18th Annual International Conference on Politics and International Studies
Program (Athens Local Time)
(*In the program presentations are included from all the subjects scheduled to be presented in parallel)(Note: each presentation includes at least 10 minutes for questions and discussions if available)
Monday 15 June 2020
09.00-09.30 Registration
09.30-10.00 Opening and Welcoming Remarks:
Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER
10.00-10.45 Barbara Zagaglia, Associate Professor, Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy. Title: Teaching in a Global World: Challenges and Opportunities for Small-Size Universities
11.00-11.45 Mihai Vladimirescu, Professor, University of Craiova, Romania. Title: The Literary Rhetoric of the Biblical Prophets Addressing Politics and Religion.
Appearing as a religious institution specific to the chosen people, prophetism played a major role in the life of the Jewish community contributing in a clear way to the consolidation and preservation of faith and cultivating high religious feelings externalized by the practice of the divine commandments contained in Law revealed by Moses on Mount Sinai. Although the basic mission of the prophets was not to reform the society of the time, they were still deeply involved in combating corruption of their fellow citizens. In addition to preaching the faith, the prophets accused in writing or orally, in public or in particular, those who wronged the people by abusing their social position.
11.45-12.00 Break
12.00-12.45 Antonio D. Camara Hueso, Associate Professor, University of Jaén, Spain. Title: Housing and Residential Contexts of solo-Dwellers in Spain: A Socio-Demographic Analysis.
The rise in number and share of people who live alone (one-person households –OPHs hereafter-) is one of the most salient sociodemographic changes across Western (and non-Western) societies over the last decades, which put a number of research questions and social challenges on the table: from the underlying causality of the phenomenon to its implications for planning and intervention in key areas of welfare. This work partakes of a research project entitled ‘Profiles, environments and identities of forthcoming sociability: geo-sociology of one-person households in Spain’ which is being carried out at the University of Jaen (Spain). The project faces three specific issues about OPHs and their potential role as a piece of new or alternative types of sociability, namely a) the sociodemographic profile of OPHs, b) the physical and socioeconomic environment which harbor the daily life of these people and c) the attitudes, motivations and expectations of these people (i.e. in explaining the circumstances that led to live alone). With regard to this paper, previous research by colleagues and by ourselves have displayed that OPHs do not spread spatially at random but they tend to cluster following some individual sociodemographic characteristics and also as a function of the socioeconomic and spatial featuring of a given area. This drove us to reflect about two different realms of solo living which may swing from personal/social success to social vulnerability. This, we hypothesize, would also manifest on housing-related aspects. Therefore, the aim of this work is to present a detailed analysis of housing among solo-dwellers in Spain paying attention to for basic sociodemographic variables (age, sex, marital status and educational attainment) together with two contextual variables: the size of the population (as approached by the population strata provided by census microdata in 1991, 2001 and 2011) and the precise location within a given city (i.e. at districts and census sections, as provided by census aggregate data in 2011). These datasets were freely downloaded from the website of the National Spanish Statistics Office (INE). Finally, the techniques used are very straightforward. We calculate specific proportions of OPHs by the aforementioned variables which are crossed with some basic characteristics of housing available in the household files of the Spanish censuses since 1991 onwards. Results are expected to reveal both existing common traits and specificity of OPHs housing in comparison to the rest of the population which of course will transcend the simple aspect of housing size to manifest in other socioeconomic aspects (hopefully informative on the main research questions that are coped with at the background of our project). Also, we expect to find some contrasts in housing across different segments of OPHs as a function of both individual and contextual characteristics.
12.45-13.00 Break
13:00-13.45 Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER. Title: The Demographics of Covid-19 in the European Union (PowerPoint)(Full Paper)
This paper provides provisional descriptive evidence to answer two questions. First, does the population size of country matters? Can variations in deaths per capita (or people infected per capita) be explained by variations in population size? Second, does the economy matter? Can variations in total and per capita GDP explain variations in deaths per capita? Related is the issue of social spending. Can social spending explain variations in COVID-19 impacts? In answering these questions, data from the 27 European Union member states are used. Simple stepwise descriptive statistical analysis show that the size of the population and the economy do matter in explaining the observed variations in COVID-19 impacts. The latter are measured as total or per capita deaths and total or per capita cases. It is found that only deaths per capita give meaningful and statistically significant results. This relation is non-linear. On average a one percent rise in population size increases 0.49% deaths per capita.
