186 research outputs found
Deindustrialization and Deaths of Despair: Mapping the Impact of Industrial Decline on Ill Health
A growing literature on deaths of despair has argued that workers’ declining life expectancy in deindustrialized rustbelt areas in the U.S. and the associated deepening of health inequalities signal the profound existential crisis of contemporary capitalism. Competing explanations downplay the negative consequences of “creative destruction” and focus instead on unhealthy lifestyles. This article contributes to this debate by presenting the first empirical analysis of the role of deindustrialization in the deaths of despair epidemic that hit Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Drawing on the thematic analysis of 82 semi-structured interviews in four deindustrialized towns in Hungary, the article constructs a general sociological framework for analyzing deaths of despair applicable to other rustbelt areas. Deindustrialization engenders individual and social processes that affect health by increasing stress and eroding coping resources. By conceptualizing deindustrialization as a fundamental cause of ill health, sociology has great potential to contribute to understanding the root causes of deaths of despair
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Did Alcohol Policy Really Cause the Postsocialist Mortality Crisis? Revisiting the Rebound and Affordability Hypotheses
This article reexamines the argument that alcohol policies were the major factor behind the mortality crisis in postsocialist Russia. We show that the correlation between the Gorbachev anti-alcohol campaign (rebound hypothesis), alcohol prices in the 1990s (affordability hypothesis), and mortality reported in previous analyses is not robust to splitting oblasts into Far- East and the rest of Russia. Our analysis conducted on a sample of 534 towns in the European part of Russia also finds no robust evidence supporting the two hypotheses. In contrast, findings linking privatization to mortality are robust to controlling for the anti-alcohol campaign and the affordability of alcohol
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Lessons from the Political Economy of Authoritarian Capitalism in Hungary
The future of capitalism is not necessarily democratic. Authoritarian capitalism is gaining foothold not only in non-democratic states, such as China but even in countries with strong liberal institutions. From Greece to the US, an increasing number of countries show their symptoms. We need to look beyond the façade of the most visible political manoeuvres to understand how economic and political disciplining of citizens to create decent capitalist subjects can be combined into a political-economic model that ensures accelerated capital accumulation through increased political repression. Hungary is one of the most unusual cases. Hungarian elites followed the good governance blueprints of international institutions, implementing liberal political and economic reforms between 1990 and 2010. For long, the country was considered to be a frontrunner of the third wave of democratisation1, yet now is considered to be a frontrunner of democratic backsliding. Orbán’s political-economic model has been stable for eight years now - Fidesz gained the same amount of seats at the parliamentary election on 8 April 2018 as four years before, and thus Viktor Orbán’s party remains the dominant political force in the country. There are apparent direct political reasons for this, such as the heavily gerrymandered electoral map, the biased media landscape as well as the divisions paralysing the fractured opposition, among others. To understand the emergence of authoritarian capitalism in Hungary, we hav
A nemzetközi fejlesztéspolitika helyzete és feladatai
A huszonegyedik század hajnalán elgondolkodva a fejlesztéspolitika helyzetén, joggal
merül fel a kérdés: vajon az elmúlt évtizedekben követett fejlődési út tényleg közelebb
vitte-e a jelen Ă©s jövĹ‘ generáciĂłkat emberi jogaik megvalĂłsĂtásához, szabadságuk alkotĂł
kibontakoztatásához? Mennyiben fenntartható és igazságos az a globális rend, melyet
a második világháború utáni fejlődés eredményezett? S ha úgy találjuk, hogy a korunk
világára jellemző egyenlőtlenségek obszcének, s az ökoszisztéma kizsákmányolásának
mértéke esztelen, vajon milyen fejlesztéspolitikákat képzeljünk el magunknak? Jelen
tanulmány erre a kĂ©rdĂ©sre keresi a választ. Ehhez elsĹ‘ lĂ©pĂ©sben azonosĂtanunk kell a
nemzetközi fejlesztĂ©s elĹ‘tt állĂł legfĹ‘bb kihĂvásokat, majd meg kell vizsgálnunk, hogy a
fejlĹ‘dĂ©s eddig bevett megközelĂtĂ©sei kĂ©pesek-e megfelelĹ‘ választ adni ezekre. Az elmĂ©leti
áttekintĂ©s tanulságait levonva azonosĂthatĂłak a tĂĽnetek mögött állĂł legfĹ‘bb okok, majd
ezt követĹ‘en lehetsĂ©ges egy alternatĂv jövĹ‘kĂ©p felvázolása. A tanulmány vĂ©gĂĽl a jövĹ‘kĂ©p
megvalĂłsĂtását szolgálĂł közpolitikai lĂ©pĂ©sek vázlatával zárul
Treatment and outcome of Shiga-toxin-associated hemolytic uremic syndrome
Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is the most common cause of acute renal failure in childhood and the reason for chronic renal replacement therapy. It leads to significant morbidity and mortality during the acute phase. In addition to acute morbidity and mortality, long-term renal and extrarenal complications can occur in a substantial number of children years after the acute episode of HUS. The most common infectious agents causing HUS are enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC)-producing Shiga toxin (and belonging to the serotype O157:H7) and several non-O157:H7 serotypes. D+ HUS is an acute disease characterized by prodromal diarrhea followed by acute renal failure. The classic clinical features of HUS include the triad of microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, and acute renal failure. HUS mortality is reported to be between 3% and 5%, and death due to HUS is nearly always associated with severe extrarenal disease, including severe central nervous system (CNS) involvement. Approximately two thirds of children with HUS require dialysis therapy, and about one third have milder renal involvement without the need for dialysis therapy. General management of acute renal failure includes appropriate fluid and electrolyte management, antihypertensive therapy if necessary, and initiation of renal replacement therapy when appropriate. The prognosis of HUS depends on several contributing factors. In general “classic” HUS, induced by EHEC, has an overall better outcome. Totally different is the prognosis in patients with atypical and particularly recurrent HUS. However, patients with severe disease should be screened for genetic disorders of the complement system or other underlying diseases
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Sustaining democracy in the era of dependent financialization: Karl Polanyi's perspectives on the politics of finance
With the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of illiberalism in the aftermath of the global financial crisis we need a theoretical framework that links modernization, crises and the fate of democracy. In my paper I attempt to show that Polanyi’s thinking represents such a framework. I focus on Polanyi’s historically informed political economic analysis of the tensions between liberal finance and liberal democracy. In the first section I reconstruct Polanyi’s political stance regarding democracy, socialism and the market. Based on this I will bring to the fore his often neglected views regarding the commodification of money and the tensions between international finance and democracy. Polanyi shows that monetary policy is not a technical but a deeply political question with major social implications. In the final section of my paper I conclude that Polanyi’s theory of the double movement and fictitious commodification can only be understood once we strip it of its excessive functionalism and bring it into dialogue with his political views. Polanyi urges to preserve the market by protecting the economy and society from the damages of excessive commodification: markets need to be protected from themselves.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the Centre for Social Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences via http://dx.doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v2i2.18
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