Suchergebnisse

After the breakup of the U.S.S.R., some of the newly independent states encountered the problem of aggressive separatism. Bellicose rhetoric soon developed into armed conflicts and a whole range of local wars over territory. In some countries (as in Georgia and Moldova), these wars-at least formally-were a confrontation between the central government and armed groups of separatists from the same state. In other countries, they were even formally transformed into interstate wars. In particular, Armenia went into action on the side of the Nagorno-Karabakh separatists, but since it was far superior to them both in terms of the number of combatants and in terms of armaments, in actual fact Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh switched roles almost right after the outbreak of hostilities: from now on it was Nagorno-Karabakh that fought on the side of Armenia, which tried to annex (no matter whether formally or informally) a significant part of the territory of Azerbaijan. "Post-Soviet wars" did not lead to a final resolution of territorial disputes. One of the main reasons for this was that in virtually all cases there was interference by third states which were stronger than the conflicting parties themselves. These states naturally pursued their own interests, mostly by means of assistance to one of the parties involved and sometimes by encouraging, supporting or preserving the conflict in question. When the first wave of "post-Soviet wars" came to an end and gave way to a search for peaceful ways of conflict resolution, some newly independent states, prompted by the natural course of history, objectively came to realize that joint efforts based on essentially common positions are, as a rule, more effective than uncoordinated attempts by individual countries to solve their problem single-handedly. The global community is more attentive and considerate to joint political actions by several united states than if each of them had advocated the same ideas on its own. The advisability of joining forces in the international arena in order to resolve or prevent territorial problems was exactly what induced Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova to create GUAM in 1997. It is no accident that ten years later (in October 2007) they once again emphasized in a joint statement of their Vilnius summit that the development and integration of the GUAM countries was still burdened with unresolved conflicts in the territories of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova, and reaffirmed their commitment to finding peaceful solutions to these conflicts based on sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of internationally recognized state borders. One might get the impression that Ukraine does not belong among these countries because it has no armed conflicts in its territory started in order to separate some part of the country's territory and, consequently, no enclaves "infected" with aggressive separatism. But this is a superficial impression. In actual fact, there are regions in Ukraine which can potentially turn into areas of sharp conflict. It is no coincidence that many Russian experts, when examining the political leverage for pressuring Ukraine and Georgia (whose governments they regard as openly anti-Russian), put support for the separatist regimes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia on a par with the so-called "game being played with regional political elites in Donbas and the Crimea." That is why, while supporting the other GUAM countries in their struggle to overcome the consequences of aggressive separatism, Ukraine is simultaneously working to prevent such phenomena in its own territory. Yet another and, to a certain extent, background prerequisite for the unification of the GUAM countries was that by then they had already established new, direct economic relations among themselves, so that these relations could now be built without external interference (i.e., without the former Soviet "center") and on a fundamentally new, market basis.

What welfare states do is distinguished into social administration, social education, social reform. and social steering, Steering reaches furthest into people's lives. As such it is problematic both to integrative and aggregative theories of democracy. A systematic overview of aggregate data on the major activities of households is a base for analysing how the population affects and is affected by the welfare state. (Abstract amended)

If it continues, deglobalization may lead not to atomization but two overlapping international orders: a liberal one (LIO) led by the United States, and an authoritarian–capitalist one (ACIO) led by China. This equilibrium could emerge because a central purpose of international orders is to preserve the domestic regimes of their Great Power sponsors. The United States and China have markedly different domestic regimes, and so as China continues to grow in power and influence, tension over the content of international order should continue to grow. I borrow from Darwinian evolution the notion of 'niche construction': just as organisms alter phenotype selection by manipulating their natural environments, states can alter the 'selection' of domestic regimes by shaping their international environments. Modes of international niche construction include foreign regime promotion, interdependence, transnational interaction and multilateral institutions. The liberal democratic niche constructed by the United States and its allies after the Second World War preserved democracy for many decades. Today, China is attempting through various means to build a niche that will eliminate the liberal bias in international institutions and safeguard its own Market-Leninist regime. The resulting ACIO would select for autocracy and hence be partially separate from the LIO, which selects for liberal democracy.

