Conference report from “Current research questions of national policy and ethnic relations in the 20th and 21st century”, Košice, November, 14th – 15th 2016
Place: Košice Date: November, 14th – 15th 2016
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Place: Košice Date: November, 14th – 15th 2016
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Analysing the effect of societal events on the population is essential to better understand the quality of life and interaction between society and individuals. Although event effect is a well-known phenomena in economy (MacKinlay, 1997) the empirical results on the effect of events on social attitudes and well-being are still scarce and contradictory. The aim of the current study is to analyse the changes of satisfaction of people in both countries during the Euro introduction period. It will allow for a better understanding of the influence of external events on individuals. Slovakia, in January 2009, and Estonia, in January 2011, changed their national currency to the Euro. In both countries the introduction of the Euro was accompanied with positive media coverage and a general acceptance of the Euro as a tool to achieve a better living standard and greater benefits from a common European currency. However, because of lower European Union scepticism and higher acceptance of the Euro in Slovakia, we expect that the adoption of the Euro has a stronger positive effect in Slovakia than in Estonia. Both Slovakia and Estonia carried out ESS fieldwork during the currency change period and this has allowed us to study the influence of the event on society regarding people’s satisfaction with it. We use data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for Estonia and Slovakia from the fourth and fifth rounds for analysis (ESS Round 4: European Social Survey Round 4 Data, 2008; ESS Round 5: European Social Survey Round 5 Data, 2010). The European Social Survey collects, alongside substantive data, also survey contact information. We have therefore the exact dates when respondents gave their answers about their opinions. We classify time periods into six different periods: three periods before the Euro period and periods after introducing the Euro to analyse fluctuations in attitudes. We analyse the influence of currency change on life satisfaction, satisfaction with the economy and satisfaction with the national government. The European Social Survey is a good database for international comparisons because of its highly standardised methodological approach towards data collection and the tight data quality control before archiving. The survey provides population representative data at country level starting from age of 15. To assess the change of respondents’ life satisfaction and satisfaction with the economy and government before and after the Euro introduction, a time variable was formed as follows: more than a month before the event, 4-3 weeks before the event, 2-1 weeks before the event, 1-2 weeks after the event, 3-4 weeks after the event, more than 4 weeks after the event. To control the influence of socio-economic selectivity of the respondents in different time periods in the sample, and the corresponding influence on the satisfaction level, additional control variables were added to the regression models. These were: age of the respondents, gender, health, highest level of education, perceived household’s income, current main economic activity status (working, studying, unemployed, retired, other), and ethnic minority status. The first descriptive results revealed differences between the two countries. A declining satisfaction trend prevailed in Estonia while satisfaction increased in Slovakia. For example, by the end January, all satisfaction indicators were essentially lower than before December in Estonia. Also satisfaction with the economy and government remained lower even after January in Estonia. In contrast, in Slovakia, the satisfaction with life rose and was high all January before dropping to the usual level only in February. Also satisfaction with the economy and government had several peaks in January. Regression analysis allowed the distinguishing of a clear time period effect without the effects of individual background. After taking into account background variables for individuals, the majority of the regression coefficients still remained negative in Estonia. Regression analyse proved that the drop in satisfaction did not only occur because of a concentration of certain types of respondents by the end of January, but was caused by other factors. Life satisfaction dropped in the third week of January in Estonia, even taking into account the socio-economic background of respondents; although this negative trend was not a year specific result. Estonians were more pessimistic also two years earlier in January, compared to the autumn period. In January 2009, in Slovakia, by contrast, people remained more satisfied with life even after when taking into account their socio-economic background. In Slovakia this effect was also year specific, and might be connected with currency change and related optimistic feelings. In the first weeks after the adoption of the Euro, satisfaction with the economy also rose in Slovakia and in the third and the fourth week satisfaction with the government. These fluctuations might be attributed to the effect of the Euro, but with some reservations; because we see higher satisfaction episodes with the economy also in January 2009 in Slovakia. In conclusion, the results demonstrated some positive effect of the Euro for Slovakia. However, the negative effects in Estonia cannot be attributed solely to the change to the Euro, because we found occasional negative episodes also from the reference year. Additionally, media claims described the New Year period 2010-11 also as politically critical. A comparison of the Euro change period data with data from the same season but different years, showed that fluctuations with satisfaction cannot be attributed only to one event, and total satisfaction is possibly an outcome of many interactions, both at an individual level and in society. Therefore the continuous study of multiple effects of essential events in society on attitudes is important. Monitoring the contextual data and examining the effect of societal events helps to understand processes in society and plan for better measurement tools.
