European Socialist Research Articles

P753Exercise has similar beneficial effect in the mobilization of endothelial progenitor cells in patients with chronic heart failure of different severity

Abstract Introduction Vascular endothelial dysfunction is an underlying pathophysiological feature of chronic heart failure (CHF). Exercise has been shown to stimulate the mobilization of endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) in healthy populations. EPC contribute to the regeneration of the inflammatory endothelium and promote neovascularization. Purpose The purpose of the present study was to investigate the mobilization of EPC between CHF patients with different severity after a 36-session exercise training program. Methods Thirty eight consecutive patients (32 ♂, 6 ♀) with stable CHF [mean±SD, age (years): 56±10, EF (%): 32±9, peak VO2 (ml/kg/min): 18.1±4.1] enrolled a 36-session exercise training program. All patients underwent a symptom limited maximal cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) on a cycle ergometer before and after the training program. Venous blood was sampled before and after each CPET. Five endothelial circulating populations were quantified by flow cytometry (Table 1). Patients were divided in severity groups according to the median values of peak VO2, predicted peak VO2, VE/VCO2 slope and EF. EPC values are expressed as “cells/million enucleated cells” in medians (25th, 75th percentiles). Results In all patients, rehabilitation showed a statistical significant effect as well as a significant acute effect in all endothelial circulating populations (p<0.001). Although there was statistical significant mobilization of endothelial circulating populations within each severity group (groups separated by peak VO2), no differences were observed between groups (p>0.05, Table 1). Similar results were also shown for the rest of CPET parameters and EF. Cellular populations in severity groups Endothelial cellular populations Peak VO2 <18 ml/kg/min Peak VO2 ≥18 ml/kg/min Before rehabilitation After rehabilitation Before rehabilitation After rehabilitation Before CPET After CPET Before CPET After CPET Before CPET After CPET Before CPET After CPET CD34+/CD45–/CD133+ 54 (24–74) 90 (40–104)* 96 (54–120) 154 (100–169)* 37 (16–66) 60 (33–93)* 79 (46–106) 122 (96–159)* CD34+/CD45–/CD133+/VEGFR2 1 (1–3) 3 (2–8)* 8 (4–9) 14 (10–19)* 2 (1–3) 4 (3–8)* 5 (4–7) 13 (9–16)* CD34+/CD133+/VEGFR2 13 (8–18) 13 (9–25) 22 (16–31) 27 (14–38) 10 (7–19) 14 (9–20)** 16 (13–37) 22 (15–62)** CD34+/CD45–/CD133– 186 (131–368) 494 (202–640)* 431 (301–564) 738 (590–921)* 214 (150–270) 306 (233–575)* 434 (277–835) 740 (524–1588)* CD34+/CD45–/CD133–/VEGFR2 2 (1–2) 3 (2–5)* 4 (3–5) 10 (9–14)* 1 (1–1) 3 (2–5)* 4 (2–8) 9 (7–12)* Differences within groups *p<0.001, **p<0.05. Conclusion A 36-session training program stimulates the long term mobilization of EPC in CHF patients. This mobilization seems to be similar in all patients irrespective of their severity. The clinical relevance of these findings and the potential mechanisms need further investigation. Acknowledgement/Funding Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund-ESF) through the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development, Education, Lifelong Learning”

Paternalistic internationalism and (de)colonial practices of Cold War higher education exchange: Bulgaria's connections with Cuba and Angola

This article presents the findings of an archival study on the Cold War higher education (HE) exchange between Bulgaria and Cuba and Angola carried out at the Open Society Archive. Although research on the internationalization of HE mostly focuses on the introduction of new managerial governance and global rankings, scholars studying socialist countries mostly address the intricacies of student exchange. Focusing on policy transfer and expert exchange, I discuss both limitations of the framing of the subject in both Western liberal and socialist official sources and the asymmetries of the exchange between socialist countries. Exploring the exchanges between Bulgaria and Cuba and Bulgarian and Angola, my case study shows that East European socialist countries based their cooperation with developing countries in the Global South on the premise of the dominance of Eurocentric knowledge and extractivist practices in return for knowledge and technology.

