Search results for " Soziologie"
showing 10 items of 37 documents
"Indépendance Cha Cha": African pop music since the independence era
2010
Investigating why Latin American music came to be the soundtrack of the independence era, this contribution offers an overview of musical developments and cultural politics in certain sub-Saharan African countries since the 1960s. Focusing first on how the governments of newly independent African states used musical styles and musicians to support their nation-building projects, the article then looks at musicians' more recent perspectives on the independence era. Der Beitrag gibt eine kurze Übersicht über die Entwicklung ausgewählter Musikstile in verschiedenen afrikanischen Ländern seit der Unabhängigkeit. Der Autor schildert die Bemühungen der Regierungen in den jungen Nationalstaaten, M…
Glimmering utopias: 50 years of African film
2010
The history of African film began in the 1960s with the independence of the colonies. Despite all kinds of political and economic difficulties, numerous films have been made since then, featuring wide-ranging processes of consolidation, differentiation and transformation which were characteristic of post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. However, these feature films should not merely be viewed as back references to specifically African problems. The glimmering fictions are imagination spaces. They preserve ideas about how the post-colonial circumstances should be approached. Seen from this perspective, the history of African film may be studied as a history of African utopias. Die Geschichte des…
Subjetivación y Feminismo: Análisis de un manifiesto político
2004
The theme of this article is the the Italian feminist movement of the 1980s. That movement was characterised by political transformation and a crtitique of identity. The article takes as its point of departure the inaugural speech of the movement, the manifesto "Piu donne che uomini" (1983). The analysis that we present is inspired in the work of Michel Foucault. It aims to show to that the production of new feministic subjectivities, when fighting the symbolic dimension of masculine domination, has an intrinsically political character. In the 1980s, in the Italian context and particularly in the feminist movement, the rules of the political game set up by the events of 1968 materialized. T…
Two Half-Truths Make a Whole? On Bias in Self-Reports and Tracking Data
2019
The pervasive use of mobile information technologies brings new patterns of media usage, but also challenges to the measurement of media exposure. Researchers wishing to, for example, understand the nature of selective exposure on algorithmically driven platforms need to precisely attribute individuals’ exposure to specific content. Prior research has used tracking data to show that survey-based self-reports of media exposure are critically unreliable. So far, however, little effort has been invested into assessing the specific biases of tracking methods themselves. Using data from a multimethod study, we show that tracking data from mobile devices is linked to systematic distortions in sel…
Debating Europe: Effects of the “Eurovision Debate” on EU Attitudes of Young German Voters and the Moderating Role Played by Political Involvement
2016
In the run-up to the elections to the European Parliament in 2014, EU citizens had the unprecedented opportunity to watch televised debates between the candidates running for president of the European Commission. The most important debate was the so-called "Eurovision debate", which was broadcasted in almost all EU member states. In this study we explore the responses of a sample of 110 young German voters, who watched this debate, to the candidates' messages and whether exposure to the debate caused a shift in the respondents' attitudes towards the EU. Combining data from a quasi-experiment, real-time response data, and data from a content analysis of the debate, we find that respondents' …
Instrumental calculation, cognitive role-playing, or both?: self-perceptions of Seconded National Experts in the European Commission
2011
This is the authors’ final, accepted and refereed manuscript to the article Most work studying micro-processes of integration – i.e. how agents develop identities and decision-making behaviours within a particular institution – offers explanations based on either instrumental rationality or socialisation. This article proposes a two-dimensional framework that allows analysing under which conditions both logics of social action co-exist. Our empirical analysis employs a unique dataset from a 2011 survey of all 1098 currently active Seconded National Experts (SNEs) in the European Commission. We find that a) instrumental cost-benefit calculation and cognitive role-playing (as semi-reflexive s…
Representative Bureaucracy and the Role of Expertise in Politics
2015
This is an open access journal from Cogitatio http://www.cogitatiopress.com The vast majority of existing studies on bureaucratic representation focus on bureaucracies’ permanent and internal staff. Yet, the rising sophistication of modern democracies and the technocratization of political life are gradually inducing an increased reliance on external experts to assist in the development and implementation of policy decisions. This trend, we argue, raises the need to extend studies of bureaucratic representation to such external and non-permanent experts in governmental affairs. In this article, we take a first step in this direction using seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Com…
Bildungsexpansion, soziale Klasse und die Wahl von Latein als Strategie der Distinktion
2021
In times of educational expansion, privileged families are looking for new strategies of distinction. Referring to Pierre Bourdieu���s theory of distinction, we argue that choosing Latin at school ��� a language that is no longer spoken and therefore has no direct value ��� is one of the strategies of privileged families to set themselves apart from less privileged families. Based on two surveys we conducted at German schools, the paper analyzes the relationship between parents��� educational background and the probability that their child will learn Latin. Results indicate that historically academic families have the strongest tendency towards learning Latin, followed by new academic famil…
Identity, Instrumental Self-Interest and Institutional Evaluations: Explaining Public Opinion on Common European Policies in Foreign Affairs and Defe…
2008
This paper addresses public opinion on common European policies in foreign affairs and defence. It proposes three models of support for common policies in these fields. Drawing on Eurobarometer data, the analysis shows that instrumental self-interest and territorial identities contribute considerably to explaining support for common foreign affairs and defence policies. Moreover, support for common policies is strongly driven by domain-specific evaluations of the European Union's performance. These findings suggest that popular support for common European policies in foreign affairs and defence has an experiential base. Thus, elites have an incentive to respond to public opinion when makin…
Work-life balance during the COVID-19 outbreak: the case of Latvia
2020
This paper aims to shed light on work-life balance in Latvia during the state of emergency The COVID-19 outbreak has led many governments to introduce lockdowns While imposed restrictions may help to contain the spread of the virus, they may also result in substantial damage to population well-being The COVID-19 outbreak in Latvia demonstrates the extent and ways in which socio-demographics factors have determined different patterns of behaviour, attitudes, employment changes and harmonised work and life balance The study describes the chronological development of COVID-19 in the country It describes labour migration to and from Latvia before the COVID-19 outbreak It provides geographical f…