Negotiating the New Market: Women,Families, Women’s Organizations and the Economic Transition in Poland

Women have been affected more negatively than men by the economic transformation in Poland. They are the majority of the unemployed and the poor, they have a more difficult time finding jobs, and their incomes are significantly lower than mens. The disadvantageous position of women on the labor market, coupled with increasing governmental withdrawal from social provisioning like childcare, health care, and education, has created problems for families, especially for growing numbers of single mothers and two-parent low-income families. The transition to a market economy also has generated a steady growth of womens organizations which have stepped in where the state has withdrawn from social provisioning and provide assistance to women and their families. These organizations are not only helping women and low-income families adjust to the new market situation, but also to negotiate the market so that it better responds to their needs.     

He who pays the piper,calls the tune? Examining Russia’s and Poland’s public diplomacy efforts to shape the international coverage of the Smolensk crash

The study explores Polish and Russian governments’ communication efforts to shape international news coverage of the 2010 airplane crash near Smolensk, Russia, which killed the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and most of his Cabinet. More specifically, the study attempts to assess the role of government communication in shaping the international agenda regarding the crash vis-à-vis the role of Polish and Russian media outlets which also served as information sources for international media. In addition, it examines politico-cultural proximity and economic relatedness as the factors influencing the outcomes of mediated public diplomacy efforts. The findings suggest that, in addition to the governments’ public relations messages, Polish and Russian news outlets played a significant role as their countries’ advocates in determining the international media agenda. Moreover, we found that it was economic relatedness rather than the similarity of culture or political systems that contributed to the success of governments in shaping the international agenda about the crash. Theoretical and practical implications for public relations and public diplomacy are discussed.     

What,to the law,is the former slave?

This essay examines a subset of Reconstruction-era cases decided in Southern appellate courts that dealt with the legacies of slavery. Drawing on suits that either described emancipation as legal death or considered black civil rights, it argues that judges placed freedpeople into a distinct legal category – the former slave – in order to preserve the antebellum legal status quo. Opinions differentiated free-born citizens from those who acquired rights after emancipation, and marked freedpeople with stains of their previous servitude, which limited their potential for the equal enjoyment of newly acquired civil rights.     

The Continuing Legacy of the Communist Legacy? The development of family policies in Poland and the Czech Republic

This article compares family policies in Poland and the CzechRepublic in order to explain why the two countries have differentpolicies. Previous studies are right to claim that post-communistfamily policies are basically going in a refamilialist directionthat gives mothers a greater incentive to return to the home,but they tend to neglect the important differences that existbetween countries. Although previous studies were correct toemphasize the role of the anti-feminist communist legacy inexplaining this trend toward re-famialilization, it is a country'seconomic-institutional legacy that goes the farthest in explainingthe differences in policies.     

The intricacies of education about the Holocaust in Poland. Ten years after the Jedwabne debate,what can Polish school students learn about the Holocaust in history classes?

In many European countries, disparities have grown between history and the memory of the Holocaust. Debates on Polish–Jewish relations during the Holocaust and empirical studies in the field of education reveal that there is a gap between research and education. The emphasis in this paper is on the content of new history textbooks published after the 2008 educational reforms in Poland.     

Erratum to: Poland: A New Model of Government–Nonprofit Relations for the East?

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Nursebots to the rescue? Immigration,automation, and care

Abstract

This paper explores the rising cost of care services in affluent countries, with a particular focus on nursing. It suggests that competitive pressures lead to forms of ‘over-commodification’ that can both lower the quality of care and lead to deterioration of the work environment. While immigration and automation can help reduce costs, they can also pose threats to care quality. Care providers and care recipients need to collaborate in efforts to set and enforce high quality standards.     

The Race to the Bottom of the Glass? Wine,Geography, and Globalization

The wine industry is becoming increasingly globalized as consumer demand, capital investment, and industry restructuring lead to higher volumes of trade, greater levels of multinational ownership, and the evolution of new networks of production and consumption that link the four corners of the world economy. While there are some tendencies towards increasingly homogenized and low-cost production, wine is an industry that exemplifies the complex and contradictory elements of globalization. This article outlines some key parameters of globalization drawing on empirical evidence from key cases. In particular, it focuses on the role of geography and how place and scale matter in production, marketing, and consumption. As globalization unfolds, restructuring in the wine industry is leading to the increased economic and social differentiation of rural space. The resultant geographies of place are influenced by a complex combination of local development history, national policy context, and the nature of the insertion of the given locality into global value chains for wine. As such, globalization has and will continue to produce increasingly complex and intricate geographies.

