Migration as a factor of social innovation and development: the case of Romanian migration to Italy

Economic research is currently focusing on the role of social capital in the development process and particularly on the role of social capital and social networks in migration flows in a social development perspective. The main questions our research is trying to address are as follows: which are the major constraints in migration processes affecting the integration process of migrants? Do social capital or social networks play a role? Which is the integration model developed at European level? In order to address these questions we are focusing on a specific case study: the Romanian migration process in Italy and particularly in the area of Rome.

Social solidarity in times of crisis

Beside the action of some objective causes, of economic or demographic nature, the structural deficiencies of the state budget, of the health system and of the pension system, are also the product of the action of some social and political mechanisms from the perspective of a selected model of social justice. The people are less willing to pay taxes and dues as long as they do not accept as satisfactory the way they benefit from these taxes. Considering the social justice’s perspective the issue is that some may react like this, others, in my opinion – a minority, may not and the last ones become the absolute looser of this social inequity generator system. My hypotheses is that this system is validated and protected by constructing a meta-ideological social definition of social solidarity, that states that certain social categories, not necessarily the most disadvantaged ones, having elective power, have less obligations and more rights comparing to others that for same social needs have more obligations and less rights. To be precise – in the public speech the pensioners are discriminated positively in general, not only those with low pension, comparing to the employees in general, not only those with high salaries (see the recent decision of the Constitutional Court), the inhabitants of rural environment, in general, not only those with serious social problems, the people living in block of flats comparing to those living in houses etc. Hence, I consider that the moral crisis is the main cause of all the other crises – economic, social and politic. This moral crisis will be analyzed on two dimensions: social justice and how a certain model of social justice is, on the one side assumed, and on the other side accepted; the social solidarity that in its new shape may become the initiator of a mechanism promoting an alternative model of social justice that also produces effects by increasing social inequity and injustice.

European rules and their impact on human rights in the Romanian legal systems. Case study

Through this work we aimed to analyze whether and to what extent, Romania, as a state signatory to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms has fulfilled the two natural requirements arising from is capacity of contracting state, namely:
a) if it implemented in its national legislation the European rules on human rights and;
b) if it ensures their effective observance within the judicial work of the State.
Concerning the first requirement, we can notice that Romania has aligned its legislation on human rights both by their inclusion in its Constitution and by enactment of general or special laws in this area. However, the European Court of Human Rights hasn’t effectively condemned Romania for lack of legislation, but especially for infringement of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the enforcement process. With respect to the second issue, as from the analysis on several cases decided by the European Court of Human Rights, with reference to the constitutional review carried out by the Constitutional Court of Romania, it results that in the judicial practice we can still find violations of rules on human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Webbloging: who, what and why

We live in a modern fast‐changing world and every sector of life has modified in order to better adapt to this situation. Social interaction is no exception. With the birth of the internet, hundreds of millions of people have begun to form online communities and to interact by means of this new media. One of the most popular form of online means of interaction is blogging. This paper seeks to shed some light upon this word that seems to be on everybody’s lips nowadays, “blog”, upon the characteristics of the ones who use it and the motives they have for doing so, the benefits they can obtain from this activity. Like many new phenomena, blogging is a controversial subject. While some believe it to be “the fifth estate”, others don’t think of it as being much more than a public journal, a place of pointless chit‐chat. Wherever the truth may lie, one can not ignore the rapid growth of the international bloggosphere and the massive numbers of people involved in it. That is why this paper is a plea for social scientists not to overlook or take lightly (as they have done so far) a growing phenomenon that has become a part of so many lives and which, by sheer accessibility, might ultimately write an important chapter in social interaction as we know it.

