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In recent years, social researchers (as well as public authorities and private companies) have had a renewed interest in the factors fostering the legitimacy of the socio-political system, as well as the legitimacy of diverse institutions and particular decisions. This increased interest results, among other things, from processes of democratization that have made the previous sources of authority—for instance, legal ones—increasingly insufficient to justify the wielding of power. Decision-makers have been noticing with increasing clarity that the greater the perceived legitimacy of their power, the greater is the tendency of others to accept their decisions (and the lower the costs arising from insubordination). The article describes the latest empirical findings, with particular consideration of the significance of so-called procedural justice for the legitimation of power. This includes the feeling of persons subject to decisions that the decision-making process is comprehensible and that the decision-maker (authority) is impartial, treats them with respect, and assures them of the opportunity to present their own position.
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The article is an analysis of various unintended consequences of the contemporary fight against corruption. The author employs a social constructionist approach to argue that recent anti-corruption developments show that the ‘fight against corruption’ will never stop regardless of how effective it may be. Moreover, the anti-corruption crusade can be characterized as a self-legitimizing process because it creates new areas for anti-corruption actions by constructing new forms of corruption, thereby justifying the continuation of anti-corruption efforts. As a point of departure, the author analyses corruption as a socially constructed phenomenon in order to remind us that because of its inherent features, corruption is an irremovable part of the public sphere, thus making anti-corruption actions never-ending. Then certain paradoxes and developments in contemporary anti-corruption efforts are presented to further explain the never-ending and self-legitimizing nature of fighting corruption. The penultimate part highlights various new definitions of corruption proposed by social scientists and the questions raised by these conceptual undertakings. In the concluding section, the problems resulting from anti-corruption dynamics are presented.
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This article presents an analysis of the influence of Christian pastoral power on the formation of individualism in Western societies. The point of reference is the concept of pastoral power put forward by Michel Foucault, who treated the power of the Catholic Church over believers as a specific rationale of ruling focused on the formation of individuals and communities. The study refers to Foucault’s genealogical method, which investigates the impact of power and knowledge on the historical development of contemporary philosophical and social ideas. This analysis shows Christianity to be predominantly an individualising religion influencing the process of shaping the human subject as an individual. Pastoral power, using subjectivation techniques such as introspection, examination of one’s conscience, confession, asceticism, self-control of one’s body and sexuality, and interpreting and reading the Bible, has contributed considerably to the formation of responsible, ethical, and self-disciplined individuals. Christian belief in free will and individually attributed sin or virtue has played a key role in the development of the contemporary concept of an individual who is de jure free and bears responsibility for his or her deeds. The article points to the important role of the Protestant Reformation, which contributed to the privatisation of religion and facilitated the process of individualisation in Western societies.
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The aim of this article is to reconstruct how violence in connection with sex services is perceived by female workers of escort agencies. The article contains an analysis of empirical material on the category of violence as an occupational risk, a personal danger, or a ‘natural’ element of interaction. The category of violence as an occupational risk, with the related redefining, trivializing, and justifi cation of violence, is more broadly presented. The article is based on the author’s own research conducted in escort agencies. The main techniques of collecting data were observation and casual interviews with women offering sex services. The data was analysed in accord with the methodology of accepted theory.
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This article contains an analysis of the factors determining electoral decisions in post-communist Poland. The primary objective is to answer the question of whether the set of determinants motivating citizens to vote for a certain political party has remained constant or has changed over time. The analysis was based on data collected by the Polish General Electoral Study in 1997, 2005, and 2015 (these dates were chosen as important moments in terms of the functioning of Polish democracy). The analysis leads to the conclusion that—contrary to expectations based on current knowledge about the determinants of electoral preferences—variables describing the social status of citizens continue to be the best predictors of their propensity to vote for particular political parties. Although ideological-cultural and economic factors may be helpful in clarifying the electorate’s behavior, their explanatory power is comparatively much less.
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This article presents a comparison of three groups of citizens, which we have defined as ‘winners’ (those who voted for the parties forming the government), ‘losers’ (those who voted for the parties becoming the opposition) and ‘the absent’ (citizens who abstained from voting). Our goal is to answer the question of how these groups are similar in regard to ideological beliefs, preferences for specifi c sectoral policies, and socio-demographic characteristics. The results of our study are presented dynamically. The analyses are based on Polish General Election Study data (study editions of the years 1997, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2011, 2015). According to our findings, the views, values, beliefs, and preferences of non-voters are sometimes surprisingly consistent with the views of the citizens who did vote. This means that non-voters have been represented in Parliament by either the governing parties or the opposition parties. Hence, we argue that non-voters do not hold a position on the periphery of Polish politics. We also do not observe any trends demonstrating the increasing marginalisation of non-voting citizens in the Polish parliament.
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This article addresses the important yet neglected issue of whether the Polish party system has become more structured and consolidated. After twenty-five years of democracy, it would be reasonable to expect such an outcome. To answer the question, we based our analysis on the classic socio-political-cleavage theory of Lipset and Rokkan and the work of those who were influenced by them. Our analysis, which makes use of data collected over the last two decades by the Polish National Election Study, shows that it has been possible to discern symptoms of consolidation and the emergence of socio-political cleavages only since 2005. Our conclusions are therefore tentative – we can observe a degree of structuring, but we cannot claim that we have found full cleavages akin to those observed in Western Europe in the second half of the twentieth century.
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The article presents different approaches to understanding the notions “competence” and “competences” in the context of competence approach. Different points of view concerning the interpretation of these notions are presented in this article. A special attention is paid to the authors` definition notions “competence” and “competences”. The competence is treated as a system of knowledge, habits, skills, manner of activity and social communication and provides for realization the certain educational function. It means that the competence becomes competence only in interrelation of its components. Competences is treated as ability of a specialist to realize the obtained functions in certain types of pedagogical activity. The authors point to the departure from highly-personal approach to activity-functional approach in interpretation of these notions.
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Among books including issues of teenage parents, the reviewed work is standing out with the approach to the subject, and it shows a new look at the phenomena. Marry Patrice Erdmans and Timothy Black recognized that the treatment of teen motherhood as undesirable conduces to the ostracism of the following mothers. Consequently, teen moms are frequently regarded as “a problem rather than people with problems” (p.3) who need special help.
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