scholarly journals Facing the past and peace building

Temida ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 31-32
Author(s):  
Adnan Hasanbegovic

The Center for Non-Violent Action was founded in 1997 in Sarajevo, since when we have been working and conducting our activities in the area of the former Yugoslavia, with the basic mission to build peace by organizing programs for the education for peace. As of 2001, the Belgrade office has also been active. The purpose of our activities with the former soldiers, in addition to demystifying "the enemy" is the great need for their direct engagement in the peace process because of the high level of credibility that those people enjoy in their communities, among other things. Our intention is to give more space to the former soldiers and to engage a concerted effort on the overcoming of the obviously present gap between the peace organizations and the veterans? and war invalids? associations in these three countries. As a result of our yearlong experience, we have arrived at the conclusion that one of the most important; perhaps even the principal foundation for building sustainable peace in this region is facing the past. In the process of facing the past, the key elements seem to be the creation of space for mutual empathy, understanding and solidarity both on the collective (national and similar levels) and on the individual level.

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah

The current peace process between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is unprecedented on several counts: talks have never lasted this long, been this stable, or been at such a high level in the past. Also unprecedented, and perhaps key to the early success of the process, has been an agreement (referred to in this article as the ‘Killinochchi consensus’) between the main stakeholders that the first priority of conflict resolution is realising the ‘peace dividend’. This has resulted in considerable action and cooperation on reconstruction of the war-torn Northeast and development of the island's economy. It is suggested here that, apart from their direct benefits, these efforts have two further aims: to bolster popular support for the peace initiative, and to foster cooperation between the two negotiating sides ahead of discussions on more contentious issues. Also novel in the Sri Lankan case has been the willingness of international donors, particularly the international financial institutions, to get involved in the peace process well before a permanent solution has been achieved. While several questions remain about the nature and scope of the development imperative, whether it has been correctly sequenced, and whether it can deliver a sustainable peace, a constructive and pragmatic approach to peacebuilding through development holds some promise in Sri Lanka and perhaps elsewhere.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Meryem Grabski ◽  
Jon Waldron ◽  
Tom P. Freeman ◽  
Claire Mokrysz ◽  
Ruben J.J. van Beek ◽  
...  

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Monitoring emerging trends in the increasingly dynamic European drug market is vital; however, information on change at the individual level is scarce. In the current study, we investigated changes in drug use over 12 months in European nightlife attendees. <b><i>Method:</i></b> In this longitudinal online survey, changes in substances used, use frequency in continued users, and relative initiation of use at follow-up were assessed for 20 different substances. To take part, participants had to be aged 18–34 years; be from Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, or the UK; and have attended at least 6 electronic music events in the past 12 months at baseline. Of 8,045 volunteers at baseline, 2,897 completed the survey at both time points (36% follow-up rate), in 2017 and 2018. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The number of people using ketamine increased by 21% (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001), and logarithmized frequency of use in those continuing use increased by 15% (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001; 95% CI: 0.07–0.23). 4-Fluoroamphetamine use decreased by 27% (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001), and logarithmized frequency of use in continuing users decreased by 15% (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001, 95% CI: −0.48 to −0.23). The drugs with the greatest proportion of relative initiation at follow-up were synthetic cannabinoids (73%, <i>N</i> = 30), mephedrone (44%, <i>N</i> = 18), alkyl nitrites (42%, <i>N</i> = 147), synthetic dissociatives (41%, <i>N</i> = 15), and prescription opioids (40%, <i>N</i> = 48). <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> In this European nightlife sample, ketamine was found to have the biggest increase in the past 12 months, which occurred alongside an increase in frequency of use in continuing users. The patterns of uptake and discontinuation of alkyl nitrates, novel psychoactive substances, and prescription opioids provide new information that has not been captured by existing cross-sectional surveys. These findings demonstrate the importance of longitudinal assessments of drug use and highlight the dynamic nature of the European drug landscape.


