CO2 Emission from Brickfields in Bangladesh: Can Ethical Responsibility by Doing Reduce Level of Emission?

Recent years’ rapid urbanization and then rural to urban migration have created increasing demands of bricks usages in Bangladesh. However, brick industry has been largely using inefficient, dirty technology and burns woods-coal. It injects huge volume of CO2 in atmosphere. For policy guidance on the issue, this study analyzes the basic issues of CO2 emission from brickfields in terms of marginal damage (MD) analysis. Findings show that the marginal social costs are higher than marginal private (producer of bricks) costs where brickfields are benefiting with the expense of Bangladeshi society as a whole. As time passes by, rises of brick-prices have been causing upward trends of welfare losses where producers’ surpluses are dominating in the total surplus. This economic situation has been causing higher deadweight loss year after year. Addressing the issues, national strategies and policy actions are needed. Reforestation efforts can be achieved in multi-faucets: brick-fields’ charity, government policies on planting trees & policies on motivational efforts inspiring citizens of Bangladesh. Motivational policy can be: i) inspiring celebration individual’s “Birthday, Having 1st child in family and Event of marriage” by planting trees, ii) forcing to utilize green tech in brick kilns and iii) conducting academic research where financial supports are in need. Keywords: brickfields, effluent gases emission, causes social costs & deadweight loss, reforestation, motivational efforts of government policies

The Use of Primaries by Political Parties: The Case of PASOK - A Comment

This paper comments on Professor Papanikos’ recent publication in this journal entitled, “The Use of Primaries by Political Parties: The Case of PASOK”. I make a number of observations regarding the argument of the author that primary elections are an application of democracy in the internal procedures of a political party. The question raised is whether primaries enhance democracy, or restrict it, by diminishing the role of party members only in selecting party representatives and have no role in the discussion of policies. Another important issue is the age structure of the participants in the primary elections. Did it matter? More analysis and evidence is needed on this issue to find out whether the relatively younger candidate mobilized more young members and friends to participate in the primary elections of PASOK. Keywords: primaries, elections, voting, political parties, PASOK, Greece

The Online Looking Glass: The Study of Self Esteem and Narcissism on Instagram within a Patriarchal and Collectivist Society

Online social networking sites have revealed an entirely new method of impression management and self-expression. These user-generated social tools present a new and evolving medium of investigation to study personality and identity. The current study examines how narcissism and self-esteem are demonstrated on the social networking application Instagram. To frame our research, we utilized the Uses and Gratifications Theory, which explains why audiences consume mediated messages and how and why authors create user-generated media (UGM). In this research our objective was to understand how and why users of Instagram in Kuwait were using the social media platform and how it related and impacted their self-esteem and how it revealed, if any, narcissistic personality traits. To do so, self-esteem and narcissistic personality self-reports were collected from 79 Instagram users in Kuwait and we also followed and analyzed their Instagram accounts. In our analysis, these participants’ profiles were coded on self-promotional content features based on their Instagram photos and captions posted on their Instagram accounts. By probing the relationship between this new medium, we can begin to understand the relationship amongst technology, culture, and the self. Keywords: social media, Kuwait, Instagram, self-esteem, narcissism, social networking

Cultural Differences in Children’s Recommended Punishment of Moral Transgressions

The purpose of this research was to examine the severity of punishment recommended by children for moral transgressions. Using Hofstede’s (1980) distinction between individualism and collectivism, we examined the severity of punishment recommended by eight to twelve year old children for moral transgressions that violated a cultural value. Participants were children of various nationalities enrolled in a summer camp on the island of Mallorca, Spain. The children were classified as either individualist or collectivist using the Children’s Self-Construal Scale (Lewis et al. 2000). Each child reacted to nine moral transgressions, two of which were universal and seven of which reflected transgressions of either individualist or collectivist values. The results indicated that children classified as collectivists recommended harsher punishments for transgressions of collectivist values, whereas individualists did not vary in their recommended level of punishment for transgressions against both collectivist and individualist values. Keywords: individualism, collectivism, moral judgments, cultural orientation, moral transgressions

The Use of Primaries by Political Parties: The Case of PASOK - A Rejoinder

This note is a rejoinder to a comment made by Professor Domenico Fruncillo on my paper published in the previous issue of this journal. My aim here is to respond to his valuable comments. I have selected what I consider as the most important ones, which include the role of primary elections in promoting democracy and a specific one referring to the age effect (young versus old) in determining the result. My point of view is that primary elections should be seen as the first necessary step towards improving the democratic process; the same method can be later used to decide on issues of ideology and policies. My response to the latter important issue is as follows. The real debate in PASOK’s case was not between old and young, but between those who were involved in holding government positions in the past (one prime minister and three ministers were running for PASOK’s presidency), and those who did not. Of course, this is strongly correlated with age. Keywords: primaries, elections, voting, political parties, PASOK, Greece

