Social Europe, Legitimate Europe: The Inner and Outer Boundaries of Europe

1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 501-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Lipietz

The legitimation of Europe as a ‘homeland’ does not depend only upon formal democracy, but upon a social compromise, as the example of the unification of Germany has shown. But this unification of a social Europe matches two problems, (1) The different nations constituting the EC are already engaged in different paths. Legitimation of the EC requires more integration of its social governance, (2) The other countries at the boundary of the EC (Eastern Europe, Turkey, Magreb) are very different. Their integration would mean disintegration; the integration of the EC without them would exclude them. The author explores this paradox of ‘integration/exclusion’ from the social, political, and cultural point of view. The risks of a new boundary ‘Europe/barbarians’ (across the EC itself) will be outlined. Some suggestions will be made.

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Besin Gaspar

This research deals with the development of  self concept of Hiroko as the main character in Namaku Hiroko by Nh. Dini and tries to identify how Hiroko is portrayed in the story, how she interacts with other characters and whether she is portrayed as a character dominated by ”I” element or  ”Me”  element seen  from sociological and cultural point of view. As a qualitative research in nature, the source of data in this research is the novel Namaku Hiroko (1967) and the data ara analyzed and presented deductively. The result of this analysis shows that in the novel, Hiroko as a fictional character is  portrayed as a girl whose personality  develops and changes drastically from ”Me”  to ”I”. When she was still in the village  l iving with her parents, she was portrayed as a obedient girl who was loyal to the parents, polite and acted in accordance with the social customs. In short, her personality was dominated by ”Me”  self concept. On the other hand, when she moved to the city (Kyoto), she was portrayed as a wild girl  no longer controlled by the social customs. She was  firm and determined totake decisions of  her won  for her future without considering what other people would say about her. She did not want to be treated as object. To put it in another way, her personality is more dominated by the ”I” self concept.


Mäetagused ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 167-184
Author(s):  
Eda Kalmre ◽  

The article follows the narrative trend initiated by the social media posts and fake news during the first months of the corona quarantine, which claims that the decrease of contamination due to the quarantine has a positive effect on the environment and nature recovery. The author describes the context of the topic and follows the changes in the rhetoric through different genres, discussing the ways in which a picture can tell a truthful story. What is the relation between the context, truth, and rhetoric? This material spread globally, yet it was also readily “translated” into the Estonian context, and – what is very characteristic of the entire pandemic material – when approaching this material, truthful and fabricated texts, photos, and videos were combined. From the folkloristic point of view, these rumours in the form of fake news, first presented in the function of a tall tale and further following the sliding truth scale of legends, constitute a part of coping strategies, so-called crisis humour, yet, on the other hand, also a belief story presenting positive imagery, which surrounds the mainly apocalyptically perceived pandemic period and interprets the human existence on a wider scale. Even if these fake news and memes have no truth value, they communicate an idea – nature recovers – and definitely offer hope and a feeling of well-being.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeriy Heyets

Nearly 30 years of transformation of the sociopolitical and legal, socioeconomical and financial, sociocultural and welfare, and socioenvironmental dimensions in both Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, has led to a change of the social quality of daily circumstances. On the one hand, the interconnection and reciprocity of these four relevant dimensions of societal life is the underlying cause of such changes, and on the other, the state as main actor of the sociopolitical and legal dimension is the initiator of those changes. Applying the social quality approach, I will reflect in this article on the consequences of these changes, especially in Ukraine. In comparison, the dominant Western interpretation of the “welfare state” will also be discussed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suren Basov ◽  
M. Ishaq Bhatti

AbstractMost research in contract theory concentrated on the role of incentives in shaping individual behavior. Recent research suggests that social norms also play an important role. From a point of view of a mechanism designer (a principal, a government, and a bank), responsiveness of an agent to the social norms is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it provides the designer with extra instruments, while on the other it puts restrictions on how these new and the more conventional instruments can be used. The main objective of this paper is to investigate this trade-off and study how it shapes different contracts observed in the real world. We consider a model in which agent’s cost of cheating is triggered by the principal’s show of trust. We call such behavior a norm of honesty and trust and show that it drives incentives to be either low powerful or high powerful, eliminating contracts with medium powerful incentives.


Wisdom ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 176-202
Author(s):  
John Kekes

Reflective understanding involves the evaluation of our personal attitude formed of our changing, often faulty, and frequently conflicting beliefs, emotions, desires, experiences, and evaluations. Their evaluation proceeds from two points of view. One is that of our personal attitude. The other is the point of view of the various modes of evaluations that jointly form the evaluative framework of the context in which we live. Both kinds of evaluations may be faulty. Reflective understanding involves the critical evaluation of the reasons for and against the prevailing social evaluations that follow from our personal attitude and of the reasons for and against our personal attitude that follow from the prevailing social evaluations. The test of the adequacy of our personal attitude is our satisfaction with our life. And the test of social evaluations is the continued long-term allegiance of those who follow the social evaluations, although they need not do so.


