This issue includes a collection of four articles.

Ruxandra Ivan’s article offers a detailed analysis of the decline in regulatory ambitions for private military and security companies (PMSCs) in UN discussions over the last two decades. The author explains how the shift in debate from experts to state representatives, geopolitical divides, and competing regulatory approaches led to a weakened outcome, prioritizing state and industry interests over human rights protections.

In the second paper, Siddharth Padmanabhan explores the relationship between the use of populist or pluralist rhetoric by governments and citizens’ perceptions of anticorruption effectiveness. Analyzing Global Corruption Barometer and Global Party Survey data from 47 countries, the study finds that pluralist governments are more likely to be viewed as effective in combating corruption compared to populist ones.

Jun Han examines in his paper corruption among grassroots cadres (local level public administration) in northern Jiangsu, China, focusing particularly on people’s happiness (life satisfaction). The paper highlights the various forms the corruption is taking at this level, it explores the root causes of the phenomenon, and it proposes policy recommendations to address the challenges in managing corruption at the village level.

In the last paper in this issue, Rareș-Alexandru Văscan and Claudia Anamaria Iov analyze the ongoing refugee crisis caused by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and its implications for European security, with a specific focus on Romania. They argue that this crisis, unlike previous ones, underscores the growing view of migration as a critical security challenge.