Como respuesta al conflicto armado que se ha desarrollado en Libia a lo largo de 2011, la UE ha ejecutado las sanciones decididas por el Consejo de Seguridad que no implican el uso de la fuerza, ha destinado más de 150 millones de euros de ayuda humanitaria a la región, ha puesto en marcha la operación FRONTEX "EPN Hermes Extensión 2011", y ha proyectado una operación militar de apoyo a la asistencia humanitaria, la EUFOR Libia, que nunca se ha desplegado. En una perspectiva más general, las revueltas populares que se han sucedido en varios Estados del sur del Mediterráneo, entre ellos Libia, en el que se ha desembocado en una guerra civil, han certificado el fracaso de la política exterior de la UE en esta región. En efecto, durante la última década la política euromediterránea de la UE ha estado mucho más centrada en la cooperación económica y comercial —sobre todo en el campo energético— y en el control de la inmigración irregular, que en el escrupuloso respeto del ordenamiento internacional y la promoción de la democracia, el Estado de derecho y el respecto de los derechos humanos, así como el desarrollo económico y social de la población de los Estados del sur del Mediterráneo. ; As a response to the armed conflict occurred in Libya during year 2011, the EU has applied those Security Council sanctions not involving the use of force. Likewise, the EU has allocated more than E 150 million to humanitarian assistance in the region having implemented Frontex Operation «EPN Hermes Extension 2011» as well and having designed a military operation in support of humanitarian assistance there —the so-called EUFOR Libya, never deployed before. From a more general perspective, people's uprisings in several Southern Mediterranean States —which in the Libyan case has led to a civil war— have proved the failure of EU's foreign policy in the region. In fact, EU's Euro-Mediterranean Policy in the last decade has been mainly focused on financial and trade cooperation (especially in the energy field) and on irregular migration control, to the detriment of the full respect for International Law, and the promotion of democracy, the rule of Law and the respect for human rights, and the economic and social development of the peoples in Southern Mediterranean States. ; Trabajo elaborado en el marco del proyecto de investigación coordinado, concedido por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, "La Política Mediterránea de la Unión Europea en perspectiva: el proceso de Barcelona, la Unión para el Mediterráneo y los intereses españoles" (DER2009-14238-C02-01).
L'envelliment de la població és una qüestió que preocupa des de ja fa un temps les autoritats polítiques. D'aquí que, tant a nivell nacional com internacional, s'aposti per la promoció d'iniciatives adreçades a millorar la qualitat de vida de les persones grans. La promoció de les relacions intergeneracionals n'és una, per això dediquem aquest treball al tractament d'aquestes relacions. Aquesta contribució aporta algunes dades que aconsellen la promoció de les relacions entre generacions, i aposta pels programes intergeneracionals com un recurs per a fer-les possible. ; The issue of the aging of the population has been of concern to the political authorities for quite some time now, and there is a commitment at both national and international level to developing and implementing initiatives capable of improving the quality of life of older people. One of these initiatives is the promotion of intergenerational relationships, and in taking these as its subject, this paper puts forward data to support the promotion of closer relations between young and old, and identifies intergenerational programmes as a key resource for fostering these. ; El envejecimiento de la población es una cuestión que viene preocupando desde hace ya algún tiempo a las autoridades políticas. De ahí que, tanto a nivel nacional como internacional, se apueste por la promoción de iniciativas dirigidas a mejorar la calidad de vida de las personas mayores. La promoción de las relaciones intergeneracionales es una de ellas, de ahí que dediquemos este trabajo al tratamiento de las mismas. Esta contribución aporta algunos datos que aconsejan la promoción de las relaciones entre generaciones, y apuesta por los programas intergeneracionales como un recurso para posibilitarlas.
