4.50 €
Preview
Keywords: EMU; causes of debt crisis
Having successfully overcome the global economic crisis from 2008, the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) of the European Union is facing a new challenge - how to consolidate public finances and reduce public debt in some of the member states. Several factors led to the uncontrolled growth of public debt. The main objective of this paper is an empirical analysis and identification of the main causes of the current situation. It can be argued that some factors inherent in the EMU because of its imperfections, while others are more recent, but the point is that they are all connected and that together they caused the budget deficit that eventually turned into a public debt. The EMU now has the unenviable task - to find the best solution for overcoming the crisis, which will be for the mutual benefit of the EU and its members. However, no one can say whether it is on the right track or it will need to resort to more radical strategies.
More...Keywords: education; distance learning; computer-based learning; algorithmic model; heuristic model
Economic and technological development, especially the development of information technology, has changed the traditional work methods, requiring new and different skills and abilities. In such circumstances, learning skills become particularly important both for young people and for adults. They enable knowledge acquisition, information use, processing, and transformation into new knowledge, skills, and values; they also help develop team work ability and the ability to learn with and from others. For the educational process to be successful, it is not enough that students in classrooms and online courses merely receive information from the literature and electronic resources - they must also communicate with the lecturer/instructor to receive assistance and support in grasping the educational content and to receive feedback on their progress and work methods. This paper primarily focuses on the ways and activities for timely improvement of computer-based learning. The importance of this paper is reflected in a highlighted need to improve learning through theoretical conceptualization and synthesis of the latest findings of modern computer-based learning and through application of these findings in our educational practice, with the purpose of enhancing learning and improving the entire educational system.
More...Jana Aleksić: THE WORLD AND THE SACRED: OMEGA POINT THEOLOGY Vladimir Bakrač: RELIGION HERE AND NOW - REVITALIZATION OF RELIGION IN SERBIA Božica Mladenović: ON SERBIAN ACCESS TO THE SEA - THE 1912-1913 CAMPAIGN IN ALBANIA Milena Žikić: HISTORY OF THE SOKOL MOVEMENT IN THE MORAVIAN SOKOL DISTRICT OF NIŠ Jelena Jovanović: FIERY-RED DAWNS
More...Keywords: Romanians; Vršac; religious identity; the Romanian Orthodox Church; the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church; neo-Protestants
As one of the most important economic, administrative, cultural, educational, and religious centers of Banat, Vršac is the environment in which the influences of different cultures, religions, and languages are intertwined. Vršac is the seat of the homonymous border municipality, which consists of 24 inhabited areas, with a total of 54 369 inhabitants. In terms of ethnic structure, based on the 2002 census, the most numerous were Serbs (39,418 or 72.5%), followed by Romanians (5,913 or 10.87%), Hungarians (2,819 or 4.81%), Romany (1,186 or 2.18%), Macedonians and Croats (1%), and others (7%). In addition to the above, the introductory part of this article gives details of the World War II census, from which demographic trends and changes in the ethnic structure of Vršac can be monitored. What contributes to the rich diversity is the presence of various confessional communities, namely: Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Uniate (Greek-Catholic), Methodist, Nazarene, Adventist, Pentecostal, and Baptist. After reviewing the current state ofthe religion of the Serbian majority community and the ethnic minorities, special attention is given to the most numerous ethnic group - Romanians. Although they are mostly Orthodox, the Romanian community is a very good example of the religious diversity within a single, seemingly mono-confessional, ethnic group. Thus, in addition to the Orthodox Romanians, in the municipality of Vršac there are Romanian Greek-Catholics, Nazarenes, Baptists, Adventists, and Pentecostals. The results of the qualitative research presented in this paper show that neo-Protestant communities are present in all the places with Romanian population. In the town of Vršac, neo-Protestant communities are ethnically mixed and most of them consist of Serbs and Romanians. Although certain communities have a historical continuity from the late 19th century (Nazarenes and Adventists), most of the communities were established in the last few decades (Baptists and Pentecostals). The emergence of these communities has also influenced the creation of new interfaith relations between traditional and non-traditional communities. Although there is no official dialogue between the representatives of religious communities (priests and pastors) in the local community, there are contacts between believers, especially in the rural areas. The recorded positive examples of interfaith cooperation 1078 are related to the cooperation between the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Romanians, on the one hand, and the cooperation of the neo-Protestant communities between themselves, on the other hand. Negative marking of neo-Protestants in this environment is often expressed by use of the term sectarians, which symbolically represents the attitude of the society towards small religious communities.
