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The Quality & Quantity was established in 1967 and in 2017 it completed its half century. The journal is interdisciplinary in nature and it mainly discusses methodological application of mathematics and statistics in the social sciences, particularly sociology, economics, and social psychology. It was created with the idea of advancing methodology of the various social studies. This study looks back journey of the journal from 1967 to 2017 aims to develop a bibliometric analysis of all the publications of the journal. Web of Science Core Collection database is used to collect data. The present study discovered the significant contributions of the journal in terms of impact, topics, authors, universities and countries. Utrecht University of Netherlands is the most productive university. Asian Universities are emerging and growing quickly in the recent years. Although USA leads among the countries but Europe leads among the six supranational regions. Finally, the visualization of similarities viewer software is used to present network visualization of the bibliographic coupling, co-citation, citation, co-authorship and co-occurrence of keywords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While "integrated" systems regulate the quantity of health services, "Bismarckian" systems regulate their price. This paper compares the consumers' allocations implemented within the two reimbursement systems. In the model, illness has a negative impact on labor productivity while public insurance is financed through income tax. Consumers have private information with respect to a parameter which can be interpreted as heterogeneity either in intensity of their preferences for treatment or in the type of illness. The social planner may be constrained to adopt uniform insurance plans, or may be free to choose self selecting plans. The analysis of uniform plans shows that Bismarckian systems dominate integrated systems from the social welfare point of view; whereas the opposite ranking holds with self-selecting plans. [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.

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]

