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Success Stories: Lessons of Democratization in Central Europe

Success Stories: Lessons of Democratization in Central Europe

Author(s): András Bozóki / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2003

Keywords: transition; democratization; Central Europe; political elite

The article analyzes the meaning and modes of these revolutionary changes of 1989 by focusing on the nature of the roundtable talks and their impact on the subsequent democratic regime. The fact that countries of Central Europe became new democracies is not attributable to a single factor only. There are numerous internal and external causes that brought about the collapse of the old regime in this particular way, in this particular time. As far as the internal causes are concerned, one must stress 1. the impact of previous revolutions and reform attempts, 2. the diminishing performance of the economy, 3. the exhaustion of the social reserves of the regime, 4. the disintegration of the ideology, and 5. the willingness to compromise on the part of the new and the old elite. Among the most important external factors, one must number 1. the defeat in the Cold War, 2. the crippling consequences of the arms race, 3. the social and ethnic conflicts that made the Eastern Bloc bursting at the seams, 4. the coordinated, evolutionist strategies of the democratic opposition in a number of these countries, 5. the corresponding, human rights-based foreign policies of the Western countries initiated buys President Carter in the 1970s, and finally, 6. the rise to the top of the Soviet party hierarchy of First Secretary Gorbachev who introduced a style of politics open to compromise.

Ratification Of The Nato Treaty In The U.S. Senate: Lessons Learned

Ratification Of The Nato Treaty In The U.S. Senate: Lessons Learned

Author(s): Stanislovas Norkus / Language(s): English / Issue: 11-12/2003

In the spring of 2004, Lithuania, along with the other six Vilnius Group countries, have become full-fledged members of NATO and the European Union. These two equally important foreign policy achievements mark the recognised progress that the country has made in terms of its economic and democratic development. Without a doubt membership in both organisations also comes as a result of the decade-long process of developing and realising Lithuania’s bilateral relations with member countries of the Euro-Atlantic community. Not minimising in any way the importance of such cooperative relations with many European NATO and EU members, this article will focus on the role of the United States, more specifically of the U.S. Congress, in the process of Lithuania’s Euro-Atlantic integration.

THE CONTRADE, THE PALIO, AND THE BEN COMUNE: LESSONS FROM SIENA

THE CONTRADE, THE PALIO, AND THE BEN COMUNE: LESSONS FROM SIENA

Author(s): Wolfgang Drechsler / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2006

Keywords: Siena; contrade; Palio; social capital; Monte dei Paschi

Siena’s unusually high level of both wealth and social capital and extremely low level of crime make it, in spite of all its specificity, an obvious object of lesson-drawing for other communities. The reason of Siena’s success seems to be the historic contrade system, which again is closely linked to the famous horse-race, the Palio. Based on recent literature, and corroborated in situ, this essay sets out to investigate how the Palio-contrade complex works today, what effects and side-effects it has, and what lessons might be drawn from it.

“WHOSE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS AFFIRMATIVE?” LESSONS FROM TANZANIA

“WHOSE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS AFFIRMATIVE?” LESSONS FROM TANZANIA

Author(s): Alexander Boniface Makulilo / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/2009

Elections in Tanzania have resulted into the underrepresentation of women in the formal decision making organs particularly the parliament. To address this problem the government introduced women special seats as one of the ways to empower women to participate in making decisions that affect their concerns. The threshold level for such special seats was set at 15 percent in the 1995 elections, 20 percent in the 2000 elections and it was increased to 30 percent of all the parliamentary seats in the 2005 elections. This article argues that while there is a positive trend in terms of the numerical representation via an affirmative action system, the same is yet to be owned by women themselves. The affirmative action in Tanzania is strategically used to divide women and to further the interests of political parties, particularly the ruling party. Thus, women struggles for their inclusion in the formal decision making organs should simultaneously demand for the need to owning the affirmative action itself.

