Assessing the Role of European Attitudes in Cross-National Research

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 504-518
Author(s):  
Magda Giurcanu
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
The South ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Dummy Variable ◽  
Large N ◽  
Starting Point

How does Eastern Europe contribute to the debate over EU’s democratic deficit from an electoral perspective? Does Eastern Europe challenge our theoretical understanding of what motivates European citizens to participate and express their opinions in European Parliamentary elections? While there is no overarching consensus in the academic community regarding these questions, this essay aims to illustrate how a deeper understanding of one post-communist case and a bottom-up perspective on attitudes and political behavior in one locale, Romania, allowed the researcher to delve deeper into the taken-for-granted dynamics that European citizens from the South, East, and West engage in when voting in European Parliamentary elections. The approach of “ethnographic sensibility” mentioned in the workshop’s discussions and illustrated in several contributions to this volume (see e.g. Kubik 2013; Knott 2015) constitutes then a useful starting point in deconstructing conventional knowledge. Moreover, during the process of moving up the ladder of generality and building inferences from one case study to a region, Eastern Europe still shares enough characteristics to deserve its own dummy variable, so to speak, in large- N continent-wide analyses covering the 2004 and 2009 European Parliamentary (EP) elections. Yet, as Joshua Tucker (2015) mentions in his contribution, it is unclear whether the historical legacies discussed at the workshop and further elaborated on by Grigore Pop-Eleches (2015) will continue to play a role in a priori distinguishing Eastern Europeans’ political attitudes and behaviors from other EU citizens in the South or West in future EP elections.

scholarly journals O pierwiastku tragicznym w roli społecznej uczonego

Etyka ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 137-153
Author(s):  
Jan Jerschina
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Ideal Model ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Simple Consideration ◽  
Moral Competences ◽  
Organization Of Science

This is an attempt to outline the range of problems that should be taken into account when studying the ethos of scholars. The author sets forth from an uncommon starting point. He does not construct “an ideal model of the ethos of the scholar”, neither is he concerned with the “pathology of academic life”. Such approaches are dubbed “normative-functional” by the author, and without implicating that they are methodologically implausible he refrains from using them due to the simple consideration that they are unable to accommodate the “tragic component of the role” involved. He sets out to show that the scholars cannot avoid finding themselves in a conflict of values and norms that cannot be ordered using criteria commonly accepted in the academic circles or derived from the concept of the role or the ethos of the scholar. Scholars are exposed to a conflict between the norms accepted by the academic community and the norms accepted by other communities to which they belong. The article discusses the influence of contemporary changes in the organization of science – its dependence on the state, its subservience to the national goals or to the exigencies of other social groups (political, religious, etc.). The author is not satisfied with the treatment of these problems by R. K. Merton, and he reviews various philosophical conceptions with the hope of finding a better answer. He seeks to conceptualize the role of the scholar in terms of the theories proposed by L. Petrażycki, A. Kępiński, I. Kant, M. Weber, K. Mannheim, P. Bourdieu, and others, but has to conclude that in none of these theories is it possible to remove the tragic element from the picture of ethically relevant decision-making. The author ends by saying that the possession of “social and moral competences” that overstep the boundaries of the scholar’s responsibility defined by his role and ethos is a necessary condition of the social fulfilment of that role.

scholarly journals The Case of George Brown: Material Culture and the Missionary Enterprise

1969 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Bray
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Academic Environment ◽  
Indigenous Culture ◽  
The South

This article analyzes the complex and controversial role of material culture in the missionary endeavour of the South Pacific, using as a case study George Brown. Brown’s contributions to the European academic community as well as to his Methodist mission offer scholars an exceptional example of how extensive object collection blurs the line between missionary and ethnographer. With reference to detailed sources written by Brown himself, it is argued that his role as a missionary did not limit Brown’s credibility in an academic environment hungry for first-hand accounts of indigenous culture. Furthermore, this role should enhance (not taint) studies of Brown’s legacy; a collection of objects and texts such as his denies a clear categorization as a missionary or as an ethnographer. The context of George Brown’s collecting therefore merits a “recontextualization” of sorts, as the stigma surrounding the missionary enterprise often obscures the historical value of such prized research.

scholarly journals The Substantive Representation of Women in Poland

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 262-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Gwiazda
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Substantive Representation ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Starting Point

