Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-25 May
Our news roundup: protests break out in Belarus; Russian airspace violations; NGOs in Kyrgyzstan targeted; remote voting in Russia; and a cross-ethnic, Balkan friendship.
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Our news roundup: protests break out in Belarus; Russian airspace violations; NGOs in Kyrgyzstan targeted; remote voting in Russia; and a cross-ethnic, Balkan friendship.
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Tax systems in some countries only serve to prevent the onset of the financial crisis and excessive public debt and budget deficit in relation to GDP. The article presents the author's analysis of the impact of taxes scale on financial stability and economic sustainability of countries. The concept of a hypothetical share of tax on GDP for the analysis of social inequality is introduced. An assessment of fiscal policy in the European Union and Norway between 2000 and 2010 was prepared. Usefulness of higher taxation (consumption, labor and capital) in the context of the need to reduce public debt in many countries was estimated, too.
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The paper analyzes the revenue and expenditure of the Social Insurance Fund (SIF) from 1999 to 2010. This period covers the first years of the reformed social security system and the time at which a number of regulatory change was introduced. In the analyzed period both revenue and expenditure of social insurance increased, while revenues grew faster than expenses. The higher revenue growth marked by subsidies from the state budget than revenues from social security premiums. Among the largest share of expenditure accounted for transfers to the population, which were paid primarily in the form of pensions. The analysis shows that the reform of social security system, despite the delays in the implementation of certain objectives, contributed to many positive changes. It affected the growth of insured persons, a drop in payments of inability to work, and the increase in the average age of persons who have been granted pension benefits.
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Necessary reforms in the process of joining the European Union impose the obligation to harmonize domestic regulations with international conventions and European standards and to ensure the conditions for achieving the highest level of human rights protection. Therefore, numerous strategies, policies, action plans and other documents have been adopted, which emphasize the commitment of the state to work through reform processes in the field of health and social protection to create conditions in order to improve the protection of mental health. Within the reforms implemented in the social and health sector, deinstitutionalization occupies a special place. The aim of this research is to determine the extent to which the long-term goals stated in the Strategy for Deinstitutionalization and Transformation of Social Welfare Institutions in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2014-2020) have been achieved. In order to reach the set goal, it was necessary to investigate the beginning of the development of institutional care, give an overview of current institutions and conduct quantitative and qualitative research in institutions where people with mental disabilities are cared for. The research was conducted in three institutions in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. An analysis of the annual Work Reports for the period 2014-2019 was performed in all institutions, and a survey was conducted in one institution with employees and management representatives. The following methods and techniques were used in the research: historical method, content analysis method, description method, induction and deduction method, comparison method and interview. The research findings show that the number of institutions with a large number of beneficiaries is increasing, that there is transinstitutionalization of beneficiaries, that the necessary conditions have not been created, primarily related to creating appropriate services and support in the local community for beneficiaries after leaving the institution. However, research findings show that some institutions contribute to the process of deinstitutionalization through their organization of work and opening to the local community, but only to its beginning, because beneficiaries are still delayed due to the impossibility of leaving. It must be given more attention in the coming period.
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The subject of this article concerns safety in transport in the context of broadly understood contemporary challenges. The study characterizes the impact of transport on individual types of safety. Ecological, personal and economic security were selected for the analysis. The purpose of this article is to attempt to synthetically address the issue of safety in transport while taking into account several selected areas of this safety. Selected types of security will be considered: ecological, personal and economic. It is the transport that presents new challenges that will affect the level of safety in the future. Today, the most important thing for the environment is to secure all parts of the infrastructure, both point and line, so that the movement process takes place without any irregularities that could result in damage to health and even loss of human life.
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The subject of the analysis are the strategic conditions of Australian-Chinese economic relations in the second decade of the 21st century. The aim of the article is to present and evaluate these relations in the perspective of Australia's strategic priorities in the field of security and development. The article discusses the Australian-Chinese trade cooperation, the attitude of the Australian government towards the key international projects of President Xi Jinping, the direct investments of Chinese enterprises in Australia and other aspects of economic cooperation between states. These issues are analyzed in the context of economic security of Australia. The main thesis of the article is the statement that in the second decade of the XXI century, China is the main economic partner for Australia and in subsequent years, this situation should not change. Australian-Chinese economic relations are developing dynamically despite the increasing concerns of the Australian government and society about the sincerity of intentions in the policy of growing in strength Middle Kingdom. Canberra strengthens its economic cooperation with China despite rising tensions between Beijing and Washington, which is its ally. Australia wants to ease tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, because the stability of the region is particularly important from the point of view of its long-term economic development. However, Australia should further develop economic cooperation also with other partners, so as not to become economically dependent on China, which policy is not fully transparent.
