PM Edition: Top 10 Economic Articles on LiveNews.co.nz for April 21, 2026 – Full Text

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Matthew E. Oliver, Associate Professor of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology

The market for oil is global, which is why events like the war in Iran affect oil prices – and prices of the wide range of products made from oil – literally everywhere. Federal data shows that the price at the primary crude oil hub in the U.S. was US$66 a barrel in late February 2026 – before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran – and $101 a barrel on April 13. Similar price increases have reverberated around the globe.

As an energy economist and an international trade economist, we field a lot of questions during such episodes, because when oil prices go up, manufacturers, businesses and ultimately consumers pay more.

Some basic economics

Crude oil may be the most important commodity in the global economic system.

It’s a literal fuel for the industrial economy. It powers the engines that drive transportation and paves the roads vehicles drive on. It’s a source for plastics from which the world’s products get made and packaged, and a key ingredient at some point in almost every supply chain. Even fertilizers that boost the food supply are made from it. In short, it is difficult to imagine modern life without oil and its derivatives.

And when its supply changes, its price changes. Economists explain this using a fundamental model of our field: the supply-demand diagram. When there’s less of something to go around, competition among consumers who want it and companies that need it can drive the price up.

Sometimes this process can play out over time, allowing people to adjust their purchasing or activities to dampen price shocks. But when a significant source of the world’s oil is effectively blocked without much advance notice, such as when the the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, prices can rise sharply in a short period of time.

A natural question many people ask when oil prices spike is: Where does all that additional money go, and who benefits from it?

Some people have written entire books dissecting all the places that money goes when it leaves consumers’ pockets. But ultimately, the bulk of the money heads in the direction of the source of the oil itself – the oil companies.

What they do with the money varies widely, depending on where in the world an oil company is operating and who owns it. What also matters is the business environment – the set of laws and regulations – in which the company operates.

Middle East faces danger

Oil producers in the Middle East face significant new risk because of the war in Iran, including threats to production, processing locations and shipping routes. These risks raise their costs for insurance, security and transportation.

But production costs in the region are relatively low, so higher global oil prices typically still translate into strong profits.

For a major exporter such as Saudi Arabia, the government owns and controls nearly all oil production, so high prices generally benefit the government’s finances and investments, even during a war. In Saudi Arabia, oil revenue has historically been used to fund public spending.

West Texas gets a windfall

The Permian Basin, the largest oil field in the U.S., is a long way from the Persian Gulf. When global oil prices rise because of the war in Iran, oil companies operating in West Texas effectively get a windfall gain: Prices rise more quickly than costs, at least in the short run.

The immediate effect is more income from higher prices. The money largely goes to company owners – meaning shareholders – through dividends, debt reduction, company-backed purchases of its own stock, and reinvestment in drilling and production. Over time, companies may decide to spend some of that windfall on building more production capacity or pipelines to get more oil and gas to market.

North Sea boosts government revenue

In the North Sea, between the island of Great Britain and Scandinavia, a mix of multinational and government-owned companies produce most of the oil.

In the U.K., private shareholders are the primary beneficiaries of higher profits from increased oil prices, though an additional tax on oil and gas companies’ profits means the government also collects a significant share of the money, which it uses to help pay public expenses.

In Norway, oil revenues flow into the Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at over $2 trillion. Laws govern how much, and for what purposes, money can be withdrawn from the fund, supporting public spending and preserving wealth for future generations. This is a similar model to Alaska’s state-owned program, funded by oil revenue, that pays for government services and sends an annual dividend to every permanent resident.

Russian oligarchs get rich

Russian oil is subject to stringent economic sanctions imposed by major industrial countries as a response to the Russian invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine. While the U.S. cannot control how much Russia charges for its oil, it can control services needed to move Russian oil around the world. Under current price sanctions, Western shipping, insurance and financing can be used to ship and sell Russian crude oil only if the price is below $60 per barrel.

Russia’s oil industry is dominated by government-controlled companies whose leaders maintain close ties to President Vladimir Putin. The dealings of those shadowy figures are often shrouded in secrecy, but it is likely that they and Putin’s military-industrial complex – not the Russian people – are the main beneficiaries of high oil prices.

What this means for you

Everyday U.S. consumers may not like the idea of their hard-earned cash going into the already deep pockets of any of these groups. But in the short run, there’s not much to do but pay the price. For the long run, however, people around the world are already thinking and talking about, and opting for, sources of energy that don’t depend on fossil fuels.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. When oil prices spike, where does the money go? – https://theconversation.com/when-oil-prices-spike-where-does-the-money-go-280763

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-French

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Vincent Pradier Goeting, Docteur en sciences de gestion, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

En 2025, l’aide publique au développement a connu sa plus forte contraction jamais enregistrée. Mais réduire la situation actuelle à une affaire de volumes budgétaires serait manquer l’essentiel. Ce que traverse la coopération internationale est avant tout une crise politique et paradigmatique – une crise multidimensionnelle qui, de façon révélatrice, affecte en premier lieu les ONG occidentales, aujourd’hui.

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Les chiffres publiés par l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE) en avril 2026 sont d’une rare brutalité. L’aide publique au développement (APD) des pays membres du Comité d’aide au développement (CAD) a chuté en 2025 de 23,1 % en termes réels, soit la plus forte contraction annuelle jamais mesurée depuis la création de l’indicateur en 1969. Les volumes sont revenus à leur niveau de 2015, effaçant ainsi dix années de progression et, avec elles, une partie des engagements pris au moment de l’adoption de l’Agenda 2030. Selon l’OCDE elle-même, une nouvelle baisse de près de 6 % est anticipée pour 2026.

Cette chute historique est très largement imputable à une décision politique unique : le démantèlement de l’United States Agency for International Development (USAID), engagé dès janvier 2025 par la seconde administration Trump. Selon l’OCDE, l’APD états-unienne a été divisée par plus de deux en un an (– 56,9 %), ce qui constitue la plus forte réduction jamais enregistrée par un pays donateur. À elle seule, cette décision américaine est à l’origine des trois quarts de la baisse mondiale de l’APD en 2025. Elle a, par ricochet, accéléré les arbitrages à la baisse déjà engagés par d’autres grands donateurs – Allemagne, Royaume-Uni, Japon et France. Pour la première fois depuis 1995, ces quatre pays ont réduit leur APD simultanément deux années consécutives.

La France participe ainsi à ce mouvement. Après une diminution de 11 % en 2023 et une coupe supplémentaire de 13 % en 2024, le budget français consacré à la solidarité internationale a fait l’objet, depuis début 2024, de cinq coupes consécutives. Selon les estimations de Coordination SUD, la plateforme nationale des ONG françaises, l’APD française pourrait être réduite de 58 % en deux ans – et jusqu’à 64 % pour les lignes budgétaires du ministère de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères qui financent directement les ONG. L’objectif d’atteindre 0,7 % du revenu national brut en 2025, inscrit dans la loi d’août 2021, à défaut d’être officiellement abandonné, semble devenir un horizon lointain.

Une crise qui n’est pas seulement financière

Il serait tentant, face à ces données, de conclure à une « crise de financement » de la coopération internationale. L’analyse serait pourtant insuffisante. Car ce qui frappe, à mesure que l’on observe la succession des coupes, c’est la régularité avec laquelle elles sont arbitrées politiquement, et la faiblesse des résistances qu’elles rencontrent dans l’espace public – y compris lorsque, comme c’est le cas en France, 66 % de la population déclare soutenir l’action internationale de solidarité.

Ce paradoxe – un soutien populaire au principe même de la solidarité, mais un rejet croissant des organisations qui l’incarnent – mérite d’être pris au sérieux. Il tient pour partie à la managérialisation et à la bureaucratisation progressives d’un secteur éloigné, à mesure qu’il se professionnalisait, de l’ancrage militant dont il tirait historiquement sa légitimité. Il ouvre surtout la voie à ce que Félicien Faury nomme une forme de politisation négative – celle qui nourrit les rhétoriques populistes en désignant les ONG comme des acteurs technocratiques, déconnectés, voire complices d’un système dont elles étaient censées être les aiguillons.