Outfoxing the Eagle: Soviet, East European and Cuban Involvement in Nicaragua in the 1980s

This paper examines the relations of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the East European socialist states with Nicaragua from Anastasio Somoza's removal in July 1979 until Violeta Chamorro's election victory in February 1990, using a wide array of original documents, collected from Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, German and Czech diplomatic, party and security services archives. It delves deeply into the motivations behind the Kremlin's circumscribed approach, attempting to break new ground by looking in detail at Moscow's communication and coordination with its East European allies and Cuba, aimed at supporting Managua without risking major confrontation with Washington. This research aims to contribute to the existing historiography by looking not only at the motivations behind Soviet and Eastern Bloc involvement, but also by taking into account the circumstances preventing Moscow and its allies from developing more comprehensive political and economic relations with the Sandinista regime.

Putting \u2018political\u2019 back in political trust: an IRT test of the unidimensionality and cross-national equivalence of political trust measures

Much research intro political trust—its causes, correlates and trends—builds on the twin assumptions that trust in a wide range of political institutions is ultimately an expression of (1) a singular and (2) a cross-nationally equivalent underlying attitude. Yet, the widespread assumptions of unidimensionality and cross-national equivalence of political trust is at odds with the dominant conceptual understanding of political trust as a relational concept, driven by subjects, objects, and their interplay. This paper employs Rasch modelling as a direct, strict test of unidimensionality, equivalence and item hierarchy. We test the fit of the Rasch model on political trust items in seven widely used, cross-national surveys (World Values Survey, Afrobarometer, Arabbarometer, Asian Barometer, Eurobarometer, European Social Survey, and Latinobarometro), covering 161 national surveys in 119 countries across the globe. We find that the unidimensional specification of the Rasch model does not fit the standard political trust question batteries. Political trust is not cross-nationally equivalent; trust in specific political institutions is more than a mere indicator of an underlying attitude. This conclusion does not impede cross-national research into political trust; rather it illustrates the need for consistent robustness checks across a range of objects of political trust. Our findings open up new venues for substantive research questions on specific objects of political trust and their relationships.

Possibilities and Limits of Southern European Socialism in the Iberian Peninsula: French, Portuguese and Spanish Socialists in the mid-1970s

AbstractThis article discusses the relations between the French, Portuguese and Spanish socialist parties during the transitions to democracy in the Iberian Peninsula (1974–7). It focuses on the attempt of these parties to establish a distinctive ideological trend, Southern European socialism. The main argument is that the French socialists attempted to promote their ideological line – and predominantly the union between socialists and communists – in the Iberian Peninsula during the transitions to democracy. The Portuguese Socialist Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party initially considered following this line. However, the radicalisation of the Portuguese revolution in the sensitive context of Cold War détente, as well as the involvement of the European social democrats in both Portugal and Spain against the union of the left, prevented this model from being further considered by the Spanish and Portuguese socialist parties. Nevertheless, all these parties showed interest in promoting a common Southern European Socialist identity that differed from European social democracy as well as from Soviet communism, considering it useful in the struggle for hegemony within the left.

The Case of Milovan Djilas and the European Socialists 1954-1958

The Case of Milovan Djilas and the European Socialists 1954-1958

Living wages in international and European law

A number of countries worldwide provide for a statutory minimum wage. Generally speaking, however, it is not a living wage, although the right to a living wage is guaranteed in a variety of agreements under both international and European law. The Council of Europe’s European Social Charter (ESC), for example, codifies a living wage and, according to the case-law of its supervisory body, the level of 60 per cent of the net average wage is to be taken as the basis for appropriate remuneration. This article argues that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also incorporates the right to a living wage, which should be at least 60 per cent of the net average wage. The Charter is legally binding for EU institutions, agencies and other bodies. Member States are bound only to the extent that the material scope of the relevant EU laws has been opened, which is the case when EU law is implemented or when obligations arising out of specific Union legislation are required for the relevant subject area, as will be explained in the article. In purely national situations nevertheless, values laid down in international law have to be observed when interpreting national laws.

