scholarly journals Rzecz o nepotyzmie i kumoterstwie

2018 ◽  
pp. 131-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remigiusz Rosicki

The paper comprises an introduction, four parts, and conclusions. The introduction char- acterizes the fundamental notions discussed in the paper, namely kin selection, nepotism, cronyism and political capitalism. The first part of the paper concerns kin selection and reciprocal altruism, which are deemed to be the fundamental mechanisms of socialization. This part indicates that nepotism has a biological justification (and in R. Dawkins’ interpretation – a genetic justification). The mechanisms of kin selection and reciprocal altruism raise the question of whether nepotism is not a natural phenomenon in humans. If so, this means that the negative assessment of these phenomena of public life goes against natural human inclinations. The second part of the paper refers to the origins of the notion of nepotism and to a particu- lar understanding of the public realm in modern democracies. The development of democracy has been related to the transformation of the mechanisms of governance which consisted in concessions made by the authorities to those demanding changes. Political struggle has been minimized as it was directed at competition among citizens. The struggle for the change of power has been replaced by the struggle for access to positions and goods in the public realm. Axiological justification has been provided by social justice as a claim for equal access to goods by virtue of principles of transparency. The third part of the paper discusses the issue of nepotism and cronyism in public opinion. It refers to the results of public opinion surveys concerning, among other things, favoritism, ways of looking for jobs, unequal opportunities on account of social status, and the social sta- tus of the family. Additionally, selected examples of nepotism and favoritism in political life are presented. The fourth part deals with the issue of political capitalism both in the interpretation of M. Weber and as a phenomenon of the transition of the Polish socio-political system. Political capitalism can be defined in a nutshell as using state structures or political positions for an un- fair distribution of goods and is expressed by muddy links between the representatives of state with the private business sphere.


Resonance ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-327
Author(s):  
Shuhei Hosokawa

Drawing on Karin Bijsterveld’s triple definition of noise as ownership, political responsibility, and causal responsibility, this article traces how modern Japan problematized noise, and how noise represented both the aspirational discourse of Western civilization and the experiential nuisance accompanying rapid changes in living conditions in 1920s Japan. Primarily based on newspaper archives, the analysis will approach the problematic of noise as it was manifested in different ways in the public and private realms. In the public realm, the mid-1920s marked a turning point due to the reconstruction work after the Great Kantô Earthquake (1923) and the spread of the use of radios, phonographs, and loudspeakers. Within a few years, public opinion against noise had been formed by a coalition of journalists, police, the judiciary, engineers, academics, and municipal officials. This section will also address the legal regulation of noise and its failure; because public opinion was “owned” by middle-class (sub)urbanites, factory noises in downtown areas were hardly included in noise abatement discourse. Around 1930, the sounds of radios became a social problem, but the police and the courts hesitated to intervene in a “private” conflict, partly because they valued radio as a tool for encouraging nationalist mobilization and transmitting announcements from above. In sum, this article investigates the diverse contexts in which noise was perceived and interpreted as such, as noise became an integral part of modern life in early 20th-century Japan.



2018 ◽  
pp. 8-15
Author(s):  
Іvan Pobochiy

The level of social harmony in society and the development of democracy depends to a large extent on the level of development of parties, their ideological and political orientation, methods and means of action. The purpose of the article is to study the party system of Ukraine and directions of its development, which is extremely complex and controversial. The methods. The research has led to the use of such scientific search methods as a system that allowed the party system of Ukraine to be considered as a holistic organism, and the historical and political method proved to be very effective in analyzing the historical preconditions and peculiarities of the formation of the party system. The results. The incompetent, colonial past and the associated cruel national oppression, terror, famine, and violent Russification caused the contradictory and dramatic nature of modernization, the actual absence of social groups and their leaders interested in it, and the relatively passive reaction of society to the challenges of history. Officials have been nominated by mafia clans, who were supposed to protect their interests and pursue their policies. Political struggle in the state took place not between influential political parties, but between territorial-regional clans. The party system of Ukraine after the Maidan and the beginning of the war on the Donbass were undergoing significant changes. On the political scene, new parties emerged in the course of the protests and after their completion — «Petro Poroshenko Bloc», «People’s Front», «Self-help»), which to some extent became spokespeople for not regional, but national interests. Pro-European direction is the main feature of the leading political parties that have formed a coalition in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Conclusion. The party system of Ukraine as a result of social processes is at the beginning of a new stage in its development, an important feature of which is the increase in the influence of society (direct and indirect) on the political life of the state. Obviously, there is a demand from the public for the emergence of new politicians, new leaders and new political forces that citizens would like to see first and foremost speakers and defenders of their interests.



