(De)legitimation of Power of Agency. A Multimodal Critical Analysis of Social Practices during COVID-19 Pandemic in Romania

Author(s): Camelia Cmeciu / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a real challenge to national and international authorities, bringing social and ideological implications. The shift from urgency to action and an appropriate message tailoring are essential in such a sanitary crisis. This article presents a multimodal critical discourse analysis of the Facebook posts of the Romanian Ministry of Health and of the online users’ comments. The aim of the study is to examine how the Romanian authority and citizens use semiotic resources (multimodal texts) in order to give meaning and make meaning of the social practices related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings reveal that the Romanian authority mainly focused its messages on (de)legitimizing the actions of various abstract participants in an information campaign meant to counter fake news. The salience of behavioural processes-asinstructions highlighted a reduced agency of the Ministry of Health and an increased agency for Romanian citizens. The online users employed polarization as a discursive strategy to legitimate the Romanian authority’s calls-to-action that challenge the conservative liberalism ideology of the government and to delegitimate the tardiness of these actions.

(Ne)delání rodinné politiky v České republice

Author(s): Linda Sokačová / Language(s): Czech / Publication Year: 0

0 MOGUĆNOSTIMA MERENJA DRUŠTVENOG RAZVOJA

Author(s): Novak Janković / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 1-2/1981

The author considers the conception of the indicators of social welfare and the procedure of getting to the linear scale for measuring it. The author concludes that practical and principal advantages of this method cannot be achived without same sacrifice- These sacrifice are reffered on the objectivity and universality of the analyse. Important decisions for the analyse, that are concerning the choice, evaluations and aggregations of diffemet partial indicators, depend mostly on the ubjective estimation of the investigator.

1989: Szempontok a rendszerváltás globális politikai gazdaságtanához

Author(s): Márk Áron Éber,Ágnes Gagyi,Tamás Gerőcs,Csaba Jelinek,András Pinkasz / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 21/2014

This article rethinks 1989 – the year commonly treated as a milestone of regime change. As contrary to this narrow view, and with the aim of laying out the conceptual foundations of possible future research projects, we give a short overview of the way Hungary became incorporated into the capitalist world system and of the key global, economic, and geopolitical factors that influenced its dependent development. For this we present a historically sensitive, global political economic narrative within which we pay special attention to the way public debt had been accumulated and how this, in turn, shaped Hungary’s position within the world system. After our analysis of the regime change we continue with an overview of the main structural dynamics of the last two decades. Finally, through two short case studies, we show how our perspective can throw new light on the political ideologies and economic policies of the era. The accumulation of state debt was not a Hungarian specificity: instead, we argue that it was rather a result of the global restructuring process and of its concomitant effect of decreasing national state-sovereignty. In the following manner, we also argue that the emergence of debates (which were central in evaluating the regime change, revolving around issues like „democracy” vs. „dictatorship” or „planning” vs. „market”) can be better understood within our global, historical, and political economic analytical framework. In the long run we identify two economic development strategies – namely, the strategy of liberalization and the strategy of protectionism – both structured around the, nonetheless entirely unfulfilled, hope of overcoming Hungary’s semi-peripheral position by „catching up” to its Western neighbors. These strategies then can be analyzed on the base of how they relate to global cycles of accumulation; how their shifts were influenced by changes in the world system; and, in turn, how these strategies organized both various elite projects shaped by global cyclical dynamics and the interpretations about our historically unfolding dependent position.

2000’li Yillarda Çocuk Koruma Sistemi İçinde Bakim Hizmetlerinin Genel Görünümü

Author(s): Şeyda Yildirim / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 01/2017

It is possible to say that the child care system has been in a constant change in Turkey in the last century. With the establishment of Social Services and Child Protection Institution in 1983, the services were combined under the umbrella of a single institution. In this process, it is seen that activities to keep children in institutional care were focused on. However, after 2000s, with an important perspective change, Social Services and Child Protection Institution focused on keeping the children under family care. In addition, alternative care services have been created in order to decrease the negative effects of institutional care on children. In this study, it is aimed to focus on the change and development process that took place legally and institutionally in child care systems in 2000s with a critical perspective. In the scope of this study, both the 5395 Child Protection Law and the child protection services within the construction of Social Services and Child Protection Institution and child care services in the process of establishment of Family and Social Policies Ministry are discussed, in regard to statistical data.

