboratively established security programs, notably including the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP). However, the U.S. counterterrorism strategy in the Sahel region has not only proven ineffective in containing the deterioration of regional security, but also has exacerbated the vulnerability to coups in recipient countries. The observed deterioration can be attributed to various driving factors, such as deviations in the willingness and ability to involve and the security traffic jam. We contend that the U.S.-Sahel counterterrorism partnership is fundamentally misaligned and plagued by a securitization problem. Firstly, a significant impediment to international cooperation lies in the United States' pursuit of consolidating its dominant role in Sahel security affairs, which usually overlooks the pragmatic principle of 'African solutions to African problems'. In the counterterrorism process, there is a misalignment between U.S. national interests and those of Sahel states. Furthermore, the United States' extensive reliance on military strategies indicates a significant securitization of non-violent civil affairs in certain Sahel states, inadvertently creating an opportunity for genuine terrorist organizations to recruit members. In addition, U.S. interference in the internal affairs of Sahel states heightens the risk of coups, thereby undermining the legitimacy of U.S. leadership in the region. Currently, with both the withdrawal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and France withdrawing their security forces from the Sahel region, there has a significant weakening effect on regional security capabilities. Therefore, it is imperative for the international community to collaborate with African nations and adopt more proactive measures to safeguard regional security and maintain order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study delves into the intricate mechanisms by which states employ a complex network of competing and intersecting borders—both real and imagined—to delineate and perpetuate the image of Syrian refugees as security risks. Drawing upon insights from border studies, securitization theory, and framing analysis, we explore the nuanced processes of mental mapping and bordering within the context of the Syrian crisis. By scrutinizing the construction of these borders and mental maps, we highlight the deliberate state‐driven narrative that portrays Syrians as threats, emphasizing that such perceptions are not inherent but rather intentionally crafted. Our investigation sheds light on the state's agency in framing Syrians as threats, a narrative rarely challenged despite the multifaceted nature of the refugee crisis. Through an expanded discussion on historical, geopolitical, and socio‐cultural dimensions, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the intricate dynamics underlying the portrayal of Syrian refugees as perennial security concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the Biden administration sought to legitimate the wide-ranging chip export controls on China (introduced on 7 October 2022) and to convince allies to adopt similar measures. Grounded in a qualitative analysis of US official documents, this study not only draws out the overarching rationale advanced by US officials: China's unregulated access to advanced chips constitutes a major threat to the US and allied security. More importantly, leveraging insights from frame alignment, it uncovers the underlying patterns and dynamics of the legitimation-cum-securitization process. Substantively, US officials insisted on viewing US technological leadership and the escalation of export controls through the security lens, associated China's (mis)use of advanced chips with the erosion of US technological supremacy, military security and national security at large, and framed blocking China's access to advanced chips as critical for the security of the US and allies. This analysis offers broad insights into the contestation and legitimation of an increasingly common yet potentially pernicious phenomenon in US-China relations: enacting techno-economic sanctions in the name of national security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 ruptured Europe's security constellation, leading to historically neutral Finland and Sweden to seek NATO memberships. While there is literature on how NATO influences country's security apparatus, the impact of NATO on smaller states' securitization capacity remains unclear. We undertake 1) a discourse analysis of Norway and Finland's three respective Arctic strategies, 2) a discourse analysis of two online Arctic newspapers 'High North News' and 'The Barents Observer', and 3) an analysis of the allocation of Finnish and Norwegian military spending from 2014-2022. We explore both countries as cases where one is a historic member of NATO and the other is not. Despite this, both states share similar structural security risks such as Russia's geographic proximity. We periodize securitizing dynamics related to the Arctic, matching it to changes in the Finnish and Norwegian military sectors. Given small states lack relative material capabilities, we argue there is a systematic deadlock in transforming securitizing moves into material action. However, as a NATO state, Norway exhibits a significantly higher level of participation in military maneuvers and additional securitizing behavior compared to Finland. By contrast, Finland relies more heavily on intense securitizing rhetoric without accompanying material actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the narratives of the European Council, European Commission, and European Parliament regarding the European refugee crisis. Although the relevant scholarly research suggests that the EU Institutions held different perspectives about the refugee crisis, this paper argues that there was no such a clash of perspectives. This paper builds on the Copenhagen School's securitization framework as complemented with subsequent methodological tools to support the author's arguments. The findings suggest that despite the similarity in the views held by the main EU Institutions considering the refugees' influx, there