Autrement dit, ce n’est pas la décision budgétaire qui pose question en soi. C’est sa faisabilité politique. Pendant des décennies, l’APD a rempli simultanément trois fonctions : une fonction humanitaire et de développement assumée ; une fonction géopolitique, discrète mais réelle ; et une fonction de légitimation démocratique pour les États donateurs, en particulier dans l’espace occidental. Ces trois fonctions sont aujourd’hui particulièrement mises à mal. Dans un nombre croissant de pays, la solidarité internationale n’est plus perçue comme un bien politique valorisable – elle est devenue, dans certains segments du débat public, un argument contre les gouvernements qui la pratiquent.

La crise est donc d’abord celle d’un cadre de légitimation. Elle affecte en premier lieu les ONG occidentales, dont le modèle organisationnel est historiquement adossé à ce cadre.

Des ONG prises dans une triple contestation

Les ONG françaises de solidarité internationale, dont les ressources cumulées avaient connu une croissance de 43 % entre 2016 et 2020, voient aujourd’hui leurs modèles économiques vaciller, en particulier dans le secteur humanitaire. L’APD transitant par les organisations de la société civile représentait 27 milliards de dollars (plus de 22,9 milliards d’euros) à l’échelle mondiale en 2024, soit 12,9 % de l’APD bilatérale – un chiffre en recul de 2,3 %. Les restructurations se multiplient, les plans de licenciements aussi.

Mais la contraction budgétaire n’est qu’une des dimensions du problème. Les ONG occidentales – comme je l’avais analysé dans un précédent article – sont prises dans une triple contestation qui rend leur repositionnement particulièrement délicat.

Au Sud, d’abord, où des États revendiquent une souveraineté renouvelée sur les flux d’aide et les modalités d’intervention. Les reconfigurations en cours en Afrique de l’Ouest, notamment au Mali et au Burkina Faso, en sont l’illustration la plus visible, mais la dynamique est plus large. Elle s’accompagne d’une parole de plus en plus structurée d’organisations locales qui refusent de n’être que des sous-traitantes et portent une critique épistémique des catégories mêmes avec lesquelles le développement a été pensé.

Au Nord, ensuite, à travers deux critiques antagonistes qui, bien que non symétriques, convergent dans leurs effets. D’un côté, une critique populiste qui conteste le principe même d’une solidarité internationale financée sur fonds publics. De l’autre, une critique décoloniale qui interroge les rapports de pouvoir que l’aide perpétue et les formes de colonialité qu’elle véhicule. Ces deux critiques, à fronts renversés, participent conjointement à l’effritement de la légitimité publique des ONG. La première, plus agressive, se traduit par une offensive directe contre les libertés associatives elles-mêmes : plusieurs ONG de solidarité internationale – de SOS Méditerranée à La Cimade, en passant par France Terre d’Asile – ont fait l’objet d’entraves, de menaces de retrait de subventions ou de tentatives d’éviction de la commande publique, au nom d’un prétendu manquement à la neutralité politique.

À l’intérieur même des organisations, enfin, où des salariés contestent une inégalité devenue difficile à justifier : celle qui sépare, au sein d’une même organisation, les personnels recrutés localement dans les country offices des Suds et leurs homologues des sièges occidentaux – en termes de salaires, de perspectives de carrière, mais aussi de reconnaissance des savoirs et de l’expérience. À cela s’est ajoutée, depuis le mouvement Black Lives Matter de 2020 et plusieurs scandales publics, une prise de parole de personnels racisés au sein même des sièges occidentaux sur les cultures organisationnelles et les représentations dominantes. Documentée notamment par les rapports de Peace Direct (« Time to decolonise aid ») et les travaux de l’International Development Committee britannique, cette double critique interne constitue aujourd’hui l’une des remises en cause les plus structurées – et les plus difficiles à absorber – auxquelles le secteur ait été confronté.

Ce que le secteur privé ne pourra pas faire

Dans ce contexte, une partie du discours institutionnel s’est réfugiée dans une promesse : celle du secteur privé comme nouveau moteur du financement du développement. Philanthropie, blended finance, obligations à impact, partenariats public-privé. L’idée sous-jacente est qu’une architecture financière hybride pourrait compenser le retrait progressif des financements publics.

Une chose, pourtant, doit être dite clairement : le secteur privé ne remplacera pas l’APD en volume. Ce n’est pas une hypothèse politique, c’est une réalité arithmétique.

Les 32 grandes fondations philanthropiques qui rapportent leurs données à l’OCDE ont mobilisé 11,7 milliards de dollars en 2023, soit environ 5 % du total de l’APD des pays du CAD. Les fonds mobilisés par le secteur privé via les mécanismes de financement mixte, bien qu’en croissance, se concentrent pour l’essentiel sur les terrains où un modèle économique est viable– c’est-à-dire pas sur les contextes de fragilité extrême ni sur les biens publics mondiaux, qui restent entièrement dépendants de la solidarité publique.

Surtout, ces instruments opèrent une transformation de la grammaire de l’aide. Ils substituent progressivement une logique de retour sur investissement à une logique de droits ou d’intérêt général, orientent les priorités vers les contextes solvables, et déplacent le centre de gravité de la décision vers des acteurs dont les finalités ne sont pas (toujours) celles de la solidarité.

Vers une dégradation ou une refondation du secteur ?

Quelles sont les perspectives ? Trois trajectoires, combinables, semblent aujourd’hui envisageables pour le système d’aide.

La première est celle d’une continuité dégradée : le modèle actuel se maintient, sous perfusion, plus fragmenté et davantage dépendant de financements privés géopolitiquement orientés. Les ONG occidentales y survivent, mais au prix d’une réduction progressive de leur capacité transformatrice. C’est, à court terme, le scénario le plus probable.

La deuxième est celle d’une recomposition géopolitique déjà partiellement engagée. Les flux d’aide des pays non membres du CAD qui déclarent leurs données à l’OCDE sont passés de 1,1 milliard de dollars en 2000 à 17,7 milliards de dollars en 2022 – une multiplication par seize en deux décennies. La Chine a engagé 4 milliards de dollars (3,4 milliards d’euros) dans son Fonds de coopération Sud-Sud depuis 2015. La coopération Sud-Sud ne remplace pas, en volume, l’APD occidentale, mais elle construit peu à peu une architecture alternative, fondée sur d’autres présupposés normatifs – non-conditionnalité, réciprocité, non-ingérence – qui entrent directement en concurrence avec ceux du modèle occidental.

La troisième, plus exigeante, serait celle d’une refondation pluriverselle : l’émergence d’un nouveau cadre de légitimation, fondé sur la reconnaissance des savoirs situés, la co-construction des réponses et la remise en cause des asymétries historiques de pouvoir. Elle suppose, de la part des ONG occidentales, la capacité de se défaire de certaines évidences – évidences que leurs propres équipes, notamment dans les terrains d’intervention, questionnent déjà. Elle suppose aussi des acteurs publics capables de réinvestir une conception politique, et non seulement technique, de la solidarité internationale.

C’est à cette seule condition que l’on pourra parler, non pas d’un monde post-APD subi, mais d’un système de coopération véritablement recomposé. La question, au fond, n’est plus de savoir si le modèle actuel peut être sauvé dans sa forme. Elle est de savoir si, collectivement, les organisations de solidarité internationale – au sens large – sont capables d’en penser et d’en construire un autre.

Vincent Pradier Goeting ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. La coopération internationale en crise ? Derrière la chute des budgets, une crise de légitimité – https://theconversation.com/la-cooperation-internationale-en-crise-derriere-la-chute-des-budgets-une-crise-de-legitimite-280948

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) [3]   Published on: 2026-04-13

The minibus taxi is ubiquitous in southern Africa. These vehicles are the backbone of the urban economy, providing affordable mobility for millions. In Cape Town, South Africa’s second most populous city, they are central to the transport landscape.