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The article starts from the premise that the legitimacy of the post-socialist order is strongly related to its ability to generate a level of happiness among the lower social strata that is not significantly lower than the happiness enjoyed by the privileged social strata. We used three waves of the Slovenian Public Opinion Survey and seven waves of the European Social Survey to explore the hypothesis that the average level of happiness in Slovenia is higher in the post-socialist period than during the socialist period, due to Slovenia’s relative prosperity and new democratic circumstances. Whereas mature socialism was characterized by a rather egalitarian distribution of happiness, we would expect that in a post-socialist society inequalities would be increasing also in this area of personal wellbeing. This expectation is based on the assumption that growing inequality in the distribution of happiness is one of the consequences of the emergence of a more competitive economic, political and social order, which has led to the accumulation both of advantages and disadvantages. In other words, the growing gap between transition winners and losers should be reflected also in their respective levels of happiness. However, this growing gap may not be fully or significantly reflected in the overall trend of happiness, as the decrease in subjective well-being (SWB) in some social strata could be “masked” by its increase in other strata. World-wide happiness analyses by Inglehart et al. (2008) also addressed the link between levels of life satisfaction and system legitimacy. The authors conclude that society’s level of well-being is intimately related to the legitimacy of the socioeconomic and political system. If the SWB in an entire society falls sharply below its normal baseline, it can destabilize the entire socio-political order. As transition in Slovenia has been characterized neither by extreme economic stagnation nor political instabilities, we expected that average level of happiness will be higher in the post-socialist times compared to the socialist period, due to relative prosperity and new democratic circumstances. This would indicate that the new regime has been able to fulfil the basic expectations with regard to material well-being and create the economic and political conditions which facilitate a greater trust in the future. In addition to examining the general trend, we set out to explore the social distribution of happiness over time, i.e. the happiness (trend) distinguished by two basic social strata. The sequence of surveys across time is such that it covers several significant historical periods. The first wave dates back to the socialist era, the second and third wave were carried out in the 1990s when transition-related social stresses reached their peak, the fourth and fifth are from the period of social stabilization and economic prosperity after 2000, while the last two waves were fielded when the global economic downturn that began in 2008 was already under way. In this way we could observe the relationship between happiness and socio-economic position in two political systems, as well as examine whether this relationship is affected by major episodes of social stress and economic crises. Our key dependant variable was the following: ‘Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are?’ The answers were measured on an eleven-point numeric scale (ranging from 0 to 10), with labelled ends (0 ‘very unhappy’ and 10 ‘very happy’). Our results show that overall levels of happiness are relatively high throughout the entire measurement period; with the aggregate value consistently remaining at the 2/3 of the scale range. This is true for the only measurement carried out in the socialist regime, as well as for the successive measurements in the period of democratic transition. Nevertheless, even though some of the cross-time differences between years are rather small there is some moderate-scale dynamic in the overall trend, such as a slight dip in the first half of the 1990s, compared to the ‘socialist’ starting point. A more pronounced shift is observable in 1999. Until then the mean value hovers around 6.7, then jumps to 6.9 and later on to 7.1 and 7.2. In light of the transition effect, we explored another explanatory factor; namely optimism. In times of rapid social change an important mediating factor for personal happiness is likely to be the perception of future opportunities. If those whose expectations have not (yet) been met believe that this will happen within the foreseeable future, their current disappointments may lead to a smaller decline in their level of happiness than in those individuals who have less trust in the future. Our analysis confirmed that optimism plays an important role in the subjective self-assessments of happiness. With the exception of health, optimism is the strongest predictor of happiness, which suggests that an optimistic outlook does have the potential to compensate for the current lack of material standards among the ‘losers’ of transition. In summary, our data indicates the remarkable stability of the overall happiness levels, despite key historical changes that have taken place between 1992 and 2014. We believe that the relatively smooth nature of Slovenia’s transition in terms of economic and welfare performance is the most likely explanation for this result. Nevertheless, the transition did result in specific structural dynamics with regard to the distribution of happiness among different social strata. Our analysis captured a gradual underlying process of differentiation between class-specific happiness trends. The between-class gap has been growing steadily over the twenty-year period, supporting the theory that the overall level of happiness may disguise contradictory sub-trends. While in the upper educational group happiness has grown more or less steadily