was a variation in the intensity of their securitizing narratives. Theoretically, this study develops an understanding of the importance of the securitization narratives' intensity. Methodologically, this study introduces the Securitization Narratives Continuum, a research tool that facilitates the assessment of securitization. Empirically, this is the first study to interview and take into account the opinions of the securitizing actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I investigate the impact of securitization on the risk-taking by bank holding companies (BHCs). For 2001 to 2017, I find a negative relationship between securitization and the risk appetite of BHCs. I find a negative relationship between securitization and the risk appetite of BHCs that is consistent with the recourse hypothesis of securitization. I also discover that the equilibrium in this relationship changes from the pre-crisis to the crisis period (crisis effect). This crisis effect hampers BHCs' ability to engage in securitization that leads them to accumulate more risky assets on their books due to the deteriorated quality of their loan portfolios. This equilibrium then reverses after the crisis (post-crisis effect) due to policy makers' response to the excessive risk-taking that manifested during the crisis. Moreover, I find that the securitization of residential mortgages not only boosts the recourse hypothesis but also triggers the crisis effect. My findings provide novel empirical insights into the different nexuses between the securitization and risk appetite of BHCs around the financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of securitization has an influence on citizenship policies since it enables them to regulate, control and separate secure identities from unsecure identities while also exploiting intercommunity dynamics, straining connections, resulting in exclusions. The thesis that securitization and citizenship are inextricably linked, following different logic at the national and provincial level but tied with the thread of securitization and identity management, is supported by a detailed examination of citizenship policies and legislation implemented after India's independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, Turkey has expanded its digital capabilities in various issue areas. At the same time, regime change under the Justice and Development Party has resulted in unprecedented state repression against various groups, which increasingly occurs via digitized channels. While Turkey has been building digital capabilities since the late 1990s, efforts to control the flow of refugees since 2015/16 have further resulted in the accumulation of such capabilities. Turkey's partners, most notably the EU, have been pivotal in Turkey's development in this sphere. We trace Turkey's deployment of its newly gained digital repressive infrastructure and triangulate insights from open-source data (i.e. government data, newspaper reports, and other digital traces) to map processes of (mis)use. We argue that the AKP regime is not only deploying digital and AI technologies for the purpose of border and migration governance, but it is also misusing these technologies by engaging in digital repression against refugees. We further find that digital repression strategies employed against refugee populations largely overlap with strategies used to gain control over political opposition and civil society actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a macroeconomic model of interaction between the real sector and the financial sector, and explores the conditions that make the economy vulnerable to sudden collapse as a result of finance-led growth. It extends the Kaleckian framework of the link between profit and investment in a modern financialized economy with some specific features of shadow banking and articulates the underlying dynamics that render the economy systemically fragile and vulnerable to abrupt crashes. We elaborate on this link through a stock-flow consistent accounting framework and study the dynamics through two interacting forces of the shadow banking sector: profit-seeking and liquidity preference. The article formally articulates the dynamics through the framework of 'cusp catastrophe' and identifies some early warning signs of potential financial collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport mega-events (SMEs) remake cities as global brandscapes of leisured consumption; reliant in part upon securitization designed to create an atmosphere free from disturbance and render invisible those "abject" populations who might puncture the tourist bubble that surrounds stadia and fan-zones. Yet, such "shiny" cityspaces are not devoid of complexity, contestation, and compunction. In this paper, we draw on extensive ethnographic- and community-based participatory research in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (prior to, during, and after two SMEs) collected in collaboration with sex workers, working in areas of SME intervention. Our focus is on the contingent nature of securitization amidst the contested terrains and trajectories of SME urbanism. Our analysis resonates with observations from other host cities, challenging dominant myths that the sport mega-event creates impermeable securitized cityscapes by revealing the fluid topography of formality and informality, contestation and negotiation, and oppression and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, militaries have been highly visible elements in the response to health emergencies and in particular disease outbreaks. Although there has been a long tradition of civil–military collaboration in health, COVID–19 saw an unprecedented worldwide use of militaries which occurred within a permissive environment established by narratives of global health, humanitarian intervention and multi-sectorality. This creates a dilemma: militaries will likely be an important element in responding to a major health emergency and this risks not only militarizing health emergencies, but affects the balance between society and the military more generally. Moreover, the response to the COVID pandemic suggested that