scholarly journals What is special about gambling? A comparison of public discourse on Finnish state monopolies in rail traffic, gambling, and alcohol

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-49
Author(s):  
Virve Marionneau ◽  
Matilda Hellman
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Countries ◽  
National Context ◽  
Stakeholder Interests ◽  
Western European ◽  
International Pressures ◽  
Media Texts ◽  
Rail Traffic

Finland has one of the last fully monopolistic gambling sectors in Europe. Unlike in most Western European countries, the monopoly is also consolidated and enjoys a wide support as opposed to license-based competition. This paper analyses whether this preference for monopoly provision is due to the particularities of the Finnish society or rather to those of the Finnish gambling sector. We do this by comparing public discourses in media texts (N=143) from 2014 to 2017 regarding monopolies operating in alcohol retail, rail traffic and gambling sectors. The results show that gambling appears to be special even in the Finnish national context. While the Finnish alcohol retail and railroad traffic markets have been liberalised during the study period, the gambling monopoly has been concurrently strengthened despite similar political and international pressures towards dismantling. The discussion suggests that the differing outcomes reflect the varying positions of monopolies, their stakeholders and the justifications put forward. Intertwined stakeholder interests in the gambling sector appear to amplify consensus politics and set gambling apart from the other cases.

Pertinence de la théorie de la dualisation de la religion en Suisse, en France et en Europe

2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Bréchon ◽  
Roland J. Campiche
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Societal Impact ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Combined Approach ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Proper Comparison ◽  
Western European ◽  
The One

The principal explanations of contemporary religious change face two main difficulties. On the one hand, they often fail to express the complexity of the ongoing evolution, because they are too focused on institutional religion, e.g. secularization. On the other hand, some of them favour fashionable themes (the growth of individualism, the privatization of religion) and skirt the societal impact of religion. The idea of dualism allows a combined approach to the process of religious de-institutionalization and the new patterns of its regulation. The authors discuss this theory on the basis of data relating to Switzerland, France and other Western European countries (EVS, ISSP). In spite of the difficulty of finding relevant indicators that allow proper comparison, the results are promising. They invite further critical analysis of current definitions. The theory of dualism allows us to reopen the debate on religious change.

Nationality-Based Prejudice in Sports: Fan Demand for Foreign Athletes in the Czech

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Vojtěch Kotrba ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Fantasy Sports ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Western European ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Sports Fan

This paper aims to answer the question of whether fans discriminate against foreign athletes. It uses data from the fantasy sports environment. The sample consists of 11 rounds in the football competition in Czechia during the 2015–2016 season. A total of 8,036 people participated in the game, and they completed a total of 53,951 squads. The final dataset consists of 3,741 observations of a specific footballer in a single round. The results show that Czech fantasy sports users prefer domestic players. The influence of the players’ origin varies depending on the region they are from. The results show that Asian and Eastern European countries, namely Croatia, Serbia, and Slovakia, present a negative influence. On the other hand, Czechs prefer players from South America and Russia. In the case of African and Western European countries, the influence is insignificant in the models. Performance, however, influences the demand for athletes the most.

Impact of Globalization on Small Countries' Higher Education Systems: The Case of the Netherlands

2015 ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
A. Nevskaya
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Global Market ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Small Countries ◽  
Western European

The article deals with the current performance and the latest developments of higher education in small and medium Western European countries. It uncovers the core trends on the international higher education market, defines small countries’ place and role in it. It is argued that there is no direct correlation between the size of economy, country’s geography, language spoken, on the one hand, and the share of international enrolments and higher education system’s general performance, on the other hand. However, there are some special moments about the way small developed countries build in their higher education in the global market. The article deals with the Dutch higher education system as a typical case for Western European small countries. It is concluded that the most beneficial category of students for this country are those from non-EEA countries, focusing in several specific areas of the country’s international specialization. A system of measures is being taken to attract such students and to prevent huge number of enrolments from the rest of developing world. This is the way the Netherlands preserve and improve the excellent quality of domestic educational services (which is right for the rest of small Western European countries as well). The group of countries under consideration is also known for their high level of involvement in all kinds of international cooperation in tertiary education. This allows them, on one hand, to further improve the quality of services, and, on the other hand, to minimize the costs of stuff needed for research and innovation. This paper’s findings might be used for further research in this area and taken into consideration by the local authorities dealing with Russian educational system improvement and including it in the global market of education, research and innovation.

scholarly journals Analysing ‘Migrant’ Membership Frames through Education Policy Discourse: An Example of Restrictive ‘Integration’ Policy within Europe

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 715-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farah Dubois-Shaik
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Discourse Theory ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
National Context ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Migrant Integration ◽  
Western European ◽  
Policy Solutions

This article proposes combining discourse theory and perspectives on political membership developments in Western European societies. It combines theories and examples of policy discourses about ‘migrant integration’ in the Swiss national context in the sphere of education. This examination aims to deconstruct specific membership framing within Europe and boundary setting between inclusion and exclusion of certain groups in policy sectors such as education. Analysing discourse through understandings within language enables us to see the way categories and frames are constructed and contribute to the signifying of membership. Bounded problematisations, in this case about ‘migrants’, framed by political orientations and discourses, require policy ‘solutions’. Actors then make sense of this policy and interpret ‘solutions’ in distinctive ways. This article aims at disclosing how membership practices in Western European countries such as Switzerland may remain restrictive because ‘migration’ is problematised.

