Suchergebnisse

This study reveals the strong potential of the EU's intervention to deal with the current international challenges and it aims to recognize a shared competence of the EU in the field of education. Based on multiple foundations, the EU's external education measures are substantially more important than they may appear. The EU's external education policy is, at the same time, mainstreamed by its cross-disciplinary nature, and integrative by its contribution to the deepening of the European project. The EU's external education policy is not confined to sporadic measures and was based from the outset on the use of the flexibility clause and connectivity of the EU's areas of expertise. It is built on holistic concepts and coherent goals pursued within the framework of external long-term strategies, which implied the EU's enhanced competence in the field of education, beyond that of support established in the Treaty. The progressive extension of the EU's scope of competence in the field of education is closely linked with the higher added value of the EU in the management of a knowledge-based economy's impact on education services and its effective contribution to international measures in the field of education for all. This research aims to gather and analyse legal, technical, socio-political and financial elements, which offer conclusive evidence of the existence of the EU's external education policy and present its main features. It is hoped this will lead to an adjustment of the EU's competences and powers, so as to take into account the development of institutional practice that cannot be overlooked for the sake of legal certainty, transparency and effectiveness of EUlaw. ; Tendant vers la reconnaissance d'une compétence partagée de l'UE en matière d'éducation, cette étude vise à révéler le fort potentiel de l'intervention de l'UE dans la gestion des nouveaux défis éducatifs mondiaux. Fondée sur un faisceau de compétences intriquées, l'action externe de l'UE dans le secteur éducatif est substantiellement plus ...

This study reveals the strong potential of the EU's intervention to deal with the current international challenges and it aims to recognize a shared competence of the EU in the field of education. Based on multiple foundations, the EU's external education measures are substantially more important than they may appear. The EU's external education policy is, at the same time, mainstreamed by its cross-disciplinary nature, and integrative by its contribution to the deepening of the European project. The EU's external education policy is not confined to sporadic measures and was based from the outset on the use of the flexibility clause and connectivity of the EU's areas of expertise. It is built on holistic concepts and coherent goals pursued within the framework of external long-term strategies, which implied the EU's enhanced competence in the field of education, beyond that of support established in the Treaty. The progressive extension of the EU's scope of competence in the field of education is closely linked with the higher added value of the EU in the management of a knowledge-based economy's impact on education services and its effective contribution to international measures in the field of education for all. This research aims to gather and analyse legal, technical, socio-political and financial elements, which offer conclusive evidence of the existence of the EU's external education policy and present its main features. It is hoped this will lead to an adjustment of the EU's competences and powers, so as to take into account the development of institutional practice that cannot be overlooked for the sake of legal certainty, transparency and effectiveness of EUlaw. ; Tendant vers la reconnaissance d'une compétence partagée de l'UE en matière d'éducation, cette étude vise à révéler le fort potentiel de l'intervention de l'UE dans la gestion des nouveaux défis éducatifs mondiaux. Fondée sur un faisceau de compétences intriquées, l'action externe de l'UE dans le secteur éducatif est substantiellement plus ...

The present thesis is about cognitions of left-wing activists and the role they play to better understand contentious participation. It compares activists of three post-industrial social movement organizations in Switzerland, i.e. Solidarity across Borders defending migrant's rights, the Society of Threatened People promoting collective human rights and Greenpeace protecting the environment. It makes use of an innovative mixed methods design combining survey and interview data. The main theoretical contribution is to conceptualize an analytical tool enabling to grasp the cognitive map of these activists by putting forward the concept of strong citizen, summing up their relation to society and politics. The relation to society consists of an extensive relation to others and an interconnected vision of society. Consequently, their primary concerns include the handing of common goods and the equal treatment of individuals with regard to common goods. The relation to politics incorporates a critical and vigilant citizen. They are critical towards political authorities and they appreciate political action by organized groups of the civil society. The thesis states that only by having such worldviews activists are able to construct an injustice, agency and identity frame for the claims of their organizations. Thus, the present work delivers a parsimonious answer to the question of where an injustice, agency and identity frame comes from. It does so by a systematic analysis of four specific arguments. First, it empirically demonstrates that these activists have - at the aggregate level - specific cognitive resources compared to the general population. Second, it describes the content of this specific cognitive outlook by evaluating the appropriateness of the strong citizen concept. Third, it looks at variations between activist's communities and shows that activists of more challenging protest issues are stronger citizens than activists of more mainstream protests. Finally, cognitions are not the only part of the story ...