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This paper examines the Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement – the first legally binding instrument adopted under the auspices of the Arctic Council – and analyses its direct and indirect implication for both the development of the Arctic shipping and the perspectives of regionalization processes. It is argued that the adoption of the Agreement should be perceived as an ambiguous achievement since, while its direct relevance for the Arctic shipping is not very substantial at the moment, it however reaffirms the indispensable and leading position of the Arctic Council in the regional governance system and offers important prospects for deepening the cooperation among the Arctic states. The Arctic SAR Agreement is also recognised as a manifestation of exercising the Arctic sovereignty by the eight states (also against non-Arctic actors) and consequently a sign of growing regionalization of the Arctic.
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The article discusses selected rescue operations in the Arctic from a historical perspective. It focuses on events that in practical terms initiated international cooperation in this area. Against the background of the development of rescue techniques and equipment, the history of attempts to increase the chances of survival in extreme conditions is outlined. The author also examines how rescue operations influenced popular awareness, stimulating the creation of a favourable climate for institutional cooperation.
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This article indicates that evolution of the modern terrorism is still in progress. The author has analysed terrorist attacks in 2013 in the context of how the modern terrorism is broadcast in the new media. The author describes also the geopolitical situation in Africa and the Near/Middle East.
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This article is an attempt to show why and how the VIP assassination is a tool of asymmetric warfare. The constantly increasing number of the actors of international security along with a growing level of interdependence between them lead to more and more conflicts, which for the same reason, are more and more often of an asymmetric nature. As the human factor is perceived as the most important one, elimination of key figures comes into focus as a really effective tool of waging the post-Cold War conflicts. What is even more interesting is the fact that not only non-state actors, which appears obvious, but also states decide to take advantage of this method. More and more frequently committed “targeted killings”, especially by the US and Israeli military and intelligence, constitute the evidence.
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The article addresses key changes in Finnish probation work’s rationalities, mentalities and technologies from the 1960s to the present, examining them within a wider governance theory framework. The article asks how the following aspects of probation work have changed: (1) the conditions of probation work, (2) its institutional self-understanding, (3) its work methods and (4) its objectives. The thesis is that these changes have been connected to several synchronous and multi-layered developments, such as globalization, a re-orientation of Finnish social policy and the introduction of new methods and tools within probation work.
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Literature on the media representation of probation highlights that probation as a ‘brand’ and concept is poorly understood and lacks public visibility. This has implications for its legitimacy and credibility. In this article we explore probation’s visibility in one country, the Republic of Ireland, through a critical analysis of print media representations of probation over a 12-year period (2001 to 2012). While our study finds that the majority of the coverage of probation was either positive or neutral in tone, we note a recent shift towards a more negative tone that we argue is reflective of the changing shape of the penal-probation boundaries. These changes are linked to resourcing of the criminal justice system and have implications for the public perception of probation.
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In the context of the Covi19 pandemic, South American government sustained agricultural extractivisms (including agriculture, livestock and forestry). In some cases, they are presented as a solution to the reduction of oil and mineral extractivisms. In other cases, changes occur between different agricultural products. This strategy results in maintaining social and environmental impacts, and strengths asymmetries between business actors and small farmers or peasants. Despite the crisis due to the pandemic was an opportunity for those alternatives focused on supplying food to overcome the nutritional component among the poorest sectors, the prevailing strategy promotes an agriculture that supply merchandises for export, resulting in promoting extractivisms. The spill-over effects were maintained and in some cases deepened, such as social, labor and environmental flexibilities, and public policies that support and shield extractivism were strengthened.
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The paper focuses on the period of socialist modernization in Croatian urban settings, in a country guided by ideologically shaped administrative measures, absence of social pluralism, and private economic initiatives. The socialist regime mainly promoted the announced transformation of social and economic relations, as well as technical progress, in the urban areas, where cultural and symbolic interventions took place along with the technical ones. The socialist city was to become an ideal city that met all the needs of the “working people”. Industrialization and urbanization caused labour migration from rural to urban areas. Due to the large number of new residents in the cities, the authorities paid much attention to housing policies. Accelerated construction resulted in a discrepancy with the existing urban and communal infrastructure. The consequences of half a century of socialist modernization in the cities were most evident in the altered population structure. At the beginning of the observed period, only one quarter of the population lived in cities, but when the socialist epoch ended, this ratio was over 50 %. The negative consequences of socialist modernization in the cities could be seen in the polarized development of the main urban centres, the unevenly developed network of medium-sized and small towns, and the depopulation of a significant part of rural areas.