Nuncius ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 493-512
Author(s):  
STEFANO CASATI

Abstracttitle SUMMARY /title In the second half of the Eighteenth century a heated debate on the use of the lightning conductor took place in Europe. Franklin's ingenious discovery did not gain general approval among the European philosophers and raised fears and doubts in most part of the public opinion. In Italy the use of the lightning conductor gained large acceptance although it also aroused criticism and controversies that required the intervention of famous scientists, such as G. Toaldo. M. Landriani, and F. Fontana. Thanks to their efforts and dedication the idea that science could master a powerful and destructive natural phenomenon such as lightning was finally accepted. The cultural struggle for the use of the electric bars not only contributed to the achievement of a scientific innovation, but also to a change of mentality.



Author(s):  
Tat'yana Ryabova ◽  
Lyudmila Kleschenko

The first part of the paper describes the theoretical aspects of the issues regarding the politicization of childhood. The authors demonstrate that the representation of childhood in political rhetoric, on the one hand, reflects the ideas about it existing in society, and on the other hand, is its significant forming factor. The second part provides the analysis of the symbol of childhood along with the media coverage of 2017—2019 protest movement in Russia. The third part provides for the study of public opinion on the participation of minors in politics and the use of the symbol of childhood by political actors, based on interviews conducted by the authors. The authors conclude that according to the public opinion there is a need for minors to participate in political life. At the same time, in the course of using the image of childhood by political actors, the majority of informants is aware of its manipulative nature.



2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhadyra Kaliyeva ◽  
Altynay Zhurasova ◽  
Nadezhda Shakhmatova ◽  
Salima Uzakova

Results of the sociological studies, performed by means of a questionnaire (quota-area sample), are provided by the authors in the article. It is noted that youth organizations in the modern Kazakhstan are actively developing, playing an increasing role in life of the young generation. Meanwhile, every third young Kazakhstan was undecided during the questionnaire, and this confirms a significant level of inactivity of the most part of the youth. It is emphasized that a disparity between two components of the integration mechanism – youth engagement in one or other structure and identification with them – is observed in terms of social instability and uncertainty. Consequently, integration becomes necessary, more equivalent to mechanical integration than organically established interrelation. There are three approaches in the public opinion of the youth on the development of youth organizations – as a political and ideological structure (dominant), as a social mechanism of socialization, and responses to problems, needs and demands of the youth. Conclusions on a flexible ambiguity and a synthetical nature of the modern youth organizations of Kazakhstan, integrating traditional and paternalistic, and innovation-democratic beliefs and practices, were made on the basis of the performed analysis. And the first dominates over the second ones. At the same time, the youth associations were divided in those, which were created and controlled ‘from upstairs’ (more according to the youth opinion), and those, which were created upon the initiative ‘from below’. It was noted that in the case of orientation to (in the estimation of most people) youth engagement into political life of the society, many organizations solve problems of the society, but not of the youth. Moreover, nowadays most of the modern youth of Kazakhstan considers that the need of young people in public youth organizations has always been a priority. It means applicability and need of modern youth organizations during a troubled period of the society transformation, when young people need support of the society, solution of social problems and assistance, in order to implement themselves and their positive personal qualities, perfect themselves intellectually and spiritually, and to impact on public processes. Also this confirms that the Kazakhstan youth has a considerable potential of public activism.



