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The purpose of this second part of this special issue is to contribute to a better understanding of the nature of Soviet society. It is not possible to analyse such a society in all its complexities within the space of one study. There are, however, some economic relations which determine society's major features. We believe that commodity‐production relations in the Soviet Union are of this type.

This paper aims to critically reflect on the growing systems orientation in marketing research and the approaches used to understand marketing systems. In response, the paper offers an integrative metatheory built on the ontic necessity and subsequently constitutive and causal efficacy of relations.

This conceptual paper is built on a logic of critique, identifying the generative absences that produce problems in the frameworks in use and attempting to rectify these problems by offering an alternative meta-theoretical structure. This paper draws from critical realism, systems thinking and relational sociology.

This paper advocates for an emergentist ontology for marketing systems built on the value of both substance and relation as co-principles of existence and the subsequent irreducible stratification derived from this. This position suggests the following propositions: the ontological premise of being is reliant on relations; the social world is constructed of stratified levels of organisation in which entities, their properties and powers emerge by virtue of these relations; these entities operate in complex and mutually modifying interrelations; stability and change is the result of this complex interplay of temporally/spatially stratified relations; and time and space are properties and potential powers of organisation.

This paper considers a number of inconsistencies in current approaches to the study of marketing systems arguing these arise based on the absence of a view of relations that supports an effective theory of emergence. In response, the paper develops a set of ontological presuppositions regarding the nature of marketing systems and a subsequent set of epistemic conditions as an integrative metatheoretical position, through which these systems are better understood and analysed. The paper argues that these improve our ability to theorise about the multi-dimensionality of these systems.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how ordered pairs representing related objects in static state are used to create hierarchical structures yielding rapidly increasing choices of complex objects to be selected by objects in their environment and how “purposive systems” evolve for the production of such structures.

Basic notions transcending discipline boundaries and natural language formalised into one‐ and two‐place sentences are suggested as related constituents of complexity and hierarchy, the “systemic view”. This leads into sets of ordered pairs and sequences of qualified predicate logic statements forming dynamics of systems.

Hierarchies in general can be expressed as ordered pairs. An analytical method for showing how ordered pairs are organised into progressively more complex structures of objects and “products” with increased chances of being selected by environmental objects in evolution or design. Correspondingly, groups of purposive systems operating according to algorithms are needed for the production of products or their evolution is left to chance.

The approach uses natural language as the primary model transformed into a formal language for reasoning about outcomes of scenarios with inanimate and animate components with predominantly qualitative properties, emotions and will. The desirability of such an approach, although it matches the generality of the systemic view, needs to be debated.

Once past the test of acceptability and software development, the approach can be used as part of “design methodology” for the design of “systems and products” in the context of human activity and technical scenarios.

The formal language exhibits properties, relations and interactions or impressions of objects of great diversity and variety. It exhibits the effects of these constituents on the production of outcomes based on semantic and mathematical relationships; it is widely applicable and may facilitate the appreciation of how “related objects evolve”.

This study aims to explore how urban governance of Hong Kong is impacted by the formulation and implementation of the new constitutional order of “one country, two systems” that distinguishes between the British colonial government and the current government under Chinese sovereignty.

While the literature recognises the society of Hong Kong has been heavily relying on land and property activities, few attempts notice the uniqueness of Hong Kong’s sequential constitutional orders and its relations to those activities. This study presents a geographical enquiry and an archival study to illustrate the spatiality of the new constitutional order and its implications on land injustice. Drawing from the works of legal geography and urban studies, this study extends and clarifies Anne Haila’s conception of Hong Kong as “property state” to “property jurisdiction”.

Though common law and leasehold land system were perpetuated from the colonial period, the new constitutional order changed their practices and the underlying logic and ideology. The urban governance order of this property jurisdiction is intended for prosperity and stability of the society, and for the economic benefit and territorial integrity claim of the Chinese sovereignty.

This study enriches the literature of Hong Kong studies in three major areas, namely, the relationship with China, urban governance and land injustice. It offers a conceptual discussion, which contributes to comparative territorial autonomies studies. It also contributes to legal geography by providing insights beyond the western liberal democracy model.

