This chapter focuses on critical concepts that underlie our conceptualization of public opinion, including the link between the public and those who govern, public opinion’s stability, opinion as an attitude, and convergence. Pollsters need to understand these concepts to do their job properly. This chapter seeks to answer the questions: Why is public opinion important? Is it stable? and What is the role of emotions in opinion formation?

This chapter examines trade rules and practices regarding technical standards on energy efficiency, carbon emissions and renewable energy. Such standards usually complement anti-pollution, decarbonization and subsidization measures discussed in the previous chapters. The active use and trade implications of these measures in the energy–environment context have intensified the pace of raising related trade concerns in the WTO. Often tensions arise because of regulatory divergence that stems from differences in domestic situations, conditions and preferences as reflected in national standardization policies. But the notion that regulatory convergence is important in cutting trade costs is widely recognized, with many jurisdictions being increasingly involved in regulatory cooperation. Clean energy products can be supplied together with the associated services. Yet international trade rules on service standards are nearly under-developed and lack substantive details, which gives leeway to national regulators. Besides ‘general’ markets, green goods and services find their use in the segment of government procurement where environmental aspects are made part of technical specifications.

There is a convergence on the protection of the traditional right to privacy and today’s right to data protection as evidenced by judicial rulings. However, there are still distinct differences among the jurisdictions based on how personal data is conceived (as a personality or proprietary right) and on the aims of the regulation. These have implications for how the use of AI will impact the laws of US and EU. Nevertheless, there are some regulatory convergences between US and EU law in terms of the realignment of traditional rights through data-driven technologies, the convergence between data protection safeguards and consumer law, and the dynamics of legal transplantation and reception in data protection and consumer law.

This chapter surveys the economic growth experience of Iberia since the early nineteenth century. After more than a century dominated by sluggish growth and divergence from Western Europe, there was a substantial acceleration in GDP and per capita GDP growth of both Iberian economies c. 1950. As a result, in the very long term, Iberia has partially closed its initial gap with the Western European core. The chapter also shows that, in the case of Spain, the early 1950s represent a divide between a hundred years of moderate growth dominated by factor accumulation, and half a century of fast growth led by total factor productivity (TFP). By contrast, this intensive model of growth was not shared by Portugal, where per capita GDP increases so far have been mainly associated to factor accumulation, rather than to TFP increases. Finally, new estimates of regional historical GDPs show that regional inequality emerged after the first long wave of modern economic growth and market integration. By 1950, the geographical patterns of regional inequality were well established, and since then they have just been consolidated. As a result, a poor Iberia has emerged that spreads over a continuous area around the border between Spain and Portugal.

This chapter collects the historical threads about the economic growth of the two Iberian nations. From a disappointing nineteenth century, during which they fell behind the rest of Europe, and the conflicts of the first half of the twentieth century, the two nations quickly caught up from the 1950s. Growth was mostly extensive and pulled by physical capital accumulation, with small contributions from human capital or productivity. The Iberian divergence from its European peers has often been blamed on natural endowments, modest domestic markets and savings, as well as on second-nature geography (market access). However, this volume shows that all of these were endogenous to the growth itself, which requires looking for deeper explanations. Institutions and the political equilibria that underpin them loom large here. After a century of fragile liberal monarchies and radical republican regimes, the two nations stood out for their long authoritarian regimes. Inward-looking economic policies promoted by the dictators favoured domestic incumbents but harmed the growth potential of the two countries. Only their gradual reopening from the 1950s unleashed this potential. Nevertheless, the gains from growth have not been equally distributed and convergence stalled in the new millennium, with the adoption of the Euro.

