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The focus of this study is on the examination of a neglected area of child welfare. Sport is not among the preventive means of Hungarian social work, although we know that regular exercise prevents illness; physical activity diminishes aggression, facilitates the attainment of stress reduction, the development of a healthy personality, and the effectiveness of conflict resolution. Due to less physical activity, however, the youth’s life quality, stress tolerance and level of school achievement decline. All of these problems influence not only the present of individuals, but also the future of a whole society. The questionnaire survey asked young people participating in the Hungarian Midnight Table Tennis Sport Association (MÉSE) which organises nightly ping-pong championships for preventive purposes. MÉSE was founded on the example of the North American Midnight Basketball League providing the unmotivated, straggling children of poor, socially excluded families with socialisation and community and thus preventing them from street loafing and criminal activities. From the North American roots I expected similar results and participants in the Hungarian MÉSE. The research focused on the life qualities and the free-time use of the youth. Family background significantly determines the youth’s attitude towards sport, therefore, the parents’ educational level, socio-economic status and attitudes to physical exercise was also examined. The questionnaire data indicated an unexpected result. The parents of children participating in MÉSE programs are well-qualified, they like sport, nearly a third of them currently exercise regularly, and their socio-economic status can be considered rather good. Regarding the youth’s use of free-time, every fourth participant indicated so-called classic free-time activities, such as excursions or reading. Physical exercises and parties with friends are preferred by half of the respondents. In other words, MÉSE serves – although not unwillingly – an ‘unintended clientele’, while members of the original target group are still at risk.
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One of the biggest critiques for the constructivism in international relations discipline is the accusations of abstractiveness and having little substantive to say when talking about world politics. The article asserts that constructivism is not the typical theory of international relations or foreign policy analysis. Constructivism in the discipline is what every constructivist researcher makes of it, using a few fundamental statements about the analysis of social reality. In order to show how the constructivist international relations researchers apply the fundamental principles of the constructivist analysis of social reality to form their models of analysis, firstly, the article explains the metatheoretical assumptions of constructivism and the main problems that emerge trying to apply them in empirical research. Secondly, analysing three fundamental statements of metatheoretical constructivism (on intersubjective construction of meanings, relationship of ideas and materiality, and mutual constitutive relation of structure and agency) it is demonstrated how they are transformed and applied in more particular theoretical and empirical works of international politics. In the end several recommendation are provided on the main principles of constructivist research in international relations.
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Book review: E. Ostrom, A. Poteete, M. Janssen, Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
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This article deals with a phenomenon of the ‘global jihadist movement’. The article seeks to look into jihadists’ political programme. The main aim of the article is to find out how successful jihadists are in implementing their political programme. The article says that main goals that jihadists have in their political programme are only rhetoric. However, jihadists still have at least theoretical possibilities to achieve their openly state goals.
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In the article, the EU and Russia relations are analyzed as paying specific attention to the conceptual and practical weight provided for the conjunction “and” when EU–Russia relations are interpreted and practically constructed in the West. The answer which is in common use – these relations are intellectually based and practically shaped according the engagement doctrine – is known well. However, the common answer does not eliminate the problem why the perspective of the practical application of engagement toward Russia is still under dispute in the West? The article proceeds to revealing the specifics of the Western attitudes in regard to engagement with Russia and theirs correlation with the cultural-political identities of engagement’s participants. The conjunction “and” emphasizing the EU–Russia relations is interpreted in three ways: optimistically, equably and skeptically. The diversity of interpretations is stimulating by the nodus of factors (history, values and pragmatic interests) which is still affects the EU and Russia relations as well as different attitudes toward the perspectives of co-operation in the future. The very important source of the diversity is the difference in disparity of position regarding the geopolitical development of Eurasia. The article ends with the conclusion that the direction of the EU and Russia engagement will be strongly influenced by the reciprocal attempts to define theirs own cultural-political identities.