current emergency planning is often poorly prepared for the use of militaries in health crises, thereby reducing the effectiveness of a response. This article engages with how concerns over the securitization of health have evolved into concerns over militarization, and the question of how militaries might be used effectively in future health emergencies without risking the militarization of health or damaging civil–military relations more widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The special issue on Scripts of Security proposes to advance interdisciplinary exchanges between Science and Technology Studies and Critical Security Studies. While performativity, enactment, and intra-action have opened important questions about the messiness of security practices and the contingency of their effects, there has been less attention to the obduracy of institutionalized agency and how continuities and asymmetries of power are reproduced, challenged, and maintained. This Special Issue proposes to revisit and rework the notion of script and the related analytical toolkit to make sense of both contingency and obduracy in the technopolitics of security. The contributions gathered here make three interventions in order to account for contemporary challenges posed by the increasing securitization of diverse sociotechnical practices. Firstly, they update, integrate, and reconfigure the notion of script and its associated toolbox to account for the specificities of security practices. Secondly, the articles revisit critical analyses of security in light of the notion of script. Finally, they show how such an updated notion of script can hold together accounts of contingency and obduracy and not jettison one at the expense of the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, we offer a conjunctural analysis of policing and incarceration, examining their expansion in relation to structural economic conditions over the last 50 years and interrogating how the sudden onset of the Covid-19 pandemic enabled extraordinary growth in policing powers in the Australian jurisdictions of New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria (VIC). We examine how popular support for police-led responses to crisis and fines as a common-sense solution to social problems were sought during the period that the Public Health Orders were in effect in the two states. We argue that the discursive project of naturalizing the police-led response to the pandemic—via official communications from the state governments as well as media coverage of the pandemic—attempts to further entrench a vision of law and order governance in which infrastructures of discipline and punishment are necessary and inevitable. We identify this vision as a direct barrier to abolition and a significant limit on the capacity to imagine alternative frameworks for justice. We end by considering a small archive of tweets from users in NSW and VIC published on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter (now called X) in 2020–21. We argue that this archive registers the way the common-sense status of the fine as an efficient, effective, and equitable punishment gives way to punitive fantasies about police and prisons. We read this archive alongside the broad refusal to pay Covid-related fines and the ongoing legal disputes contesting the legitimacy of their issuance, concluding by proposing that the conjunctural moment of the Covid-19 pandemic has given rise to unresolved contradictions between the naturalized logic of law and order crisis management and the potential for this logic to come undone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's annexation of Crimea and war on Ukraine has led to upheaval in NATO's discourse and practice. Taking a step back from the security debate, this article contends that the very process of responding to Russian aggression has led to the reimagining of NATO's identity. While NATO tends to present change as continuity, this article's mixed methods analysis illuminates how a trio of new and ambitious self-representations have risen to prominence within NATO's post-Crimea discourse. NATO has anointed itself defender of the international rules-basedorder and purveyor of truth and facts amidst a world of disinformation, while pushing a resilience policy agenda that expands its authority into new domestic domains. Problematizing these shifts, the article warns that NATO's new narrative ignores its own role in the problems it seeks to solve and thus risks undermining NATO efforts to rally global support for Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance of the topic is due to the increasing influence of Specialized Financial Companies in connection with the constant development of the investment market and the increasing need of society in innovative products, taking into account the lack of research in the Russian science and expert community. It should also be noted that Specialized Financial Societies are becoming an increasingly interesting instrument both abroad and in Russian corporate law, especially in view of the forthcoming “tax reform” in 2025. The purpose of the study is to summarize the opinions of the expert-scientific community and dive into the legislation and law enforcement practice of foreign jurisdictions in order to identify positive aspects of regulation, gaps in the current Russian legislation and problems in legal regulation. Materials and methods. The research was based on the following methods: factual method, in the form of analysis of the current legislation of Russia; comparative-legal method, allowing to evaluate the institution of Specialised Financial Companies from the point of view of approaches applied in various foreign jurisdictions; method of analysis and generalisation of materials in official Internet resources. The result of the study is the identification of shortcomings in legal regulation, systematization of distinctive features of Specialized Financial Companies, identification of their advantages over other corporations, analysis of examples of the use of Specialized Financial Companies (SPV) in foreign countries, determination of their role and functions in the economy.

