2010 Cilt 3 Sayı 1

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  • ItemOpen Access
    The roots of research in (political) persuasion: Ethos, pathos, logos and the Yale studies of persuasive communications
    (Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2010) Demirdöğen, Ülkü D.
    In ancient Greece, Aristotle claimed in his Rhetoric that the function of rhetoric was not to persuade, but to discover the means of persuasion in each case. It is remarkable how the empirical approach towards persuasion embedded in ‘ethos, pathos, logos’ of Aristotle seems to be revisited by the Yale study group in 1950s, with the aim of discovering the laws of persuasive communications in laboratory settings. The contemporary quest carried out by the Yale research program on persuasion reflects the Aristotelean tradition of examining ‘the ethos, pathos and logos’ aspects of persuasion closely. This article aims to draw the reader’s attention to this strong influence of Aristotle’s perspective on the Yale research group. Adopting a learning theory approach, the Yale study group, led by psychologist Carl Hovland, tried to find out the stimulus-response effects of many variables concerning persuasion and thus paved the way for more elaborate research in persuasion in the years to come. The characteristics of the elements of persuasion, which have been studied by the Yale research group, are explained in this article by giving examples from their experimental research. The major contribution of Hovland and his colleagues has been the specification of an initial set of characteristics to understand the principles and processes of persuasion. Since persuasion is an important dimension of politics in general and negotiation/conflict resolution in particular, the tradition of studying (political) rhetoric deserves the attention of disciplines like political science and international relations as well.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Social capital in the presence of market failures
    (Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2010) Lopez-Rodriguez, Patricia; Garcia, Rodolfo De la Torre
    In Mexico, social capital is used to get resources. People who do not have access to formal markets use their networks to acquire public and financing services, social insurance and social benefits. To test this, social capital indicators were built using the resources supplied by people as a proportion of their income. This measure is theoretically related to a sympathy coefficient that represents the degree to which a person joins another´s welfare in its utility function, leading him to share resources with others. Synthetic panels with population cohorts were elaborated to follow population throughout the time. To correct a spurious regression problem, the cointegration-panel method was used. As a result, variables that reflect failures in financial, health and social insurance markets are associated to bonding and bridging social capital indicators. Thus, adjustments in these markets could be explained by social capital variables additionally to market prices mechanisms.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The role of social capital in reducing negative health outcomes among police officers
    (Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2010) Gachter, Martin; Savage, David A.; Torgler, Benno
    This paper investigates the role of social capital on the reduction of short and long run negative health effects associated with stress, as well as indicators of burnout among police officers. Despite the large volume of research on either social capital or the health effects of stress, the interaction of these factors remains an underexplored topic. In this empirical analysis we aim to reduce such a shortcoming focusing on a highly stressful and emotionally draining work environment, namely law enforcement agents who perform as an essential part of maintaining modern society. Using a multivariate regression analysis focusing on three different proxies of health and three proxies for social capital conducting also several robustness checks, we find strong evidence that increased levels of social capital is highly correlated with better health outcomes. Additionally we observe that while social capital at work is very important, social capital in the home environment and work-life balance are even more important. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest that work and stress programs should actively encourage employees to build stronger social networks as well as incorporate better working/home life arrangements.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Social capital and persistent criminal behavior an empirical test of the reciprocal relationships
    (Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2010) Xu, Qiang
    Criminological research has identified both stability and change in criminal behavior over time. While most youth mature out of delinquency in their late teens and early adulthood, there is a small group of individuals whose criminal behavior persist into young adulthood and beyond, oftentimes increasing in both frequency and seriousness. Criminologists are confronted with the question of why some youth continue their criminal offending over time, when the majority of their peers have made the transition to conformity. This is a critical question not only because it leads to the discovery of protective factors, but also because it points to risk factors for recidivism and persistent offending. While individual factors such as biological, psychological characteristics are important to consider, social capital such as family relationships, peer networks and opportunities for a conventional life are essential for us to evaluate in order to explain stability and change in criminal behavior over time. Although prior research has shown that prior delinquency is a stable predictor of future delinquency, the intervening mechanism of this linkage has not been adequately studied. It is not clear to what extent prior delinquency and important social capital variables, such as relationships with family and friends, are related to criminal behavior in adolescence and adulthood. Furthermore, most of the previous longitudinal research are based on samples of “average” or “typical” offenders and thus fails to study serious offenders who, arguably, may be more like to continue or even escalate their antisocial involvement as they enter adulthood. Consequently, previous research findings may not be generalized to the small group of persistent and serious offenders who are known to be responsible for most crime in general, and most serious crime in particular (Moffitt, 1997, Hagan, 1993).
