scholarly journals Introduction: Travelling from West to East: Think Tank Model Adaptation to Central and Eastern Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832542094683
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Jezierska ◽  
Serena Giusti
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
The Social ◽  
Short Period ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World

This article is part of the special section “Think Tanks in Central and Eastern Europe” guest-edited by Katarzyna Jezierska and Serena Giusti. This is an introduction to the Special Section on Think Tanks in Central and Eastern Europe. Apart from this introduction, the Section includes four articles, which explore the nature and conditions of think tanks operating in Belarus, Ukraine, Czech Republic, and Poland. Think tanks are usually understood as institutions claiming autonomy whose main aim is to influence policy making based on the social analysis they produce. The most apparent blind spot in extant think tank research is its predominant focus on the English-speaking world. We argue that by focusing on think tanks in non-Western contexts, we can better understand think tanks. When studying the diffusion of the organizational form of think tanks to new contexts, it is not enough to maintain the “sender” perspective (the formulation of the institutional characteristics of think tanks in the contexts in which they first emerged). We need to complement or even modify that perspective by also taking into account the “receiver” perspective. In other words, internationally circulated ideas and institutional patterns are always interpreted and translated in local “receiving” contexts, which coproduce, reformulate, and readjust the blueprint. Our focus in this Section is therefore on the translation and local adaptation of the think tank institution in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, a region that has undergone deep changes in a relatively short period.

Introduction: Politics and Current Challenges of Demography in Central and Eastern Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-892
Author(s):  
Tsveta Petrova ◽  
Tomasz Inglot
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Demographic Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Europe Today

This article belongs to the special cluster, “Politics and Current Demographic Challenges in Central and Eastern Europe,” guest-edited by Tsveta Petrova and Tomasz Inglot. In this article, we introduce a multidisciplinary and multimethod, special section on the intersection of politics, policy, and the current challenges of demography in Hungary and Poland. We argue that aging, declining fertility, and migration as well as their politicization all deserve urgent attention as some of the most pressing concerns for most of Central and Eastern Europe today. Accordingly, we first use European Commission data to paint a comparative picture of the demographic challenges that the region faces. We then introduce the article contributions in the special section that examine aging, declining fertility, and migration. Next we turn to the question of the politicization of these demographic challenges. We discuss how the proposed special section speaks to two important but previously rarely linked debates taking place within the social sciences today: (1) the voluminous literature on the demographic changes and policies in Central and Eastern Europe, including their ethnic and cultural dimensions, and (2) the expanding scholarship on the rise of nationalist populism and decline in the quality of liberal democracy in the region. Lastly, we summarize the arguments of the contributing authors, who pay closer attention to policy responses to and the politicization of the demographic challenges faced by Central and Eastern Europe.

scholarly journals Wish You Were Here; A Short History of New Zealand Muslims and Integration

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-370
Author(s):  
Abdullah Drury
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Short History ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World

The recent court case of the Australian terrorist responsible for murdering 51 worshippers inside two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, has focused attention on this South Pacific nation. Nation-building, with its inherent practices of inclusion and exclusion into the social hierarchy, began here in the nineteenth century and accelerated throughout the twentieth century. History of Muslims in New Zealand, or New Zealand Islam, is a rich narrative illustrative of tendencies and biases that are both common to, as well as divergent from, patterns elsewhere in the English speaking world and Western societies in general. The integration of Muslim immigrants and refugees, and converts to Islam, into this complex social bricolage, however, has been challenging and at times convoluted. This essay will support us to consider why and how this is the case.

Genesis of a Social Space: Think Tanks in Belarus 1992–1995

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832542093779
Author(s):  
Maria Bigday
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Science And Politics

This article belongs to the special cluster, “Think Tanks in Central and Eastern Europe”, guest-edited by Katarzyna Jezierska and Serena Giusti. The article looks at think tanks through the prism of a specific social space whose emergence is ascribable to both transnational processes and local social structures. Four processes are identified as shaping the institutionalization of the first think tanks in Belarus, founded as a tool for the “desovietization” of science and “democratization” of politics in the early 1990s: (1) the destabilization of relations between science and politics spurred by the Soviet perestroika beginning in 1986; (2) the autonomization of national elites and a political field in Belarus following the collapse of the Soviet Union; (3) the transformation of the labor market, including the crisis of state-supported research and academia, which ejected a large number of well-educated professionals; and (4) the intensification of transnational exchanges and the legitimization of references to Western practices. To systematically analyze these processes, a model consisting of the following four dimensions is proposed: configuration of relations between science and politics, position of the think tank space in the field of power, professional logics of career or competition, and transnational diffusion of resources and their local appropriation.

Social Quality in a Transitive Society

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeriy Heyets
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Quality ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Quality Approach ◽  
The Welfare State

Nearly 30 years of transformation of the sociopolitical and legal, socioeconomical and financial, sociocultural and welfare, and socioenvironmental dimensions in both Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, has led to a change of the social quality of daily circumstances. On the one hand, the interconnection and reciprocity of these four relevant dimensions of societal life is the underlying cause of such changes, and on the other, the state as main actor of the sociopolitical and legal dimension is the initiator of those changes. Applying the social quality approach, I will reflect in this article on the consequences of these changes, especially in Ukraine. In comparison, the dominant Western interpretation of the “welfare state” will also be discussed.

Theories of Imperialism

1952 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 402-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Knorr
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Striking Difference ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
European Tradition ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
English Speaking World

Although the term “imperialism” is gaining currency at present, social scientists in the English-speaking world continue to treat with slight interest the phenomena which the term seeks to identify. The authors of the two books under review are of continental European origin. This is hardly an unusual coincidence; the paucity of Anglo-American literature on imperialism contrasts oddly with the prolific stream of writings which has appeared in continental Europe during the last seventy years. One reason for this striking difference lies no doubt in the traditional reluctance of Anglo-American social scientists to generalize about the causation of historical events—and, without such generalization, no theory of imperialism is possible. There is a good deal to be said both for this unwillingness to generalize readily, and against the irrepressible enthusiasm with which European savants construct their sweeping theories. Yet neither can it be denied that the European tradition has produced theories of outstanding and abiding value for the understanding of social and political events. Both Marx and Freud, and many lesser lights, were of this tradition and one need not be Marxist or Freudian to appreciate how immensely their brilliant theories have enriched the social sciences in the Englishspeaking countries.

scholarly journals When teachers talk about films: An investigation into some aspects of English teachers’ discursive practices

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Synnøve Bakken
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
English Teachers ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Secondary Classroom ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World

Denne artikkelen utforsker hva atten ungdomsskolelærere sier om læringsverdien av film i engelskundervisningen. De filmene lærerne nevner er hovedsakelig fiksjonsfilmer om forhold i den engelskspråklige verden eller filmatiseringer av skjønnlitterære verk. Hvordan begrunner lærene bruken av disse filmene? Hvilke ytre forhold kan bidra til lærernes meningsskaping omkring filmbruk? Jeg bruker perspektiver fra Norman Faircloughs kritiske diskursanalyse for å utforske trekk ved lærernes refleksjoner i intervju. Jeg inndeler lærernes meningsskaping i fire antakelser om filmens læringsverdi; den referensielle, den kompensatoriske, den emosjonelle og den språklige verdien. Videre skisserer jeg hvordan disse refleksjonene kan knyttes til omliggende diskurser om hva man kan lære av film; i engelskfaget, i media og i lys av mer abstrakte diskurser om deltakelse og demokrati i norsk skole. Det synes å være enighet om at film fortjener en plass i engelskundervisningen. Imidlertid virker det som om forestillinger om filmens læringsverdi representerer en blindsone som i liten grad har fått kritisk et søkelys. Jeg mener at de perspektivene som belyses i denne artikkelen kan være gjenstand for diskusjon både i engelskfaget og på tvers av fag.Nøkkelord: fiksjonsfilmer, engelskundervisning, kritisk diskursanalyse, læreres diskursive praksiserAbstractWhen teachers say: “you can learn a lot from films”, what does this imply? This article explores interviews with eighteen Norwegian English teachers about the learning value of films in the lower secondary classroom. The films that these teachers talk about are mostly fiction films about conditions in the English-speaking world or film adaptations of literary texts. This article focuses on the teachers’ reasoning about fiction films.  I use perspectives from critical discourse analysis (CDA) to explore how the teachers justify their choices and what notions of films they can be seen to rely on. There appears to be some sort of general agreement in the field of English teaching that films deserve a place in the classroom. Still, notions about the value of classroom film use might represent a blind spot that has escaped scrutiny.Keywords: fiction films, EFL teaching, critical discourse analysis, teachers’ discursive practices

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