In 'Contentious Minds', Florence Passy and Gian-Andrea Monsch explain how cognitive and relational processes allow activists participate in and sustain their commitment to activism. Based on a wide array of survey and interview data with activists engaged in protest, volunteering and unions, they highlight how a commitment community develop shared values, identities, and meanings through interaction. Why does the mind matter for joint action? Contentious Minds is a comparative study of how cognitive and relational processes allow activists to sustain their commitment. With survey data and narratives of activists engaged in three commitment communities, the minds of activists involved in contentious politics are compared with those devoted to institutional and volunteering action. The book's main argument is that activists of one commitment community have synchronized minds concerning the aim and means of their activism as they perceive common good (aim) and politics (means) through similar cognitive lenses. The book shows the importance of direct conversational contact with individuals in bringing about this synchronization. Assessing the synchronization within communities as well as the variation between them constitutes a major purpose of this book. It shows that activists construct and enact community-specific democratic cultures, thereby entering the public sphere through collective action. The book makes three major contributions. First, it emphasizes the necessity to return the study of the mind to research on activism, Second, it calls for an integrated relational perspective that rests on the structural, instrumental, and interpretative dimensions of social networks. Finally, it advocates a substantial integration of culture in the study of social movements by effectively valuing the role of culture in shaping a person's mind.

Der Einsatz von mobilen IT-Geräten ist im Privat- und Arbeitsleben kaum mehr wegzudenken. Während früher eine klare Trennung zwischen privaten und dienstlichen IT-Geräten vorherrschte, verwischen diese Grenzen heute zunehmend. Immer mehr Arbeitnehmer möchten auf die Nutzung ihrer privaten Mobilgeräte am Arbeitsplatz nicht mehr verzichten, sondern private Kommunikation und dienstliche Aufgaben von einem einzigen Gerät aus erledigen. Diskutiert und zusammengefasst wird dieser Trend unter dem Schlagwort »Bring Your Own Device« (BYOD). -- Christine Monsch widmet sich der Problematik, welche rechtlichen Anforderungen eine BYOD-Konzeptionierung und deren Ausgestaltung notwendig zu erfüllen hat, um einen rechtswirksamen Einsatz der Privatgeräte im Unternehmen zu gewährleisten. Im Fokus stehen arbeitsrechtliche Aspekte, wie Kosten- und Haftungsfragen, arbeitszeitrechtliche Regelungen sowie die Mitbestimmungsrechte des Betriebsrats. Die Autorin analysiert darüber hinaus auch die Fülle an telekommunikations- und datenschutzrechtlichen Problemkreisen sowie die lizenz-, straf- und steuerrechtlichen Fragestellungen und unterbreitet Vorschläge für ein praxisgerechtes BYOD-Regelungswerk

We explore period, cohort and age effects on political engagement of Swiss residents from 1999 to 2020. A particular focus lies on the impact of the successive crises democratic societies have faced in recent years, such as the economic and debt crisis, refugee crisis, climate change, terrorist attacks or COVID-19 pandemic. We review the literature on the potential of such large-scale external events for both politicization and depoliticization. We then draw several hypotheses, which we test empirically. We consider several dimensions of political engagement (interest in politics, party identification, participation in popular votes, political discussions, and political trust), and seek to explain their variation over time, using data from the Swiss Household Panel. Our results suggest that "troubled times" have little effect on political engagement overall, but that crises stimulate political discussions and trust in government in the short term. We further find increasing levels of political trust in the longer run, which might reflect a cumulative effect of the various crises. In contrast, we find steadily declining levels of traditional forms of political engagement, namely party identification and participation in popular votes, as well as interest in politics. For cohorts, we find a U-shaped association between generations and political engagement. An exception to this pattern is political trust, where we observe a small but steady increase from older to newer generations. For age, we observed a monotonic increase of political engagement with age for all indicators. Again, trust in government somewhat deviates from other forms of political engagement, as it first decreases in the younger age groups and then increases from the age of 40 onwards. In conclusion, we discuss some implications of these complex patterns of results for the future of democratic systems.