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Book review: Pippa Norris, Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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John Paul II and Benedict XVI have brought Catholic Church back to international arena after the shock of Enlightenment in XVII century. They had an important impact on reemergence of united Europe by the end of XX century. Unfortunately in the beginning of XXI century modern functionalist European Union symbolically rejected any reference to its Christian roots, unveiling deep moral drama of current establishment of the European Union. The European Union has lost its meta-political level, its spiritual vision, its mission, at the same time it has lost the link to human dignity, to the spiritual mission of its own citizen and their nations. By rejecting the reference to Christian roots the European Union has rejected its own future.
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The paper seeks to explain the differences as to how successfully the three Baltic countries managed the economic crisis between 2008 and the first half of 2010. More specifically, it analyzes investors’ confidence, Estonia being the most successful country in this regard, Latvia the least (the only country that applied for aid from the International Monetary Fund), while Lithuania staying in between. The paper aims to take into account the differences (and similarities) between the Baltic countries as well as emphasize the importance of political-institutional factors in explaining investors’ confidence. The importance of investors’ confidence as is discussed and different ways of measuring it are reviewed. Moreover, the relevance of political-institutional factors in explaining investors’ confidence is established from the theoretical point of view. Based on existing literature, a number of explanatory factors are distinguished, namely electoral processes, non-electoral pressures on government, government stability as well as the quality of informal institutions. The paper argues that Latvia was indeed in a significantly worse situation in terms of economic pre-crisis vulnerabilities than Lithuania and Estonia, both of which had certain, albeit different, economic advantages. The main difference between Lithuania and Estonia emerges comparing political- institutional, rather than purely economic, factors: Estonia was better placed in terms of electoral cycles, the extent of non-electoral pressures, and – most importantly – better institutions (governance quality, corruption level, trust in political institutions). Both Latvia and Lithuania found themselves in a significantly worse situation regarding political-institutional factors.
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Book review: Pierre Rosanvallon, Counter – Democracy. Politics in an Age of Distrust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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Article review: A. Follesdal, S. Hix, „Why There is a Democratic Deficit in the EU: AResponse to Majone and Moravcsik“, Journal of Common Market Studies 44 (3), 2006, p. 533–562; Mair P., Popular Democracy and the European Union Polity, Eurogov Working Paper C-05-03, 2005, p. 2–29.
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This study aims to introduce the means in which the christological doctrine is reflected within the new gnosticism context. The premise consists in the fact that the twentieth century has faced a strong spiritual revirement, a true religious and pseudo-religious explosion, together with a reverse of christological discourse within the western christian areas. If for the christian doctrine, Jesus Christ is true God and true man, the absolute truth, ,,the measure and the aim for everything”, in today neognostic society we deal with a wrong, unilateral reception of christological doctrine. From this point of view, in nowadays society, considered as being an syncretistic, neognostic, esoterical one, critical approaches of Jesus Christ Himself and His preaches drastically increased, the Church itself responsability to propelry answer these challenges.
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Water is one of the greatest wonders of the world. The relationship between water and life is a complementary one, this atribute of water – to be a life-sustainig element by definition – conferring it a particular splendor. Regarding the birth of life, even if there are several theories, each proposing a specific scenario, (almost) all of them admit that water had an essential contribution in this very complex process. Anyway, the main ideea is that life ‘arose’ from the primeval ocean in its early and primitive forms and spreaded, later, on all areas of the Earth. Thus, eventually, the scientific researches do not deny, but practically sustain, confirm the biblical narration.
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It’s know that, in social spheres today, the virtue of justice have an incomplete approach. For the contemporaneous human, the value of justice is increasingly reduced to the individualism of person, which is the sign of personal freedom unanimously promoted. In fact, what it wans to be an social act, open to community, becomes a way to promote personal interests, so-called fundamental rights, a sickly selfishness that separates peoples from the community and God. In this context, it is necessary to rediscover the justice values and its christian sense. For the christians today, as a person of consumerist society, but a member of Church too, it is very important to perceive and understand the real values of justice, to understand that justice isn’t just a legal and social abstract principle, but it’s a way for our atonement and salvation.
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Celebration Ester at the same date for all Christians is a much debated question. In the first Ecumenical Council of Niceea was stated the rules for calculating and celebrating Easter at a common date. During the time, because of the differences between the Julian calendar and Gregorian calendar, this problem was the main topic of various Councils. The solutions could be stated as: respecting the rules of the first Ecumenical Council, accepting and implementing the Gregorian calendar by all orthodox in accordance with the current astronomical observations.