A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina

Author(s): Ana M. Gavrilović,Aleksandar L. Jugović / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2012

The aim of this paper is to analyze, through comparative perspective, current systems of child welfare in transitional societies of the Southeast Europe: Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In this paper we used historical, comparative and statistic method. Socio- political characteristics of these states are: mutual history of child welfare systems, transitional metamorphosis of society and social policy, European perspectives and the need for upgraded child welfare. Gavrilovics point out the common past of child welfare systems of these states. In the main part of this work comparative methods are used to analyze current characteristics of child welfare in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia- Herzegovina. Family and child support measures are taken into account, with special emphasis on child maintenance, maternity and parental leave and services of specialized children’s institutions. Child welfare is analyzed in the context of transitional changes that the South- east European states are undergoing. Analysis of the three basic forms of financial support of families with children showed that transitional changes substantially reduced the number of children benefiting from child maintenance and even more reduced its amount. Maternity leave is recognized as an important measure in family and population policy in all three states, but there are lack of means, compensation amount is under constant pressure to be lowered.

A Critical View to European Union as a Cosmopolitan Democracy: From an Outsider’s View

Author(s): Seyed Vahid Karimi / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

European Union is an advance institution. There is no other community to mach its political, economic and international weight. But as an outsider, I do not find it as a cosmopolitan democracy. There are two internal as well as one international reason to prove my argument. First of all there are two schools of thought within the EU, regarding its future direction. There are forces who believe that the political direction of the EU must be Atlantis. There are others who believe that the European Union must, in its political thinking, remain European minded, separate from whatever the American guideline is. The United Kingdom and its allies within European Union support the Atlantis view, where the French and its orbit allies believe that the European Union must be European. So, that means that the liberal forces are put versus the social welfare minded, within the European Union. The second critical view is with regard to the institution itself. The selection of the commission is doubtful, if the stronger and more powerful members of the European Union have the upper hand in its selection. The European Parliament is paralyzed in intervening over agricultural budget. The power of members by ‘qualify majority voting’ - QMV, makes collaboration among the stronger and more powerful members of the EU much easier.

A e zvogëlon Traktati i Lisbonës rolin e Shtetit për një Politikë të Jashtme të përbashkët?

Author(s): Eglantina Golemi,Erjona Canaj / Language(s): Albanian / Issue: 13/2014

Politika e Jashtme e Përbashkët e BE-së është, pa dyshim, kryefjala dhe njëkohësisht një nga sfidat e BE-së në ditët e sotme. Vendimet që merren apo ndryshimet që bëhen në këtë drejtim, kanë një impakt të drejtpërdrejtë në imazhin dhe rolin e BE-së si faktor ndërkombëtar. BE-ja vepron në katër fusha të politikës së jashtme: I) politika e përbashkët tregtare; II) politika e asociimit, partneritetit, bashkëpunimit dhe fqinjësisë; III) zhvillimi, bashkëpunimi teknik dhe ndihma humanitare si dhe IV) dimensioni i jashtëm i politikave të tjera të brendshme. Në këtë studim synohet të evidentohet nëse Traktati i Lisbonës ka ndikuar në uljen e rolit të shtetit për një politikë të jashtmë autonome, duke trajtuar si shembuj dy nga fushat kryesore të saj si politika e përbashkët tregtare dhe politika e zhvillimit, bashkëpunimit teknik dhe ndihmës humanitare. Nëse politika e përbashkët tregtare tashmë është kompetencë ekslkuzive e Bashkimit Europian, politika për zhvillim, bashkëpunim teknik dhe ndihma humanitare janë kompetencë konkurruese midis Shteteve Anëtare dhe BE-së. Ekskluziviteti u përdor nga Traktati si mjet ligjor me anë të të cilit vërtetohet rënia e rolit të shtetit në një politikë të jashtme autonome, por dhe kompetencat e përbashkëta po sfidojnë hapur praktikën ligjore për nga funksionimi i tyre. Politika e Jashtme e Përbashkët sot përbën një sfidë të vërtetë të politikës botërore.