Climate change, a global phenomenon driven by human activities like fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, is leading to drastic shifts in weather patterns and increasing the frequency of extreme events. These changes adversely affect ecosystems, economies, and societies by disrupting agriculture, threatening water supplies, and prompting migration, thus heightening social and political tensions. Initially focused on mitigation, the international response to climate change, since the Paris Agreement, has shifted towards adaptation strategies. This article discusses the transition from mitigation to adaptation, emphasizing climate resilience’s role in national security. The paper argues that while adaptation addresses the immediate impacts of climate change and offers tangible benefits, especially in developing nations, it has also led to the securitization of climate issues, justifying exceptional measures under the guise of national security. This situation underscores the urgent need for comprehensive global strategies that balance immediate actions with long-term sustainability.

By the early 2020s, the NATO representatives have adopted an increasingly alarmist rhetoric regarding China’s strengthening positions in the international relations. In 2022, the PRC was officially qualified as a ‘systemic challenge’ to the countries of the alliance. These attempts to securitize the Chinese factor in the NATO’s discourse are particularly noteworthy since they can hardly be rationalized by traditional military-political, economic or ideological reasons. The author argues that these reasons stem from the NATO’s search for a new, global identity. In order to test this hypothesis, the article traces the evolution of the alliance’s collective self-representations from the Cold War period up to the present day. The author shows that during the Cold War, when NATO positioned itself as a military-political alliance aimed at deterring the ‘Soviet threat’, the alliance’s relations with China developed steadily and constructively despite political and ideological differences. In the post-bipolar period, the Chinese factor has lost its importance even more, as NATO was actively considering the idea of repositioning itself as a ‘security community’. Attention to the PRC in the NATO discourse increased significantly in the 2010s, when the alliance set a course towards a radical expansion of its mandate in international relations and self-representation as a global security actor. However, as the author emphasizes, during this period there still have been no attempts to securitize China, and relations between the PRC and NATO were marked by positive dynamics. The shift in the perception of the PRC in the NATO’s official discourse took place in the second half of the 2010s — early 2020s and stemmed from the apparent difficulties in asserting the global identity of the alliance and the growing great-power rivalry in the international arena. From this perspective, increasing efforts to securitize the PRC could be ascribed to the continuous evolution of the alliance’s collective identity and the desire of its leaders to close ranks in the face of new strategic challenges. However, the author shows that the deterioration of relations between NATO member states and Russia, a traditional ‘significant other’ for the alliance, renders meaningless any further attempts to securitize China, which continue still more by inertia.

Within the broader context of securitized responses to Covid-19 globally, Uganda experienced an oversized military role, ranging from law-and-order and lockdown enforcement, to managing food-relief supplies, medical operations, and partisan political repression. What explains this excessive militarization? To address this poser, the article draws on secondary sources and key-informant interviews to test the hypothesis that military involvement in pandemic responses depends on pre-pandemic militarism. The findings reveal direct links between pre-crisis militarism and Covid-19 responses, contrary to the view that exceptionality and novelty of Covid-19 informed overly militarized responses. Through pandemic framing and institutional morphing, pre-pandemic militarism foregrounded military roles because Covid-19 provided Uganda's ruling elites with a public health pretext to heighten militaristic rule, clutch the political arena in the context of elections, and deepen military presence in civilian public health realms. This excessive militarization of public health seriously impacts civil–military relations, specifically command and control, reporting and accountability, and resources management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Since COVID-19, the European Commission (EC) has sought to expand its activities in health through the development of a European Health Union and within it the Health Emergencies Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA). Methods: The authors applied a discourse analysis to documents establishing HERA to investigate how the EC legitimated the creation of this institution. They focused on how it framed health emergencies, how it framed the added value of HERA, and