Stakeholder participation has become an important driving force in policy decision-making and implementation, particularly in the nature conservation sector, where complex interactions and conflict of interest between stakeholders are common. A stakeholder analysis, which was complemented with a social network analysis, was used to examine the cooperation and conflict network between stakeholders, their institutions, and sectors in the case of the formulation of the Natura 2000 Management programme in Slovenia for the period 2015–2020 (PUN). Using data from a web survey (n = 167), cooperation and conflict networks were analysed while using degree centrality, indegree centrality, betweenness centrality, and blockmodeling. The results of the stakeholder analysis showed that the highest number of stakeholders that are involved in the participatory process of PUN was from the forestry and hunting sector, followed by the agriculture and nature conservation sector. The results of the cooperation network showed that the network is highly centralized, with only few institutions taking a central position in the PUN process (Institute for Nature Conservation, Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food, and the Slovenian Forest Service). Moreover, the nature conservation sector was, on average, a sector with the highest concentration of power. In addition, in the cooperation network, which was fragmented across sectors, there were institutions that belonged to the same sector, which tended to cooperate with each other. The analysis of the conflict network showed that institutions with a central position in the cooperation network also had a central role in the conflict network. In addition, conflicts between institutions more frequently appeared among institutions from different sectors. The exceptions were institutions from the fishery and water sector, as this sector seemed to have many conflicts within it. Based on a blockmodeling, four groups of institutions were identified according to their cooperation network (core institutions, semi-core institutions, semi-periphery institutions, and periphery institutions). Our finding suggested that the participatory process of formulating PUN needs to be improved in such a way that in the future various stakeholders, especially excluded local ones, are more actively involved and a balance of the power between the stakeholders involved achieved.

The process generally referred to as ‘the transition’ implied a complex set of social changes in Central and Eastern European countries (CEE). On the one hand, there were institutional reforms which were launched to abolish the socialist economic and political systems. On the other hand, the provision of welfare was also affected by ‘transition’. The change could be observed at the institutional level (i.e., through the welfare state) as well as at the social and individual level – in the ways individuals associated, how they perceived new risks and with whom they engaged to confront them. In this article we focus on social support provision from informal sources, i.e., ego-centered social support networks, which are an important foundation for the quality of everyday life. We would like to find out whether changes in the socio-economic system are reflected in and accompanied by changes in social support providers. How have people responded to transition? Did the patterns of support and social support providers change in this period? Consequently, the research question addressed in this article is the following: do the current types of social networks differ from those in the 1980s? We try to answer it by analyzing and comparing the data on social support networks in 1987 and 2002. The data are interpreted in the context of the transition that was happening in Slovenia at the time.

The transition to clean energy is at the heart of the European Union’s climate strategy, with citizen participation promoted as a key driver. Clean energy communities (CECs) are central to this vision, yet their uptake across Europe remains limited. This study provides a novel comparative perspective on perceived barriers to CEC participation by examining two distinct groups: current members (early adopters) and the general public (potential adopters). Using a cross-national mixed-methods approach, we integrate data from semi-structured interviews with CEC members and a representative survey of citizens in six European countries. The results show that awareness of CECs is generally low and that initiatives are still in the early stages of adoption. While interviewees highlighted regulatory complexity and institutional barriers, survey respondents were more likely to cite lack of awareness, knowledge gaps, and financial concerns. The findings reveal distinct patterns in perceived barriers across adopter groups and national contexts. To support broader engagement, we propose a dual strategy: addressing structural challenges through regulatory and policy reform, while strengthening targeted communication and outreach. We also highlight the role of early adopters as trusted messengers who can help bridge the gap between innovation and mainstream adoption.

Social network indicators (e.g., network size, network structure and network composition) and the quality of their measurement may be affected by different factors such as measurement method, type of social support, limitation of the number of alters, context of the questionnaire, question wording, personal characteristics of respondents such as age, gender or personality traits and others. In this paper we focus on the effect of limiting the number of alters on network composition indicators (e.g., percentage of kin, friends etc.), which are often used in substantive studies on social support, epidemiological studies and so on. Often social networks are only one among many topics measured in such large studies; therefore, limitation of the number of alters that can be named is often used directly (e.g., International Social Survey Programme) or indirectly (e.g., General Social Survey) in the network items. The analysis was done on two comparable data sets from different years. Data were collected by the name generator approach by students of the University of Ljubljana as part of various social science methodology courses. Network composition on the basis of direct use (i.e., already in the question wording) of limitation on the number of alters is compared to network composition on full network data (i.e.,collected without any limitations).

BACKGROUND: Employees with disabilities make up a significant share of the working population. The group of employees covered by this study is hard to include in research and yet must be researched due to the vulnerable position it holds in the labou

The article begins with a description of the triangulation principle in the social sciences. The main goal is to demonstrate the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in the case of occupational professionalisation. The argumentation is built around the operationalisation of indicators of professionalisation of 63 occupations based on two different theoretical approaches, as well as the process of data collection presented in each case. The level of agreement of the two approaches is presented. In the final section, the findings are discussed, and outlines for potential new research in this field are presented.