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Politicians' response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic worldwide relied on war scenarios having a tradition in disease management. The study contrasts how the political measures introduced during the state of emergency were presented by the Prime Minister of Hungary in his social media posts and his speeches and announcements broadcast by public media.

A computer-assisted content analysis was conducted to extract data on war and military metaphors, followed by a qualitative analysis of the metaphor scenarios used for explaining the situation and justifying action. The role of the prime minister (PM) indicated by the social media posts and by his transcripted speeches was compared with the suggestion of the visual illustrations.

The study’s findings were that verbal communication shifted between war-related metaphoric to military-related realistic. The third conceptual domain identified was fear. Messages were mostly about national cohesion, however, visually, the PM was the protagonist of the events. The communication proved efficient according to opinion polls.

The research revealed how the securitization of the pandemic took place via the political discourse constructed both for Internet users and traditional media consumers. Metaphors of fear, war and military action created the justification of the declaration of a state of emergency. The PM as a capable and responsible leader was placed in focus of the events. Although verbal messages by the PM were centred on a sense of community and joint action, the personalization of political action was remarkable by indirect means, such as visual messages. The personalization of politics throughout the period researched served the purpose of securitization of the pandemic with the PM as a charismatic leader attracting attention and giving credit to the severity of the threat along with the introduction of extraordinary measures.

This paper seeks to analyse reasons behind the difficulties faced by Northern Rock (NR) and the UK financial system and proposes a return to a more traditional/prudent banking business model, based on a sound balance between sources and uses of funds.

The paper outlines the background to the credit crunch and presents a simple model of a bank and NR's business model. Conclusions and implications are drawn.

It is suggested that credit rating agencies should provide a better assessment of the risks involved in securitised instruments by focusing on clarity and transparency and hence allowing liquidity risk of loan originators to be comprehensively understood. Moreover, the efficacy of the existing regulatory framework requires the tripartite system of supervision (Treasury, Bank of England, and FSA) to assume a more alert role in order to avoid asset bubbles in the first place rather than intervening ex post.

The paper will give rise to a series of new research streams – all of which are much needed, given the fragile state of the financial systems.

This paper aims to offer a comprehensive comparison of the characteristics between banks that securitize and banks that do not and to provide evidence of the capital arbitrage theory of securitization.

First, the fundamental financial similarities and differences between banks that securitize assets and banks that do not participate in the securitization market are tested. Second, variables that help predict whether a bank securitizes assets are analyzed. Third, the determinants of securitization extent in banks that securitize assets are investigated – for general securitization extent and for specific type of asset securitized. Using a sample of 112 banks that securitize different assets, a matched sample of banks that do not securitize based on entity type and size is created. A quarterly panel data set of these banks dating back to 2001 is used.

The results indicate that bank size is a significant determinant of whether a bank securitizes. Further, overall securitization extent is negatively related to the bank's capital ratio (in support of capital arbitrage theory), but this result is primarily driven by credit card securitization.

Utilizing a unique data set of quarterly data from bank Call Reports; the panel data set is large relative to past studies. A matched sample approach was used to test fundamental financial similarities and differences between securitizing and non‐securitizing banks. In addition to aggregated securitization, an examination was made of how different classes of assets affect the banks' risk‐based capital ratios and test the capital arbitrage theory of securitization.

The purpose of this paper is to study bank executive compensation and securitization, two important strategic developments in finance that are central to the debate on the cause of the crisis.

We study the relationship between securitization and executive pay in a sample of US banks from 2001 to 2010, using a series of multivariate regression models to test our hypotheses.

Bank Chief Executive Officer (CEO) pay exhibits a positive pay-for-performance relationship. Since the crisis, this relationship is weakened. For banks that securitize, we find that prior to the crisis, higher securitization activity led to higher CEO compensation levels. While we do not find that securitization is related to bank CEO pay gap (the difference between CEO and the next-highest paid bank executive), we do see that bank ratings are a factor in pay gap and compensation level.

