Social quality thinking emerged from a critique of one-sided policies by breaking through the limitations previously set by purely economistic paradigms. By tracing its expansion and presenting different aspects of social quality theory, this volume provides an overview of a more nuanced approach, which assesses societal progress and introduces proposals that are relevant for policy making. Crucially, important components emerge with research by scholars from Asia, particularly China, eastern Europe, and other regions beyond western Europe, the theory's place of origin. As this volume shows, this rich diversity of approaches and their cross-national comparisons reveal the increasingly important role of social quality theory for informing political debates on development and sustainability.

This volume contains the proceedings of the IFIPTM 2008, the Joint iTrust and PST Conferences on Privacy, Trust Management and Security, held in Trondheim, Norway from June 18 to June 20, 2008. IFIPTM 2008 provides a truly global platform for the reporting of research, development, policy and practice in the interdependent areas of Privacy, Security, and Trust. Following the traditions inherited from the highly successful iTrust and PST conference series, IFIPTM 2008 focuses on trust, privacy and security from multidisciplinary perspectives. The conference is an arena for discussion about re levant problems from both research and practice in the areas of academia, busi ness, and government. IFIPTM 2008 is an open IFIP conference, which only accepts contributed pa pers, so all papers in these proceedings have passed strict peer review. The pro gram of the conference features both theoretical research papers and reports of real world case studies. IFIPTM 2008 received 62 submissions. The program commit tee selected 22 papers for presentation and inclusion in the proceedings. In addi tion, the program and the proceedings include 3 demo descriptions. The highlights of IFIPTM 2008 include invited talks and tutorials by industri al and academic experts in the fields of trust management, privacy and security, including Jon Bing and Michael Steiner.

Marxist discourse around automation has recently become waylaid with breathless techno-pessimist dystopias and fanciful imaginations of automated luxury communism. This collection of essays by both established veterans of the field and new voices is a refreshingly sober materialist reflection on recent technological developments within capitalist production. It covers a broad range of digital aspects now proliferating across our work and lives, including chapters on the digitalisation of agriculture, robotics in the factory and the labour process on crowdworking platforms. It looks to how 20th century Marxist predictions of the 'workerless factory' are, or are not, coming true, and how 'Platform Capitalism' should be understood and critiqued. Through rich empirical, theoretical and historical material, this book is necessary reading for those wanting a clear overview of our digital world.

Translated from the original German Lenin Neuentdecken and available in English for the first time, this volume rediscovers Lenin as a strategic socialist thinker through close examination of his collected works and correspondence. Brie opens with an analysis of Lenin's theoretical development between 1914 and 1917, in preparation for his critical decision to dissolve the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 in a struggle for power. This led from the dialectics of revolutionary practice and social analysis to a new understanding of socialism, which is compared and contrasted to the alternative Marxist ideas and conceptions of the state posited by Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg. Rediscovering Lenin then moves to 1921, when Lenin begins a new stage of his theoretical development concerned with resolving the reversal of the revolution's aims and its results. This process remains unfinished, and the questions raised a hundred years ago remain: How can one intervene successfully and responsibly in social and political crises? What role do social science theories, ideological frameworks, and other practices play in transforming the economic, political and cultural power structures of a society? Brie concludes with a retrospective on the ideas developed by Marx and in the Second International, and their impact on Lenin's strategic thinking. Placing Lenin's writing itself in the foreground and arguing from inside his own self-learning, Rediscovering Lenin focuses on the reflective relationship between ideology, theory, and practice.

Currently it is fashionable to talk about digitisation, robotisation, industry 4.0, but also about the gig economy, the Millenials, precarisation and the like. However, the relevant issues are too often taken in isolation, referring to an extrapolation of overcome structures. The present collection aims on moving further by qualifying some aspects, and also by approaching the topic from distinct perspectives in order to arrive at an assessment of emerging changes of the socio-economic formation. Content Digitisation and Precarisation - Redefining Work and Redefining Society * Economy of Difference and Social Differentiation. Precarity - searching for a new interpretative paradigm * Society under Threat of Precarity of Employment * Precarious Employment: Definition of the Concept Given by Russian Researchers * Digitisation: A New Form of Precarity or New Opportunities? * Labour market performance and digitisation of work: brief overview * Australia's precarious workforce and the role of digitisation * The Czech Republic - a Case Study * "Predictable uncertainty" - Social Land Programme in Hungary * Affirmative and Alternative Discourses and Practices of Knowledge Production and Distribution in Turkey * Electric dreams of welfare in the 4th industrial revolution: An actor-network investigation and genealogy of an Algorithm * Bringing Precarity to the Political Agenda The Editors Vyacheslav Bobkov, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Chief of the Laboratory of Problems of Life Quality and Living Standards of the Institute of Socio - Economic Problems of Population of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Peter Herrmann, social philosopher, having worked globally in research and teaching positions in particular on social policy and economics

