From Elitism through Corporatism to Pluralism? The Role of Elites in the Political Transition of Ukraine

The group set out to analyse the dynamics of elite groups in Ukraine today, both internal and inter-group, and their ideas on major socio-economic, political and foreign policies, in order to identify the degree of competitiveness between groups, methods of elite recruitment and the degree of elite response, which influence both the political agenda and the results of political activity. Having observed the contemporary debate and identified the pre-eminence of various elite groups in the decision-making process at the regional and state levels, they also sought to determine the type and degree of elite consensus which might be achieved in contemporary Ukraine. They also considered the extent of concealed power, in terms of covert interaction more characteristic of corporate societies, which might allow for the abuse of authority within a technically democratic system. The group then went on to consider the stages of counter-elite transformation and the continuing importance of the communist elite, as well as the issue of rivalry versus consensus. They see their findings as relevant not only to the Central and Eastern European context but also to the situation in Latin America today.

Racism, Youth Violence and the New Right: A Comparative Study of the Political Transformation of Extremism in Hungary and Romania

This research focused on the re-emerging of national and minority identities and the concomitant hostilities emerging from them in Hungary and in Romania. In particular the findings indicate that extremist incidents against members of minority groups on the local level seem to follow patterns in publicised media events. Violent attacks by skinheads against Gypsies in Hungary are often isolated incidents but are also inadvertently supported by biased media coverage, hostile majority attitudes and stereotyped behaviour reproduced in the media. The research also indicates that extremism both in Hungary against Gypsies and in Romania against Hungarians is of three kinds: organised within the framework of extremist groups, state-supported violence (both real and symbolic), and isolated, local instances with a few perpetrators committing atrocities. However, and this is a positive development, with rising interethnic tensions and extremist attacks prevalent in Hungary and Romania, there is also a parallel emergence of a more sophisticated human and minority rights campaign to combat them.

ON THE DIGITAL-POLITICAL TOPOGRAPHY OF MUSIC

The persuasive power of music is often relegated to the dimension of pathos: that which moves us emotionally. Yet, the music commodity is now situated in and around the liminal spaces of digitality. To think about how music functions, how it argues across media, and how it moves us, we must examine its material and immaterial realities as they present themselves to us and as we so create them. This dissertation rethinks the relationship between rhetoric and music by examining the creation, performance, and distribution of music in its material and immaterial forms to demonstrate its persuasive power. While both Plato and Aristotle understood music as a means to move men toward virtue, Aristotle tells us in his Laws, through the Athenian Stranger, that the very best kinds of music can help guide us to truth. From this starting point, I assess the historical problem of understanding the rhetorical potential of music as merely that which directs or imitates the emotions: that which “Soothes the savage breast,” as William Congreve writes. By furthering work by Vickers and Farnsworth, who suggest that the Baroque fascination with applying rhetorical figures to musical figures is an insufficient framework for assessing the rhetorical potential of music, I demonstrate the gravity of musical persuasion in its political weight, in its violence—the subjective violence of musical torture at Guantanamo and the objective, ideological violence of music—and in what Jacques Attali calls the prophetic nature of music. I argue that music has a significant function, and as a non-discursive form of argumentation, works on us beyond affect. Moreover, with the emergence of digital music distribution and domestic digital recording technologies, the digital music commodity in its material and immaterial forms allows for ruptures in the former methods of musical composition, production, and distribution and in the political potential of music which Jacques Attali describes as being able to foresee new political realities. I thus suggest a new theoretical framework for thinking about rhetoric and music by expanding on Lloyd Bitzer’s rhetorical situation, by offering the idea of “openings” to the existing exigence, audience, and constraints. The prophetic and rhetorical power of music in the aleatoric moment can help provide openings from which new exigencies can be conceived. We must, therefore, reconsider the role of rhetorical-musical composition for the citizen, not merely as a tool for entertainment or emotional persuasion, but as an arena for engaging with the political.

Social skills as predictors of communication, performance and quality of collaboration in project-based learning

The assumption that social skills are necessary ingredients of collaborative learning is well established but rarely empirically tested. In addition, most theories on collaborative learning focus on social skills only at the personal level, while the social skill configurations within a learning group might be of equal importance. Using the integrative framework, this study investigates which social skills at the personal level and at the group level are predictive of task-related e-mail communication, satisfaction with performance and perceived quality of collaboration. Data collection took place in a technology-enhanced long-term project-based learning setting for pre-service teachers. For data collection, two questionnaires were used, one at the beginning and one at the end of the learning cycle which lasted 3 months. During the project phase, the e-mail communication between group members was captured as well. The investigation of 60 project groups (N = 155 for the questionnaires; group size: two or three students) and 33 groups for the e-mail communication (N = 83) revealed that personal social skills played only a minor role compared to group level configurations of social skills in predicting satisfaction with performance, perceived quality of collaboration and communication behaviour. Members from groups that showed a high and/or homogeneous configuration of specific social skills (e.g., cooperation/compromising, leadership) usually were more satisfied and saw their group as more efficient than members from groups with a low and/or heterogeneous configuration of skills.