Suchergebnisse

The last four decades have witnessed enormous changes in the Republic of Ireland in terms of society, economy and politics. Formerly perceived as a poor, peripheral and "priest-ridden" country additionally plagued by political violence in Northern Ireland, over recent decades Irish voters have supported a series of "liberal causes". Indeed, nowhere is this more apparent than Ireland's laws concerning abortion, an issue which displayed a seismic shift not only among Irish voters but the political parties which claim to represent them, a shift clearly reflected in the public discourse. At the same time, it will be seen that the use of a Citizens' Assembly as an exercise in "deliberative democracy" has allowed mainstream political parties to pass responsibility, at least partially, for changes to controversial laws to an extra-parliamentary body, thereby allowing them to claim that they were following the will of "the people" and finally settle one of the longest running conflicts in Irish political life. Thus, this article seeks to examine and describe both how effective the Irish Citizens' Assembly was at achieving its stated goal and its influence on the nation's public discourse concerning the issue of abortion.

The last four decades have witnessed enormous changes in the Republic of Ireland in terms of society, economy and politics. Formerly perceived as a poor, peripheral and "priest-ridden" country additionally plagued by political violence in Northern Ireland, over recent decades Irish voters have supported a series of "liberal causes". Indeed, nowhere is this more apparent than Ireland's laws concerning abortion, an issue which displayed a seismic shift not only among Irish voters but the political parties which claim to represent them, a shift clearly reflected in the public discourse. At the same time, it will be seen that the use of a Citizens' Assembly as an exercise in "deliberative democracy" has allowed mainstream political parties to pass responsibility, at least partially, for changes to controversial laws to an extra-parliamentary body, thereby allowing them to claim that they were following the will of "the people" and finally settle one of the longest running conflicts in Irish political life. Thus, this article seeks to examine and describe both how effective the Irish Citizens' Assembly was at achieving its stated goal and its influence on the nation's public discourse concerning the issue of abortion.

Beata Halicka's masterly narrated biography is the story of an extraordinary man and leading intellectual in the Polish-American community. Z. Anthony Kruszewski was first a Polish scout fighting in World War II against the Nazi occupiers, then a Prisoner of War/Displaced Person in Western Europe. He was stranded as a penniless immigrant in post-war America and eventually became a world-renowned academic. Kruszewski's almost incredible life stands out from his entire generation. His story is a microcosm of 20th-century history, covering various theatres and incorporating key events and individuals. Kruszewski walks a stage very few people have even stood on, both as an eye-witness at the centre of the Second World War, and later as vice-president of the Polish American Congress, and a professor and political scientist at world-class universities in the USA. Not only did he become a pioneer and a leading figure in Borderland Studies, but he is a borderlander in every sense of the word

"The incorporation of German territories east of the Oder and Western Neisse rivers into Poland in 1945 was linked with the difficult process of an almost total exchange of population and involved the taking over of a region in which the WWII had effected an enormous level of destruction. The contemporary term 'Polish Wild West' not only alluded to the reigning atmosphere of chaos and 'survival of the fittest' in the Polish-German borderland but was also associated with a new kind of freedom and the opportunity to start everything anew. The arrival in this region of Polish settlers from different parts of Poland, led to Poles, Germans and Soviet soldiers temporarily coming into contact with each other. Living together in this war-damaged space was far from easy. On the basis of ego-documents, the author recreates the beginnings of the shaping of this new society, one affected by a repressive political system, internal conflicts and human tragedy. In distancing oneself from the until-recently dominant narratives concerning expellees in Germany or pioneers of the 'Recovered Territories' in Poland, Beata Halicka tells the story of the disintegration of a previous cultural landscape and the establishment of one which was new, in a colourful and vivid manner and encompassing different points of view"--

Klappentext: "This interdisciplinary book brings together eleven original contributions by scholars in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, America and Japan which represent innovative and important research on the relationship between cities and their hinterlands. They discuss the factors which determined the changing nature of port-hinterland relations in particular, and highlight the ways in which port-cities have interacted and intersected with their different hinterlands as a result of both in- and out-migration, cultural exchange and the wider flow of goods, services and information. Historically, maritime commerce was a powerful driving force behind urbanisation and by 1850 seaports accounted for a significant proportion of the world's great cities. Ports acted as nodal points for the flow of population and the dissemination of goods and services, but their role as growth poles also affected the economic transformation of both their hinterlands and forelands. In fact, most ports, irrespective of their size, had a series of overlapping hinterlands whose shifting importance reflected changes in trading relations (political frameworks), migration patterns, family networks, and cultural exchange. Urban historians have been criticised for being concerned primarily with self-contained processes which operate within the boundaries of individual towns and cities and as a result, the key relationships between cities and their hinterlands have often been neglected. The chapters in this work focus primarily on the determinants of port-hinterland linkages and analyse these as distinct, but interrelated, fields of interaction. Marking a significant contribution to the literature in this field, Port-Cities and their Hinterlands provides essential reading for students and scholars of the history of economics. Robert Lee was the Chaddock Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Liverpool, UK, where he is now an Emeritus and Honorary Professor. Paul McNamara is Assistant Professor in History and Political Science at the Technical University of Koszalin, Poland"--

AbstractThis study examines the early effect of work requirements on mental health of subsidized housing recipients. The Housing Authority of Champaign County (HACC) enforced work requirements for working-aged and non-disabled recipients and supported their transition to work with case management services. In addition, non-compliance with work requirements might result in the loss of housing subsidy. We collected survey data 1 year prior to and 1 year following the implementation of HACC's work requirements to compare changes in mental health measures between work-able recipients who were and were not subject to work requirements. We calculate the average treatment effects on the treated estimates obtained from difference-in-differences with propensity score matching to control potential bias stemming from unobserved time-invariant variables and support the model's parallel trend assumption. Our main results show that, during the early phase of work requirements, impacted heads of households were predicted to increase depression scores and decrease hopefulness scores relative to changes in mental health measures of the matched control groups over the same period. Recipients' mental health would play a critical role in the success of HACC's self-sufficiency strategies, and therefore the housing authority may strengthen the transition of hard-to-employ recipients into the workforce by offering careful assessment and screening to identify recipients with serious mental health problems or other employment barriers and reinforcing their access to supportive health and social services.