Search

This paper draws on the experience of two Romani and three non‐Romani scholars in knowledge production on the health and social inequalities experienced by European Roma populations. Together, we explore how we might better account for, and work against, the complex web of dynamic oppressions embedded within processes of academic knowledge production. Our aim is to encourage careful scrutiny through which sociologists of health and illness might better recognise our own complicity with oppression and identify concrete actions towards transforming our research practices. Drawing on a well‐known domains of racism typology (Annual Review of Public Health, 40, 2019, 105), we use examples from our own work to illustrate three interconnected domains of oppression in which we have found ourselves entangled (structural, cultural and interpersonal). A new conceptual framework is proposed as an aid to understanding the spectrum of different "types" of complicity (voluntary–involuntary, conscious–unconscious) that one might reproduce across all three domains. We conclude by exploring how sociologists of health and illness might promote a more actively anti‐racist research agenda, identifying and challenging subtle, hidden and embedded negative ideologies and practices as well as more obviously oppressive ones. We hope these reflections will help revitalise important conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of outlaw bikers is growing globally. Despite this, little research exists on these groups and their alleged violent tendencies. To address this, the current paper uses unique data to examine whether gang violence causes outlaw biker violence. The period examined runs from mid-2008 until early 2012 during which violent clashes occurred between outlaw bikers and street gang members involved in an alleged conflict in Copenhagen, Denmark. A precise description of each individual act of violence would make it possible to identify whether specific acts were carried out in furtherance of the alleged conflict. This would allow one to determine whether outlaw bikers commit violence on behalf of their club. However, such knowledge is unavailable. The paper therefore takes a different approach by examining whether acts of violence committed by the two groups are statistically associated. In other words, it considers whether one or more acts can be described as retaliatory during the observation periods. The sample consists of 640 individuals involved with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club or with non-biker street gangs–both of which are present in Copenhagen. Statistical models are used to predict 143 violent events committed by 196 outlaw bikers. The results suggest that violence committed by gang members predicts violence committed by outlaw bikers. This indicates that violent acts committed by outlaw bikers are at least partly a form of retaliation carried out on behalf of their club. The paper expands the literature on the kinds of inter-group, micro-level processes that can lead to reciprocal violence by including outlaw bikers in a literature that has previously focused on non-biker street gangs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the process of adapting the Stanford Coreference resolution module to the Basque language, taking into account the characteristics of the language. The module has been integrated in a linguistic analysis pipeline obtaining an end-to-end coreference resolution system for the Basque language. The adaptation process explained can benefit and facilitate other languages with similar characteristics in the implementation of their coreference resolution systems. During the experimentation phase, we have demonstrated that language-specific features have a noteworthy effect on coreference resolution, obtaining a gain in CoNLL score of 7.07 with respect to the baseline system. We have also analysed the effect that preprocessing has in coreference resolution, comparing the results obtained with automatic mentions versus gold mentions. When gold mentions are provided, the results increase 11.5 points in CoNLL score in comparison with results obtained when automatic mentions are used. The contribution of each sieve is analysed concluding that morphology is essential for agglutinative languages to obtain good performance in coreference resolution. Finally, an error analysis of the coreference resolution system is presented which have revealed our system’s weak points and help to determine the improvements of the system. As a result of the error analysis, we have enriched the Basque coreference resolution adding new two sieves, obtaining an improvement of 0.24 points in CoNLL F1 when automatic mentions are used and of 0.39 points when the gold mentions are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This paper focuses on the issue of intimate partner violence and, specifically, on the distribution of femicides over time and the existence of copycat effects. This is the subject of an ongoing debate often triggered by the social alarm following multiple intimate partner homicides (IPHs) occurring in a short span of time. The aim of this research is to study the evolution of IPHs and provide a far-reaching answer by rigorously analyzing and searching for patterns in data on femicides. Methods: The study analyzes an official dataset, provided by the system VioGén of the Secretaría de Estado de Seguridad (Spanish State Secretariat for Security), including all the femicides occurred in Spain in 2007-2017. A statistical methodology to identify temporal interdependencies in count time series is proposed and applied to the dataset. The same methodology can be applied to other contexts. Results: There has been a decreasing trend in the number of femicides per year. No interdependencies among the temporal distribution of femicides are observed. Therefore, according to data, the existence of copycat effect in femicides cannot be claimed. Conclusions: Around 2011 there was a clear change in the average number of femicides which has not picked up. Results allow for an informed answer to the debate on copycat effect in Spanish femicides. The planning of femicides prevention activities should not be a