The complexity of the multi-level European polity is not adequately represented by the single-level theoretical concepts of competing "intergovernmentalist" and "supranationalist" approaches. By contrast, empirical research focusing on multi-level interactions tends either to emphasize the uniqueness of its objects, or to create novel concepts - which are likely to remain contested even among Europeanists and have the effect of isolating European studies form the political science mainstream in International Relations and Comparative Politics. These difficulties are bound to continue as long as researchers keep proposing holistic concepts that claim to represent the complex reality of the European polity as a whole. It is suggested that the present competition among poorly fitting and contested generalizations could be overcome if European studies made use of a plurality of simpler and complementary concepts, each of which is meant to represent the specific characteristics of certain subsets of multi-level interactions. The paper describes four distinct modes of multi-level interaction in the European polity - "mutual adjustment", "intergovernmental negotiations", "joint-decision making", and "hierarchical direction" - and discusses their characteristics by reference to the criteria of problem-solving capacity and institutional legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, intergenerational solidarity and responsibility have become central points of reference in public discourses. However, the use of these concepts is often unclear and ambivalent: On one hand, older people are described as a vulnerable group whose protection requires sacrifices on the part of younger generations, e.g., regarding individual freedom and economic welfare. On the other, they appear as dispensable individuals that should relinquish their claims for the sake of the young and their future prospects. Our contribution offers an analysis of intergenerational solidarity and responsibility in public discourses on COVID-19. The leading question is how both concepts are used and how the corresponding claims can be justified or criticized. We first give an overview of notions of intergenerational solidarity and responsibility in current debates. In the next step, we provide a moral philosophical clarification of both concepts and their normative presuppositions. We then conduct a descriptive ethical discourse analysis of pertinent cases from three areas of European discourse: politics, civil society, and mass media. The analysis focuses on politico-moral claims and their normative premises, ambiguities, and biases. We argue that the discourse involves assumptions about old age and generational relations that need further clarification and justification. An analysis of intergenerational solidarity and responsibility in times of COVID-19 can help understand the dynamics of social cohesion in late-modern societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The linguistic diversity in the European Union is generally viewed as an essential component of the European identity, but the linguisticregime of the EU institutions (with eleven official and working languages) is not undisputed. In addition, the upcoming enlargements willcomplicate greatly the continuation of the present practices as new Member States bring new official languages. As a result, the debate about possible reforms is likely to be boosted by the necessity to prepare EU institutions for further enlargment. The present regime of institutional multilingualism is criticised from different angles, resulting in three options for the future. In this paper the linguistic regime of EU institutions is discussed in relation to general ideas about the nature of this supranational political system. Supranationalism is treated here as a program to supersede nationalism. Three variants are distinguished: pacified nationalism, neo-nationalism and post-nationalism. The paper examines how these different visions of Europe shed different lights on the issue of multilingualism (in terms of communication, identity and power) and its institutionalisation in the linguistic regime of the core instituions of the European Union. Although the three models are compatible with several arrangements, they support or oppose them for different reasons. Besides, they differ regarding the significance of the linguistic regime of the EU institutions for the whole polity and their ability to steer linguistic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, population health research has focused on understanding the determinants of later-life health. Two strands of that work have focused on (1) international comparisons of later-life health and (2) assessing the early-life origins of disease and disability and the importance of life course processes. However, the less frequently examined intersection of these approaches remains an important frontier. The present study contributes to the integration of these approaches. We use the Health and Retirement Study family of data sets and a cohort dynamic approach to compare functional health trajectories across 12 high-income countries and to examine the role of life course processes and cohort dynamics in contributing to variation in those trajectories. We find substantial international variation in functional health trajectories and an important role of cohort dynamics in generating that variation, with younger cohorts often less healthy at comparable ages than the older cohorts they are replacing. We further find evidence of heterogeneous effects of life course processes on health trajectories. The results have important implications for future trends in morbidity and mortality as well as public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European continent, the motherland of nationalism, and the part of the world where political borders and different territorial and cultural identities are mostly interrelated, is now facing new challenges regarding how best to represent its numerous interests within one system. With the increase of international integration European countries began to devote greater attention to the development problems of their border areas that had to be helped to undertake certain functions in the international integration process. The fostering of a more balanced regional development also resulted in a strengthening of regional characteristics, which the new model could no longer ignore. Regional characteristics in turn have always been preserved in Europe by persistent historical and cultural elements of ethnic and linguistic variety. Therefore, it is not surprising that the process of European integration based on the new regional development model was accompanied by a parallel process of ethnic or regional awakening of minorities and other local communities. The key question for contemporary European (though of course this is not limited to Europe) political geography is, then, how the process summarised under the twin labels of social convergence and deterritorialisation will effect the persistent maintenance of regional identities and the corresponding divergence of regional spaces. Or, in other words: is the 'unity in diversity' European programme ever practicable and exportable on a world-wide scale or are we to be absorbed by a new global 'melting pot'? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article follows Foucault’s notion of the social diagram to illustrate how current practices in the field of child and youth work are premised in constructions of “otherness” which were produced during the Enlightenment and colonial periods of European history. It argues that this historical practice of creating otherness is at the heart of many of the frustrations, which take place between those we label children and youth and those we call adults. It further contends that perpetuating such colonial patterns obscures the wisdom and knowledge produced by youth and adults when they think and create together. To remedy this it is proposed that adult youth workers must cease attempting to dominate and control young people. To do this, adult ways of knowing must be interrogated and dismantled from the inside out. No investigation of the characteristics of the young people as other will ever yield information about dismantling otherness. The dismantling of otherness needs to come through an exploration of adult’s own “local memory.” Through this exploration we, as adults, can become visible and through that visibility we can possibly become accountable to the young people we engage and to ourselves and our communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to explore what Bourdieu’s political sociology could bring to the study of European integration. I first present, very briefly, some of the traditional approaches in European integration studies. Then I move to my interpretation of Bourdieu’s structural constructivist theory of politics through a discussion of political capital and political field, drawing parallels between these concepts and some of Max Weber’s ideas. In the third part, while discussing the works of some scholars inspired by Bourdieu’s theory, I present some structural constructivist studies of European integration. Structural constructivism provides theoretical tools for a critical analysis of European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last few years the interest for what in Europe is called Zivilcourage seems to have increased among the public at large. Social scientists, however, have shown little interest in this topic, something that is a pity since "civil courage" represents a fascinating phenomenon in its own right. The article shows what a sociological analysis of civil courage might look like. Such an analysis represents a challenge for several reasons. For one thing, there exists an important individual dimension to civil courage, which is hard to get at from a sociological perspective. At the moment of acting, for example, the individual typically stands alone. On the other hand, it is also clear that sociology is well equipped to bring out the social or group dimension of civil courage, especially the way that family, friends, and sympathizers stand behind and support the person who in some situation displays civil courage. There is finally also the fact that acts of civil courage often evoke a very strong sense of admiration. In an objective sociological analysis this admiration should be explained - but not be allowed to infuse the way that civil courage is analyzed.

This article explores the insightful neo-colonial metaphor by re-thinking some fundamental aspects of social change on the European state socialist semiperiphery. Drawing mainly on the Hungarian experience, the article seeks to place an analysis of transformations of the property relations of state socialism in the context of transformations of region's external dependency. Western critical thinking locates the modern history of East-Central Europe in the belated: underdeveloped, backward, peripheral, or semicore part of the world-system, and uses this condition as its point of departure for further analysis. In contrast, East-Central Europeans have, since World War II, perceived their region first and foremost as subject to a peculiar process of political colonization by a superpower that is culturally distinct from, and socioeconomically less developed than, the region itself. As the two perspectives are not mutually exclusive but in fact facets of the same set of phenomena - the problem of the mode of incorporation of the East-Central European state socialist societies in the world-economy during the post-World-War-II period - their connection is desirable and their reconciliation should be possible.