The Social Consequences of the Crisis
A factor to be taken into consideration in evaluating the social consequences of the financial crisis and subsequent recession is the long-period trend to be seen towards increasing social inequality. In the case of Italy the data reveal symptoms of the social gap appearing even before the recent crisis, but growing inequality is by no means limited to Italy. Indeed, the trends towards inequality have led sociologists to abandon the image of confluence at the centre, putting in its place that of the social gap. The crisis of deregulation brings back to the fore the possibility of considering organic measures to relaunch the economy, and new agreements to promote social cohesion.
Russia and China: A political marriage of convenience – stable and successful
While this insight is fundamental, it is insufficient to encompass the breadth, history and subtle dynamics of this distinctive relationship providing Michal Lubina the opportunity to work systematically through each of these. One aspect of the bilateral relationship is its ‘top-down’ character. The senior leadership in each country are well-known to the other, but thereafter, warmth and familiarity falls away rapidly at the middle and lower levels of officialdom. At the community level, the two countries remain as alien and unknown to each other as they are to their Western interlocutors. A second characteristic is what Lubina terms their 'sinusoid' rise and fall in relations. Some of this variance derives from changes in relative power. In the latest phase, Russia has become the subordinate partner but has decided to make a virtue out of the asymmetric win-win share of gains. Foreign policies with respect to the United States are also important; there was cooling when Russia accepted President Obama’s offer of a reset in 2010, there was warming when the United States commenced its Pivot. A third characteristic is that each country is more oriented to the West than to each other; culturally, Russia is far closer to Europe than to China, while for its part China looks more to the West than Russia for technology and trade. What their partnership delivers, in the end, is a sense of safety in their rear areas, such that they can oppose the West’s liberal interventions and pursue their own irredentist projects (Crimea for Russia, Taiwan and South China Sea for China).
To What Extent Can English-as-a-Second Language Learners Read Economic News Texts?
In decision making in the economic field, an especially important requirement is to rapidly understand news to absorb ever-changing economic situations. Given that most economic news is written in English, the ability to read such information without waiting for a translation is particularly valuable in economics in contrast to other fields. In consideration of this issue, this research investigated the extent to which non-native English speakers are able to read economic news to make decisions accordingly – an issue that has been rarely addressed in previous studies. Using an existing standard dataset as training data, we created a classifier that automatically evaluates the readability of text with high accuracy for English learners. Our assessment of the readability of an economic news corpus revealed that most news texts can be read by intermediate English learners. We also found that in some cases, readability varies considerably depending on the knowledge of certain words specific to the economic field.