The Lessons of Sighet

The Lessons of Sighet

Author(s): Ann M. Hansen / Language(s): English / Issue: 07/2014

Keywords: Sighet; Holocaust; museum; political apathy

Three museums in the Romanian city of Sighet (the Maramureş Village Museum, the Elie Wiesel Memorial House, and the Museum of Arrested Thought / Memorial of the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance) illustrate the history of northern Transylvania, but also reflect the process by which a community allows its minority elements to be victimized. The author discusses the historical periods and events which are the focus of each museum, then draws conclusions as to the current international relevance of these events. The article is illustrated with photos taken by the author during a visit to Sighet in September 2010.

War and Peace in Eastern Europe: The Ukrainian Lessons

War and Peace in Eastern Europe: The Ukrainian Lessons

Author(s): Leonidas Donskis / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2014

Keywords: Political evil; fascism; guilt; insensitivity; peace; war;

The issue of war and peace in Eastern Europe is discussed in this interpretive essay on the grounds of war between Russia and Ukraine in Eastern Ukraine. Focus is on what happened to the worlds of geopolitics, EU core values, European liberal consensus on human rights and civil liberties, and present Russia with its increasing rejection of the aforementioned liberal attitudes and democratic values. Made up by a series of insights into the clashes of Russian and EU politics, this essay offers a philosophical perspective on why and how ongoing low intensity conflicts waged and orchestrated by Russia in Ukraine and in Eastern Partnership countries substantially changed the character of war and peace over the past years. The question raised here is as to what kind of political implications we can expect from this process. The trajectories of moral and political consciousness in present Russia and the EU are examined and compared with the help of an overview of some recent political and cultural events.

The importance of the board of directors. Lessons from Lehman's failure

The importance of the board of directors. Lessons from Lehman's failure

Author(s): Emilia Klepczarek / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

Keywords: corporate governance; Lehman Brothers; risk management; financial crisis

Motivation: The effective functioning of the board is usually considered a key factor to minimize conflicts agency. In the literature, the composition of the board, including its size and the fraction of independent members is often pointed out as one of the most important elements determining the effectiveness of its work. The research on the effectiveness of supervision also analyze the activities of board committees, frequency of their meetings, separation of functions Chairman of the Board and CEO and the participation of women. It seems to be an interesting observation that research on the effects of the mentioned factors on the firms performance do not produce clear results. This may lead to a conclusion that one should use some qualitative methods to investigate the corporate governance procedures in the individual entity and work out their possible consequences for the analyzed institution. The case of Lehman Brothers seems to be a good choice for this kind of research as its collapse in 2008 may be found as the evidence for wrong supervision and managing mechanisms. Finding the possible causes of its bankruptcy should give then some guidelines to the proposals of improving the corporate governance systems.Aim: The purpose of this article is to analyze the conditions under which the board the Lehman Brothers performed supervision and find the cause of irregularities in this area.Results: The study shows that one cannot unambiguously state that all the board directors were competent, able to commit enough time for controlling and independent.

Japanese Approaches to the Challenges of Ageing-Lessons for Romania

Japanese Approaches to the Challenges of Ageing-Lessons for Romania

Author(s): Diana Tihan / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

Keywords: ageing; Romania; Japan;

However geographically and culturally distant from Romania, Japan can offer valuable lessons on how to prevent the potential negative impact and maximize the benefits of the accelerating population ageing process, considering that it has been experiencing, studying and experimenting with this phenomenon for longer than Romania and other EU countries. In addition, present day Japan may be seen as a show-case model, a possible picture of what other countries, now at the beginning of the ageing process, such as Romania, could look like in the near future. Japan may thus provide Romania a good opportunity to gather data about the dynamics of the process and the impact of the measures designed to tackle it. Certainly, no two social environments are the same, and the Japanese experience cannot be reproduced anywhere else as such. But finding inspiration and adapting the Japanese good-practices to the unique particularities and challenges of the Romanian demographic process are feasible endeavors that may prove beneficial. This paper aims to identify possible solutions to the problem of ageing in Romania based on a comparative approach with Japan on this issue.