The focus of this research is on Finland's role in Soviet Union's calculation of its foreign policy between 1920 and 1930. This was the first decade of both Finnish independence and of Soviet power in Russia. This book answers questions about the objectives of Soviet foreign policy in Finland, on the contacts used by the Soviet legation to obtain information, and on how well the Soviets understood Finland's objectives. People interested in Finland and in Russian perspectives with regards to foreign policy and neighbouring countries will find much new in this book because it relies on formerly unpublished Russian archival material to form the basis for charting Soviet objectives in Finland. The book shows that the Soviets primarily observed Finland in a larger regional context along with other states on its borders in the Baltic Sea region. The global objectives of the revolution and the Soviet Union, but also the domestic political situation in both countries, are reflected on this framework. The period was characterized by forced collectivization in the Soviet Union and, in Finland, by the rise of the right-wing Lapua Movement that emerged at the onset of the Great Depression, laying the foundations for the most severe crisis in the relations during 1929–1930 when the issues surrounding these events destabilized simultaneously the society and political decision-making in both countries
The great change in European relations with Russia took place in 1478 when Muscovy replaced the trading Republic of Novgorod as a neighbor of Sweden, Livonia and Lithuania. Western Europe was since that year bordering to a bellicose great power with large resources causing dread. The feelings of dread caused by Russia with Czars like Ivan the Terrible became a standing theme in printed matter as well as politics and the image of Russia became very much similar to the image of Turkey, which threatened Europe from South-East. Various, usually rather negative, stereotype expressions characterized the vocabulary of the 16th century. The Peace of Stolbova in 1617 started a period of successive change. The era of Sweden as a Great Power led to growing knowledge about Russia in almost every respect, but it was still based on the already accepted stereotypes. They started, however, typically to seem more diluted and thin with time. The image of Russia as a threat was to a growing extent replaced by an image of a possibility. The perhaps most remarkable but rather unoriginal printed Swedish description of Russia of the era was Regni Muschovotici Sciographia, published by Petrus Petrejus. At the final stage of Sweden's era as a great power there was a substantial widening but also polarization of the information on Russia. The Russian reform process during Tsar Peter I also began to influence the minds after the turn of the century in 1700. One of the principal describers of this process was Lars Johan Malm (Ehrenmalm), whose large manuscript about the power of the Russian Empire of that time, Några Anmärkningar Angående det Ryska Rijkets Nuvarande Macht from 1714, never reached the printers due to intervention from censors.
Hallinnon uudistaminen liian yksiäänistä ja kaavamaista Jenni Airaksisen väitöskirja Hankala hallintouudistus kohdistuu suomalaisen kunnallishallinnon uudistamiseen. Tutkimus osoittaa, että kaavamaisuuteen ja liialliseen konsensukseen perustuva uudistaminen voi pahimmillaan johtaa toiminnan taantumiseen tai jopa estää muutoksia. Poliittis-hallinnollisella eliitillä on pyrkimys ylläpitää sisäistä kiinteyttään ja tämä estää erilaisten näkökulmien esiintulon uudistamiskeskustelussa. Tämä puolestaan johtaa yksiääniseen uudistamiseen ja liialliseen konsensukseen. Tutkimuksen perusteella uudistuksissa mukana olevilla ihmisillä oli hyvin erilaisia käsityksiä uudistuksen tavoitteesta ja tehtävästä. Nämä käsitykset olivat keskenään osin voimakkaassakin ristiriidassa. Hallintouudistus tulkittiin kuntien haasteiden kannalta oikeanlaisena ja tarpeellisena toimintana, mutta samaan aikaan sen pelättiin johtavan kuntien päätösvallan ja itsenäisyyden menettämiseen. Ristiriitaiset käsitykset eivät kuitenkaan nousseet keskusteluun vaan uudistuksen läpikäyväksi teemaksi nousi konfliktien välttäminen ja konsensuksen tavoittelu, mikä käytännössä johti siihen, että uudistuksen tavoitteet jäivät saavuttamatta. Vaikeiden asioiden välttely johti siihen, että käytännön uudistaminen osoittautui liian hankalaksi. Yksiäänisyyteen pyrkivän ja kaavamaisen uudistamisen mahdollisuudet saada aikaan muutoksia ovat hyvin rajalliset. Rajallisuus korostuu entisestään, mikäli päätöksenteossa pyritään erilaisten mielipiteiden peittämiseen ja uudistusta eteenpäin vievien eliittiryhmien kiinteyden ylläpitämiseen. Hallinnon uudistamisessa tarvitaan uusia ja luovia tapoja ratkaista ongelmia. Uudet ratkaisut voivat kuitenkin syntyä vain, jos uudistamisessa kyetään luopumaan yhden yhteisen päämäärän ja sen tavoittelun ihanteesta ja hyväksytään uudistamiseen liittyvä moniäänisyys. Hallinnon uudistamista tulisi tutkimuksen mukaan tarkastella prosessina, jossa erilaisten tulkintojen ja preferenssien kamppailu on normaalia toimintaa. Tällainen lähestymistapa voidaan suomalaisessa kompromissi- ja konsensushakuisessa kulttuurissa kokea vaikeaksi, mutta mikäli hallinnon uudistamisessa toimivat ryhmät jättävät vaikeat asiat pois agendaltaan konsensustavoitteen nimissä, päädytään hallinnon uudistamisessa helposti hankalaan hallinnon uudistamiseen. HANKALA HALLINNON UUDISTAMINEN näkyy pienten askeleiden kautta tapahtuvina, kompromissiratkaisuista kehittyneinä, pirstaleisina hallinnon uudistamisen osahankkeina, joiden kautta voidaan muutosten toteuttamisen sijaan ylläpitää olemassaolevia rakenteita ja vältellä muutosta. ; Troublesome Nature of Administrative Reform The topic of my research is an administrative reform which is studied as a dynamic and contextualised phenomenon. The aim was to understand the nature and the essence of an administrative reform in the context of local government in Finland. The Regional Support Project (Seutukuntien tuki -hanke) was chosen