Why is there no Socialism in Europe? The Technocratic Neoliberal turn in European Economics

The neoliberal turn in European economics was not largely the work of economists, but of technocrats in finance ministries and central banks. Governments accepted their lead, responding to the loss of relative power to electorates and to organized labor. Politicians sought solutions to problems of economic management arising from the end of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates and from the Oil Crises of the 1970s. But in siding with technocrats informed by monetarist and neoliberal economists’ arguments, and in ceding to central bankers especially control of economic policy and EU negotiations over the Euro, politicians opened the door to increased power in the hands of mobile capital allied with technocrats in Finance Ministries and Central Banks. The most that can be said of economists as a profession is that they went along for the ride, happy with a new situation that celebrated their importance as consliglieri to the powerful.

Was there an alternative? European socialists facing capitalism in the long 1970s

ABSTRACT This article examines Western European socialists’ attempt to assert a ‘socialist alternative’ to a crumbling world order during the long 1970s. In Western Europe, the 1968 uprisings inaugurated a decade of intense social contestation, which coincided with the heyday of social democracy and, arguably, with a new leftward tendency within the socialist milieu. The ‘crisis’ of the long 1970s – with its multiple economic, energy social, political, international and cultural facets – challenged the foundations of the ‘post-war consensus’ and to some extent pushed socialists to question their commitment to capitalism. This article explores the period of consolidation and renewal that Western European social democracy experienced during the early 1970s, their increasing confidence that they could use the European Community as a tool to realize democratic socialism, the attempt to formulate a common socialist alternative for Europe, the leftward tendency that was characterizing European socialists at the time and even their hope (at least for some of them) to surpass capitalism. Focusing on the attempt of the socialist parties of the EC to adopt a common European socialist programme in view of the first direct elections of the European Parliament, it argues that despite their divergences, European socialists did thoroughly discuss and envisage an alternative to capitalism at a European and global level during the 1970s, an option that was abandoned by the 1980s. Abbreviation: European Community=EC; European Parliament=EP

Civil Islam Revisited

The 1989 collapse of state socialism in Europe ushered in a wave of political democratisation and economic liberalisation that quickly spread from Eastern and Central Europe to the Soviet Union. Ob...

Strengthening Friendship and Fraternal Solidarity: Soviet Youth Tourism to Eastern Europe under Khrushchev and Brezhnev

The three decades following Stalin’s death in 1953 witnessed a dramatic expansion in Soviet tourism to the other countries of the European socialist bloc. Youth tourism in particular was an important feature of efforts to build friendlier and more durable links with the satellite states at the grassroots level. However, the prospects for long-term success in this endeavour were continually hampered by Soviet concerns about the dangers of interaction, and as the years passed, the economic benefits of tourist travel rather than the initial goal of building solidarity were accorded priority.

State Socialist Endeavours for the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to International Crimes: Historical Roots and Current Implications

Abstract This article analyses the role of Eastern European socialist governments and legal experts in encoding the non-applicability of statutory limitations to international crimes. It argues that socialist elites put this topic on the agenda of the international community in the 1960s through two interrelated processes. On the one hand, legal scholars cooperated with Western European lawyers in order to enforce the idea that the international crimes codified by the Nuremberg Charter should not be subject to prescription. On the other hand, Eastern European governments proposed and enabled – through their cooperation with African and Asian states – the adoption of the 1968 UN Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, this instrument became an important tool for advancing prosecutions of international crimes committed under dictatorships and violent conflicts, particularly in Central Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Influence of Strain on Dynamic Viscoelastic Properties of Swelled (H2o) And Biomineralized (Caco3) Pvp-Cmc Hydrogels

