UTICAJ MODERNIZACIJE NA KOMPONENTE NACIONALNOG IDENTITETA U SAVREMENIM EVROPSKIM DRŽAVAMA

Author(s): Mladen Lazić,Jelena Pešić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3/2015

The article presents the results of an analysis of attitudes of population in seventeenEuropean countries on the importance of components of national identity – cultural, ascriptive and civic – based on the data collected in a survey (INTUNE project). The hypothesis that modernization processes influencethe strengthening of the civic component as well as the weakening of ascriptive and cultural components is being checked. Differences in identity formation between countries with specific historical legacies (democratic tradition, dominant religious denomination, and ethnic composition) and structural characteristics (GDP per capita, level of urbanization, migration rate, and tertiary education attainment rate) is being analyzed, as well as the significance of different individual predictors (such as gender, age and university education). In addition to the confirmation of the basic hypothesis, the results suggest that the modernization effects of examined factors (economic, cultural and political) are visible only up to a certain level of development, whereupon they tend to decrease their influence. The strongest influence on the strength of civic components is recorded with an economic factor – GDP per capita. Although civic components proved to be dominant in shaping the national identities across the examined countries, the other two traits – ascriptive and cultural – do not disappear, testifying to the still existing hybrid nature of national identity.

ON INEVITABILITY OF POLITICAL CLIENTELISM IN CONTEMPORARY SERBIA

Author(s): Slobodan P. Cvejić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

This paper deals with the problem of political clientelism in Serbia broadly defined as the selective distribution of benefits (money, jobs, information, a variety of privileges) to individuals or clearly defined groups in exchange for political support. The main objective is to explain why political clientelism is widespread in Serbia and which key factors determine its shape and intensity. The explanation is based on the analysis of historical factors of development of clientelism in Serbia, as well as on analysis of data from a recent research on informal relations between political and economic elites in Serbia and Kosovo. The paper concludes that clientelism and informality have represented one of the structuring principles of socioeconomic and political development of Serbian society under the conditions of weak formal institutions and socio-historical heritage of late modernization. On the other hand, since 2000 economic and political sphere in Serbia became more open and competitive which influenced change in the character of clientelism in Serbia – the increased rivalry among different clientelistic (sub)networks heightened the chance of opportunistic defection even at the top level, which made political power of patrons more tradable and the relation inside the power network less asymmetric.

Profile of social entrepreneur in Serbia: Motivation and socio-demographic characteristics

Author(s): Gorana Krstić,Ana Aleksić Mirić,Jelena Žarković Rakić / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This paper explores the traits of social entrepreneurship in Serbia by addressing the role of motivation, education, personal experience, gender and age in developing social enterprises.The research done so far has not directly addressed the issue of characteristics of individuals who bring social innovation in Serbia and in that manner our research contributes to the existing body of knowledge. The data for this study were drawn from field research that started in June 2014, combining qualitative and quantitative research techniques. Our research suggests that social entrepreneurs in Serbia usually enter this venture without previous experience in founding a social enterprise or managing one. Education plays an important role in motivation to work for or establish a social enterprise: founders are by large people with higher education interested in continuous education and often engaged in some vocational education or training. Disparities in motivation to work in (or establish) a social enterprise are prominently different depending on the respondents’ ages younger respondents are motivated primarily to address a specific social problem, while the older ones are motivated mainly to create a personal employment opportunity.

A preliminary analysis of the results in the project 'Typologies of underdevelopment and marginalization in rural localities and small towns in Romania'

Author(s): Mihnea Preotesi,Cristina Tomescu / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

The project begins from the coordinates provided by the sociological literature which show that local underdevelopment is the result of structural factors as lack of employment and the predominance of employment in (subsistence) agriculture, lack of infrastructure (access to public utilities such as gas, drinking water or paved roads) but also the distance to the nearest city that could be a pole of development or human capital (the education stock of the local population) and it tries to refine the analysis by overlapping the typology looking at local contexts and by deciphering the factors and mechanisms of underdevelopment at local level. The proposed approach has an exploratory character. The article explain this approach in the first part, and in the second part presents a synthesis of the results of the analysis of the data collected in Alba county (as an exploratory case study) for testing the research tools in the first phase of the project.

Police officers, at-risk-youth and community safety project: A case study of the southside of Belize city

Author(s): Oscar S. Mmbali / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

This study sought to answer the following questions: (1) What themes emerge out of the interactions between police officers and at-risk-youths? (2) What larger ramifications emerge from the study (if any)? The study found that at-risk-youth tend to fear and distrust the police but that fear fades away, confidence and trust in police officers is built, depending on the way police officers treat the youth in each situation. At-risk-youth saw the police in positive light when police officers played the role of the helper in the situation rather than the role of security agents. The study also found that since police officers have more power in their interaction with at-risk-communities, they influence and largely determine the realization of peaceful and inclusive communities. The study recommends investing in projects that bring together police officers and at-risk-communities to work for peaceful and inclusive societies. Building stronger relations between police officers and at-risk-communities requires intentional long-term policy commitment that provides opportunities for police work, especially community policing to be integrated into community development work.

Labor force between desideratum and reality

Author(s): Adina Mihăilescu / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

The scientific approach of the study follows two perspectives on the labor market: a first analysis is dedicated to the employees absorbed on the labor market and of the companies that benefit from European funds in order to get out of the world economic crisis more easily. According to the National Institute of Statistics, the number of employees in the Romanian economy reached 4.984 million employees in September 2019, compared to 4.943 million employees in September 2018. New employment in the construction, wholesale and retail sectors, health and social assistance, hotels and restaurants, transport and storage, IT and consulting led to an increase in the number of employees in the economy by 41,000 between September 2018 and September 2019. The sectors that helped the economy reach the threshold of 5 million employees in 2020 were the constructions from public and private investments and the manufacturing industry. The second perspective of the study aims at the standard of living of employees' households and the purchasing power of their incomes in order to cover not only the basic needs of food, clothing, housing, its maintenance, but also the satisfaction of having a social life, of evolve professionally, to go out with family on the weekend, to meet relatives or friends etc.

A model of integrated community development

Author(s): Ana Maria Nițu,Costin Adrian Cace / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

The study aims to present and analyse a model of good practices in community development, based on an integrated approach and bring a better understanding of the advantages of such an approach. The study is based on a project implemented in 12 communities, throughout 46 months, which aimed to improve access to educational and health services as well as build strong communities and inter-ethnic relations. Following the implementation of the project, an evaluating research has been carried out in order to determine the changes and development the project has achieved. The current case study focuses its analyses on data gathered from the particular research, namely on 2 communities and the actions implemented as well as the results they produced. Therefore, analyzing the outcome of the intervention, augmenting the need and benefits of the integrated approach in development projects.

Hanging in there: Zimbabwean migrant workers in Johannesburg

Author(s): Chipo Hungwe / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

With the worsening political and socio-economic climate of Zimbabwe, migration to South Africa continues unabated. Research has already proven that migration is a result of many push and pull factors. The prospect to improve one’s life and that of one’s kin remains a key motivation for migration. What needs to be clearly articulated, in so far as Zimbabwean migration to South Africa is concerned, is the level of economic stability of Zimbabwean workers within the South African job market. This is the aspect addressed in this article, which contends that most of the Zimbabwean migrant workers in Johannesburg, South Africa are employed in career-less and unstable jobs that are precarious. While precariousness exists everywhere, and in varying levels, I argue that the migrant status is a devalued identity that leads to exclusion from certain basic rights at work and worsens the situation for most unskilled and semi-skilled Zimbabweans. Zimbabwean workers possess certain characteristics that both create advantages and disadvantages for them as they interact with employers. Employers know this fully well and capitalise on these characteristics, especially the lack of documentation needed to work and stay in South Africa.The precarious nature of Zimbabwean migrants is an outcome of a combination of various factors which are: a very strict migration legal framework, institutionalised xenophobia, capitalists whose interests are in lowering labour costs and thus go for cheap Zimbabwean labourers, desperate Zimbabwean workers who would accept anything offered because it is believed to be far much better than what they would receive ‘back home’ and a sending government (Zimbabwean) which does not seem to care enough about the situation of migrants who are mainly viewed negatively for having left the country in the first place. The precariousness of Zimbabwean migrants is both as much a product as it is also a factor of a vicious cycle of precariousness. The intersection of the migrant status (whether documented or undocumented but even worse for the undocumented) with low educational qualifications (for most migrants studied), race (black), poverty and desperation creates barriers and constraints for most Zimbabwean migrants rendering their lives quite precarious.

