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The chapter discusses the effects of climate change on tourism development in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania by combining these countries into a single Eastern Baltic Sea Region. The chapter explores the current situation and investigates the trends that will affect the economic development if the present climate conditions are situated in historical context. The first part discusses how destinations can be better managed if they are informed by the scholarship on ecological modernization and updated by a coevolutionary approach to climate change. This discussion proceeds with an analysis of the impact climate change has on tourism following different scenarios of current and future climate conditions. The development of tourism in the Baltic countries is then assessed with references to sustainable development. Overall the chapter demonstrates how destinations can cope with the changing preferences of tourists even in the face of highly unpredictable climatic developments.

This chapter explores socio-political networks and cross-sectoral co-operation in the context of solving environmental problems in an emerging economy: Russia. The aim is to shed light on key success factors of cross-border co-operation involving public, business and third-sector actors. The case study on protecting the Baltic Sea analyses a Western–Russian partnership between a Finnish non-governmental organisation and a Russian water utility and its embeddedness in business and socio-political networks. We conclude that key factors of success in this case were the successful timing of the NGO's initiative, the historic platform of Finnish-Russian co-operation in the area of clean water, and the gradual building of the actors’ social networks and legitimacy. The chapter contributes to the embryonic area of CSR studies in the emerging market context and extends the legitimation, trust-building and commitment model (Hadjikhani, Lee, & Ghauri, 2008) to the context of CSR in contemporary Russia.

We generalise the spectral EM algorithm for dynamic factor models in Fiorentini, Galesi, and Sentana (2014) to bifactor models with pervasive global factors complemented by regional ones. We exploit the sparsity of the loading matrices so that researchers can estimate those models by maximum likelihood with many series from multiple regions. We also derive convenient expressions for the spectral scores and information matrix, which allows us to switch to the scoring algorithm near the optimum. We explore the ability of a model with a global factor and three regional ones to capture inflation dynamics across 25 European countries over 1999–2014.

Peace on Earth has often been elusive, with more times on Earth spent at war rather than peace. This paper examines the nature of peace with its antithesis of war, focussing on the impact of war on the planet, which is not a primary consideration when war is waged. War leaves negative planetary legacies, which are of major concerns in times of population growth whilst living on a finite planet. Who should be responsible for planetary impact of war is considered, with some focus on government and other organisations. Collaborative strategies for caring for the planet through guidelines and level of departments of defence and national law-making organisations at national levels are discussed, as well as overviewing the focus and role of the United Nations and the associated Sustainability Goals. The paper concludes by suggesting that a more powerful way to influence us in our responsibilities to live peacefully, rather than a virtuous ‘should not’ approach, is the need to shift back to a moral positioning in our perspectives as humans being part of the ecosystem, so that we view ourselves as being at one with all life. In this perspective, if we incur harm to this planet, we are harming ourselves. Suggestions for living in a more peaceful way are drawn from indigenous wisdom and spiritual teachers, particularly the current Pope Francis.

There is still no universal definition of the third sector in Europe, but it can be seen as including all types of non-governmental not-for-profit entities such as non-profit organizations, mutuals, cooperatives, social enterprises and foundations. This article attempts to make sense of the current shifting conceptualization of the third sector in Europe. It is based on short country summaries of the images and concepts of the third sector in 13 European countries by EMES Network’s members, first presented in 2008 (Defourny and Pestoff, 2008; nine of them were recently revised and are found in the appendix to this article.). The perception and development of the third sector in Europe is closely related to the other major social governance institutions/mechanisms, like the market, state and community and through the third sector’s interaction with them. Moreover, many third sector organizations (TSOs) overlap with these other social institutions, resulting in varying degrees of hybridity and internal tensions experienced by them. TSOs can generate resources from their activities on the market, by providing services in partnership with the state and/or by promoting the interests of a given community or group. The country overviews document a growing professionalization of TSOs in most countries and a growing dependency of public funds to provide services. This has important theoretical and practical implications for orienting the articles included in this book. Thus, it can provide a key for better understanding the discussion and analysis in the remainder of this volume.

The chapter studies the phenomenon of trans-conflict region. The task of operationalization of the concept of trans-border region is solved. Specific potential of trans-border region is studied through the prism of regionalization and globalization. Similarities and differences of two regions according to spatial, historical, functional, and political characteristics are determined. The chapter analyzes one of the most important characteristics of border – barrier and contact. Peculiarities of functioning of trans-border region (with active conflict) are analyzed as a specific territory and presence of irredentist potential in the trans-border area. Implementation of the concept of trans-border region into the managerial discourse confirms the presence of regional entity with high conflict level.

The themes of crisis and identity have been discussed endlessly in relation to European unification since 1950, but generally not in their interrelation. After looking briefly at the literature on the notion that integration has often proceeded through crises, and on the relation between European and national and regional identities, the author examines some real or perceived crises and suggests how they may have impacted the issue of identity. These crises include that of the immediate post-war years, the slow emergence of serious reflection on the Holocaust, the imposition of communist rule across half of Europe and the Cold War, the crises of decolonisation and the persistence of European racism, European divisions in relation to crises in the Middle East, Europe’s (non-)response to environmental crisis, the crises of the 1968 years, the crises of post-communist transition and the Yugoslav wars, the Eurozone and refugee crises, the Brexit crisis and finally the current coronavirus crisis. These persistent and often recurring crises (Dauerkrisen) have confronted European political elites with what have been called crises of crisis management, and European populations with different ways of conceptualising their relation to Europe.