A home is more than a roof over your head: Post-prison reintegration challenges in Austria

Author(s): Doris Schartmueller / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

Life after prison can pose challenges for the formerly incarcerated, their families, and wider communities. This research studies Austria where probation services are either mandated by the court or sought voluntarily after prison. Through semi-structured interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals, reintegration experiences from their perspectives are examined. The narratives emphasized social factors that either assuage or complicate life after prison. The main factors addressed were stable housing, the maintaining and (re)building of relationships, and employment. Overall, a lack of stable housing appeared to complicate life after prison the most and also negatively affected relationships and employment. For some, life after prison was further exacerbated by immigration status and a perceived stigma related to the nature of one’s convictions. This study shows the importance of working towards a better understanding of the social context individuals are released into after prison to better meet their individual needs and to counteract recidivism.

A lakhatási válságra adott közösségi válaszok

Bérlői lakásszövetkezetek Magyarországon?

Author(s): Csaba Jelinek,Zsuzsanna Pósfai / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 27/2020

Since the crisis of 2008, housing is yet again and increasingly becoming a form of profitable financial investment. This tends to dominate over the claim that each person has the need and the right to access affordable, good quality housing. Across the globe this tendency is intensified by state policies as well. However, bottom-up initiatives organizing themselves for collective housing solutions are also gaining ground. These self-organized, „self-help” models open the possibility for economically vulnerable social groups to support each other in finding solutions for their housing problems, and also to collectively access resources that would individually be impossible to reach. This paper presents such an alternative housing solution, notably the model of rental-based housing cooperatives. Rental housing cooperatives are institutions organized in a bottom-up manner with the aim of providing affordable, good quality and stable housing for their members. We discuss two examples from Germany and from Uruguay for successful rental housing cooperative networks, which have existed for several decades. Finally, we present the steps which have been taken in the past years in Hungary and in the Eastern European region towards the establishment of such a model.

A POSSIBLE EURO-ATLANTIC COMPREHENSIVE MARITIME SECURITY MODEL

Author(s): Valentin Catalin Vlad / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

This article aims to identify the existence, relevance and opportunity of a theoretical security through cooperation model based on the main concepts and theories of the security communities and the appreciation of universally recognized individual and collective values and freedom, in order ultimately to prove the relevance and opportunity of such a comprehensive maritime security model that could be adopted and developed at Euro-Atlantic maritime space as part of the complex process of ensuring regional and international maritime security.The adoption of a comprehensive maritime security through cooperation model centered on ensuring individual and collective security, stability and prosperity is the key element for the legitimacy, credibility and efficiency of the Euro-Atlantic maritime strategies in relation to international treaties, challenges and threats to international maritime security and last but not least with the peculiarities and characteristics of international maritime basins.

A POSSIBLE ROMANIAN-AMERICAN NAVAL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Author(s): Ioan Crăciun,Auraș Liviu COMAN / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

How can the United States increase the responsiveness of US forces to reinforce the South-Eastern NATO flank in the Black Sea? Geopolitical changes have led to calls for the necessity to update the Montreux Convention. These restrictions can be avoided in this situation if the US would rent or lease at a reasonable price warships to the Romanian Navy that fly the Romanian flag, and are operated by a Romanian-American crew. Montreux Convention rules may be avoided by building an innovative partnership, a solid and reliable agreement between US Navy and Romanian Navy. Subsequently, a Multinational Task Group composed of American, Romanian, and Black Sea littoral countries’ ships can be consolidated. The result will be beneficial to the US, NATO, EU, and Black Sea countries.This naval partnership has to be created to support Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System Deveselu, to rebuild a military and security power in the region, and change the balance of power.