13.45-14.00 Break
14:00-14.45 Vasilis Skianis, Academic Dean, New York College, Greece. Title: Association of Environmental and Sociodemographic Factors with Life Satisfaction in 27 European Countries.
15:00-15.45 Guillermo Johnson, Assistant Professor, Universidade Federal do Maranhão, Brazil. Title: Smothering the Terse Latin American Democracy – Notes about the Second Decade of the Twenty-First Century.
In the beginning of the twenty-first century we have witnessed a considerable number of countries expand their democracy, legitimating social sectors historically relegated as protagonists of decisions in the state. In the midst of this process there was a significant distribution of rents, and increase access to public policies. Gender, race and indigenous demands take place – with different depth – in the institutional space, albeit always marginal to the perennial neoliberal offensive. Already at the beginning of the second decade of this century begins a reversal to progressive longings, and was gaining strength in the wake of a noteworthy change in the international situation. For the second half of this decade a neoliberal-conservative amalgam is growing stronger, closing institutional access to popular demands, with governments fighting for naturalize the economics inequalities and the legitimization of violence as a prevailing method of dealing with differences. This succinctly depicted scenario stands national particularities, often related to history, geopolitics and the correlation of forces in each country; but invariably contemporary governments support themselves in their condescending judicial systems, collude media, reinforcement the state’s repressive arm and a myriad of evangelical churches that corroborate them. At the same time that conservative’ notions spreads the neoliberal individualism enhances, proscribing social solidarity and tolerant perspectives of diversity, premise for a contemporary democracy. This critic conjuncture demands to reexamine the debates between economic inequalities and political participation, along the exigency for direct growing democracies
15.45-16.00 Break
16:00-16.45 Rula Jabbour, PhD Candidate, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA. Title: Military Moves in the Middle East: Explaining the Military’s Role during the Arab Spring.
This is a chapter of my dissertation. This research will address the military’s moves in Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria in 2011, when protests became so dramatic they pushed the hand of the military to take a stand on the government. This dissertation will explore the military’s position in the earliest stages of the so-called Arab Spring (December of 2010 – 2011) with a particular focus on Egypt and Tunisia where the military sided with the revolts and in Syria where the military supported the regime strongly. I argue that, during a time of internal crisis, the military implements one of two positions: 1) It actively supports the regime, the status quo; or 2) It defects from the regime. I explain the theory by two groups of factors. The First group of factors are Military factors which include its survival (the military) as a one entity, and how much it is trained to control the country in case of the emptiness of the executive office. The second group of factors are social which include the size and frequencies of the demonstrations, and the availability of an alternative that is a product of an active civil society. This paper will provide insight into the future role of the military in the Middle East by identifying key factors influencing the military’s behavior. While the scope is limited to the Middle East, it suggests the military’s behavior is not random but rather shaped by specific factors.
21:30-23:00 Greek Night (The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
Tuesday 16 June 2020
08:00-10:00 Urban Walk (The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
10:00-10.45 Utku Ozer, Part-time Lecturer, Altinbas University, Turkey. Title: Politics and Cinema: The Reflection of Russian Revolution in Doctor Zhivago.