reaction to a perceived increase in their occurrence. As a copycat effect is not detected in the studied time period, there is no evidence supporting the need to censor media reports on femicides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The main aims of this paper are to analyse the monetary value of informal care time using different techniques and to identify significant variables associated with the number of caregiving hours. Data and methods: A multicentre study in two Spanish regions in adult caregivers was conducted. A total sample of 604 people was available. A multivariate analysis was performed to identify the variables associated with the number of hours of caregiving time. In the monetary valuation of informal care provided, three approaches were used: replacement cost method, opportunity cost and contingent valuation (willingness to pay and willingness to accept). Results: The main determinants of the amount of time of informal care provided were age, gender, the level of care receiver´s dependence and the professional care services received (at home and out of home). The value estimated for informal care time ranges from EUROS 80,247 (replacement cost method) to EUROS 14,325 (willingness to pay), with intermediate values of EUROS 27,140 and EUROS 29,343 (opportunity cost and willingness to accept, respectively). Several sensitivity analyses were performed over the base cases, confirming the previous results. Conclusions: Time of informal care represents a great social value, regardless of the applied technique. However, the results can differ strongly depending on the technique chosen. Therefore, the choice of technique of valuation is not neutral. Among the determinants of informal care time, the professional care received at home has a complementary character to informal care, while the formal care outside the home has a substitute character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: NEETs (young people not in employment, education or training) are at higher risk for poorer mental and physical health. In France, the Missions locales (MLs) are the only social structures dedicated to this population. We sought to determine whether the systematic offer of a social and preventive medicine consultation at a ML might increase NEET participants’ access to training in the 12 months following the intervention. Methods: This intervention research was a parallel randomised controlled interventional study conducted at five MLs in mainland France in 2011–2012. It included 976 NEETs aged 18 to 25 years who attended one of the five MLs. At inclusion, participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to three groups: those in the first group were invited to see a social worker (not studied in this paper), those in the second group were invited to see a doctor and a social worker (intervention group), and the third was a control group. The primary outcome was participation in at least one training session during the year following study inclusion. Results: Among the 976 participants, 504 were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 472 to the control group; 704 (72.1%) were included in the analyses. A significantly higher proportion of the participants in the intervention group participated in a training session in the 12 months following the intervention than of those in the control group (63.3% vs 55.6%; p = 0.04). This difference was significantly greater for women, those less than 21 years of age, those unstably housed and those with a lower level of education. Conclusions: Social and preventive medicine consultations that are fully integrated into the social services for NEETs have an impact on their access to training and contribute to changing some of their health-related behaviours. This may improve their access to the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have shown that childhood circumstances can have long term consequences that persist until old age. To better understand the transmission of early life circumstances, this paper analyses the effects of health and financial situation during childhood on quality of life after retirement as well as the mediating role of later life health, educational level, and income in this association. Moreover, this study is the first to compare these pathways across European regions. The analyses are based on data of 13,092 retirees aged ≥ 60 and ≤ 85 years from the fifth wave of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) with full information on childhood and later life measures of health, educational level, financial situation, and quality of life as well as relevant covariates. Five European regions are studied: Central-Western Europe (Austria, Germany), Central-Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia), Northern Europe (Denmark, Sweden), Southern Europe (Italy, Spain), and Western Europe (Belgium, France, The Netherlands). Path analysis is used to identify the direct and indirect effects of childhood measures on quality of life. We find retirees’ quality of life to be associated with childhood finances and health in all five European regions. While both the direct and indirect effects of childhood health are rather moderate and homogeneous across regions, especially the direct effects of childhood finances on quality of life after retirement display a distinct North-South gradient being strongest in Southern Europe. Potential explanations for the regional variations are differences in the countries’ welfare systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to changes in Polish society resulting from a significant inflow of immigrants to Poland, the need to develop the cultural competences of various professional groups who have contact with immigrants in their work has increased. These groups should include healthcare professionals, especially because of the significant increase in the number of culturally diverse patients. Therefore, medical education in Poland has had to rapidly adapt to this novel situation. For instance, the teaching process should be now more focused on the development and evaluation of the cultural competences of prospective health care workers. However, there is still a lack of standardized, valid