The proposed review of the monograph by D. V. Pavlov, dedicated to the study of the life path of Metropolitan Guriy (Egorov), compares different approaches to writing biographies of church figures of ...the 20th century. A conclusion is made about the optimal combination of scientific and journalistic methods of D. V. Pavlov when presenting the material. This format of elaborating historical descriptions allows both to interest the reader and to fully enable subsequent researchers to use the obtained scientific results. The review provides a brief plan for constructing the monograph, and also shows the volume of archival information resources used by the author and scattered across different parts of the territory of the former Soviet Union. Two interesting problems raised by D. V. Pavlov are examined. First is the consolidation of dioceses in the post-war period, associated with a shortage of bishops, and second, the author’s attempt to determine the type of bishop to which Metropolitan Guriy (Egorov) belonged. Special attention is paid to activities of the author of the monograph to promote his work in the scientific and public sphere, both on the basis of personal communication with readers and using modern information technologies. The awards that this work, published in 2021, has already received are listed.
About a decade ago, the global community came to the realization that progress toward sustainable development would depend largely on the successful mobilization of private capital. However, business ...has not yet proved willing to assume the leading role – especially in fragile contexts – largely due to increased political risks. This article identifies constants and variables in businessʼ assessments of political risks over the 2010–20s based on selected serial reports summarizing the results of annual surveys of business representatives – Risk Barometer, by a global insurance company, Allianz, and How Leading Companies Are Managing Current Political Risks, produced by Oxford Analytica for Willis, Tower & Watson (WTW). The article first examines long-term patterns and trends in business perceptions that manifested throughout the 2010s. The article then studies the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased global turbulence following Russiaʼs special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 had on these patterns. The research confirms the hypothesis about the existence of “constants” in the perception of political risks, despite the volatile changes in their geography, and identifies three consistent, yet paradoxical patterns: first, the clear underestimation of political risks in comparison with other risk categories; second, deprioritization of extra-legal risks and risks of escalation of interstate conflicts over non-military legal-governmental risks; and third, businessʼ limited ability to foresee the most significant political risks of any type. Neither the COVID-19 pandemic nor the escalation of conflict in Ukraine have reversed these patterns. This can be explained by the lack of in-house experience and insufficient use of external expertise in political risk assessment, as well as by an overrepresentation of developed countries (and underrepresentation of the developing world) in expert pools. Improvements in political risk management and a broader use of political risk insurance (and guarantees) might increase the effectiveness of private sector resource mobilization for international development. However, in a much more competitive global environment, a higher propensity of companies from the competing powers to invest in high-risk jurisdictions would create additional zones of tension in the Global South – in the same way as do the official development finance flows. The article concludes by suggesting various possibilities of scaling-up fundamental and applied research in political risks (including their complex interactions with international development policies) based on regular business risk surveys to get results of high importance for Russiaʼs current foreign and foreign economic policies
In recent years there has been a steady growth of “multi-bilateral aid,” or voluntary earmarked contributions transferred by international donors through multilateral organizations. The World Bank ...Group’s financial intermediary funds (FIFs) and trust funds have gained an especially wide recognition and have been particularly instrumental in channelling aid to fragile states — a priority group of partners for achieving the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. But researchers have paid much less attention to FIFs than to trust funds.This article identifies characteristic features of World Bank IFIs as a multilateral mechanism to channel aid to politically unstable regions, focusing on the Middle East and North Africa Transition Fund (MENA TF) established in 2012 to support Arab countries undergoing political transitions as a result of the Arab Awakening. The introductory section examines the particularities, benefits and risks of establishing FIFs as multilateral mechanisms to transfer development assistance. These parameters are illustrated in subsequent sections which discuss the MENA TF’s establishment procedures, governance structure, and mobilization and allocation of funds.The article concludes that for each of the parties involved, hypothetically, World Bank FIFs are a quite convenient mechanism for supporting fragile states. However, the example of the MENA TF conclusively shows that everything depends on the concrete political context of their establishment and operation. In terms of some key parameters (establishment procedure, governance structure) the MENA TF mechanism is very similar to other funds of the same type, but its operation is strongly affected by challenges uncommon to the majority of FIFs, which are focused on more politically neutral sectors. These challenges stem from several factors, including the predominance of political decisions within the Deauville Partnership, a unique list of contributors, and a severity of discord among them given the drastic deterioration of the political climate in the Arab world and beyond in 2014. This not only disrupted plans to engage more donors and mobilize the planned amount of funds, but it also stipulated a visible politicization of aid allocation. Political risks which materialized in the MENA TF operations might occur in other FIFs focused on fragile states and situations. The establishment of additional multilateral mechanisms, thus, requires learning from experience and prioritizing risk assessment and mitigation.
