Minimum income in the Western Balkans: From socialism to the European Pillar of Social Rights

In this article, we examine the evolution of minimum income programmes in the Western Balkans (comprising Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia). During socialism, Yugoslavia developed a rudimentary minimum income protection programme, while Albania did not have one. As countries moved towards a market economy, socialism's legacy remained relevant, but especially since 2000, governments have taken more direct responsibility for the minimum income schemes—typically under the influence of the World Bank. The attention was paid to strict targeting accuracy rather than to adequacy or sufficient coverage of the lowest deciles. In essence, neither socialist nor neoliberal policymakers ever recognised anything but the poverty relief function of the minimum income. Both ideologies were hostile, or at best indifferent, to increasing the adequacy and generosity of minimum income programmes, perceiving them as impediments and distractions that slowed socialist and neoliberal transformations. Despite some reform initiatives supported by the World Bank and, more recently, the European Union, the generosity and adequacy of minimum income programmes remain low, and coverage keeps declining. There have been very few efforts to develop inclusion function of the minimum income, while the activation aspect has achieved very little, sometimes degrading into punitive programmes of unpaid community work. In this dismal picture, the European Pillar of Social Rights action framework could serve as a guide for a long overdue third phase in the Western Balkans' minimum income policy evolution.     

流动人口在城市劳动力市场中的地位:三群体研究

关于流动人口在城市劳动力市场中的地位问题,过去已有大量文献,但研究重点是农民工。这里把外来市民纳入观察视野,利用2008年"迁移和流动劳动力与中国大城市发展"调查数据,分析工资收入和社会保险参与的影响因素。主要研究发现:在工资收入上,不同户籍身份劳动者之间没有净差异;在养老保险和工伤保险参与上,本市居民、外来市民和农民工参与的可能性依次递减。这意味着,工资收入已经基本上由劳动力市场决定,而社会保险参与依然与户籍身份有关。不过,这种关联方式已经从过去的城乡户籍身份歧视转向本地/非本地权益差异。     

Dialogic communication in 140 characters or less: How Fortune 500 companies engage stakeholders using Twitter

The current study extends the investigation of online relationship building by examining how Fortune 500 companies use the popular social network site Twitter to facilitate dialogic communication with stakeholders. A content analysis of a random sample of the Twitter profiles maintained by Fortune 500 companies (n = 93) and individual tweets posted on those profiles (n = 930) examined the use of dialogic features within the Twitter profiles as well as the individual tweets. Results indicated that organizations that have a dialogic orientation to Twitter use (61%) employed the principle of conservation of visitors to a greater degree and generation of return visits to a lesser degree than organizations with a non-dialogic orientation to Twitter (39%).     

The Social Media Release as a public relations tool: Intentions to use among B2B bloggers

The Social Media Release (SMR) is emerging as a potentially powerful public relations tool in a world of social network media, particularly when targeted at influential bloggers. The research described here studies the factors that influence bloggers to use SMRs, using the Technology Acceptance Model as a theoretical framework, concentrating specifically on their perceptions of usefulness and ease of use.     

Measuring social dynamics in a massive multiplayer online game

Quantification of human group-behavior has so far defied an empirical, falsifiable approach. This is due to tremendous difficulties in data acquisition of social systems. Massive multiplayer online games (MMOG) provide a fascinating new way of observing hundreds of thousands of simultaneously socially interacting individuals engaged in virtual economic activities. We have compiled a data set consisting of practically all actions of all players over a period of 3 years from a MMOG played by 300,000 people. This large-scale data set of a socio-economic unit contains all social and economic data from a single and coherent source. Players have to generate a virtual income through economic activities to ‘survive’ and are typically engaged in a multitude of social activities offered within the game. Our analysis of high-frequency log files focuses on three types of social networks, and tests a series of social-dynamics hypotheses. In particular we study the structure and dynamics of friend-, enemy- and communication networks. We find striking differences in topological structure between positive (friend) and negative (enemy) tie networks. All networks confirm the recently observed phenomenon of network densification. We propose two approximate social laws in communication networks, the first expressing betweenness centrality as the inverse square of the overlap, the second relating communication strength to the cube of the overlap. These empirical laws provide strong quantitative evidence for the Weak ties hypothesis of Granovetter. Further, the analysis of triad significance profiles validates well-established assertions from social balance theory. We find overrepresentation (underrepresentation) of complete (incomplete) triads in networks of positive ties, and vice versa for networks of negative ties. Empirical transition probabilities between triad classes provide evidence for triadic closure with extraordinarily high precision. For the first time we provide empirical results for large-scale networks of negative social ties. Whenever possible we compare our findings with data from non-virtual human groups and provide further evidence that online game communities serve as a valid model for a wide class of human societies. With this setup we demonstrate the feasibility for establishing a ‘socio-economic laboratory’ which allows to operate at levels of precision approaching those of the natural sciences.All data used in this study is fully anonymized; the authors have the written consent to publish from the legal department of the Medical University of Vienna.     