Romanian agrarian structure after thirty years

Author(s): Sergiu Țâra / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

Land ownership was and still is one of the most important indicators of wealth, even if the importance of agricultural sector has diminished in the last half of the century, at least in the developed countries. The current status of the Romanian agricultural sector is not only the sum of the agrarian reforms adopted in the nineties, but the result of the agrarian reforms of the past century and a half, with their instances of progress and regression, but, especially, their times of deep rupture. The article is a comparative analysis of the information available from the agricultural censuses of 1948, 2002, and 2010 and the structural investigation of the agricultural sector of 2016, capturing the developments which have taken place in the last 30 years, thus enabling us to draw conclusions as to these developments and the consequences of the post-1990 agrarian reforms. The conclusion is that agricultural holdings are extremely polarized and very fragmented, mostly dwarf in size, economically inefficient, lacking a modern set of agricultural machineries that determines low quantitative and qualitative productions as a result. This has caused the Romanian rural population to live on the brink of poverty and the agricultural sector to continue to be underdeveloped.

Rural development in Bangladesh: An assessment of training, research and action research of Bangladesh academy for rural development (BARD)

Author(s): Jannatul Ferdous / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

Bangladesh is a vast area of rural states. Rural development endeavors for the progress of the value of life in the rural extents with synchronized determinations to expedite the growth, efficiency, and welfare of the populations. Bangladesh is not a beginner in the arena of rural development; somewhat it inbred long years of practices in this arena. Nowadays, rural extents are facing key challenges that arise largely from globalization. The forceful progression of globalization involved in the market economy has been insistently shifting the old thoughts, practices and methods of rural development, predominantly in the developing states like Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) is a fifty-five years old organization functioning for the rural development sector. A small team of faculty members started the expedition of intense new tracks for development designers and rural development managers with the energetic direction of the first Director Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan. All through the years the academy retained strong effects on rural development. Here, an attempt has been made to measure the performance of BARD in the age of globalization on the ground of Training, Research and Action Research criteria.

Evolution of food consumption patterns at global level over the last five decades

Author(s): Mariana Stanciu / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

The promotion of healthy diets and lifestyles plays an important role in increasing the quality of life, in increasing the life expectancy of the population, in reducing the general morbidity and mortality. The agriculture and food industry sectors have a decisive importance in ensuring the supply of food goods, but equally important are other economic factors that condition the food consumption (population income level, price level, volume and quality of food service supply, habits / opportunities of consumption, preferences and believes, cultural traditions and so on). This article presents some of the main changes registered by the food consumption patterns at global level during the last half of the century. The main chapters of the food consumption patterns considered are the following: the evolution of energetic expression of food consumption, trends in fat consumption, consumption of animal products tendencies, availability and consumption of fish, availability and consumption of fruits and vegetables, the evolution and forecasting of prices. In the concluding chapter is presented also the general expectation regarding food availability and consumption until 2030. The data used here are published by different specialized international institutions like FAO, WHO, WTO or others.

Regional inequality in India: A state level analysis

Author(s): Aviral Pandey,Richa Gautam / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

This paper tries to understand the nature and extent of inequality across states of India with special reference to Bihar. The study is based on secondary data collected from various sources, including NSSO, NFHS and other government/non-government documents and reports. The study analyzes inequalities under four themes: livelihood, education, health and gender. The analysis finds that, however, some positive changes can be seen in terms of enrolment in case of primary education, but still, productivity of education is the lowest in Bihar. The state government has invested money in attracting students to government schools, but because of a low per capita expenditure on education, access to facilities like computers in schools is the lowest in Bihar. In the case of health expenditure, the people of Bihar have to bear significantly higher per capita out of pocket expenditure. Though, Bihar has achieved higher growth in the last couple of years but the level of female empowerment is still very low in the state. Thus, this study finds that Bihar is still at lowest position in all four themes across states of India and, people of this state are facing grim challenges related to livelihood, quality education and health.

The impact of occupational segregation on occupational gender pay gap in the European union

Author(s): Bianca Buligescu,Lex Borghans,Didier Fouarge / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between wages and the fraction of women in an occupation, using variation in the female participation in occupations across European countries. Using data from the European Structure of Earnings Survey 2006 with information about the wages in 93 occupations in 10 countries, we investigate how the wages of men and women and therefore the gender wage gap varies when the fraction of women increases. We allow for non-linearities in this relationship. In the raw data we find that mixed occupations pay better than occupations in which mainly men or mainly women are working, but controlling for occupation the picture reverses and we find that especially occupations with a high fraction of women pay more than mixed occupations. Female earnings are almost similar to male earnings when the fraction of women goes down and vice versa, but the effect is stronger in the female occupations, giving men an advantage in the labour market.

