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Voting Behaviour. Voting behaviour belongs to classic topics of political sociology. The paper deals with the history of its research and the most influential theoretical models. The research of voting behaviour began in the 19th century - by journalist surveys in American presidential elections. A more rigorous research of voting behaviour started in 1935 when George Gallup established American Public Opinion Research Institute. Strictly scientific approach to the voting behaviour study is represented by explanatory research. They are two kinds of this research: the first rests on the election statistics' analysis (elections studies) and the second one on the variety of the voting behaviour empirical research. The representatives of the first approach are French demographers A. Siegfried and F. Goguel who established scientific school known as “voting geography school”. The representatives of the second approach are American and European sociologists, psychologists and political scientists as P. F. Lazarsfeld, B. Berelson, A. Cambell, S. M. Lipset, S. Verba, N. H. Nie, J. Petrocik, H. Himmelweit, A. Heath, G. Marshall, etc. Their research (executed mainly in the USA and UK) has aimed at construction and testing various explanation models of voting behaviour. The most well known models are economic, ideological, sociological and socio-psychological ones. Economic models draw from the rational choice and public choice theories of political and voting behaviour of A. Downs, K. Arrow, J. Buchanan, etc. These authors suggest that voting represents a form of rational decision making that involves the choice based on a full understanding of the issues. The next versions of rational choice theory maintain that people simply vote for any party that seems most likely to maximise their material well-being. Ideological model links voting to a social class and class ideology. Sociological model or "social group theory of voting" explains election behaviour with political alignment of economic classes, religious blocs and next social groups. Social-psychological, or "Party identification model", suggests that voting patterns in elections are primarily associated with the socio-economic factors. These factors create the basis of party loyalty by long-term political socialisation rather than it is moulded by the party political campaigns at election time. This model also focuses on the social correlates of voting and the lack of understanding the political issues among the most voter except the most important ones. The author also introduces the next voting behaviour models, for example interactionist model, model of irrational behaviour, etc.
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Social Transformation in the Evaluations of the Slovak Elite. This article presents an overview of different frames that underlain the Slovak political and social elite members’ evaluations of the social transformation after the year 1989. Basic dimensions of the evaluation are examined: political results of the transformation, social consequences of macro-social change and ways of further social development. Typical strategies of social transformation and modernisation recently proposed by the most important political camps and their civil supporters are discussed, such as: Slovak path of transformation, internationally accepted way of transformation and its modifications, communal prospect of development and communist way of thinking about the future.
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The study is a chapter from a work in progress titled The Birth of the Modern Male. Its subject is changing idelas of masculinity and femininity in the 19th century as manifesting itself in the mirror of such a public sport and amusement like the skating.
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An article written by Mircea Mihãies in his permanent column "Contrafort". The article deals with the inflation of secret services in Romania in the year 2000.
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This article will present a selective reading of the research methodology literature, focusing on the issues and ideas that may guide academics involved in researching the value of educational projects. I will discuss primarily issues related to qualitative research.
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While hierarchical structures have many advantages for the effective running of organizations, they also pose major drawbacks both for organizations and for individuals lower in a hierarchy. Research in kibbutz industry and in its social organizations shows that kibbutzim are not much different from other organizations because within kibbutzim hierarchical structures are common, differentials in power and control are correlated with hierarchical position, differential rewards are correlated with position, and health symptoms and indicators for well being are correlated with hierarchical position. Yet kibbutzim managed to solve the paradox of having organizations that are hierarchically structured and show all the features of hierarchical organizations yet keep up with the principles of equality and democracy. I explain and describe seven different counterbalancing mechanisms employed by kibbutzim to alleviate the drawbacks of hierarchy and yet preserve its advantages. Recently, many kibbutzim went through major structural transformations, and most mechanisms to counterbalance the ill effects of hierarchy were among the "victims" of these structural changes. Results of research show both in the economic sphere and in the social sphere how giving up on the counterbalancing mechanisms brings about deterioration in positive outcomes. The last part of the paper discusses reasons for the deterioration in effectiveness and then discusses possible generalization from kibbutz research to other societies.
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The protected units are an answer to the employment increase goal for people with disabilities in Romania. With a history of two decades, the protected units system became visible in the context of the social economy. The present paper is based on qualitative research and focuses on how the social actors in this employment opportunity address its benefits. There are small companies, NGOs, people with disabilities and representative authorities named here. Even though the system does not always function according to expectations, it has reduced the distance between economic and social sectors and created the context for rising awareness on the theme of disabilities, and overall is a more efficient and transparent way to support this vulnerable group.