Bank regulatory ratings influence the relationship between compensation and securitization. Also, the relationship differs pre- and post-crisis.

Our study is unique for several reasons. First, we look at the relationship between compensation and securitization over a time period that includes the recent financial crisis. Second, we include an analysis of pay gap. Third, we include bank regulatory ratings, which are proprietary and therefore not available for use in many banking studies.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, transparency became a rhetorical token used to provide a solution to financial problems. This study examines how transparency materialized in the context of the European securitization industry, which was largely blamed for the credit crunch. The authors show that although transparency was broadly associated with a political call for financial system reform, in the European securitization industry it provided the basis on which to repurpose its market infrastructure. The authors introduce the concept of transparency work to show that transparency is a market achievement organized as a standardization network of heterogeneous actors aiming at establishing a new calculative infrastructure for managing credit risk. Combining insights from information infrastructure research and Economic Sociology, the authors contribute to a distributed and networked understanding of information infrastructure development.

Agency is inherently an institution and involves dynamic socio-cultural processes that facilitate development. This paper is written in three parts. The purpose in Part 1 was to represent agency theory as an institutional theory, and consideration was made of the relationship between development, growth and globalisation. In Part 2, the purpose was to explore development with respect to the political context, explaining in terms of culture under what conditions political groups may come to power. Using political frames intended to define their nature and realities, they seek to attract agents in their political sphere to gain administrative power. In this Part 3, the purpose of this paper is to model, using cybernetic agency theory, the nature of development and reduction to instrumentality.

Development theory is a multidisciplinary field in which research and theories are clustered together and set within an adaptive institutional activity system framework. An adaptive activity system has a plural membership of agents represented by agency. In Parts 1 and 2 of this paper, agency was shown to have an institutional basis. Activity system development was also explained as a process of institutional evolution, and its potential was shown to provide power acquisition in a political landscape by competitive political frames which vie for support in a place of potentially susceptible agents. Here in Part 3, agency theory will be used to model the dynamic relationships between political frames and the agents that they wish to attract by projecting both cognitive and emotional structures, this enabling the anticipation of behaviour.

These relate to the three parts of the paper taken together. Agency is an evolutionary institutional system that can represent socio-political development. A model for political development has been created that identifies the conditions under which formal political groups are able to promote frames of policy to attract support from autonomous agents that constitute the membership of the activity system, and hence gain agency status. On the way to this, it connects Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity to Sorokin’s theory of socio-cultural dynamics and cultural stability. One result is the notion of liquid development, an unstable condition of development in adaptive activity systems. Agency theory can usefully explain detailed changes in agency, the relationships between agency agents, and interactions between agencies, this embracing institutional processes.

The implication of this research is that it will allow empirical methods to be used that potentially enables political outcomes in complex socio-political environments to be anticipated, given additional appropriate measurement criteria.

The synergy of agency and institutional theories to explain the process of development is new, as is its application to the political development process in a political landscape. As part of this synergistic process, it has been shown how Bauman’s concept of liquidity relates to Sorokin’s ideas of socio-cultural change.

This paper explores how the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSARG) securitizes internal security, cultural identity and welfare system through refugee policy instruments. It also aims to explore the roles of members of the Legislative Council (Legco) and Chinese newspapers in the securitization process.

The author analyzed 6 landmark verdicts, 342 related documents of the Legco, 2,386 news coverages and 408 editorials/ column articles from 6 selected Chinese newspapers from 2005 to mid-2019. While documents of the Legco were collected from the Legco archives, news reports, editorials and column articles were gathered on Wisenews with the keywords, namely, refugees, asylum seekers, torture claims and non-refoulement claims.

The author argues that the advanced comprehensive security approach helps to comprehend the securitization process in Hong Kong. The HKSARG, Legco members of the pro-government camp and pro-government Chinese newspapers perform as securitizing actors who regard refugees as an existential threat to the referent objects, i.e. internal security, cultural identity and welfare system.