and reliable instruments to assess cross-cultural competences among healthcare professionals. The purpose of the present paper was to describe, for the first time, the translation, adaptation, and psychometric evaluation of the Polish version of the Cross-Cultural Competence Inventory. Methods: Across two studies, we examined psychometric properties of the Cross-Cultural Competence Inventory (CCCI) such as reliability (i.e. internal consistency, test-retest reliability, factor structure) and validity (i.e. theoretical, criteria, convergent). In the first study, 408 participants (75% were healthcare professionals) completed the Polish version of the CCCI and the Positive/Negative Attitude Towards Culturally Divergent People Questionnaire. In the second study, 317 participants (97% were healthcare professionals) completed the CCCI twice, with an interval of at least 22 days. In addition, across two study sessions, participants completed questionnaires constructed to measure (a) cultural intelligence, (b) need for cognitive closure, (c) emphatic sensitiveness, (d) emotional intelligence, (e) self-esteem, (f) social desirability, and (g) personality. Finally, to additionally examine the theoretical validity, 36 professional cross-cultural competence trainers completed the CCCI during a one-session study. Results: Our findings confirm the reliability and validity of the CCCI. More precisely, in study 1 we proved the theoretical validity and reliability (i.e. internal consistency) of the CCCI. While the assumed structure did not fit the data well, all items were significantly related to the general factor, thus providing strong support for the usage of the total score of the CCCI. In study 2, we additionally estimated the test-retest reliability and theoretical, criterion and convergent validity. Across two studies we were able to successfully confirm these psychometric properties. The reliability was satisfactory and ranged from .83 to .86. We also observed a high and significant positive correlation between CCCI and the Cultural Intelligence Scale, which measures a concept similar to the one measured by CCCI. In addition, a significant relationship between intercultural competences (CCCI) and other variables such as personality, empathic sensitivity, emotional intelligence, self-esteem (positive correlations) and the need for cognitive closure (mainly negative correlation) were demonstrated. Conclusions: The obtained results support the usage of the CCCI questionnaire in scientific research, such as, for example, among healthcare professionals (nurses, doctors) and students of medical fields (nursing, medicine). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across a crisis-stricken Europe battles rage for post-neoliberal hegemony, with "race" and "austerity" as central signifiers. One of the places where the frontlines are most pregnant is Sweden; long perceived as a role model for its welfare state, cultural equity and social equality. Sweden is, however, facing social conflicts following in the tracks of a deep transformation in terms of welfare cuts, racialization and growing social polarization, targeting in particular a disadvantaged migrant and post-migrant population. On that background, the paper focuses on the upsurge of mutually antagonistic popular movements - "racist" and "anti-racist". We use Sweden as an exemplary case of Europe's present Polanyian moment, reminiscent of the 1930s. Yet, current upheavals expound, the authors claim, a different configuration of crisis and racism as well as a dissimilar utopia for the imagineering of nation and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper assesses group differences in severe and fatal road-traffic accidents by using a unique database that merges road-traffic records with the Israeli census data. The database traces, over a period of 9 years, a group of drivers that comprises 20% of the Israeli population and explores the probability of their being involved in an accident. This unique database enables the investigation of drivers’ socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, while controlling for a variety of variables, such as estimated daily distance traveled and license type. Testing a previously published theoretical paper on the social bases of accidents, the findings expose significant group differences in estimated probabilities of being involved in severe and fatal accidents. For example, estimated probabilities of accident involvement are higher for males than for females, for non-Jewish drivers than for Jewish, and for drivers whose origins are in Africa and Asia than in America and Europe. Furthermore, the higher one''s education and socioeconomic status, the lower is the probability of accident-involvement. The implications of the findings for developing road-safety programs and suggestions for future research are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This survey focuses on food history writing on nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe, by using a selection of book introductions, colloquium papers, critical reviews, and papers from specialized journals. It provides a chronological survey that starts in the 1980s, and ends with recent trends. It explores tensions between socioeconomic traditions and ethnological approaches, looks for the cultural, linguistic and other turns, and puts forward as a promising field of study the integrated approach of the food chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the juridical Genetic Modified Organisms statu artis and its legal definition in Italy, Europe and in the rest of the world in order to compare different cultural approaches to needs, interests, fears and precautions against a not scientifically certain innovation. It also stresses the legislative processes towards an extended participation that unifies economic interests, political goals, customer satisfaction, collective safety, and human construction for a sustainable future, a new form of governance. The paper ends with a sociological and comparative analysis of needs, fears, interests and responsibilities related to GMO in Italy and Europe, with the aim of defining some possible evolutions of ruling uncertainty today.

