Keywords: ethnography;protest model of political participation;Russia;
The article is focused on one type of the protest activity in Russia, the two rounds of the car-rallies “White Ring“ in Moscow, on 29th of January and 19th of February 2012, which are studied in the frame of the Russian oppositional movement “White ribbon“. Initiated in December 2011, after the parliamentary elections, the “White Ribbon“ movement has gone through an impressive rise, but has not resulted in any positive political and civic transformations. It brought in, though, many new sym-bols, means and forms of protesting, among them the car-rallies, remembered by the participants as the “most optimistic and creative acts“ (Boris Nemtsov).The big amount of visual and verbal data on the Moscow car-rallies, collected by the author, enables the ethnological, visual anthropological and linguistic analysis of general political appeals and special features of the “White Ribbon“ movement (fair elections, change of the political elite, symbolism of the white color and mov¬ing, the rally as a festival, etc.), as reflected in the “White Ring“. These rallies are also investigated with regard to urban and technological ethnology, since they cor¬relate with the Moscow city plan and the central circle high-way in Moscow (The Garden Ring) and thus highlight the unifying and protecting symbolism of the cir¬cle. The automobile theme (idiomatic phrases, slang, the cars’ decorations, posters and cartoons) transforms the general political pleas, makes them more artistic, vivid and clear. The author comes to the conclusion that the quickly and easily forgotten forms and models of the local and national protest rallies have first to be thoroughly recorded in order to provide a precise basis for further comparative analysis of the universal protest language.
More...
Keywords: anthropology;protest model of political participation;Turkey; Gezi movement
This text is based on an ethnographic study on the protests and civic initiatives that initially took place in 2013 but then continued with varying intensity throughout the following years. While applying the method of participant observation during “the Gezi events“ and conducting interviews with individuals who had taken part in the protests, a main goal of this study was to grasp the transformation in the identifica¬tion, articulation and presentation of important and secondary topics and problems that had been brought forward throughout the public discussions. The initial moti¬vation of this study was the idea that after the first demonstrations and clashes, the interpretation of the political projects’ turbulence, of the reinvention of urban spaces, of the success or failure of diverse protest and resistance practices, gradually modi¬fies the way the aforementioned events and ongoing processes are being thought and talked about. The research questions tackle respondents’ participation in protests, the constitution and disintegration of communities, the “diagnosis“, “prognosis“ and “rationale“ elements in respondents’ and informants’ microdiscources and their acts in relation to diverse initiatives. The text attempts to systematize the observation data and the collected “narrative fragments“ within four “narrating modes“: transforma¬tive, subjective, argumentative, and topological.
More...
Keywords: anthropology;protest model of political participation;Bulgaria;
The antimonopoly protests in 2013 were the most popular in the last 16 years; at their height, between 100 000 and 150 000 people crowded the streets of over 35 cities. Although in only two weeks the government was overthrown as a result of these events and a few days later four new parties emerged from the streets, from the very beginning until today the revolts are being described rather as a spontaneous and non-organized moral and economic indignation. The present article questions this viewpoint by applying a deep analysis of the genesis and the development of the structures within the movement, particularly in Sofia, of the struggle for legitimacy of various groups, networks and leaders. By means of participant observation and in-depth interviews with central figures and protestants the text searches the answers to the questions who and how creates the events, the choreography, the route and the claims. The basic tool of the study is a series of „ideal types“ of the protest among which a negative and a positive type.
More...
This chapter explores issues of inspiration and motivation on how a poem (in turn becoming a song) was created in connection with a specific situation of injustice, namely the Police Raid on the ‘Occupy’ protest in the Buffer Zone in Nicosia, Cyprus, on the 7th of April 2012. Taking into account a number of ethical considerations that embrace the role of art and free speech, expression and social critique (Islam, 2015), a set of ideas and discourses will be explored through an autoethnographic journey – from context to inspiration/motivation/creation and sharing as a form of alternative media via online social media platforms (Facebook and Soundcloud). Contextualization will also be discussed through the sub-genre of dub poetry as a practice of cultural resistance against oppression (Linton Kwesi Johnson) and a much wider set of debates on the presence/absence of songs with political content. Additionally, the chapter will focus on a detailed contextualization of ‘Occupy’ in Cyprus as a non-hierarchical grass roots protest moment and the manner in which this was destroyed by state police intervention. This will consider the specificity of ‘Occupy’ in Cyprus in the Buffer Zone as expression against militarism and occupation, as well as the more generic aspect of ‘Occupy’ worldwide as a counterhegemonic form of political activism.