In Europe, being a psychiatric patient is like being the passenger of a pilot who learned to fly by reading about it

1998 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 323-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
T Compernolle
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Patient ◽  
General Public ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Medical Professionals ◽  
Live Supervision ◽  
Western European

SummaryAn inquiry among the 150 participating trainees and trainers from 24 European countries (mainly from Western European countries), at the Annual EFPT Symposium revealed that in most countries live supervision and observation are not used in training. To make matters even worse, psychiatry trainees hardly get any supervision at all. About one third of the participants never observed a senior psychiatrist in interaction with a patient during the course of their training. Half of the participants were never observed while interacting with a patient during the course of their training. The author elaborates on five of the reasons why live supervision and observation are indispensable tools for training psychiatrists. He concludes that it is unethical to permit trainees to become psychiatrists without this kind of training. For psychiatry to become a profession earning more respect from the other medical professionals and the general public, it is necessary that senior psychiatrists pay more respect to their own profession by giving trainees an adequate training in the craftsmanship of psychiatry.

Swapping Policies: Alternative Tax-Benefit Strategies to Support Children in Austria, Spain and the UK

2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
HORACIO LEVY ◽  
CHRISTINE LIETZ ◽  
HOLLY SUTHERLAND
Keyword(s):  
Child Poverty ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Countries ◽  
National Context ◽  
Microsimulation Model ◽  
It Impacts ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Way

AbstractThree European countries with very different tax-benefit systems have recently substantially increased the level of support for children: Austria, Spain and the UK. Austria mainly makes use of universal benefits; Spain, tax concessions; and the UK means-tested benefits and tax credits. This article addresses the question of whether the chosen strategies are in fact the most effective for each country. It considers what would have happened if these countries had transformed the architecture of their systems in either of the other two directions. It makes use of EUROMOD, the European tax-benefit microsimulation model that is designed for making cross-country comparisons, to explore the distributional and, in particular, child poverty effects of budget-neutral alternatives. The results show that three factors – the level of spending, its structure, and the way it impacts in a particular national context – affect the outcomes to varying degrees.

The Recognition of Foreign Divorces in Ireland: The Return of Travers v. Holley

2001 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hill
Keyword(s):  
General Trend ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Countries ◽  
The Law ◽  
Western European ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

Over the course of the last hundred and fifty years or so the general trend in the laws of Western European countries has been, first, to make provision for judicial divorce and, second, to make it easier for parties to a marriage which has broken down to obtain such a divorce. This coupled with increased mobility has added to the significance of the law relating to the recognition of foreign divorces. The law's essential task is to strike the right balance between, on the one hand, being too restrictive, thereby creating “limping” marriages (i.e., marriages which are valid in one or more countries, but not others) and, on the other, being too generous, thereby sanctioning “quickie” divorces or divorces of convenience.1

State versus Merchant: Commerce in the Countryside in the Early People's Republic of China

1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy J. Solinger
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Countries ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Level Of Economic Development ◽  
Western European ◽  
The One

There is an uncanny similarity between regulations on merchant activity in various medieval Western European countries, on the one hand, and, on the other, those in the People's Republic of China (PRC) just after its institution (see Appendix). My discovery of this resemblance informed the research on which this paper is based and directed my attention to some crucial relationships in the interaction between commerce and state at a certain level of economic development. The presence of similar regulations in these societies had to point to (1) like activities going on in them all, along with (2) governmental disapproval of these activities. Thus, a preliminary look at materials on Europe led to new insights into the Chinese situation.

scholarly journals Dynamics of Control and Resistance: Reactions to the Modern Policy of Assimilation of the Travellers in Norway

Nordlit ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Rune Halvorsen
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Total Population ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Internal Relation ◽  
Private Charity ◽  
Western European ◽  
Assimilation Policy

For much of the 20th century, the Norwegian authorities pursued a strict assimilation policy towards Travellers (tatere/ romanifolket) and their culture. As was the case in many other countries, Travellers were constructed as "the other" (Riggins 1997, MacLaughlin 1999). When compared to other Western European countries, it is, however, surprising that Norwegian Travellers were seen as such a serious problem and threat during the 20th century. The 1845 census counted 1145 Travellers out of a total population of 1.3 million in Norway (Sundt 1852, SSB 1968: Table 13). A private charity organisation acting on behalf of the state registered 5129 "itinerants" in their archives from 1900 to 1959 (Haave 2000). These were the figures that worried the elites. This paper examines the modern assimilation policy and Travellers' reactions to this policy. In particular the paper analyses the internal relation between the modern assimilation policy and the emergence of collective demands for recognition as an ethnic minority and moral redress among Travellers in the 1990s.

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