Frane Adam

• Research Director at Institute for Developmental and Strategic Analyse - IRSA

This article discusses the meaning of open science, and in particular the concept of citizen science, in a broader socio-political and scientific context. The authors highlight the ambivalence of these concepts and the lack of critical reflection on the possible (unwanted) negative implications of the establishment of these ideas. The authors addre...

Prispevek obravnava pomen odprte znanosti – ter še posebej koncepta državljanske znanosti – v širšem družbenopolitičnem in družbeno-znanstvenem kontekstu. Avtorja preko mednarodnoprimerjalne analize v ospredje postavljata ambivalentnost omenjenih konceptov in pomanjkanje kritičnega razmisleka o morebitnih (nezaželenih) negativnih implikacijah vzpos...

Mit einem Beitrag von Ulrich Oevermann. Manifest der objektiv hermeneutischen Sozialforschung

The article is focusing on current processes, models, and possible consequences of the easing or cancelling of measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic that we have seen by the end of July 2022. This is observed in the broader context of selected European countries, allowing us to detect differences, similarities, and, especially, the different wa...

This article deals with the recent rise of populist tendencies and their meaning in contemporary democracies within the EU, including Eastern Europe. It stresses the importance of two interrelated and interconnected processes that provide a fertile ground for the emergence of different types of populism – crisis of parliamentary multi-party democra...

Taking into account other scoreboards dealing with the measurement of national innovation performance and comparing the results of the EIS-IUS with them, we can see some convergent or similar results, but also quite different rankings and clusterings of countries are not so rare. It is true that these scoreboards are not always directly comparable...

As mentioned, the IUS does give us a general picture of the state and trends of innovation activity. However, this only applies to those readers and users who carefully read the entire report and are aware of the limitations and weaknesses of indicators and databases. On the other hand, a superficial overview of the results can lead to one-sided or...

Briefly looking at the historical view of innovation data collection, we see that the first attempts to structure a formal guide for gathering R&D data can be traced back to the 1960s. This led to the first Frascati Manual in 1962 (Frascati Manual 2002). However, dealing specifically with collecting and interpreting innovation data, the Oslo Manual...

The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) has been developed at the initiative of the European Commission to provide a comparative evaluation of the innovation performance with regard to the Lisbon Strategy (Hollanders and van Cruysen 2008). It undergone several changes since its inception (in 2001) up until recently, when it was renamed or better s...

The EIS-IUS report on the state-of-the-art of innovation performance in EU members and some other countries is published every year. A comparison with main global competitors, like the USA, Japan, Korea and BRIC countries is also a part of this report. However, the main focus is on the mean scores for countries’ individual indicators and how they d...

The purpose of this publication is to evaluate the achievements and shortcomings of the measurement of cross-national innovation capacity in the context of emerging knowledge mobilisation and innovation-driven development. The theoretical background is based on the intersection of economic sociology, social studies of science and technology, as wel...

In this publication, we have tried to highlight the achievements and shortcomings of measuring the innovative performance and functioning of national innovation systems (at the EU level) from several different angles. One clearly cannot be satisfied with the current measurement efforts and metrics used by IUS and other scoreboards and studies deali...

EU textile industry with its inability to compete with mass-produced and less expensive imported items, mono-perspective business processes, no solutions for trustful interorganisational collaboration and hardly integration of end-customer in design and production processes conflict trends of technological developments, the rise of individual custo...

When we talk about positivism, empiricism, post-positivism or the antipositivist (interpretive) approach, we mean the epistemological and methodological frame of reference that defines the attitude and relation of the researcher to the production of data and the selection of research tools and methods.

The configuration of elites, i.e. relationships between different factions of the political elite or between the political elite and other elites, along with the elite's prevailing cultural patterns, exert a strong impact on the course of societal development. Therefore, in order to understand the transitional process in Slovenia, it is necessary t...

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the existing studies of social capital in the framework of regional innovation systems and attempt to answer the question of whether any new insights or methodological shifts have occurred in the last few (seven or so) years. The reconstruction of empirical findings reveals a rather ambiguous...

This paper summarizes 15 years of empirical research at various spatial levels on social capital and economic performance. On the firm level, results are unambiguous: there is strong evidence of the impact of social capital on firms' performance. However, the results become less clear for spatial units with a large number of anonymous actors. The c...

The authors proceed from the assumption that the institutional and economic efficiency of a particular country (or society) depends on its historic legacy or ‘path-dependence’, strategic interactions of the elite and the impact of the international environment. Estonia and Slovenia are both — not only economically, but also institutionally — percei...

Pocinjemo s tezom da institucionalna i ekonomska ucinkovitost neke države, odnosno drustva zavisi od povijesnog naslijeđa (path dependence), od strateskih interakcija elite te međunarodnog okruženja. Estonija i Slovenija važe ne samo kao gospodarski nego i institucionalno prodorne i relativno uspjesne postkomunisticke države, odnosno nove clanice E...

"Two sets of issues are elaborated and reflected on. The first one concerns the distribution of stocks of social capital across European (EU) nations. Using the conventional proxies like trust and associational involvement on the basis of data of cross-national surveys (EVS/WVS and ESS) the main tentative trends and patterns are outlined. The secon...