Around two-thirds of the city’s public transport users rely on paratransit services (which respond flexibly to demand), carrying about 830,000 daily passengers across 1,466 routes, and run by private individuals or associations rather than the state.

But because these vehicles run on petrol and diesel, they also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, poor urban air quality and rising fuel costs.

The global shift away from internal combustion engines is accelerating, and public transport must be part of it. Bringing the electric vehicle transition to this sector, however, is not simply a matter of replacing one vehicle with another. In African paratransit systems, electrification raises a harder question: how do you change the vehicle without undermining the service on which so many people depend?

Electric minibuses would change how these vehicles operate, where and when they stop, how they interact with the grid, and driver decision making. They also require charging infrastructure that fits into the rhythms of taxi ranks, neighbourhoods and routes without disrupting service.

With Cape Town expected to launch its first few fully electric minibus taxi routes in Century City later in 2026, electrification is no longer a distant possibility. It is now urgent to understand whether it can work in practice for operators, passengers and the electricity grid.

We are a team of engineering researchers studying transport electrification in sub-Saharan Africa. In a series of studies, we have examined environmental and financial viability of electric vehicles under current mobility patterns, including charger placement, access, and adapted driving and charging behaviour.

Our new research found that electrifying minibus taxis is both necessary and possible. But it is also a complex challenge, with environmental trade-offs, grid constraints, operator costs and equity questions. Although our work focuses on Cape Town, the lessons are relevant to other African cities where paratransit dominates daily mobility.

Environmental perspective

The global narrative around electric vehicles often assumes they are a simple win for the climate. But this does not hold everywhere, especially where electricity still comes largely from fossil fuels. In South Africa, coal accounts for approximately 83% of electricity generation.

Using real minibus taxi mobility patterns in Cape Town, our research compared the energy use, emissions and costs of electric and conventional minibuses. It found a counter-intuitive result: under current grid conditions, an electric minibus taxi has about a 14% higher carbon dioxide equivalent footprint than a standard diesel minibus. In other words, charging an electric taxi on a coal-heavy grid can currently produce more greenhouse gas emissions than running a diesel vehicle.

That is not the end of the story. Electric minibuses still offer major environmental and health benefits. They eliminate tailpipe particulate pollution, reduce brake wear, and cut noise. These local benefits matter in dense urban areas where people live close to busy roads. As South Africa’s electricity system shifts towards more renewable energy, the climate case for electric minibus taxis will strengthen too.

So the real conclusion is not that electric taxis are a bad idea. Rather, they are a long-term climate solution whose immediate value lies especially in cleaner air, lower noise and better urban health.

Energy perspective

Electrifying Cape Town’s minibus taxi fleet would add substantial new electricity demand. In one study, the typical vehicle required about 50.8 kWh per day, scaling to roughly 460 MWh a day across a fleet of about 9,000 vehicles, or the equivalent of about 65,700 homes. The key issue is not just how much energy is needed but where and when vehicles charge.

Here, the newer work changes the story. It is tempting to think the answer is simply to install faster chargers at taxi ranks. But our modelling suggests that access to charging matters more than charging speed alone. Home or secure neighbourhood charging has the biggest effect on whether current mobility patterns can be sustained and on how well the system performs when driver behaviour adapts.

A typical daily charge of around 50 kWh might take roughly two to three hours on a 22 kW charger, or just over an hour on a 50 kW charger, though real charging times vary. But faster charging does not solve the real problem: drivers still need reliable places and enough stationary time to charge without undermining service or losing income.

The studies also show that chargers should not be planned only for formal taxi ranks. Infrastructure stops and informal stops matter too, because that is how paratransit actually works.

Nor will the effects be shared equally. Because apartheid-era geography still shapes where people live and work, operators in historically marginalised areas are more vulnerable when home charging is unavailable. Charging infrastructure is therefore not only a technical issue, but also an equity one.

There is also a grid challenge. Depot-only charging creates early-morning and daytime peaks, while home charging shifts demand into the evening residential peak. Unmanaged charging could therefore worsen stress on an already fragile electricity system. But time-of-use tariffs, managed charging, and better alignment with solar and other renewables could integrate electric taxis far more intelligently.

Operators’ perspective

For taxi operators, the economics of switching to electric vehicles are complicated. In one comparison, the electric option cost about 1.5 times as much as the diesel Toyota Ses’fikile – a 16-seater minibus – that currently dominates the market. Many operators already work on thin margins and face expensive finance.

There are also financing costs: typically a 10% deposit and a 20% interest rate over a 72-month repayment period. Many operators may also be seen as high-risk by lenders, making finance difficult to access.

At the same time, the running-cost case for electric minibuses is much stronger. Energy costs are generally 33% to 57% lower than diesel fuel costs, and electric motors require less maintenance. For operators, then, this is a story of higher upfront cost set against lower operating cost, with the outcome depending heavily on electricity tariffs, finance terms and access to affordable charging.

Preparing for electrification

Careful planning and simulation are needed to roll out electric minibus taxis at scale. Policymakers need to understand the interactions between vehicle energy demand, charging infrastructure, grid capacity, driver behaviour and passenger service.

That is why we modelled driver behaviour in an electrified paratransit system. Unlike formal bus services, minibus taxi drivers adapt routes, stops and charging to passenger demand and competition. Our simulations show that constrained depot charging increases waiting times and reduces trips served. But with home charging, depot congestion falls sharply and service quality is largely maintained.

This matters because electrification is not just about vehicles and chargers, but about how informal transport systems actually work. If planners treat taxi operations like centrally controlled bus fleets, they will design the wrong interventions. The better approach is to plan around real mobility patterns, charging behaviour and neighbourhood inequality.

It is therefore crucial to bring taxi operators, municipalities, energy providers and communities together. Cleaner air and lower noise must be weighed against the grid’s current emissions profile. Operator economics must improve through better tariffs and financing. And charging infrastructure must be placed not only at depots and ranks, but also in the neighbourhoods and informal stops that shape paratransit every day.

With targeted subsidies, better overnight charging access, investment in renewable energy and clear policy support, Cape Town can begin building a public transport transition that is cleaner, more realistic and more just. If it gets this right, it could offer a blueprint for cities across Africa.

MJ (Thinus) Booysen as Director of the Electric Mobility Lab at Stellenbosch receives funding from the Western Cape Government and the Transport Education and Training Authority (TETA). The Electric Mobility Lab and Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies (CRSES) have partnered with flxEV (GoMetro), Powerfleet (MiX Telematics), HSV and ACDC on the importation of South Africa’s first new electric minibus taxi, the eKamva.

Joshua Sello receives funding from the Global Strategic Communications Council (GSCC) and the DW Ackermann Bursary Scheme.

Source: French to English Tester   Published on: 2026-04-20

Source: The Conversation – in French– By Vincent Pradier Goeting, Doctor in management sciences, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

In 2025, official development assistance experienced its sharpest contraction ever recorded. But reducing the current situation to a matter of budget volumes would miss the essential point. What international cooperation is going through is above all a political and paradigmatic crisis – a multidimensional crisis that, revealingly, affects Western NGOs first and foremost today.

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The figures published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)In April 2026 are of rare brutality. Official development assistance (ODA) from member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) fell in 2025 by 23.1% in real terms, the sharpest annual contraction ever recorded since the indicator’s creation in 1969. Volumes have returned to their 2015 level, thus wiping out ten years of progress and, with them, part of the commitments made at the time of the adoption ofthe 2030 Agenda. According to the OECD itself, a new drop of nearly 6% is anticipated for 2026.

This historic drop is largely attributable to a single political decision:dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development(USAID), engaged as early as January 2025 by the second Trump administration. According to the OECD,US ODA was cut by more than half in one year (-56.9%), which constitutes the largest reduction ever recorded by a donor country. This American decision alone accounts for three-quarters of the global decrease in ODA in 2025. It has, in turn, accelerated the downward adjustments already initiated by other major donors – Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, and France. For the first time since 1995,These four countries simultaneously reduced their ODA for two consecutive years.