Teaching in a Global World: Challenges and Opportunities for Small-Sized Universities - Insights from Italy

Today’s academic institutions are strongly involved in the modern globalization process. The aim of the paper is to investigate if small-sized universities face particular challenges and if they obtain some advantages or are adversely affected by the ongoing process. The focus is on Europe and, specifically, on Italy, one of the signatory countries of the Bologna Declaration, that has implemented the European international reform process. Based on official data from the Italian Ministry of University and Research, first we analyse university characteristics and then we calculate performance selected indicators that are informative of a few key aspects, such as teaching quality and internationalisation and look at student satisfaction. Results show that teaching quality in small-sized public universities is similar to that in big-sized public ones whereas small-sized private universities perform better than big-sized private ones. Attractiveness for students abroad is greater for smaller and more specialized universities, and this is especially evident for private universities. Satisfaction as well is higher for students studying in small-sized universities. However, doubts exist for the future due to the possible negative effects of the very complex and strict administrative procedures of the current organization and evaluation system. Keywords: universities, small-sized, teaching, performance, Europe, Italy

The Use of Primaries by Political Parties: The Case of PASOK

This paper examines the primary elections of the PanHellenic Socialist Party (PASOK) which were held on 5th and 12th of December 2021. Six candidates run for the position of the president in the first round and two runners-up in the second. As mentioned in the literature, there is a dearth of primary elections studies relative to general elections. The latter attract the attention of mass media for the obvious reason: they determine who or which party will govern the country or any other political entity. Nevertheless, there is a growing literature on primary studies. There are three aspects researched in this literature: (a) primary elections systems, (b) why a political party decides to hold primary elections and (c) the selection criteria of candidates and voters. This paper uses the existing literature to analyze some facets of the history of PASOK’s primary elections, emphasizing the most recent one of 2021. The most important conclusion emerging from this analysis is that ideology did play a role, particularly the candidates’ stance on their possible collaboration with the right-wing or the left-wing parties, which has been a controversial issue in the last decade. Another important conclusion is that PASOK voters opted for a younger candidate primarily because they wanted to get out of the current stalemate of PASOK’s low performance in general elections. As predicted from the literature, the competition between the six candidates resulted in a large turnout on the ballot date even though other factors played a positive role such as very good weather and a wide media coverage. Keywords: primaries, elections, voting, political parties, PASOK, Greece

Democracy and Politics: An Introduction to the Special Issue of the Athens Journal of Social Sciences

This paper is an introduction to the special issue of the Athens Journal of Social Sciences on Politics. It includes six papers, which relate to various aspects of politics in today’s democracies. The first paper examines populism in selecting political parties of the European Union (EU); the second explains a political experiment performed in USA; the third discusses the prospects of the 2022 elections in Brazil; the fourth states that democracies need leaders as this is the case with Israel; the fifth looks at a real threat to democracy which is radicalism and violence using the case of the Slovakian youth; and the last paper examines a case of primary elections of a Greek political party (PASOK). Keywords: politics, democracy, elections, Brazil, Greece, Israel, Slovakia, USA, European Union, Latin America

The Use of Primaries by Political Parties: The Case of PASOK

This paper examines the primary elections of the PanHellenic Socialist Party (PASOK) which were held on 5th and 12th of December 2021. Six candidates run for the position of the president in the first round and two runners-up in the second. As mentioned in the literature, there is a dearth of primary elections studies relative to general elections. The latter attract the attention of mass media for the obvious reason: they determine who or which party will govern the country or any other political entity. Nevertheless, there is a growing literature on primary studies. There are three aspects researched in this literature: (a) primary elections systems, (b) why a political party decides to hold primary elections and (c) the selection criteria of candidates and voters. This paper uses the existing literature to analyze some facets of the history of PASOK’s primary elections, emphasizing the most recent one of 2021. The most important conclusion emerging from this analysis is that ideology did play a role, particularly the candidates’ stance on their possible collaboration with the right-wing or the left-wing parties, which has been a controversial issue in the last decade. Another important conclusion is that PASOK voters opted for a younger candidate primarily because they wanted to get out of the current stalemate of PASOK’s low performance in general elections. As predicted from the literature, the competition between the six candidates resulted in a large turnout on the ballot date even though other factors played a positive role such as very good weather and a wide media coverage. Keywords: primaries, elections, voting, political parties, PASOK, Greece

Measures of Populism in the CHES 2017 Dataset

Populism is a fuzzy concept in world politics; it can take many shapes and colors, thus evading rigorous definition. Using expert evaluations provided in Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) 2017 data, we try to identify features that predict populism and to characterize various European parties on a populism scale. As a byproduct, we find that experts have often diverging opinions on a party’s stance on various issues. Keywords: populism, CHES 2017, EU politics