More...Keywords: ecology; sustainable development; economic policy; environment; Montenegro
In recent decades, there has been a growing interest for the concept of sustainable development. The interest for this concept was spurred by challenges facing the modern world, such as global warming, the ozone layer depletion, frequent natural disasters (tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and the like), and increased environmental pollution, but also a growing awareness of the importance of environmental protection. The concept of sustainable development includes three elements: economic, social, and environmental element. This paper specifically addresses the implementation of the environmental component of sustainable development in Montenegro. The emphasized fact is that, although Montenegro declared itself an ecological state, the concept of sustainable development is applied more or less on paper only. Therefore, the paper offers concrete recommendations for promoting the concept of sustainable development in Montenegro.
More...Keywords: animal transport; animal welfare; legal protection of animals; regulations of the Republic of Serbia; European legislation
In this paper, the author focuses on the legal regulation of animal transport as a special domain in the legal protection of animal welfare. With reference to the European Convention for the Protection of Animals During International Transport, the Animal Welfare Act of the Republic of Serbia and the accompanying statutory acts on this issue, as well as the Council Regulations (EC) No. 1255/97 and No. 1/ 2005, the author casts more light on the normative framework governing the commer cial transport of animals, without embarking on the analysis of the veterinary and sanitary requirements and respective veterinary and sanitary control of animal transport. The author points to the principal drawbacks in the process of drafting the national statutory acts on animal transport, discusses the degree of (in)compliance of the national regulations on animal transport withthe European legislation on this matter and emphasizes the need to take a wide range of legal measures in order to provide for a more substantial protection of animal welfare during transport
More...Keywords: ethnic structure of the population; quality of interethnic relations; young people; ethnic distance; interethnic cooperation
In this paper, the changes of the ethnic and confessional structures of the population of two municipalities in the border area of south-eastern Serbia during a fifty-year period (1961 - 2011) are analyzed from the demographic and socio-psychological perspectives. Considering that the territories of these two municipalities partly overlap with the Bulgarian and Macedonian state borders, the focus of the research was directed towards the presence ofcertain nationalities, ethnic diversity, and the quality of interethnic relations. Simultaneously, the examination of ethnic distance among young people confirmed the initial assumptions about their emphasized openness towards the members of other nationalities and readiness for cooperation in all spheres of social life, whereby the belonging to a particular nation or ethnic group loses its importance in comparison to moral and psychological qualities of a person.
More...Keywords: religion; residents; minorities; youth; Kladovo
Municipalities in eastern parts of Serbia, with the population of different religions and nations, represent historically, culturally, demographically, and strategically important areas. Kladovo is the best example of a municipality where people from different regions and of different ethnicities and religions foster multiculturalism and tolerance for diversity. The majority of the population is Orthodox Christian, with the Serbs, who are in the majority, and with small proportions of Vlachs, Montenegrins, and Romanians, whose number varies from one settlement to another. In order to present them systematically, the paper records demographic trends in terms of ethnicity and religion from World War II until today. The paper also presents data on religious sites and the religion of the population, the nature and quality of inter-ethnic and inter-religiousrelations among youth, as well as data from the field of media and participation of national minorities in the political life of Kladovо
More...Keywords: social capital; economic capital; human capital; family; informal social Networks
The concept of social capital in contemporary sociological theory has proven to be very useful in studying family changes. Social capital represents social processes and networks, values, norms, and understandings that facilitate the cooperation between social actors. One sociological understanding views social capital as the property of the whole social community, and the other considers it to be the property of individuals and their relationships. What is common to all these approaches is that they see family as the key factor in the reproduction of social capital. In this paper, by using the theoretical conception of Pierre Bourdieu, we analyzed the state of social capital of families in the city of Istočno Sarajevo. To most of the families who live in the conditions of long-lasting post-war social crisis, social capital represents a necessary condition for their normal functionings.