This volume contains the proceedings of the IFIPTM 2008, the Joint iTrust and PST Conferences on Privacy, Trust Management and Security, held in Trondheim, Norway from June 18 to June 20, 2008. IFIPTM 2008 provides a truly global platform for the reporting of research, development, policy and practice in the interdependent areas of Privacy, Security, and Trust. Following the traditions inherited from the highly successful iTrust and PST conference series, IFIPTM 2008 focuses on trust, privacy and security from multidisciplinary perspectives. The conference is an arena for discussion about re levant problems from both research and practice in the areas of academia, busi ness, and government. IFIPTM 2008 is an open IFIP conference, which only accepts contributed pa pers, so all papers in these proceedings have passed strict peer review. The pro gram of the conference features both theoretical research papers and reports of real world case studies. IFIPTM 2008 received 62 submissions. The program commit tee selected 22 papers for presentation and inclusion in the proceedings. In addi tion, the program and the proceedings include 3 demo descriptions. The highlights of IFIPTM 2008 include invited talks and tutorials by industri al and academic experts in the fields of trust management, privacy and security, including Jon Bing and Michael Steiner.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Trust Management, held in Paris, France, during 23 26 May 2005. The conf- ence follows successful International Conferences in Crete in 2003 and Oxford in 2004. All conferences were organized by iTrust, which is a working group funded as a thematic network by the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) unit of the Information Society Technologies (IST) program of the European Union. The purpose of the iTrust working group is to provide a forum for cro- disciplinary investigation of the applications of trust as a means of increasing security, building con?dence and facilitating collaboration in dynamic open s- tems. The notion of trust has been studied independently by di?erent academic disciplines, which has helped us to identify and understand di?erent aspects of trust. Theaimofthisconferencewastoprovideacommonforum, bringingtogether researchers from di?erent academic branches, such as the technology-oriented disciplines, law, social sciences and philosophy, in order to develop a deeper and more fundamental understanding of the issues and challenges in the area of trust management in dynamic open systems. The response to this conference was excellent; from the 71 papers submitted to the conference, we selected 21 full papers and 4 short papers for presentation. The program also included two keynote addresses, given by Steve Marsh from National Research Centre Canada, Institute for Information Technology, and Steve Kimbrough from the University of Pennsylvania; an industrial panel; 7 technology demonstrations; and a full day of tutorials."

Focusing on the themes of conflict, communication, and globalisation, this book provides interdisciplinary studies of modern and contemporary Asia and highlights the latest developments in Asian Studies. Beginning with a discussion on the role of communications, the book offers theoretical and methodological considerations on dealing with conflict and communication. It then explores selfother relationships through an investigation of the ethical structure of responsibility in the context of globalisation. In the following chapters, contributors from China, Germany, Ireland, Japan and South Korea provide a clear grasp of conflicts and communications within and beyond Asia from political, economic and cultural perspectives. They offer insight on a wide range of topics including the Sino-Japanese conflict, the political and ideological struggles between the two Koreas, Asian countries responses to the economic crisis, the World Fair and globalisation, the development of NBA culture in China, and Sino-Western comparison on mother-in-lawdaughter-in-law dynamic. The book concludes that Asias rise should present more opportunities than conflicts and threats, and that it will eventually lead to the emergence of a multipolar world.

With the processes of globalization, we are more than ever confronted with the paradoxes inherent in modern statehood. The characteristics of modern statehood are: (1) securing freedom from feudal oppression or despotism, (2) legislating for equality among citizens, (3) focusing on inclusion to incorporate the previously excluded into the system and finally (4), of the utmost importance, establishing the principle of individualism as a primary goal. The social construct of ethnicity gives rise to a second paradox. It develops as a material force if and when it grips the masses. Logically, any such construct as ethnicity is exclusive to the extent on which it depends on otherness. The erection of hegemonic structures to deal with these issues and also with the confrontation of shifting borders is at the core of this book.