RIPE@ – Fifteen Years of International Development and ‘Lessons’ Learned

RIPE@ – Fifteen Years of International Development and ‘Lessons’ Learned

Author(s): Gregory Ferrell Lowe / Language(s): English / Issue: 12/2015

RIPE is an international network of scholars and practitioners who are committed to the development of public service in media. The acronym stands for Re-Visionary Interpretations of the Public Enterprise in media. As with most developmental initiatives it was conceived as an instrumental solution to a set of practical problems.

LESSONS OF WORLD WAR II AND THE ANNEXATION OF CRIMEA

LESSONS OF WORLD WAR II AND THE ANNEXATION OF CRIMEA

Author(s): Dainius Žalimas / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

Keywords: International law; Annexation of Crimea; Aggression; Use of force under international law; Principles of international law

The article carries out an assessment of the “reunification of Crimea with Russia” from the point of view of contemporary international law and examines the arguments of Russian scholars who aim to justify the acts of Russia in Crimea. The article aims to identify the strategies that are employed in seeking to offer an interpretation of international legal norms that corresponds to the interests of the Russian Federation. The research shows that in the legal discourse a new definition is attached to a “people” as an entity entitled to secession and right to “remedial secession” becomes, in principle, absolute, i.e. the exercise of the right to “remedial secession” is justified not only on the grounds of an actual physical threat, but also on the grounds of vague ideological threats, or temporary political instability. Moreover, the scientific discourse on justifying the „reunification of Crimea with Russia“ relies heavily on historical arguments that suggest restoring “historical justice” and reuniting historically united nations, and aims at diminishing the sovereignty of Ukraine and redefining it in such a way that enhances the scope of Russian sovereignty, while minimizing the sovereignty of post-Soviet states. The research suggests that consequently the current Russian legal discourse has become a political instrument used for constructing concepts and meanings necessary for the realization of Russia’s geopolitical interests as Russian scholars tend to manipulate international legal concepts and combine legal and pseudo-legal reasoning and subsequently an alternative pseudo-legal reality is constructed.

The Euro crisis and its lessons from a Greek perspective

The Euro crisis and its lessons from a Greek perspective

Author(s): Thanos Skouras / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2013

Keywords: crisis; European Union; debt; policy making; prejudice;

In the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, Germany’s insistence that each country was to defend its banking system on its own rather than by the European Union acting jointly, is what triggered the euro crisis. This made it inevitable that the weakest countries with the least healthy public finances would sooner or later come under attack. It is argued that the root of the crisis is not excessive sovereign debt but the deficient construction of the euro and, more specifically, the absence of a common treasury. The main lessons of the crisis are briefly presented, and a less evident lesson, at least for economists, is discussed at length. This is that national pride and prejudice can influence the unfolding of events in uncertain and dangerous ways that do not make rational sense. In the concluding sections, the present state of the crisis and the future prospects for Europe are examined and, finally, Greece’s future is assessed in the light of this analysis.

Key Lessons of the 2017 Local Elections in Croatia

Key Lessons of the 2017 Local Elections in Croatia

Author(s): Marijana Grbeša,Berto Šalaj / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

Keywords: Local Elections in Croatia (2017);

The local elections in Croatia were held on 21. May 2017,1 in very turbulent political circumstances caused by the collapse of an unstable governing coalition between the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the populist party The Bridge (Most). The troubled marriage between these two parties dates back to the 2015 parliamentary elections, when the newly established Most, led by Božo Petrov, the mayor of the small southern town of Metković, unexpectedly won 19 parliamentary seats.2 The media hailed them for achieving “what the third parties have been failing to do for the past 15 years,” calling them “a sensation” and “the real winners” of the 2015 parliamentary elections. Since neither of the two major parties (the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)) won the necessary majority to form a government, Most used its newly acquired blackmail potential to side with the conservative HDZ and decide the winner of the election. Most seemingly conditioned its support on the implementation of “reforms,”