as an empirical example of a reform in this study. The project was launched by the national government in 2000 as a response to the transition process of local governance of Finland. In this context the municipalities were trying to solve the contradiction of their diminishing resources and increasing demands by increasing voluntary cooperation in service provision and regional development. The aim of the project was to promote inter-municipal cooperation by means of state support and permissive legislation. The empirical data is qualitative and the method of analysis is based on grounded theory. The purpose of the method is to produce a practical theory derived from the experiences of those people who have lived through the administrative reform. The process of analysis was to define emerging concepts and make continuous comparisons to the empirical data and to other conceptual innovations. By linking the discovered concepts to each other, the patterns of social behavior and meaning of action were generated. The empirical data of the study was collected during 2000 2005. The primary data consists of 154 interviews and approximately 60 pages of observation material. The data was collected in the national level steering group of the reform and in all of the eight districts (comprising 55 municipalities) taking part in the project. The secondary data includes official documents of the Regional Support Project produced by the central government, different districts and the municipalities. The grounded theory -procedure revealed four partly conflicting frames. The different frames are the rhetoric and the reality of governance practices, national government as the reformer of autonomous local government, the fear of hollowing out local government and the gap between the elite and the masses. The phenomenon of administrative reform is experienced and interpreted differently depending on the frame adopted. In a situation, where contradicting frames are visible, a conflict is possible and even probable. However, this was not the case in the administrative reform studied. Instead, the most evident patterns of behavior in the reform process were pronounced pursuit of consensus, compromise seeking and avoidance of conflict. My research shows that the core process of an administrative reform is maintaining the cohesion of the elite . With this concept it was possible to connect the discovered contradicting frames to each other. Through an analysis of the interplay between the different frames and the core process, the dynamics of the administrative reform are unfolded. Essential in understranding the dynamics of an administrative reform is the existence of the conflicting frames and coincident objective of maintaining the cohesion of the elite. This combination is likely to lead to a wobbly and slow process and shows the troublesome nature of an administrative reform. The theoretical model created in this research, shows the process of an administrative reform as an application of unisonous instrumental-rational patterns. The possibilities of the above-mentioned approach are highly limited in producing new ways of function. Such limitedness is even more problematic in a multi-actor, network-type situation, where different interpretations of situations are not confronted but concealed in the fear of conflicts. Instead, administrative reform practices could be seen as historically and culturally defined processes of production of meanings, where the struggle of different ideas and interpretations is considered normal. The acceptance of struggle as a part of administrative reform requires that the individuals of the decision-making elites are ready to function in groups, where anxiety is allowed to be present at times. The groups the decision-making elites in administrative reforms are trying to find new creative solutions to the problems they face. Creative solutions develop in situations where genuine negotiation between different meanings and interpretations is present. Negotiation is however not possible in a situation where the fundamental objective of an elite-group is to prevent the individuals of the group from exposing to anxiety. If this is accepted, it is likely to lead to small steps, bad compromises and fragmented application of reform practices. In the context of administrative reforms this is problematic for it can lead to the regression of action or actually supporting the practices already functioning. These insights indicate why the nature of administrative reform is troublesome.
The nine articles in this edited volume [Education and Social Class] scrutinise the class question within the Finnish education system, as a hidden, lived and experienced phenomenon, entwined with power. The book is structured around three topical perspectives. The first part deals with the question of social mobility. Empirical research topics include examples of achieving prestigious fields of education and the inheritance of the most prestigious professions, connections of class position to education through the educational experiences of working-class-based business students, and the ways in which academic world encounters with working-class culture in the university work of working-class and academically educated women. The second part of the book examines education as a form of capital defining the life course and social class. Topics covered include the connections of life stage of adolescence and class position, Bourdieusian analysis of educational choices and class positions, and opportunities for on-the-job learning and self-development in accordance with the class position of wage earners. The third part focuses on the education system and its structures. The dynamics of education and reproduction are analysed by using as empirical research objects the cross-generational reproduction of social relations in the curricula of basic education, the meaning of the language used in school as cultural capital, and the links between class position and perspectives that promote the raising of the age of compulsory education.