Social relationships and shifting languages in Northern Thailand1

This paper explores how speakers’ understandings of the conduct of social relationships mediate changing and socially distinctive syncretic language practices in a Northern Thai community. Although a shift away from vernacular (Kam Muang) speech styles to Standard Thai was emblematically tied to young and urban speakers in nostalgic discourses, syncretic speech styles and metalinguistic discourses also reflected local and socially positioned understandings of institutional roles and social relationships. I argue that scholars of language change and shift should foreground the mediating role of social relationships in speakers’ uses and understandings of their communicative repertoires across multiple timescales.     

From sociolinguistic variation to socially strategic stylisation1

This article investigates the indexical relation between language, interactional stance and social class. Quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of a linguistic variable (the first person possessive singular) is combined with interactional analysis of the way one particular variant (possessive ‘me’, as in Me pencil's up me jumper) is used by speakers in ‘stylised’ interactional performances. The aim of this analysis is to explore: (1) how possessive ‘me’ is implicated in the construction and management of local identities and relationships; and (2) how macro‐social categories, such as social class, relate to linguistic choice. The data for this analysis comes from an ethnographic study of the language practices of nine‐ to ten‐year‐old children in two socially‐differentiated primary schools in north‐east England. A secondary aim of the article is to spotlight the sociolinguistic sophistication of these young children, in particular, the working‐class participants, who challenge the notion that the speech of working‐class children is in any way ‘impoverished’.     

The social capital and mental health of long-term social assistance recipients in Norway

Previous findings have generally demonstrated the positive mental health benefits of social capital. However, the mental health benefits of social capital for social assistance recipients have not been fully demonstrated. This study analyses the mental health benefits of individual-level bonding and individual-level bridging social capital for 551 Norwegian longer-term social assistance recipients. The findings demonstrate that bonding social capital, i.e. contacts with friends and access to social resources, are positively associated with mental health. Of the variables in the study that relate to bridging social capital, social trust and trust towards the social worker particularly show significant associations for mental health. Consequently, it is important that the mental health benefits of various forms of bonding and bridging social capital are acknowledged within social work practices and that social work practitioners actively aim to increase social trust in longer-term social assistance recipients.     

Trust and recognition: a comparative study of client attitudes and workers' experiences in the welfare services

Since professional conduct is important in the lives of many people, trust and recognition between professionals and their clients are critical. Social professionals administer public resources on behalf of the welfare state, and their approaches and methods of intervention are mostly founded in current welfare policy. Despite this mandate, social professionals receive little acknowledgement and recognition. This article investigates the level of public trust in the Norwegian social services compared to the national insurance agencies, and to what extent the providers of these welfare services experience recognition and public approval. A central question is whether these aspects of external appreciation influence the professionals' motivation and feelings of accomplishment. Findings indicate that the social services receive less public support than the social insurance agencies, owing to the discretionary services provided and the stigma related to social assistance. The variation in institutional trust is reflected by the differences in workers' subjective experiences. That result notwithstanding, the service providers reveal a split view of themselves: while they experience themselves positively with respect to involvement and pride in their work, they also see themselves through the deprecating eyes of the public.     

2009年中东大选述评

2009年,以色列、伊朗和阿富汗等中东国家相继举行大选。以色列"利库德集团"时隔四年重执权柄,伊朗保守派竞选连任成功,阿富汗普什图族则再掌政权。中东大选表现出社会政治发展的转型性和国家安全的现实威胁性两大共性特征,而不同的历史文化又使其表现出政治发展道路的多样性和政治发展水平的不平衡性等个性特征。一系列大选将对"巴以和平进程"、"伊朗核问题"和"阿富汗重建"产生一定的影响。