More...
Keywords: anthropologic study;protest model of political participation;Bulgaria;
The text is based on an anthropological research of the protest movements in Bulgaria in the period 2009-2013 and suggests an analysis of in-depth interviews with activists and participants in these movements. The data is interpreted in the light of the anthro¬pology of democracy which studies the understandings of democracy of the ordinary people and the various forms of participation in the democratic process, as well as the possibilities of expanding the democracy from below. By using the three notions in the title the respondents describe their discontent and draw the contour of the desired change. The analysis shows that even when they talk about the same thing (e.g. de¬mocracy), the protestants do not agree with each other. The many-voiced expression of discontent supports the hypothesis that the protest movements form heterogeneous multitudes but fail to settle their differences and to work out a common vision about “democratism“.
More...
Keywords: anthropology;protest model of political participation;Bulgaria;
The text suggests an analysis of the “culture of protest“ within the time frame of the “protest year of 2013“ in the cultural and social context of Bulgaria. The basis of the study – inscription (“thick description“) and specification (“diagnosis“) in the sense of Clifford Geerz (1971) – is a “microscopic“ social fact, namely the book Smilov, Daniel and Lea Vaysova (eds.). #Theprotest: Analyses and Positions in the Bulgarian press, the Summer of 2013. Sofia, “Iztok-Zapad“, 2013 (Смилов, Даниел и Леа Вайсова (съст.). #Протестът: анализи и позиции в българската преса, лято 2013, София, „Изток-Запад“, 2013). The publication which collects and (re)frames selected media stream within particular period of time, i.e. the book as an abstract collection of words/images (text) existing in a material form, is here understood as a social fact in the sense of Emile Durkheim. The adoption of such approach allows the comment to acquire specific outlines – the study of this „text-as-a-book“ neither brings to the fore the abstract dimensions (the text) of the book, which is usually the field of the literary critique and the text hermeneutics, nor focalizes exclusively the material dimensions, which is reserved for the history of the book and the analytical bibliography. The aim here is to describe and understand society and the social by examining and tracing the connections which exert an influence and exist between the simultaneous engagement of the abstract and the material side of this book as a social fact, as well as the social activities within it.
More...
Keywords: ethnology;museology;nation building;
More...
Keywords: ethnography;migration;Hungary;
More...
Keywords: anthropology;protest model of political participation;
More...
Keywords: anthropologic study;ritual;
More...
Keywords: microinsurance; insurance exclusion; product innovation
Financial exclusion, despite the development of financial markets, is a serious problem in the whole world. The main objectives of this paper is to discuss the idea of microinsurance and to answer the question whether microinsurance can be an effective method of risk management of entities affected by financial exclusion not only in developing countries. The study tries to demonstrate that even in developed countries it is reasonable to introduce microinsurance as an additional mechanism for protecting those most vulnerable to poverty. The complexity of insurance products, a low level of economic education and insurance culture among households with the lowest incomes in these countries promote the development of microinsurance. For insurers it is a chance to enter a new and promising segment of the insurance market that was previously ignored by them. They are not in competition for traditional insurance instruments, but they are rather complementary in the segment of the least wealthy, both individuals and micro-enterprises.
More...
Keywords: Bonus-Malus System; Usage Based Insurance; Pay As You Drive; merit rating; Distance-Based Insurance
One of the main problems in automobile insurance is that so called traditional tariffication including only the visible features of a driver and their car is not enough to reflect the risk that the driver brings to an insurance company. That is why Bonus-Malus Systems (BMS), which allow to modify premiums taking into account also individual claim history, have been so popular almost all over the world for more than 5 decades. Nevertheless, in the last two decades a quite rapid evolution of Usage Based Insurance (UBI) has been observed that can be considered as an alternative to BMS or as its follow-up. The BMS idea comes from Europe (Belgium) and the UBI from America (USA). The aim of the paper it to compare the main differences between those two concepts.
More...
