3,473 research outputs found
Precarity – Logical Consequence of Societies that Lost the Social
The essay proposes an alternative understanding of social policy, focussing on social quality and as such bringing together biographical and societal development and as well institutional and communal concerns. On this basis the author proposes a definition of precarity that goes far beyond insecurity of employment and its consequences for every day’s life. Thus, actually a definition of precarity is suggested that, while recognising the dimension of individual insecurity with its shortage of resources and the lack of power over the own life, points on a second and crucial dimension. This is the precarity of a society and its integrity due to the loss of its social dimension, being solely shaped by and engaged in individualism. Precarity, then, is the paradox of individuals loosing control in an otherwise individualistic, ‘privatised’ society.Social Precarity; Social Integration; Labour Market; Unemployment; European Societies
Social Economy and Social Economics –The Situation in the Republic of Ireland
The Paper gives a brief overview over the social economy in Ireland, presenting this against the background of the countries history and social structureSocial economy; Ireland
Workfare – The Reinvention of the Social
The presentation aims on refocusing the mainstream debate, starting from looking at work as the central reference rather than seeing the constituting problem of workfare as one of social policy/social security. Of course, at the end the objective is a clearer understanding of how measures aiming on work and employment integration can meaningfully be utilised for responsible policy making. For this, an introductory step will look at what we are actually dealing with when we talk about workfare. Then a second step will very briefly present the EUropean political debate, returning thereafter to the question what we are actually dealing with when we talk about workfare. Then, in a third step, a paradox is presented: the gain of employment, going hand in hand with a loss of work. The conclusion will discuss in the fourth step workfare in the light of power and life.workfare; social policy; Comparative social research
The exit problem for diffusions with time-periodic drift and stochastic resonance
Physical notions of stochastic resonance for potential diffusions in
periodically changing double-well potentials such as the spectral power
amplification have proved to be defective. They are not robust for the passage
to their effective dynamics: continuous-time finite-state Markov chains
describing the rough features of transitions between different domains of
attraction of metastable points. In the framework of one-dimensional diffusions
moving in periodically changing double-well potentials we design a new notion
of stochastic resonance which refines Freidlin's concept of quasi-periodic
motion. It is based on exact exponential rates for the transition probabilities
between the domains of attraction which are robust with respect to the reduced
Markov chains. The quality of periodic tuning is measured by the probability
for transition during fixed time windows depending on a time scale parameter.
Maximizing it in this parameter produces the stochastic resonance points.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/105051604000000530 in the
Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute
of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Large deviations and a Kramers' type law for self-stabilizing diffusions
We investigate exit times from domains of attraction for the motion of a
self-stabilized particle traveling in a geometric (potential type) landscape
and perturbed by Brownian noise of small amplitude. Self-stabilization is the
effect of including an ensemble-average attraction in addition to the usual
state-dependent drift, where the particle is supposed to be suspended in a
large population of identical ones. A Kramers' type law for the particle's exit
from the potential's domains of attraction and a large deviations principle for
the self-stabilizing diffusion are proved. It turns out that the exit law for
the self-stabilizing diffusion coincides with the exit law of a potential
diffusion without self-stabilization and a drift component perturbed by average
attraction. We show that self-stabilization may substantially delay the exit
from domains of attraction, and that the exit location may be completely
different.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AAP489 the Annals of
Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Classical Class Analysis and Assessment of Contemporary Eu-Policies - Ontology and Epistemology of Social Policy Debates
The present paper puts the argument forward that social policy analysis today
lost very much its ground of systematically approaching its objective. Rather
than analysing the objective relations, processes and their foundation political
arguments and discourses are very much developed on moral grounds and
remain on the level of studying empirical evidence. In this way they fail to
provide both, a sound analysis and the development of strategic thinking for
policy development.
After briefly reminding at some issues brought up by classical analysis of
class structures and stratification theories, the text goes on by utilising these
perspectives for cursorily assessing some trends in major fields of EU social
policy debates. Hereby the ground is provided for looking for principal points
of tensions in policy analysis and development, not least reminding critical
and left approaches to avoid the trap of a kind of left-intellectual populism
Classical Class Analysis and Assessment of Contemporary Eu-Policies - Ontology and Epistemology of Social Policy Debates
The present paper puts the argument forward that social policy analysis today
lost very much its ground of systematically approaching its objective. Rather
than analysing the objective relations, processes and their foundation political
arguments and discourses are very much developed on moral grounds and
remain on the level of studying empirical evidence. In this way they fail to
provide both, a sound analysis and the development of strategic thinking for
policy development.
After briefly reminding at some issues brought up by classical analysis of
class structures and stratification theories, the text goes on by utilising these
perspectives for cursorily assessing some trends in major fields of EU social
policy debates. Hereby the ground is provided for looking for principal points
of tensions in policy analysis and development, not least reminding critical
and left approaches to avoid the trap of a kind of left-intellectual populism
Social Quality and Precarity: Approaching New Patterns of Societal (Dis)Integration
The main issue of this article is to discuss the question of ‘precarity’ in the context of the theory of social quality (see Beck et al, 2001), with which to pave the way for developing further the theoretical foundation of precarity. Societal practice is the main challenge this concept tries to address. However, the danger is to introduce a new term, yet maintaining a discussion on traditional problems as poverty, marginalisation and exclusion. Our thesis is that these problems, far from being sufficiently tackled, are currently going along with and being adjunct to another challenge, namely precarity. Although the ‘old problems’ are not problems of individuals and expression of their ‘personal failure’, precarity – seen in the context of the theory of social quality – means a new stage of socialisation of the problems by further individualisation of the victims. In principle, we can say that this understanding of precarity is an expression of a further erosion of society, characterising especially periods of transformation of economic systems.Social Quality; Precarity; Social Exclusion; Social Disintegration; Social Policy
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