A PROPOSAL FOCUSED ON A METHOD FOR THE CALCULATION OF THE CONVERGENCE OF THE TWO BANKS OF THE DNIESTR

Author(s): Eugen Străuţiu / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

Following the armed conflict in 1992, the Moldovan society, on the left bank of the Dniester broke, from a political and administrative point of view, proclaiming itself a separate state under the name "The Moldovan Dniester Republic" – which is unrecognized until today at an international level.The negotiation process, started in 1992, did not produce significant convergence effects - although issues related to the everyday life of the population are resolved today at a faster pace than ever before.The present article aims at investigating, principally and (as much as possible) quantitatively, to what extent the political divergence has evolved over two decades and a half, and to what extent it finds itself in economic, military and civil society divergences. In conclusion, we will try to evaluate the chances of a convergence process between the two banks of the Dniester in the near future.

A PROPOSAL FOR INCORPORATING LABOR UTILIZATION FRAMEWORKS INTO THE FORMAL LABOR FORCE STATISTICS

Author(s): Hee-Young Shin / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2016

The standard labor force statistics has been widely used as an important indicator of the overall health of an economy, and both economists and economic policy makers in the U.S. have been uncritically relying on the single official unemployment rate whenever they propose and make an important policy decision. The goal of this paper is to revisit some of the limitations in the US formal labor force statistics and propose to incorporate a series of measures for analyzing a certain quality aspect of employment into the government’s formal labor force statistics. The conventional definitions and categories used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) have many limitations, and are of no use at all in capturing quality aspects of employment. After examining some of these problems, the paper introduces and proposes the International Labor Office (ILO)’s labor (under-)utilization framework to overcome these problems. The labor utilization framework adopted in the ILO’s international conferences emphasizes the importance of capturing quality aspects of labor utilization and introduces the concept of income-, time-, and skill-related labor underutilization. The survey in this paper shows that the ILO’s labor utilization framework is broader in scope and much more consistent in analyzing the labor market performance. The framework also provides better insights into analyzing the labor market dynamics than any other formal labor force statistical frameworks, including the US BLS’s standard labor force statistics. Even though the ILO’s labor utilization framework is in no way a complete solution to the task of analyzing the capitalist labor market dynamics and of constantly improving the government’s labor force statistics, it is far more superior to the conventional unemployment rate and any other narrowly defined labor force statistics. Thus, it is urged that the US BLS should seriously consider incorporating labor utilization framework into its formal labor force statistics.

A Research on Psycho-social Support and Future Expectations of the Syrian Female Asylum-Seekers Living in Turkey

Author(s): Ezgi Arslan,Elif Gökçearslan Çifci,Veli Duyan,Fulya Akgül Gök / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Migration is the phenomenon of people’s leaving their areas of residence definitely or temporarily due to a number of reasons (IOM, 2009). Even though the term migration primarily connotes the movement of a particular population from one location to another, migration has a structure that is much more extensive and deep-rooted than mere geographic replacement (Aksu & Sevil, 2010). Today, rapidly changing environmental, economic, political, and social structures lead individuals and groups to migrating to settle in different regions. Based on classifications using different criteria, we may talk of types such as voluntary migration, forced migration, permanent or temporary migration, transit migration, illegal migration, and chain migration (Mutluer, 2003; Gündüz 1996 cited in Ilgaz & Tuzcu 2005). In the literature, internal migration is identified as the population movement between areas within the borders of the country and external migration is identified as movements of geographic replacement occurring towards neighbouring countries or even beyond (Şahin, 2001).