since the mid-1990s, it remained largely stable in the lower one. At the end point in 2012 the average level of happiness is actually slightly lower in this group than it was thirty years before. This confirms our expectation that the moderate rise in overall happiness in Slovenia observed after 1999 was not equally socially distributed, but was mainly a result of a rise in happiness in the wealthier groups. The ‘happiness gap’ between both social groups increases with time, most notably in 2006. However, during the period of economic recession which began to affect Slovenia in 2009, the gap has shown a peculiar dynamic. We would expect it to grow even further under economic pressure, but the distance between the two social classes was in fact slightly reduced during the worst period of the crisis. A more detailed insight into how the crisis was handled by the national government reveals that the observed phenomenon is in fact a logical consequence of the type of austerity measures taken; namely, the measures did not so much affect the most vulnerable social groups as they did the middle class, which can be illustrated by the figures from several international institutions. Moreover, even with the recent recovery of economic growth and the cessation of the austerity measures law, some of their elements remain in place and they are precisely those that target primarily the middle class. It should therefore be interesting to see to what extent future happiness levels will be affected by the recent period of economic crises and the erosion of trust in institutions that it has brought. If the aftermath of the recession will begin to adversely affect individual and household wellbeing and the prosperity of the middle classes, happiness levels are bound to settle into a downward trend and the legitimacy of the democratic system will suffer.
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Despite the fact that the notion of a state that contains a specific nation is relatively new, most societies tend to perceive their national origins as an indisputable historical fact. This paper tries to understand the reasons that make rational individuals and groups of people believe in the irrational claims of national identities and national pride. As political discourse is the main source of these claims, this paper analyses the nature of that discourse and the way it manages to coin essentially contested concepts that are acceptable by the public. Subsequently, the paper delves into the mechanisms in which the human cognitive apparatus interprets discourse, and the reasons that make it vulnerable to deception. Additionally, the paper revisits notions like nations and states to prove the fact that there is no direct relationship between belonging to a state and feeling national pride. Eventually, the paper tackles the main psychological attributes that interfere to make rational individuals and groups abandon their rationality to believe in purely sentimental political notions.
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The aim of this paper is to introduce and analyse the results of the 2017 county-level local elections. The election produced many surprises. For example, the participation of voters was much higher than expected, the winner of the elections became the right-wing opposition, the Smer party lost many important positions, and the radical Marian Kotleba was not able to hold his post as the head of the self-governing Banská Bystrica region. The election reflected the ongoing tendency of strengthening independent candidates. The struggle between Hungarian political forces was won by the Party of the Hungarian Community (MKP-SMK), which earned almost four times more seats than the Most- Híd party. However, the Hungarian candidates were mainly successful in the regions with Hungarian ethnic majorities, and in the ethnically mixed regions the level of Hungarian political representation decreased.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the latitude of ethnic political representation of the Hungarian community in Slovakia from 1989 up to recent political developments. The latitude is measured by three factors: the amount of political power held by representatives of the Hungarian communities, the coalition potential of the parties focusing on ethnic policies, and the political compatibility of the parties representing the Hungarian minority. The Hungarian ethnic parties were involved in Slovak politics from the times of the Velvet Revolution; however, their ability to affect politics and policies was limited by party-specific ethnic agendas and incompatibility with numerous Slovak ethnic parties. In light of recent political events, however, the ideological differences have been reduced and the pragmatic nature of fragmented Slovak party politics opens up new channels for cooperation. Despite the changing political environment, the latitude has been weakening due to the fragmentation of the Hungarian ethnic political elite.
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A stray dog that had its paws and tail severed has sparked a new debate over abuse.
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The text discusses the pertinent problems connected to the debates about the intangible cultural heritage and the politics of UNESCO about its safeguarding. The author presents in particular the Italian context and the discussions within Italian anthropology taking into consideration the characteristics of the ethnographic knowledge as cultural heritage, as well as the functions of the ethnographic museum. The problem about the safeguarding of cultural heritage is debated on the basis of the dichotomies: safeguarding versus evaluation and tangible versus intangible heritage.
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Many citizens may be too busy enjoying a long holiday to consider joining next week’s planned anti-government demonstrations.
