Refine
Document Type
- Review (27)
- Doctoral Thesis (2)
- Periodical (1)
Language
- English (30) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (30)
Keywords
Institute
Year of publication
- 2016 (30) (remove)
The dissertation aims at better understanding the ambiguity of parliamentary representation in the EU political system where both national parliaments and the European Parliament play a functional role and are characterized by distinct electoral and territorial interests of representation. In this context EU budgetary politics are a particularly interesting field of research since they constitute a prime parliamentary function that carries high importance inside parliamentary institutions. The EU budget – the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) – is formally divided between the revenue side, which is legitimated through the national parliamentary channel and the expenditure side for which the European Parliament is responsible.
Analyzing the internal parliamentary coordination and the parliamentary debate on the EU’s MFF 2014-2020 it is shown that parliamentary actors are embedded at different points in the budgetary policy cycle while at the same time feeling legitimately responsible for both revenue and expenditure strands of the EU budget. The EU parliamentary budget authority is formally upheld through the national and supranational channels of legitimation. Practically, however, it is impeded by even more constraints than in national budgetary procedures due to the shape of the EU multi-level system.
The performance of the parliamentary budget authority strongly diverged between the policy and the polity level of budgetary policies in the MFF 2014-2020 negotiations. On the one hand there has been a broad understanding between parliamentary actors of the same political family on the policy level in the budgetary debate. This covered joint perceptions of what policies should be enacted through the EU budget and what political priorities should be pursued. However on the polity level of the budget, there has been a fundamental disagreement on what formal structure or institutional shape should be achieved with the EU budget. Therefore the representative interests of parliamentary actors are strongly centered on territorial interests of representation – despite strong similarities in terms of electoral interests.
Budget policies constitute the core of parliamentary sovereignty which in the MFF 2014-2020 negotiations lead to the dominance of an institutional power-play over a joint coordination of welfare as it has already been found with regard to the EU budget negotiations on the member state level in the Council and European Council.
This dissertation investigates the cultivation effect of Facebook use on ethnic diversity perceptions and attitudes as well as on attitudes towards brand names and brands. Based on cultivation theory, social network sites research related to Facebook, and the scholarly work on ethnic diversity and brand attitudes, a research model predicting perceptions (i.e. first-order cultivation effects) and attitudes (i.e., second-order cultivation effects) by Facebook use is developed. More specifically, Facebook use is hypothesized to increase the perceived prevalence of ethnic diversity and attitudes towards ethnic minorities and to decrease ethnocentrism. Besides, it is assumed that Facebook use decreases attitudes towards local brand names and brands and increases attitudes towards global brand names and brands, respectively. The content-related ethnic diversity on Facebook is assessed and the hypotheses are tested via the classical bipartite cultivation research approach consisting of a content analysis and the empirical investigation of the effect of Facebook use on the dependent variables.
The findings of the content analysis of 50 Facebook profiles (Study 1) reveal that ethnic diversity is more prevalent on Facebook than in the real world. Based on a sample of 476 Facebook users, the subsequent cross-sectional survey (Study 2) provides empirical support for the first-order cultivation effect of Facebook use on the perceived prevalence of ethnic diversity, that is, the perceived societal ethnic diversity as well as the perceived number of ethnic minority friends and colleagues. The following experimental investigation (Study 3) with 75 participants tests second-order cultivation effects of Facebook use and finds a negative cultivation effect on the attitude towards local brand names. Furthermore, it corroborates the first-order cultivation effects proved by Study 2. The follow-up experiment (Study 4) with 61 subjects demonstrates a marginally significant, negative second-order cultivation effect on the attitude towards global brands and further confirms the first-order cultivation effects on the perceived number of ethnic minority friends and colleagues. The results are discussed, theoretical contributions to extant literature are illustrated, socio-ethical and marketing implications are derived, and limitations and respective avenues for future research are presented.
