Einleitung: Staatsfinanzen und Konflikt

The following issue arose from a section at the Congress for Economic and Social History in Regensburg in March 2019 and focuses on fiscal conflicts in Europe from the early modern period until today. Distributive fiscal conflicts are seen here as a probe into the past which can increase our understanding of historical social structures. Fiscal history is analysed as a central arena of the modern state. The introduction provides an overview of current research into fiscal history in Germany and of the contributions presented in this focus issue.

La ficción transcultural entendida como literatura traducida en el polisistema poscolonial

For a great number of fictional writers in the postcolonial paradigm pluralism is organic, translation is an inevitable way of life, and translation consciousness and strategies can be a way of reinforcing rather than weakening different linguistic and cultural identities, because above all translation is used as a way to get access to the central arena of the postcolonial polysystem: it is a powerful tactic within a larger movement of cultural resistance. This paper intends to reflect upon how the study of these transcultural fictions understood as translated literature within the global polysystem, may be of great help when it comes to delineating a theoretical reflection on post- colonial translation practice. Such study should provide us with a better understanding of: a) the form and function of these literatures, and b) possible strategies for the translation of culturally heterogeneous texts, in the light of what authors who translate themselves have done. The specific literary examples we will mention to illustrate our points are the transcultural narratives of the Peruvian José María Arguedas and the Indian Vikram Chandra.

Representation and Ministerial Influence on Cabinet Committees in Canada

Cabinet committees are important sites of executive politics in Canada. This article examines the extent to which two representational attributes—gender and region—determine influence, as a function of cabinet committee structure. Employing a dataset of ministers under the three most recent prime ministers, I find that female ministers are less likely than male ministers to be influential in terms of connections to other ministers, to belong to the core of most influential ministers and to be represented on the most powerful committees or chairing committees. However, there is evidence of improvement over time. While regional representation is an imperative in cabinet making for Canadian prime ministers, its role in determining ministerial influence within committees is not evident: ministers from less-represented regions are no more likely to be influential than other ministers. This analysis highlights a neglected but central arena for social representation in Canadian government.

Being inclusive when talking about diversity

This paper explores how discourses of national identity are managed in one of Norway’s core institutions – the educational system. As Norway changed into a multi-ethnic society, classrooms became a central arena for individuals with different religious and ethnic backgrounds to meet. How boundaries of ‘Norwegianness’ are managed in the classroom is therefore of importance. Based on a thematic analysis of observations of classroom lessons and interviews with teachers in schools in Oslo, I argue that teachers navigate between several different yet overlapping discourses of 'being Norwegian'. Using the theoretical framework of bright and blurred boundaries and different understandings of ‘Norwegianness’, I show how teachers manage different discourses rooted in citizenship, cultural traditions, values, ethnic boundaries or Whiteness. These discourses can be activated simultaneously in society and in the classroom. However, the Norwegian school system’s core value of equality and inclusiveness gives precedence to the discourse based on citizenship. To manage the other discourses, teachers use different strategies when addressing boundaries along different dimensions of national belonging.

Swedish Hip hop Youth Association “The Movement” Goes Online

This chapter highlights social media activities of the Swedish hip hop youth association The Movement, an association whose overall objectives include increasing democratic awareness among young people with immigrant backgrounds. The political dimension of hip hop has enabled youths in marginalized areas in Sweden to experience affinity with the global hip hop nation, which emerged from New York in the 1970s. Hip hop has also accompanied the development and early use of digital technologies for music making as well as early international collaborations facilitated by the internet. For The Movement, social media is a central arena, one that is connected to informal music education activities. The overall purpose of this chapter is to explore and discuss the function of social media within this hip hop youth association. Results are presented as three themes—branding, member recruitment, and accountability to funders—through which an inter-aesthetic approach connected to the elements of hip hop is apparent. Also, clear connections with the local municipality are seen as contributing to a wider audience for youths participating in the association.

Share, comment, but do not like

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of politicians’ facial attractiveness on their online popularity as reflected in audience engagement with their Facebook posts during the 2015 Israeli election campaign. Design/methodology/approach Using Israel’s 2015 election campaign as the case study, the authors analyzed all messages posted (n=501) on 33 politicians’ official Facebook pages during the week leading to Election Day. Findings The results demonstrate that audiences do engage more with posts of the more facially attractive politicians. These posts generated more shares, more comments and more participants in their discussions – but not more likes – relative to posts of less attractive politicians. These effects became even stronger when the posts were accompanied by one or more visual image, and remained significant even after controlling for other engagement predictors, such as a politician’s gender, seniority or the timing of a post’s publication. Social implications The findings emphasize the importance of attractive looks for politicians. The findings highlight that attractive politicians’ posts attract more attention, allowing them to better spread their ideas. Thus, politicians should aim to post aesthetic images and visuals to promote better engagement with their ideas on social media. Originality/value The study expands our understanding of online presentations of politicians, focusing on the effect of politicians’ facial attractiveness on their online popularity. Recent studies have demonstrated that physically attractive politicians enjoy more and better media attention on television news, but not in non-visual media such as radio and newspapers. This effect has not been examined in the social media environment, a central arena for today’s political debates and one that involves many visual messages.

