The European Neighbourhood Policy as a Process of Democratic Norms Diffusion in Ukraine. The Case of the EU Act Beyond Conditionality?

This paper is then focused on the European Neighbourhood Policy and democracypromotion in its Eastern neighbours. Can the EU act beyond ‘hard conditionality’ experiencedduring the enlargement process in order to succeed in democratizing its neighbourhood? Whatare the obstacles to democratisation and political change within the neighbours? At the heart of the analysis lies the question of efficiency of the ENP without hardconditionality linked with adhesion. Conditionality, i.e. linking the granting of benefits to thefulfilment of some conditions, has been at the core of the EU policy when dealing withaccession candidate countries. During the enlargement process, ‘hard conditionality’(describing measures a country must meet in order to access any money or politicalretribution) was the key means for democratic norms diffusion. By contrast, neighbourhoodpolicy uses conditionality in a more flexible way, which is tantamount to ‘soft conditionality’,destined to influence policies but not to propose a one-fits-for-all policy. It is often arguedthat because of the lack of an effective or ‘hard’ conditionality, the EU cannot pretend to amajor role as a promoter of democratic norms.enlargement

Reflections on Simon Hantaï: Daniel Buren in conversation with Daniel Sturgis, Varennes-Jarcy, 23 September 2014

This essay, in the form of a conversation between Daniel Buren and Daniel Sturgis, reflects upon Daniel Buren’s friendship and respect for the work of Simon Hantaï. Daniel Buren talks of his introduction to Simon Hantaï’s work, and how Hantaï influenced not only himself but also other artists from his generation and in particular Michel Parmentier. Daniel Buren also looks critically at the Simon Hantaï retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 2013, which he felt did not fully capture the radical qualities that first drew him to Hantaï paintings and installations

The Self-Enrichment of Galactic Halo Globular Clusters: the mass-metallicity relation

We discuss the existence of a mass-metallicity relation among galactic halo globular clusters. The lack of any luminosity-metallicity correlation in globular cluster systems has been used as an argument against self-enrichment models of cluster formation. We show that such a relation is statistically present among the galactic Old Halo globulars. This observational correlation implies that the least massive old clusters are the most metal-rich. This is in contradiction with the idea that, if globular clusters were self-enriched systems, the most metal-rich clusters would also be the most massive ones. We further show that this anti-correlation is as predicted by self-enrichment models.Comment: 5 pages, accepted for publication in A&

Normative Power, EU Preferences and Russia. Lessons from the Russian-Georgian War

The Russian-Georgian conflict of August 2008 proves to be a useful case in order to understand the functioning of the EU as a normative power in times of crisis. The core of the article is focused on the six EU major countries – Germany, France, Great-Britain, Italy, Poland and Spain – which embody different sets of preferences, and the way they want to deal with Russia. In the end, it tries to understand how preferences are linked with norms in that geopolitical context.Normative power, Georgian-Russian war, Mediation, Sanctions

Patients' experiences of day surgery: A parsonian analysis

Aim: the aim of the study was to explore patients’ experiences of day surgery using a sociological framework of analysis. Background: although day surgery has increased globally in the last 20 years, little applied sociological research has been undertaken in this area. Method: the Glaserian methodology of Grounded Theory was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 145 patients and 100 carers on three occasions from 2004 to 2006. Analysis of the data involved line-by-line analysis, compilation of key words and phrases (codes) and constant comparison of the codes until core categories were identified. Findings: a major category to emerge from the data was the ambiguity presented to patients in relation to the sick role. Of concern to patients was society’s attitudes, which seem to deny to day surgery patients full entitlement to the privileges associated with the sick role. Day surgery patients wanted to feel comfortable in a role that was socially acceptable – the sick role. However, many patients actively resisted this role, and this could have implications for recovery. A large number of patients wished for a limited ascription of the sick role, whilst a minority actively sought to acquire this role. Conclusion: the importance of nurses in providing supportive, psychological care, and ensuring patient and carer understanding of what day surgery entails cannot be overstated. Day surgery personnel should teach that day surgery is not minor surgery and that recovery times may be protracted, during which patients will need support

Re-member: rehabilitation, reintegration and reconciliation of war-affected children

Reseña a cargo de uno de los co-editores,Prof. Dra. Cindy Mels.   Departamento de Psicología del Desarrollo y Educación Facultad de Psicología. Universidad Católica del Uruguay

Houses in a Landscape: Memory and Everyday Life in Mesoamerica

In Houses in a Landscape, Julia A. Hendon examines the connections between social identity and social memory using archaeological research on indigenous societies that existed more than one thousand years ago in what is now Honduras. While these societies left behind monumental buildings, the remains of their dead, remnants of their daily life, intricate works of art, and fine examples of craftsmanship such as pottery and stone tools, they left only a small body of written records. Despite this paucity of written information, Hendon contends that an archaeological study of memory in such societies is possible and worthwhile. It is possible because memory is not just a faculty of the individual mind operating in isolation, but a social process embedded in the materiality of human existence. Intimately bound up in the relations people develop with one another and with the world around them through what they do, where and how they do it, and with whom or what, memory leaves material traces. Hendon conducted research on three contemporaneous Native American civilizations that flourished from the seventh century through the eleventh CE: the Maya kingdom of Copan, the hilltop center of Cerro Palenque, and the dispersed settlement of the Cuyumapa valley. She analyzes domestic life in these societies, from cooking to crafting, as well as public and private ritual events including the ballgame. Combining her findings with a rich body of theory from anthropology, history, and geography, she explores how objects—the things people build, make, use, exchange, and discard—help people remember. In so doing, she demonstrates how everyday life becomes part of the social processes of remembering and forgetting, and how “memory communities” assert connections between the past and the present.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1050/thumbnail.jp

AC induced damping of a fluxon in long Josephson junction

We present a theoretical and experimental study of Josephson vortex (fluxon) moving in the presence of spatially homogeneous dc and ac bias currents. By mapping this problem to the problem of calculating the current-voltage characteristic of a small Josephson junction, we derive the dependence of the average fluxon velocity on the dc bias current. In particular we find that the low frequency ac bias current results in an additional nonlinear damping of fluxon motion. Such ac induced damping crucially depends on the intrinsic damping parameter and increases drastically as this parameter is reduced. We find a good agreement of the analysis with both the direct numerical simulations and the experimentally measured current-voltage characteristics of a long annular Josephson junction with one trapped fluxon.Comment: Physical Review B, in pres