2012 ◽  
pp. 24-47
Author(s):  
V. Gimpelson ◽  
G. Monusova

Using different cross-country data sets and simple econometric techniques we study public attitudes towards the police. More positive attitudes are more likely to emerge in the countries that have better functioning democratic institutions, less prone to corruption but enjoy more transparent and accountable police activity. This has a stronger impact on the public opinion (trust and attitudes) than objective crime rates or density of policemen. Citizens tend to trust more in those (policemen) with whom they share common values and can have some control over. The latter is a function of democracy. In authoritarian countries — “police states” — this tendency may not work directly. When we move from semi-authoritarian countries to openly authoritarian ones the trust in the police measured by surveys can also rise. As a result, the trust appears to be U-shaped along the quality of government axis. This phenomenon can be explained with two simple facts. First, publicly spread information concerning police activity in authoritarian countries is strongly controlled; second, the police itself is better controlled by authoritarian regimes which are afraid of dangerous (for them) erosion of this institution.



2020 ◽  
pp. 316-328
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Susca

Contemporary communicative platforms welcome and accelerate a socio-anthropological mutation in which public opinion (Habermas, 1995) based on rational individuals and alphabetic culture gives way to a public emotion whose emotion, empathy and sociality are the bases, where it is no longer the reason that directs the senses but the senses that begin to think. The public spheres that are elaborated in this way can only be disjunctive (Appadurai, 2001), since they are motivated by the desire to transgress the identity, political and social boundaries where they have been elevated and restricted. The more the daily life, in its local intension and its global extension, rests on itself and frees itself from projections or infatuations towards transcendent and distant orders, the more the modern territory is shaken by the forces that cross it and pierce it. non-stop. The widespread disobedience characterizing a significant part of the cultural events that take place in cyberspace - dark web, web porn, copyright infringement, trolls, even irreverent ... - reveals the anomic nature of the societal subjectivity that emerges from the point of intersection between technology and naked life. Behind each of these offenses is the affirmation of the obsolescence of the principles on which much of the modern nation-states and their rights have been based. Each situation in which a tribe, cloud, group or network blends in a state of ecstasy or communion around shared communications, symbols and imaginations, all that surrounds it, in material, social or ideological terms, fades away. in the air, being isolated by the power of a bubble that in itself generates culture, rooting, identification: transpolitic to inhabit



2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Ormston ◽  
John Curtice ◽  
Stephen Hinchliffe ◽  
Anna Marcinkiewicz

Discussion of sectarianism often focuses on evidence purporting to show discriminatory behaviour directed at Catholics or Protestants in Scotland. But attitudes also matter – in sustaining (or preventing) such discriminatory behaviours, and in understanding the nature of the ‘problem of sectarianism’ from the perspective of the Scottish public. This paper uses data from the Scottish Social Attitudes survey 2014. The survey fills a gap in the evidence base by providing robust evidence on what the public actually thinks about sectarianism in modern Scotland. It assesses public beliefs about the extent and nature of sectarianism and its perceived causes. Tensions in public opinion and differences in the attitudes of different sections of Scottish society are explored.



2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 266-273
Author(s):  
Ivan S. Palitai

The article is devoted to the modern Russian party system. In the first part of the article, the author shows the historical features of the parties formation in Russia and analyzes the reasons for the low turnout in the elections to the State Duma in 2016. According to the author the institutional reasons consist in the fact that the majority of modern political parties show less and less ability to produce new ideas, and the search for meanings is conducted on the basis of the existing, previously proposed sets of options. Parties reduce the topic of self-identification in party rhetoric, narrowing it down to “branded” ideas or focusing on the image of the leader. In addition, the author shows the decrease in the overall political activity of citizens after the 2011 elections, and points out that the legislation amendments led to the reduction of the election campaigns duration and changes in the voting system itself. The second part of the article is devoted to the study of the psychological aspects of the party system. The author presents the results of the investigation of images of the parties as well as the results of the population opinion polls, held by the centers of public opinion study. On the basis of this data, the author concludes that according to the public opinion the modern party system is ineffective, and the parties don’t have real political weight, which leads to the decrease of the interest in their activities and confidence in them. The author supposes that all this may be the consequence of the people’s fatigue from the same persons in politics, but at the same time the electorate’s desire to see new participants in political processes is formulated rather vaguely, since, according to the people, this might not bring any positive changes.



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