The paper starts from the thesis that the institutional and economic efficiency of a state i.e. society depend on its historical heritage (path dependence), strategic interactions and the international surrounding. Estonia and Slovenia are considered to be not only economically, but also institutionally assertive and relatively successful post-comm...

The aim of this article is to point to these vast differences and to show, that the willingness and capacity of citizens to create organisations and get engaged in civic actions, isn’t equally distributed among the EU citizens, nations and regions. Additionally we assume that the capacity of national civil society organisations to get engaged in tr...

The article critically discusses two issues. The first is related to the distribution of social capital across European (EU) nations, and describes the main (expected) trends and patterns on the basis of conventional "proxy" variables, such as trust and level of involvement in voluntary organizations, in the framework of international studies (EVS/...

The fact that qualitative approaches are gaining more and more recognition in social sciences can be explained as a consequence of a change in epistemic and institutional parameters. In this sense we can speak about the "post-positivist" era in which more complex and inclusive research designs are needed. Analyzing the development and the state of...

We analyse the reception of Niklas Luhmanns social metatheory in Slovenian social. The first part outlines the intellectual climate that prevailed in the decade before the post-socialist transition. The decline of the previously dominant Marxist ideology created space for other social theories. Luhmanns ideas were the most prominent among social ma...

Jurij Fikfak: Voices of Qualitative Research. Between Different Perspectives and Emerging Trends / Glasovi kvalitativnega raziskovanja. Med različnimi perspektivami in nastajajočimi tokovi Epistemological Problems Frane Adam and Darka Podmenik: The Reception of Qualitative Research in Slovenia Will C. van den Hoonaard: The Epistemological Framewor...

The concept of social capital is undoubtedly one of the most noticeable recent ‘newcomers’ in the social sciences. Since the beginning of the 1990s, and especially after the publication of Putnam’s study on civicness and institutional performance in Italian regions (Putnam, 1993), we are witnessing its unprecedented acceptance and application. This...

The aim of this article is not only to provide an overview of the state of recent discussion about the concept of social capital, it is also an attempt at critical reflection on theoretical and empirical research efforts. The question is whether the concept of social capital is a fashionable (and short-lived) term proposed as a cure-all for the mal...

The authors deal with the issue, how social sciences, i.e. sociology, political science and economics, reflected in their research the challenges in Slovenia of the 1990s, related to the establishment of representative democracy, market economy and statehood. They note a very high level of research interest and substantial results in some areas, wh...

The intention of this article is to show the way the conceptions and perceptions of (Western) Europe and the European Union (EU) are constructed and articulated by general public opinion as well as by political parties and intellectual circles in Slovenia as a candidate country for the accession into the EU. It is also discussed how the images conc...

The main (hypo)thesis we are trying to defend in this article is that a certain degree of circulation in the sense of rotation (and competition) between two or more factions of political elite, as well as in the sense of inflow of new actors into other elite segments, is the structural conditio sine qua non for the constitution of a polyarchic type...

The authors deal with the issue, how social sciences, i.e. sociology, political science and economics, reflected in their research the challenges in Slovenia of the 1990s, related to the establishment of representative democracy, market economy and statehood. They note a very high level of research interest and substantial results in some areas, wh...

Focuses on the political and social changes that were noted in Slovenia in the last decade of the 20th century. Aspects comprising the issue of democratization; Discussion on marketization and social development; Assessment on the costs of social transition.

The authors deal with the issue, how social sciences, i.e. sociology, political science and economics, reflected in their research the challenges in Slovenia of the 1990s, related to the establishment of representative democracy, market economy and statehood. They note a very high level of research interest and substantial results in some areas, wh...

What lies ahead for new small states is not the question of basic survival but above all the question of according to which scenario will development in these countries take place? Will they retain their sovereignty and identity? Will they be equal partners with other members in the EU or will they follow the logic of dependent and peripheral devel...

Die postsozialistischen Gesellschaften durchlaufen gegenwärtig dramatische Umwandlungs- und Transformationsprozesse. Sie weisen mehrere spezifische Züge auf, die sie von anderen modernisierten Gesellschaften unterscheiden, etwa von denen, welche von traditionellen zu modernen oder — im Sinne der Modernisierung moderner Gesellschaften — von modernen...

Postsozialistische Gesellschaften sind in ihrer gegenwärtigen Entwicklungsphase diffuse gesellschaftliche Formationen, die sowohl durch Kontinuität als auch Diskontinuität mit dem ancien régime gekennzeichnet sind. In diesem Sinn kann man von transitiven Gesellschaften eines neuen Typus sprechen. Wenn auch diese Gesellschaften zur Diskontinuität te...

Proceeding from a synthetic overview of findings related to elite research in almost all the countries in Eastern and Central Europe, the authors try to discern the patterns of elite reproduction and /or circulation. They are especially interested in the impact of these patterns on the type and quality of democracy as well as on socio-economic mode...

"Slowenien und Estland als zwei kleine Staaten und soziale Systeme haben einige gemeinsame Charakteristika. Sie unterscheiden sich doch in vielerlei Hinsicht. Beide sind wirtschaftlich erfolgreich, Slowenien ist zwar nach den meisten Indikatoren wohlhabender, aber Estland ist dynamischer und wächst schneller. Während die slowenische Elite ihre wirt...