The starting point is the presence of a widespread feeling of political confrontation and division among Spanish citizens. This is compounded by dissatisfaction with and distrust in a system that is perceived by many as elitist and out of touch with real needs. Several factors related to this perception of politics are explained and quantified. On the one hand, there are economic elements, such as the stagnation of GDP per capita, the persistence of a relatively high at-risk-of-poverty rate, and the rates of material deprivation. And in all these elements, a significant territorial inequality can be observed. There are significant differences between Spain, France and Germany over the period considered. On the other hand, political factors determine much of the public debate in Spain: Historical memory and the Spanish Civil War, as well as the terrorism of ETA and other terrorist groups. The emergence of new parties is analyzed, especially VOX. Finally, the enormous difficulty of finding a territorial structure of political power that would bring together the consensus of most political forces. It is necessary to find formulas for fiscal federalism that will make it possible to move away from the current decentralization of spending without the Autonomous Communities having their own tax capacity. This study concludes by pointing out the relevance of all these problems and the need to find solutions through democratic debate and deliberation with agreements.

E-commerce is increasingly developing as a platform large and small companies use to carry out online transactions with consumers. However, the development of e-commerce is also fraught with new environmental problems. Various problems occur, such as data leaks and fraud in buying and selling transactions. This research aims to deepen the study of the e-commerce environment from the perspective of local policymakers, and this research completes a study on the analysis of e-commerce problems and solutions from the perspective of policy actors. The development of e-commerce still has an unsafe environment; the potential for fraud and data leakage is still significant, and a government response is needed, such as creating new regulations or revising existing regulations. This research uses qualitative analysis with a content analysis approach and national online news media as research data and information sources. Nvivo 12 Plus software was used to identify problems and solutions offered by actors in their narratives in the media. The results of this research show that data leaks and e-commerce have the potential to threaten the country’s resilience, conventional businesses are threatened with closure, and policymakers are shifting responsibility for overcoming e-commerce problems. Current regulations still need to be made appropriately to overcome e-commerce problems.

The article examines the role of electronic arbitration in settling commercial disputes. The article relies on the analytical approach to study legal texts and the comparative approach to examine the rules of international law and national laws in the field of electronic arbitration. In addition, the article discusses the concept of electronic arbitration and its distinction from traditional forms of arbitration. The article also explains the legal provisions related to it, especially those related to electronic arbitration agreements. Finally, the article explains the challenges related to its implementation how to take advantage of its benefits.

Cities play a key role in achieving the climate-neutral supply of heating and cooling. This paper compares the policy frameworks as well as practical implementation of smart heating and cooling in six cities: Munich, Dresden and Bad Nauheim in Germany; and Jinan, Chengdu and Haiyan in China, to explore strategies to enhance policy support, financial mechanisms, and consumer engagement, ultimately aiming to facilitate the transition to climate-neutral heating and cooling systems. The study is divided into three parts: (i) an examination of smart heating and cooling policy frameworks in Germany and China over the past few years; (ii) an analysis of heating and cooling strategies in the six case study cities within the context of smart energy systems; and (iii) an exploration of the practical solutions adopted by these cities as part of their smart energy transition initiatives. The findings reveal differences between the two countries in the strategies and regulations adopted by municipal governments as well as variations within each country. The policy frameworks and priorities set by city governments can greatly influence the development and implementation of smart heating and cooling systems. The study found that all six cities are actively engaged in pioneering innovative heating and cooling projects which utilise diverse energy sources such as geothermal, biomass, solar, waste heat and nuclear energy. Even the smaller cities were seen to be making considerable progress in the adoption of smart solutions.

Development of technologies and innovations encouraged companies to look for and implement innovative solutions in their practice seeking not only to increase the efficiency of activity but also towards sustainability. In this context, the aim of the research is to reveal innovative solutions for the improvement of the warehousing processes towards sustainability in the case of manufacturing companies. The methodological setup consists of two steps. First, a comprehensive literature analysis was conducted seeking to reveal and present a theoretical model based on the conceptual framework on this topic. Then, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 8 managers holding managerial positions in four Lithuanian manufacturing companies. The manufacturing companies were chosen for the research due to their durable experience in the market, which use advanced warehouse management methods in their operations. Main findings showed, that innovative solutions such as Big Data Datasets, smart networks, Drones, Robots, Internet of Things and etc., are important for the efficient warehousing processes. Furthermore, it is also necessary to emphasize the benefits of implementing of innovative solutions in warehousing processes not only in economic terms, but also for solving of social and environmental issues towards sustainability. The novelty of this study lies in its dual objective of filling a theoretical gap and of drawing the attention of companies and policy makers to the importance of innovative solutions implementation in the warehousing process towards sustainability.

This research, with a qualitative approach, is based on a literature review and a press analysis related to mergers, acquisitions and dissolutions of Higher Education Institutions in South America. Our findings evidence a gap in the academic literature for analyzing and understanding these processes. The literature on the subject is scarce; however, the press has recorded them in a constant way. While in the past this phenomenon was mainly among public universities, currently it is a fundamentally private trend. The main reasons to carry out this process by Higher Education Institutions are those related to geographic expansion or positioning (for merger processes), absorption and concentration of institutions by groups of interest (for merger processes, acquisition) and, the crisis resulting from the financial-administrative management of the institutions, as well as the non-compliance with national and international quality standards designed by accreditation agencies and institutions (for dissolution processes). On the contrary of some literature results, in any of the processes the search for prestige or reputation by the institutions was detected as a reason.