Brill profit levels and organic growth in line with expectations, integration V&R according to plan and continuation of eBusiness growth Update on year-to-date performance During the third quarter Brill's eBusiness continued its strong growth, driven by eBooks and digital primary sources. This growth compensated for the ongoing decline in print books. YTD Journal sales declined mainly due to delayed invoicing, which is expected to be recovered in Q4, and continuing IT problems at our UK based distributor. Overall Brill's revenues including the acquisition of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht and Böhlau Verlag (V&R) are clearly ahead of last year.Cost of goods sold improved slightly as a result of the migration from print to eBooks. Operating costs were in line with expectations. Year to date EBITDA, operating profit and net profit have developed as planned.The integration of V&R runs according to plan. Both the Brill as well as the V&R teams and staff are now part of one global matrix organization. Various integration projects in IT, production, distribution, publishing and sales are underway. Management closely leads and monitors the integration and is pleased with the progress and the results of the acquired V&R business so far.In August, Brill acquired the journal Folia Primatologica from Karger Publishing, an important addition to our Biology portfolio. At the end of Q3 Brill's Book Archive was launched, a digital archive expanding our eBook list with more than 6,000 back list titles in 2021. The first sales are expected in Q4. FY OutlookThe COVID-19 pandemic continues to make market circumstances difficult and unpredictable. In Asia important countries are still in lockdown and (intercontinental) travel is still difficult or impossible, limiting our staff to visit authors, conferences and customers in person. The shortages in the global supply chains are hampering Brill as well, to the extent that this may have a negative impact on the results of the important 4 th quarter and could affect our top-and bottom line negatively.
The ability to conduct diplomatic relations is generally considered an exclusive attribute of sovereign states, but the participation of local and regional governments in international relations is becoming increasingly important worldwide. This phenomenon, also known as “paradiplomacy” has important historical antecedents but has acquired in recent decades a new prominence, as a result of the transnationalization of the global economy and the rise of global connectivity. Despite the initial reluctance of central/federal governments to accept this new reality, paradiplomacy is rapidly gaining institutional and legal recognition by states and international organizations in the most diverse geopolitical contexts. Beyond its instrumental value, paradiplomacy is always a form of political agency that facilitates the representation of collective identities at a global scale, expressing generally a will of greater political autonomy and sometimes even the aspiration to create a new independent state. In those cases in which this latter ambition prevails over any other possible political design, “paradiplomacy” mutates in to “protodiplomacy.” But protodiplomacy rarely produces the results expected by its proponents, namely to secure significant international support for a secessionist process, being more frequently conducive to international isolation and ethnopolitical conflict with the consequent economic, social, and political costs.
Diplomacy is no longer restricted to a single vocation nor implemented exclusively through interaction amongst official representatives. In exploring the challenges that these transformations produce, this work surveys firstly, thegenealogyof diplomacy as a profession, tracing how it changed from a civic duty into a vocation requiring training and the acquisition of specific knowledge and skills. Secondly, using the lens of thesociologyof professions, the development of diplomacy as a distinctive profession is examined, including its importance for the consolidation of the power of modern nation-states. Thirdly, it examines how the landscape of professional diplomacy is being diversified and enriched by a series of non-state actors, with their corresponding professionals, transforming thephenomenologyof contemporary diplomacy. Rather than seeing this pluralization of diplomatic actors in negative terms as thedeprofessionalization of diplomacy, we frame these trends astransprofessionalization, that is, as a productive development that reflects the expanded diplomatic space and the intensified pace of global interconnections and networks, and the new possibilities they unleash for practising diplomacy in different milieus.
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