The political construction of old age as reflected in online discussions

The present paper examines the political construction of ageing and conflicts between generations. The process of construction is driven not merely by institutional actors and opinion leaders in the media, but also by citizens who talk to each other about politics. In my paper I have focused on the latter by observing online discussions that appear on the political forum Index.hu. Disagreement between old people’ and ‘young people’ evolved mainly about the pension system, thus the examination of ageing constructions is embedded in this context. In spite of its numerous limits, the method used seems to be suitable for providing hypotheses for further research. In the first part of the study I present the applied theoretical approach in which the concept of stereotype is connected with the concept of social construction. After that I focus on investigating the activity, origin and contents of the stereotypes that influence the construction of ageing. In the third part of the study the components of the constructions are demonstrated.

A Tale of Three Countries: Recovery after Banking Crises

Highlights: • Iceland, Ireland and Latvia experienced similar developments before the crisis, such as sharp increases in banks’ balance sheets and the expansion of the construction sector. However the impact of the crisis was different: Latvia was hit harder than any other country in the world. Ireland also suffered heavily, while Iceland came out from the crisis with the smallest fall in employment, despite the greatest shock to the financial system. • There were marked differences in policy mix: currency collapse in Iceland but not in Latvia, letting banks fail in Iceland but not in Ireland, and the introduction of strict capital controls only in Iceland. The speed of fiscal consolidation was fastest in Latvia and slowest in Ireland. • Economic recovery has started in all three countries and there are several encouraging signals. The programme targets in terms of fiscal adjustment, structural reforms and financial reform are on track in all three countries. • Iceland seems to have the right policy mix. • Internal devaluation in Ireland and Latvia through wage cuts did not work, because privatesector wages hardly changed. The productivity increase was significant in Ireland and moderate in Latvia, yet was the result of a greater fall in employment than the fall in output, with harmful social consequences. • The experience with the collapse of the gigantic Icelandic banking system suggests that letting banks fail when they had a faulty business model is the right choice. • There is a strong case for a European banking federation.