In recent past, various Indian States have enacted legislations prescribing minimum educational qualification norms for contesting elections to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs)—rural self-government bodies—claiming that this would enhance the effectiveness of these local elected officials. The current study is an attempt to investigate the conceptual basis for such an assertion through analysis of existing literature and practices. The study proposes that educational qualification has a significant direct impact on effectiveness of the elected PRI representatives. Furthermore, their educational qualification also determines the extent to which capacity-building training imparted to elected PRI representatives enhances their effectiveness as elected officials. Thus, educational qualification has been identified as both an independent/predictor variable as well as a Moderator.

This book is a history of an illusion. It is also a history of the dream that preceded the illusion. The book discusses statistics as the field of tension between the scientific claims of neutrality and universality on the one hand and the political and economic reality of the conflicting interests of nation-states on the other. The various paths of state- and nation-building that European countries traversed in the nineteenth century are recognisable in the objectives of government statistics and are reflected in the topics selected for statistical study and in the categories used in the research. Each congress was clearly dominated by the specific interests of the country in which the statisticians convened. The book shows in each case how the organisation of government statistics and national concerns influenced the international agenda. It describes the perceptions, goals and dilemmas of the protagonists and their contact with each other, and in so doing unravels the complex relationships between science, government and society, wherever possible from their point of view. The genesis of international statistics was inspired by a desire for reform. Belgium's pioneering role in the European statistical movement was informed both by its liberal polity and the special status of statistics within it, and by Adolphe Quetelet's key position as an intellectual. The consolidation of the Grand Duchy of Baden, a new medium-sized state in the Rhine Confederation and later in the German Confederation, offered great opportunities for the development of official statistics.

This book is a history of an illusion. It is also a history of the dream that preceded the illusion. The book discusses statistics as the field of tension between the scientific claims of neutrality and universality on the one hand and the political and economic reality of the conflicting interests of nation-states on the other. The various paths of state- and nation-building that European countries traversed in the nineteenth century are recognisable in the objectives of government statistics and are reflected in the topics selected for statistical study and in the categories used in the research. Each congress was clearly dominated by the specific interests of the country in which the statisticians convened. The book shows in each case how the organisation of government statistics and national concerns influenced the international agenda. It describes the perceptions, goals and dilemmas of the protagonists and their contact with each other, and in so doing unravels the complex relationships between science, government and society, wherever possible from their point of view. The genesis of international statistics was inspired by a desire for reform. Belgium's pioneering role in the European statistical movement was informed both by its liberal polity and the special status of statistics within it, and by Adolphe Quetelet's key position as an intellectual. The consolidation of the Grand Duchy of Baden, a new medium-sized state in the Rhine Confederation and later in the German Confederation, offered great opportunities for the development of official statistics.

Purpose
This study aims to address the question of what coordination mechanism can be used for cultural production and, in particular, for the governance of music culture production. The authors locate their reflection within the specific institutional innovations introduced in Italy in 2017, focusing on the idea of shared administration and the public–private collaboration instituted in Trentino (a province located in northern Italy) in support of its cultural policy.


Design/methodology/approach
This study focusses on the Trentino's music school system. This includes 13 organisations (musicians' cooperatives as well as associations of musicians and students, plus one municipal school which do not overlap with the public school system). To analyse shared administration features, the authors rely on selected information from 50 interviews with Trentino Music Schools (TMS) teachers and administrators, and on the proceedings of the 1994 music school conference organised by the schools at the time when this novel educational system was created.


Findings
To offer an innovative educational service, the public actor (Provincia Autonoma di Trento [PAT]) and the schools (TMS) have developed a strong interdependence at the different levels of decision-making: PAT needs organisations that are sufficiently structured and organised to respect requirements of transparency and accountability, as well as educational standards, whereas TMS need public funding to maintain their service accessible for users, good labour conditions and be financially sustainable. Likewise, the success of TMS in educating thousands of students every year, including additional teaching programmes funded by PAT within general public schools, has contributed to decrease the exclusion from music education, raise interest in young people for music and fed enrolment in TMS as well as in the public schools related to the conservatoire filière. Conclusions emphasise the existence of a polycentric system of music culture production which needs to acknowledge the risk of being trapped in a static disequilibrium, while recognising change and the need to support and promote a culture of cooperation among schools and across layered institutional levels over time.


