European Union - Reforms - Hungarian interests. What kind of European Union would we like?

The lecture deals with broad topics. First, it addresses some questions related to the current state of the EU integration regarding institutions and common policies. Second, it discusses the continued importance, the main results and hindering factors related to the Lisbon Programme, with a special emphasis on the educational system in Europe and Hungary. Third, the lecture deals with some possibilities in changing the EU’s rather limited external relation models to more flexible instruments

Support for collective action against refugees: The role of national, European, and global identifications, and autochthony beliefs

To understand recent anti-refugee protests in Europe, we examined how different levels of inclusiveness of group identities (national, European, and global) are related to intentions to protest among native Europeans. We focused on the mediating role of autochthony (a belief that the first inhabitants of a territory are more entitled) and the moderating role of threat. Survey data from 11 European countries (N=1909) showed that national identification was positively associated with autochthony, and therefore, with the intention to protest against refugees. In contrast, global identification was related to lower protest intentions via lower autochthony. These paths were found only among Europeans who perceived refugees as a threat. European identification was not related to the endorsement of autochthony or to collective action. These findings indicate why and when majority members are willing to participate in collective action against refugees, and underscore the importance of global identification in the acceptance of refugees

Social representations and the politics of participation

Recent work has called for the integration of different perspectives into the field of political psychology (Haste, 2012). This chapter suggests that one possible direction that such efforts can take is studying the role that social representations theory (SRT) can play in understanding political participation and social change. Social representations are systems of common-sense knowledge and social practice; they provide the lens through which to view and create social and political realities, mediate people's relations with these sociopolitical worlds and defend cultural and political identities. Social representations are therefore key for conceptualising participation as the activity that locates individuals and social groups in their sociopolitical world. Political participation is generally seen as conditional to membership of sociopolitical groups and therefore is often linked to citizenship. To be a citizen of a society or a member of any social group one has to participate as such. Often political participation is defined as the ability to communicate one's views to the political elite or to the political establishment (Uhlaner, 2001), or simply explicit involvement in politics and electoral processes (Milbrath, 1965). However, following scholars on ideology (Eagleton, 1991; Thompson, 1990) and social knowledge (Jovchelovitch, 2007), we extend our understanding of political participation to all social relations and also develop a more agentic model where individuals and groups construct, develop and resist their own views, ideas and beliefs. We thus adopt a broader approach to participation in comparison to other political-psychological approaches, such as personality approaches (e.g. Mondak and Halperin, 2008) and cognitive approaches or, more recently, neuropsychological approaches (Hatemi and McDermott, 2012). We move away from a focus on the individual's political behaviour and its antecedents and outline an approach that focuses on the interaction between psychological and political phenomena (Deutsch and Kinnvall, 2002) through examining the politics of social knowledge

Claims to a nation, dressing the part and other boundary making strategies by skilled migrants in response to ethnic categorization

This article is about self-defined social identities, other people's perceptions of us and the potentially conflictual relationship between these two. Building on a Barthian focus on group boundaries, the article takes the interplay between external categorizations and internal group definitions as its point of departure to examine how individuals negotiate the boundaries of their social identities. Based on a case study of skilled migrants with racialized ethnicities in Finland, I look at how they express their self-defined identity as well-to-do, skilled professionals in the face of contradicting categorizations of them as unskilled , lower-class migrant subjects. I identify two types of complementary approaches employed by the skilled migrants in boundary making strategies to their identity negotiations: those de-emphasizing ethnicity (or its importance), and those emphasizing class status. These approaches are two sides of the same coin; coming from different perspectives, they both aim at a more positively viewed identity, and for individuals to be seen as well-to-do, educated, working professionals, rather than as ethnic migrant subjects. As such, the article also highlights the interconnection of class and ethnicity for the social identities of skilled migrants in Finland.This article is about self-defined social identities, other people’s perceptions of us and the potentially conflictual relationship between these two. Building on a Barthian focus on group boundaries, the article takes the interplay between external categorizations and internal group definitions as its point of departure to examine how individuals negotiate the boundaries of their social identities. Based on a case study of skilled migrants with racialized ethnicities in Finland, I look at how they express their self-defined identity as well-to-do, skilled professionals in the face of contradicting categorizations of them as un-skilled, lower-class migrant subjects. I identify two types of complementary approaches employed by the skilled migrants in boundary making strategies to their identity negotiations: those de-emphasizing ethnicity (or its importance), and those emphasizing class status. These approaches are two sides of the same coin; coming from different perspectives, they both aim at a more positively viewed identity, and for individuals to be seen as well-to-do, educated, working professionals, rather than as ethnic migrant subjects. As such, the article also highlights the interconnection of class and ethnicity for the social identities of skilled migrants in Finland.Peer reviewe

The theory and practice of democracy in the European Union

Reading papers in politicsSIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:6224.1322(15) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo