Journals
2026 EN
Termeer Agnes
This article explores how ISIS and the Taliban have fostered support through their parallel legal systems. While much of the literature on rebel governance focuses on whether, why, and how rebels govern, less attention has been paid to the interaction between the legislative and legitimation efforts of rebel groups. Using a multi-method approach of critical discourse analysis and thematic analysis, this contribution analyzes ISIS and Taliban publications and academic literature through a twofold typology of legitimacy. It develops a framework of legitimacy claims across the groups that offers insights into rebel legitimation processes in civil war.
Journals
2026 EN
Kudriavtseva Natalia
In this article, I reflect on the challenges of conducting research on language in wartime Ukraine from the perspective of critical sociolinguistics. Situated within Ukraine’s nation-building debates, the issue of language has been intensified by ongoing Russian aggression. Considering the ideological framing of language as both a marker of patriotism and a site of political contestation, I follow a critical ethnographic sociolinguistic approach that foregrounds language as a political, social, and economic resource, while also emphasizing the researcher’s positionality. Drawing on my own research, which combines participant observation and biographical interviews, I demonstrate how wartime heightens symbolic and emotional investments in language. Theoretically, wartime language dynamics are underpinned by the concept of the linguistic repertoire , approached through interactional, poststructuralist, and phenomenological lenses. I advocate for methodological flexibility and trust-building techniques, and I approach the choice of interview language from a code-meshing perspective. By foregrounding language as fluid and socially embedded, this article contributes to rethinking ethnography in contexts of instability and war, suggesting that such conditions also reshape the epistemological frameworks of linguistic and social research.
Journals
2026 EN
Troitskiy Mikhail
Why did Russia’s globally integrated elites – technocrats, oligarchs, and policy professionals – remain passive and unprepared before the 24 February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, despite escalating belligerence from the Kremlin? I argue that a deliberate strategy of dual-track signaling – hawkish public mobilization for mass and nationalist audiences, paired with private reassurances and costly “business-as-usual” cues to globally exposed insiders – systematically depressed elites’ perceived probability of war and neutralized potential opposition. The analysis traces 2020–2022 signals across channels and codes, triangulating leaked conversations, elite testimonies, official denials and ultimatums, sequencing of coercive diplomacy, energy and fiscal moves, and behavioral indicators. This evidentiary record shows that technocrats and business leaders were actively misdirected, not merely uninformed, and that minimal preinvasion hedging was followed by a sharp postinvasion scramble. I distinguish dual-track signaling from ordinary secrecy by demonstrating purposive misdirection targeted at a domestic subaudience, and assess rival explanations – repression, overconfidence, resignation – as contributing but insufficient absent the informational trap. Theoretically, the study advances research on multivocal propaganda and authoritarian coalition management by specifying a mechanism linking audience segmentation to elite quiescence – and by identifying its tradeoff: secrecy and compartmentalization that preserve domestic calm ex ante but degrade deliberation and planning ex post .
Journals
2026 EN
Sereda Viktoriya · Tsisar Nataliya
The paper revisits the methodological and empirical challenges of studying language shift in Ukraine in the context of war and displacement. Previous research has often overlooked the complex linguistic landscape and evolving realities of Ukrainian society. Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022 has further complicated the situation, triggering mass displacement and increasing the fluidity of the linguistic repertoires. Conventional survey methods face limitations in capturing these dynamics, struggling with sampling representativeness and growing sensitivities to questions of identity and language. We argue for a more nuanced approach that considers the specific experiences of minority groups and the emotional impact on respondents. This emphasizes the need for trauma-informed research strategies. The study highlights the importance of examining language shifts through patterns of language use across different domains and generational changes rather than relying solely on self-reported preferences or simple questions. By adopting a mixed-methods approach and a long-term perspective, researchers can better understand the multidirectional nature of language shifts and the diverse experiences of displaced populations. This study calls for a reconsideration of rigid macro-regional classifications and a greater focus on the fluid linguistic landscape shaped by war and displacement.
Journals
2026 EN
Mizrahi Mor · Roziner Ilan · Tartakovsky Eugene
This two-wave longitudinal study examines changes in personal values during war, investigating mean changes and the impact of situational and socio-demographic variables on values’ change. The study is based on the theory of human values (Schwartz, 2017). The measurements were conducted several weeks before Hamas’s invasion of Israel in October 2023, and eight months later, during the war in Gaza. Jewish Israelis, aged 18–35 years, participated in the study (n = 600). The importance of self-direction-action and achievement values decreased, and the importance of power-dominance and security-social values increased during the war. For all values, a higher pre-war level of a value was associated with a smaller change in this value during the war. A stronger threat to oneself during the war was associated with larger increases in power-dominance and humility values and larger decreases in universalism-care values. People who perceived a stronger threat to close others showed a smaller decrease in self-direction-action and a larger decrease in security-personal values. The study enhances our understanding of coping with war threats by examining changes in the individual’s motivational system.
Journals
2026 EN
Wang Lixia · Sha Lin · Gu Yingqian
+1 more
The U.S.-China trade war is one of the important means for the U.S. to promote the return of manufacturing and reduce the level of financialization of enterprises for preventing entity economy from real to virtual. However, from the perspective of financialization, which country is more severely injured and whether the U.S. really benefits from the trade war has not been effectively verified. Hence, this paper explores the impact of the U.S.-China trade war on the corporate financialization in China and the U.S. by using the panel data related to listed non-financial enterprises in both countries from 2014–2021. Results indicate that the U.S. experiences a significantly higher level of corporate financialization post-trade war compared to China, suggesting that the U.S. suffers greater real economic damage.
Journals
2026 EN
Zhang Feng
This article examines China’s policy toward Afghanistan since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. It conceptualizes this policy as a distinctive case of neighborhood policy and develops an international relations theory of neighborhood policy to explain it. The theory focuses on policy interests and goals, supported by an empirical analysis of the historical evolution and relative importance of Chinese policy goals. The analysis divides Chinese policy into three periods: the Cold War era (1949–1989), the post-Cold War period up to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, and the latest phase since the Taliban retook power in August 2021. It highlights the goals of amity, security, and influence, offering a theoretical explanation of their respective roles in Chinese policy.
Journals
2026 EN
Huang Hui
Building on James Scott’s theory of everyday resistance, this article investigates how Chinese migrant food-delivery drivers respond and negotiate algorithmic exploitation and precarity under the double repressive environment. Drawing from two stages of ethnographic research, this article reveals a co-evolution of everyday algorithmic resistance by migrant drivers and platforms’ innovations in algorithmic management. This article identifies three dimensions of everyday algorithmic resistance forged and adopted by food-delivery drivers in response to strict algorithmic control and precarity, which include dodge-algorithm, leverage-algorithm and subvert-algorithm. These dimensions of resistance represent a complex repertoire of resisting tactics that drivers develop, both individually and in small groups, to undermine the domination and platform power structure. Additionally, this article unveils a ‘tug-of-war’ interactive process, wherein platforms continuously strive to suppress resistance and retain control by iteratively updating and fine-tuning algorithmic management. These findings contribute to understanding complex power relations by incorporating everyday resistance into a dynamic and interactive framework in platform-mediated gig economy.
Journals
2026 EN
Kovářová Marie · Filip Miroslav · Kovář Dominik
+1 more
Differentiation of personal constructs as a component of cognitive complexity is an important topic in research on personal construct theory and practice. The article addresses the validity of repertory grid differentiation indices such as intensity, percentage of variance accounted for by the first factor, Bieri’s index, and the bootstrap clustering index. To determine their validity, we compared them with an independent index of differentiation based on an analysis of semistructured interviews. We used data from two previous studies that had focused on construction processes related to conspiracy beliefs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (Study 1) and the context of the war in Ukraine (Study 2). In Study 1, intensity, percentage of variance accounted for by the first factor, and Bieri’s index correlated moderately with the text-analysis index; the bootstrap clustering index did not correlate with the text-analysis index. In Study 2, the repertory grid indices correlated with the text-analysis index lower and insignificantly, but in the predicted direction. In merged data, intensity, and percentage of variance accounted for by the first factor exhibited low significant correlations with the text-analysis index. We argue that in Study 2, the correlations could be lowered due to a lower reliability of the text coding for differentiation and due to a broader scope of the interview. In conclusion, the studies report preliminary evidence of the validity of percentage of variance accounted for by the first factor and intensity.
Journals
2026 EN
Troitskiy Mikhail
The Russo-Ukrainian war is often viewed through Russia’s top-down directives under President Putin. Yet this article argues that intragovernmental bargaining —beyond simple coercion—has shaped crucial wartime policies. The article examines how the Kremlin negotiated with domestic actors on the eve and during the war to limit defections and assign accountability for risky decisions. Such bargaining partially offsets the audience costs that arise if the war falters and shapes nuclear escalation discourse. This study challenges portrayals of Putin as an unrestrained strongman, showing that even personalist autocrats often seek buy-in from key domestic actors to sustain stability in high-stakes conflicts.