Converter from Moodle Lessons to Interactive Epub Ebooks

Converter from Moodle Lessons to Interactive Epub Ebooks

Author(s): Martin Takev,Elena Somova,Miguel Rodríguez-Artacho / Language(s): English / Issue: 6/2019

Keywords: EPUB; xAPI; e-learning environment; educational content modelling; educational authoring; Learning Analytics

This article describes a software, that automatically converts already created Moodle Learning Resources of type “lessons” into interactive e-books, stored in EPUB format. The advantages of EPUB format to present learning content are discussed, as well as existing examples of its use in education. Emphasis is given to creating interactive EPUB lessons that enable tracking learners’ activities and saving their current progress with the help of xAPI statements and state API implementation.

The intervention in Kosovo revisited. Twelve lessons for the future

The intervention in Kosovo revisited. Twelve lessons for the future

Author(s): Xhambazi Visar / Language(s): English / Issue: 01+02 (40)/2020

Keywords: Kosovo; NATO; NATO campaign; democracy; UN Security Council;

The 20th anniversary of the NATO campaign in Kosovo, which led to the beginning of a long process of state-building, was recently commemorated. Yet it is worth recalling what led to the campaign and understanding the lessons of its aftermath which are very much relevant today.

Learning Lessons from the Economic Crisis in Self-employment

Learning Lessons from the Economic Crisis in Self-employment

Author(s): Alfonso Jesús Torres Maríni / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

Keywords: entrepreneurship; self-employment; economic crisis; Business cycle; self-employed workers profiles;

The main objective of this article is to test the hypothesis that the economic crisis has resulted in significant changes in the socioeconomic and labor profile of the new self-employed in Spain between 2008 and 2013. Additionally, it is intended to determine if there are homogeneous profiles of new self-employed workers that allow to set clusters, and, if so, to check how these clusters have changed in the studied period. To verify the above-mentioned hypotheses, it has been carried out a descriptive analysis followed by a Cluster Analysis, using the Continuous Sample of Working Lives data. The research concludes that the economic recession has been accompanied by a fall in the number of new self-employed between 2008 and 2013, along with a significant change in their socio-demographic and occupational profile. There is also evidence of the existence of several clusters of self-employed, with heterogeneous sociodemographic and labor characteristics. The composition and features of these clusters evolved in parallel to the economic situation, showing an intense increase in the educational level and a reduction in the job stability between 2008 and 2013.

NATO and Covid-19: Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead

NATO and Covid-19: Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead

Author(s): Colonel Hennadiy A. Kovalenko / Language(s): English / Issue: 03 (21)/2020

Keywords: NATO; Covid-19; Lessons Learned; Challenges;

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 arguably came as a shock and will have profound consequences. It has already created exceptional circumstances in NATO capitals and in other NATO structures at all levels – strategic, operational, and tactical. The objective of this article is to analyse Alliance’s reaction to the pandemic, with a focus on lessons learned and a way ahead. Bearing in mind that the Alliance has not faced a pandemic before, three following main domains should be analysed: the institutional domain (how the Alliance will adapt its activities at the strategic level), the operational domain (how NATO will adapt the Command and Control structure, plan and conduct of military exercises, and the changing business within the command structure), and the information domain (how the Alliance has been waging the information campaign in order to dispel myths and rumours/perceptions and to promote own interests and agendas for the future).

