Review of: Antonio Tabucchi, Erklärt Pereira. Eine Zeugenaussage, München 1995, 207 pp.
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Review of: Jewgeni Jewtuschenko, Stirb nicht vor deiner Zeit, translated into German by Susanne Veselov, Vienna 1994
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Keywords: Daniel Banulescu;
Review of Daniel Banulescu, Te pup în fund, conducator iubit! Editura Nemira, Bucharest, 1994, 224pp.
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Keywords: capacity of civilization; disability of civilization; social organization;formation of a nation; decay of a nation
The article’s attention is focused on one of the most serious social and political organizational problems – the so-called disability of civilization – and on the features of the spreading of this phenomenon in Lithuania, and the Lithuanian nation. The author’s own interpretation of the disability of civilization is seen as the nation and the nation based state’s areas of behavior, which are filled with excessive polarization, deviance, shady economy, crime and actions lacking wisdom and/or continuity (and, therefore, strategically unplanned). Social disability promotes the scattering of anomies, social arrhythmias and social fatigue, consequently giving birth to and supporting the so-called “false consciousness”, etc. The author believes that a disability of civilization is not a distinctive feature of any nation. However, in each country it has its own idiosyncrasies, determined by its historical legacy, its relationship with today’s world and with globalization overshadowing it. The author also draws attention to Lithuania’s approach towards a meaningful relationship with the EU.
More...Keywords: Saudi Arabia; Wahhabi; Sunni; Shia; Pakistan; Zia ul-Haq
Historically, Pakistan has nurtured an interpretation of Islam based on Sufi philosophy, which has a reputation of being more tolerant and open-minded. Recent decades have, however, seen a rise in conservative Islam exported from Saudi Arabia; Sunni Wahhabism has become more common in Pakistan largely due to a socio-historical context, which includes the 1970s oil crises, the 1979 Iranian revolution as well as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Petrodollars have given the Saudi kingdom the necessary resources to finance Wahhabi imperialism, the Iranian revolution has politicized Shia Muslims (who are seen as a threat by the Sunni), and the Afghan war has resulted in the creation of militarized Islam, supported and funded by the USA and Saudi Arabia. General Zia ul-Haq would then take power in Pakistan and capitalize on Saudi support for the hardline Islamization of the country, a policy which has left a trail of sectarian Sunni/Shia violence in its wake.
More...Keywords: wind power; law; spatial planning; tiering; multi-level governance; municipal veto
At national policy level in Sweden, the importance of development of wind power is emphasized. However, the actual implementation is highly dependent on local permit giving for windmills. The legislation governing the permit giving has been revised in an attempt to make the local processes faster and to shift the permit process towards a more regional environmental process as opposed to a more plan-based municipal process. By tradition in Sweden, the local, municipal level has had a strong mandate in land use planning which is often referred to as the “the municipal planning monopoly”, which means that there is a tension whenever a legal proposal seeks to diminish this “plan monopoly”. The legal investigation suggesting changes in the law on permit-giving stressed the need for strengthening the regional assessment, which led to a compromise called the “municipal veto-right”, where the regional environmental permit needs a formal approval from the municipality for the permit process to continue. This study investigates both the legal development of the so-called veto-right as well as what it empirically has led to, and how it is perceived by the industry as well as concerned parties. For this reason, a sample of 30 regional permit cases has been collected, and a limited number of interviews have been conducted with judges in appeal courts and regional handling officers assessing turbine applications. The results indicate that the industry sees the “veto” as leading to problematic uncertainty in the process at regional level and, therefore, prefer to keep the applications at a level that entitles them to use the municipal permit system which is determined by height and number of turbines. This is a consequence directly opposite to what the legal commission aimed for when revising the legal system.
