Search results for " Political"

Return Migration Process in Policy and Practice

2019

AbstractThis chapter focuses on return migration processes in Latvia, integrating analysis of return migration policy and the experiences of return migrants. The analysis considers the extent to which return policy activities correspond to the needs and expectations of the target group, and addresses the role of this policy in the process of making the decision to return. The data used for the analysis are policy planning documents, The Emigrant Communities of Latvia survey and in-depth interviews. The main empirical evidence of the return experiences of migrants in the chapter comes from 18 in-depth interviews with Latvian returnees from various age and social status groups, who left Latvi…

Becoming more EUropean or European after ERASMUS?

2015

Lijphart was the first to emphasize the necessity to study the impact of student mobility upon European integration, but mobility programmes have only been studied in the last decade. The European Commission points to the ERASMUS programme as a successful example of construction of European identity; however, this assumption hasn’t yet been empirically proved on an European scale. This paper has been devoted to research of the impact of the ERASMUS programme on fostering European identity in Europe. In academic literature at least two different understandings of the European identity can be distinguished: political and cultural European identity. The quantitative survey (in which 12’173 res…

Violence, War, and Gender: Collective Memory and Politics of Remembrance in Kosovo

2020

This chapter examines the politics memory and remembrance by focusing on the perceptions of citizens regarding the framework of Europeanisation and dealing with the troubled past. Although Kosovo signed the Stabilisation and Accession Agreement (SAA) with the EU, the country struggles to deal with its past in the framework of EU integration. This chapter examines the extent to which Europeanisation acts as a tool for dealing with the troubled past, or is just a superficial framework imposed from top-down policies of the EU. From six focus groups with 51 participants, both men and women and representing the main ethnic communities in Kosovo, we examine three main frameworks in the narratives…

Introduction: Europe, Heritage and Memory—Dissonant Encounters and Explorations

2019

AbstractThe introduction to Dissonant Heritages and Memories in Contemporary Europe theoretically grounds the book’s various problematizations of heritage and identity struggles in Europe today, including the heritage policies of the EU and other intergovernmental organizations, struggles over ethnographic and historical exhibitions, activist practices, and dissonant memories. By discussing these struggles and their problematizations, the introduction connects the book to a wide range of ongoing debates across the humanities and social sciences. At the same time, it discusses how convergences and divergences within and between the volume’s chapters foster new insights regarding the concepts…

Trabajadores desplazados, mano de obra barata en Europa

2020

espanolEl articulo analiza la movilidad intraeuropea de los trabajadores que, en virtud del principio de libre circulacion de servicios, van de un pais (origen) a otro/s (destino/s) para realizar una actividad durante un periodo de tiempo determinado. Aborda las tendencias recientes de esta migracion temporal, los factores que la impulsan y su distribucion geografica, y las condiciones laborales de los trabajadores desplazados. La informacion utilizada procede de los informes y datos publicados por la Comision Europea y de los resultados de investigaciones que diversos autores han llevado a cabo en diferentes paises.La movilidad geografica aumenta de forma acelerada en toda Europa, lo que s…

The measurement of populist attitudes: Testing cross-national scales using item response theory

2019

Recent research in the populism literature has devoted considerable efforts to the conceptualisation and examination of populism on the individual level, that is, populist attitudes. Despite rapid progress in the field, questions of adequate measurement and empirical evaluation of measures of populist attitudes remain scarce. Seeking to remedy these shortcomings, we apply a cross-national measurement model, using item response theory, to six established and two new populist indicators. Drawing on a cross-national survey (nine European countries, n = 18,368), we engage in a four-folded analysis. First, we examine the commonly used 6-item populism scale. Second, we expand the measurement wit…

Quantification and classification in education: What is at stake?

2021

Histories of statistics and quantification have demonstrated that systems of statistical knowledge participate in the construction of the objects that are measured. However, the pace, purpose, and scope of quantification in state bureaucracy have expanded greatly over the past decades, fuelled by (neoliberal) societal trends that have given the social phenomenon of quantification a central place in political discussions and in the public sphere. This is particularly the case in the field of education. In this article, we ask what is at stake in state bureaucracy, professional practice, and individual pupils as quantification increasingly permeates the education field. We call for a theoret…

Book Review: James Midgley, Espen Dahl and Amy Conley Wright (eds) Social Investment and Social Welfare: International and Critical Perspectives

2018

Remittance behaviours of foreigners in Italy

2015

This article investigates the determinants of remittance behaviours among foreigners in Italy and intends to gain a better understanding of the temporal pattern of remittances. The analysis is based on data from the 2009 “Italian Statistics on Income and Living Conditions of Households with Foreigners”. The decisions on whether to remit and how much to remit are separately yet simultaneously estimated using a zero-inflated beta regression model. The findings reveal that remittances are driven by a mix of altruistic and self-interest motives that may persist for many years. Many covariates included in the model have a different effect on the propensity to remit and on the relative amount of …

The language of recovery

2020

Abstract The present study attempts to make a comparative analysis of two Spanish and American political speeches, which belong to two different debate traditions, in terms of the metaphors used. For that purpose, we analyze the Economy sections of the 2015 State of the Union Address in the US and in the 2015 State of the Nation Debate in Spain. The present study aims at answering the following research questions: What metaphors do President Obama and Prime Minister Rajoy use in the American and Spanish political speeches to convince their audiences of America’s and Spain’s economic victory? What are the similarities and differences between the representations depicted by metaphor use in th…