A Conceptual History of Political Regimes: Democracy, Dictatorship, and Authoritarianism

Author(s): Adam Przeworski / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

The labels we attach today to distinguish political regimes have histories. Applying them without understanding these histories is sometimes anachronistic and ethnocentric. I have little new to say about “democracy” and “dictatorship”, so that the discussion of these concepts is just a reminder. “Authoritarianism”, however, is a dubious neologism. I advance two claims: (1) In all regimes the power to command and be obeyed entails some dose of reason-giving, (2) What distinguishes regimes is the form and the extent to which the authority of rulers is monopolised by physical force. I conclude that the concept of “authoritarianism” adds little to the distinction between democracy and dictatorship.

A Historical Development of Neo-liberalism

Author(s): Davor Paukovic / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Neo-liberalism is, undoubtedly, today’s dominant economical and political ideology. This paper is an attempt to give a general outline of where it derived from, what was it based on, and how it became the leading driving force in the field of economy and politics.

A liberális rendet „megbuherálták”

Author(s): Judit Petho-Szirmai / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2017

Colgan, Jeff D. & Keohane, Robert O.: The Liberal Order is Rigged = Foreign Affairs, May – June 2017, 36-44. p.

A populizmus vizsgálata demokráciaelméleti perspektívában

Author(s): Attila Antal / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2017

Our thinking about democracy has been fundamentally reshaped by populism, and the relationship between populism and democracy has become one of the key questions in the academic literature. This study aims to provide an overview of key features of the political literature that foregrounds populism in the context of democracy. It is important to stress that this is only one part of the literature on populism: many consider populism as a distinct ideology or as a technique of political communication; this review will only consider research that connects populism directly with democracy, which I consider to be important to bring us to a fuller understanding of the phenomenon. This study will highlight in particular two streams of thinking, one characterizing populism as a ‘pathology’ of democracy, the other theorizing it as a subtype of democracy.

About reform in the work of Ștefan Zeletin

Author(s): Mihaela Radoi / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

Ştefan Zeletin (1882- 1934) – a philosopher, an economist and a sociologist – is one of the household names of Romanian interwar liberalism. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy and Classical Philology in Iaşi, and in 1914 he defended his doctoral thesis (and was granted magna cum laude) at the University of Berlin. After finalizing his studies, Zeletin taught at the University of Iaşi. Concerning his work, Ştefan Zeletin did not have the same attitude towards the two aspects of his thought: philosophy and sociology. He considered himself a philosopher who failed to complete his system of thought only because of the tough circumstances. Persuaded that there is an organic connection – yet to be discovered – between the economic life of a country, on one hand, and the political, legal and cultural institutions, on the other, (Claudian 1935) Ștefan Zeletin began his sociological writings, which marked the political and cultural life of those times. The sociological and political works, which had made him known in several settings, were viewed by Zeletin as an episode within his activity, which he would have wanted to be focused on purely philosophical works. The author explains the approach to the practical aspects of social reality by the fact that he was determined to attend various events, which he felt the need to understand. An event that marked him deeply was the War of 1916-1918, to which he took part as an infantry officer; this event drew him closer to the often-disappointing reality of the Romanian society in an ongoing process of construction. “Hence, I decided to make the ultimate sacrifice: to renounce, for now, to any philosophical activity, to get to know our society just like it is and to try to give back to it something that may be in its interest. This also helped me fulfil an ardent desire I had felt on the front where, the carbine on my shoulder, I saw our society collapse like a cardboard castle.” (Zeletin 1927 p. 276) This article aims at unravelling several aspects regarding the life, the work and the sociological view of the author.

Acting Together: The Art of Collective Improvisation in Theatre and Politics

Author(s): Sonja Vilc / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

The paper analyzes the concept of collective improvisation and draws out its potentials for social and political theory. Translating the ideas of collective improvisation from their original context in the theatre into the field of political thought, I argue that they offer a new understanding of political action by reevaluating the concepts of dissensus (Rancière) and community (Nancy), as well as the ways in which politics as a system needs to produce collectively binding decisions (Luhmann). I conclude that the ideas inherent in the practice of collective improvisation, as it has been developed within the tradition of modern theatre improvisation, subvert our intuitive ways of thinking about politics and thereby offer an alternative model of being and acting together.

Adam Smith on migration

Author(s): Daniel Rauhut / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2010

Adam Smith considered poverty and unemployment as push factors for migration and wages high enough to provide for a worker and his family as a pull factor. Migration as a free mobility of labour leads to an optimal allocation of the factor commodity labour as well as changes of employment which necessary to equalise wages between different geographical entities. The consequences are not only promoting economic growth and prosperity, but also reducing poverty. Smith has no contemporary empirical support for his theory.

