Lost in Transition

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitja Velikonja

Why is there nostalgia for real socialism? Is it but a logical response to sudden, dramatic transformation? Don’t people remember those days anymore—or do they remember them all too well? In popular opinion, nostalgia for socialism is something fabricated, invented, and then imposed by different groups of people to achieve some goals: to open a new commercial niche, to attain political credit, to win popular support, to get artistic inspiration, and so on. Thus, many academic studies have examined only this instrumental side of the phenomenon, limiting it to the “industry of nostalgia” only. But research shows that nostalgia is in fact a retrospective utopia, a wish and a hope for a safe world, a fair society, true friendships, mutual solidarity, and well-being in general, in short, for a perfect world. As such, it is less a subjective, arbitrary, ideological effort to recall the past as it is, an undetermined, undefined, amorphous wish to transcend the present. So nostalgia for socialism in fact does not relate exclusively and precisely to past times, regimes, values, relations, and so on as such, but it embodies a utopian hope that there must be a society that is better than the current one.

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ganga Bahadur Thapa ◽  
Jan Sharma

Since the second democratic opening in 1990, Nepal has suffered from a democratic deficit due to the new leaders’ failure to institutionalise democracy by promoting inclusion, representation, and responsiveness. The concept of federalism, as argued in Nepal today, reflects the failure of the past and the determination to give local governance the real political and economic power. The fringe leftist and rightist parties oppose federalism, arguing that it will create deep divisions. Some of them even assume that the country may ultimately disappear altogether. In view of the widespread popular support, the challenge is to use federalism as an opportunity for prudently promoting inclusive, participatory, and responsive governance in the interest of economic prosperity and social well-being of the Nepali people. KEYWORDS: • federalism • monarchy • decentralisation • democracy • transition • constituent assembly • Nepal


2021 ◽  
pp. 140349482110076
Author(s):  
Hanna R. Öhman ◽  
Helena Karppinen ◽  
Tuuli E. Lehti ◽  
Mia T. Knuutila ◽  
Reijo Tilvis ◽  
...  

Background: Life expectancy has increased markedly in the past decades. Thus, it is of great importance to understand how people are ageing and if the trajectories of health and disability are changing over time. This study aimed to examine trends in functional abilities and health in independent cohorts of people aged 75–95 over three decades. Methods: This Helsinki Ageing Study consists of repeated cross-sectional postal surveys examining independent cohorts of old people (75, 80, 85 and 90+ years old). This study combined data from four waves (1989, 1999, 2009 and 2019). Results: In the most recent wave, there was an increase in the portion of participants who were able to walk outdoors easily (75-year-olds p=0.03, 80-year-olds p=0.002, 85-year-olds p<0.001; p for linearity for the study year effect, all adjusted for sex). Fewer people in the youngest age group (75-year-olds) needed daily help from another person in 2019 compared to the earlier waves ( p=0.02 for linearity for the study year). Over the past three decades, the proportions of self-reported good mobility have risen 8.7% (95% confidence interval (CI) 2.3–15.1) in 75-year-olds, 11.7% (95% CI 3.9–19.6) in 80-year-olds and 20.1% (95% CI 10.7–29.4) in 85-year-olds, after adjusting for sex. Furthermore, in 2019, more people rated their health as good and scored better in psychological well-being than in the previous waves among 75-, 80- and 85-year-olds. However, no improvements were found among 90+-year-olds in any of these variables. Conclusions: People between 75 and 85 years old are presently feeling and functioning better than their predecessors. This may be an important objective for both economics and health policy.


2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 797-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEEPAK NAYYAR

This paper situates the economic performance of independent India in historical perspective to evaluate the past and reflect on the future. It shows that the turning point in economic growth was circa 1951 in the long twentieth century and circa 1980 in India since independence. Thus, it is not possible to attribute the turnaround in India's performance to economic liberalization beginning 1991. During the period 1950–1980, economic growth in India was respectable, for it was a radical departure from the past and no worse than the performance of most countries. During the period 1980–2005, economic growth in India was impressive, indeed much better than in most countries. The real failure in both these periods was India's inability to transform this growth into well-being for all its people. And India's unfinished journey in development cannot be complete as long as poverty, deprivation and exclusion persist. Even so, with correctives, it should be possible to reach the destination.


Author(s):  
Robert Klinck ◽  
Ben Bradshaw ◽  
Ruby Sandy ◽  
Silas Nabinacaboo ◽  
Mannie Mameanskum ◽  
...  

The Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach is an Aboriginal community located in northern Quebec near the Labrador Border. Given the region’s rich iron deposits, the Naskapi Nation has considerable experience with major mineral development, first in the 1950s to the 1980s, and again in the past decade as companies implement plans for further extraction. This has raised concerns regarding a range of environmental and socio-economic impacts that may be caused by renewed development. These concerns have led to an interest among the Naskapi to develop a means to track community well-being over time using indicators of their own design. Exemplifying community-engaged research, this paper describes the beginning development of such a tool in fall 2012—the creation of a baseline of community well-being against which mining-induced change can be identified. Its development owes much to the remarkable and sustained contribution of many key members of the Naskapi Nation. If on-going surveying is completed based on the chosen indicators, the Nation will be better positioned to recognize shifts in its well-being and to communicate these shifts to its partners. In addition, long-term monitoring will allow the Naskapi Nation to contribute to more universal understanding of the impacts of mining for Indigenous peoples.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Budiman ◽  
Dennis Gunawan ◽  
Seng Hansun

Plagiarism is a behavior that causes violence of copyrights. Survey shows 55% of college presidents say that plagiarism in students’ papers has increased over the past 10 years. Therefore, an application for detecting plagiarism is needed, especially for teachers. This plagiarism checker application is made by using Visual C# 2010. The plagiarism checker uses hamming distance algorithm for matching line code of the source code. This algorithm works by matching the same length string of the code programs. Thus, it needs brute will be matched with hamming distance. Another important thing for detecting plagiarism is the preprocessing, which is used to help the algorithm for detecting plagiarized source code. This paper shows that the application works good in detecting plagiarism, the hamming distance algorithm and brute force algorithm works better than levenstein distance algorithm for detecting structural type of plagiarism and this thesis also shows that the preprocessing could help the application to increase its percentage and its accuracy. Index Terms—Brute Force, Hamming Distance, Plagiarisme, Preprocessing.


Author(s):  
Kris McDaniel

This chapter develops a version of ontological pluralism that respects two common intuitions about time: that the present moment is metaphysically distinguished but not in such a way that the past is unreal. The version of ontological pluralism developed—presentist existential pluralism (PEP)—embraces two modes of being, the mode of being that present objects enjoy and the mode of being that past objects enjoy. The author argues that this view fares at least as well, and probably better, than other views in which the present is metaphysically distinguished. The chapter also introduces another form of ontological superiority called “levels of being.”


Author(s):  
Abbie J. Shipp

Temporal focus is the individual tendency to characteristically think more or less about the past, present, and future. Although originally rooted in early work from psychology, research on temporal focus has been steadily growing in a number of research areas, particularly since Zimbardo and Boyd’s (1999) influential article on the topic. This chapter will review temporal focus research from the past to the present, including how temporal focus has been conceptualized and measured, and which correlates and outcomes have been tested in terms of well-being and behavior. Based on this review, an agenda for research is created to direct temporal focus research in the future.


1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack D Ives

Preview of Himalayan perceptions: Environmental change and the well-being of mountain peoples by JD Ives Routledge, London and New York To be published in August 2004 Himalayan Perspectives returns to the enormously popular development paradigm that Ives dubbed the ‘Theory of Himalayan Degradation’. According to this seductive construct, poverty and overpopulation in the Himalayas was leading to degradation of highland forests, erosion, and downstream flooding. In the ‘Himalayan Dilemma’, Ives and Messerli exposed this “Theory” as a dangerous collection of assumptions and misrepresentations. While most scholars in the field promptly conceded Ives and Messerli’s points, the Theory has somehow survived as the guiding myth of development planners and many government agencies. In his new book, Ives returns to drive a stake through the heart of this revenant. His book not only reviews the research that, over the past 15 years, has confirmed the arguments of the ‘Himalayan Dilemma’; it also takes a close look at all those destructive factors that were overlooked by the conveniently simplistic ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’: government mismanagement, oppression of mountain minorities, armed conflict, and inappropriate tourism development. Himalayan Journal of Sciences 2(3): 17-19, 2004 The full text is of this article is available at the Himalayan Journal of Sciences website


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Brolin Låftman ◽  
Y Bjereld ◽  
B Modin ◽  
P Löfstedt

Abstract Background Students who are subjected to sexual harassment at school report lower psychological well-being than those who are not exposed. Yet, it is possible that the occurrence of sexual harassment in the school class is stressful also for those who are not directly targeted, with potential negative effects on well-being for all students. The aim was to examine whether sexual harassment at the student- and at the class-level was associated with students' psychological complaints. Methods Data from the Swedish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) of 2017/18 was used, with information from students aged 11, 13 and 15 years (n = 3,720 distributed across 209 classes). Psychological complaints were constructed as a summative index of four items capturing how often the student had felt low, felt irritable or bad tempered, felt nervous, or had difficulties to fall asleep, during the past six months (Cronbach's alpha=0.78). Sexual harassment at the student-level was measured by one item concerning bullying at school: “Other students have exposed me to sexual jokes”. Students who reported that this had happened at least “2 or 3 times a month” were classified as exposed to sexual harassment at school. Sexual harassment at the class-level was defined as the school class proportion of students exposed to sexual harassment, reported in per cent. Two-level linear regression analysis was applied. Results Students who had been exposed to sexual harassment had higher levels of psychological complaints (b = 2.74, p &lt; 0.001). The proportion of students in the school class who had been exposed to sexual harassment was also associated with higher levels of psychological complaints, even when adjusting for sexual harassment at the student-level, gender and grade (b = 0.03, p = 0.015). Conclusions Sexual harassment is harmful for those who are exposed, but may also affect other students negatively. Thus, a school climate free from sexual harassment will profit all students. Key messages Using data collected among students aged 11, 13 and 15 years, this study showed that sexual harassment at the student- and class-level was associated with higher levels of psychological complaints. Sexual harassment is harmful for those who are exposed, but may also affect other students negatively. Thus, a school climate free from sexual harassment will profit all students.


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