Exploring the impact of pandemics, this book delves into the structural weaknesses of German society and how these challenges complicate responses to crises. It offers a historical perspective on the origins and consequences of the virus, while also addressing broader global issues. By examining the interplay between societal structures and exceptional circumstances, the work provides a comprehensive analysis of the new normal that emerged in the wake of the pandemic.
Unabhängigkeit und Improvisation - Independence and Improvisation
Focusing on the impactful career of Professor Zoltán Tefner, this book serves as both a tribute and a collection of scholarly texts. Contributions from Tefner's esteemed students and colleagues explore significant historical and social themes, including European territorial arrangements, border policies, and the role of jurisprudence in civilization. The essays span a wide historical range, from the Carolingian Empire in the 8th century to contemporary discussions surrounding the European Union, providing a comprehensive view of critical developments in Hungary and Europe.
The author skillfully integrates insights from Economics, Sociology, Social Policy, and Law, showcasing a breadth of knowledge across disciplines. By referencing both contemporary digital media and classic texts, the work presents a rich tapestry of ideas. It explores provocative concepts like path dependency and the "development of underdevelopment," inviting readers to examine the intricate relationship between social space and time in today's interconnected world. This academic audacity enriches the narrative, making it relevant for those seeking a deeper understanding of global dynamics.
Faced with Peter Herrmann’s paintings we can rediscover a sense of wonder, discover what is fascinating in urban scenes, everyday objects and routine events, and trace the sometimes unspectacular aspects of human existence. The painter, born near Zittau in 1937, who now lives in Berlin, does not shy away from taking on the tradition of the great masters of art, from Paolo Uccello to Caspar David Friedrich, or to Paul Cezanne. Moreover, the effect of his paintings is underscored by an ironic, cryptic humor.This catalogue is the first to extensively introduce the oeuvre of Peter Herrmann. It provides insights into early work phases and retraces the artist’s biography in close connection to his works. The main focus of the book is placed on works Herrmann created starting in 2000. In a sumptuous series of images the reader encounters a type of painting dominated by bright, strong tones and fields of color. In their reduction of what is represented and their nonchalance, the works provide answers and ask questions in equal measure.
The book reflects with heterogenous contributions - one presenting purely theoretical reflections, the other two looking more focussed on the empirical side: in Hungary and Russia - on precarity. It is of some special significance that the empirical contributions are not looking at the countries of the traditional core of capitalism. Together, the contributions aim on enhancing the debate on precarity, with their special significance that they go beyond the standard deviations. This opens in particular in theoretical perspective an outlook that pushes thinking beyond the drive of reestablishing normalities of a supposed past welfare glory.
Social policy is widely accepted as scientific discipline – and this includes that it accepts for itself another meaning of this status, one which is usually not considered: the subject is disciplined, i. e. regimented. One important point in this context is that social policy is focused and thereby forgets systematic economic determinants and the historical perspective on its own existence. The present book recalls some fundamental issues – such as the partial liberation of human decision making from extramundane powers – and as well as topics that are being discussed in contemporary settings. The volume brings different dimensions together in an insightful way and is a stimulating read for those who are ready to engage with the complexity of political questions, are looking for instruments for an analysis that reaches beyond “yesterday’s solutions for the problems we don’t really know anyway”.
The book gathers different contributions - they can all be linked to recent orientations by the main contributor, Paul Boccara who states the need for a new modèle anthroponomique. According to the work of the well-known French academic and political activist the current challenges need more than a simple change of the economic system - even if such reorientation is surely also needed and has to be in itself far-reaching. However, going beyond economic changes the challenge of the time has to face the need to redefine the position and role of humanity in the wider relationship to others and to nature. The contributions gathered in the present volume are discussing both, generic questions of such revolutionary processes and the need of changes in concrete areas as labour market policies, political strategies, financial control and the like.
The present book gathers edited contributions from a conference which had been held end of 2010 in Ankara, Turkey. This event brought together scientists and trade unionists from several EU- and non EU-countries, exploring one of the major, though frequently underestimated challenges of societal integrity. This continuing debate of the experts of the European S. U. P. I.-Network focussed in particular on the more fundamental issues of precarity. As much as precarity is a matter of socio-individual concern, having severe repercussions on the life of an increasing number of people, it is moreover a development that fundamentally challenges. It questions many of the values claimed by enlightenment and capitalist revolutions as universal, including solidarity, mutual support and equality – though they are formally still claimed as valid; and moreover these developments are part of structural changes that easily fissure the contemporary mode of production. Does this mean the end of society? Or could it be a take-off for another renaissance?
The book provides a critical contribution, looking at the development of social ad health services. Though discussing also contemporary issues, the focus is a more fundamental critique, dismantling the ideological questions that are behind these developments, standing in the context of the critique of capitalism and modernisation. In addition, one contribution looks in particular at the development of human resources in the UK and in another contribution an analysis of empirical data is provided – it looks at the perspective from EU-NGOs active in the sector of social service provision. The book concludes with a contribution compiled by an informal network of various EU-NGOs, looking in an exemplary way at difficulties faced by the recent developments of marketisation and liberalisation.
Global (social) policy, human rights discussions and the UN-strive for Human Development and Human Security are all caught in two fundamental traps: The one is that they take a specific model of existing “developed countries” – i. e. advanced capitalism – as sole ideal without seriously reflecting other advanced models. A possible alternative – if imagined – is at most proposed by romanticised imaginations of a good society, in many cases referring to some kind of innocent ‘goodness’ of indigenous ways of life. The other trap is – not far from the said alternatives – a reference to abstract and isolated concepts of justice, freedom etc., referring to moral statements, however, isolating them from wider systematic socio-economic and politico-judicative thinking. The present volume attempts the difficult task of combining from a socio-philosophical perspective political economy and social law in order to develop an understanding of public responsibility for social quality in a global ambit. Special features of the volume are an introduction into the social quality approach, an excursus looking at Islam societies, and an excursus, looking at Asian understandings. Der Autor ist adjunct professor an der Universitaet Kuopio, Finnland (ab 1.1.2010 University of Eastern Finland) und adjunct senior lecturer an der Universitaet Cork, Ireland