Alexei’aus Yurchako politiškumo samprata ir vėlyvojo Sovietmečio paradoksai

Author(s): Jurate Kavaliauskaite / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 02/2014

The article examines the concept of the political, and it’s relationship to the Late Soviet Socialism, adressed in the Sovietology oeuvre of Proffesor Alexei Yurchak. The question is raised whether the claim about inner paradoxes of the late Soviet system as a single discursive formation can be substantiated without addressing the probability of more fundamental discursive divisions, splits and multiplicities structuring life of the post-Stalinist epoch. The critical analysis of such concepts as „authoritative discourse“ and discursive „performative shift“ reveals contradictions of author‘s conceptual attempt to explain the legitimacy of the late Soviet system, as well as elucidates why the issue of the Soviet as the political remains suspended in the analytical shema of Yurchak.

Alexis de Tocqueville. Kritiker und Verteidiger der Demokratie

Author(s): Ludwig Bergsträsser / Language(s): German / Issue: 018/1950

An audience with … the public, the representative, the sovereign

Author(s): Niccolò Milanese / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

The right of audience, in common law, is the right of a lawyer to represent a client in a court. Royalty, the Pope and some Presidents grant audiences. What does the power to grant an audience consist in? And what does it mean to demand an audience (with)? Through a reading of the way in which the vocabulary of theatre, acting and audience is involved in the generation of a theory of state by Hobbes and Rousseau, this paper looks to reopen these questions as a political resource for us to re-imagine and refigure our ways of being together. Through readings of Hobbes and Rousseau, it looks at the ways in which the performance of politics creates the public, the representative and the sovereign and the ways these figures interact. It proposes an alternative role for theatre as places of affective learning and a civic ethics of playfulness, in which the auto-institution of the state as an imagined collectivity is fully assumed.

Andrea Faggion, Nuria Sánchez Madrid, Alessandro Pinzani (Eds.) Kant and Social Policies, Palgrave Macmillan, London, New York, 2016

Author(s): Igor Cvejic / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

Anna Fotyga jako minister spraw zagranicznych w okresie polaryzacji polskiej sceny politycznej (maj 2006 – listopad 2007)

Author(s): Agnieszka Orzelska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 43/2016

During the nineteen months when Minister Anna Fotyga was in office, Polish foreign policy underwent significant changes. The style of politics also changed. Unlike her predecessors, Fotyga did not aspire to the role of chief architect of foreign policy – the president and prime minister played the leading roles in this regard. There was close cooperation between the main authorities with responsibility for foreign policy. At the same time, divisions between the ruling camp and the opposition were deepening.Fotyga’s approach to international challenges remained in line with the programme of the Law and Justice (PiS) party. The EU’s support for Polish demands on the embargo imposed by Moscow at the summit in Samara can be considered a success. In contrast, Fotyga’s attempts to increase energy security through closer cooperation with the countries of Central Asia, bypassing Russia, failed. The mission of Fotyga as head of diplomacy was interrupted as a result of early parliamentary elections.Fotyga’s biggest problem, as a politician rather than as a foreign minister, was her negative media image, which was a result of the political rivalry between PiS and the Civic Platform (PO) party.The activity of Minister Fotyga is examined in the context of the conditions of the international system, internal policies and her role as an individual decision-maker. The internal conditions – i.e., the strong polarization of the political scene due to the rivalry between PiS and PO – were the most important factor in her activity.

Annales Okulu’nun Siyasi Tarih Disiplinine Etkileri: Türkiye Örneği

Author(s): Merve Irem Yapici / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 1/2015

The efforts to scientize history starting from the 19th century focused on the events and the performers, and imposed narrative history as a “scientific” approach until 1920s. The Annales School - established in 1929 – rejected the aforementioned efforts to scientize history and accepted a problem-based analysis as opposed to an event-based approach. It emphasized the necessity of an analysis of the era and the conditions surrounding the historical actor in order to understand the actor’s practices. Therefore, it highlighted the urgency of an interdisciplinary work. Political History, which is regarded as the earliest discipline of International Relations, formerly centered upon events and characters, and was confined to practices of statesmen. Thanks to the emergence of the Annales School, it enriched both its subject matter and methodology. It was influenced by the Annales School’s holistic approach. However, the enrichment has been limited to the Western civilization and analyses of the Ottomans in Turkish Political Historiography. This resulted in limitation of Annales’ holistic understanding of history to only a certain geographical/cultural region.

Antagonističko, agonističko i singularno pluralno političko

Author(s): Nada Harbaš,Bernard Harbaš / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 1-2/2011

This article is an attempt to present historical development of the concept of the political. Through positions of Carl Schmitt, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, this article demonstrates three different understandings of the relations between politics and the political. While Carl Schmitt understands the political as the precondition of a state and defines it through the antagonistic relation friend/enemy, Mouffe and Laclau determine the political as agonistic, transforming at the same time the enmity into the relations between adversaries. Instead of Schmitt’s idea of enmity, as well as Habermas’s deliberative definition of democracy, the two theoreticians suggest a concept of agonistic pluralism should be introduced which would, along with the agreement, necessarily include disagreement on political matters. Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe, similarly to Mouffe and Laclau, and following Heidegger, bring the political into relation with philosophical and define it as a constant questioning of current politics. They believe that every agreement necessarily leads to totalitarianism so that the political thus always needs to be opposed to power and government.