Operational Programme Research and Development for Innovation; European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); national budget of Czech Republic [CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0111]; Operational Programme Education for Competitiveness; European Social Fund (ESF); national budget of the Czech Republic, within the Advanced Theoretical and Experimental Studies of Polymer Systems project [CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0104]

Book review: The European Union and Social Security Law, by Jaan Paju. (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017)

Book review: <i>The European Union and Social Security Law</i>, by Jaan Paju. (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017)

The impact of technology on access to law and the concomitant repercussions: past, present, and the future (from the 1980s to present time)

Abstract That technology increasingly impacts everything that is linked to law—from access to law, legal education, the services provided by the legal industry, and, increasingly, even adjudication (in-court or via alternative dispute resolution)—is a fact. The role that technology plays in these contexts varies, yet one may safely presume that the influence will intensify. In order to reflect on the future, this article canvasses and tries to draw some conclusions based on the comparison of accessibility to foreign and local law in the hard copy versus the digital and Internet-based, as well as the recently unfolding era of algorithms. The examples range from the curious encounter of Central and Eastern European socialist enterprises and law students with punitive damages and strict tortious liability known in the USA through the most recent launching of the first transnational letter of credit transaction exploiting blockchain technology. The advancements generated by technology advancements in these three stages are then reflected upon primarily from the perspectives of (i) researchers and lecturers of law as well as legal education; (ii) company boards and managements (especially foreign market-oriented business firms) formulating their business policies; and (iii) regulators as well as law and policy-makers. The article concludes with thoughts on the broader implications of enhanced access to law. In particular, it posits that technology has made the shift from ‘mechanical’ to ‘analytic access to law’ possible. Yet it also raises the more fundamental question of whether the advancements denote, and the selected examples properly illustrate, that a more fundamental shift is unfolding: a shift from governance by law to governance by technology?

International public opinion surveys and public policy in Southern European democracies

AbstractThis article aims to analyse the presence of and relationship between the most relevant comparative social research thorough international surveys and public policies reflected in the different official bulletins or gazettes of the countries of southern Europe, specifically Spain, Portugal and Italy. Following a consideration of the process of globalisation of research through surveys, four surveys were selected (Eurobarometer, World Values Survey, International Social Survey Programme, European Social Survey). The complex relationships between public opinion and public policy were also addressed. Finally, it is concluded that the most prominent international surveys have little or no presence in public policies in the countries analysed.

Improving lives by accelerating progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals for adolescents living with HIV: a prospective cohort study