Socially Embedded Academic Emotions in School

School is a central arena for a wide amount of emotions. Previous research on academic emotions has, however, mainly focused on achievement, engagement and teaching, situated in classroom. The social embeddedness, as well as different learning environments of school, continue to be neglected in the research literature. Our study focuses on examining socially embedded academic emotions in school, including emotions described in peer interactions and in teacher-pupil interactions. Furthermore, the aim of the study was to investigate socially embedded academic emotions situated in both informal and formal learning environments. In the study, we combine both qualitative and quantitative methods by using picture tasks and questionnaires. In total, 146 sixth and eighth graders participated in the study. The results of our study showed that the interaction between teachers and peers is a central arena for pupils’ described socially embedded academic emotions in school. Furthermore, our study emphasizes the role of an informal learning environment as an important setting for socially embedded academic emotions. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Concepts of Work in Marx, Durkheim, and Weber

The extremely dramatic social transformation – called ‘the great transformation’ by Polanyi (1985) – that the full emergence of capitalism and industrialism meant in Europe led to the birth of modern social theory. The attention of the classics of the studies was taken up by trying to describe, understand, and explain this social change: What is actually going on? What does it mean to people and society? What does the development depend on? And what can be done about all social problems that this new society creates? Changes in working life are at the center of the analyses of social science from the start. Even when the analyses concern religion, culture, music, and the family, the emergence of a labor market, capitalist wage labor, and the concentration of production in large industries provide the reference point. Working life is the central arena of the classics of social theory. There is, however, no common definition of the key concept ‘work’ or ‘labor’ among the classical social scientists – as little as among current ones. Why is that? (...)

Frequency Analysis as a Way of Uncovering News Foci: Evidence from the Guardian and the New York Times

Institutions or people can express their political stances or attitudes toward a specific topic if they keep using some words rather than others repetitively and consistently. This study uses the corpus linguistic technique of frequency to examine the influence of the country where the newspaper is published on its agenda and coverage using a corpus of about 7 million words of news articles about Libya and Qaddafi in the Guardian (Britain) and the New York Times (the U.S.) from 2009 to 2013. The compiled corpus is divided into three time periods, namely: before, during, and after the 2011 Arab uprisings. The analysis shows that the two newspapers had different news foci/themes in the three investigated time periods, and that they are influenced by the stock of ideas circulating in the culture in which they are working. Both newspapers covered more news of events that draw the attention of the people of the countries where they are located and published. The paper concludes that there is a strong relationship between media and politics where media is a central arena for viewing the political events.

Pasienten som medvirker og kunnskapshåndterer

<p>En forutsetning for en kunnskapsbasert helsetjeneste er at pasienter tas med i beslutninger om egen og andres helse. Dette forutsetter tilgang på pålitelig kunnskap og kompetanse i å ta den i bruk. Den sentrale arenaen for pasientmedvirkning er møtet mellom pasient og helsearbeider, men andre viktige områder for medvirkning omfatter beslutninger på system- og politisk nivå. Tiltak for å fremme pasienters tilgang til pålitelig helseinformasjon kan deles i tre kategorier. Den første dreier seg om at forskere, helsepersonell og andre fagfolk kvalitetssikrer, oppsummerer og formidler den beste tilgjengelige kunnskapen. Den andre relaterer hovedsakelig til nettbasert informasjon, der informasjonen blir filtrert enten manuelt av eksperter eller ved bruk av automatiske søkemotorer. Tiltak i den tredje kategorien er opplæring av pasienter, for eksempel i form av kurs, eller i bruk av sjekklister og andre ressurser, for å styrke deres kompetanse i kritisk vurdering av forskning.</p><p>Austvoll-Dahlgren A, Johansen M. <strong>The patient as participant and knowledge manager</strong>. <em>Nor J Epidemiol</em> 2013; <em>23</em> (2): 225-230.</p><p><strong>ENGLISH SUMMARY</strong></p><p>A prerequisite for an evidence based health care is that patients take part in decisions about their own and others' health care. This requires access to reliable information and competence in applying it. The central arena for patient participation is the meeting between patient and health professional, but other important areas of involvement include decisions at the system and policy levels. Measures to promote patient access to reliable health information can be divided into three categories. The first entails that researchers, health personnel and other professionals quality assess, summarise and communicate the best available evidence. The second relates mainly to online information and how information is filtered either manually by experts or by automated search engines. The third types of measures are those where patients are trained, for example in the form of courses, or by the use of checklists and other resources, to enhance their skills in critical appraisal of research.</p>