Keywords: financial effects; social security; systemic and parametric reforms; insurance contributions; social benefits; costs
The paper presents financial effects of social security system reforms in selected countries of the European Community. The main purpose of the study was to answer the following question: how (if at all) the systemic and parametric reforms implemented in Poland, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom improved financial effectiveness of public social security systems in these countries? The assessment of financial effects of the systemic and parametric reforms for social security systems in the target countries included reforms implemented at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. As a research tool, the study uses a quantitative index, hereinafter referred to as an index of system financial effectiveness, calculated as a quotient of the total compulsory insurance contributions and the amount of the payable social benefits.
More...
Keywords: an environmental damage; a farm; an environmental damage insurance
Agriculture largely depends on natural resources and at the same time also affects functioning of environment. This impact on the environment can be assessed in two ways: positively (e.g. improvement the quality of soil, preservation of biodiversity) or negative (e.g. pollution of surface waters, reduction of the amount of wildlife). In the case of an imminent threat of environmental damage or environmental damage, the responsibility is taken by the entity using the environment. According to the Prevention and Remedying of Environmental Damage Act of 13 April 2007 the definition includes citizens involved in business activity aimed at production in agriculture in the field of farming, animal husbandry and breeding, gardening, vegetable growing, forestry and inland fishing, who perform activities carrying the risk of threat of environmental damage or other activities different than these causing environmental damage (damage in protected species and protected natural habitats) which pose imminent threat of environmental damage or cause environmental damage. The environmental responsibility is based on the ‘Polluter Pays Principle’, which not only contribute to reducing and minimizing the effects caused damage to the environment, but also effectively prevent them. The aim of article is to identify the risks of environmental liability based on the Act in relation to farm activities. Moreover, the authors analyze current insurance solutions (compulsory and non-compulsory) in terms of coverage of the environmental pollution’s effects.
More...
Keywords: audit risk; auditor; financial statement audit; insurance company
Financial statement of an insurance company is subject to obligatory audit by an independent auditor. In view of specific nature of insurance activity the audit of insurance company carries a substantial risk of delivering audit opinion which does not reflect properly the real financial standing of the company. The paper presents the concept and essence of audit risk and its components: risk of omission and risk of material misstatement as well as factors which determine these kinds of risk. There are presented also procedures of audit risk appraisal and attempts to identify types and areas of audit risk in an insurance company. Finally, there are analyzed consequences of acceptance of a certain level of audit risk for audit correctness.
More...
Keywords: trigger; insurance of municipality; temporary scope of protection
More...
Keywords: Islamic Takaful; conventional insurance; Islamic finance; demand; substitute
Islamic finance is a fast developing sector mainly present in the Middle East, South-East Asia, Central Asia and to a smaller extent in Africa and Central Europe. Together with the rebirth of Islam in the second half of the 20th century, Islamic finance tends to cover the economic needs of all Muslims (including insurances). The Islamic finance system is based on several principles including three main prohibitions: Gharar (deceptive uncertainty), Riba (usury) and Maysir (gambling). The concept of conventional insurance is based on rules that are contradictory to those principles and this poses a challenge for developing Islamic insurances. A comparative analysis approach was utilised to prove whether Takaful’s customers would receive at least equal value as the customers who would decide for the conventional insurance. As the success of this substitution the authors have taken the complementarity of Takaful’s deliverables and functions in comparison to the traditional insurance model. This study also aims to examine how the Islamic finance sector has responded to the growing demand for insurance products across Muslims, whilst remaining within the principles. The authors also attempt to examine the core differences between conventional insurance and its Islamic equivalent (Takaful). Apart from the research goals, the authors also want to popularize knowledge about alternative financial products. For the research secondary data were collected from books, articles and Internet resources such as Thomson Reuters’ databases. The authors have used literature studies and secondary research of both a qualitative and quantitative nature.
More...
Keywords: IBNR reserve; Bayesian inference; Solvency II project; classical and Bayesian chain ladder method of evaluating the IBNR reserve in non-life insurance
Incurred but not reported reserves (in short IBNR) are very important reserves in non-life insurance. Bayesian methods belong to the non-classical methods of statistical inference, in which the probability is a measure of “degree of belief”. Solvency II project requires technical provisions to be calculated according to the principle of “best estimate” and to be increased by the risk margin. Unclassic Bayesian methods of estimate of IBNR technical provisions, which are an alternative for classic methods, will be presented in this article.
More...