More...Keywords: environmental lobbying; Europeanization; institutionalization; regulation; Lithuania; UK
In the last decades, the world has been facing important and rapid changes of global climate and other aspects of environment. In response to this, countries are adopting climate change laws and other environmental regulations, which are causing huge social tensions and involvement of lobby groups. Lithuanian environmental interest groups are increasingly influenced by Europeanization and a parallel process of institutionalization. Interestingly, Lithuania already accepted a Law on Lobbying Activities in 2000 and became a pioneer in Europe. The UK case is significant, because they have introduced the Climate Change Act 2008 and, due to high pressure from different interest groups, ENGOs and corporate sector. The aim of the article is to examine the main factors and determinants that influence legal environmental regulation as a consequence of lobbying in Lithuania and the UK. The analysis examines lobby effectiveness as the difference among interests groups policy preferences (before lobbying), proposed policy (after lobbying) and the general outcome of prominent cases. The results indicate that the ability of groups to influence decision making process varies with the policy issues.
More...Keywords: environmental taxation; environmental policy; efficiency; economic instruments; Baltic countries
The aim of this paper is to make a brief overview about the recent evolution of the environmental tax systems in the Baltic region. With this purpose in mind, the article contains a review of the environmental taxes used in eight Baltic countries (Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland and Sweden) during the period from 2002 till 2011. Environmental taxation evolution has taken different paths across European Union countries, underpinned by different environmental policy frameworks. Presently, the European Commission is stimulating the European Union Strategy 2020 to have a more secure and competitive green economy in Europe. The results of this paper show that the collection of environmental taxes differs among the Baltic countries. It is partly related to environmental policy of each Baltic country and partly due to environmental tax reforms, which have been implemented in Sweden, Denmark and Germany. It may also be due to more ambitious goals and purposes when it comes to reductions in energy use and to protect the nature of the world. In the article, attention is also paid to the problem of application of efficiency of economic instruments in the European Union. The authors discuss and compare environmental reflections in environmental policy of the European Union.
More...Keywords: postmodernism; new public management; new governance; consumerism; public administration
The aim of the article is to conduct theoretical analysis trying to show that consumerism, as the feature of post-modern society, interrelates with new public management concept and makes an impact to its theoretical principles. In the first part, the authors reveal the differences between consumption and consumerism and define the main characteristics of consumerism. A. Maslow needs hierarchy pyramid’s logic serves for that purpose as the instrument. Consumerism aspect is indicated as the natural, organic activity, which is directed to fulfill the lower individ’s needs. Consumerism as not natural, postmodern meta-life form not only causes inflation in the lower factors of human needs, but also presses forward to the sphere where consumerism was earlier absent. In postmodern society, the higher human social and self-actualization needs also are becoming the instruments of consumerism. When earlier these needs were satisfied by establishing real social ties and they were dependent on other individs, now the human relations sphere is transforming. These processes are reduced to social plays of trade and the cult of materialism becomes the essential feature. There are also revealed other aspects, such as the use of rational quality criteria and absolutizing of quantitative indicators as well as the deformation of qualitative indicators in the context of consumerism. It is necessary to indicate the understanding of consumerism as the process where individ is using the commodities and services and the consumerism where the consumer becomes the consuming substance.
More...Keywords: new employee; socialization; adaptation; factors; preschool; secondary school; education organization
New employee adaptation features in preschools and secondary schools of Lithuania are discussed in this paper. The purpose of this article is to discuss the facilitation factors for a new employee in preschools and secondary schools of Lithuania. In the first part of this paper, called “Organizational adaptation concept”, understanding of organization adaptation concept based on various foreign and national scientific researches was discovered. “Employee adaptation process” is the second part of the article, in which employee adaptation peculiarity is revealed. In the third part of this paper, called “The main factors of employee adaptation in organization”, main facilitating and aggravating factors for new employee in organizations are given. Finally, in the fourth part, called “The research of new employee adaptation in preschools and secondary schools of Lithuania”, the main results and conclusions are presented. Summarizing various scientific approaches and theories and the results of research data, it was showed that lighter adaptation for new employees mainly influence practical, not theoretical, activities, i.e. practical introduction to the workplace, with organization and duties, personal characteristics, i.e. abilities to communicate, self-confidence and avoidance of conflict situations, and high work motivation.