Research limitations/implications
Further research can observe this system of cultural production over time, to appreciate changes and organisational tranformations, while introducing comparative analysis with other systems in different regions.


Practical implications
The relationship between the public and private sectors to design, organise and manage activities of collective interest (in the social, cultural, sporting and other fields) can increasingly become an effective and efficient alternative to the traditional bureaucratic as well as to the competitive method. For this to happen, however, all actors involved must be aware not only of areas of efficiency but also of inefficiency. To remedy the latter, corrective measures will have to be introduced. For example, fostering and improving "co-programmazione" and "co-progettazione" means giving all stakeholders involved the opportunity to actively participate. Should the number of participants increase, more discussion fora could be set up because one alone may not be sufficient to foster maximum involvement, to enhance different points of view, to allow for intersectoral and multidisciplinary interpretations and responses.


Social implications
The system governance based on co-programming and co-design has allowed – despite limitations – to pursue educational purposes and thus well-being for the users, as well as for the teachers and the community as a whole. The continuity of this educational and cultural action has been guaranteed by the economic and financial sustainability of the schools, which is highly dependent on the public actor funding personnel costs, and in turn tied to the number of students (demand) attending each school. Actors embedded in the system need to build awareness of industry and cultural changes and knowledge of how to introduce more adaptive capacity. This points towards the need for strengthening networking capacity and collaboration among schools and other relevant stakeholders.


Originality/value
The case presented is a unique system of music culture production in Italy, and its governance has never been addressed by previous studies. It provides an application of shared administration to which public administrations and communities can learn to improve access to music culture and education. For public and private organisations to take advantage of the method of "co-programmazione" and "co-progettazione", to make the production of a meritorious good more efficient and to favour its maximum accessibility, this study considers the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, or the areas of efficiency and inefficiency, for which new measures will have to be introduced.

Chapter 1: Fragility and innovations in data collection; Johannes Hoogeveen and Utz Pape -- Part I: Innovations in data collection -- Chapter 2: Monitoring the Ebola crisis using mobile phone surveys; Alvin Etang and Kristen Himelein -- Chapter 3: Rapid Emergency Response Survey; Utz Pape -- Chapter 4: Tracking displaced people in Mali; Alvin Etang and Johannes Hoogeveen -- Chapter 5: Locally recruited, resident and enumerators for continuous monitoring; Andre-Marie Taptué and Johannes Hoogeveen -- Chapter 6: A local development index for the Central African Republic and Mali; Mohamed Coulibaly, Johannes Hoogeveen, Roy Katayama and Gervais Chamberlin Yama -- Part II: Methodologically innovations -- Chapter 7: Geo-spatial sampling; Stephanie Eckman and Kristen Himelein -- Chapter 8: Sampling in chaotic environments; Ana I. Aguilera, Nandini Krishnan, Juan Munoz, Flavio Russo Riva, Dhiraj Sharma and Tara Vishwanath -- Chapter 9: Rapid consumption surveys; Utz Pape and Johan Mistiaen -- Chapter 10: Studying sensitive topics in fragile contexts; Mohammad R Isaqzadeh, Saad Gulzar and Jacob N. Shapiro -- Chapter 11: Eliciting accurate consumption responses from vulnerable populations; Lennart Kaplan, Utz Johann Pape and James Walsh -- Part III: Other innovations -- Chapter 12: Using video testimonials to give a voice to the poor; Utz Pape -- Chapter 13: Iterative beneficiary monitoring of World Bank projects; Johannes Hoogeveen and Andre-Marie Taptué -- Chapter 14: Concluding remarks: Data Collection in FCV environments; Johannes Hoogeveen and Utz Pape