There are two significant limitations, namely, the coverage of newspapers and the absence of poll data. This paper merely selected six Chinese newspapers, which do not cover English newspapers and some other Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong. It may neglect some important data. Additionally, owing to the absence of longitudinal poll data, the author chose not to examine the related materials.

This paper intends to be the first study to provide a longitudinal examination of the transformations of current refugee policies in Hong Kong.

The paper surveys the risks and rewards of asset securitisation and illustrates how this structured finance technique can lift credit constraints to small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) as banks to turn more conservative in their lending in response to more risk‐sensitive capital requirements for credit risk.

The mechanics of securitisation provide an analytical framework and perspective for our analysis of conditions for sustainable SME securitisation and its potential contribution to greater risk diversification of both issuers and investors. The paper also elicits lessons to be learned for essential regulatory and policy measures to guide a sound development of securitisation markets from an empirical review of SME securitisation in Germany.

The paper finds that the structural versatility of securitisation offers economic benefits irrespective of the configuration of the financial system. The development of a viable securitisation market for SME‐related claims in a bank‐based financial system is likely to require financial sector initiatives, whose scope and intensity might be enhanced by development agencies. Orchestrated policy efforts make for a benign strategy to incubate SME securitisation in a timely fashion, while keeping legal uncertainty and economic attrition to a minimum.

As opposed to previous papers, the paper defines and discusses SME securitisation from both the perspective of bank‐ and firm‐sponsored securitisation and issue hands‐on recommendations for its efficient implementation.

A number of severe weather events have influenced a shift in UK policy concerning how climate-induced hazards are managed. Whist this shift has encouraged improvements in emergency management and preparedness, the risk of climate change is increasingly becoming securitised within policy discourses, and enmeshed with broader agendas traditionally associated with human-induced threats. Climate change is seen as a security risk because it can impede development of a nation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of the securitisation of climate change, and interrogates how such framings influence a range of conceptual and policy focused approaches towards both security and climate change.

Drawing upon the UK context, the paper uses a novel methodological approach combining critical discourse analysis and focus groups with security experts and policymakers.

The resulting policy landscape appears inexorably skewed towards short-term decision cycles that do little to mitigate longer-term threats to the nation’s assets. Whilst a prominent political action on a global level is required in order to mitigate the root causes (i.e. GHG emissions), national level efforts focus on adaptation (preparedness to the impacts of climate-induced hazards), and are forming part of the security agenda.

These issues are not restricted to the UK: understanding the role of security and its relationship to climate change becomes more pressing and urgent, as it informs the consequences of securitising climate change risks for development-disaster risk system.

Purpose – This chapter highlights how counter-radicalization, as a manifestation of diffuse securitizing, impacts the work of Muslim civil society organizations (CSOs) in Canada.

Methodology – The author presents how Muslim communities and their civil society representatives experience and adapt to the pressures from counter-radicalization policies. Data for the analysis are drawn from 16 semi-structured, anonymized interviews with managers and board members of prominent Muslim CSOs that are based in urban centers in Canada with high density of Muslim populations.

Findings – Though counter-radicalization policies are advanced under the rubric of community-orientedness and risk governance, security discourse and practice constructs radicalization as a problem within Muslim communities treating them as suspects who are “potentially radical.” Despite this framing, Muslim CSOs are cooperating with state security agencies in counter-radicalization efforts but are doing so cognizant of the immense power the state exerts over them in such “partnerships.” CSOs are raising questions about the selective nature of security practice which views Muslims as dangerous and violent but fails to fully acknowledge their reality as victims of Islamophobic violence. CSOs are using anti-racism, anti-oppression, and rights-based frames to call out the discriminatory treatment of Muslims under national security.

Originality/Value – The author’s study contributes to a community perspective in counterterrorism and counter-radicalization research that is dominated by analyses from “above.” By sharing the experiences of Canadian Muslim CSOs under counter-radicalization, the author illustrates the practice of “diffuse securitizing” and how it limits the work of civil society in liberal democracies.