A Soldier’s State? Veterans and the Welfare Regime in Croatia

Author(s): Danijela Dolenec / Language(s): English / Issue: 14/2017

The paper theorizes about the type of welfare state that emerged in Croatia post-1990, focusing specifically on ways in which the evolution of welfare programmes for veterans, and the gradual strengthening of veteran organizations as pivotal political actors, impacted its morphology. Croatia currently has a population of around 500,000 registered veterans, which in the mid-1990 started organizing into powerful organizations. Partly in response to this mobilization, from 1994 onwards HDZ governments created a comprehensive institutional architecture of entitlements for veterans, instituting durable material linkages alongside symbolic ties to this population. The prominence of veterans as a pivotal political actor has impacted the development of the welfare regime in Croatia. Strong reliance on the family for a broad range of care work is the central feature Croatia shares with other conservative welfare regimes, while the clientelist character of state-society relations relates it specifically to their Southern variant. Distinctly, the "compensatory" character of welfare programmes, which is characteristic of veteran programmes, and of family policy in Croatia generally, creates contradictory impulses. What seems to have emerged is a specific clientelist variant of a conservative welfare regime, sustained by veteran mobilizations, while at the same time eroded by the dependency, resentment and a myriad of other social impacts of these programmes. Future research on the welfare state in Croatia will hopefully further explore the arguments that this paper brings forward.

A Step Towards Normality: Relaxing the COVID-19 Restrictions Imposed in EU Countries

Author(s): Damian Wnukowski,Sebastian Płóciennik / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 2020

The slowing growth rate of COVID-19 incidence has prompted some EU countries to make the first attempts to move away from the restrictions imposed in the fight against the pandemic. The goal is to reduce the scale of the economic recession and return to growth as soon as possible. The usual course of action is opening schools and shops, combined with maintaining precautions and mass testing. However, the authorities emphasize the need to monitor the situation and readiness to quickly restore restrictions.

A Tale of Two Recipes: Well-being Policy Comes to the Western Capitalism Rescue in the (Post-) Trump and (Post-) COVID-19 Era

Author(s): Tatjana Muravska,Denis Dyomkin / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

The neo-authoritarian “Trump Ега’’-induced political problems have been aggravated further by the coronavirus that triggered an economic slowdown. The new landscape put Western capitalism, international cooperation, and European integration at risk. This contribution shows similarities and differences in policies dealt with the recessions of 2008 and 2020 on both sides of the Atlantic, with a focus on the EU and Canada. It examines the rising popularity of the welfare state concept applied both to individuals and industries particularly in the EU, for which the protection of citizens’ well-being and solidarity values are at the bloc integration’s core. Ideologically opposing solutions for those crises reflect a fundamental shift in policymaking, reinforcing state interventions policies vs neoliberal approach to the extent of intensified discussions of a universal basic income notion as a response to the inequalities. The article highlights the need for multi - and cross-disciplinary approaches, benefiting policymaking.

A Well-Funded Public Health System for a Healthy National Economy

Author(s): Ibrahim Almaashi / Language(s): English / Issue: 05/2014

The article focuses on the healthcare financing analysis in Romania in the European context, trying to capture the revenue and the expenses trends over the last years. All time health system was the most important domain for a national economy. It is known that a domestic economy works if it has a good health system. This is the reason for which I took as an example to be followed Netherlands health system that I would recommend to be used even in Romania in order to get the best results.

A Widening immigrant – native gap. Child income and poverty in Sweden among immigrants from Turkey and the surrounding region

Author(s): Björn Gustafsson,Torun Österberg / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Sweden has received immigrants from Turkey for many years. As a consequence, in 2010 there were approximately 20,000 children with a Turkish migration background have living in Sweden. That is, they are born in Sweden having at least one parent born in Sweden or are themselves born in Turkey. How is this group faring in terms of income in the households they live in? How large is relative poverty among such children? We expect to find an income gap and ask if the gap has widened over a period of one generation, and if so, we try to understand the reasons underlying such a development.