This special issue of Finisterra is based on the findings of the GEITONIES project, and intends to shed some light on questions relating to ethnic diversity, social relations and participation in urban settings. The research was conducted in 6 European cities: Lisbon, Bilbao, Thessaloniki Rotterdam, Vienna and Warsaw and the neighbourhood context was adopted as the field of research. A random survey was implemented to 3600 residents in 18 neighbourhoods in the six cities. The papers included in this special issue of Finisterra - Revista Portuguesa de Geografia, focus on processes of change and social relations at the neighbourhood level and stress the role of place and time in the development of positive inter-group contacts, representations and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Households' energy consumption has received a lot of attention in debates on urban sustainability and housing policy due to its possible consequences for climate change. In Europe, the residential sector accounts for roughly one third of the energy consumption and is responsible for 16% of total CO2 emissions. Households have been progressively highlighted as the main actor that can play a substantial in the reduction of this energy use. Their behavior is a complex and hard to change process that combines numerous determinants. These determinants have already been extensively studied in the literature from a variety of thematic domains (psychology, sociology, economics, and engineering), however, each approach is limited by its own assumptions and often omit important energy behavioral components. Therefore, energy behavior studies require an integration of disciplines through interdisciplinary approaches. Based on that knowledge, this paper introduces a conceptual framework to capture and understand households' energy consumption. The paper aims at connecting objective (physical and technical) with subjective (human) aspects related to energy use of households. This combination provide the answers to the 'what', the 'how' and most importantly the 'why' questions about people's behavior regarding energy use. It allows clarifying the numerous internal and external factors that act as key determinants, as well as the need to take into account their interactions. By doing so, we conclude the paper by discussing the value of the conceptual framework along with valuable insights for researchers, practitioners and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To extend existing research on the US health disadvantage relative to Europe by studying the relationships of disability with age from midlife to old age in the US and four European regions (England/Northern and Western Europe/Southern Europe/Eastern Europe) including their wealth-related differences, using a flexible statistical approach to model the age-functions. Methods: We used data from three studies on aging, with nationally representative samples of adults aged 50 to 85 from 15 countries (N = 48225): the US-American Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Outcomes were mobility limitations and limitations in instrumental activities of daily living. We applied fractional polynomials of age to determine best fitting functional forms for age on disability in each region, while controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and important risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, obesity, smoking, physical inactivity). Results: Findings showed high levels of disability in the US with small age-related changes between 50 and 85. Levels of disability were generally lower in Eastern Europe, followed by England and Southern Europe and lowest in Northern and Western Europe. In these latter countries age-related increases of disability, though, were steeper than in the US, especially in Eastern and Southern Europe. For all countries and at all ages, disability levels were higher among adults with low wealth compared to those with high wealth, with largest wealth-related differences among those in early old age in the USA. Conclusions: This paper illustrates considerable variations of disability and its relationship with age. It supports the hypothesis that less developed social policies and more pronounced socioeconomic inequalities are related to higher levels of disability and an earlier onset of disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand the way in which social capital resources are incorporated, appropriated and distributed by different social classes in Europe. Its main goal is to produce a conceptual framework by linking the concepts of social capital with the different theoretical assessments made by the sociology of social classes. We use multivariate analysis to work a set of quantitative indicators from the European Social Survey 2008 in order to assess the relationship between these concepts. Our methodological approach combines transnational levels, i.e., it is not an international comparison between European countries but an analysis of individual people and their belonging to social classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates European patterns of intergenerational contact. A large number of studies in family sociology and gerontology demonstrate the explanatory power of micro-level variables, but the effect of the socio-cultural context on intergenerational arrangements rarely has been appraised. A comprehensive review of prominent classifications of European family and welfare regimes prompts the main research question: Do these macro-level typologies add heuristic value to the investigation of intergenerational arrangements in contemporary Europe? Further, as previous studies have focused mainly on Western Europe alone, Eastern European countries are included using comparable micro-data from the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey (UNO, 2005). Launched and coordinated by the UNECE, the GGS panel survey was carried out between 2004 and 2010. Within each participating country nationally representative samples of the 18-79 year old resident population are conducted under the direction of national experts and institutions. For a selection of West and (South) East European countries the frequency of face-to-face