This chapter first addresses the question of whether latecomer firms will catch up with and eventually overtake the incumbent by merely imitating the incumbent or by initiating innovation different from those of incumbents. Section 3 deals with the coevolution of firms and surrounding institutions in the context of post-reform China where firms with diverse ownership have emerged. Productivity of locally owned enterprises is shown to eventually catch up with foreign-owned enterprises, because institutions developing over time were better exploited by the former than the latter. It suggests that private firms cannot prosper without sound institutions, and institutional development may be useless unless there are private firms that can benefit from this institutional development. Section 4 will elaborate the case of one region, Hsinchu City, in Taiwan to show that its long-term trajectory of upgrading is driven by the rise of a leading big business, namely TSMC. The final section finds that the behavior of Korean firms earlier corresponded with that of typical catching-up firms (e.g., prioritizing growth over profitability, borrowing and investing more, and specializing in short-cycle technologies) but currently show radical changes in their behavioral pattern to show signs of convergence toward the behavior of mature firms in the US.

This chapter explores the intersection of transnational law with contemporary corporate governance laws and principles. Corporate governance, with its complex array of public and private actors, fits naturally within the modern concept of transnational law as a species of law that "can no longer be viewed through a purely national lens." Financial markets today are global and interconnected and events, such as the 2007-2009 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis, exemplify the risk of contagion across those markets. Not only can corporate governance problems transcend national boundaries, so too can their solutions, which often involve regulatory efforts that operate at a transnational level. The chapter explores, from a transnational perspective, the transmission of laws and norms that are designed to constrain directors’ conduct and enhance corporate accountability. It focuses on two key examples of such accountability mechanisms-fiduciary duties and corporate codes. The chapter examines, for example, the global transmission of corporate governance and shareholder stewardship codes. These codes, which are a relatively recent phenomenon, play an important role as “norm creators.” The chapter assesses the transmission of laws and norms against the backdrop of convergence and path dependence theories of corporate governance.

This chapter describes the ways in which emoji and language synchronise to realise textual meaning in a social media post. It organises these as features of a system network that describes this sychronicity. A primary distinction is made between instances where emoji replace linguistic co-text (inset) and instances where emoji accompany the linguistic co-text (punctuate) in a manner similar to punctuation or discourse markers. In terms of language, the key discourse semantic systems involved are identification and periodicity, which are crucial in tracking participants and organising information flow in texts. In terms of the SFL model of textual meaning, emoji appear to occupy a wavelength between clauses and higher-level periodicity, while the unique affordances of emoji also provide new opportunities for creating meaning in texts.

This chapter summarises the model developed for exploring emoji-text convergence in this book. It reviews the system network for describing this convergence which was built up progressively throughout, covering textual synchronicity, ideational concurrence, and interpersonal resonance. The chapter also consolidates the book’s exploration of the role of emoji in negotiating and communing around social bonds through affiliation. The chapter works through a full analysis of an extract from a Twitter thread to show how the various kinds of analysis developed in the book might be deployed, drawing on the complete convergence network as well as the affiliation networks. The chapter concludes by underscoring the crucial role that linguists might play as emoji and other forms of digital paralanguage increase in cultural prominence

Does the applicable law have an impact on the legal effects of contract terms? Is there a convergence between the common law and the civil law? To what extent does the principle of good faith influence the effects of a contract? Does arbitration ensure a uniform interpretation of contracts?

Since the late 1990s, the EU has undertaken great efforts to stimulate and support China in going ‘green’. Begun as a form of development assistance, it quickly changed into multi-faceted cooperation in the form of dialogues, detailed (often joint) action programmes, knowledge transfer, technical cooperation, targeted subsidies and exchanges, over twenty-five years. Three research questions are asked. First, has there been a process of convergence, as captured by environmental and climate indicators, between the EU and China? The findings show that initially – for some one and a half decades – there was sharp divergence in indicators, in the presence of ever-intensifying EU–China cooperation. Only since around 2010 or so did this begin to change, and a slow process of convergence seems to have become firm by 2020. Second, can one observe a process of convergence of strategies and policies on climate and the environment between the EU and China? After a short period of paying lip service, policy convergence (and, later, credible enforcement) began to set in as soon as China and the EU concluded the Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership (2003), except for coal, where China remains at best hesitant. Third, has the sustained and wide-ranging EU effort to stimulate China to go ‘green’ actually worked? The broad answer is, given reasonable expectations (after all, there are many other influences on China’s policies than the EU alone), the EU stimulus has been well-received – occasionally even requested (e.g. carbon-trading, CDM, mine safety, sustainable forestry, etc). It shows that cooperative EU trade policy for purposes of value promotion can be effective.