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Youth out of foster care can face various problems related to finding a housing, unemployment, low educational attainment or lack of interpersonal relationships. The goal of the survey is to study the problems of aging out of foster care. Within the qualitative research semi-structured interviews were conducted. The findings indicated that youth out of foster care felt unprepared for life and face some financial, social and psychological challenges which make transitioning into adulthood even more difficult for them. They have a problem of unstable housing, employment and community integration. The study identified very low involvement of the social worker during preparation to age out of foster care. As youth age out of foster care, social workers are tasked to work collaboratively with them to develop a transition care strategy that meets their needs and helps to promotion them into independent living. It's recommended to expanded foster care services to the age of 21 years with the goals of increasing educational stability, housing stability, and employment services as youth transition to adulthood.
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The period under review started in 2010, when the discussion of significant para¬metric changes in the pension system in Bulgaria began in order to improve it, resulting from the changed rates of economic growth, employment/unemployment, income, infla¬tion, parameters and trends of demographic processes and their impact on the social insurance system and ends in 2018, with the inclusion of the latest changes in pension legislation and the available statistics on an annual basis. The article aims to show how the changes in recent years concerning the access to a pension for insurance experience and age and the determination of its amount have affected the number, amount and costs of pensions for insurance experience and age for the period 2010 - 2018.
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Social work has little tradition as an academic discipline or as a profession in Albania despite the high need for well-trained social workers. Social work in Albania had practically not existed in the past, neither before the WWII nor during socialist regime. It was the deep political and economic changes of the post socialist phase and the support of government and non-government stakeholders, like the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Emigration and Ex- Persecuted People as well as the Grand Valley University, Michigan, which paved the way for the establishment from scratch of the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Tirana in 1992. Two other schools of Social Work were also established in two public universities, one at the University of Shkodra (2005) and another at the Elbasan University (2004). The Albania’s adherence to the Bologna Declaration brought a new reform, initiated in 2005, in which the Departments of Social Work were actively involved and played a critical role to adjust the curricula according to the EU standards. However, social work is neither a straight forward academic discipline nor a clear-cut profession. Social work is both, above all it is the safety net of society. The concept of social work derives from the needs of society, which in the end turns towards social mobilization, participation and inclusion. The global definition of social work, set out by the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and approved by its general assembly in 2014, defines Social Work as follows: “Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work. Underpinned by theories of social work, social sciences, humanities and indigenous knowledge, social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing”. (http://www.communitycare.co.uk/what-is-the-roleof-social-workers).
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One of the main directions of the public spending policy in Republic of Moldova is the social protection of the population. A group of population that is, especially, vulnerable to the difficult social and economic conditions is the children in difficulty – children who have insufficient parental support or lack it, due to parents’ negligence, violence, death or other unfavorable conditions of familial environment. A widespread measure of support of these children is their separation from the difficult familial environment and the subsequent institutionalization. On the one hand, the need to make the use of public spending more efficient in supporting this category of children, on the other hand, numerous researches that demonstrate the negative effects of institutionalization on children have determined the government of the Republic of Moldova to orient itself towards deinstitutionalization measures in the last decade. In this paper we try to determine the main aspects of the public spending policy on the social protection of children in difficulty in the Republic of Moldova of the last decade in the light of deinstitutionalization efforts.
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Two former industrial giants on opposite sides of the globe—the well-known and extensively studied city of Detroit (USA) and the lesser-known but regionally important city of Łódź (Poland)—developed in historically differing economic and political circumstances but have much in common. In both cases, postwar prosperity brought the working class to the center of the social imaginary, resulting in the emergence of a corporate welfare state on one side of the Atlantic Ocean and a socialist one on the other. Thus, two “workers’ El Dorados” were based on almost opposite lifestyles, values and models of society, and each lasted for no more than one generation. Changes in industrial structures and locations, the inflexibility of the mono-industrial giants, and a general shift to late capitalism and the post-Fordist mode of production affected both cities. Workers’ biographies were experienced through the primacy of work as a means of individual, social, and state reproduction. Factory work offered a device for the allocation of social worth and welfare benefits across time in both contexts. The latter is examined by the construct of a “good worker” and the creation of an imagined, expected life course in the postwar welfare projects, as well as the generational division of workers.
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