PANDEMIC LESSONS: THE NEED FOR A NEW POLITICAL THINKING

PANDEMIC LESSONS: THE NEED FOR A NEW POLITICAL THINKING

Author(s): Vladimir Pryakhin / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2021

Keywords: pandemic; global problems; global governance; new political thinking

With the beginning of the new Cold War, the new political thinking so popular during perestroika initiated in the USSR, disappeared in the political vocabulary. This happened for a number of reasons, such as: Gorbachev’s new political thinking has practically fulfilled its historical destination to unite the international community for preventing the threat of a nuclear war; after the elimination in the 90-s of the direct danger of a world war interstate rivalry, political competition for spheres of influence, markets and sources of raw- and energy materials resumed; integrative ideology was replaced by nationalist, separatist and consumerist ideological clichés; and the idea of a civilizational split began to be intensively implanted. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the illusion that with the end of the Cold War all global threats disappeared. It became obvious that humanity is increasingly becoming a hostage of scientific and technological progress. The need for joint countering new challenges became more evident than ever. The scientific community returned to the question of what should be the new thinking to integrate the disintegrated international community. Our vision of such an integrative ideology includes basic components as follows: urgent need for global governance; identification of the optimal forms and for a of increasing the level of global governance; increasing the role of international organizations (in particular, WHO);developing an integrated universally acceptable set of moral principles and values; search for ways to improve inter-civilizational dialogue, overcoming social schism, working out the idea of an interfaith universal church.

An experimental study on a conversational agent in software testing lessons

An experimental study on a conversational agent in software testing lessons

Author(s): Leo Natan PASCHOAL,Silvana Morita MELO,Vânia de Oliveira Neves,Tayana Uchôa Conte,Simone do Rocio Senger de SOUZA / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: chatbot; computer science education; software testing;

Nowadays, few professionals understand the techniques and testing criteria to systematize the software testing activity in the software industry. Towards shedding some light on such problems and promoting software testing, professors in the area have established Massive Open Online Courses as educational initiatives. However, the main limitation is the professor’s lack of supervision of students. A conversation agent called TOB-STT has been defined in trying to avoid the problem. A previous study introduced TOB-STT; however, it did not analyze its efficacy. This article addresses a controlled experiment that analyzed its efficacy and revealed it was not expressive in its current version. Therefore, we conducted an in-depth analysis to find what caused this result and provided a detailed discussion. The findings contribute to the TOB-STT since the experimental results show that improvements need to be made in the conversational agent before we use it in Massive Open Online Courses.

Lessons from Cyberpsychology that Educators Should be Reminded of

Lessons from Cyberpsychology that Educators Should be Reminded of

Author(s): Mersiha Jusić / Language(s): English / Issue: 22/2023

Keywords: cyberpsychology; motivation; intrinsic; extrinsic; youth; education;

In recent years, cyberspace has emerged as a prominent realm for young people, perceived by them as at least as important as real life. Cyberspace has become a field for the satisfaction of many psychological needs and has brought to life novel factors that influence development among children and youth. As a consequence, the educational sphere has been dramatically affected by the changes in the psychological functions, behaviors, and habits of students, who are becoming increasingly different from what educators were trained for only a few decades ago. Causal connections are yet to be examined experimentally, and longitudinal research takes more time. In the meantime, based on theoretical assumptions in psychology and educational sciences, some of the changes that affect the motivation and behavior of students in the classroom can be assumed. With this being said, the following article, using the perspective of self-determination theory, is aimed at understanding changes in students’ motivation, engagement, and behavior caused by cyber-psychological factors. How are the attention and habits of new generations different? How does this affect their involvement and motivation to learn in the classroom? How do students’ emotional experiences that potentially permeate classrooms reflect their increased immersion in the digital world? What are the most important lessons from cyberpsychology that educational professionals need to be aware of to maximize the benefits of their teaching to students? This article attempts to provide some answers and recommendations regarding these vital issues.

The Development of Speaking Skills in English Language Lessons

The Development of Speaking Skills in English Language Lessons

Author(s): Danica Gondova / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2012

Keywords: speaking skills; language habits; explicit knowledge; implicit knowledge; proceduralization; traditional techniques; learner-oriented activities;

The paper deals with the importance of teaching speaking skills in foreign language lessons and it compares theoretical backgrounds and objectives of language teaching with the reality observed at some primary and lower-secondary schools and gymnasia in the Zilina Region. It also presents the results of the research which prove that in the observed lessons, speaking skills were not developed sufficiently.