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Aim: The temptation to provide simple answers to complex problems exists for politicians and scientists alike. This essay attempts to briefly outline the complexity of present day problems at global level, taking as a starting point the question "how quick will the EU collapse?" Design / Research methods: Brief discussions are given of separate yet interconnected, causally related and overlapping natural and social research domains, illustrating the need for qualified multidisciplinary spokesmen able to separate facts from "alternative facts."Conclusions / findings: Making the simple anthropological observation that people can choose policies that are self-destructive does not make social science politicized or value-biased. A society that considers global warming, depletion and pollution caused by fossil fuels as mere externalities makes a demonstrable erratic choice. Because one of the major goals of science is to establish (in)validity of "common sense," it is duty of academics to tell our students that societies, including entire scientific departments, can make consistent erratic choices.Originality / value of the article: This essay may help scholars and practitioners to start to look at their research domain in a (much) wider global context. ; Cel: Zarówno politycy, jak i naukowcy zmagają się z pokusą, aby udzielać prostych odpowiedzi naskomplikowane pytania. W artykule tym podjęto próbę zwięzłego zarysowania dzisiejszychproblemów na poziomie globalnym, a jako punkt startowy przyjęto pytanie: "Jak szybko upadnie UniaEuropejska?".Układ / metody badawcze: Natura tematyki wskazuje raczej na holistyczne podejście interpretacyjneaniżeli na systematyczne podejście redukcjonistyczne. Przedstawiono krótkie dyskusje dotycząceoddzielnych, aczkolwiek powiązanych wzajemnie i nachodzących na siebie naturalnych i społecznychdomen badawczych, ilustrujące potrzebę wykwalifikowanych multidyscyplinarnych mówców,zdolnych rozróżniać fakty od "alternatywnych faktów".Wnioski / wyniki: Zwykłe antropologiczne obserwacje, zgodnie z którymi ludzie są w stanie wybraćpolitykę polegającą na samodestrukcji, niekoniecznie czynią nauki społeczne upolitycznionymi bądźnastawionymi na wartość. Społeczeństwo uznające globalne ocieplenie, wyczerpywanie się izanieczyszczenia spowodowane przez paliwa kopalne za zaledwie efekty zewnętrzne, dokonujedemonstracyjnego nieobliczalnego wyboru. Ponieważ jednym z podstawowych celów nauki jestustalenie (nie)zasadności "wspólnego sensu", akademicy mają obowiązek mówienia studentom, żespołeczeństwa, włączając całe środowiska naukowe, mogą dokonywać ciągłych nieodpowiedzialnychwyborów.Oryginalność / wartość artykułu: Artykuł może wspomóc naukowców i praktyków w rozpoczęciuspoglądania na ich obszary badawcze w (o wiele) głębszym globalnym kontekście.

We study the empirical consistency of survey based (micro level) indicators of social capital and local government performance on the one, and municipality based (aggregate level) measures of these two concepts on the other hand. Knowledge about the behavior of these indicators is helpful for evaluating the value of studies carried out in isolated contexts, that is, with access to data on either, but not both, levels. The method is by comparing data collected by Statistics Belgium on Flemish municipalities, to data collected at citizen level by means of a face-to-face survey. The available evidence supplies at best a meager basis for presupposing a shared component of the indicators under study.

In this article, the authors examine the possibilities of information communication technology and e-government to enhance democracy. The authors summarize the known problems of representative democracy and direct democracy and inquire whether e-government potentially can offer solutions to these problems. The authors conclude that a lot of problems in both representative and direct democracies remain unsolved and that e-government even can create new problems.

The authors analyze preference data of Flemish citizens regarding various aspects of e-government (e.g., front office, back office, e-democracy, e-administration). The results indicate that the common strategy of governments, to put more services online that is rewarded by benchmarking studies of most consultancy firms and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), does not correspond to the demands of most citizens. Citizens, in short, demand better services, not more services online.

Interpersonal violence in sport has serious consequences for athletes, sports organisations and society at large. Despite recent advances in safeguarding sport participants from interpersonal violence, empirical evidence regarding its prevalence and risk factors across different sports remains scarce. In this study, we investigated differences in the prevalence of interpersonal violence among a convenience sample of 9989 adults from six European countries who participated in organised sport before age 18. Utilising binary logistic regression analyses and CHAID regression tree analyses, we examined variations in reported experiences of neglect, psychological, physical, non-contact sexual and contact sexual forms of interpersonal violence based on gender and three sport classifications: type of sport (individual vs. team), sports attire (non-revealing vs. body-fitting/revealing) and weight-sensitivity (less weight-sensitive vs. weight-sensitive sports). Men participating in team sports reported significantly higher levels of victimisation across all types of interpersonal violence. Women in sports with non-revealing attire and men in less weight-sensitive sports also reported higher prevalence rates. The study underscores the need for a nuanced understanding of interpersonal violence characteristics and dynamics across different sports. Insights into the factors influencing victimisation enable tailored prevention and response strategies to be developed to better address the needs of athletes and sport organisations.

Résumé L'administration publique et les services publics ont toujours occupé une place limitée dans les études comportementales des politologues. Les étudiants en administration publique ont pour leur part tendance à se concentrer sur les élites et les institutions politiques et administratives et ne tiennent généralement pas compte des citoyens dans leurs recherches comparatives. Dans cet article, nous plaidons en faveur d'une étude comparative internationale des attitudes des citoyens face à l'administration publique d'un point de vue interdisciplinaire. Nous examinons la littérature scientifique internationale disponible et décrivons les principales tendances présentes dans la pratique empirique et les approches théoriques, en particulier celles ayant un impact potentiel sur la réforme du secteur public.

Public administration and public services have always taken a marginal place in political scientists' behavioural research. Public administration students, in contrast, tend to focus on political and administrative elites and institutions and have largely ignored citizens in comparative research. In this article, we make a plea for international comparative research on citizens' attitudes towards public administration from an interdisciplinary perspective. Available international survey material is discussed and main trends in empirical practice and theoretical approaches are outlined, especially those with a potential impact on public sector reform.