2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 915-952
Author(s):  
Petra Kipfelsberger ◽  
Heike Bruch ◽  
Dennis Herhausen

This article investigates how and when a firm’s level of customer contact influences the collective organizational energy. For this purpose, we bridge the literature on collective human energy at work with the job impact framework and organizational sensemaking processes and argue that a firm’s level of customer contact is positively linked to the collective organizational energy because a high level of customer contact might make the experience of prosocial impact across the firm more likely. However, as prior research at the individual level has indicated that customers could also deplete employees’ energy, we introduce transformational leadership climate as a novel contingency factor for this linkage at the organizational level. We propose that a medium to high transformational leadership climate is necessary to derive positive meaning from customer contact, whereas firms with a low transformational leadership climate do not get energized by customer contact. We tested the proposed moderated mediation model with multilevel modeling and a multisource data set comprising 9,094 employees and 75 key informants in 75 firms. The results support our hypotheses and offer important theoretical contributions for research on collective human energy in organizations and its interplay with customers.


Author(s):  
Roni Reiter-Palmon ◽  
Mackenzie Harms

For the past two decades, creativity and innovation have been viewed by researchers as critical to organizational success and survival. Understanding the factors that facilitate or inhibit creativity and innovation at the individual level has been the focus of much of the research in the area. In recent years, research in organizational psychology and management has focused on understanding creativity and innovation in teams. However, while earlier work on teams and creativity focused on the team as a context variable, and individual creativity as the outcome, more recent research emphasizes creativity as the outcome. This chapter provides an overview of the state of research and practice as it relates to team creativity and innovation in organizations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 893-911
Author(s):  
Akos Rona-Tas

Abstract Predictive algorithms are replacing the art of human judgement in rapidly growing areas of social life. By offering pattern recognition as forecast, predictive algorithms mechanically project the past onto the future, embracing a peculiar notion of time where the future is different in no radical way from the past and present, and a peculiar world where human agency is absent. Yet, prediction is about agency, we predict the future to change it. At the individual level, the psychological literature has concluded that in the realm of predictions, human judgement is inferior to algorithmic methods. At the sociological level, however, human judgement is often preferred over algorthms. We show how human and algorithmic predictions work in three social contexts—consumer credit, college admissions and criminal justice—and why people have good reasons to rely on human judgement. We argue that mechanical and overly successful local predictions can result in self-fulfilling prophecies and, eventually, global polarization and chaos. Finally, we look at algorithmic prediction as a form of societal and political governance and discuss how it is currently being constructed as a wide net of control by market processes in the USA and by government fiat in China.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seidali Kurtmollaiev

Despite its immense popularity, the dynamic capabilities framework faces fierce criticism because of the ambiguous and contradictory interpretations of dynamic capabilities. Especially challenging are the aspects related to the nature of dynamic capabilities and the issue of agency. In an attempt to avoid circular and overlapping definitions, I explicate dynamic capabilities as the regular actions of creating, extending, and modifying an organizational resource base. This implies that the individual’s intention to change the status quo in the organization and the individual’s high level of influence in the organization are necessary and sufficient conditions for dynamic capabilities. This approach overcomes challenges associated with current interpretations of dynamic capabilities, necessarily focusing on the actions and interactions of individuals in organizations. Following the micro-foundations movement, I present a multilevel approach for studying the individual-level causes and the firm-level effects of dynamic capabilities.


