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The weird world of Russian strategic security culture
95-118Views:68The objective of this paper is to explore the Russian interpretation of the concept of security and to question this interpretation. The first part of the essay provides a historical overview of the relationship between NATO and Russia. Although the relationship between NATO and Russia has never been friendly, it has not always been hostile. How did it become so? How did Russian security policy makers come to the conclusion that NATO posed a clear threat to Russia? What is behind Russia’s intransigent stance towards NATO? Is there even a solid basis for this attitude? What does this tell us about the Russian understanding of security? After an overview of the different concepts of security and an examination of the notion of strategic security culture, the second part of the paper attempts to answer these questions. It concludes that Russia’s strategic security culture has imperialist features and points out why, in the longer term, Russia will be the main victim of this.
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Closed institution inmates’ views about the family
138-153Views:14When researching the reasons for criminal behaviour, literature almost unequivocally emphasises the responsibility and role of the family, where as the number of studies analysing the functioning of families of inmates in closed institutions (reform schools, special children’s homes) is relatively low. The present pilot research (with the purpose of preparing a wider one) tries to fill this gap. Using semi-structured interviews, we attempted to explore the inmates’ family background, what methods were used during their upbringing, what they thought about the family and its role and importance in one’s life. Harassment had occurred in juvenile delinquents’ families in various forms: it had physical and emotional manifestations, and therefore its impact on the affected person’s personality is extremely complex. These young people did not/do not have a safe background, and thus they were more easily influenced to choose the wrong way; they did not have a real childhood, never had the experience of common games or hiking, and never felt an atmosphere of trust, love and security. It was apparent that in these young people’s families very little attention was paid to each family member’s personal sensitivity or opinion, and emotional ties were either missing or were strongly distorted. In such a family environment, the young people were unable to solve the crises of adolescence which are parts of normal development, the family did not ensure support in coping with the tension, and they were left alone with solving their problems. Consequently, it is not surprising that they had great difficulties in telling what the family meant to them and what ideas they had about their future family.
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Danger on the labour market - some thoughts on occupational segregation
49-63Views:31Workers must be guaranteed equality, the possibility must be created for them not to be discriminated against on the basis of their work, the activities they carry out, and ultimately the results of their work. This is a serious obligation on the state, which it must ensure through its legislation and through the judgments of the courts, because social security cannot be achieved otherwise. The State's responsibility in this respect is not bound by time or place, since, as long as there has been a legal relationship in the development of labour law, this has always been a matter of concern for workers - and for labour lawyers.
It is not easy to assess, because even today, when general equality and equality of rights have been an accepted principle for centuries in almost all parts of the world (but not, of course, in those parts where, for example, there are serious traditional differences between men and women in society, such as in the Arab world), this problem is still a daily occurrence.
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Central European Innovative Practices Supporting Active Ageing
48-63Views:41The study presents through international examples of how the security and quality of life of elderly and disabled people can be enhanced. 12 partners in eight Central European countries carried out pilot activities within the framework of the HELPS project. The aim of this international project is to contribute to the decrease of the social exclusion of elderly, and to elaborate practises through which seniors would not be constraint to institutional care, and can live in their homes on a longer term. The study presents the outcomes of these pilots and the ensuing primary experiences. The presented innovative solutions offer possibilities in various fields (housing, services, career, practises, information of relatives) for the home care of elderly and people living with disabilities. Prior to the elaboration and put into practice of the development ideas and plans, the partners evaluated the health care system and related services offered to elderly and disabled people in their homeland. The analyses revealed those shortage areas, where further developments would increase the possibility to keep and care for the target group in their homes.
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Alternatives of how to prepare for the future labor market
146-160Views:42What happens if among the members of a society and among the smaller and larger units and groups making up the society trust and confidence seems to be disappearing at once? What happens if confidence reposed into each other fall victim to social differences as well as to the economic / cost-of-living boxing of modern information society? How to stop the crisis symptom that seems to be developing this way and which is shown in the fragmentation of communities?1 With other words, is it possible to “stick again together” a community or even a whole society started to disintegrate? The questions, even if not so characteristically phrased, provide sociologists actually with the scope of understanding our modern, individualistic world (Habermas 1994). Gusfield (1975) depicts dichotomy of community and society in a way that we should interpret community as a pervading, significant contrast. By now literature seems as if it was only be able to picture the changes taking place in the images both of the society and community describing them by even more pronounced, contradictory processes. The changes that send messages on the disintegration of categories and frames becoming insecure instead of the security and integration quasi missed by Habermas. It also seems as if—quasi as an answer given to this process—occlusion/seclusion both on the part of community members and the various communities from the seemingly unknown and insecure changes were more intensive (Légmán 2012). We intend to construe these phenomena on the next pages, but due to extension limits without the need for completeness of social interpretations. We want to do it with the help of mainly one dimension: value preference through the example of a given society, namely the Hungarian one. Thus we get to the stability and the solidarity of the members of the smallest unit of society, one which accepts and expresses various value preferences, the family.
From time immemorial, one of the crucial questions of mankind has been what the future has in store for us. The future, however, has remained unfathomable up to this day, and even future studies promises only as much as prognosticating what is likely to continue and what will plausibly change in the world. Thus, no wonder, that already the first “real” economists of the 18th century (Adam Smith et al.) considered the creation of the future model of labor economy as a challenge. At the present era of modern labor market, this task is closely connected with the future status of labor market since in a consumer society income acquired by work forms the basis of satisfying needs (Ehrenberg – Smith 2003, Galasi 1994).We are not saying anything new by stating the fact that the demand for labor force is determined by new places of work and that an ideal supply of labor force must be adaptable to the requirements of demand. To meet requirements and to be adaptable is possible only if we are armed with the necessary competencies and capital (Hodges – Burchell 2003, Bourdieu 1998). The question, to what extent students in higher education are prepared for changes in the demand for labor force, arises at this point. What can young people expect on the labor market in this ever changing world? What kind of job opportunities and work conditions are there for them, and how much are they prepared to face these changes?
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Community is more than just a physical space: Discuss this statement with specific reference to the role of the concept and experience of contemporary community
129-145Views:20What happens if among the members of a society and among the smaller and larger units and groups making up the society trust and confidence seems to be disappearing at once? What happens if confidence reposed into each other fall victim to social differences as well as to the economic / cost-of-living boxing of modern information society? How to stop the crisis symptom that seems to be developing this way and which is shown in the fragmentation of communities?1 With other words, is it possible to “stick again together” a community or even a whole society started to disintegrate? The questions, even if not so characteristically phrased, provide sociologists actually with the scope of understanding our modern, individualistic world (Habermas 1994). Gusfield (1975) depicts dichotomy of community and society in a way that we should interpret community as a pervading, significant contrast. By now literature seems as if it was only be able to picture the changes taking place in the images both of the society and community describing them by even more pronounced, contradictory processes. The changes that send messages on the disintegration of categories and frames becoming insecure instead of the security and integration quasi missed by Habermas. It also seems as if—quasi as an answer given to this process—occlusion/seclusion both on the part of community members and the various communities from the seemingly unknown and insecure changes were more intensive (Légmán 2012). We intend to construe these phenomena on the next pages, but due to extension limits without the need for completeness of social interpretations. We want to do it with the help of mainly one dimension: value preference through the example of a given society, namely the Hungarian one. Thus we get to the stability and the solidarity of the members of the smallest unit of society, one which accepts and expresses various value preferences, the family.