France is thus participating in this movement. After a reduction of 11% in 2023 and an additional cut of 13% in 2024, the French budget allocated to international solidarity has been subject, since the beginning of 2024, to five consecutive cuts. According to theestimations of Coordination SUD, the national platform of French NGOs, French ODA could be reduced by 58% in two years – and up to 64% for the budget lines of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs that directly fund NGOs. The goal of reaching 0.7% of gross national income in 2025, set out in theAugust 2021 law, by default of being officially abandoned, seems to become a distant horizon.

A crisis that is not only financial

It would be tempting, faced with this data, to conclude a “funding crisis” in international cooperation. However, such analysis would be insufficient. What strikes one, as one observes the succession of cuts, is the regularity with which they are politically decided, and the weakness of the resistance they encounter in the public sphere — including when, as is the case in France,66% of the population declares support for international solidarity action.

This paradox – apopular support for the very principle of solidarity, but a growing rejection of the organizations that embody it – deserves to be taken seriously. It is partly due to themanagerializationand to thebureaucratizationprogressives of a distant sector, as it became professionalized, from the militant anchorage from which it historically drew its legitimacy. It especially opens the way for what Félicien Fauryappointeda form ofnegative politicization– the one that fuels populist rhetoric by portraying NGOs as technocratic, disconnected actors, or even accomplices of a system they were supposed to be the watchdogs of.

In other words, it is not the budgetary decision itself that is in question. It is itspolitical feasibility. For decades, ODA has simultaneously fulfilledthree functionsA: a humanitarian and development role undertaken; a geopolitical role, discreet but real; and a function of democratic legitimization for donor states, particularly in the Western space. These three functions are today particularlyput in difficulty. In a growing number of countries, international solidarity is no longer seen as a valuable political good – it has become, in certain segments of the public debate, an argumentagainstthe governments that practice it.

The crisis is therefore primarily that of aframework of legitimization. It primarily affects Western NGOs, whose organizational model ishistorically backed by this framework.

NGOs caught in triple contestation

French international solidarity NGOs, whose combined resourceshad experienceda growth of 43% between 2016 and 2020,see todaytheir economic models falter, especially in thehumanitarian sector. ODA routed through civil society organizations represented 27 billion dollars (more than 22.9 billion euros) globally in 2024, or 12.9% of bilateral ODA – a figure down by 2.3%. Restructurings are multiplying, thealso layoff plans.

But the budget contraction is only one aspect of the problem. NGOsWestern– as I had analyzed in aprevious article– are caught in a triple contestation that makes their repositioning particularly delicate.

In the South, first, where some statesclaim a renewed sovereigntyon aid flows and intervention methods. The ongoing reconfigurations in West Africa, notably in Mali and Burkina Faso, are the most visible illustration of this,but the dynamic is broader. It is accompanied by a word ofincreasingly structuredof local organizations that refuse to be merely subcontractors and carry an epistemic critique of the very categories with which development has been conceived.

In the North, then, through two opposing critics who,although not symmetrical, converging in their effects. On one side, a criticismpopulistwhich contests the very principle of an international solidarity financed by public funds. On the other hand, acritiquedecolonialwhich questions the power relations that perpetuate aid and the forms ofcolonialitythat it conveys. These two critiques, from opposite directions, together contribute to the erosion of the public legitimacy of NGOs. The first, more aggressive, manifests as a direct offensive against the very associative freedoms themselves: several international solidarity NGOs – from SOS Méditerranée to La Cimade, including France Terre d’Asile –were subject to obstacles, threats of withdrawal of subsidies or attempts to exclude from public contracts, in the name of an alleged breach ofpolitical neutrality.

Inside the organizations themselves, finally, where employees challenge an inequality that has become difficult to justify: the one that separates, within the same organization, staff recruited locally in thecountry officesfrom the Souths and their counterparts in Western headquarters – in terms of salaries, career prospects, but also recognition of knowledge and experience. Since the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 and several public scandals, there has also been a voice raised by racialized staff within the Western headquarters themselves on organizational cultures and dominant representations. This has been documented notably by the reports of Peace Direct (“Time to decolonise aid”) and thework of the British International Development Committee, this internal double critique now constitutes one of the most structured — and the most difficult to absorb — challenges faced by thesector has been confronted.

What the private sector will not be able to do

In this context, part of the institutional discourse has taken refuge in a promise: that of the private sector asnew engine of development financing. Philanthropy,blended finance, impact obligations, public-private partnerships. The underlying idea is that a hybrid financial architecture could offset the gradual withdrawal of public funding.

One thing, however, must be said clearly: the private sector will not replace ODA in volume. This is not a political hypothesis, it is an arithmetical reality.

The 32 major philanthropic foundationswho report their data to the OECDmobilized 11.7 billion dollars in 2023, or about 5% of the total ODA from DAC countries. Funds mobilized by the private sectorviaMixed financing mechanisms, although growing, are mainly concentrated on areas where an economic model is viable—that is, not on contexts of extreme fragility nor on global public goods, which remain entirely dependent on public solidarity.

Above all, these instruments operate atransformation of grammaraid. They gradually replace a logic of return on investment with a logic of rights or general interest, steer priorities towards solvable contexts, and shift the center of gravity of the decision towards actors whose goals are not (always) those of solidarity.

Towards a deterioration or a rebuilding of the sector?

What are the prospects? Three trajectories, which can be combined, seem conceivable today for the aid system.

The first is that of adegraded continuityÂ: The current model persists, on life support, more fragmented and increasingly dependent on geopolitically oriented private funding. Western NGOs survive there, but at the cost of a gradual reduction in their transformative capacity. This is, in the short term, the most likely scenario.

The second is that of ageopolitical restructuringalready partially committed. Aid flows from non-DAC countries reporting their data to the OECD rose from $1.1 billion in 2000 to $17.7 billion in 2022 – a sixteen-fold increase over two decades. China has committed $4 billion (€3.4 billion) to its South-South Cooperation Fund since 2015. South-South cooperation does not replace Western ODA in volume, but it is gradually building an alternative architecture, based on different assumed norms – non-conditionality, reciprocity, non-interference – which directly compete with those of the Western model.

The third, more demanding, would be that of apluriversal refoundationA: the emergence of a new framework of legitimization, based on the recognition of situated knowledge, the co-construction of responses, and the questioning of historical power asymmetries. It requires, on the part of Western NGOs, the ability to break free from certain certainties—certainties that their own teams, especially in intervention areas, are already questioning. It also requires public actors capable of reinvesting in a political, and not only technical, conception of international solidarity.

It is only under this condition that one can speak, not of apost-ODA worldsuffered, but from a truly reorganized cooperation system. The question, fundamentally, is no longer whether the current model can be saved in its form. It is whether, collectively, the organizations ofinternational solidarity – in the broad sense – are capable of thinking about it and building another one.

Vincent Pradier Goeting does not work for, does not advise, does not hold shares, does not receive funds from an organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliation than his research institution.

–ref. International cooperation in crisis? Behind the budget cuts, a crisis of legitimacy –https://theconversation.com/international-cooperation-in-crisis-behind-the-budget-cuts-a-crisis-of-legitimacy-280948

Source: French to English Tester   Published on: 2026-04-20

Source: The Conversation – France (in French)– By Thomas Blonski, Assistant Professor in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, ICN Business School

Long considered an investment or a branding tool, art now occupies a more strategic place within companies. From collecting to residency, the artist is gradually becoming a full organizational partner. This is how a new collaborative economy is taking shape.

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At the turn of the 2000s, many Western companies began buying works of art. Tax incentives, image improvement, asset diversification: “art as an investment” seemed natural. Twenty years later, a more discreet evolution is underway. Companies no longer invest only in works, but also in artists.

