The 2006 midterm has undercut some familiar assertions about contemporary electoral politics. Political analysts seem to have overstated Republican advantages in several areas: voter turnout, campaign finance, congressional apportionment, party unity, and social issues. The GOP's loss is the discipline's gain, as the election raises good questions for scholarly research. Adapted from the source document.
This paper has two sources: One is my own research in three broad areas: business cycles, economic measurement and social choice. In all of these fields I attempted to apply the basic precepts of the scientific method as it is understood in the natural sciences. I found that my effort at using natural science methods in economics was met with little understanding and often considerable hostility. I found economics to be driven less by common sense and empirical evidence, than by various ideologies that exhibited either a political or a methodological bias, or both. This brings me to the second source: Several books have appeared recently that describe in historical terms the ideological forces that have shaped either the direct areas in which I worked, or a broader background. These books taught me that the ideological forces in the social sciences are even stronger than I imagined on the basis of my own experiences. The scientific method is the antipode to ideology. I feel that the scientific work that I have done on specific, long standing and fundamental problems in economics and political science have given me additional insights into the destructive role of ideology beyond the history of thought orientation of the works I will be discussing.
Sweden Stumbles along the third way / Peter Baldwin -- In the rupture between this and another world to come : introductory remarks on pandemic emergency and Sweden's response / Sigurd Bergmann and Martin Lindström -- A timeline of events : December 2019 to February 2022 / Sigurd Bergmann -- An expert authority without real experts? Deliberate disinformation from the Swedish public health agency on the SARS-CoV-2 infection's spread in the population / Anders Vahlne -- The COVID-19-pandemic and the Swedish strategy : central aspects of the implementation of the strategy in relation to evidence-based medicine / Martin Lindström -- The Swedish COVID-19 response : from poorly judged utilitarism to history revisionism and the tragedy of the commons / Emil Bergholtz -- Learning from failure : mastering a pandemic in the triad of science, politics and trust / Sigurd Bergmann -- Epidemiology and COVID-19 : why numbers are important and can be misleading / Nele Brusselaers -- The political economy of estimating immunity levels / Rodney Edvinsson -- Children at the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic / Johanna Höög -- The biopolitics of herd immunity / Lapo Lappin -- Collaborators, supporters, and science judges : how trust in the public health agency's messaging was achieved / Kajsa Klein -- Sweden unmasked : reading state and society through the pandemic / Jens Stilhoff Sörensen -- Sweden's preventive medicine : a drastic end to a 280-year long story of success / Gunnar Steineck.
Ovaj rad predstavlja nastavak i proširenje longitudinalnoga praćenja i analize stranačke dinamike te socijalne strukture i nekih političkih obilježja zastupnika u Hrvatskom saboru. Istraživanjem smo nastojali detektirati obrasce političke regrutacije parlamentarne elite, a u tu smo se svrhu koristili komparativnom analizom socijalnih i političkih obilježja zastupnika u svih pet dosadašnjih saziva Sabora, te unutar posljednjega, petog saziva, usporedbom po političkim strankama i parlamentarnom iskustvu zastupnika. Ustanovljeno je da su zastupnici dominantno muškarci prosječne dobi od 49 godina, urbane provenijencije i domicila, Hrvati, katolici, akademski obrazovani, i to pretežno na fakultetima društvenih i humanističkih znanosti, te političari sa znatnim upravljačkim i političkim iskustvom stečenim ponajviše radom u političkim strankama. Zaključak je da su se u Hrvatskoj oblikovali obrasci političke regrutacije parlamentarne elite koji su tendencijski sukladni onima u razvijenim demokratskim sustavima. (IN ENGLISH: This paper is a continuation and an extension of the longitudinal monitoring and analysis of the party dynamics, social structure and certain political features of the representatives in the Croatian Parliament (Sabor). The goal of the research was to discern the patterns of political recruitment of the parliamentary elite by means of a comparative analysis of social and political characteristics of the representatives in all five compositions of the Parliament and – in the last, fifth composition – by comparing the representatives' political party affiliations and their parliamentary experience. It has turned out that the representatives are mostly male (average age 49 years), of urban provenience and residence, Croats, Catholics, diploma-holders (largely in social sciences and humanities), and politicians with a remarkable managerial and political experience gained primarily through their work in political parties. The conclusion is that in Croatia the trends regarding the patterns of political recruitment of the parliamentary elite are in line with those in developed democratic systems.)
What might break the 'glass ceiling' that has so far prevented a deep sustainability transformation? I consider the cultural dimension of such a transformation. Cultural meanings not only provide the building blocks of individuals' life stories, but collectively construct social reality, powerfully shaping how people think and act. Any glass ceiling to societal transformation is partly cultural, and can be reproduced by a society's 'political grammar,' which constrains what can be perceived and politically advanced. Contesting these limits is vital for making glass ceilings visible and opening up new transformative potentials. Consequently, overcoming the glass ceiling of the environmental state must be understood as a cultural transformation: a process of 'meaning-making' that re-orientates people's fundamental norms and outlooks. This adds nuance to the debate around democracy and sustainability; it is not democracy in general, but only a particularly vibrant and critical deliberative sphere that can provide the necessary political foundation.