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Although many books have been written about the communist era in our country, many memoirs and documentaries, we shall attempt to capture „the bright side”, to emphasize the sacrificial profession, the service to the neighbor and God in a place of torment , torture and isolation - the prison-, to emphasize the spiritual benefit of suffering. Even though we live in a free democratic society, where we enjoy certain rights and privileges, unfortunately we become more introverted, more selfish, uninterested in our neighbor and the worst thing, we get further away from God. The dark period of communism, which made many thousands of victims in our country, it is as if it wants to stay in the shadows, and not infrequently it can be noticed an attempt to deform or hide the sad truth. Consequently, through this work, we want to highlight the extraordinary moral value of the communist prisons confessors, that we also improper and let it guide us to the supreme goal of every Christian: salvation.
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This study exposes, after more than 20 years from the fall of Communism, the main pillars on which the Romanian Orthodox Church has developed its internal mission. The starting point of the research is the change produced after 1989 in the relation between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the State. The first step taken by the Church, as an absolutely necessary change image, was in the direction of consolidating its position in the newly reborn Romanian society after the Communist period. At the same time, it is important to consider the posture in which Romanian Orthodoxy finds itself currently in the relation between Church, State and society; thus the following sections of the study cover the presence of the Romanian Orthodox Church amidst the military, the prisons, the nursing homes, the hospitals, as well as its implication in the development of social services in Romania. The last chapter exposes the orthodox religious education in the Romanian area, which unfolds itself both at pre-university and university level. The conclusion represents an evaluation of the mission of the Romanian Orthodox Church in contemporary society, recording both the achievements of the post-communist era and the more “sensitive” points (mainly present in the relation between Church and State).
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Der Humanismus, meine Meinung nach, ist eine Illusion des Glückst, und ich glaube, dass die einzige Chance fürs Glück darin besteht, dass du deine Existenz auf ein Jenseits hin entwirfst, welches die Begegnung mit Gott bedeutet, und durch IHN, mit den Menschen. Jedweder sozialer Entwurf, der als Grundlage lediglich die Fundamente einer auf das Konsumdenken ausgerichteten Ethik oder lediglich philosophische Ideen hat, führt zum Misserfolg. Die Menschheit hat im Verlauf ihrer langen Geschichte viele philosophische Lösungen für ihre Existenz erprobt, aber jedes Mal hat sie die Wette mit dem Glück verloren. Sogar das Christentum hat die Quelle des Glücks verloren, insofern es die Formulierungen der menschlichen philosophischen Gesellschaft kopiert hat. Ich glaube, dass die Zeit gekommen ist, das Bild eines authentischen Christentums wiederzugewinnen, in seiner ursprünglichen Art, so wie es uns Derjenige gepredigt hat, Der es als ein Feuer gebracht hat, von dem Er wünschte, dass es in der ganzen Welt entzündet wird. Ich hoffe, dass wir zu der Authentizität einer Kirche zurückkommen, welche nicht nur eine institutionelle ist, sondern vor allem eine eucharistische, in der Christus konkret gegenwärtig ist, welche gemäß der Gestalt des Sauerteigs in der Bibel die Welt durchsäuern wird, um sie in das kosmische Brot des menschlichen Glücks umzuwandeln.
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Throughout history, philanthropic work has been done out of love for man. The ultimate philanthropist is God. We also have Jesus Christ as a model of philanthropy. A huge momentum to the increase of social care was given by the anthropological principles of Christianity. Philanthropy is a spiritual way of life, a mode of leading a spiritual life. In time, individual charity gave place to institutionalized philanthropy. We have established charitable institutions organized by the Church for the sick, the poor, the elderly, etc.., which were located around the church and had a priest providing guidance. Many of them operated inside monasteries. A model of philanthropy is represented by St. Basil the Great. Diaconal vocation, following the example of St. Basil the Great, continued in the Byzantine world and the national Orthodox churches. The Romanian Orthodox Church is the one who set up the first hospitals in Romania. The Romanian Orthodoxy has practiced highly intensive philanthropic work in the course of time.
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