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The author gives an overview of political sociology as a (sub)discipline of modern political science, with special reference to Croatia. The paper consists of three parts. In the first part the method and the development of modern political sociology is given by putting special emphasis on the eclectic nature of the (sub)discipline. The second part is dedicated to the bibliometric analysis with respect to the subject matter of political sociology of three journals relevant to political science in Croatia, namely Politička misao, Anali Hrvatskog politološkog društva and Suvremene teme. The analysis results show an extremely small number of papers in the field of political sociology in all three journals, as well as the uneven distribution of topics within the subject of political sociology. The third and final part of the paper compares Croatian experiences in the field of political sociology with international trends and other political science (sub)disciplines. The author concludes that the Croatian political sociology is underdeveloped and inconsistent with the topics of political sociologies in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I consider the relation between Dorothy E. Smith's critical sociology and Durkheim's understanding of society through Randle J. Hart and Andrew McKinnon's text entitled as Sociological Epistemology: Durkheim's Paradox and Dorothy E. Smith's Actuality in which these authors favour the reflections of this theoretician as a more objective, direct and actual form of description of the social reality compared to those offered by Emile Durkheim. Special attention is given to their critique of Durkheim's dualism and their reference on intersubjectivity and consensuality of reflexive sociology which does not see the social world in the binary form (individuality-sociability). Main thesis of this paper is that the analysis of these two sociologists have neglected Durkheim's own insights on this issue, and that, on the other hand, some of the critical remarks related to Durkheim's sociological position can already be read in the works of his contemporaries within the classical sociological discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality of life is a multi-dimensional and complex construct, too broad to be described in simple terms, and, as a result, it is impossible to develop a single, universallyaccepted definition thereof. Reaching a consensus for a definition of quality of life is complicated by the fact that this concept is dealt with by a host of disciplines. Geography, economics, medicine, sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and marketing all find areas of interest in investigating certain aspects of quality of life. It is difficult to clarify the specific geographic contribution from the veritable sea of approaches to investigating quality of life, i.e. it is not easy to single out the aspects of investigation of quality of life for which the geographic approach could yield the best results. The goal of this paper is to clarify the qualities of the geographic approach in investigation of quality of life through discussion about the appearance and development of interest for this issue in the framework of geography, as well as by demonstrating theoretical models and classifications of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The society and technology determine, by their specificities, the culture of an epoch, of an area and of the people that inhabit it. The modernity is primarily determined by I.C.T. so that the society is often called information society and culture the culture of the information age. Under such circumstances, one can hardly find a living space and activity which are not affected by I.C.T. In this paper, the authors analyze the intensity of the presence of I.C.T. in the rural area and in agricultural activities in Slavonia and Baranja. It is well known that in sociology a "peasant" means a way of life, culture of a certain region and time. Most frequently, this notion used to be determined by an attribute of autarchy and a firm existential orientation to nature. Today, the "peasant" has lost its original meaning. His space is more often determined by a "family farm" and his relation with nature is signifi cantly characterized by technology. To what extent is technology nowadays - in particular I.C.T. - present in the production and in the way of life on a family farm in Slavonia and Baranja and what is the attitude of today's peasant towards it, is explored by the authors of this paper. A survey was made on the sample of 153 family farms in Slavonia and Baranja. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to compare the Western European scientific insight into the relation between sport and violence in contemporary societies with the respective Croatian scientific insight. The point of departure for the comparison is the excellent evaluation of the available scientific research of this relation offered in the book of the French sociologists Bodin, Robéne and Héas Sport and Violence in Europe. They analyse the sociological, political science, psychological and other research of sport related violence, including those of its aspects that have been insufficiently recognized or neglected; they especially highlight the importance of understanding the violence of extremist sport fans for the understanding of the whole phenomenon. From 1980's onwards the violence of sport fans is equally present in Croatia as in the countries of EU but in the last decade Croatia cannot stand comparison with the EU countries when it comes to the efficiency of the measures undertaken to prevent and bring an end to this type of violence. The authors of this paper claim that the respective research of Croatian sociologists, political scientists and others can stand comparison with those in the Western European countries as to their theoretical insight, applied methodology and the quality of interpretations. This is true, however, only regarding the research of manifest violence, and it does not entirely apply for research of latent violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology deals with a great number of social phenomena, which are often inter- and multidisciplinary in nature. The paper discusses the relationship between sociology as a science and its representation in the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) scheme. The author explains some of the issues in classification of documents in the field of sociology and their content complexity and describes the practice in classification adopted by the National and University Library in Zagreb (Croatia). The author illustrates the problem of classification of interdisciplinary subjects with the examples of globalization, violence in mass media, violence in schools, violence in sports etc. In addition, the problem of distinguishing the contents pertaining to sociology from those coming from related disciplines (e.g. social and cultural anthropology, sex and gender studies, feminism and cultural studies) is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author looks into Dahrendorf's conflict theory beginning with Dahrendorf's 1957 interpretation of conflicts and ending with his most recent works of 2003 and 2005. The paper begins with an account of the evolution of Dahrendorf's conflict theory and its foundations. Highlighted are the conflicts stemming from class struggle and Dahrendorf's relevant taxonomy of conflicts. According to Dahrendorf, conflicts are divided into the endogenous and the exogenous, the political and the industrial, plus fifteen subtypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author describes the spiritual climate at the time of the publication of Rawls' A Theory of Justice (1971) and describes its huge impact on the political philosophy of the 20th century. Then he analyses Rawls' acknowledgement of Kant. First he depicts Rawls' formulation of his original position along the lines of Kant's idea of the autonomy of the individual and the categorical imperative. There might be some problems with the possible convergence of Rawls' economism and Kant's moral position. According to Rawls, the original position parties may express their nature, but at the same time they belong to the intelligible world. Raws has tried to overcome this divergence from Kant's concept in his paper Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory by means of distinguishing between the rational and the full autonomy, from which the author concludes that Rawls was inclined to adopt a certain version of utilitarianism. According to the author, Rawls' attempt to bridge Kant's rigorous distinction between the law and the morality by means of his sense of justice is entirely alien to Kant. Hence there is an unbridgable chasm between Kant and Rawls, which does not mean that Rawls' attempt at using Kant's categories in the design of democratic societies is insufficiently legitimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]