In 2019, youth took to the street to express their fears and ambitions in relation to climate change. Alongside, many adult and senior citizens expressed their solidarity. While the media present environmental issues as being generationally dividing, we know little about potential differences between generations in terms of environmental attitudes. In this paper, we analyze data collected in the framework of street demonstrations in Switzerland and longitudinal data collected in the Swiss population. Our analyses of survey data on climate strike demonstrators in Switzerland show that while the early demonstrations attracted mostly youth, the age composition of climate strike demonstrators became more diverse over time increasingly including members of different generations. Furthermore, we explore how age differences evolved over the last 20 years using the Swiss Household Panel data. Our analyses show that the share of individuals who favor the environment over the economy is greater among younger generations and that the climate strike generation stands out with the largest share of pro-environmental attitudes. However, all generations have moved in parallel over the last twenty years following a non-linear but generally upward trend illustrating that the political context affects all generations. Overall, our analyses contribute to understanding incremental changes in public attitudes in the environmental area and the role played by generational renewal in these regards.

In 2019, youth took to the street to express their fears and ambitions in relation to climate change. Alongside, many adult and senior citizens expressed their solidarity. While the media present environmental issues as being generationally dividing, we know little about potential differences between generations in terms of environmental attitudes. In this paper, we analyze data collected in the framework of street demonstrations in Switzerland and longitudinal data collected in the Swiss population. Our analyses of survey data on climate strike demonstrators in Switzerland show that while the early demonstrations attracted mostly youth, the age composition of climate strike demonstrators became more diverse over time increasingly including members of different generations. Furthermore, we explore how age differences evolved over the last 20 years using the Swiss Household Panel data. Our analyses show that the share of individuals who favor the environment over the economy is greater among younger generations and that the climate strike generation stands out with the largest share of pro-environmental attitudes. However, all generations have moved in parallel over the last twenty years following a non-linear but generally upward trend illustrating that the political context affects all generations. Overall, our analyses contribute to understanding incremental changes in public attitudes in the environmental area and the role played by generational renewal in these regards.

Abstract
Using the Swiss Household Panel, we examine whether experiencing relationship dissolution, unemployment, or a health crisis increases support for the Swiss People's Party (SVP). Fixed effects models shows this to be the case. Changes in financial resources, attitudes or trust in the government cannot explain this effect. Finally, we test whether increased support for the SVP following these events is more likely among individuals with lower trust and income levels and with views similar of those of the SVP. We find that individuals with traditional gender values are more likely to support the SVP after separation.

With combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) life expectancy of HIV‐infected persons is close to the one of non‐infected persons. Identifying neurocognitive deficits in ageing HIV‐infected individuals is important. This study aimed to evaluate the acceptability of screening neurocognitive deficits in HIV‐infected patients. Thirty patients (26 men, 4 women) from the HIV clinic were examined with a new screening test and an in‐depth neuropsychological examination. The screening tests consisted of questions and examinations on cognition in everyday situations, mood and selected cognitive functions (word list memory, grooved pegboard, psychomotor speed, trail‐making test, psychomotor speed and executive functions, digit symbol test). Also, patients received a questionnaire to evaluate test acceptance. The mean age of the patients was 52.5 (30–74) years, mean education 12.5 (8–18) years. Seven patients had HIV‐stage CDC A, 12 B and 11 CDC stage C. The mean CD4 count was 657 cells/µl, the mean HIV viral load<20 cop./µl. All patients were treated with cART (7 with efavirenz). The screening test was done assisted by a nurse and lasted 26 minutes (mean). The screening indicated pathological signs of neurocognitive function in 11 (42%) patients. The in‐depth neuropsychological assessment revealed pathological conditions in 25 (83%) of patients; i.e. 16 (53%) patients had ANI (asymptomatic neurocognitive impairment), 8 (27%) had MND (mild neurocognitive disorder) and 1 (3%) had HAD (HIV‐associated dementia). Most patients (43.3%) judged the test as not too difficult and 56.6% as partly difficult. 96.6% of patients viewed the instructions of nurses as clear, 3.3% as unclear. 93.3% felt the test has not affected privacy and 83.3% estimated the screening as valuable and not worriesome. 83.4% of all patients were interested in their results and for none of the patients the test was too long. The test acceptability by the study nurses was also good. Only in 3.4% of tested persons they judged the test as too difficult for the patient. In 86.7% of tests they estimated the screening as valuable and in again 86.7% as not worrisome. For none of the nurses the test duration was too long. Only 16.6% of the patients had a completely normal neurocognitive testing. A short screening test lasting less than half an hour to search neurocognitive disorders assisted by a nurse is widely accepted by patients and nurses.