The book aims at presenting an updated version of the basic and general human rights debates. While it is frequently suggested that Human Rights are universal and indivisible, it is an undeniable fact that this is far from being true. And if there was ever any justification for talking about an ending to history, that narrative has definitely lost all justification in the light of recent developments. In fact, we are now witnessing a new harsh round of global system competition, often at the edge of a global hot war, now not anymore in a bipolar world but in a multipolar setting.The book contributions include reflections on history and theory, the reinterpretation of rights in different national contexts and/or in relation to specific groups (e.g. women) and areas (e.g. digitization).The book is meant to be a food for thought, at the end arguing in favour of the need to redefine Human Rights, reflecting the changes since the inauguration of the UDHR.

Looking for an answer of social science: being able to maintain political independence; without loosing genuine political orientation and responsibility; and at the same time maintaining a sophisticated balance of holistic orientation on the one side and discrimination on the other side is, of course, on the one hand bound to the objective conditions of society; on the other hand -- and even more so -- scientists have to accept their responsibility of (re-)gaining independence in terms of looking for valid answers to assess development and to change them where necessary rather than fulfilling 'expectations of the development' by simply maintaining the status quo. In this regard, the present contributions reach a high level of expertise in their independence of judgements. This is of particular interest, as they cover a huge variety of topics and areas, not least coming from different disciplinary backgrounds and as well looking at different aggregate levels.

In the present volume Cathal O'Connel looks at the retreat of the public in the area of housing. The changing ownership structures actually affect largely the entire modes of living together societally and socially -- accommodation and settlement structures are reconstructed under a certain aegis of privatised options -- of which an enforced opting-out is one of the forms of the de-civilising role of the 'regulated de-regulation', by which the state is backing out public responsibility, creating space for a new 'invisible hand', though this is highly visible in form of multinational capital. The same shift of the 'individualisation of the social' is pertinent in third level education which Deirdre Ryan and Peter Herrmann are investigating. In the EU, the current debate on what is called 'Services of General Interests' the focus is on access and quality. Ryan/Herrmann clarify in a distinguished way that in this educational context economy matters not only in regard of accessibility, but as well in quality not least in the meaning of 'trimming substance'. What in these cases is more linked to individual policy areas, radiating and affecting indirectly the entire societal and social fabric, is mirrored and coined by the wider mechanisms of policy making and actually politics. Catherine Forde points on respective mechanisms in local government, making clear that formal restructuration actually does not open 'closed systems'; instead they create a kind of black whole -- claims of opening spaces for participation degenerate into unlevelled playgrounds. Problems of balancing such 'open spaces' between the formal openness and the actually available 'real living space' are topical in Rosie Meade's contribution. It is getting obvious that responsibility is both a question of rights and personal commitment. Joe Finnerty in his contribution points on the most important fact, that the role of scientific research and the measurement of social and societal processes is as well not least a matter of commitment -- it has to be guaranteed and clarified and 'objective reason' is not concerned with expelling subjective factors and artificially reducing complexity by constructing arithmetical constraints; instead, the development of indicator-oriented methods has to sublate and supersede complexity.

Marxist discourse around automation has recently become waylaid with breathless techno-pessimist dystopias and fanciful imaginations of automated luxury communism. This collection of essays by both established veterans of the field and new voices is a refreshingly sober materialist reflection on recent technological developments within capitalist production. It covers a broad range of digital aspects now proliferating across our work and lives, including chapters on the digitalisation of agriculture, robotics in the factory and the labour process on crowdworking platforms. It looks to how 20th century Marxist predictions of the 'workerless factory' are, or are not, coming true, and how 'Platform Capitalism' should be understood and critiqued. Through rich empirical, theoretical and historical material, this book is necessary reading for those wanting a clear overview of our digital world.