Ordinary civilians are assumed to panic or freeze in crises, but research has shown that this is a myth. In many crises, civilians provide life-saving help to those in need. They may even form emergent groups, which are temporary organizations that are involved in crisis response activities. Their actions can be of major importance to the crisis response efforts, but professionals are often reluctant to include volunteers in formal crisis structures out of distrust and because it requires considerable adaptation. By excluding volunteers, responders are sure that trained professionals provide high-quality support to affected communities. The attitude of frontline responders to volunteers poses a dilemma. It is important to anticipate the presence of well-intentioned volunteers and build relations with them, so that their skills and intentions can be rapidly identified and potential coordination can be established early on. Civilians can be given a variety of tasks, depending on the crisis, but it should not foreclose the recognition of their possible victimhood. Open engagement enables the adaptive incorporation of civilians in frontline crisis response efforts.

This chapter outlines the secular convergence of Italy’s GDP. From the mid-1890s to 1913, the centuries-long economic decline was reversed. Institution-building and time-consistent policies of monetary stability and reduction of the debt-GDP ratio were among the main causes. The convergence record of the fascist years is mixed. As growth-reducing factors, we highlight “prestige policies” leading to an overvalued currency, and autarky. Postwar reconstruction was swift, followed by a quarter-century catch-up growth and cultural renaissance. The 1970s were turbulent years, marked by terrorism and inflation. Growth however continued to show unexpected resilience. Seeds of future weaknesses were nonetheless sown. Social tensions were eased by deficit-financed benefits. In the 1980s growth continued but the ratio of debt to GDP rose from 50 to almost 100 percent.

During the Renaissance, central–northern Italy was both Europe’s intellectual and artistic hub and its most prosperous economy. From the seventeenth to early nineteenth century, the Italian economy drifted from center to periphery, in a long economic decline. During that decline, Italy was fragmented and subject to foreign occupations. Structural divides got deeper and a distance between citizens and public authorities emerged. We summarize the fruits of Italy’s “modern economic growth” since political unification through four periods in Italy’s transition from poverty to abundance: a) 1861–1896 slow growth and divergence from Western Europe’s leading economies, b) secular movement from “periphery” to the “center” of the developed world; 1896–1995 was a century of almost uninterrupted, if uneven, convergence with the world’s richest countries, c) 1995–2007 was a period of losing ground: slow growth and relative decline, d) 2008–2019 from relative to the absolute decline of the Italian economy.

The chapter examines the corporate governance institutions that developed during the Legal Modernization Era. It analyzes the traditional corporate governance mechanisms, both internal and external to the firm, that were embraced in China and adapted to domestic political–economic circumstances. The chapter discusses how China’s superficially convergent, investor-oriented corporate governance framework actually diverged in practice. It illuminates the political functions of law, showing how the corporate governance framework was ultimately directed to support the reconsolidation of political–economic powers and the shift toward state capitalism. The chapter offers comparative insights drawn from alternative systems of corporate governance and analyzes the implications of the Chinese framework for investors in the Chinese market.

The goal of this chapter is to provide a concise summary of the most common emergencies in neuro-ophthalmology. The chapter’s focus is three main neuro-ophthalmic emergency topics: diplopia, pupil abnormalities, and acute loss of vision. The chapter concludes with other important topics that are not neurological in nature, but are important to diagnose immediately such as a retinal detachment or ruptured globe.