More...Keywords: social media; higher education; Web 2.0; student-centeredness; social media literacy; learning
Social media is becoming more and more pervasive in all aspects of life, including education. As social media application is a comparatively new research field, the discourse on its application in education environments is often contradictory. Thus, literature review is carried out to identify the main trends and issues in the emerging research and theories on social media use in higher education. First, the background of higher education modernization and technological influence is reviewed, paying attention to the effects of social media application in the sphere of higher education. Various forms of social media and transitional media applications, such as course management systems, are discussed concerning their use in educational environments. Also, a note is taken of new emerging educational theories concerning learning based on technological change and social media use. It is noted that the initial enthusiasm about social media application in higher education is changed by sober understanding of social media integration into higher education contexts.
More...Keywords: evasion; child maintenance; child; criminal liability; criminalization
Lithuanian Law provides criminal liability for evasion of child’s maintenance (Article 164 of the CC). This norm directly criminalizes civil law breach, i.e. such crime allows punishing for debts (debt for child’s maintenance, occurred on the basis of court decision). In practice, non-fulfillment of the court decision of child’s maintenance raises a number of questions, whereas it is not clear from which moment the person is held criminally liable and when it is enough to apply other techniques. The criteria of predetermining convicting of a person are not clear. This article analyzes the evasion of child’s maintenance and the problems of its criminal legal evaluation. The objective of the article is to define criminal liabilities for evasion of child’s maintenance according to court decision criteria on the basis of systematic, logical court practice analysis.Evasion of child’s maintenance is predetermined by the existing social problem and its solution demand. Crime does not distinguish itself with smooth legal technique, however, the evasion of child’s maintenance cannot be categorically excluded (decriminalized), whereas civil law means are insufficient to defend interests of aggrieved children. Criminal liability is an efficient method to deal with criminals, evading child’s maintenance, however, this shall not be evaluated as a principal, efficient measure for solution of such type of issues. This means that criminal liability shall be applied only in exceptional cases, when it is impossible to apply lenient measures (of civil or administrative procedure).In criminal codes of foreign countries non-fulfillment of the duty to maintain a child has an individual legal meaning and is considered a crime. Criteria of evasion of child’s maintenance (consequences, crime commission method, duration, etc.), established in criminal codes of foreign countries, are also widely applicable in practice of Lithuanian courts. Components of crime related to evasion of child’s maintenance are non-informative, according to the described essential elements, as this essential element does not demonstrate greater hazard of the act and is improper restriction criterion. Credit legal status aggravating criterion is highly efficient for restriction of criminal and civil liability in cases referred to in this category. However, according to Article 164 of the CC, criminal liability shall occur in case if the person’s property status and ability to work, nature of the breach, damage sustained due to failure to act or potential damage, duration, abuse really allow deciding on great hazard of such inactivity and significant negation of the object defended by this legal norm.
More...Keywords: protected areas management; stakeholders; biodiversity friendly farming; farmers; agro-environmental measures
The aim of this article is to overview the motivation for biodiversity of friendly farming and to investigate willingness and possibilities of Lithuanian farmers to participate in the management of protected areas. Lithuanian farmers are participating in different agri-environmental schemes, but participation is not widely used in practice. Agri-environmental schemes are oriented to involve more landowners and reach quantity results focusing of farmers’ participation, but not seeking for the biodiversity of oriented quality results and outputs. Friendly farming programmes are not state funded, but they usually get their funds from international conservation projects. Lithuanian landowners are not expressing a high degree of willingness to participate in addition in biodiversity conservation programmes, but a certain amount of farmers are already involved in them and there are quite widely spread potential participators. The results of the investigation showed that farmers who have higher understanding of biodiversity would be willing to participate in additional programmes. Biodiversity of friendly farmers could be the potential stakeholders in the management of protected areas. The results of the interview with 80 Lithuanian farmers participating in agro-environmental measures showed that they would be willing to participate in the protected areas management in different ways. One part of them would like to participate in consultation dialogues, others in decision making process or participating in joint protected areas’ administrations councils, but some of them stated that they would not be able to participate. The farmers expressed opinions that participation in any form would allow to avoid conflicts between landowners and protected area’s administration staff.
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