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Shkalla e lartë e informalitetit në shoqërinë shqiptare shihet si një nga faktorët më shqetësues, që pengon zhvillimin dhe demokratizimin e vendit, dhe rrjedhimisht progresin e tij në përmbushjen e aspiratave për anëtarësim në strukturat euro-atlantike. Ka vite që retorika antikorrupsion, akuzat e ndërsjella të forcave kryesore politike në vend për përfshirje të zyrtarëve të lartë qeveritarë apo politikanëve të ndryshëm në aktivitete kriminale, janë bërë refreni i politikës shqiptare. Sado e çuditshme të duket, akuzat ngrihen thjesht për t’i shërbyer garës për pushtet politik dhe jo drejtësisë për të vënë përpara përgjegjësisë ligjore ata pushtetarë që prezupozohet të jenë të përfshirë në afera korruptive apo kriminale.
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Russian propaganda co-opts western grassroots criticism of liberalism and globalization, recasting both left and right populism in nationalist terms. Vice versa, local actors borrow the Russian propaganda package and use it for their populist purposes. This is the general finding of the analysis of Bulgarian media discourse, 2013-2016, analysis that proceeded in three steps: semantic analysis of the vocabulary of the anti-liberal and anti-democratic propaganda and extractionof specific keywords and catch phrases; frequency analysis of the usesof these words and phrases in 3080 on-line media outlets for four-year period; content-analysis of a sample of 3305 single publications from 8 typologically different media outlets. The analysis identified four simplistic and interrelated anti-liberal and antidemocratic theses:The US and NATO are a global hegemon/puppet-master which is pulling the strings both of Brussels and of national governments; Europe is dying because of its cultural decline (‘liberasty’) under the blows of the migrant invasion unleashed by the US, and because of the lame-duck, puppet European bureaucracy (‘Eurocracy’). In the final analysis, Europe is dying because it is united: the EU is a construction which serves the interests of the US and of global corporations, and it is an enemy of the European peoples; Russia is rising. Although it is a victim of Western aggression, Russia is a guardian of its age-old sovereignty and of traditional values, and it is actually the true saviour of Europe; Bulgaria’s liberal elites are venal: civic movements, human rights organizations, independent media outlets, pro-western politicians and parties are represented as an indistinguishable whole, and all of them are ‘foreignagents’ – puppets of foreign interests.The populist-propaganda discursive front developing in the Bulgarian publicsphere since 2013 is distinctly ‘pro-Russian’, although the data show that it is not always directly inspired by Russia. The content-analysis identified three different rationales of using those clichés.
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The paper analyzes the media and political reactions in Bulgarian online media to the Government's Annual National Security Report, subsequently approved by the Bulgarian Parliament, for the period September 2017 – November2017. References to the report were subject to content analysis according to the timeline of the reactions and the intensity of their occurence, according to the different categories of institutional and non-institutional speakers, as wellas according to the basic messages they were carrying. The findings show a strong disproportion in the representation of different opinions and the lack of public debate on the subject. Since the beginning of the period, there is a visible disparity between the reactions to the Report and their media coverage.The passages in the text of the Report that describe the role of Russia for the Bulgarian national security focus almost all of the media attention and were the most debated political issue on this topic. With a great deal of certainty it can be speculated that the next national security topic that will get great coverage will revolve around the state of security in the Black sea.
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The objective of this study was to achieve a multidimensional description of the consumption of EU funds by small towns in Warmińsko-Mazurskie voivodship, and to identify the role of this source of funding in the development policy of these localities. The aim was pursued based on secondary data originating from the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office and from the database of the Ministry of Investment and Economic Development (the EU Grants Map), as well as primary data collected during a survey study conducted among representatives of small towns and urban-rural municipalities which contain a small town in their limits (in total 38 units). The percentage of returned and correctly completed questionnaires was 44,74%. The empirical material gathered during the study proves that the budgets of municipalities in Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodship in 2006–2016 received PLN 3 244,24 million in the form of grants from the EU and other foreign support programmes, and the share of this sum absorbed by small towns and urban-rural municipalities was 25,91% (PLN 840,44 million), most of which was allocated to urban-rural municipalities (86,61%). Results of the U Mann-Whitney test showed that the distribution of the funds acquired by small towns and urban-rural municipalities with small towns in their limits, calculated per capita, in Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodship differed significantly from the sums of money invested by other administrative units of this type in Poland. The research also indicates that the EU funds played an important role in the development policy of small towns, and an opportunity to apply for EU grants had a strong influence on their investment plans.