From aSurvey based on 23 interviewsconducted with leaders, artists, and intermediaries (galleries, specialized organizations), we sought to understand this gradual shift: how does one move from purchasing a work to organizing an artist residency, and then to creativity training programs?

From the work to the partnership

The sponsorship laws adopted at the beginning of the 21st century^eThe century played a triggering role. In France, it is theAillagon law of 2003, with equivalents atUnited Kingdom(2000), inGermany(2000), but also inItaly(2000) and other European countries. The tax benefits encouraged companies that had no direct connection with the art world to build collections, support exhibitions, or finance institutions.

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Contemporary art, a language and a method for thinking about an improbable future

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In this context, artistic investment is conceived according to a dual logic. On one hand, it is an asset: some studies show that art can serve as a tool for asset diversification for a company, even if some researchers, such asMandelas well asLindenberg and Oosterlinck, show that returns are uncertain and difficult to anticipate. On the other hand, the work produces a symbolic effect, as it strengthens the brand image, signals a cultural commitment, and positions the company in a universe of prestige.

But very quickly, a realization becomes clear to the leaders interviewed: buying a work and hanging it in an entrance hall is not enough. “Level zero is putting a work on the wall,” sums up an intermediary. “If we do that, we might as well go further.”

A logic of “while we’re at it”

This “might as well go further” is at the heart of the observed dynamic. We have called it the logic of “while we’re at it” (might as well). Since the company invests in art, it might as well exploit all its potential opportunistically.

After its initial investment in sponsorship, the company indeed discovers that it now has access to a network: artists, gallery owners, exhibition curators, collectors. The relationships formed around the purchase of an artwork open up other possibilities. Why not create a contemporary art prize? Why not organize an artist residency within the headquarters?

Beyond heritage

This is how they multiply, including in sectors far removed from the cultural world, such as, for example,the automobile,real estate,or even wines and spirits), business awards, partnerships with museum institutions, or residency programs.

The objective is no longer solely patrimonial. It becomes relational and symbolic: gaining legitimacy in the “art worlds,” according to the sociologist’s expressionHoward Becker, and strengthen the brand’s cultural credibility.

Art as an organizational experience

A second shift then takes place. In contact with the artists, companies discover something other than artworks: ways of working. Residencies, initially designed as image or sponsorship operations, become spaces of interaction between artists and employees. Workshops are organized, collaborative projects are born. Teams are confronted with uncertainty, experimentation, with forms of creation that escape managerial routines.

Some leaders explicitly describe this shift. The artist is no longer just the one who produces a work, but the one who can convey an approach to work, creativity, or problem-solving.

At this stage, new forms of intermediation are emerging. To the traditional galleries are added hybrid structures, for exampleMona Lisa FactorywhereViarte, capable of translating artistic language into organizational objectives, such as creativity, team cohesion, or innovation. The initial investment in art then transforms into an organizational investment in the artist.

From buyer to actor

What this trajectory reveals is a sequence of rationalities. Initially, the logic is primarily financial: benefiting from a favorable tax framework and, possibly, from an asset appreciation. Very quickly, a symbolic rationality is added, since art confers prestige, distinction, a form of symbolic capital. Finally, an organizational rationality emerges: the aesthetic experience is converted into collective learning, managerial resource, and an internal transformation tool.

This process is neither linear nor planned from the outset. It is progressive and cumulative. Each step paves the way for the next. Because the company bought a work, it met an artist; because it met an artist, it imagined a residency; because it organized a residency, it considered a training program.

Build reputation

This evolution is not neutral for artists. Receiving a corporate award, undertaking a residency, or participating in a training program adds an additional line to a résumé. Companies thus become full-fledged actors in artistic trajectories, alongside galleries, museums, and public institutions.

They contribute to the construction of reputation and the circulation of artists. In some cases, contractual collaborations with companies are even perceived as more transparent and more financially secure than certain relationships within the art world.

Less an achievement, the “art as investment” appears as an entry point into this universe. What begins as an asset purchase is transformed, through successive adjustments, into an organizational partnership.

A new collaborative economy

This dynamic contributes to the emergence of a specific collaborative economy, linking artists, companies, and specialized intermediaries. It blurs the traditional boundaries between patronage, the art market, and management.

One question remains open: how far can this logic go? By constantly integrating the artist into the organization, does the risk of reducing art to a mere managerial tool really exist? Or, conversely, do these collaborations genuinely help to redefine the relationships between creation and business?

Far from the image of simple instrumentalization, this research shows that the relationship between companies and artists has become denser, more reflective, and more structuring than it was at the beginning of the 2000s. The artwork is no longer just hung on the wall. It opens the door to another way of thinking about the organization.

The authors do not work for, do not advise, do not hold shares, do not receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and have declared no other affiliation than their research institution.

–ref. Investing in art… then in artists: the new collaborations of companies –https://theconversation.com/investing-in-art-then-in-artists-the-new-collaborations-of-companies-277303

Source: French to English Tester   Published on: 2026-04-20

Source: The Conversation – in French– By Hugo Spring-Ragain, PhD student in economics / mathematical economics, Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies (CEDS)

Artificial intelligence does not so much destroy jobs as it profoundly changes the skills required to perform them. From this confusion between jobs and skills, errors may arise in policies supporting ongoing transformations.

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Each major technological wave has produced its share of contradictory predictions about employment. Artificial intelligence (AI) is no exception. But before knowing how many jobs AI will create or destroy, we need to agree on what it actually automates. The answer requires distinguishing three notions that public debate regularly confuses: employment, skill, and task.

The great waves of automation have followed a remarkably stable logic over two centuries: steam, electricity, and industrial robotics have displaced repetitive physical tasks and spared non-routine cognitive work. This empirical regularity has beenformalized by Autor, Levy, and Murnanesince 2003 under the name “task polarization hypothesis.”

A persistent illusion

Automation erodes intermediate jobs, those of skilled blue-collar workers and office employees performing routine tasks, but spares the two extremes. On one hand, non-routine manual tasks, such as plumbing or caregiving, on the other, non-routine cognitive tasks, such as analysis, consulting, or expert writing. The latter constituted the core of skilled tertiary professions, and the conviction was firmly established that they would remain out of reach.

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Why AI is forcing companies to rethink the value of work

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This conviction was based on a conceptual confusion that must be cleared up first and foremost. It was not the job of a lawyer or financial analyst that was protected, but a set of specific tasks that made up this job and which had until now resisted automation. The distinction between these three levels is fundamental.

A job designates a position held within an organization, with a contract, a salary, and a job description. A skill is a cognitive or technical ability that can be applied in various professional contexts. A task is a specific, definable action, for which it is possible to assess whether or not it can be automated at a given cost. It is at this third level that the ongoing transformation truly takes place, and it is precisely this level that the public debate ignores.

Rupture in the long history of industrial capitalism

Generative AI represents a breakthrough in this long history. For the first time since industrialization, qualified cognitive tasks such as writing, document analysis, synthesis, and production of first drafts are directly exposed.Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rockestimate that about 80% of the active U.S. workforce could see at least 10% of their tasks affected by large language models, and that this exposure increases with salary level. This is the exact opposite pattern observed in all previous waves.

The analytical framework developed byAcemoglu and Restrepoallows to go further. Their model distinguishes two opposing effects produced by any wave of automation:

• The displacement effect, first: workers lose tasks to the benefit of the machine, which mechanically reduces the demand for labor and weighs on the wages of the affected groups;

• The reintegration effect, then: automation produces new tasks where human value is decisive, generating compensatory demand.

The long history of industrial capitalism can be read as a succession of these two effects, the second generally ending up compensating for the first.

The case of translation allows us to see very concretely how displacement and reintegration combine. Generative AI can produce a first draft in another language in a few seconds, which shifts part of the work previously done by human translators to the machine. But this automation simultaneously reintegrates other tasks or enhances their importance, such as checking for misunderstandings, adapting to the cultural context, harmonizing terminology, quality control, and final validation.