We revisit the model of socialism proposed in our Towards a New Socialism (1993) and attempt to answer various questions that have been raised regarding the connection between our view of socialism and our perspective on capitalism, the process of transition to socialism, the failings of the Soviet model, the relationship between socialism and communism, the role of direct democracy under socialism, and the use of labor-time calculation in a socialist economy. We argue that the contradictions of capitalist property relations, and of the accumulation process on a world scale, are set to present once again the necessity of the abolition of private property during the 21st century, and offer some thoughts on transitional forms that could implement this abolition. We defend the ideas of direct democracy and economic calculation in terms of labor time, and argue that these elements distinguish our proposals from the Soviet model. We trace the demise of the latter both to specifics of the Russian situation and to more general problems of Leninism, notably Lenin’s conception of the council state, and of socialism as a long period during which the productive forces are built up in preparation for an eventual communism.

This article examines relationships between capitalism and democracy as perceived by contending perspectives within the liberal capitalist‐liberal democratic tradition(s). Bentham and the Mills are taken as initiating both this tradition and the core elements of the debate within it. Pre‐Benthamite theories are first reviewed. Then, after discussion of Bentham and James Mill and of John Stuart Mill, Mill's late nineteenth and early twentieth century successors are examined. We then go on to consider hypotheses concerning the “exceptional” quality of relationships between capitalism and democracy in the United States. The penultimate section of the article adumbrates the main contours of mid‐twentieth century pluralist‐elitist theories. We conclude with a summary.

This chapter addresses the main issues regulating property rights in Kosovo, with particular attention given to the public property. Through this chapter, an effort will be made to present a short historical overview of property forms in Kosovo, especially its transformation from one kind to another in the past as a part of former Yugoslavia, during the period of the 90s and for the period of UNMIK Administration, as well as an objective reflection of the current state of the legislation of the Republic of Kosovo with concern to public property.

The authors carried out a desk review of academic literature, national and international regulation, reports provided by international institutions and other available important resources. Besides the theoretical review of international and local literature, legislation in Kosovo and other relevant documents, the chapter focusses on practical research by analysing the relevant legal property acts in Kosovo and the current situation in ownership and property rights, nidificate legal vacuum and existing weaknesses.

The legal acts in Kosovo have not sufficiently regulated state property’s status, so the question of which level of power is competent to manage state property has become an object of various interpretations.

The authors herein propose a few measures to regulate real property right with special attention to one public property.

The authors define the need to regulate property forms in Kosovo and their harmonisation, such as undertaking the proper coordinated steps to have an adequate property rights regime.

Market participants form conceptualizations of the products exchanged within product markets. Strategy scholars have begun to investigate how these product conceptual systems influence firm strategic behavior. Much of this work characterize these concepts as categories and theorize that the strategic implications derive from the potential penalties of not fitting into a category. This view has limitations in that it does not fully address the other cognitive tasks that concepts perform as well as other system-level characteristics of the conceptual systems. This chapter addresses these limitations by framing the use of concepts as part of the interpretive processes that enable market exchange. It develops a system-view of product concepts and then shows how the structure of the product categorical system influences the interpretation of product concepts. It introduces new mechanisms centered on cognitive processing that influence strategic action within product markets.

Farradane's categories of relations (Fig. 1) are viewed as percepts rather than concepts. It is argued that Farradane's original use of language supports this view. A comparison of Farradane's categories with perceptual discriminations in humans is attempted. The conclusion seems to support claims made for relational operators, whether those of Farradane or similar relational indexing devices as in PRECIS, to have the potential to act as metalanguages.

To describe a view of parts of the world as assemblies with emergent properties constructed from related properties or objects, and the modelling of production of emergent properties arising by chance or design.

One and two place sentences of a homogeneous language are combined in a static state to show a variety of possibilities of new structures. Combinations of such sentences in a dynamic state derived from narratives that show how static states are produced.

Using Cartesian products and network theory the kind and number of new structures can be calculated. Semantic diagrams exhibit the propagation of dynamic states leading to the use of predicate logic statements as carriers of properties of objects with uncertainties.

The approach is based on linguistic analysis being able to encapsulate linguistic complexities, expressions of feelings, emotions, etc. in homogeneous language. Interpretation of semantics is restricted to human mind. Research may lead to a science and design of complex systems.

The method embedded in the approach can be developed into a design aid for managers subject to its passing the test of debate and development of software.

The research has led to a more rigorous approach to the analysis and design of scenarios including those with human activities.