How to Increase Soft Power Through Entrepreneurship Support. Case Study: Start-up Chile Programme and Chile Image Abroad

Raluca Georgiana SĂFTESCU, PhD. Candidate

National University of Political Studies and Public Administration

ABSTRACT: Nowadays one of the key challenges diplomats confront with refers to the need of adapting the traditional one-to-one communication manner to build an open and inclusive dialogue with citizens at home and abroad. In this context, updating the set of diplomatic tools in an innovative way, using new instruments able to enhance the mutual understanding between governments and citizens around the world is deemed to be necessary. This paper investigates the entrepreneurship potential in contributing to increase a country’s soft power, focusing on the role of support programmes for entrepreneurs in building bridges between nations and in creating one’s country image abroad. The research is carried out around the Chilean experience to attract early-stage and high-potential entrepreneurs through Start-Up Chile programme. For this purpose, a mixed methodology is used, the methodological design including literature review, document analysis and case study research. The literature review is used in the first chapter to frame the subject of soft power and modern diplomacy. The second part of the paper presents the characteristics of international programmes for entrepreneurs that can support the diplomatic activity, highlighting why are they strongly attractive. Chapter three is dedicated to a case study on Chile’s experience in implementing a support programme for entrepreneurs funded by the Chilean government. The conclusion part highlights that including entrepreneurship in the diplomatic strategies will contribute both in projecting a positive country image abroad and in fostering innovation based economic development.

KEYWORDS: diplomacy, soft power, entrepreneurship, Chile.

Enforcement of Gratuitous Promises in the Common Law and the Civil Law Jurisdictions - Same Problems, Different Solutions

Pawel MAZUR, PhD. Candidate

University of Warsaw

ABSTRACT: The law should create mechanisms protecting the promisor making gratuitous promises, because their enforcement can be unjust. Such mechanisms should take into account whether the promisor reflected carefully on his promise (cautionary function) and whether he intended the promise to be legally binding (challenging function). In the common law, cautionary and challenging function is fulfilled by the requirement of consideration. Its role is to protect promisors form the liability for rash promises. It is an additional step taken by the parties, in order to express their willingness to be bound by the contract. In the civil law jurisdictions both challenging function and cautionary function are fulfilled by the requirement to satisfy formalities. It seems that both instruments have the same role to play.

KEYWORDS: consideration, common law, civil law, gratuitous promises, gifts.

Religie în modernitate, "post"-religie în postmodernitate?

Pavel VITEL, PhD. Candidate

"Justinian Patriarhul" Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT: The recent attempts to relate recent changes in religion to the advent of “late modernity” or “postmodernity” give us a really interesting research material. The advocates of the idea of postmodernity and its variants face formidable difficulties if they attempt to make sense of religion. It is not therefore surprising that, in all the speculations about postmodernity, serious interpretations of religious phenomena are rare birds. The main objective of this article is to examine what tends to happen to different scholar’s understanding of religion when they use “postmodernity” and variants of the concept. Some of the most recent contributions which take different stances towards the relationship between religion and prevailing socio-cultural conditions will be analyzed. Each of the two characters in search of an explanation for religion in conditions of “post-” or “late-” modernity will be seen to experience difficulties. Ironically, one of the most outspoken critics of the notion of “postmodernity” also finds hard to explain the survival of the religious in contemporary society.

KEYWORDS: postmodernity, late modernity, reflexivity, religion, modernity.

Implementing Mastery Learning Strategies in Romanian Schools

Irina VLĂDESCU, Phd. Candidate

Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT: The experience acquired from the last 26 years of education has shown that the use of mastery learning strategies was not emphasized either as a result of not knowing the importance and effectiveness of these strategies or as a result of maintaining a traditional way of teaching, learning and evaluating. The subject emphasized in this paper is related to the lack of use of mastery learning strategies in both private and public schools of Romania. In the last two decades, teaching children nowadays is based on the assumption that all have the same needs and possibilities. But they learn in a different manner and we need to provide them with the right learning conditions and methods. The mastery learning theory mainly states that each and every child has the chance to learn everything that he is taught if he is given the time and the necessary learning conditions.

KEYWORDS: education, mastery learning, Romanian schools, knowledge, learning strategies.

Tatuajul și lumea lui. Definiții, istorii și semnificații

Alexandra BĂRBULESCU, PhD. Candidate

Doctoral School of Sociology, University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT: This article presents in the first part, a brief history of tattooing that has different forms, depending on the time and societies in which it appeared and developed. I proposed myself to expose some of the temporal and geographical changes that have occurred in the practices and social perceptions of tattooing. I will try to argue how tattooing as a form of body modification, could be approached as a mechanism of resistance in certain societies, but also as a result of the culture that has led to the voluntary change of the body. Also, there will be presented the most important functions and dysfunctions of tattoos, existing over time. The second part of the article presents the tattoo between accessory and meanings, in the prison environment and outside of it. As a result of the research undertaken, there will be exposed various types of tattoos from prisons, the motivations that led to the decision to resort to such special body practice, and their meanings among prisoners.

KEYWORDS: social perceptions, tattoo, prison environment, body practices, meanings.

Normele sociale și autoreglarea alimentară la adolescenți: Considerații teoretice și practice

Andreea-Mirela MANDIA, PhD. Candidate

Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is, first, to summarize the literature on the subject, and second, to give in brief the results of certain experimental studies concerning the effect of social context on eating self-regulation in adolescents. There are multiple mechanisms explaining social influences on eating: social facilitation, modelling and impression management. Previous studies reveal that both boys and girls eat less in the presence of a stranger of the opposite sex than in the presence of a same sex. Another part of research shows that people tend to use the amount eaten by their companions as a regulatory guide, neglecting their physiological needs. Aiming to reconciliate this contradictions, we also examine the impact of the presence of other people on the enhancing memory of intake such as the distraction which affects encoding the food experience in memory. In conclusion, the social context has a substantial impact on the amount and types of food that individuals eat, especially in adolescents. Using effective strategies based on these influences has great potential in promoting healthier nutrition. We discuss the implications of a social approach to the analysis of overeating concerning the adolescents, the methodological limitations and the impact on nutritional interventions.

KEYWORDS: social norms, social influence, eating self-regulation, memory, distraction.