how it linked HERA to existing EU activities and priorities. Findings: Their analysis demonstrates that security-based logics have been central to the EC's legitimation of HERA in alignment with a "securitization of health" occurring worldwide in recent decades. This legitimation can be understood as part of the EC's effort to promote future integration in health in the absence of new competences. Conclusions: Securitization has helped the EC raise its profile in health politically without additional competences, thereby laying the groundwork for potential future integration. Looking at the discursive legitimation of HERA sheds light not only on whether the EC is expanding its health powers but also how it strategizes to do so. HERA, while constrained, allows the EC to further deepen security-driven integration in health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the MENA region, Algeria was one of the countries with the highest cases of COVID-19. However, like other transformative events in its recent history, the regime has resorted to a process of securitization that has allowed for the Algerian government to exploit the pandemic as a national security threat. This article drew on the concept of securitization to examine the Algerian response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. The paper will commence with an analysis of Algeria's securitization approaches to the Dark Decade and the Arab Spring. The paper will then argue that the Algerian process of securitization is a cyclic response utilized to reinforce the state's legitimacy and secure the regime's power. The paper will finally examine the implications of Algeria's securitization approach to COVID-19 on the Hirak movement, the regime, and the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The First World War had an enormous impact on the perception by the sovereign national states of their own territorial space. For a number of countries, the end of the war was accompanied by a change in their policy towards national borders, including the rules of border crossing. In Russia, where radical political changes took place in the late 1910s – early 1920s, the authorities also tightened the control over the movement of people, including foreigners. Using Omsk as an example, the article demonstrates how the city, which used to be open to foreigners in the pre-revolutionary period, became a restricted-access city in the Soviet period. On the basis of the study of travelogues, newspaper articles, and published archival documents, the author shows how the admission of foreigners to Omsk was regulated in the 1920s–60s against the background of restricting access of foreign nationals to the cities and entire territories of national significance. The article shows that the formal transfer of the capital of Siberia from Omsk to Novo-Nikolaevsk after the Civil War had far-reaching consequences. However, until the mid-1920s, Omsk was still perceived as the main Siberian city. From 1926 to 1938, Omsk was one of the main stations on the round-the-world routes used by American travelers and pilots. Along with Moscow, Omsk played an important role in helping to set world records in the speed of travelling round the world. The Soviet authorities sought not only to control the process of travel but also to influence the Americans’ impressions of the USSR on order to shape a positive image of the country abroad. It has been shown that access to Omsk became restricted as a result of a number of decisions made by the Soviet central authorities in the 1940s–50s. It is important to note that in the post-Stalin era, the existing ban for foreigners to visit Omsk was not reconsidered. Only trustworthy representatives of the countries with which the Soviet Union maintained privileged relationships were allowed to visit Omsk on extraordinary occasions.

Water and climate change are inherently linked because climate change complicates existing problems related to access to clean water, such as civil conflicts hindering access to water sources, underdeveloped infrastructure, overpopulation, and wastewater pollution. Relying on the basic factors of securitization theory, the paper examines the possibilities of the securitization process in solving problems caused by climate change. For the case study, vulnerable countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were selected and analysed in relation to the issue of insufficient drinking water. The lack of drinking water, caused by various factors, means that demands for water resources and human consumption are disproportionate. Dominant problems African countries face include drought, floods, and water pollution, as evidenced by examples from South Africa, Tanzania, Chad, Madagascar, Kenya, Malawi, and Ghana. The paper concludes that despite the measures taken and certain progress, African countries do not meet all the conditions suggested by securitization, and furthermore, they lack the means to finance such endeavours. In the foreseeable future, addressing the problem within a regional framework and cooperation among African countries in that format show greater potential for resolving this complex problem.