2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Stefanek ◽  
Dagmar Strohmeier ◽  
Rens van de Schoot

This study was an investigation of individual and contextual predictors for same-cultural friendship preferences among non-immigrant ( N = 125), Turkish ( N = 196) and former Yugoslavian ( N = 256) immigrant youths ( M age = 14.39 years) in 36 multicultural classes. At the individual level age, gender, cultural group, number of friends, and acculturation variables, such as immigrant status, cultural pride and racist victimization were investigated. At the class level, predictors drawn from contact theory such as cultural diversity and multicultural education were analyzed. Multilevel analyses have revealed that being a former Yugoslavian first and second generation immigrant, being a Turkish first generation immigrant, having fewer friends, a high level of cultural pride and a high level of cultural diversity in classes are related to more same-cultural friendship preferences. The present findings highlight the importance of acculturation-related and contextual factors for same-cultural friendship preferences.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Celine Louche ◽  
Suzanne Young ◽  
Martin Fougère

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the topic and review the contributions of the special issue papers on cross-sector dialogue for sustainability. The paper also presents avenues for further research. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a review of the current literature on cross-sector partnership and dialogue. It explores the current issues in cross-sector partnerships through a discussion of the papers accepted for the special issue, their focus, findings and key contributions. Findings It highlights three main key research themes and learnings from the special issue papers: a high level of “hybridity” of collaboration forms, which involve important tensions; a need to understand partnership in its context and the importance of the individual level in cross-sector collaboration. Practical implications The authors call for attention to be paid to two forms of myopia: a tendency to view partnerships primarily from a resource-based view (without much attempt to measure societal impact) and a reluctance to be explicitly critical (despite empirical evidence of some suboptimal aspects of partnerships). Social implications The authors call for researchers to move away from a resource-based approach to one that is situated in exploring the value derived from partnerships in the broader societal context. The authors suggest some avenues for further research to move the discussion beyond the partnership imperative. Originality/value The paper outlines the need to critically revisit the very essence of what real partnership means and whether dialogue is really taking place.


Author(s):  
E. E. Gres

This article discusses the influence of religion on the personality and activities of an athlete. The first part of the article presents the author’s approaches to the study of religiosity, a questionnaire developed by the author with the participation of sports experts and coaches of national teams, adjusted in accordance with the specifics of the sociological selection — professional athletes of Russia, and the typology of religious and non-religious individuals (1 type — religious with dominant religious orientation, type 2 — hesitant-A with unstable religious orientation, tending to religiosity, type 3 — hesitant-B with unstable religion orientation, although tending to the irreligious, type 4 — undecided, 5 type — non-religious), established on the basis of fixed criteria, which are mainly signs of consciousness, behavior, involvement in religious attitudes. The second part contains the results of a series of concrete sociological studies conducted in 2015–2017, among 89 professional athletes with qualifications not lower than the candidate for master of sports of Russia, representatives of various sports clubs and teams in Moscow, to identify the relationship between the individual level of religiosity and the results of sports activities. The article confirms, based on the collected data, the hypothesis formulated by the author that religious faith contributes to the achievement of a high result in sports activities, providing a compensatory and mobilization effect on the individual. In addition, personal qualities are determined that are shaped by the practice of religious athletes in sports, as well as the statistically recorded view that bodily development contributes to spiritual growth. Demonstrating a high level of religiosity, representatives of different sports have their own specific characteristics, rituals, omens, rites of verbal and non-verbal characters. Not every athlete connects traditional religious practice with sports activities, even being deeply religious. Personal god, direct appeal to him in an improvised form in moments of special need (competition, as an example), personal signs — these are the characteristic features of this social category.


2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Kang Lee ◽  
Chun-Tuan Chang ◽  
Zhao-Hong Cheng ◽  
You Lin

Recent research has suggested that materialism influences consumers’ usage of technological communication devices, especially smartphones. The current study contributes to this evolving research stream by examining more closely the dynamics of mechanisms that might potentially cause smartphone addiction. We propose self-efficacy and social anxiety as two underlying mechanisms and further test whether their mediating effects are consistent across people with differing levels of power distance belief (PDB). We also examine the moderating role of PDB at the cultural level (Study 1: China vs. the United States) and at the individual level (Study 2: Taiwan). The empirical data are analyzed using the parallel multiple mediator model proposed by Hayes. The results confirm that these two mediators explain the relationship between materialism and smartphone addiction. The mediating effects are stronger for people with a high level of PDB than for their counterparts with low PDB. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.


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