Audience studies is not the vibrant field it was in its 1980s and early 1990s heyday. Cultural studies today has a more balanced interest in production, audiences and texts. A renewed focus in audience studies on everyday meaning production, identity and relations of power could benefit from recent developments. …

The use of the word “social” in the context of information technology goes back to the very beginnings of cybernetics. It later pops up in the 1980s context of “groupware.” The recent materialist school of Friedrich Kittler and others dismissed the use of the word “social” as irrelevant fluff – what …

Ever since the start of the Italian Republic in 1946, the Italian political system seems to have experienced instability. It has had more than 60 governments in a 60 year period. In 1992, the political system collapsed and that which external factors attempted to achieve in the 1960s until the 1980s …

There have been refugee movements for centuries, yet since the Second World War the number of refugees augmented significantly and international action was undertaken by organizations like the League of Nations and its successor the United Nations, which established the United Nations Higher Commissioner …

Since the financial and administrative liberalisation from the government in the late 1980s and the 1990s, the Dutch housing associations have been very dynamic, regarding the considerable extension of both commercial and social activities, the increased reliance and dependence on market circumstances, …

The differences between Chinese aid and traditional aid can be found in all aspects of the traditional and Chinese aid policies. Significant differences have been illustrated in its history, principles and in the impact on the recipient countries. The landmarks in the historical development of the Chinese …

Wilhelmina Drucker and Aletta Jacobs were the main women of the first wave and meant a lot for the position of women nowadays. At the end of the first feminist wave women obtained the right to vote and were able to attend college and universities, and had the right to work outdoors. In the 1950s and …

Sub-national authorities [SNAs] have seen a great development in their influence in the European up from the 1980s, due to several processes at work in Europe. Multi-level governance [MLG], a theory derived from studies on European Integration, explains for instance the changing interaction between different …

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is an underdeveloped region, but had seen significant economic growth before the global financial crisis. Due to the crisis economic growth has stopped or even decreased. In addition, several other aspects are expected to become worse, such as incomes, child mortality and access …

Whilst until the late 1980s most migration issues developed in a parallel manner but with national specifics, important differences showed up during the 1990s and at the beginning of this decade. Since the middle of the 1990s, there has been an obvious change in policy towards migrants and foreigners …