La industria del vino se ha venido globalizando cada vez más como una demanda del consumidor, inversión de capital y la restructuración de la industria da lugar a mayores volúmenes de comercio, mayores niveles de participación multinacional, y la evolución de nuevas redes de producción y consumo que unen las cuatro esquinas de la economía mundial. Mientras hay algunas tendencias hacia una producción cada vez más homogenizada y de bajo costo, el vino es una industria que ejemplifica los elementos complejos y contradictorios de la globalización. Este artículo subraya algunos parámetros claves de globalización sobre la base empírica de casos claves. Se enfoca particularmente en el rol de la geografía y cómo el lugar y la escala importan en la producción, mercadeo y consumo. A medida que la globalización evoluciona, la restructuración de la industria del vino da origen a un aumento en la diferenciación social y económica del espacio rural. Las geografías resultantes del lugar están influenciadas por una combinación compleja del desarrollo de la historia local, el contexto de la política nacional y la naturaleza de la inserción de la localidad dada, dentro de las redes del valor global para el vino. Como tal, la globalización ha producido y seguirá produciendo cada vez más complejas e intrincadas geografías.

葡萄酒产业正变得越来越全球化,消费需求、资本投入和产业结构重组都导致更高的贸易额、更扩大的跨国公司所有权以及连接世界经济各个角落的生产与消费新网络的演进。当存在日益同质化、低成本生产的一些趋势时,葡萄酒成为一种表征全球化复杂和矛盾要素的产业。本文通过引用来自关键案例的经验性证据来概括全球化的一些关键性参数。尤其是,本文关注地理扮演的角色以及地理位置和规模在生产、销售、消费中如何起作用。随着全球化的展开,葡萄酒产业的结构重组正导致乡村之间更大的经济和社会差异。其结果,一个地方的地理布局正受到当地发展的历史、国家政策背景以及特定地方纳入全球葡萄酒价值链的性质所形成复杂组合体的影响。因此,全球化已经并将继续产生更为错综复杂的地缘情况。

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The More Things Change,the More They Remain the Same?

Since the publication of Arlie Hochschild’s groundbreaking work, The Second Shift (1989), scholars have delineated and deliberated the predictors and implications of American men’s participation in unpaid labor. Still, there’s little consensus about the current or future state of gender inequality in US households. In the course of reviewing scholarship published on this topic over the last two decades, this piece outlines and critically reflects upon two paradoxical conclusions one might reach when examining trends in men’s housework and care work time. In comparing and contrasting what I call ‘the mop bucket is half full’ and ‘the mop bucket is half empty’ conclusions, I also highlight the major theoretical frameworks, empirical findings, and diverging opinions on whether Hochschild’s ‘household revolution’ is permanently stalled, slowly reigniting, or ready to take off. I then conclude with a call for consensus among scholars and suggestions for future research on men’s participation in unpaid labor.     

Educating for social work in Poland—challenges of the transformation period

This article discusses the changing approach to social welfare staff education against a background of political and social transformation in Poland: new social processes, growth of social problems—especially crime and unemployment, a widening poverty sphere, but at the same time new possibilities created by the development of democratic structures, requiring new qualifications. The change in professional profile of social workers and an updated curriculum were natural consequences of that demand. Both internal reforms as well as an increase in international contacts have had a great impact on the curriculum, making it modern in regard to its content and the approach to the process of education. Important virtues of the curriculum are: due consideration for the international context of the material presented and teaching goals defined in such way that they meet the transformation period requirements without introducing only provisional solutions. Professional improvement training and post-diploma courses have also been mentioned as an important factor of successful welfare sector operations. This kind of education equips welfare staff with necessary qualifications and prevents burnout syndrome. The article briefly discusses new conditions for social education development and identifies the remaining stumbling blocks.     

Discourse or Dialogue? Habermas, the Bakhtin Circle, and the question of concrete utterances

This article argues that the Bakhtin Circle presents a more realistic theory of concrete dialogue than the theory of discourse elaborated by Habermas. The Bakhtin Circle places speech within the ??concrete whole utterance?? and by this phrase they mean that the study of everyday language should be analyzed through the mediations of historical social systems such as capitalism. These mediations are also characterized by a determinate set of contradictions??the capital-labor contradiction in capitalism, for example??that are reproduced in unique ways in more concrete forms of life (the state, education, religion, culture, and so on). Utterances always dialectically refract these processes and as such are internal concrete moments, or concrete social forms, of them. Moreover, new and unrepeatable dialogic events arise in these concrete social forms in order to overcome and understand the constant dialectical flux of social life. But this theory of dialogue is different from that expounded by Habermas, who tends to explore speech acts by reproducing a dualism between repeatable and universal ??abstract?? discursive processes (commonly known as the ideal speech situation) and empirical uses of discourse. These critical points against Habermas are developed by focusing on six main areas: sentences and utterances; the lifeworld and background language; active versus passive understandings of language; validity claims; obligation and relevance in language; and dialectical universalism.     