In this study, the different attitudes of the European Union towards Ukrainian and Syrian refugees in its migration policies were examined. The intellectual infrastructure of these attitudes is analyzed within the framework of international relations theories such as The English School, which emphasizes the phenomenon of international society, Social Constructivism theory which emphasizes the construction of common identity and Securitization theory, which examines the process of making a political phenomenon a security issue. In addition to these approaches, the reasons for the double standard of the European Union in their migration policies are also examined in terms of the framework of geographical proximity. It emphasized to what extent the historical memories of European countries have an impact on their migration policies in the text. The theoretical analysis of the different attitudes of the European Union in the face of basically two similar events examined how these policies evolved into xenophobia and how they are fed by the current xenophobic phenomenon in Western Europe. In conclusion, it can be stated that xenophobia is a socio-psychological phenomenon in Western Europe, and this phenomenon is effective both in the determination of daily populist politics and in the attitudes preferred in the face of refugee policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs interviews and primary and secondary sources to examine the discrimination, securitization, and instrumentalization faced by four main Christian denominations throughout Turkish history: the Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, and Protestant communities. We shed light on how some religious minority groups have been utilized and represented within the framework of Turkish diplomacy and the pursuit of neo-Ottomanism. We contend that the blanket term 'Christian' is less applicable in Turkey's context, where religion becomes intricately intertwined with ethnicity. Thus, it becomes imperative to investigate each non-Muslim community independently, considering their unique trajectories, historical traumas, internal divisions, and relationships with the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore how pride as a collective emotion is ontologically bound to the securitisation of energy and put forward an innovative method that engages materiality and discourse in securitisation theory. I examine the case of energy securitisation in Azerbaijan to show that collective pride is anchored to materialisations and reiterative identity discourses that stick to energy sites and align with the nation in ways that fit with the coercive and controlling nature of securitisation. While the existing literature on emotions and securitisation engages with the process of threat construction and focuses on the audience's affective experience, I approach securitisation as threat construction and threat management and locate the affective dimension of the process in a transversal space that considers the affective experience of the audience alongside that of the securitising actor. This article pays considerable attention to methods and introduces an experimental new materialist discourse analysis, which accounts for the material, affective and non-human world exerting an agential force on the texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a hybrid Agent-Based Stock-Flow-Consistent (AB-SFC) model about the macroeconomic and distributional implications of central bank's decision to leave a "Low(-for-long) Interest Rate Environment" (LIRE). Our goal is to study the non-linear effects of monetary tightening when implemented under LIRE than in an alternative "Higher Interest Rate" setting (HIRE). This way, we shed light over the interaction between monetary policy, inequality, and macro-financial fragility in a financialized economy characterized by the presence of securitization and the production of complex financial products, i.e., Asset-Backed Securities (ABSs). We obtain three main findings. First, consistent with existing empirical literature, LIRE may be sources of vulnerabilities in the financial industry (i.e., lower banks' profitability and capital adequacy ratio). However, it may reduce systemic macro-financial risk by stimulating faster growth, lower unemployment and inequality records alongside with lower public and private indebtedness and lower-scale securitization. Second, central bank's decision to raise interest rates improves financial sector's performance indicators at the costs of harsh real-side consequences, i.e., permanently higher unemployment and inequality, when implemented under LIRE. Third, financialization structurally changes the functioning of the economy by feeding the creation of a debt-led economy in which monetary policy becomes less effective in its attempt of controlling inflation. Central bank's reaction in the form of a permanently tighter monetary policy stance eventually prompts a more unequal and unstable rentier-friendly economy. • We study central bank's decision to leave a Low Interest Rate Environment (LIRE). • We show how leaving LIRE causes permanent employment losses and higher inequality. • We show how securitization reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy. • We show how securitization may give rise to a rentier-friendly economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration violations committed by foreign nationals are a threat to Indonesia. For this reason, the securitization process carried out by state actors by considering the threat of immigration violations is a preventive step for the Indonesian government to protect its national security. Apart from that, it is necessary to implement the immigration function as a form of effort to prevent immigration actions, so that only foreign citizens who receive residence permits are truly beneficial to the country. This research aims to find out how the securitization process applies to foreign citizen immigration violations. The research method used is a qualitative approach, data collection techniques can be in the form of literature studies and interviews. The interviews obtained are then analyzed to be presented and conclusions drawn. The results of this research show that the South Jakarta immigration office, through the implementation of securitization, has taken action against all forms of immigration violations for foreign nationals through a three-stage process, namely profiling, monitoring and deterring deportation. However, there are obstacles in the process, namely communication problems, problems with fictitious information about domicile addresses, and problems with costs for foreign citizens to return to their country of origin. The