Shifts in religiosity in the face of Soviet type urbanization: the case of Lithuania

This article focuses on shifts in religious life triggered by the processes of Soviet urbanization in Lithuania, a country with a strong agricultural character. Based on an analysis of diverse sources, it explores the turning point of contemporary religious history in Lithuania during the1960s, which was connected primarily with the massive displacement of people meant to transform the traditional way of life in the Lithuanian countryside. The article argues that the main result of this displacement was not so much the collapse of religious life, as was intended by the Soviet authorities, but rather the dislocation of its center from the countryside to the cities.     

Socio-economic differentiation in the post-communist rural Baltics: the case of three kolkhozes

This paper uses longitudinal quantitative data to examine socio-economic differentiation in the rural Baltic areas after decollectivization. It argues that the rural social structure in the post-Soviet Baltics is best determined by two criteria: source of income (income from farming entrepreneurship or income from salaries) and land holdings. Four rural groups are identified: people getting their main income from farming can be differentiated into large landowners engaged in the commercial production of agricultural goods and people with small or medium-sized farms; and people earning their main income from wages can be separated into people with no farming activities and people who are still keeping small or medium-sized farms. The paper also finds that the importance of farming activities in the countryside decreases while importance of wage income tends to increase.     

论我国刑事诉讼中的无罪推定原则

无罪推定的立法思想是针对有罪推定、刑讯逼供等法律制度提出的,我国1996年修正的刑事诉讼法,首次吸收无罪推定原则的一些因素,虽然不是完全照搬,却是我国的刑事司法向无罪推定迈出了积极的一步。但在刑事司法立法与实践中尚有差距,还不能充分保障公民的基本人权。     

From one participant cohort to another: Surveying inter-generational political incubation in an Indian University

Several recent studies propose that political choices of Indian youth can hardly be distinguished from those of their parents in many respects. Contrary to this well-established understanding, this article shows that when set apart from the spheres of family and work, students in a flagship Indian university—mostly in the social sciences and humanities—gradually transform their political attitudes in light of prolonged exposure to a campus environment. Through combining ethnographic study with the analysis of a survey of political attitudes of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students, we show that time spent in situ fosters participation to political activities, increases chances of joining a student organization and make students more likely to identify themselves as politically radical. The class and caste background of students, on the other hand, are not strongly associated with political attitudes, showing the integrative nature of politicization on the JNU campus.     

How does School Experience Relate to Adolescent Identity Formation Over Time? Cross-Lagged Associations between School Engagement,School Burnout and Identity Processing Styles

The existing research findings still do not provide a clear understanding of the links between adolescent school experience and their identity formation. To address this gap, we analyzed the dynamic links between adolescent school experiences and identity formation by exploring the cross-lagged associations between school engagement, school burnout and identity processing styles (information-oriented, normative and diffuse-avoidant) over a 2-year period during middle-to-late adolescence. The sample of this school-based study included 916 adolescents (51.4% females) in the 9th to 12th grades from diverse socio-economic and family backgrounds. The results from the cross-lagged analyses with three time points revealed that (a) school engagement positively predicted information-oriented identity processing over a 2-year period; (b) school burnout positively predicted the reliance on normative and diffuse-avoidant identity styles across the three measurements; (c) the effects were stable over the three time points and across different gender, grade, and socio-economic status groups. The unidirectional effects identified in our study support the general prediction that active engagement in learning at school can serve as a resource for adolescent identity formation, while school burnout, in contrast, can hinder the formation of adolescent identity. This points to the importance of taking developmental identity-related needs of adolescents into account when planning the school curriculum.     

Narrators’ perspectives: communicating the EU in Ukraine,Israel and Palestine in times of conflict

ABSTRACT

The role of newsmakers as intermediaries in the shaping of external perceptions and reception of narratives advanced by different actors remains sparse in EU studies. This contribution fills this gap and addresses the personal images of the EU of newsmakers. We contribute to the understanding of those personal perceptions and their link to professional values of audience interest, newsworthiness and objectivity in reporting the EU. The article will demonstrate that all journalists perceive EU coverage in their respective locations are led by local priorities. Negative views of the EU as a weakening, biased, ineffective, elitist and arrogant actor are dominant. Arguably, they create conditions for the birth and dissemination of Euro-distant and even Euro-sceptic media narratives. The article will explain why this is the case while drawing on political/ideational and business/financial explanations.     

UN involvement and civil war peace agreement implementation

Many studies argue that third-party guarantees, such as those of the United Nations, increase the chances that belligerents will sign peace agreements, but it is unclear how third-party involvement affects the implementation of such agreements. We unpack the relationship between UN involvement and peace agreement success by focusing on the risk of defections during the peace accord implementation phase. We argue that two types of commitment problems, namely involuntary and voluntary defections, emerge from the characteristics of the peace process itself as well as from new opportunities available to rebel groups. We expect that shifts in relative power and polarized voting lead to lower implementation scores overall, but that the deployment of UN troops has a mitigating effect, thereby increasing the prospects of sustainable peace agreements. Using data from the Peace Accords Matrix Implementation Dataset from 1989 to 2010 and personnel commitments to UN peacekeeping operations, we find evidence that large UN missions are better placed to support the implementation and longevity of the peace process.