scholarly journals Outdoor Physical Activity During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic. A Comparative Analysis of Government Restrictions in Italy, France, and Germany

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrico Michelini ◽  
Nico Bortoletto ◽  
Alessandro Porrovecchio

Introduction: Mandated restrictions on outdoor physical activity (PA) during the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the lifeworld of millions of people and led to a contradictory situation. On the one hand, PA was perceived as risky behaviour, as it might facilitate transmission of the virus. On the other hand, while taking precautions, regular PA was an important tool to promote the population's health during the lockdown.Methods: This paper examines the differences in government restrictions on PA in France, Germany, and Italy during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We draw on techniques of qualitative content analysis and apply a critical theoretical framework to assess the countries' restrictions on PA.Results: Our analysis shows that the restrictions on PA varied in the three countries, in all three countries. This variance is attributed both to differences in the timing and severity of the pandemic in the countries analysed, as well as to the divergence in the relationships between the countries' sport and health systems.Conclusion: At the national level, the variance in restrictions on PA reflect the differences in the spread of the coronavirus and in the health systems' understanding of and approach to PA. The global scientific discourse on the pandemic represents a further key influencing factor. The management of the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated that the extreme complexity of societies in terms of public health, politics, and the economy pose challenges and unsolvable contradictions.

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rémy Delage

Using as the example of the pilgrimage to Sabarimala (Kerala, South India), I propose here to explore the links existing between sources, research hypothesis and research theory in social sciences. The choice of research materials in the process of investigation, sources of knowledge about the studied object, is not mere random sampling; it is processed in accordance with the questions of the researcher. It inevitably assumes a selective dimension. After a critical reading of the sources used by Indian studies, I will highlight on the connections between the sources and the methodological tools on the one hand, and the major research hypothesis about pilgrimage on the other. The links between the data taken from the field and the legitimacy of scientific discourse on India will be examined at the end before providing some keys for the interpretation of Sabarimala phenomenon in South India during the contemporary period.


Human Affairs ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mishel Pavlovski

AbstractBy questioning the ways in which a supra-national European identity can be created in an environment of globalization, this article starts with the thesis that this concept faces problems which must be resolved first and foremost at the national level. By problematizing multiculturalism as a “utopian theory” which does not solve any problems at the practical level, and by viewing interculturalism as a potential danger to “smaller” cultures, this article identifies what it is that hinders the possible acceptance of the idea of a Europe without borders by analyzing plays by Goran Stefanovski. In four of his plays, Euralien, Hotel Europa, Ex-Yu, and Goce, Stefanovski criticizes Western Europe, on the one hand, for constructing a problematic Other, imposing a visa regime, and contributing to its marginalization, and the Balkans on the other, for mythologizing its nationally-romanticized narrative. The paper sheds light on the fact that the acceptance of a common (shared) European identity, a necessity which propagates itself amidst conditions of globalization, is dependent on the ways in which Europe will resolve its problems, such as the marginalization of the Other, way of thinking in binary oppositions, like old/new Europe, rich/poor Europe, and especially (talking about Balkan countries) the phrase South-East Balkan.


2017 ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
Tamás Köpeczi-Bócz ◽  
Mónika Lőrincz

Both at European and national level tertiary and quaternary sectors are concentrated in the metropolitan centre. In the rural areas only the sites of such sectors can be found the premises of which temporarily transform the sectoral structure of these areas, but from the regional development aspect they did not prove to be an effective strategy.The European Commission is now focusing on growth from innovation, which could become the driving force behind productivity growth and the economy’s long-term trend. The innovation-oriented economic development’s key players are on the one hand the knowledge-intensive enterprises, on the other hand the universities. Tertiary education can play a role – among others – in shaping and creating the development of knowledge intensive business environment and conditions, on the other hand it can assist the development of network contacts – another precondition of employment growth.


1995 ◽  
Vol 142 ◽  
pp. 487-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jae Ho Chung

Spatial aspects of power have been relatively neglected in the field of political science in general, with the notable exception of federalism. Many have argued that the study of political power has generally confined itself to the national level and paid scant attention to the interactions between the central government on the one hand and regional and local authorities on the other. Several tendencies have worked against the flourishing of political research on central-local government relations in the last three decades. First, in methodological terms, the “behavioural revolution” that swept the discipline caused a sudden premature end to the institutional analysis so crucial to central-local government relations. Secondly, in thematic terms, political scientists have been overly preoccupied with central-level processes of decision-making while neglecting the politics of central-local relations. Thirdly, in conceptual terms, the rise of “state” as an encompassing concept was facilitated largely at the expense of complex intra-governmental dynamics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (8) ◽  
pp. 861-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prerna Singh

This article seeks to showcase the previously underexplored theoretical potential of the recent “sub-national turn” in comparative politics. Specifically, I hope to delineate how theories derived to explain variation in an outcome across sub-national units can enrich our repertoire of theories to explain variation in the same and/or related outcomes across national units. I show the potential of this method of theory generation through an analysis of social welfare, a specially apposite outcome for this purpose because it has been studied rigorously at the both the national and sub-national levels of analyses. I argue that sub-national analyses can, on the one hand, help us refine and rethink national-level theories for the same outcomes. They can push us to nuance and extend established national theories and show us how the same variables and mechanisms that have been hypothesized to explain cross-country variations might work differently, even in opposite directions, within countries. On the other hand, sub-national analyses can push us past the established repertoire of national-level explanations to bring to light new (or forgotten) theories. In this way, this article seeks to challenge cross-country analyses as the exclusive domain of theory building in comparative politics.


