https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/911 2026-10-30T12:44:53Z https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3985 Problem Structuring and Policy Design Decoupling: Causes, Consequences, and Pathways to Better Integration Veselý, Arnošt Problem structuring (PS) and policy design (PD) are inherently intertwined: defining problems requires considering feasible solutions, while designing policies involves engaging with real-world problems. Yet, in both research and practice, they are often decoupled. This becomes increasingly problematic as policy accumulation and layering narrow the space for policy design and shape how problems are defined. While existing literature emphasizes political, institutional, and fiscal constraints, less attention has been paid to cognitive constraints and their interaction with policy design. Drawing on structuration theory, this article argues that PS-PD decoupling is reproduced through the interaction between institutional structures and policy actors' interpretations. It identifies three interrelated mechanisms: anticipatory self-censorship, false coupling between policy problems and solutions, and the reproduction of institutionalized structures. Using illustrative examples, the article shows how these mechanisms contribute to PS-PD decoupling and proposes ways to reconnect both processes in policy analysis and practice. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3962 Switching Semiotic Styles: The Metachoices of Pandemic Communication Smith, Simon This book argues that a reflexive awareness of our semiotic style, our grasp on the world as it rolls over, can be empowering when our normal ways of going on come unstuck, opening up choices that are more event shaping than we realise. Stylistic orientations enact metachoices: choices that set the criteria for subsequent ones, setting up a cascade of conditioned, but not wholly determined, choices. Switching Semiotic Styles constitutes an appeal to broaden our usual repertoire of semiotic practice, channelling a common multimodal listening competence into a perspective interplay which changes the parameters of what can be known. Smith develops a research style constructively opposing the narrative and sonic turns in the social sciences, which he then uses to analyse three examples of communication from the Covid-19 pandemic: advice-giving by the WHO, legal disputes about public health restrictions and vaccine promotion videos. The work shows how individuals and societies arrange ongoingness oriented by both the motivational affordances of transformational goals and the modulating push of music-like patterns of becoming. This book will appeal to scholars interested in semiotics, communication theory, sound studies, organisational communication, health communication, sociology of health and illness, and language in social interaction. 2027-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3899 Between the Belt and Road and the Indo-Pacific: Lithuania's strategic reorientation Krulichová, Zuzana This paper examines the evolving dynamics of Lithuania's engagement with China's Belt and Road Initiative, analysing how Lithuania has navigated the intersection of economic opportunities, security concerns, and value-based foreign policy. Lithuania's initial participation in the BRI framework was a pragmatic attempt to diversify trade partnerships, attract investment, and enhance global connectivity. However, when these expectations failed to materialise, and concerns arose regarding the strategic implications of Chinese interest in key infrastructure, the BRI was increasingly framed not as an economic opportunity but as a potential security threat. Although this development is consistent with other CEE countries, Lithuania stands out as a small state that has coupled its reassessment of China policy with the adoption of an Indo-Pacific strategy, thereby embracing a competing framework to conceptualise regional order. Drawing on an inductive analysis of government documents and interviews, this paper demonstrates how Lithuania exercised its agency by shifting from engagement with the BRI to alignment with like-minded partners in the Indo-Pacific. The findings suggest that Lithuania's case demonstrates how small states can adapt foreign policy through pragmatic risk management and values-based positioning. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3898 Surprise, ontological security, and Russia's imperialist cyberwarfare Kolodii, Roman Why did Russia launch cyberwarfare against Ukraine well before the ground invasion, thereby abandoning the advantage of a surprise cyber-kinetic strike? Using ontological security theory, I argue that through this decision, the Kremlin sought to reaffirm Russia's imperialist self-identity by demonstrating Ukraine's alleged lack of sovereignty. The premature cyberattacks forced Kyiv to rely heavily on Western state and non-state actors and adopt radical technical and legal measures limiting its cyber-sovereignty. From the Kremlin's perspective, these moves could illustrate in practice Russia's imperialist claims about a weak and externally dependent Ukraine and ease the West and other actors into recognizing Russia's historical justification for the impending attack and its resurgence as a great power. Doing so was crucial before the kinetic strike, to assuage the Kremlin's anxiety regarding the invasion's potential to secure Russia in its great power identity and ensure its external recognition as such. This ultimately explains the earlier timing of the Russian cyberaggression. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z