What's better than the pill,vasectomy, celibacy and rhythm?

A report of a new technique of male contraception involves the use of heat which lowers the sperm count. Early reports of lowered sperm counts in men wearing jockstraps or increased sperm counts in men whose testicles have been cooled several degrees have led to the experimentation in the male rat of the effects of heat and ultrasound on the sperm count and the ability to fertilize the female. 250 male rats were divided into 5 groups: 1) control, 2) a 60 degree C water circulating testicle cup with 15 minutes exposure, 3) exposure to radiant energy for 15 minutes and raising scrotal temperatures to 60 degrees C, 4) exposure to microwaves of varying powers, and 5) exposure to ultrasound of 1 w/cm to 2 w/cm for 1 minute. Group 2 results indicated that libido was uninhibited, testosterone levels undisturbed a nd organ sizes unaffected by the hot-water treatment. It took 30-35 days for any pregnancies to occur after a single treatment. In group 3, results were substantially the same except that it took 60-75 days for any pregnancies to occur. In group 4, a 20% exposure to radiation for 5 minutes impaired fertility for 65-80 days, while those exposed to 20% for 15 minutes were still infertile at the end of the 10-month study. In these cases libido was also unimpaired. Animals in group 5, exposed to 1 w/cm for 1 minute had impaired fertility for 150-210 days although testicular temperature rose to only 38 degrees C. When exposure to ultr asound was doubled, fertility was impaired throughout the study. In all cases where fertility was restored, resulting offspring appeared normal and were themselves capable of reproducing normal-appearing offspring. Ultrasound was considered the most promising heat source. In all cases the germinal epithelium function is arrested. Future research should be directed to making the ultrasound technique more finely tuned to a contraceptive function.     

Overfeed the Bold,Starve the Cowardly: A Legend or Reality?

Although the negative effects of overconfidence are more likely to be mentioned in the literature, some researchers have argued that the benefits of overconfidence may outweigh its costs. We attempted to explore the positive effects of overconfidence in competitive situations. We had participants compete against fake opponents who were overconfident and then measured their competitive performance in two studies. In Study 1 we examined the effects of overconfidence on competitive performance in a competitive situation and the possible mechanism for this overconfidence. In Study 2 we investigated the characteristics of the performance in a competition after a mismatch between the level of confidence and the fake opponent’s actual competence was revealed. Our results indicated that overconfident individuals tend to be perceived as more competent and more likely to benefit in the process of competition. Even after a mismatch between the level of confidence and the real competence was revealed, the overconfident individuals were not punished in that they made as much money as the less overconfident and still got higher competence ratings. Together those studies suggested that overconfidence has its advantages in competitive situations.     

Restructuring for Whom? Race,Class, Gender,and the Ideology of Invisibility

This paper examines how changes resulting from economic restructuring affect views of racial inequality across different race, class, and gender groups. First reviewing some of the consequences of restructuring for different race, class, and gender groups, the paper also reviews research documenting the different views of racial inequality held by dominant and subordinate groups. The paper concludes by examining how race-blind ideologies affect discussions of race and multiculturalism and suggests that race-blind thinking has thwarted teaching about structural racism.     

European Cohesion? Globalization,Autonomization, and the Dynamics of EU Integration

Globalization is frequently assumed to be responsible for creating the economic environment in which a much greater degree of European Union (EU) economic integration is deemed necessary. In contrast, this paper argues that globalization, in conjunction with neo-liberal growth, has led to autonomization as well as integration. The term autonomization designates both that economic governance is increasingly delegated to autonomous regions, and that neo-liberal economic policies tend to fragment and divide in their pursuit of growth. The paper investigates the tension between the role in which globalization has cast the region, and the region as a central player in the EU's cohesion strategy. Cohesion policy-measures to combat underdevelopment and backwardness-plays a key role in integration and growth strategies. It is argued that cohesion has become detached from its redistributive origins and incorporated in a discourse of competitiveness and growth. The region has emerged as both the site upon which the global acts upon the EU, and the level at which the EU has determined that the processes of globalization can best be accommodated. It is suggested that the tension between cohesion and autonomization introduced by globalization is a central dynamic at work in the contemporary EU.