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As a central component of political discourse and a prolific resource for argument, political humor targets leaders, politicians, or representatives as well as political institutions, groups, actions, and parties. Each of these groups is liable to be a political humor theme. Although previous literature has proved that analyzing the themes of political wisecracks presents valuable information about the socio-political concerns, thematic analysis of political jokes, particularly, in Iranian and American contexts, as a necessary clue for understanding serious sociopolitical issues seems to be an area in need of further analysis. In order to address this problem, this study investigated the most popular themes in Iranian and American political humor. Analysis showed that the general themes of Iranian and American political humor are more similar than different. However, while sexual infamy, racism, and gun control marked considerable themes of American humor, despotic forces and religion-related humor seemed to be exclusively Iranian.

Purpose - Despite the importance of the interaction between consumers and service personnel for how consumers perceive quality, service research assumes that both customers and service provider are perfectly able to interact with each other. This might not be the case on bilingual markets. This paper aims to examine customers' behavioral reactions to being served in their first versus second language. Specifically, the paper tests whether bilinguals who are served in their second language are less likely to tip the service provider. Moreover, it seeks to examine the mediating role of speech accommodation, and the moderating roles of bilinguals' perceived second language proficiency and political considerations. Design/methodology/approach - Study 1 tests the main hypothesis using a scenario-based experiment with adult consumers in two bilingual countries (Belgium, Finland). Study 2 further elaborates on these findings using a retrospective survey of actual customer experiences in Belgium. Findings - Driven by perceptions of speech accommodation, the results consistently show that consumers are more likely to tip if served in their native language compared to when served in their second language. Moreover, this relationship is not dependent on consumers' perceived second language proficiency, but rather upon their political considerations. Originality/value - This is the first study of bilingual customers' behavioral reactions to being served in their second language, among bilingual customers from different countries. Given that more than half the countries in the world are multilingual, service providers need to take customers' native language into account when serving bilingual customers.

When an inter-basin water transfer is expected among basins with some level of unfriendliness or hostility, ignoring political considerations, which are generally not integrated in economic investigations, can impede an integrated and efficient management. In this paper, a new economic-political methodology is proposed for the optimal and efficient allocation of water resources among water users in inter-basin water transfer systems. The proposed framework quantifies both the economic payoffs using an “ n -person real fuzzy cooperative game”, and the political formation prospect of any coalition, using a Modified Political Accounting System (MPAS). The proposed economic-political methodology is applied to a large scale inter-basin water allocation problem including water donor and receiving basins struggling with water scarcity. The results show how including political considerations in the study may provide a more satisfactory solution compared to the just cost-effective water allocations.

This work theoretically finds out the welfare implications of different reformatory policies in a small open developing economy using a 2 × 2 full-employment general equilibrium model with distorted factor and product markets. We have found that there exists a trade-off between labour market and credit market reforms, and that there might exist certain critical levels beyond which the implementation of the policies might produce perverse effects on social welfare. Even though our results are interesting and have important policy bearings, their applications in reality in a large democratic country like India, may not be practicable because of political economy reason.

'Investing with Confidence: Understanding Political Risk Management in the 21st Century' is the latest book in a series based on the MIGA–Georgetown University Symposium on International Political Risk Management. The most recent symposium brought together almost 200 senior practitioners from the political risk insurance (PRI) industry, including investors, insurers, brokers, lenders, academics, and members of the legal community. This volume addresses the key issues relevant for investors today, including arbitration, understanding and pricing for risk, and new developments in investments through timely assessments from 15 experts in the fields of international investment, finance, insurance, law, and academia. Contributors to this volume examine key political risk issues including claims and arbitration, perspectives on pricing from private, public and multilateral providers, and explore new frontiers in sovereign wealth funds and Islamic finance. The volume begins with a look back to the founding of International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and MIGA and the respective visions for both of these important institutions. It continues with a review of new developments in global finance and risk management, including Islamic finance and sovereign wealth funds, and provides an investor perspective of what drives the decision making process on procuring political risk insurance. The volume then turns to consider methodologies of pricing from the private, public, and multilateral perspectives, and examines the expropriation and the pledge of shares. This section focuses on key legal questions such as understanding expropriation and the outcome of arbitration hearings, the latter being particularly relevant given the number of cases currently before arbitral panels. The volume concludes with an overview of the key thoughts raised by the authors and the implications for investors going forward. 'Investing with Confidence' offers valuable insights for practitioners and investors alike and is particularly relevant in today's uncertain markets.

East Asian economies of the 1980s and 1990s were among the most competitive exporters of manufactured products and sustained growth rates far higher than those of other countries, developing or industrial. But the crisis of 1997-1998 uncovered weaknesses in the system, and faith in the potential of the region to sustain growth was shaken.The next decade is likely to be decisive for East Asia. The region will maintain and augment its past economic successes only if individual countries pursue a three-stranded formula for growth, through policies that provide the macroeconomic stability and the institutional foundations needed for a growth spiral led by innovation. The future performance of East Asia’s middle-and high-income countries rests on their creating a competitive environment keyed to knowledge-based activities supporting innovation and the commercialization of new ideas.

The great scholar‐critic‐editor F. W. Bateson keenly followed Mathew Arnold in linking critical judgement with valuation – distinguishing the ‘best’ from the rest, seeing aesthetic judgement as necessarily involving moral and social assessment, ideological and political consideration. Arnold is clearly saddened when texts prove incapable of being freshened by new readings. He craves the critical creativity of constant renovation. This creative reading is highly moral. Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem ‘Felix Randal’ is an example which springs instantly to mind when there's any suggestion of how ‘fresh knowledge’ can change (and change at a stroke) the meaning and the reception – the intersubjective existence, as Bateson would put it – of a literary text. There's no doubt that Felix Spence is Hopkins's Felix Randal.

The fight against corruption is a developmental imperative. While international efforts have achieved some significant results, they also illustrate the extent of the challenges that remain. A key lesson of experience is that tackling corruption needs to be waged simultaneously on two fronts: prevention and enforcement. Both approaches are complementary and self-reinforcing. The vast scale of illicit financial flows from the proceeds of corruption and the challenges associated with national and international asset recovery efforts call, in particular, for significant investments in prevention and a broadening of prevention tools. Income and asset disclosure (IAD) systems are gaining prominence as a tool in the fight against corruption, and have the potential to support efforts in both prevention and enforcement. This contribution is recognized in the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and other international anticorruption agreements. Chapter one of this guides provides an overview of the objectives of IAD systems, identifies the relevant international anticorruption instruments, and provides a summary of key considerations that should influence the design, implementation, and enforcement of an IAD framework. Chapters two and three drill down into the design of IAD systems and address practical aspects of implementation.

This chapter contains sections titled: Art's Special Knowledge: Identification and the Aesthetics of Cognition Identification Without Identity: Pragmatism and the Aesthetics of Contradiction Pragmatism and the Limits of Justice References and Further Reading