Potential imbalance

What is worrying with generative AI is the potential imbalance between these two dynamics. The shift is happening at a speed that labor markets and training institutions struggle to absorb, while reintegration still largely remains to be built.

However, the most important phenomenon is not sectoral, but it is internal to the professions themselves. In its“Employment Outlook”, the OECDhighlights that the professions most exposed to generative AI are precisely those with a high cognitive density: finance, law, consulting, higher education. Unlike previous waves that affected rural areas and industrial regions, the exposure is now stronger in large metropolitan areas and among highly skilled workers, an unprecedented geographical and social reversal.

Redistribute tasks

This reversal concretely takes place at the level of the task.

In the same position of financial analyst or legal advisor, some tasks are shifting to AI (producing an executive summary, generating an initial contract analysis, synthesizing a literature review), while others are mechanically gaining value: defining the relevant analytical framework, assessing the quality of automated reasoning, detecting factual errors in an output, assuming legal or ethical responsibility for a decision. These are not jobs that disappear. They are bundles of tasks that are redistributed between humans and machines, transforming from within what an employer expects from a qualified employee.

This redistribution of tasks has a direct impact on the skills that will truly be valued in the coming years, and it overturns some of the usual assumptions about professional training.

Train workers to use AI instrumentally, to master a tool, to writepromptsEffective, mastering an interface is useful in the short term, but it is insufficient if the skill truly required tomorrow is not to produce with AI, but to supervise and critique what it produces.

A training challenge

However, effectively supervising an AI output requires exactly what short and technical trainings struggle to develop: a solid general knowledge that allows detecting a fundamental error, an argumentative ability to evaluate the coherence of a reasoning, a knowledge of cognitive biases to identify the blind spots of an automated analysis. These are skills thateducational sciences group under the term metacompetencesTo learn to learn, to exercise critical judgment, to mobilize knowledge in unprecedented situations.

The paradox then becomes the following. As AI automates routine knowledge tasks, it precisely values what generalist training and humanities courses have long cultivated and what debates on employability have tended to disregard in favor of more immediately measurable technical skills.

Not out of nostalgia for the humanities, but out of pure economic logic. If the machine produces the text, the analysis and the synthesis, the marginal value of the human lies in their ability to judge whether this text is true, whether this analysis is relevant in light of the real context, whether this synthesis serves the pursued objective.

Hugo Spring-Ragain does not work for, advise, own shares in, or receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliations than his research institution.

–ref. Generative AI, the first cognitive revolution in the history of work –https://theconversation.com/lia-generative-premiere-revolution-cognitive-de-lhistoire-du-travail-279911

Source: French to English Tester   Published on: 2026-04-20

Source: The Conversation – France (in French)– By Gaël Gueguen, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, TBS Education

The representation of entrepreneurs in the French press has changed significantly since the beginning of the 21st century. Both in the quantity of articles and in the nature of journalistic narratives. We have studied these developments to better understand the driving forces behind “entrepreneurialism,” this current of thought that regards entrepreneurship as a remedy for society’s problems.

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Entrepreneurship has become a mainstream topic, it has even turned into a spectacle. On M6, during prime time hours, the show“Who wants to be my partner?”allows project holders to find investors. A long time ago, in 1986, businessman Bernard Tapie had already combined business creation and television with the show“Ambitions”on TF1 to show the face of a bolder France, “enthusiastic and generous.”

When the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron mentions the“French start-up nation”In 2017, its objective is to present entrepreneurship as a means to positively transform a country by enabling individuals to be actors of these changes.

From the managerial model to the entrepreneurial model

Economists David Audretsch and Roy Thurik hypothesized that, since the last quarter of the 20th century, Western countries have shifted from a managerial model, which values large enterprises (private or public), to aentrepreneurial model, enhancing individual actions and the“Small is Beautiful“, from the title of economist Ernst Schumacher’s book. If we wanted to caricature, entrepreneurship is a dynamic bearing benefits and the entrepreneur an inspiring figure.

But the highlighting of the successes of theSilicon Valley, young tech startups, unicorns ordecacorns(these start-ups valued at more than one billion or ten billion dollars) cannot obscure thedangersof an abusive schematization around the imagery of start-ups and entrepreneurship. Indeed, entrepreneurship is a complex and multifaceted process, and should not be considered a miracle. A research trend has thus developed for acritical approach to entrepreneurship.

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Macron’s 25 unicorns, a dangerous fascination?

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Illustrating this model change, entrepreneurship has enjoyed strong media exposure for about thirty years. This enthusiasm goes beyond the simple economic sphere. In the artificial intelligence sector, the media exposure of Mistral AI and that of its co-founderArthur Mensch, just like the story surrounding Demis Hassabis and DeepMind, are recent examples of this exposure.

“Entrepreneurialism” or the entrepreneurial ideology

The conceptof “entrepreneurship”appears to us as relevant to study this trend. It is an ideology that no longer sees entrepreneurship as a simple economic activity, but as a universal solution to society’s ills. Simply put, it is good to undertake and everyone can undertake; let us remember Emmanuel Macron’s statement on X:

It is accepted that the media (specialized or mainstream) play a central role in the construction of representations. The media act as witnesses and actors of a country’s culture. Sociological studies, for example thoseby Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, remind that the media directs the public’s attention. Even if they do not directly dictate what to think, they define the topics that should be considered important.

Regarding entrepreneurship, media coverage is regularly criticized for its uniform, excessively positive, even heroic character, which showcases success figures, often male andfar removed from the daily reality of entrepreneurs.

Shaping the collective imagination of entrepreneurship

Starting from this observation,we conducted researchin order to have an overall view of how the generalist press treats the subject of entrepreneurship over a long period. Two major questions motivated us. How has the discourse on entrepreneurship evolved at the beginning of the 21st century? And, in what way do the different newspapers, according to their editorial line, shape the collective imagination around the notion of entrepreneurship?

To answer these questions, we studied the coverage of entrepreneurship in the five main French national general daily newspapers (le Monde,le Figaro,Libération,la Croixandl’Humanité) over a period from 2001 to 2022. By analyzing more than 6,000 articles, all containing the term “entrepreneurship,” using textual analysis methods, our results allow us to identify a major transformation: the shift from a macro representation, focused on the economy and politics, to a micro representation, oriented towards the individual, their journey, and their lived experience. This shift reflects greater heterogeneity in the treatment of entrepreneurship and contributes to a broader dissemination of “entrepreneurialism” in French culture.

Our results also reveal that the volume of articles dealing with entrepreneurship has progressively increased, rising from about a hundred per year at the beginning of the 2000s to a peak of over 500 articles in 2017, an election year, before experiencing a slight decrease. Newspapers leaning right or center (le Figaroandle Monde) produce the majority of content on the subject.

Macro and micro representations

Themacrorepresentationis predominant in left-wing newspapers (l’HumanitéandLibération) and was majority during the first decade of observation (2001-2012). Entrepreneurship is considered there globally, impersonally, and institutionally as a system. It is addressed from the perspective of public action, economic growth, fiscal measures orlinked to employment. It is also found in the political debate, particularly during the various presidential campaigns. Furthermore, reflections on entrepreneurial ideology, capitalism, and the economic system are associated with it.

Themicrorepresentationis more supported by a right-wing newspaper such asLe Figaroand has grown significantly, becoming the majority during the most recent period (2018-2022). It is a more embodied entrepreneurship, because it concerns theconcrete experiencesactors of entrepreneurship. This representation is frequently found in articles dealing with higher education or technological innovation in the startup world. It will consider the careers of entrepreneurs in biographical form, often to recountsuccess stories. Entrepreneurship is approached from the perspective of life path, family, aspirations, but also the places where entrepreneurship takes place. Microrepresentation therefore humanizes the entrepreneur.

In the press, a clear shift in the representation of the entrepreneur

The temporal evolution of the results shows a clear shift. In the early 2000s, the press spoke about entrepreneurship mainly as an economic policy tool or as a subject of ideological debate. Gradually, the discourse shifted towards narrative and individual experience. We are witnessing the normalization of the figure of the entrepreneur, who is no longer just an economic statistic but becomes a familiar character, whose dreams, failures, and family environment are recounted.