AbstractThe controversy over a woman's "right to choose," as opposed to the numerous "rights" that abortion opponents decide should be assumed to exist for "unborn children," has always struck me as incomplete. Two missing elements of the argument seem obvious, yet they remain almost completely overlooked. The first is that there is virtually no consideration whatsoever for the pregnant person herself. Her rights, if she is even assumed to have any at all, do not in any way enter into consideration, unless possibly if the pregnancy appears to threaten her life (to be sure, some more humane anti‐abortionists do concede, often grudgingly, that no one should have to carry to term a pregnancy caused by rape, but the point remains). Second, and most paradoxically, opponents of abortion appear also generally to be opposed to "big government," yet all the while they refuse to recognize any rights at all that belong to the person who is pregnant and to be comfortable with complete control over her. The opponents seem oblivious to the clear fact that stripping pregnant adults of all ability to determine their future requires an enormously powerful, virtually totalitarian government. So, I argue that it is not correct that the United States has had a tradition of abortion prohibition while simultaneously being a "free country." The association of anti‐abortion policies with right‐wing authoritarianism is definite. Whether there is a cause‐and‐effect relationship is irrelevant. All repressive and dictatorial policies need to be opposed. The Republican Party now continues its merry way to suppress votes, subvert democracy, and attempt to ensure that women are stripped of their autonomy and serve only as incubators for the preservation of the human race and for male pleasure. I conclude that looking at abortion from the viewpoint of informed common sense is long overdue. This article provides that overdue look, along with my apology for not having given the warning sooner.

The article analyzes media education in Spain, which is designed to help society better adapt to the world of information, learn the language of the media, gain skills in the perception of information. The concepts "media education" and "media literacy" are disclosed in the research. It has been proved that media education is a part of an educational process aimed at forming media culture in society, which results in media literacy and allows consumers to analyze media messages critically in order to notice propaganda, censorship or one-sidedness in news and public interestprograms. Media literacy is aimed at making people experienced creators and producers of media messages. The task of media literacy is to transform media consumption into an active and critical process, helping them understand the potential manipulation. It has been found that in the current media system television provides a growing level of interactivity, which improves the communication of programs with their audiences where the leading role belongs to talk shows. Thus, one of the priority tasks of education today is the need to educate citizens and enable them to interact critically and intelligently with modern globalized media. The article examines the impact of Spanish political talk shows on public and shows how to expand audience participation in different ways. It was determined that the use of television evening talk shows for political information, namely evening talk shows, links all three categories of criterion variables – political efficiency, political trust and probability of choice – either directly or through interaction with the third variable. Recommendations that will increase viewers' confidence in political talk shows were proposed. The findings show that the use of evening talk shows as a source of political understanding can contribute to political inefficiency and political mistrust on the part of the public.

The article analyzes media education in Spain, which is designed to help society better adapt to the world of information, learn the language of the media, gain skills in the perception of information. The concepts "media education" and "media literacy" are disclosed in the research. It has been proved that media education is a part of an educational process aimed at forming media culture in society, which results in media literacy and allows consumers to analyze media messages critically in order to notice propaganda, censorship or one-sidedness in news and public interestprograms. Media literacy is aimed at making people experienced creators and producers of media messages. The task of media literacy is to transform media consumption into an active and critical process, helping them understand the potential manipulation. It has been found that in the current media system television provides a growing level of interactivity, which improves the communication of programs with their audiences where the leading role belongs to talk shows. Thus, one of the priority tasks of education today is the need to educate citizens and enable them to interact critically and intelligently with modern globalized media. The article examines the impact of Spanish political talk shows on public and shows how to expand audience participation in different ways. It was determined that the use of television evening talk shows for political information, namely evening talk shows, links all three categories of criterion variables – political efficiency, political trust and probability of choice – either directly or through interaction with the third variable. Recommendations that will increase viewers' confidence in political talk shows were proposed. The findings show that the use of evening talk shows as a source of political understanding can contribute to political inefficiency and political mistrust on the part of the public.