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• The Party System of the European Parliament between 2004–2019

  112-130

  Andras Banki

  Views:

  138

  The paper examines the party system of the European Parliament (EP) between 2004–2019
  through European Parliamentary Groups. It applies party system typologies in an international
  case. The examined period starts from 2004, which marks the largest enlargement of the
  dominating the decision-making In addition to the widely used typologies developed by Blondel
  and Sartori, the present paper focuses on the relationship between the political groups in the
  EP and their role in decision-making. It draws conclusions about the nature of the party system
  and its changes over three cycles from the internal cohesion indices and coalition statistics of
  the political groups. The party system of the EP is a polarised pluralist system dominated by
  two political groups (bidominant). In the period under review, the party system of the EP can be
  characterized as balanced, showing only small changes.

• Social capital in Sweden and Hungary: Comparative analysis along the dimensions of trust, values and interpersonal relationships

  5-28

  Ákos Bodor

  Zoltán Grünhut

  Views:

  193

  This paper examines and compares the Swedish and Hungarian society along three dimensions: interpersonal (generalized) trust, interpersonal relationships, and values of cooperation. These are all crucial components of social capital, could be seen as its most relevant domains, which, in a macro perspective, express the cohesion and integration of a given society. Thus, the above-mentioned indicators provide deep insight into the social fabrics and dynamics of Sweden and Hungary, as well as the potential changes. The empirical analysis is based on data obtained from waves 1–10 of the European Social Survey (ESS). The relevance of the analysis is due to the specific representation of Sweden in the Hungarian political discourse and in some parts of the media. According to this framing integration and cohesion of the Swedish society is in an increasingly poor state, whereas in Hungary things are going much better. Our paper aims to shed light on this issue along the dimensions presented above. Our results show that, in terms of the dimensions of social capital examined, Swedish society is not in a bad state at all, and in fact presents a significantly more favourable picture than Hungarian society on the basis of the same indicators.

• The role of family, parenting and parenting styles among juvenile offenders in the light of international literature

  90-108

  Márta Miklósi

  Views:

  136

  The role of the family is crucial for the development of juveniles, their behaviour and norm-following, and plays a key role in shaping their values and behaviour patterns. While a whole-family upbringing is important, several other factors are also determinants of rule-following behaviour, such as the level of family cohesion, the level of aggression that may be present in the family, and the degree of parental involvement. Parenting style also shapes children’s behaviour and influences the likelihood of offending, with loving, supportive and understanding families being more likely to promote appropriate and compliant behaviour. While positive parental involvement, support, and directive parenting are associated with lower offending rates, neglectful, strict, or overly permissive parenting styles can increase the risk of subsequent offending. Supporting families to provide a stable environment for their children is key, including encouraging positive behaviours or providing resources for families experiencing difficulties.

• Reframing of Particular Trust

  5-27

  Zoltán Grünhut

  Views:

  140

  The paper strives to reconsider the theory of particular trust, i.e. one’s trusting feelings towards her/his most intimate relatives, friends, and personal relations. By doing this, at first, the paper sheds light on two distinct interpretations of particular trust in the literature. One of these approaches addresses particular trust as a kind of core disposition of the self, and it describes how one’s trust towards her/his bonding relations establishes the given subject’s generalized trust towards others, in a broad sense, to people as such. The other interpretation argues that particular trust is important for group-level social dynamics. It claims that if members of close-knit and exclusive groups, dominated by particular trust, are interacting only with each other, and avoiding out-group relations, then broader social cooperation and collaboration are constrained, social integration and cohesion are limited, and on macro level there is an unfolding distrust. As it seems, the above-described readings of particular trust are contradictory. The current paper stresses that just one of these interpretations is coherent and consistent – the first one.