contact of respondents aged 60 years and older to their adult children is explored. Controlling for several individual-level characteristics, significant country differences remain. A west-east division coincides with a less stark north-south division. Contact is most frequent in Georgia and Bulgaria; it is lower in Estonia, the Russian Federation, and Germany and lowest in France. Belgium, with its very high contact rate, is an exceptional case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I try to 'think Europe' through a cosmopolitan city like Trieste, and its recent and not so recent past. I develop my argument through the analysis of two powerful 'myths' that, I argue, limit understandings of Europe and the European project today: (1) the 'myth of diversity'; and (2) the 'myth of an identity in crisis'. In doing so, I rely in great part on the work of French sociologist and philosopher Edgar Morin and his conceptualisation of European identity as a permanent negotiation of difference; what Morin (1990) terms 'a permanent dialogical simmer'. Starting from Morin's critical genealogy of European identity, I try to consider some of the ways in which we can go beyond territorial understandings of identity and citizenship, using Trieste's experience as a mirror of the broader European condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since McCallum's (1995) finding of surprisingly high border effects on trade between the US and Canada, there have been a number of studies on other parts of the world, and improvements made to the gravity model to measure this effect accurately. This paper suggests some other modifications to the model, and applies it to a region of the world that presents a distinctly interesting case. Changes in border effects of formerly socialist countries in Central and East Europe, and countries in the former Soviet Union are analyzed during 1976-2002 at country and sectoral levels, and also with respect to blocs of countries. A discussion on cross-country variations in border effects follows the computations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, many major Western cities aim to be attractive to new and economically successful high-tech industries, financial and business services, cultural industries and consumer services industries. Most of these new activities are dependent upon well-skilled creative workers, which will be followed by those who will work in personal services. It is said that a large share of the well-skilled and creative workers requires impulse-rich and attractive urban environments. The idea has arisen that highly segregated, socially and culturally less integrated cities, do not match the newly required city profiles. On the contrary, these cities would exacerbate urban poverty and deter skilled people from settling there. Consequently, some believe that today's cities should also be socially and culturally cohesive. This hypothesis parallels policies against segregation and policy interventions in favour of more mixed and balanced local communities. The latter type of policy is also driven by the idea that more mixed neighbourhoods will enhance individual social opportunities and thus, on aggregate, strengthen the urban economy. This paper elaborates on these ideas and hypotheses and focuses on the rise of new economic activities and the locations they aim for, their potential relation with the social (and ethnic) segregation of the population and the related impact upon the attraction of creative workers and the possible impact on the social mobility of the population. Empirical data from Europe are used to support the arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European nations are undergoing rapid and fundamental changes in response to social, political and economic events that are occurring both within and outside the region. These changes are far-reaching in scope and, ultimately, are expected to result in a redefinition of "Europe" and what it means to be "European." Using the author's extensively pre-tested Index of Social Progress (ISP), the research reported in this paper: 1) identifies the major changes in social development that have taken place in 36 European nations since 1970; 2) contrasts Europe's recent social development trends with those of other major world regions (including Asia, Africa, Latin and North America, and Oceania); 3) using aggregate scores on the Weighted Index of Social Progress (WISP), identifies Europe's "social leaders" (SLs), "middle performing countries" (MPCs), identifies Europe's "social leaders" (SLs), "middle performing countries" (MPCs), and "socially least developing countries" (SLDCs); 4) identifies the major development challenges confronting Europe at the outset of a new decade; and 5) provides baseline data against which future developments in the region may be assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British migration to Tenerife has increased dramatically over recent years, with a visible rise in young British settlers who seek jobs in tourism-related sectors. Yet despite significant numbers of young British migrants to Mediterranean and Canarian destinations, the existence of young British people as a newly emergent migrant group has to date received little sociological attention. However, recent theoretical developments in the migration literature have begun to draw attention to new migration typologies, and the fact that the old political and sociological concerns and dichotomies within migration analyses (forced versus voluntary, skilled versus unskilled, legal versus illegal and poor versus rich) have become increasingly blurred and so not entirely useful in addressing questions about the new, diverse motivations and modalities within more recent migration (King, 2002; Cohen, 1995 ). Russell King has recommended that analyses of new European migrant phenomena should recognise that migrant narratives of self-improvement and self-realisation can be pivotal. Drawing on interviews and survey data, this paper discusses young British migrant discourses in Tenerife, in terms of how they might fit with King's theoretical concerns with identity reproduction. Central themes include the desire to escape a crest-fallen