  • ItemOpen Access
    Small is beautiful: Can formation of social capital able facilitate rural and urban development policies in terms of sustainable corporate and community social responsibility initiatives?
    (Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2010) Maiti, Prasenjit
    This paper makes an attempt to explore future roadmaps of research in the happening areas of community development strategies facilitated by the formation of an enabling environment of social capital and underpinned by both corporate citizenship and social entrepreneurial endeavors on the part of third sector i.e. civil societal actors. How can the body civil emerge from our public sphere in order to critically negotiate with the state (body politic) and the market (body economic) is a principal concern of this paper. Our central argument hinges upon the assumption that greater cooperation and informed consent can only work towards a larger consensus of interests that is again a macrocosm of individual worldviews and organically motivated profiteering ventures. From the beautiful small to the even more fascinating larger social entity of the collective social arrangement is an ongoing journey that can be further catalyzed by an optimum mix of the self and the other.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Is immigration detrimental for social trust in the European Union? A three-level model of cultural heterogeneity and citizenship regime as social capital predictors
    (Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2010) Lupo, Giampiero
    This paper deals with the effects of citizenship regimes on the relationship between immigration and social capital, in the European Union. The study questions previous researches that reported a negative effect of immigration on social capital without taking into account contextual factors, like citizenship regimes, that may affect the interconnections between the two variables. The implementation of a Three-level Model, analyzing Eurobarometer and Eurostat datasets and crossing individual, national and citizenship regime’s levels of analysis, permits to report two notable results: first, immigration is not always detrimental for social trust; second, more integrative citizenship regimes alleviate the negative effects of immigration on social trust. These findings suggest that creating a legislative environment that facilitates the inclusion of different ethnic groups into the society in order to avoid the worst consequences of ethnic heterogeneity, like isolation, clashes and a decline in social trust should be of great importance to policy-makers.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The causal nexus between social capital and local development in mountain rural Greece
    (Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2010) Karametou, Panagiota; Constantine, Apostolopoulos
    The primary aim of this paper is to analyze the components of individual social capital in two rural mountain areas in Greece. The paper also aims to develop an empirical model to investigate the causal relationship between social capital‟s different dimensions and the “quality” of local socio-economic development in Greece‟s rural mountain areas. Due to the complex nature of the social capital concept, the scope of inquiry was based on two different case study areas, in order to enable a more compelling and robust interpretation of the information collected. A questionnaire containing 100 items was administered to approximately 318 citizens in these areas. Our results overall indicate a significant influence by the strength of family ties on the nature of social capital and socio-economic outcomes in Greek rural areas.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The impact of social policy on social trust: Decommodification and stratification according to Esping-Andersen’s welfare regime typology
    (Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2010) Tamilina, Larysa
    The main interest of this research consists of introducing an outcome spectrum in studying the welfare state-trust nexus. The latter can be obtained by decomposing Esping-Andersen’s welfare regime typology and directly evaluating the effects of decommodification and stratification on trust indexes. The expectation is formulated on the premise of the traditional crowding-out hypothesis which assumes that as the welfare state develops, trust levels decline. The hypothesis is checked based on a cross-sectional analysis for a set of 18 OECD countries while using a multi-level modeling as the main research method. The results obtained permit to reject the crowding-out hypothesis and infer that welfare states may enhance trust formation.