Book Review, Bonea, G.V.: Violența bazată pe gen: abordări teoretice esențiale, Editura Sigma Educational, Bucharest, 2020, p. 191

Author(s): Vlad I. Rosca / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

Men and Covid-19: Explicating the need for masculinity analysis

Author(s): Anisur Rahman Khan,Kopano Ratele / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

There are important gender determinants to both men’s and women’s susceptibility to COVID-19. Emerging findings confirm men are dying disproportionately at a higher rate than women. Such gender differences in deaths have informed scholars to widen their analytical look through a critical masculinity lens. As the practices to respond to the context of the gendered burden of disease are still inadequate and nearly absent on men’s health, it is suggested to specifically focus on men’s vulnerability to COVID-19 with appropriate interventions.

The political annexation of the sports hero in contemporary Romania. The case of Simona Halep.

Author(s): Vasile-Teodor Burnar / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The present article aims to highlight the ways in which the sports hero in Romania is “annexed”, ie used and instrumentalized by the political power, represented by public institutions, political parties and / or politicians. The case study analyzes the ceremonies and awards bestowed upon the tennis player Simona Halep, the most prominent sports figure of Romania in the past decade, by a number of local authorities in the country (Buşteni, Constanţa, Călăraşi, Bucharest, Cluj) and by the Romanian Presidency, from late 2013 to the present day. We scrutinize the reasons behind such feats of public homage and the media coverage it entailed, while also trying to explain why sport, and tennis in particular, is courted assiduously by politicians in the country – and what this reveals about the standing of the sports hero in Romanian society and political legitimization strategies. We also explore the reasons why apparently similar political strategies of gaining political kudos through association with a sport hero work brilliantly for one Romanian politician and dramatically backfire for another. Last but not least, we take a look at the way the sports hero was instrumentalized during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aspirations, concerns and priorities of families with school-age children

Author(s): Adina Mihăilescu,Mariana Stanciu,Livia Stefanescu,Cristina Humă / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

A decent standard of living could be defined by covering general biological and social needs at a given time. In the following we will see how different income categories could ensure or not, a decent standard of living in urban and rural areas for the family of adults with dependent children, based on data collected inside the grant GAR-UM-2019-XI-5.5-8/15.10.2019 named ‘Decent standard of living for families with school-age children’. The research sample included 173 families with school-age children and data were collected through questionnaires, from 1 April to 30 June 2020. We were interested in several aspects of the life of these families, among which the accessibility of children to current forms of education; the possibility of asserting the couple's partners and their possibility to aspire to the best possible schools for their children; the extent to which parents' rights are respected both in the workplace and in society; their safety at home, at work and on the street. Also, we looked at concerns related to expenditures and satisfaction with daily life of the respondents.

The christian response to poverty: implications for the 21st century church

Author(s): John Sirengo / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The concept of poverty is multifaceted as regards to humanity because of its description as being spiritual and material. From its antiquity, poverty has contributed to hunger and other related effects such as diseases which have fuelled the devastations of global community in matters of food production. This article focuses on the Christian response to poverty and its implications to the 21st century Church. It addresses the nature of poverty as absolute and relative. The causes based on the Church’s historical proponents, theologians and biblical causes are highlighted. In its implications, one should take a holistic approach towards human sustenance of good life. God is the source of this wealth and material possessions are good and valuable, that man should not pride with it in exclusion of God. In conclusion, transformation of the sinful humanity is the beginning of the alleviation of both spiritual and material poverty. Stewardship and generosity are the gateway out of poverty.

Problems and solutions of Romanian migration in UK, Germany and Austria during 2020

Author(s): Sebastian Fitzek / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

In the current context of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Globalization, the emphasis of Romanian migration in Western countries (particularly in this article in UK, Germany, and Austria) has become a phenomenon with multiple challenges and dilemmas on different levels and dimensions. Thus, the special attention from the state authorities on these issues is not just a short-term task, requiring a complex collaboration between the political government, the medical system, and specialized researchers. Both state institutions can establish medium and long-term interests regarding the effort to strengthen the Romanian state's relations with citizens abroad, negotiate inter-community solutions, guide public policies to support the insertion on the labour market, etc., a complex set of analysis and solutions with a multidisciplinary scientific contribution. In the conditions of intensifying the flows of Romanian immigrants, the risks of losing an important national productive and creative segment also increase. Local human resources management is a strict subject of internal management and abroad human resources management, this being a subject of Community legislation, diplomatic communication and policies of inclusion, integration, and insertion in the labour market. The long-term goal is to strengthen the sense of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious identity and security of Romanians abroad, consolidating the Romanian cultural heritage.

Book Review, Kosher, H. et al. Children’s rights and social work, Springer Briefs in Rights-Based Approaches to Social Work, 2016, p. 75

Author(s): Cristina Tomescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021