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Retaining employees definitely saves an organisation money, and workforce planning could assist in retention of employees. Global pressure on organisations to stay competitive necessitates change while stakeholders demand quality and cost effective products. On the other hand competitors around the world are demanding level playing fields across cultures. Productivity, quality and customer satisfaction have also contributed to a rethinking of the shape and the nature of organisations. A culturally diverse workforce has been a reality in New Zealand for decades. The empirical research reported on in 2010 in this paper sought to discover informed industry direction from HR practitioners as to what their profile ought to be in 2020 and what organisations should do in this regard to be sensitive to a diverse workforce and to be prepared for the future .
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This paper mainly deals with the concepts and issues surrounding the contemporary notion of consumption. Consumption is a complex social phenomenon in which people consume goods or services for reasons beyond their basic use-value. Conspicuous Consumption, Symbolic Consumption, Addictive Consumption, Compulsive Consumption and Sacred Consumption are five main categories defining distinctive consumption styles. Basic characteristics of consumer culture can be summarized in the transforming of needs to desires, utilitarian/hedonic needs-values, commodity fetishism, conspicuous leisure and consumption, cultural values, aestheticization, alienation, differentiation and speed. A consumer society is one in which the entire society is organized around the consumption and display of commodities through which individuals gain prestige, identity, and standing. The paper explores the main factors fueling the engine of consumer society that has over the past few decades gained a global perspective.
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The article presents several of the most serious problems concerning public health care in Romania, as seen from the perspective of some similar public policies and practices in the European space. For more than two decades the public health system of Romania has undergone a so-called reform process with the main result of the continuous deterioration of both the labour conditions within the system and the quality of the provided services. This situation was created by the severe under-financing over the long term of the reform process; the continuous decreasing of the territorial units for medical services distribution; the exodus over the borders of Romanian physicians in their search for better work conditions; and, as a consequence, the limitation of the population’s access to the public health assistance and medication. The picture of the current situation inside some nations within the European Community that have recently applied reforms in the medical area strongly contrasts with the situation within Romania. Both through adopted policies and the actual medical practices that are carried on inside Romania, Romania seems deeply dissociated from all that takes place in the European Union, in the domain of medical service delivery development. Therefore, it is no wonder that for two decades the Romanian public health system is constantly situated at the end of the rankings concerning the performance of medical services, and at the beginning of those rankings regarding the incidence of morbidity and mortality within the European Community. The article also presents the authors` vision concerning privatisation of some public medical services, the efficiency of the services delivered in Romanian hospitals, the stage of the reform and the adoption of the new health law. Within this context, there are also presented some Romanian facts and managerial practices that have kept the system in a state of dysfunction and inefficiency for a long time.
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The public-administration sector provides rich information to public servants. Therefore the importance of the improved management of knowledge through the use of Knowledge Management Systems has enormously increased in order to solve employees’ tasks and deliver services to citizens effectively while facilitating decision-making capabilities. Furthermore, an organization’s wide adoption of Knowledge Management becomes important in order to obtain higher benefits. This study aims to descriptively identify the difference between the back-office and front-office employees’ adoption of a socio-technical knowledge management system in a municipality setting. Adoption process is comprehensively considered by including its antecedents and consequences. Subsequently the developed seven-point Likert scale survey was conducted in a Turkish municipality and the responses were evaluated descriptively. The results showed that decision environment and decision tasks are quite simple for both groups, although they are more complex for front-office staff than for the back-office staff. However, front-office staff are observed to use the system less than back-office staff and consequently achieve less benefit. Finally, the paper was concluded with further implications for research and practice.