More...Keywords: company; freedom of establishment; regulatory competition; EU Company Law
The emphasis on the harmonization of company law as a presumption for the operation of the EU internal market has given way to the concept of regulatory competition. It implies that the propensity towards a comprehensive unification of the EU company law has been abandoned, which eventually enables a free movement of companies in the market. In this paper, the author considers how such a standpoint affects the decision of the company founders as members of the society to choose the Member State where the company will be registered, irrespective of the company’s principal place of business. The author points out to the freedom of establishing a company and the limitations concerning the freedom of residence as the basic presumptions governing the company’s choice ofapplicable law within the primary legislation of the European Community. In particular, the author focuses on the question concerning the extent to which the national legislations of the Member States may limit the company’s freedom to choose the applicable law.
More...Keywords: qualitative methodology; criminological research; research approach; research design; multi-method approach
This paper summarizes the findings of voluminous methodological literature, as well as our concrete research experience, achieved through conducting many projects, in which the qualitative approach was used either exclusively or complemented by the quantitative approach. The considerable heterogeneity of theoretical concepts within which qualitative research is planned and implemented has caused the emergence of numerous variations of the qualitative approach in research practice. In this review of the main elements of the qualitative research approach, applied to criminological investigations, we will ignore some of these differences and present them in a somewhat simplified form, with the enumeration of common bases and principles. After a short review of the application of the quantitative and qualitative approaches to research in criminology and a summary of the chief features of the qualitative research approach, we will present the key elements of shaping research design and describe the selection of data collection methods, as well as procedures for their analysis in the qualitative studies of criminological phenomena
More...Keywords: ethnicity; identity; boundary; “Serbian Gypsies”; Serbs; Kosovo
Field research of the Serbian community of southeast Kosovo (part of a broader area known as the Kosovo Pomoravlje, or Morava river basin) began among persons displaced from this area to Smederevo, Vranje, and Vranjska Banja (all towns in Serbia) and in situin the Vitina enclave, which together with the township of the same name, is comprised of the villages of Vrbovac, Grnčar, Binač, Mogila and Klokot. The township of Vitina is ethnically mixed, as are the villages of Binačand Mogila, where a small number of the Serbian community still remains. Vrbovac and Grnčar are adjoined, and apart from some Roma families living in Vrbovac, are almost exclusively Serb. Klokot is a village with a majority Serb population. Research continued in Gnjilane, a regional centre, in some of the larger neighbouring villages (Šilovo, Gornje Kusce,Parteš, Pasjane, Gornji Livoč). Multi-sited fieldwork was necessary since these localities are connected so as to form a whole. The community is scattered, one part remaining in Kosovo, the other moving to Serbia, and is in fact in both places at once. Research, in the narrower context, was carried out between 2003 and 2006. The aim of the research was to study the relation between ethnicity and other forms of collective identification (religious, regional, local, gender…) in a context that had undergone profound change since 1999, when an international protectorate had been set up for the region
More...Keywords: Roman Catholics; Timočka Krajina; Bor District; Zaječar District; mining
There are sufficient reasons for the impression that Serbian science unfairly disregarded the existence of a relatively rich history of the Roman Catholic Church in the “far east” of Serbia, i.e. in Timočka Krajina - in the Bor and Zaječar Districts - to date. One of the reasons to draw such a conclusion can be found in the fact that this segment of history, due to, mildly put, extremely speculative terms, does not belong to the Serbian history. As a result of a set of different circumstances and due to possible prejudice and ignorance, i.e. the recognition of a selective history as the only true history, an easily makeable parallel has not yet been made concerning the role of Roman Catholics in the development of modern Serbia and the ancient Saxons, also Roman Catholics, who had a crucial role in the economic development of medieval Serbia and thus its overall power, which is the fact that the propagators of the so-called Golden Age of Serbdom and “Celestial Serbia”, contemporary and future, continually keep ‘forgetting’. The fact that the dominant confessional affiliation of the people shapes the quality of the cultural and social fabric (understood in the broadest sense) of a social space was not left unrecorded even among prominent sociologists, such as Max Weber, who attempted to verify the hypothesis of a link between the Protestant faith and the spirit of the capitalist economy in a broad comparative perspective. However, the issue of the impact of confessional minorities to the cultural, social, and economic conditions of a region is only incidentally treated in the writings of sociologists and scholars in related fields, which was the direct motivation for this paper.