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The identification of socio-economic determinants of the development of small urban centers functioning in the conditions of transformation and metropolization of space constitutes a significant research problem in the area of urban geography. In this study, the problem is discussed in the context of East Germany. The aim of the article is to characterize the most important contemporary determinants and factors influencing the development of small cities in the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. This characterization is based on analyses involving over 100 cities and refers to the spatial and population development of individual urban centers in the years 1990–2015. The research also used statistical material and spatial data sets published by official German national and regional institutions. In the course of the analyses, it was established that the conditions determining the development of small urban communes within the research area are very complex. This results from the overlapping of transformation determinants and factors universal for the whole area and the determinants resulting from the metropolization processes, whose nature and impact diversify in space.
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Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodship is one of the poorest EU regions. The region is internally diverse at the sub-regional level. The aim of the study is to assess the effectiveness of cohesion policy in the sub-regions (NUTS 3 ) of the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodship: Ełcki, Elbląski, and Olsztyński. The basis of assessment that was adopted was the change of position relative to all EU-sub-regions. Changes of economy structure are studied using the changes of the shares of sectors — NACE Rev. 2 in creating the Gross Value Added. The source of data is Eurostat. The results are ambiguous. Although some indicators (employment and GDP per capita) have improved, sigma convergence does not occur and the positions of those sub-regions do not show any significant changes, only Olsztyński sub-region noted small improvement in the ranking. Very small progress in the ranking means that the pace of catching up is too slow. Despite this, effects of membership in the European Union for employment and growth is positively assessed.
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The aim of the article is to evaluate revitalization programs of rural communes in Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodship and to formulate critical remarks with respect to the revitalization programming rules currently in force. The method of analyzing source documents (i.e., revitalization programs, was used to achieve this objective). The subject of the analyzes were: revitalization models, ways of designating degraded areas and areas of revitalization as well as financial instruments and forms and methods of social participation provided for in the revitalization process. The results of the study indicate that the principles of revitalization programming, which may be effective in cities, do not always correspond to the conditions prevailing in rural areas, which is mainly due to the fact that these areas are usually mostly affected by a crisis caused by widespread occurrence of structural problems.
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This study has been carried out in order to identify determinants of potential investment attractiveness of urban municipalities. To this end, urban municipalities in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodship in Poland were submitted to analysis. The data, as of 2015, were obtained from the Bank of Local Data maintained by the Polish Central Statistical Office (GUS ). For each of the five microclimates which are expected to shape the level of potential investment attractiveness, a synthetic index that manifests a degree of the development of a given microclimate was calculated. The calculations relied on Hellwig’s development pattern method. A stepwise regression method was applied to identify the microclimates that most strongly influence potential investment attractiveness. The application of the above methods led to the construction of an equation which expresses the potential investment attractiveness of urban municipalities. The equation implicated that the level of potential investment attractiveness of an urban municipality depended significantly on the market of human resources, technical infrastructure, administration and market microclimates. The subsequent step was to determine the prospective development of the market microclimate. To achieve this purpose, a logistic function was applied. The results suggest that the level of development of market microclimate in most analyzed urban municipalities will be declining over the following six years.
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The conception of a garden-city assumes creation of an organized unit in functional and spatial terms ensuring harmonious relations among economic growth, protection of the natural environment and catering to different kinds of social needs. Thus, this former city model is deeply rooted in the contemporary idea of sustainable development. The article aims to describe a research procedure that would allow a determination of the degree of implementation of the garden-city concept in relation to contemporary cities. Moreover, the paper presents a comparative analysis of selected garden-cities in the context of the sustainable development idea. Historical, social, environmental and economic factors were analyzed as well as the functional-spatial structure and strategic documents of the cities. The entities investigated were shown to be the Polish interpretation of the garden-city idea and local rules include requirements concerning the principles of sustainable development.
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A fundamental aspect of infrastructure investments made by local authorities is the evaluation of their effectiveness. Considering their public character, infrastructural investments require more methodological sophistication to allow an assessment of a number of areas which have been ignored in previous analyses. This paper introduces a model for evaluating infrastructural investments based on select socio-economic ratios. The results of the research can be used by local authorities during investment planning and evaluation.
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The objective of the article is the analysis of conditions of conducting coherent spatial management specific to cross-border regions. The most important are geopolitical conditions, determining the character and functions of the national border. Socio-economic and spatial processes occurring in the conditions of both closed and open borders are also of importance. The institutional-legal distance occurring between entities located on both sides of the border may prove to be a serious hindrance in the conducting of coherent spatial policy in cross-border regions.
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