Search results

Ramet reviews 'Catholic Politics in Europe 1918-1945' by Martin Conway.

'Secularisation in Western Europe, 1848-1914' by Hugh McLeod is reviewed.

Digitised version produced by the EUI Library and made available online in 2020.

As the above title indicates, because of the publication schedule of Hungarian Cultural Studies this bibliography straddles 2020-2021, covering the period since the publication in Fall of 2020 of last year's bibliography in this journal. Each year's bibliography may also be supplemented by earlier items, which were retrieved only recently. Although this bibliography series can only concentrate on English-language items, occasional items of particular interest in other languages may be included. For a more extensive bibliography of Hungarian Studies from about 2000 to 2010, for which this is a continuing update, see Louise O. Vasvári, Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, and Carlo Salzani. "Bibliography for Work in Hungarian Studies as Comparative Central European Studies." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (Library) (2011): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/hungarianstudiesbibliography

Well-enforced norms create an opportunity for norm breakers to cooperate in ventures requiring trust. This is realized when norm breakers, by sharing evidence of their breaches, make themselves vulnerable to denunciation and therefore trustworthy. The sharing of compromising information (SCI) is a strategy employed by criminals, politicians, and other actors wary of their partners' trustworthiness in which the cost of ensuring compliance is offloaded on clueless norm enforcers. Here we introduce SCI as a sui generis cooperative strategy and test its functioning experimentally. In our experiment, subjects first acquire the label "dove" or "hawk" depending on how cooperative or uncooperative they are, respectively. Hawks acquire compromising information embodied in their label and can reveal it before an interaction with trust at stake. Unlike doves, hawks who reveal their label make themselves vulnerable to their partners, who can inflict a penalty on them after interaction. We find that even students in as artificial a setting as a computerized decision laboratory grasp the advantage of SCI and use it to cooperate. Our results corroborate the idea that compromising information can be conceived as a "hostage" that, when mutually exchanged, makes each party to the interaction vulnerable and therefore trustworthy in joint endeavours.

SummaryContemporary Developments in Rural Life in EuropeRunning through a great deal of discussion in contemporary rural sociology in Europe is to be found the question: "Will there be a genuine rural‐urban difference in the Europe of the future?"It is against the background of an ever‐developing urban‐industrial society that what is called rural society is increasingly studied. In America an analogous development has led rural sociologists to formulate a new interpretation of rural life, in which the key concept is urbanised social organisation, in the sense that rural people as well as urban are said to live in the same essential pattern of social organisation.Should this tendency be carried to its logical extremes, there would be little future for a specifically rural sociology or rural life in Europe. It is for this reason that a good deal of heart‐searching is going on in the ranks of European rural sociologists at the present time. There is a real danger that rural sociology could become almost exclusively a descriptive and adaptative excursus in the processes of an urbanising society.If this danger exists it is due in large measure to a lack of an adequate conceptual apparatus such as would ensure due definition and orientation to studies. This situation is reflected in a noticeable concentration on micro‐social as against macro‐social studies, with the result that rural sociologists are far from certain as to what indeed is, rural society as such.The reasons for this situation are connected with the pragmatic origins of rural sociology, both in America and Europe, and with a general reaction to the exaggerated conceptualisation and systematisation of earlier theoretical sociology.There is need for a renewed effort at an understanding of the meaning and nature of rural society as such. In particular, the question should be asked whether it is possible to develop a progressive rural society, yet one that is not characterised by an urban social organisation in the specific city sense?In undertaking this task, rural sociology should place more emphasis than has been customary on an understanding of rural life and society through an understanding of rural people. This calls for the use of the techniques of social psychology, anthropology, etc. as well as those of strict sociology. It calls also for the bestowing of more attention than is usual on the 'guiding images', 'goals', and 'values' of different rural societies in different parts of Europe.

After the vigorous engagement of the international community, which resulted in the Dayton Accord, Royamont Initiative, the EU's Regional Approach, the SECI and, finally, the Stability Pact, it seems that the likeliness of new challenges to the security has been eliminated from Southeastern Europe The involvement of a number of significant international factors, plus the presence of military forces in the Balkans - whether through SFOR, KFOR or NATO - should all lead us to the conclusion that a possible outbreak of larger conflicts is impossible; moreover, even some other forms of insecurity are almost totally under control. If the security of this region is to be compared to the situation in other parts of Europe, it can be said with certainty that the challenges to security will continue to have their local, as well as their universal foundations. This will make the demands of the international community and local forces - on condition they truly aspire towards Europe - much more dynamic and committed. Only by such systematic efforts will it be possible to overcome the existing situation and create the necessary pre-conditions for the integration of Southeast Europe into Europe proper. (SOI : PM: S. 3)

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are a primary tool for conserving marine biodiversity. The literature presents a scattered picture regarding the extent to which co-management can be considered valuable. In this study we examine, what conditions are for co-management to make a contribution to conserving marine ecosystems (e.g., stopping coral bleaching and safeguarding fish populations). By combining data on MPA management practices with a novel source of global biodata collected by citizens (ReefCheck), we demonstrate that if co-management is part of a formal governmental strategy, coral reefs show up to 86% fewer bleached colonies and up to 12.2 times larger fish populations than co-managed MPAs lacking formalized governmental support.

Lynn reviews The Worlds of Medieval Europe by Clifford R. Backman.