AbstractThis article examines the substantive representation of women in Poland after the 2015 parliamentary elections. By looking at the case of the Black Protests, in which tens of thousands of demonstrators, wearing black, defended women's rights by protesting a proposed total abortion ban, it revisits the existing approaches to substantive representation. Hanna Pitkin's definition is used as a starting point, but then broader questions concerning women's interests, agents, and sites of representation are considered. This article identifies a variety of interests but argues that in Poland, conservative interests dominate in parliament, although feminist interests are voiced too, especially by nonelected agents in extraparliamentary sites. This article makes an important contribution to the research on women's political representation because it deals with unexplored aspects of representation in Central and Eastern Europe.

scholarly journals Authenticity and fundamental onthology

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 149-182
Author(s):  
Milan Brdar
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Object Relation ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Fundamental Ontology ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

What does Heidegger?s discussion of authenticity of Dasein, as presented in Sein und Zeit (1927), contribute to the completion of his program of fundamental ontology (aiming at the sense of being as such)? Aiming to answer to this question the author examines the way authenticity is constructed. The author specifically emphasizes the fact that the authenticity is completed within what is given in ?the One? (?das Man?), in the process by which Dasein realizes within its way of being his own specification or concretization. Furthermore Heidegger claims, on the one hand, that it is not possible to rank authenticity and inauthenticity as being something of ?higher? and ?lower? order, and, on the other hand, that the world has a transcendental status with primary role of the One (das Man). Therefore Dasein understands all from the world, builds its understanding by taking it from the world and constructing out of it its own specification. This has two important consequences: the first is the realization that authenticity has no significance for fundamental ontology, for the understanding of the Being that the Dasein has acquired is equally valuable whether it is authentic or not; and the second is that authenticity is of negligible significance, for the understanding that the Dasein has is obtained from the One, and because the world has a transcendental status, hence it is a priori as far as the understanding of all Being goes. Why then Heidegger deals with authenticity? Reason is to be found not in preparing work for fundamental onthology but in Heidegger?s anticartesianism. As he sketched the concept of Dasein in contrast to Descartes? subject, he created a problem for himself. Just as Descartes had a problem with finding the way to bring the subject to the world, Heidegger is facing a problem: How can the Dasein, as something integrated into the world as beingin- the-world and being-with-Others, come to itself? Finding the answer to this question does not engage fundamental ontology, for it must be obtained as a precondition for creating the starting point for it. Finally, the author discusses a problem that emerges from this perspective: What is the source of Heidegger?s turn (Kehre)? Emphasized as reasons are Heidegger?s anthropocentrism and remnants of the subject-object relation. Anthropocentrism, however, was already overcomed in SuZ with the thesis about the trancendentalty of the world and by de-centering the subject given the primacy of understanding as contained in the One. As for the subject-object relation, it was overcome through the very discussion of authenticity on the basis of the thesis that the Dasein and the world are in original unity. It follows, then, that Heidegger did not offer the real reasons for his turn, hence the question remains: Why Heidegger did not remain satisfied with those results? That remains to be uncovered by further analyses of his philosophy!

scholarly journals Reflections on the Other Side. A Southern Iberia Origin for the First Pottery Production of Northern Morocco?

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1054-1065
Author(s):  
Rafael M. Martínez Sánchez ◽  
Juan Carlos Vera Rodríguez ◽  
Jesús Gámiz Caro ◽  
Salvador Pardo-Gordó ◽  
Guillem Pérez-Jordà ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
The Other ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Pottery Production ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Southern Iberia

Abstract This work is a starting point for rethinking the role of the Iberian Peninsula in the neolithisation of northern Morocco. It focuses on the similarities and divergences between the first pottery productions and their decorations in both territories. This relationship is supported by the existence of an accurate chronological gradation between the first evidence of Neolithisation in Iberian Peninsula and that of northern Morocco which suggests a north–south direction. We also present arguments on the possible links between the early ceramics from the north of Morocco and those from the south of Iberia, providing a first approach to an issue that will need to be carefully analysed in future research.

Collection of Ego-Centered Network Data with Computer-Assisted Interviews

Methodology ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Gerich ◽  
Roland Lehner
Keyword(s):  
Survey Methods ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Dynamic Structure ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Network Data ◽  
Great Effort ◽  
Self Administration ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Full Network

Although ego-centered network data provide information that is limited in various ways as compared with full network data, an ego-centered design can be used without the need for a priori and researcher-defined network borders. Moreover, ego-centered network data can be obtained with traditional survey methods. However, due to the dynamic structure of the questionnaires involved, a great effort is required on the part of either respondents (with self-administration) or interviewers (with face-to-face interviews). As an alternative, we will show the advantages of using CASI (computer-assisted self-administered interview) methods for the collection of ego-centered network data as applied in a study on the role of social networks in substance use among college students.

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