This paper examines existing methods of evaluating sample quality, showing that their practical utility and applicability to large-scale cross-project comparisons depends on whether they require auxiliary individual-level data. Among those methods that do not demand any such additional data, we differentiate between two approaches that rely on (i) external criteria, that is, comparisons of sample estimates to benchmarks derived from external population statistics, and (ii) internal criteria, that is, comparisons of subsample estimates to a theoretically derived aprioristic value. Our analyses demonstrate the advantages and limitations of both approaches based on an evaluation of 1,125 national surveys carried out in Europe between 2002 and 2016 within four survey projects: the Eurobarometer, European Quality of Life Survey, European Social Survey, and International Social Survey Programme. We show that the prevailing absence of design weights in cross-national survey datasets severely limits the applicability of external criteria evaluations. In contrast, using internal criteria without any weights proves acceptable because incorporating design weights in calculations of internal sample quality has only minor consequences for estimates of sample bias. Furthermore, applying internal criteria, we find that around 75 percent of samples in the four analyzed projects are not significantly biased. We also identify surveys with extremely high sample bias and investigate its potential sources. The paper concludes with recommendations regarding future research, which are directed at secondary data users, as well as producers of cross-national surveys.
1In the summer of 2015 the tensions over managing external immigration into the European Union morphed into a full-blown crisis. Political and social reactions towards the Balkan Route emergency exposed major divisions between EU member states. Notably, the Visegrád Group (V4) countries, i.e. Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, stood out as a block united by governmental opposition to immigration. This political unity of countries should not be interpreted, however, as certain proof for an underlying convergence of social attitudes to migration. This paper examines the impact of the crisis on the V4 public opinion on the basis of crosscountry surveys, with special attention afforded to a comparative analysis of European Social Survey waves 7 (2014) and 8 (2016). General Linear Modelling is used to test two hypotheses concerning the linkage between opposition to immigration and normative orientations in Czechia, Hungary and Poland (with Slovakia missing from ESS7 and ESS8). We demonstrate that adherence to the values of Universalism corelates with lower levels of opposition to immigration, which had been the case prior to the 2015 crisis and has mostly remained true thereafter. When it comes to respondents expressing value-based concerns with Security, they are more likely to voice more negative opinions about immigration after the crisis, although no such association held in 2014 measurements. We postulate that this public opinion shift should be interpreted as an effect of the strong securitisation of the immigration debate in the V4 countries.
Abstract:The paper examines the continuing viability of the critique of methodological nationalism in the context of recent resurgence of nationalist sentiments across western liberal democracies. Using the distinction between first and second modernity, it shows how cosmopolitan social theorising can actually be seen as predictive of some of the effects that nationalist populism has enjoyed in the context of the post-2008 series of crises. The discussion is mostly focused on the challenge the current political dynamics poses to the weak forms of social integration underpinning the project of European supra-national unification.Keywords: cosmopolitanism; nationalism; modernity; Ulrich Beck; Jonathan Heidt.Juxtaposition of cosmopolitanism with nationalism has recently been moved from the realm over theoretical consideration to the forefront of political challenges faced by western liberal democracies in the post-financial crisis era. For quite a while, most observers were focused on the difficulties involved in forging a unity of purpose among the disparate societies participating in the project in European integration and, yet, instead of becoming have a closer falling into ever more acrimonious disunion under conditions of lender-imposed economic austerity. The never-ending recriminations over possible "exists", and the actual reality of the vote for Brexit, brought back to the fore open discourse of national interests and resentments of the European Union member states. Not only was the openly nationalist talk of us against them back in a way not seen before, but also it happened to be underpinned by the political dynamic of the resurgent nationalist political parties all over the continent. In fact, this time round not even the usually robust institutions of German political mainstream succeeded in facing off the rising Alternative fur Deutschland. However, most shocking of all -both due to the largely unexpected nature of the event and the still unpredictable magnitude -a nativist, nationalist and unilateralist surge brought down the floodgates of Washington. Throughout the protracted 2016 presidential campaign, the problem of America-first populism was seen as a major challenge that the incoming administration would be forced to somehow deal with, but few in any serious pundits or analysts considered the possibility that this populism would actually be
Streszczenie: Elektroniczna i elektryczna muzyka wschodnioafrykańska jest dynamicznym zjawiskiem kształtującym się w przepływach nowoczesnych technologii, estetyk, znaczeń i praktyk. Przepływy te łączą lokalne grupy muzyków-w tym przypadku z Malawi i Tanzanii-z wirtualnymi przestrzeniami, wyobrażoną przeszłością czy boskością. Artykuł proponuje przy tym odwrócenie figury perspektywy na rzecz koncepcji głosów w większym stopniu oddającej dynamiczny charakter społecznego krążenia dźwięku. Przykładem takiej cyrkulacji jest zapośredniczona przez nagrania z rhumbą, salsą i calypso relacja z afro-amerykańskimi i afro-latynoskimi diasporami, czy późniejszy sukces medialny muzyki hip-hop. Na przykładzie remiksowania i nagłaśniania, czyli praktyk związanych ze współczesnym wykonywaniem i odbiorem muzyki, dyskutowana jest relacja pomiędzy globalnymi przepływami a lokalnym praktykowaniem tożsamości społecznych poprzez dźwięk.
The changing social reality, which is increasingly digitally networked, requires new research methods capable of analysing large bodies of data (including textual data). This development poses a challenge for sociology, whose ambition is primarily to describe and explain social reality. As traditional sociological research methods focus on analysing relatively small data, the existential challenge of today involves the need to embrace new methods and techniques, which enable valuable insights into big volumes of data at speed. One such emerging area of investigation involves the application of Natural Language Processing and Machine-Learning to text mining, which allows for swift analyses of vast bodies of textual content. The paper’s main aim is to probe whether such a novel approach, namely, topic modelling based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm, can find meaningful applications within sociology and whether its adaptation makes sociology perform its tasks better. In order to outline the context of the applicability of LDA in the social sciences and humanities, an analysis of abstracts of articles published in journals indexed in Elsevier’s Scopus database on topic modelling was conducted. This study, based on 1,149 abstracts, showed not only the diversity of topics undertaken by researchers but helped to answer the question of whether sociology using topic modelling is “good” sociology in the sense that it provides opportunities for exploration of topic areas and data that would not otherwise be undertaken.
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