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Health disparities in the United States have declined little over the past century despite far-reaching technological advances and, especially since the 1980s, heightened consciousness of the problem. Their persistence can be explained in large part by their usefulness to those who hold and seek to consolidate power. Among other things, health disparities help in bolstering master-subservient relationships; shoring up the ideology of rugged individualism; maintaining bureaucratic structures and jobs; providing plausible public enemies; monitoring upstream social ills; and sustaining a flow of research funding. Conditions likely necessary for ameliorating health disparities include open and mutual recognition of several often veiled realities concerning power relations: money equals power; power translates into access to resources; those who hold power are reluctant to part with it; those who lack power serve as convenient scapegoats; and institutions evolve so as to ensure their own survival. Health disparity will remain exceedingly difficult to eradicate so long as health inequities continue to perform useful functions in ways that seem cost effective for groups and individuals seeking to secure their power. A readiness to work around stumbling blocks in the path to equity-arrived at via frank and equitable discourse among community members and leaders in pursuit of vital community goals-will likely hinge upon heightened awareness not only of the cumulative economic burden imposed by health inequality but also of the extent to which even the most powerful are intrinsically dependent upon other members of the community.
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The study has two main objectives: exploring the budget coordinates of Romanian communes with the purpose of first, identifying regional differences and second, analyzing the projects selected for European financing through measure 322 of the National Program for Rural Development. The study uses 2010 data on the budget of revenues and expenditure of the rural localities (supplied by the Directorate for Local Fiscal and Budgetary Policies within the Ministry of Administration and of the Interior), as well as data on the projects selected for European financing through measure 322 of PNDR (“Renovation and development of villages, improving the basic services for the rural economy and population and valorization of the rural legacy), provided by the Agency for Payments for Rural Development and Fisheries. The underlying data for these analyses reveal significant gaps between the possibilities of financing development using the budget revenues of rural localities both at the regional and intra-county level. These gaps contribute to higher inequalities between areas with intense economic activity and poor areas, preventing a balanced development of the rural areas. Polar typologies can be thus noticed: the communes close to urban centers from the developed regions that can provide, largely from their own funds, the expenditures for the development of the public infrastructure, and the poor communes where the financing of the projects of local development depends on the allocations from the central budget and on the success of accessing European funds.
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The globalisation of the world markets has paved the way for the movement of people with scarce skills such as teachers across national boundaries with relative ease. This paper focuses on the migration of teachers from South Africa to the UK using a qualitative, ethnographic approach. It argues that there are socio-cultural complexities in the transnational migration of SA teachers. It begins by identifying the reasons for teachers exiting the SA teaching fraternity to work in schools in London in the UK. Teachers’ experiences in the UK schools are then explored. The study revealed that teachers leaving SA had multiple reasons for going abroad. The migration of teachers from SA to the UK was influenced by the declining economic status of teaching as a profession in SA, and global labour market conditions. The majority of the migrant teachers who were interviewed had an existing social network in the UK, either friends or relatives. However, the gravity of teaching in a foreign country without next of kin took its toll and teachers spoke at length of the loneliness of being apart from immediate family. An overwhelming majority of migrant teachers experienced a culture shock in UK classrooms, especially discipline problems. Migrant teachers felt powerless, as UK policies tend to protect children, even if they misbehaved in the classroom. The paper concludes by highlighting the commodification of teachers; those who are able to trade their skills in a global market in return for socio-economic and career gains. The arrival of this breed of teacher is also facilitated by what D.Harvey terms the “time-space compression” of global society.
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Many Spanish women manage to cope with the demands of both job and family by hiring immigrant women to do some housework and look after dependant relatives. In the last few years there has been an important increase in the demand for extra-communitarian workers to carry out this kind of task. These workers have been segregated by sex regarding occupation. In the procedure of regularization of foreign workers that took place in Spain during 2005, 83.4 percent of the applications for jobs in the area of domestic service were submitted by women (around 220,000), with an absolute predominance of immigrants from Latin America. Among the factors that explain this specialization we may find cultural affinity and the flexibility that characterizes this kind of job. This phenomenon reveals an occupational ethno-stratification on the grounds of gender and origin.
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This is the fifth collective publication by the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Global Change and Human Mobility (Globility). One should also mention the even greater amount of written work that has been presented and published in the form of individual contributions to specialist journals, both international and national. The variety and sheer number of publications in national languages add value to the work promoted by the IGU and a significant contribution to the circulation of ideas and to cultural rejuvenation, although this is difficult to evaluate and quantify. The problem of publishing the results of collaboration between networks of researchers constitutes a fundamental element of research and one that cannot be underestimated. Joint publication means giving an account of a process of scientific growth which has been achieved after many years of participation in meetings and conferences where, even if the atmosphere is amicable, discussions and critiques often take on harsher tones in confirmation of the seriousness of participation. Joint publication, however, is becoming increasingly difficult.[...]
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