and 'overrun' Britain, the self-reflexive significance of 'sun-seeking' and travel, and Tenerife as an idealised geographical and cultural destination. It will look at how specifically classed, raced, gendered and nationalised identities are lived out within this particular location and how these processes can inform the discursive reproduction of a white, British working-class utopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the logical and historical determinants of European integration and reflects on the potential and dangers this presents for labour movement renewal. Through the principle of ‘subsidiarity’ a regulatory gap has been established between political mobilisation at the national level and neo-liberal regulation at the European level. The historical determination of this form is traced through an exploration of the social struggles against neo-liberalism that have developed within member states and transnational mobilizations that bridge this regulatory gap by linking resistance across national boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to assess the impact of the secularization debate of the mid-1960s on the theoretical evolution of the sociology of religion and on the development of the ICSR. An analysis of the Acts published by the ICSR over a thirty-six year period shows that criticisms of the theoretical narrowness of "religious sociology" in Europe existed long before the debate about secularization broke out, and that the ICSR only reacted to this debate six years later, when a new generation of scholars became dominant in the ICSR. The conclusion is that, although the secularization debate did not have any direct impact on the theoretical evolution of the discipline nor on the evolution of the ICSR, it had an indirect impact, in the sense that it was only when a new generation of scholars, who were university professors rather than churchmen, came to power, that the new paradigm which secularization theorists had put forth came into effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Inquisition was a unique institution, specifically Western European in origin and character. Nothing quite like it is found in the history of other world civilizations. Its origin and subsequent history as a specialized and differentiated religious-juridical institution depended upon a peculiar combination of changes both at the level of the civilizational structures of Western Europe, as well as more local events and processes within the sociocultural settings of the various European nations. This paper will focus on the origins of the Inquisition, rather than its historical vicissitudes in various countries from the thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Institutions derive their original contours from the rationales and ideas available in the civilizational environment. Once any institution has been established, it gains a permanent place among the "tools" available to a society and it can subsequently be put to new uses and adapted to new circumstances. It is therefore of particular interest to capture the institution at its point of original historical gestation and examine the reasons which initially bring it into existence. In particular, the present essay focuses upon the origins of the Inquisition viewed within the setting of and at the level of Western European civilizational rationales, structures of consciousness, and their related institutional orders.

The standard of the intellectual antecedents of Hungarian sport sociology and their importance seem to correspond to those of other nations. However, for political reasons the period in which sport sociology developed into an autonomous discipline in the Western world did not favour the rising of sociology in the socialist states of Eastern Europe. This paper attempts to show when and in what way sport sociology evolved in Hungary, as well as what social and theoretical factors influenced, promoted or impeded its development. Furthermore, the present situation of sport sociology in Hungary is outlined: its main fields of research, its major publications as well as its institutions, organizations, and international connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important challenge for macrosociology in the 1990s is to account for the cluster of social movements in different post-World War II settings, most recently those that intend structural changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. To account for these extraordinary phenomena of historical significance calls for a new global synchronic and diachronic analysis. After discussing three major waves of these movements that have in common a challenge to the authority of the modern state, this paper proposes that 'neomodernisation analysis' may be the most appropriate macro-paradigm to relate sociology to the comparative study of cycles of modernisation and of centres of modernity. It is highly relevant since many regions of the world are undergoing ah important new phase of modernisation and since there may be taking place ah important shift in the epicentre of modernity. State socialism is bankrupt in Eastern Europe. Governments, ruling parties, of the opposition, experts, and expert committees are desperately searching . . . for a new paradigm, a new social and economic model with which to launch these countries onto a new course of dynamic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This issue of "The Information Society" journal features four articles and a perspective piece, and eight book reviews. While the topics vary among the five papers, they tend to fall into two clusters: works that create integrative conceptual frameworks and highly textured case studies that provide critical insights. Gripenberg et al. study how the macro level "European information society for us all" policy discourse translates into projects on the ground via their examination of four ICT development projects sponsored by European national governments and the European Union. The second paper "Conceptualizing the ICT Artefact: Toward Understanding the Role of ICT in National Development," takes the discussion to higher conceptual plane in a an area largely marked by descriptive case studies.