In his new book, Severin Gawlitta revisits the correspondence with the benefit of fifty years of hindsight. Drawing from the existing literature and newly available primary sources, including the papers of Cardinal Franz Hengsbach, Gawlitta skillfully reconstructs the political, social, and theological contexts that are essential for understanding the origin and impact of the letters. In so doing, he has produced what will likely remain the definitive treatment of the subject for many years to come.
The Polish historian Maciej Górny has set his sights on describing the involvement of Central-Eastern European and Balkan intellectuals in the First World War. His book, entitled Wielka Wojna profesorów (The Great War of the Professors), is devoted to this issue. As it turns out, historians have already given much attention to this so-called "war of spirit" („Krieg der Geister"); however, they have so far concentrated on the involvement of Western European scientists. Górny claims that there is a significant gap in this scope and the possibility to compare successfully intellectuals from the Balkans, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe makes this gap even greater. The scientific as well as social status of such intellectuals, related mainly to public respect, allows for such a comparative analysis.
Warsaw. The Jewish Metropolis is an impressive collection of twenty five scholarly essays devoted to Warsaw and its Jewish community, from the earliest (mostly illegal) Jewish settlements in the Polish capital in the sixteenth century to the destruction and reconstruction of the Jewish community in the twentieth century. The book is divided into two parts: Part I ("The Rise of the Metropolis") discusses over four centuries of Jewish history in Warsaw prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Part II ("Destruction of the Metropolis and Its Aftermath") presents new approaches to the tragic events of the post-1939 era. As the editors argue in the introduction to the volume, Warsaw's status of 'the first true metropolis in diasporic Jewish history' was not only about the numbers of Jews living there, but also about the diversity of the Jewish community (p. 2). This element became one of the recurring themes in almost all essays discussing the pre-war period.
The book, based on Marciniak's dissertation in American Studies at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, wants to 'explore the story of how a subculture emerged and evolved over time through the communication of ideas across space' (p. xiii). Her 'two main research questions' (p. xviii) are the depth of US-American influence in Poland, their local 'adjustments' (ibid.), and the 'cultural diffusion' (p. xix) involved. As the title of her work suggests, the perspective is transnational; the author focuses on the exchange of people, concepts, and ideas from the late 1970s to the early 2010s, mainly (but not exclusively) between Poland and the United States. The main part of the book concentrates on developments after 1989; earlier developments are bundled up in shorter introductions of the respective chapters.
The level of tolerance toward various minorities, as well as to women in general, and the social variables that influence it, is precisely what Ewa A. Golebiowska studies in her current book. As variables, she focuses on education, age, religiosity, area of residence, gender, political interest, ideological self-identification, psychological inclination toward authoritarianism, interpersonal trust, post-materialist individual values, economic perception, satisfaction with Polish democracy, and inter-group contact. According to her research, the prototype of a tolerant person in Poland is a young, childless, educated, and non-religious urban male, and who, moreover, is generally satisfied with his life and the level of democracy in Poland.
The Book's main aim is to study the influence of three selected EU member states on the shape and development of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The underlying research question of the study reads as follows: "How do EU member states within their respective regional concepts and modes of interaction influence European Neighbourhood Policy?" (p.30). In the book, it is supported by a number of empirical sub-questions addressing both policy (content) and politics (process) aspects, "whereas polity – the form aspect – is only taken into consideration as a framework in which national and European policy-making takes place" (p.31).
The Anonymous Poet of Poland, as well as other studies by Gardner, was undoubtedly a pioneering work when it was first published. Today the decision to reprint this book may appear a little odd, but let us hope that it may initiate a greater interest in Polish Romantic writing, both in Poland and abroad.
Beth Holmgren's book is a monograph of Helena Modrzejewska/Modjeska (1840-1909), the famous Polish-American stage star. The author's purpose was "to introduce a little-remembered actress to a new American audience" (p. 15). This plan was successfully completed. "Starring Madame Modjeska" is not just a popularized biography but a result of meticulous research and intellectual elaboration. It can be extremely useful for Polish readers (scholars) as it makes use of American resources and a large bibliography inaccessible in Poland. It also presents an analytical rather than simply apologetic attitude, showing a spectrum of roles Modjeska played on- and offstage.