1979 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Godfrey

Historians of Chartism face a dilemma. On the one hand, they are obliged to interpret this national political movement on the national level, to attempt to explain why millions of British working men and women were engaged in organized political activity over several decades. But, on the other hand, many of the richest sources on Chartism are found on the local level. Older histories of the movement treated Chartism from a national perspective, but failed to take note of many of its complexities. More recently, a good deal of local research has rigorously tested our assumptions about Chartism, but the task of carefully analyzing the movement on the national level still remains.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-71
Author(s):  
Marta Gatti

The purpose of this article is, on the one hand, to describe EU support of the adoption of a corporate social responsibility policy by EU undertakings, both within and outside the EU borders. On the other hand, this article will focus on the most recent developments in the field of human rights reporting at national level and, in particular, on the French commitment to implement mechanisms to prevent infringements on human rights across the supply chain.


2020 ◽  
Vol 148 (Special Issue 2.) ◽  
pp. 112-131
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Borbély

Occupational stress has adverse effects on the health of police officers which may have a negative impact on their work in the long run. The same may apply to police trainees who have been less studied in this respect so far. To investigate this issue, we performed a cross-sectional study in probationer police officers in their second school year in two grades at one of the Hungarian law enforcement schools. The study was performed in two waves in 2016 (N = 138) and 2018 (N = 94). We explored the connection between stress exposure as measured by the Occupational Stress Questionnaire for Law Enforcement Services, and health-related behaviours, particularly alcohol consumption, smoking, and physical activity as measured by a custom-made questionnaire. Variance analysis showed that police stress factors have a connection with health behaviours in the two grades: relations between smoking status, alcohol consumption, and binge drinking on the one hand and Individual, Personal factors on the other in 2016 and between the frequency of physical activity, alcohol consumption and binge drinking on the one hand and Workload factors on the other in 2018. The findings obtained in 2016 and 2018 are different in many respects. Overall, the relationship between stress exposure and health-related behaviours was more obvious in 2018 than in 2016. Our study revealed important connections between stress exposure and health-related behaviours in police trainees, but the differences observed in the two waves indicate the complexity of the relationship and require further – preferably longitudinal – studies on the issue.


Author(s):  
Razvan Nicolae Malancus ◽  
Cristina Maria Malancus

The present study attempted to ascertain whether there is any connection between reduced daily rumination time and increased physical activity of the animals, on the one hand, and the presence of estrus or metabolic disorders in dairy cows, on the other hand. It has been observed that of the total of 168 cows, 55 (32.73%) showed decreased daily rumination time, 57 cows (33.92%) had specific manifestations for estrous period, while 25 cows (14.88%) showed both decreased daily rumination time and the presence of estrus. Statistical assessment of the data demonstrated a highly significant correlation between these two factors, with a p-value <0.05 (p = 0.0369). Regarding the correlation between increased physical activity, found in 40 cows (23.80%) and the presence of estrus, observed in 57 cows (33.92%) this one is extremely statistically significant with a p-value <0.001 (p = 0.0005), the combination of increased physical activity and estrus being detected in a total of 23 cows (13.69%). Thus, of 168 dairy cows taken into the study, 37 (22.02%) showed an association between decreased daily rumination time and increased physical activity, resulting in a extremely statistically significant correlation between the combination of the two events and the presence of estrus in cows, with a p-value <0.001 (p = 0.0003). Metabolic disorders were found in a total of 12 dairy cows (7.14 %), the association between decreased daily rumination time and increased physical activity being not statistically correlated with the development of metabolic disorders, p = 0.4676 . It remains to be observed if a correlation between the association of decreased daily rumination time and increased physical activity with the presence of metabolic disorders exists.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-202
Author(s):  
Bernardo Ferro

Key representatives of the dialectical tradition, Hegel and Adorno conceived philosophy as a critical tool, directed both at the naive realism of ordinary reason and the more sophisticated realism of modern scientific discourse. For the two authors, philosophy’s main task is to question received ideas and practices and to expose their underlying contradictions, thereby enabling meaningful forms of cultural and political change. But while for Hegel this procedure takes the form of a systematic enquiry, leading from a spurious to a true account of reality, Adorno rejects the idea that reason and reality can be reconciled. On the one hand, he praises Hegel for having developed a truly dialectical form of criticism, set into motion by the immanent unfolding of reality’s intrinsic contradictions. On the other hand, he views Hegel’s emphasis on systematic integration as a form of dogmatism, which must itself be criticized. Instead of a ‘positive’ or ‘closed’ dialectic, fuelled by the expectation of a final overarching synthesis, Adorno calls for a ‘negative’ or ‘open’ dialectic, radically averse to all forms of unification. In doing so, however, he is led to question the very limits of conceptual reason, leaving criticism vulnerable to new forms of attack.


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