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Qualitative Research
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The Challenges of Sustained Development
How to narrow the gap between the old and new members of the European Union? A vast amount of statistical data on social and economic factors in selected European countries is analyzed along constructs such as civilizational competence; social capital; quality of governance, entrepreneurial spirit; social cohesion etc.
Uncertain Path
In this case study of the politics of transition in Eastern Europe, Rudolf Martin Rizman provides a careful, detailed sociological explanation and narrative on the emergence of independent statehood and democracy in Slovenia, a small state whose experience is of interest to policy makers, scholars, and serious students of Eastern Europe. In his focus on the transition from an authoritarian to a democratic regime, Rizman analyzes social processes and political issues in the context of the Third Wave of democratization, identifying “zones of certainty and uncertainty.” Challenging many generally accepted ideas about small states and their transitions to democracy, this book places Slovenia...
Slovenia
This book analyzes the characteristics and outcomes of the transition process in Slovenia, a relatively young and independent country, from different perspectives. It presents its main achievements as well as its current dilemmas and challenges, among them the causes for systemic dysfunctions, political instability and weak social integration. It is a collection of readings from various scientific disciplines and professions, as well as from different generations of researchers. The approach to the analysis is multidisciplinary and comparative. It combines the fields of sociology, history, geography, political science, law, economics, environmental studies as well as their subfields and inte...
Measuring National Innovation Performance
This book provides a critical re-examination of the Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS) as the main tool used by the European Commission and other policy-making bodies to measure national innovation capacity. Given that contemporary societies and economies are to a great extent characterised by the processes of production, dissemination and application (re-combination) of knowledge, the accurate monitoring and measurement of R&D efficiency and innovation performance on national, regional and firm level are of outmost importance. The contextual reconstruction of the model of indicators used by IUS reveals that the accuracy and validity of measurement are not satisfactory, and that substantial modifications of metrics are needed to achieve stronger theoretical significance and policy-relevance. In this work, the »epistemic turn« is emphasised and offered as an alternative, namely in the sense of the shift from a mechanicist-positivist orientation toward a more reflective and contextual post-positivist approach.
Advances in Sociological Knowledge
Das englischsprachige Buch zieht eine Bilanz der widersprüchlichen intellektuellen Entwicklung der Soziologie über ein halbes Jahrhundert. Die Disziplin braucht diese Aufarbeitung der eigenen Erfahrung, um mit den neuen sozialen und kognitiven Herausforderungen fertig zu werden.
Yugoslavia and After
This new book presents contributions by leading authorities on the origins of the Balkan crisis, the reasons for the decay and dissolution of the old Yugoslavia, the nature of the new regimes, the prospects for solution of the remaining conflicts and for the building of viable successor states.
Public Service Innovations in China
This edited volume presents case studies of the transformation of China’s public services over the past decade in China. As the country has experienced fundamental changes in its demographic, economic, social and environmental structures, demands on public services have been increasing tremendously, and have become unprecedentedly diverse. In response, innovations to provide new services, expand service recipients, adopt new technologies, engage partners, and streamline service processes have been employed widely in China to increase service efficiency, enhance quality, enlarge coverage, and improve citizen satisfaction. This book examines prominent cases of public service innovations in China, disclosing their causes, patterns, diffusion, and effects. These cases provide interesting evidence about the nature and effectiveness of public service innovations in China while highlighting to what extent these innovations can be explained by accepted theories and whether new theory building is needed. This book will be of value to academics and policymakers seeking to understand the evolving Chinese political system.
State Collapse and Reconstruction in the Periphery
"In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-war reconstruction. Today the region has two international protectorates, contested states and borders, severe ethnic polarisation and minority concerns. In this first in-depth critical analysis of international administration, aid and reconstruction policies in Kosovo, Jens Stilhoff Sorensen argues that the region must be analysed as a whole, and that the process of state collapse and recent changes in aid policy must be interpreted in connection to the wider transformation of the global political economy and world order. He examines the shifting in...
Innovation in Socio-Cultural Context
Innovation - the process of obtaining, understanding, applying, transforming, managing and transferring knowledge - is a result of human collaboration, but it has become an increasingly complex process, with a growing number of interacting parties involved. Lack of innovation is not necessarily caused by lack of technology or lack of will to innovate, but often by social and cultural forces that jeopardize the cognitive processes and prevent potential innovation. This book focuses on the rule of social capital in the process of innovation: the social networks and the norms; values and attitudes (such as trust) of the actors; social capital as both bonding and bridging links between actors; and social capital as a feature at all spatial levels, from the single inventor to the transnational corporation. Contributors from a wide variety of countries and disciplines explore the cultural framework of innovation through empirics, case studies and examination of conceptual and methodological dilemmas.