“I believe that all movies are political” had said director Costa-Gavras in an interview to Deutsche Welle in 2008. Indeed as cinema is a powerful means of communicating messages to the masses, politics and cinema have always been closely intertwined. Movies have always been important in terms of political messages, especially in certain times in history. The Cold War period was one of these times when cinema actually functioned as a means of propaganda. Doctor Zhivago written by a Soviet author, Boris Pasternak, at the peak of Cold War, never had a chance for publication in the Soviet Union even though it brought a Nobel Literature prize to its author, whom again did not have the chance to accept the award in his lifetime. Even the fact that the book was banned in the Soviet Union was a political message and was used as a Cold War propaganda. The book was not only welcomed in the West but also adapted into a movie, which won five Academy Awards. The book and consequently the movie is a reflection of revolutionary Russia and the Civil War that followed and the establishment of the Soviet Union in the background of a love story. It, thus, is actually a historical novel and a historical movie. This paper aims to present a rewatching of Doctor Zhivago, with a historical background of the period that it takes place. Therefore the pre-revolutionary Russian society and politics and the revolutionary movement will briefly be mentioned as it takes place in the movie, to be followed by a closer look at Russia’s participation to the First World War, the consequent revolutions in 1917, the Civil War that followed and the establishment of the Soviet rule, all of which constitute major themes of the movie. The movie will also be compared to the book in order to figure out the similarities and the differences between the book and movie. Through the example of an American movie made during the Cold War based on a historical novel by a Soviet author, the paper aims to highlight the relation between politics and cinema and the use of history to this end.
10.45-11.00 Break
11:00-11.45 Nikos Nikoloudis, Independent Scholar. Title: Eleftherios Venizelos and the foundation of the League of Nations.
12:00-12.45 Ziya Att Tamhid Ahmed Khan Pathan, Associate Professor, University of Eswatini, Swaziland. Title: Socio-Cultural Instigations in Decision Making at Domestic Level.
13.00-13.45 Georgios Zouridakis, Lecturer, University of Essex, UK. Title: The Role of Shareholder Protection in a Pro- Equity Market Policy: The Case for Derivative Actions. (PowerPoint)
14.00-14.45 Rafiqul Islam, Professor, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. Title: Mathematical Modeling and Projecting Urban Population of Bangladesh Based on Censuses.
15:00-15:45 Angela Ajodo-Adebanjoko, Senior Lecturer, Federal University Lafia, Nigeria. Title: Gender and Covid-19: Investigating The Incidence of Domestic Violence During The Lockdown in Nigeria and its Effect on Existing Gender Inequalities.
16:00-16:45 Martin Palamuleni, Professor, North West University, South Africa. Title: Levels, Trends and Determinants of At least four antenatal visits in Malawi: Evidence from Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys 1992–2015.
Background: Use of quality ante-natal care services not only promotes safe-motherhood and improved maternal and neonatal outcomes but also is likely to contribute towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. The aim of this study was to examine levels, trends and the factors influencing the utilization of ante-natal care services in Malawi. Methods: The study used data obtained from the 1992, 2000, 2004, 2010 and 2015 Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to establish the relationships between socioeconomic variables and number of antenatal visits during pregnancy. Results: The percentage of women who had at least four antenatal visits declined from 64% in 1992 to 57% in 2000, 38% in 2004, increasing to 45% in 2010 and 51% in 2015. The results of logistic regression show that the major determinants of number of antenatal visits are age, region, type of residence, use of family planning, number of children ever born, work status, education and visit to a health center. Women who were aged 15-19 (OR=0.50), who had no education (OR=0.74), in poorest wealth category (OR=0.91), never married (OR=0.61), not using contraceptives (OR=0.61) were less likely to have at least four antenatal visits. Women residing in Northern Region (OR=1.04) and Central region (OR+1.08), residing in urban areas (OR=1.28), women with 1-2 children ever born (OR=1.30) more likely to have at least four antenatal visits. Conclusion: As a policy measure, it is recommended that hat poor, uneducated, rural women with high parity should be encouraged to utilize antenatal care services through social and behaviour change communication campaigns.
20:00-21:30 Dinner (The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
Wednesday 17 June 2020Educational Islands Cruise
(The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
Thursday 18 June 2020Delphi Tour
(The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
* ATINER does not have the administration and infrastructure capacity to organize separate online conferences for each one that is planned every week. Instead, an attempt has been made to have one online event for the given week.