Translated from the original German Lenin Neuentdecken and available in English for the first time, this volume rediscovers Lenin as a strategic socialist thinker through close examination of his collected works and correspondence. Brie opens with an analysis of Lenin's theoretical development between 1914 and 1917, in preparation for his critical decision to dissolve the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 in a struggle for power. This led from the dialectics of revolutionary practice and social analysis to a new understanding of socialism, which is compared and contrasted to the alternative Marxist ideas and conceptions of the state posited by Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg. Rediscovering Lenin then moves to 1921, when Lenin begins a new stage of his theoretical development concerned with resolving the reversal of the revolution's aims and its results. This process remains unfinished, and the questions raised a hundred years ago remain: How can one intervene successfully and responsibly in social and political crises? What role do social science theories, ideological frameworks, and other practices play in transforming the economic, political and cultural power structures of a society? Brie concludes with a retrospective on the ideas developed by Marx and in the Second International, and their impact on Lenin's strategic thinking. Placing Lenin's writing itself in the foreground and arguing from inside his own self-learning, Rediscovering Lenin focuses on the reflective relationship between ideology, theory, and practice.

This book presents topical research in the study of democracy in theory and action from across the globe. Topics discussed herein include inclusive democracy as a theoretical and political project; the quality of democracy and media logic in Mexico; governance networks and democratic ideals and the role of the social democratic welfare state regime in reducing socioeconomic inequalities in health care.

There is an ongoing debate on the question if professional activities in the field of the social do actually have a genuinely 'own' scientific basis or if their academic standing depends entirely on other disciplines as sociology, economics, administration or law. The present book offers an answer - by actually twisting the question into another direction: the question for the common denominator should not be employed by looking for the original disciplinary basis. Instead, it is more important to look at a common point of reference towards which activities - and research - can be geared. The editors propose human rights as such reference and make in their own introductory contribution clear that any contemplation on such rights cannot be limited on abstract moral and normative questions nor can it be left to the arbitrariness of cultural relativism. It is proposed to develop a systematic approach, not starting from a translation of abstract principles into their application in concrete situations. On the contrary, the concrete human practice and its analysis has to be taken as focal point. Some of the contributions directly take this topic up as matter by way of engaging in a general methodological discussion whereas other contributions deal with specific aspects of a field of social professions, showing the necessary variety of the pieces of a jigsaw on its own. The volume motivates students, scholars and professionals researching and working in the social array to think outside their ancestral box, focussing on sound and reasoned values rather than allowing abstract professional standards to take over.

Concerning the on-going political debate about the direction of strategic decisions in economic developments and world systems theory, this book addresses a closely linked question how, on this basis, institutions develop which are to a large extent responsible for the reasoning of the world. Although the complex relationship cannot be grasped, the following will look at some important issues around the question of how academic institutions are shaped by the processes of a main characteristic of this development. This main characteristic is seen here as the further process of commodification which in our context rules completely the area of education.

The guiding question of this work is the following: In which way, if at all, can we define a framework that allows a comparative view on social professional activity in an international perspective? Going beyond positivist research usually means to look for qualitative standards, however remaining caught by taking individual professions in a national setting from one country for granted and looking from what we know for 'counterparts' and/or 'partners' in other countries. To avoid the subsequent shortcoming of an underlying 'professional rigidity' we face the need of developing a functional perspective, focusing on the societies in which Social Professional Activities (SPA) emerge in their respective particular national patterns. This means, however, to start by defining 'the social' as determining societies in general, looking from there at different national patterns -- pragmatically but as well structurally the nation state will be taken as point of reference. In such a perspective, several current concepts have to be fundamentally questioned as far as the mainstream consensus is concerned. Terms in question are in particular: the social, professions and social problems - this is especially necessary when it comes to developing an international perspective. Despite the need of looking for a general definition of the social, there is in particular a more specific need for debating the understanding of different strands of activities that are - in the widest sense - captured as social professions, for example social work, community/youth work, nursing and care professions, but as well social management and social action (especially the latter pointing on the problematique of professionalisation in strictu sensu). International comparative research of social professional activities does not fail (primarily) because of the huge variety of national regimes and regulations. The actual reason is the fundamentally different point of departure, expressing various national traditions of the reasoning on the state - a reasoning being at the end a practical reasoning. In other words, we have to recur on the different national understanding of 'social contracts'. This approach allows taking a dialectical perspective in order to revisit the actual character of social professional activities. It is the practical confrontation of the individual with his/her environment that constitutes processes of socialisation.

This new book deals with the complex issue of Europe's inevitable yet extremely controversial expansion process.