We are observing an increasing diversity of topics covered. For example, newspapers located in the center, such asle Mondeandla Croix, present the most diverse approach, navigating between economic, social, and human aspects. On the right,le Figaroremains more focused on the managerial and biographical aspects. Meanwhile, on the left,l’HumanitéandLibérationfavor somepolitical and societal angles.

These results confirm that entrepreneurship is now a social fact, permeating the economy, politics, society, and education sections of newspapers. By moving from an abstract discourse on government policies to stories about life projects, we believe the press contributes to normalizing the idea that entrepreneurship is a possible, even desirable, option for everyone.

It is impossible to say whether there is too much talk about entrepreneurship, but we can affirm that its treatment by the press is more heterogeneous. It is in this sense that we conclude a rise of “entrepreneurialism.”

Gaël Gueguen does not work for, does not advise, does not hold shares in, and does not receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliation than his research institution.

–ref. Is there too much talk about entrepreneurship? The case of the French press –https://theconversation.com/do-we-talk-too-much-about-entrepreneurship-the-case-of-the-french-press-276643

Source: French to English Tester   Published on: 2026-04-20

Source: The Conversation – France (in French)– By Pierre-Jean Benghozi, Professor of Economics and Management, École Polytechnique

A company is said to be performing, profitable… and sometimes that it is toxic or dangerous. But it is rarer to make an aesthetic judgment. And yet, some companies are “more beautiful” than others.

This article is published as part of a partnership withFrench Management Review,who celebrated his 50th birthday in 2025.

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How not to be struck by the seduction and the feeling of “formal beauty” exerted today—on analysts, economists, managers, and observers—by new technologies, unprecedented business models of platforms, the extended organizational forms of certain NGOs or mission-driven companies, rapidly growing companies or those able to reinvent themselves, and Open Innovation ecosystems built with stakeholders and by mobilizing consumers’ own production?

Recalling that these organizations are seen from an aesthetic perspective captures a dimension usually poorly taken into account by management studies. This is because the rise of rationalization starting from the industrial revolutions has created a decoupling that now seems natural between beauty on one side, and performance and rationality on the other.

The divide is not self-evident, however. This is proven in one of the sciences that appears to be the coldest and most logical: mathematics. No one is surprised that the quality of a proof is judged not only by its correctness, but also by its simplicity, brilliance, and “elegance.”

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Also to read:
The crisis forces every company to reinvent its business model

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An aesthetic question

For nearly half a century, the aesthetics of organizations has thus been a rapidly expanding field of research, which has been the subject, worldwide, of numerous articles and several special issues of major management journals. This work quickly went beyond merely highlighting a neglected aspect – the perceived beauty and/or ugliness of a company – by broadening and enriching the way organizations are accounted for.

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These start-ups that “play pinball” to refine their business model

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Beyond their mere performance, these constitute complex and formal structures, which must be analyzed as a set of elements (resources, actors, skills, etc.) connected by multiple relationships (management procedures, hierarchy, evaluation, financial dependence, commercial exchanges, technical dependence…) between different groups of actors.

In this perspective, the same objective leads everywhere to infinitely varied production structures: from large bureaucratic organizations to small structures formed in a mannerad hocfor the realization of a project. In this context, the organizational forms that appear in companies as well as in markets can be very different, both in their efficiency and performance, of course, but also in the vision, understanding — or even the appeal — through which they spontaneously present themselves.

A stylistic evolution

Beyond the characterization of this or that organization, the aesthetic approach also encourages questioning the succession of their forms. Reading a stylistic evolution highlights their different hidden dimensions. For organizations, like works of art, articulate with all the sociopolitical and cultural registers of social reality: emotion and the sensitive character of the reception of productions and engagement in work (as in the visual arts), simplicity and impact of shaping a creation in cooperation (as in architecture and cinema), importance of expressiveness in interpersonal interactions (as shown by theater and live performance).

At a time of fascination with artificial intelligence, the detour through aesthetics allows, beyond that, to question the interaction between technology and modes of production, by comparing the formal appeal of technical solutions with their structural and economic impacts.

While creativity and innovation now have an omnipresent place and role in organizational strategies (they were, moreover, the subject of the latest Nobel Prize in Economics), the detour through aesthetic theories allows for a better understanding of the tensions they generate: on the one hand, a vision of creativity involving the questioning of existing solutions, and on the other hand, the necessity, in order to impose itself and be recognized, to largely conform to the standards, norms, or practices in place.

A double movement

There is thus a double movement: the pioneering companies in the adoption of new management methods (think of the Gafam, Airbnb, and companieslow costsuch as EasyJet or Ryanair) rely on existing markets and frameworks, but then themselves become managerial models influencing emerging forms of organizations or ecosystems, just as avant-garde artists inspire currents or artistic schools.

Such movements are impossible to explain with a purely descriptive and classificatory approach. In artistic matters, the capacity for renewing aesthetic forms is decisive: the beautiful and the modern explicitly arise from this novelty. In terms of management, thinking about the evolution of managerial styles also involves considering how certain fundamentals, such as performance or optimization ofprocess, regularly redefine themselves in new forms of organization or action that appeal under the influence of entrepreneurs, researchers, or consultants.

No form can be given as beautiful outside the exercise of each individual’s subjectivity… just as judgments of performance, profitability, and cost evaluation do not exist in absolute terms, but are always linked to the position and objectives of the actors who carry them. The judgment of beauty lies both in the eyes of the artists who produce and in the eyes of the spectators or consumers who receive it.

The question of aesthetics thus makes it possible to reconsider, in the approach to organizations, an alternative between contingent subjectivity and intrinsic objectivity that crosses the issues of management but goes back to the origins of aesthetic philosophies, and which Kant himself had encountered.

The authors do not work for, do not advise, do not hold shares in, do not receive funds from an organization that could benefit from this article, and have declared no affiliations other than their research institution.

–ref. Talking about the beauty of companies? Not so absurd after all! –https://theconversation.com/talking-about-the-beauty-of-businesses-not-so-absurd-after-all-280177

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jessica Genauer, Academic Director, Public Policy Institute, UNSW Sydney

With a shaky ceasefire in place between the US, Israel and Iran – and little progress on talks to resolve the complex issues at the heart of the war – where is this conflict going?

The most likely scenario is a frozen conflict.

A frozen conflict is not static, but is an unresolved war that continues at a low-level below the threshold of full-scale combat.

This typically occurs when a comprehensive political agreement cannot be reached, such as the fighting in eastern Ukraine from 2014 until Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. This conflict was considered frozen despite the deaths of some 14,000 military personnel and civilians and persistent cyber and information warfare.

Even if negotiations resume this week in Pakistan and an eventual agreement is reached, there are still three reasons we believe this is headed towards a frozen conflict, not a comprehensive peace agreement.

1) Trump equates ceasefires with an end to war

US President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy has shown he does not treat ceasefires as pauses for negotiations to agree on substantive political issues. Rather, he declares a ceasefire as a US success, then moves on to the next global issue.

Trump claims to have ended ten wars, including the current conflict with Iran and Israel’s war in Lebanon. A closer look reveals that in most of these conflicts, a shaky ceasefire has held while substantive issues remain unresolved.

This has left frozen conflicts in place with ongoing tensions. In India and Pakistan, which engaged in a brief armed conflict last year, for example, there is a continued risk of renewed hostilities. And a lasting peace between Thailand and Cambodia after last year’s border spats remains elusive.

Yet, Trump has walked away from these conflicts and claimed an end to war as soon as a cessation of major hostilities was in place.

2) Asymmetric wars are difficult to resolve

The current war is asymmetric because of the huge difference in military strength between the US and Israel on one side, and Iran on the other.

Iran has intentionally used asymmetric tactics to counter the US’ overwhelming military power, including targeting infrastructure in Persian Gulf countries not involved in the war and closing the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping traffic to disrupt the global economy.