suggestion from this research is to strengthen selective policies and strengthen supervision by coordinating with several other agencies such as the embassy of the foreigner's country of origin to be able to collaborate in the deportation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), leaders of many countries attempted to securitize the COVID-19 issue. The Japanese government, however, neither attempted to securitize it nor implemented strong measures to control its circulation. Yet the behavior of Japanese citizens changed significantly to prevent the spread of COVID-19. What were the mechanisms that drove them to voluntarily change their behavior? By introducing the analytical concept of 'undersecuritization', this article tries to answer this question, as well as to broaden the scope of the securitization argument. It first analyzes why Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not attempt to securitize COVID-19. It then examines the mechanism behind citizens' behavioral change. When Japanese citizens perceived the measures taken by their government as too weak to address the life-threatening COVID-19 issue, they started to feel that it was undersecuritized. This article argues that such awareness was the reason behind the voluntary behavioral changes that the Japanese people made in self-defense. It also shows that such self-defense measures can be more formidable than the measures taken by the government in a situation of oversecuritization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May 2015, the EU decided to launch a common military response against immigrant traffickers and smugglers known as the European Union Naval Force Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR MED)—and Operation SOPHIA. Its aim was to dispose of smugglers' vessels and other smuggling assets while still in Libyan territorial waters. Although this specific aim had never materialized, leading to the operation's termination in March 2020, the original decision had led to a securitisation process in the Mediterranean in the form of an increasing deployment of militarized bordering practices and techniques under the umbrella of Operation EUVAVFOR MED. The present paper presents a normative analysis of EUNAVFOR MED through the prism of Floyd's Just Securitisation Theory (JST). It focuses on the just initiation of securitisation, which is the first element of JST and a parallel to JWT's ius ad bellum that contains five conditions: Just Reason for Securitisation; Morally Justifiable Referent Objects; Right Intention; Macro Proportionality, and Reasonable Chances of Success. The paper concludes these conditions were not all met in all three phases of EUVAVFORMED and highlights the complexity of normatively assessing the securitisation of migrants' smugglers in the context of this European maritime military operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores the conflict between Russia and Ukraine where the overall aim is to comprehend the impact of the armed conflict on the education sector and education from a securitization perspective. The development of the crisis from a securitization perspective in eastern Ukraine is shown to directly influence the educational conditions for children. In several areas near the conflict zone, military installations close to schools are a cause for security concern. The military installations are possible targets meaning that children are exposed to danger during school hours. The study also focused on how children and young people play a significant role in conflicts. In their vulnerable position, they become subjected to various types of socialization processes aimed at preserving the defense interests of the Ukrainian State, while regional and global actors are trying to reduce conflicts in the region through efforts advocating democracy and peace education. The study also highlights nationalistic tendencies on both sides of the conflict and the role that patriotic training as well as patriotic education take in fostering an active citizen through identity construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant paradigm in neuroscience considers the brain to be a prediction engine. The brain generates predictions first, which are then contrasted with information to generate error signals. Finite brain resources are subsequently spent in selectively processing the error signals based on their relative value with higher value signals getting a priority. In this way, the brain can be thought of as optimizing on its own internal resources before seeking to optimize on the resources available in the external world. We show that such considerations change the cost–benefit calculations of certain vs uncertain outcomes in the brain, giving rise to, what can be termed as, a strict certainty preference. A new perspective on prominent financial innovations (such as securitization, interest rate swaps, and credit default swaps) emerges, with a dark side that potentially leads to a misallocation of resources towards low NPV projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the efforts of influential Turkish Muslim civil society actors to amplify the voices of Muslim women in the Netherlands. Through interviews, the research uncovers the impacts of Islamophobia and securitization policies on the classification of Muslim women as either threats or victims. The study captures participants’ responses challenging intersectional discrimination based on gender, religion, and race, employing the notion of “talking back” as an analytical framework reflecting resistance. This includes criticisms of boundaries, discrimination, a lack of representation, and patriarchal practices. Participants engaged in talking-back practices by critiquing mainstream feminism’s homogenous approach, advocating for Muslim women’s rights through Islamic feminism, distinguishing culture from religion, and participating in local women’s organizations. The findings hold significant implications for integration, citizenship, security, and multiculturalism amidst rising Islamophobia. This research contributes to uncovering the voices of Dutch-Turkish Muslim women pushing back against marginalization at the intersection of racism, sexism, and discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an in‐depth analysis of the meaning and scope of biosafety and biosecurity in China, thereby relating domestic debates to global developments, exploring notions of safety and security in public policy more broadly and embedding a key policy initiative, Chinaʼs new Biosecurity Law, into attempts by Chinaʼs leadership to develop a holistic national security strategy. The article finds that biotic threats have more recently been reframed as matters of national security, in ways that undeniably go beyond conventional understandings of biosecurity and that blur the boundaries to more accident‐focused biosafety measures. Given Chinaʼs political and economic importance this apparent trend to securitise biotic risks is likely to impact on global trade relations, international transport and passenger traffic, not the least in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper deals with the processes of integration in Canadian society as represented by three different contemporary ethnic authors – Sharon Bala (The Boat People), Tea Mutonji (Shut up You’re Pretty) and Souvankham Thammavongsa (How to Pronounce Knife), all somewhat translating their transgenerational experiences as immigrants into their works. The negotiation of identities, in their respective works, happens at the margins of the Canadian society – the integral position of the immigrant individual whose marginalized status prescribes the performatives pertaining to class, race and gender. The commodification of this status underscores the shifting nature of Canadianness – as perceived by the margins and the center. The problematics of immigrant identity, its otherness and conditions of integration are represented in a highly ironic and postmodern manner, highlighting the issue of hypocritical enforcement of liberal policies in western societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although decades have passed since the constituent republics of what used to be the USSR and the member-states of its satellite Warsaw Pact dropped off the communist rule, in many regards, the countries of Eastern Europe continue to be in transition. One of the areas where this transition is clearly observable in these countries is the governance of religious diversity. In the aftermath of the collapse of communism, most of the states in the region adopted liberal regimes of the governance of religion as well as pro-diversity tendencies, which allowed for the burgeoning and thriving of various religious collectivities. Recently, however, there has been an observable purported turn away from a generally positive attitude in regards to religious diversity in different parts of the region from alleged freedom towards greater control of religious collectivities and their activities. To account for such processes, this special issue takes on the theoretical perspective of religious nationalism to analyse some of the underlying dynamics of such processes. In this the special issue addresses a number of questions, the major of which is: whether religious nationalism influences the governance of religion in post-communist Europe, and if so, how? This introductory piece outlines the research agenda of this special issue and briefly presents the major argument of each case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central European countries with a historically dominant Roman Catholic heritage belong to a particular cluster in respect to the governance of religion. This paper focuses on Hungary and Slovakia and addresses the effect of religious nationalism on the regimes of governance of religion in the two countries. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a brief period of neutral stance towards religion, which was characterized by liberal values. With the introduction of the bilateral Concordat agreements with the Holy See, both countries started to treat traditional Christian Churches preferentially. By the 2010s legislation in both countries created restrictive entry barriers for "new" religions. This created two or multi-tiered systems for "old" and "new" religions, in which the former enjoyed closer relationship with the state. As a result, the separation of church and state has become blurred. Preferentially treated churches reappeared in the public space as providers of certain educational and social services. Preferentially treated churches and the state developed asymmetrically interdependent relationships, the state having the upper hand. Meanwhile, increasingly populist and nationalist parties instrumentalized religion by involving Christianity in their nationalistic political discourse. This helped create a normative space, in which the state is able to give further preferential treatment to certain religious groups over others. The emphasis on Christian national identity underpinned these governments' narratives that conflates migration with security and Islam, which pushed those religious groups on the margins, which do not fit in the religious nationalist narrative of the increasingly right- and populism-leaning governing elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the problem of the relationship between the model of secularism and religious symbolism in the context of the risk of religious radicalization in Kazakhstan. This topic is especially relevant at the present time in conditions of geopolitical turbulence in the Eurasian region. Due to the complex nature of the problem, three main components are distinguished: 1) consideration of the features of the French model of secularism applied in Kazakhstan; 2) analysis of external destructive religious influence on Kazakhstan; 3) the alleged religious and ideological risks existing in Kazakhstan. Summarizing these three components, a general conclusion is drawn about the necessary measures that should be taken to relieve the «degree of tension» between secular principles and religious symbolism, which can reduce and/or neutralize the risks of extremist, and, as a consequence, terrorist actions on the territory of Kazakhstan. In Kazakhstan, measures are being taken to counter the so-called destructive religious movements/organizations (abbreviated as DRM/DRO). However, there is no legal definition for this concept. In public discourse, DRM/DRO are contrasted with «traditional religions», the definition of which also does not exist in domestic legislation. Legally, there is only a list of prohibited (extremist, terrorist) organizations and a list of registered religious associations on the territory of Kazakhstan. One way or another, realities dictate to the state and society the need to counteract destructive religious influence. It should be noted that destructive behavior comes from a destructive ideology. The purpose of the work is to identify ideological risks for the religious situation in Kazakhstan, as well as to apply preventive measures to eliminate religious and ideological threats. The article describes the existing risks for the state in the field of ideological prevention of religious extremism and terrorism, and provides appropriate recommendations that are of theoretical and practical benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]