Part One of this new book presents four lectures not meant to be a textbook in the traditional sense. Nevertheless, it is meant to be used as material guiding lectures and students alike through their work in the field of European social policy-making. Being understood as guidance, this means as well that many parts are not fully elaborated. Some hints are given -- and in many cases there is a debate behind them that would justify its own book. For example there is a complex debate on European integration and the question if and in which sense it is legitimate to interpret current processes as processes of 'nation' or 'state building'. Part II is seemingly quite different, a piece of academic work, going back to the authors involvement in a project on social indicators under the auspices of the European Foundation on Social Quality. Still, there are at least two strong links or similarities. This document is as well very much a discussion document -- it evolved from an intense debate in the project, being already a revision of previous versions.

With the process of a 'wider Europe' (EU-Commission President Romano Prodi's 'ring of friends') that extends from Marrakech in Morocco to St Petersburg in Russia gathering speed, the growing rift between Europe and America also is about how to deal politically with the countries of the Mediterranean-Muslim world. The house of Islam (Dar al Islam) was pivotal to the European path to the Renaissance and to the re-discovery of classic Greek philosophy. The Mediterranean policy of the European Union aims at a positive and co-operative relationship with the region. A successful integration of the Mediterranean South would have tremendous and positive repercussions for regional and world peace. World-wide leading experts from the field of world systems analysis, economics, integration theory, political science, theology and area studies, agnostics, Christians, Jews and Muslims alike discuss the issue with European decision makers. The outcome is an interdisciplinary evaluation of this projected export of peace, co-operation, dialogue and stability in the framework of world centre-periphery relationships.

This book is based on the thesis that the process of European integration is far more than just the building and further development of institutions. It is far more than the adjustment of economic and political procedures in a changing environmental and ever new challenges. Instead it is a social process which takes place even if the "social dimension" is underexposed by the official policy. And just this makes it all the more interesting because it shows the limits and opportunities to influence "great history" by the social basis of soci(et)al being - the peoples and their organisations. The main foci of the chapters in this book are: the role and function of social policy, and the role and function of civil society, namely the NGOs.

Dieses essential wendet sich den psychologischen Aspekten des Tourismusmarketings zu, da Reiseangebote immateriell sind und bis zum Reiseantritt nur als psychische Vorstellung im Kopf der Kunden bestehen. Wesentliche Marketingprozesse, von der Werbebegegnung bis zur Reiseentscheidung, werden durch zahlreiche psychologische Gegebenheiten beeinflusst. Unter diesem Blickwinkel erfolgen im essential thesenhafte Ausfuhrungen zu wesentlichen psychologischen Sachverhalten des Tourismusmarketings. Am Beispiel von Einzelsachverhalten werden markante Schwachstellen aufgezeigt, welche die psychologische Bedeutsamkeit des Marketings unterstreichen. Mit dem essential soll das Handlungsbewusstsein gestarkt werden, Tourismusmarketing zukunftig mit psychologischen Erkenntnissen zu verzahnen.

Dieses Buch bietet einen kompakten UEberblick zum Themenbereich Tourismuspsychologie, fur den ein wachsendes Interesse besteht. Die Tourismuspsychologie wird entlang einer Reisekette dargestellt. Beginnend bei der Werbebegegnung bis hin zu den Urlaubserinnerungen nach der Reise werden wesentliche psychologische Sachverhalte behandelt. Schwerpunktthemen hierbei sind: Aufgaben und Ziele der Tourismuspsychologie, Gestaltung touristischer Werbung, der Reiseentscheidungsprozess, Reise- und Urlaubsangste, Erleben am Urlaubsort, Fuhrung von Teams und Reisegruppe. Dieses Lehrbuch wendet sich vor allem, aber nicht nur, an Studierende. Es unterstutzt alle Verantwortlichen und Mitarbeiter im touristischen Bereich dabei, das Verhalten der Reisenden besser zu verstehen und angemessen darauf reagieren zu koennen. Zum Autor: Der Autor ist Lehrbeauftragter an der Hochschule Harz, an den dualen Hochschuleinrichtungen BA Eisenach und iba Erfurt sowie an der Heimerer-Akademie Leipzig. Schwerpunkte seiner Lehrtatigkeit sind Tourismusmanagement und Psychologie. Seit 2013 halt er Vorlesungen und Seminare zur Tourismuspsychologie an der Hochschule Harz