Antun Vujić o moći i nemoći socijaldemokracije

Author(s): Tonci Kursar / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 05-08/2016

Postalo je besmisleno naglašavati da je socijaldemokracija u krizi. Takvo stanje traje od osamdesetih godina i to je njena, kako se kaže, ‘normalnost’. Antun Vujić koji je zaštitni znak hrvatske socijaldemokracije u svojoj publicističkoj knjizi Hrvatska i ljevica kaže: »Prikrivanje ne pomaže. Socijaldemokracija kao politička organizacija je u krizi. Ono što nije u krizi je potreba za socijalnom demokracijom, usporediva i sa samom krizom« (2014: 342). Vujić se u knjizi posvetio rekonstrukciji ‘normalnosti’ koja razara današnju socijaldemokraciju, ali i društveno tkivo Hrvatske. Odbacio je ideološke i policy intervencije Giddensa, Blairea i Schrödera, tj. njihov Third Way, jer je to učenje samo formalno produljilo život socijaldemokraciji do početka globalne krize 2008.

Approaches in the Political Science Today

Author(s): Ciprian Iftimoaei / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2015

In over 2,000 years of existence, approaches in political science evolved from philosophical and normative reflections on various forms of organization of the ancient world to contemporary interdisciplinary approaches based on refining concepts and theories accumulated over time and the use of complex research methodologies, own or borrowed from related fields of studies such as sociology, political psychology, econometrics, advanced statistics. Although quantitative approaches prevails in contemporary research, does not lack political philosophy studies, theoretical and ideological approaches, inspired by everyday realities and empirical research results.

Argumentavimas remiantis teisės principais: atkuriamasis ir plėtojamasis būdai

Author(s): Johanas Baltrimas,Mindaugas Lankauskas / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 85/2014

In his dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York case, O. W. Holmes famously stated that general propositions do not decide concrete cases. There are many others who claim similarly. Among them F. Schauer states that such concepts as liberty, equality do not strongly determine answers in legal questions – although not totally vague, they require additional premises in order to be applied in concrete cases. This study, among other questions, focuses on what these additional premises are when it comes to application of legal principles. Besides this, a goal is raised to seek out what views on application of legal principles are dominating in jurisprudence. Perhaps the most important topic in the study is the matter of two perspectives to reasoning with legal principles. One of them is linked with judicial restraint, it is based on a view that contents of a legal principle can be discovered through earlier cases where it made impact on decisions of judges or legislators. The other perspective is based on argument that positive law (the official and explicit legal texts) is not sufficient for proper dispute resolution and this is where legal principles come to aid – they are the artery through which law is supplied with moral, practical reasons. Based on these views the reconstructive and developmental method to apply principles are contemplated. The former is perceived as analysis and comparison of earlier cases where the disputed principle had impact on judge‘s or legislator‘s decision. Among factors which ought to be evaluated are similarity of these cases to the case which is being dealt with and how widespread is the principle (the variety of these cases). The developmental method is characterized as relying on factors which lie beyond boundaries of formal explicitly expressed law (practical arguments, arbitrator‘s inner sense of justice, etc.). Proper application of this method inter alia can be ensured by the principles of J. Rawls‘ inner position, by arbitrator‘s dissociation from peripheral inappropriate, subjective factors. Evaluation of these methods leads to conclusion that the reconstructive method contributes to legal certainty, easier foreseeing of judicial decisions, includes lesser risk of impartiality and similar factors, so it is superior when there is no or minimum need to develop the law. However, developmental method has the advantage of ensuring material justice and practical outcomes of judicial decision when it comes to cases where there is a strong need to develop the law.

Around the Bloc: Call Our Country ‘Czechia,’ Prague Politicos Say

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/19/2016

The Czech Republic is a rarity in lacking a common one-word form of its full name.

Around the Bloc: Lenin’s Misguided Policies Helped Destroy USSR, Putin Says

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/02/2016

Transfer of Donbas region to Ukraine was ‘nonsense,’ Russian leader says.

Association, Property, Territory: What Is at Stake in Immigration?

Author(s): Zoltán Miklósi / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

It is often claimed that states have territorial rights, and that these rights include the right to exclude people who seek admission to their territory. In this paper I will examine whether the most defensible account of territorial rights can provide support to the right to exclude. I will discuss three types of theories of territorial rights. The first account links the right of states to exclude to the prior right of individuals to freedom of association, which is said to include the right not to associate and to dissociate. The second is a Lockean theory that grounds the territorial rights of states, and hence their right to exclude, in the prior right of individuals to private property in the land that constitutes the territory of the state. I argue that these accounts have independently implausible implications, regardless of their implications for the immigration debate. The third account is a Kantian theory that bases the territorial jurisdiction of states on individuals’ duty to create, sustain and submit themselves to a shared system of law that is a necessary condition of guaranteeing their rights and of discharging their duties towards one another. I will argue that the Kantian account is superior to its current alternatives. However, I also suggest that it cannot ground a broad right to exclude.