Research shows asymmetric wars are inherently protracted and often open-ended. As a result, they are more likely to end in a frozen conflict than an enduring political settlement.

The reason for this is simple. The weaker actor cannot win a conventional military battle against the stronger actor. So, it tries to exhaust the more powerful nation with political, economic and psychological pressure, forcing a withdrawal and cessation of hostilities.

This is what we are seeing now between the US and Iran. Trump is feeling these rising pressures and is pursuing a ceasefire, while trying to claim a US victory.

Iran, meanwhile, has agreed to a ceasefire in a bid for survival as the weaker actor, rather than a commitment to an enduring end to the conflict.

This is reminiscent of the Taliban in Afghanistan, who survived 20 years in a frozen conflict with the US before taking back control of the country when the US withdrew.

3) There’s been no focus on the more complex issues

Neither the US nor Iran appears committed to any long-term resolution of the underlying tensions at the root of the conflict. Key among these is the question of Iran’s nuclear program.

For Washington, the first round of peace talks in Pakistan on April 11–12 were aborted because Iran refused to compromise on its nuclear program. And Iran has long argued it has an inalienable right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.

The negotiations that led to the multilateral 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear program – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – took 20 months to conclude. Trump withdrew from the agreement three years later, calling it a “horrible one-sided deal”.

Given this history, a quick and clear resolution to this complex dispute is unlikely.

Some analysts believe the US and Iran could announce a partial agreement that would leave many of the technical aspects to be ironed out later.

But Trump is now facing an opponent that is unlikely to become more accommodating with respect to its long-term “nuclear rights”. In fact, Iran has already shown its resolve by asserting a new geostrategic normal, closing the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting the global economy.

What a frozen conflict means for the region

The Iran-US war may conclude with a series of ceasefires, but will likely remain a frozen conflict due to these underlying tensions. This means more threats from both sides over Iran’s nuclear program and periodic flare-ups of violence between Israel and Iran, the US and Iran, or both.

This is much like the frozen situation in Gaza. Last October, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire under Trump’s 20-point peace plan. The first phase of the plan was then largely implemented, leading to a hostage-prisoner exchange, a decrease in Israel’s heavy bombardments of Gaza and a resumption of aid into the strip.

However, there has since been no progress on the more complex questions of the post-war governance of Gaza, redevelopment of the strip and – crucially – the disarmament of Hamas fighters. As a result, Israel has refused to completely withdraw its troops and violence has continued.

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Read more:
Israel and Lebanon have a ceasefire, but global attention shouldn’t move on. This isn’t a tidy end to the war

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From a historical perspective, the frozen conflict in the Koreas is also instructive. The war ended with an armistice in 1953 and no peace treaty, effectively leaving North and South Korea at war to this day. This led to the North developing an underground nuclear weapons program that continues to pose a threat to the world.

Similarly, the decades-long frozen India-Pakistan conflict has led to an arms race (including the development of nuclear weapons on both sides), instability in South Asia and periodic flare-ups of violence.

A frozen conflict between the US, Israel and Iran will no doubt create similar long-term instability in the Middle East, including a possible arms race in the Middle East and more flare-ups of violence, particularly around control of the Strait of Hormuz.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 3 reasons the war between the US, Israel and Iran is headed for a frozen conflict – https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-the-war-between-the-us-israel-and-iran-is-headed-for-a-frozen-conflict-280996

Source: MIL-OSI-Submissions-English

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Joshua Gonzales, PhD, Management, Lang School of Business and Economics, University of Guelph

If you spend any amount of time on LinkedIn, you’ll have certainly come across this type of phrasing: “This isn’t a job, it’s a calling” or “This isn’t marketing, it’s a movement” or “This isn’t a tool, it’s a paradigm shift.”

This sentence structure is saturating posts on the platform. It’s become one of the most recognizable patterns of AI-generated text: “It’s not X, it’s Y.”

If you’re like me, you find it annoying and scroll past as soon as you read it. Your exasperation is warranted. Negation can be a powerful literary device when used thoughtfully, but when unearned, it feels hollow.

That’s what AI slop — low-quality digital content generated by artificial intelligence, often with little or no human oversight — does: it turns previously useful markers into gobbledygook.

For most AI tropes currently in circulation, it’s enough to just ignore them. The negation form of AI slop, however, isn’t just annoying, it distorts how people process and remember information. Before you get the chance to absorb something meaningful, your attention is already anchored to what is not.

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Learning a language is hard, but even native speakers get confused by pronunciation, connotations, definitions and etymology. The lexicon is constantly evolving, especially in the social media era, where new memes, catchphrases, slang, jargon and idioms are introduced at a rapid clip.
The Conversation Canada’s series Slanguage dives into how language shapes the way we see the world and what it reveals about culture, power and belonging. Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of linguistics.

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How the brain processes negation

There’s a reason this structure feels off. Cognitive psychologists have known for decades that negation doesn’t work the way speakers intend it to. When someone tells you what something isn’t, your brain doesn’t skip to the alternative. It processes the negated concept first.

This was demonstrated in a 2003 study. After reading negated information, readers’ mental models still retained the negated concept at short processing intervals. Negation didn’t function as an eraser. The concept entered the reader’s mind, and only with additional processing time and contextual support could the reader move past it.

Every time you read “This isn’t marketing,” for example, you process marketing before you can get to whatever the writer claims it actually is.

That would be manageable if it happened once, but that cognitive load compounds with repetition.

‘Don’t think about the white bear’

In a classic 1987 experiment, psychologist Daniel Wegner asked participants not to think about a white bear. They couldn’t.

Those told to suppress the idea mentioned it more than once per minute. Worse, participants who had first tried to suppress the thought later showed a rebound effect, thinking about white bears significantly more than participants who had been free to think about them from the start.

The effort of pushing a concept away made it stick even harder.

When your LinkedIn feed delivers dozens of posts built on the same negation-reframe structure, each one is a new instruction not to think about the thing the writer wanted you to forget.

The consequences go beyond annoyance. In a 2004 social psychology study examining how people encode negated information, researchers explained why some negations fail more than others.

When a negated phrase has an obvious, commonly inferred alternative, readers mentally replace it. For example, they can substitute “not guilty” for “innocent” or “not cold” for “warm.” Without the alternative, the original concept remains active with a negation tag attached, like a mental sticky note reading “not this.”

That sticky note can fall off quite easily. In the study, participants lost it more than a third of the time for concepts without clear alternatives, remembering the affirmed version instead.

Consider what that means for “This isn’t marketing, it’s a movement.” Marketing has no ready-made substitute for our mind to consider. What readers store is “marketing” with a tag that may or may not survive their scroll to the next post.

Scaling a cognitive problem

The problem is scale. A 2024 study on generative AI by economics and strategy researchers found that when people write with AI assistance, their outputs converge. Individual pieces may be more polished, but the collective pool of writing becomes more similar. AI-assisted texts were found to be roughly 10 per cent more alike than those written by humans alone.

Their study examined creative fiction, but the results have obvious implications for other forms of writing. When a rhetorical formula saturates an entire platform, it stops being one person’s stylistic habit and becomes a default frame through which ideas enter public conversation.

Right now, that frame often starts from a deficit. It emphasizes what something fails to be rather than what it offers.

The alternative is straightforward. Say what it is. Say what you built, what you believe, what you offer. It’s a better cognitive strategy.

Readers who encounter “I am a movement builder” store “movement builder.” Readers who encounter “This isn’t marketing” store “marketing” with a sticky note that’s already peeling off.

One formulation gives people something to remember. The other gives them something to forget, and psychology suggests it won’t work.

Joshua Gonzales does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Slanguage: Why AI’s stylistic negation — ‘it’s not X, it’s Y’ — is both annoying and doesn’t work – https://theconversation.com/slanguage-why-ais-stylistic-negation-its-not-x-its-y-is-both-annoying-and-doesnt-work-278967