More...Keywords: society; peasantry; tradition; traditional village; patriarchy
Radomir Lukić was one of our most prominent professors of general sociology, sociology of law, sociology of politics, sociology of morality, and one of the most prolific jurists in Serbia. In this paper we will focus our attention on Lukić's attitudes towards the traditional rural village and peasantry, the relationship between society and the peasantry, and the peasants’ response to the various social changes affecting both their villages and their relationship towards work in general. We will particularly focus on Lukić's attitude towards Marxist theory, which has a negative approach to peasantry as the bearer of private property, as well as on the main causes and effects of the rural exodus numbering inmillions of people. By explaining the rural exodus and its impact on the city and the village, Lukićalso explained the reasons why such a large number of peasants abandoned their traditional ways of life.
More...Keywords: identity; discourse; private history; border area; semantics
This paper deals with the questions of identity and analyzes the discourse of the actor-narrator in the book “Three Names for One Growing-up: Pavle, Pal, Paul”. The aim of the paper is to discover the mutual causality of the actor’s own identity and to define the status of all languages he used in everyday communication, his speech features, and his narrative strategies. The key component of the research is his multi-layered identity, which is revealed on several levels - as the identity of the text, as a national, confessional, and cultural identity of a person, as the identity of proper names as a kind of a “label”, and as linguistic identity. The identity of the text itself can be defined as a combined one, being composed of three discursive parts: the text of the author (researcher in Psychology), the text (answers) of the narrator, and the accompanying text, which provides additional information about the historical, geographical, and political background. Attitudes and opinions of the interviewee on national and confessional identity are free of any prejudices towards other groups, which is uncommon for studies of this type. The same can be concluded about the language situation: despite the fact that Serbian and Hungarian have been switching their status of the official language (and the language of education) and that this could have been one of the complications for him and his family, the narrator does not show any sign of indignation.
More...
Keywords: cross-border merger; Tenth Directive 2005/56/EC; decisive date; valuation of assets; common draft terms of merger; fuzja transgraniczna; Dziesiąta Dyrektywa 2005/56/WE; termin operacyjny; wycena aktywów; projekt fuzji
Cross-border mergers are a substantial topic in the European Union, since this issue is associated with free movement of capital. This is why directives concerning cross-border mergers have been issued. This article analyzes cross-border mergers in the Czech Republic, and the possible reasons for their limited use. The accounting concept of the decisive date deviates from the legal concept of the merg-ing companies’ legal existence. Determination of the decisive date according to the local law of vari-ous member countries thus varies because each state may modify or adapt the Tenth Directive in accordance with their own legal systems. Harmonisation of accounting for cross-border merger within the EU is, however, regulated inadequately. Such missing harmonization of accounting aspects of mergers results in a situation where each state adopts its own „customized” regulation. This would not be wrong if it did not involve cross-border mergers where mutual compatibility is necessary. Income tax advantages may be gained in cross-border mergers. At this point, however, tax advantages could be at least described as problematic or even unattainable. As a way out of this difficult situation, there appears to be an amendment to the current laws and regulation of accounting in the EU Member States.
More...