The common point of active cohabitation

The paper is an attempt to identify the issues meant to facilitate and intensify the intercultural dialogue, appreciated by the author as being the most fruitful way to build both a world and an intercultural cohabitation. The final result of such ample, sinuous and difficult process is, in the author’s conscience, a social and cultural space that he calls a common space of active  cohabitation. The author’s hypothesis is that what we call the “socio-cultural identity” of the Romanian nation (as a part of the European and universal diversity) can only be the result of the life and activity of all the participants to the act of living together; the author endeavours (wants) to convince the others that the Rroma people also had a valuable contribution to this act. The lack of documents and other reliable sources determines the author to go to the collective memory or other sources, from which he deduces ideas and induces assertions that make this paper a debatable, even disputable one, in fact, a serious invitation to deeper researches, studies, investigations and common reflections, without prejudice. Their outcome would be the objective way towards truth and profound knowledge, without false amiabilities.

Ecologic modernization as relationship between technological and social innovation: a hypothesis about ecologic consumption

This article deals with the relationship between social and technological innovations in the area of environmental protection. The theoretical question is whether some social innovations can be interpreted as innovative responses to former technological and economic innovations, especially to the deleterious effects of the latter. In other words, social innovation can be seen as having a corrective function in relation to those economic and technical processes which have yielded, over time, negative social outcomes. Green consumption, conceived as a form of consumption aimed at preventing the effects of environmental toxins on one’s body, can be seen as a innovative response to the problems of environmental health.

The Romanian-Chinese seminar on social and economic development

The Romanian Academy received in June 2009 the visit of an official delegation of the Chinese Academy in social sciences. The visit set the scene for discussing the Impact of the economical crisis. The Chinese and Romanian experts presented their findings. Due to the importance of the data they presented, we selected one of the two papers: internal migration and the evolution of the middle class and we present it below.

Europenisation of corporate social responsibility in a society with modernity tendency

The paper analyses the CSR in the context of Europeanization of Romanian society, a society characterized by tendentious modernity. The first part of the paper analyzes the CSR in Romanian society. CSR is present in Romanian business society, but the multinational corporations really posses the necessary abilities. CSR has been imposed basically rather as a fashion, than as a result of a real need of Romanian society. In the second part I study the RSC in relation with capitalist evolution in evoluția Romania. The capitalism is re‐invented in the context of the post‐communist Romania. This type of capitalism is the outcome of privatization which has been regulated through legal proceedings and not as a consequence of organic historical and social evolution structure.  I n the third section I analyze the tendentious modernity as a type of evolution towards norms and principles of modernity. The fundamental problem of tendentious modernity is the degree and level of the extension of modernity in society. In countries characterized by tendentious modernity only part of minority groups, of elites, supports the values of modernity and takes advantage of them. In return, the larger population is only superficially touched by modernity and continues to live in the spirit of ancient values. In a tendentious modernity society, modernity is a trend, which coexists with obsolete institutional forms. Tendentious modernity penetrates slowly and painfully through the complicated network of socio‐institutional structures of the traditional, patriarchal society.  There is a discrepancy between the European CSR and the CSR applied in Romania. The alignment of CSR to the domestic needs depends on the level of Europeanization of Romanian society, which could be measured in terms of the degree of compatibility between the interests of multinational corporations and the social and institutional Romanian Europeanized structures.

Estimating an equivalence scale for Romania

Calculating the poverty rate, determining eligibility for social welfare benefits or any other analysis of the well‐being of families or households results in the transformation of these persons (rather than from the perspective of the size or structure of the family unit) into comparable families /households formed from so‐ called “equivalent adults”. This transformation is made with the help of equivalence scalesUnder the chosen equivalency scale, large households are “pushed” into poverty if an abrupt scale is used, similarly with smaller households if the scale is too straight. Which equivalence scales are most used? Under what circumstances does this scale correspond to the actual usage in our country’s households? Should different percentages be applied for children, elders, different genders or residential environment? Does the equivalency scale change over time? Here are a few questions we have tried to answer, while estimating an equivalency scale which reflects the actual behavior of our country’s households regarding consumption.