In the view of an apparent change in balance of power in Syria in 2017-2018 the challenges of reconstruction of the territories affected by a durable and highly destructive conflict have quickly ...risen to the forefront of the international agenda. A sheer scope of physical damage and humanitarian crisis in the country and a catastrophic lack of financial resources needed to mitigate consequences of a military confrontation and come back to normal life leave no doubt that the reconstruction process will imply a considerable external support. This paper identifies the particularities of Russia’s and the Western countries’ approaches to Syria’s reconstruction based on available public sources and their respective perceptions of related political dilemmas. Such a comparison has been made neither by Russian scholars who have touched upon the reconstruction agenda only sporadically or examined only the Russian motives, nor by foreign experts who have not studied the Russia’s initiatives scrupulously yet. The first section summarizes publicly available information about the bilateral Russian-Syrian dialogue on reconstruction and the main dimensions of the Russian efforts aimed at ensuring a more active engagement of the established donors in reconstruction of Syria. The second section examines the origins and a subsequent evolution of the key representatives of the ‘Group of Friends of the Syrian People’ (primarily, the U.S. and the EU countries) positions on rebuilding Syria. Special attention is paid to identifying similarities and differences between the circumstances surrounding Syria’s reconstruction and the international context around implementation of other large post-conflict reconstruction programs, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan. The conclusion is drawn that ‘mutually assured obstruction’ and the development of two parallel reconstruction processes to the west and to the east of the Euphrates River will have an extremely negative impact on both Syria and a wider region. Prevention of this scenario entails a wide range of reputational, economic and political-strategic risks for all actors inside and outside Syria.
The analysis of designs of domestic and foreign ground-throwing machines and conducted research on extinguishing a forest grass-roots fire by throwing soil. It is established that for carrying out ...high-quality preventive and forest fire works, it is advisable to use technical means that combine active and passive working bodies in their design. This will allow combining the process of pre-treatment of soil and further release of loosened soil in a given direction, as well as significantly increase the efficiency of the technological process of creating mineralized strips. Based on the mathematical model, the working surfaces of the soil-laying machine are represented as a set of elementary triangles with vertex coordinates and the nature of soil movement is studied. The main part of the flying soil (about 70 %) settles in the band from 1.5 to 3.0 m from the border of the machine. However, part of the ground gets a high initial velocity and such an angle of release that it reaches a distance of 20 to 40 m. To study the movement of the elements of the ground-thrower, equations of motion of the mechanical system in the form of Lagrange equations of the second kind are compiled. It was found that when the values of the depth of the casing-Ripper are from 0.25 to 0.3 m, the best indicators of the range of soil discharge and productivity are observed (20 m and 0.07 m3 / s, respectively), and the power consumption is in the permissible range (17 kW). It is concluded that the ground-throwing equipment should be considered only as part of a combined machine that will allow you to remove the forest floor from the path of the unit, preventing its release into the fire zone, and protecting the working bodies of the unit from the root system of trees. The highly efficient design of the unit with technical solutions is proposed, which allows performing work on stopping and localizing fire.
Currently, the machines are energy-intensive and inefficient, since the tools are mounted on tractors with a creeper reducer, and the cutters have to work in the conditions of the sodden upper soil ...layers, which significantly reduces the quality and productivity of the process. This served as an impetus for the creation of new technical tools that would combine the best qualities of plows and milling tools, expand the range of possible applications, but at the same time were devoid of their shortcomings. So there appeared tools with combined working bodies, for example, a strip thrower, developed on the basis of the G.F. Morozova. However, these developments also do not completely solve the problems of the efficiency and quality of preventive and forest fire operations, since the working bodies of milling, although working on a loose soil-soil shaft, are still not protected from roots and stumps, they have a large mass and dimensions due to a combination of two types working bodies in one design. A comparative analysis of technical means and experimental studies of a prototype forest fire soil-throwing machine with a combined working body was carried out.
The current decade has seen a growing role of the Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar) in global aid architecture as a result of the Arab Awakening. The largest ...packages of assistance have been provided by this group of donors to Egypt, which followed an especially tortuous path, shaped by the factor of political Islam. This paper examines the logic, dynamics and the role of such assistance in Egypt’s tumultuous history after 2011. It consists of four sections - each depicting a particular phase of the post-revolutionary period and containing an in-depth study of the logic of and linkages between the GCC members’ donor initiatives as well as an assessment of their influence on the domestic and external policies of consecutive Egyptian administrations and the behavior of extraregional actors. The general conclusion is drawn that during each of four stages the Gulf States’ actions played a pivotal role in Egypt’s turbulent development. Contrary to a widespread belief in predominance of cultural and religious solidarity in Arab donors’ aid-giving, they mastered foreign assistance as a tool of statecraft as aptly as established donors, while often restructuring it in response to the changes on the ground and/or economic environment. An increased role of the GCC members in Egypt’s fate is explained not only by their growing ambitions and capabilities but also by an excessive cautiousness of the Western countries. In comparison with the latter group - the Arab donors, which did not demand any improvements in quality of governance from the Egyptian authorities and acted very swiftly and decisively, looked as much more reliable partners. Their growing impact forced the established donors to turn a blind eye to the defects of Egypt’s political system or economic governance in order to avoid a complete loss of influence. This interdependence between the behavior of the Western and Arab donors reveals a trend, which deserves a more scrupulous examination on a wider selection of country cases.
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