SummaryBackgroundLow-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) face major challenges in achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for vulnerable adolescents. We aimed to test the UN Development Programme's proposed approach of development accelerators—provisions that lead to progress across multiple SDGs—and synergies between accelerators on achieving SDG-aligned targets in a highly vulnerable group of adolescents in South Africa.MethodsWe did standardised interviews and extracted longitudinal data from clinical records at baseline (2014–15) and 18-month follow-up (2016–17) for adolescents aged 10–19 years living with HIV in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. We used standardised tools to measure 11 SDG-aligned targets—antiretroviral therapy adherence, good mental health, no substance use, HIV care retention, school enrolment, school progression, no sexual abuse, no high-risk sex, no violence perpetration, no community violence, and no emotional or physical abuse. We also assessed receipt at both baseline and follow-up of six hypothesised development accelerators—government cash transfers to households, safe schools (ie, without teacher or student violence), free schools, parenting support, free school meals, and support groups. Associations of all provisions with SDG-aligned targets were assessed jointly in a multivariate path model, controlling for baseline outcomes and sociodemographic and HIV-related covariates, and adjusted for multiple outcome testing. Cumulative effects were tested by marginal effects modelling.Findings1063 (90%) of 1176 eligible adolescents were interviewed. Three provisions were shown to be development accelerators. Parenting support was associated with good mental health (odds ratio 2·13, 95% CI 1·43–3·15, p<0·0001), no high-risk sex (2·44, 1·45–5·03, p=0·005), no violence perpetration (2·59, 1·63–4·59, p<0·0001), no community violence (2·43, 1·65–3·86, p<0·0001), and no emotional or physical abuse (2·38, 1·65–3·76; p<0·0001). Cash transfers were associated with HIV care retention (1·87, 1·15–3·02, p=0·010), school progression (2·05, 1·33–3·24, p=0·003), and no emotional or physical abuse (1·76, 1·12–3·02, p=0·025). Safe schools were associated with good mental health (1·74, 1·30–2·34, p<0·0001), school progression (1·57, 1·17–2·13, p=0·004), no violence perpetration (2·02, 1·45–2·91, p<0·0001), no community violence (1·81, 1·30–2·55, p<0·0001), and no emotional or physical abuse (2·20, 1·58–3·17, p<0·0001). For five of 11 SDG-aligned targets, a combination of two or more accelerators showed cumulative positive associations, suggesting accelerator synergies of combination provisions. For example, the fitted probability of adolescents reporting no emotional or physical abuse (SDG 16.2) with no safe schools, cash transfers, or parenting support was 0·25 (0·16–0·34). With cash transfer alone it was 0·37 (0·33–0·42), with safe school alone 0·42 (0·30–0·55), and with parenting support alone 0·44 (0·30–0·59). With all three development accelerators combined, the probability of adolescents reporting no emotional or physical abuse was 0·76 (0·67–0·84). After correcting for multiple tests, four of the SDG-aligned targets (antiretroviral therapy adherence, no substance use, school enrolment, and no sexual abuse) were not associated with any hypothesised accelerators.InterpretationThe findings suggest the UN's accelerator approach for this high-risk adolescent population has policy and potential financing usefulness. Services that simultaneously promote several SDG targets, or combine to support particular targets, might be important to meet not only health-related targets, but also to ensure that adolescents in LMICs thrive within a new development framework.FundingNuffield Foundation, UK Research and Innovation Global Challenges Research Fund, UKAID, Janssen Pharmaceutica, International AIDS Society, John Fell Fund, European Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Philip Leverhulme Trust, and UNICEF.

Socialists in name only? Socialist–Zionist wartime progressivism

ABSTRACTThe main challenge for all sorts of progressivism – socialism included – has been to find the right balance between individual rights, group rights and humanity, and from the nineteenth century onwards, nationalism became the preferred road to attain this balance. Labour Zionism, as part and parcel of progressive Zionism, strove from its early days to achieve these goals, enjoying support from West European socialists holding the same progressive convictions. The main obstacle confronted by early Zionist socialists and their non-Jewish partners in their quest for a better world was not the alleged contradictions between universalism, nationalism and individualism, but the enduring tendency to reject the Jewish right for national self-determination. This undying predisposition, prevalent in the first half of the twentieth century among political elites (Arab and otherwise), is still alive in academic circles.

Book review: The European Union and Social Security Law

Book review: The European Union and Social Security Law

What are the Characteristics of Respondents using Different Devices in Mixed‐device Online Surveys? Evidence from Six UK Surveys

SummaryThere is a move towards online data collection across the world. Online survey response is complicated by respondents using different devices. So far, no research has been conducted in the UK to study characteristics of people using different devices in mixed‐device online surveys. This analysis uses all publicly available UK social surveys with an online component: Understanding Society Innovation Panel, Community Life Survey, European Social Survey, 1958 National Child Development Study and the Second Longitudinal Study of Young People in England. Descriptive analysis and logistic regressions are used to explore significant correlates of device use in online surveys. The results of bivariate analysis suggest that age, gender, marital status, employment, religion, household size, children in household, household income, number of cars and frequency of internet use are significantly associated with device used across surveys. The associations with age, gender, employment status, household size and education are consistent with the findings from other countries. The knowledge about respondents' characteristics using different devices in online surveys in the UK will help to understand better the response process in online surveys and to target certain subgroups more effectively. It is also important for designs of online surveys, understanding of data quality and post‐survey adjustments.