Author(s):  
Jerzy Leszczyński

This article describes the relation between law and morality when applied to solving legal problems. The relation in question is not understood solely as a conflict between law and morality which implies a need to decide in favour of one or the other. Indeed, moral substance of law make references to morality not only possible but necessary. The limit for those references is established by the principle of equality before the law. Moreover, an internal diversification of morality is analyzed. Some part of it needs to be secured by law, which in itself does not harm the social or individual identity, that is, public and private morality is distinguished, then minimal and maximal morality – concepts proposed by Michael Walzer. This idea, approached from a legal point of view, leads to the formulation of what seems the best-founded proposal: particular and cooperative morality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caius Dobrescu ◽  
Roxana Eichel ◽  
Dorottya Molnár-Kovács ◽  
Sándor Kálai ◽  
Anna Keszeg

Our article focuses on a corpus of crime television series reflecting upon differences between western and eastern Europe – a phenomenon that we will address as the ‘West–East slope’. The series figure as instances of the struggle for recognition at the level of the social imaginary, between western and eastern Europe. Addressing the double logic of the western narrative on eastern Europe and the eastern narrative of western Europe, one of our main findings is that the recognition aesthetics of eastern Europe produced a multi-layered representation of the West varying from country to country. On the other hand in western productions, there is still a bias towards a more politically correct image of easternness, a state of affairs that is questioned by eastern European attempts to produce their original contents.


2018 ◽  
pp. 10-16

“Diaspora” and “migration” are integrated two terms. Term ‘immigration’ denotes the departure from the home and native for getting betterment or elsewhere reason. After settled in the host land the immigrants are suffering for the homesickness, dislocation, seeking own identities in multiple cultures and here the diasporic writer tries to negotiate the situation. In diaspora there is a constant debate about homelessness, and the agony of being located and then dislocated. Migrant writers are keen to trace their roots and write about the social, political as well as cultural happenings of their native homelands. As the immigrant settled in the other nation he is longing from the native culture. And in such situation there outcomes the cultural conflicts and cultural hybridity. Here in this paper I have poured my skill to justify the Michael Ondaatje’s novel “In the skin of a lion” with the cultural conflict point of view.


2007 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risto Heiskala

English The great transformation to modernity made the economy the major organizing factor of the social synthesis, thus bringing forth the issue of the economy/society relationship as the central problem of modern social theory. This article deals with two broad approaches to this problem: Parsons's and Habermas's variants of structural-functionalism, on the one hand, and various currents of (neo)institutionalism, on the other. An attempt to synthesize the benefits of these conflicting approaches is made from the point of view of semiotic institutionalism. What emerges is a general theoretical framework, which is better equipped than the original structural-functionalist and institutionalist conceptions for the analysis of the economy/society relationship. French Les grandes transformations vers la modernité ont fait de l'économie le principal facteur organisateur de la synthèse sociale, portant sur le devant de la scène la question de la relation économie/société en tant que question centrale de la théorie sociale moderne. L'article s'intéresse à deux grandes approches de cette question: les variantes structuro-fonctionnalistes de Parsons et Habermas d'une part, et divers courants du (néo)institutionnalisme de l'autre. L'auteur s'efforce de faire la synthèse des points forts de ces deux approches conflictuelles du point de vue de l'institutionnalisme sémiotique. Il en émerge un cadre théorique général plus adapté que les conceptions structurofonctionnalistes et institutionnalistes à l'analyse de la relation économie/société.


1950 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josef Pieper

My intention is: to try to face a certain central social problem in its connection with the concept of leisure. And I hope that a solution of that problem, or at least some ways towards a solution, may become more clear and visible. This is a rather modest purpose (because problems are still not solved when a solution has become visible or even when some ways of a solution have become more clear than before).I shall not consider the social problem from a formally sociological point of view or from a formally political point of view, but from a philosophical point of view. It shall not be spoken of in such a way that the field of vision is completely filled with it. The point-of-view does not lie so close to the concrete phenomena that our attention is occupied and consumed by their immediate impact. Philosophical consideration means that a certain subject is considered within the horizon of the total and universal reality; it belongs to the essence and nature of a really philosophical question, that not only this question itself comes into play, but that—onsidering, meditating this question—one is obliged to bring into play the totality of the world, even God and the world. In such a view the discussion loses perhaps some actual interest for the politician or for an immediately-involved man. But on the other hand, it might be that deeper possibilities of a solution become perceivable, just because the totality of the real world, especially the totality of human nature, comes into the range of vision. It might be, too, that there are social and political problems which, from the mere viewpoint of sociology and politics, cannot be solved. And perhaps this possibility is relevant to our present case. I would like to formulate the claim very modestly. In question is a sort of attempt, a proposal, to view the problem from a new and familiar standpoint. There may result an insight into the social problem—which possibly can become useful within the sphere of politics.


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