Around the Bloc: Lenin’s Misguided Policies Helped Destroy USSR, Putin Says
Transfer of Donbas region to Ukraine was ‘nonsense,’ Russian leader says.
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Transfer of Donbas region to Ukraine was ‘nonsense,’ Russian leader says.
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The article follows the history of how the image came to be constructed of an enemy from the East that threatens Western freedom and its fundamental values and lifestyle. It does so by exploring and analyzing issues such as the controversiality, arbitrariness and variability over time of the concepts of East and West, the figure of the enemy within, and the search for and creation of a culturally and racially hostile enemy to serve domestic political ends. Anti-Asian phobias, rooted in racial prejudice and the heritage of colonial history, include fear of and contempt for not only certain nationalities (Chinese, Mongols, Russians, Slavs, etc.), but also Muslims, in this case taking the form of Islamophobia. The author of the article refers to the following publications: "Yellow Peril! An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear" (2014), edited by John Kuo Wei Tchen and Dylan Yeats, and "The Muslims are coming!" (2014) by Aruna Kundnani.
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Alexan dre Kojeve (1902.-1968.) i Carl Schmitt (1888.-1985.) potjecali su iz prilično različitih miljea, krenuli različitim profesionalnim putovima i pozicionirali se na dva međusobno suprotstavljena pola u spektru suvremenog političkoga mišljenja.
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The article analyzes the main aspects of the Polish historical policy of the 2000s. Drawn is the conclusion that specifics of the historical way passed by Poland, and «historical injuries» of the Polish political consciousness provoke Warsaw to use history and collective memory of the people as an intellectual resource of the foreign policy. The attention is paid to the fact that domination of «a historical discourse» in foreign policy, mobilizing the Polish society, at the same time worsens the country’s relations with its main neighbors and partners — Germany and Russia.
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This paper discusses the process of termination of party coalitions in parliamentary systems. In contrast to the classic theories of coalition formation, it has been suggested, based on the analysis of practices in Western Europe, to consider the termination of coalitions as a separate stage in their life cycle. All coalition terminations have been divided into technical and discretionary. This approach allows us to better understand the logic of coalition termination in parliamentary democracies and offers a more precise prediction of the outcome of interactions between coalition partners.
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This article looks at the relationship between digital migration and neoliberalism. Labelled as a dominant hegemonic doctrine, this article argues how neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology that drives the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) pursuit of media diversity and pluralism, whilst simultaneously leveraging corporate interests. Using Malawi as a case study, this paper addresses how the neoliberal principles of laissez faire capitalism have travelled across political and economic lines and into communication policy to reveal that digital migration is safeguarding global corporate interests over the publics. Through an critical examination of the ITUs Guidelines for the Transition from Analogue to Digital Broadcasting (2010) and the ICT Regulation Toolkit (2007), the principles of a free-market, deregulation, privatization, unrestricted competition and economic prosperity are employed to advance neoliberalism’s quest for expanding private interests. By theoretically revisiting Antonio Gramsci’s hegemony, this paper generates new analytical judgements that answer the research problem: Has the manifestation of neoliberalism in digital migration policy superseded the public’s interest for a diversified media landscape.
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The referendum on United Kingdom’s membership in the European Union took place on June 23, 2016. With a turnout of 72.2%, 51.9% of those participating supported Brexit, while 48.1% voted against. The 2016 referendum was the second one on the British membership in the European project. The first one held in 1975 ended negatively for those supporting Brexit. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the British referendums of 1975 and of 2016, with a special focus on answering the question about the results of British votes and prospects of using the referendum in the process of deciding on matters of integration. An important task in this paper is to answer the question about the possible consequences of 2016 vote - both: for the United Kingdom and for the European Union.
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The author has concentrated on the idea of a socio-cultural regionalism, which is depicted in terms of historical-axiological reminiscences. He has emphasised the enormous cultural potential of this idea, which is not sufficiently used in the practice of local governments. He presented the approach of regionalism as an important value in the modern state, which forces the search for consensus and tolerance between people of different values living together in a pluralistic and democratic state, which is also a kind of community of values.
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Moj prilog razmatra slijedeća pitanja: Prvo pitanje je: - zašto su manjine u tako velikom broju zemalja izložene diskriminaciji vladajućih većina - čak i u uvjetima demokratske vlasti i ustava? Dokazat ću da prevlađujući oblik zapadne demokracije - model većinske demokracije - ima ozbiljnih nedostataka u pogledu zaštite manjina. Moje drugo pitanje bavi se slijedećim problemom: - postoji li oblik demokracije koji je posebno prilagođen za bavljenje integracijom manjina i problemom multikulturne koegzistencije? Pokušat ću pokazati uporednim sagledavanjem, da postoji alternativni model "većinskoj demokraciji" - "demokracija konsenzusa". Demokracija konsenzusa se sastoji iz podjele vlasti između većinskih grupa društva a njezini glavni elementi su proporcionalno predstavljanje i federalizam. Povijesno iskustvo uči da ovaj oblik demokracije nudi brojne prednosti za političku integraciju u multikulturnom društvu. Treće i posljednje pitanje je slijedeće: - postoje li putovi i sredstva za razvijanje demokratske podjele vlasti čak i u teškim uvjetima kakve nalazimo u demokracijama Centralne i Istočne Europe, ili ovdje u Bosni?
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The present article offers the single magisterial view to be found in a Gierke, a Carlyle, or an Ullmann. Its aim is, rather, to present a conspectus, as comprehensive as is possible within prescribed limits of space, of the present state of historical scholarship in the field surveyed. Such a conspectus need not be, nor is it here, so neutral as to preclude critical assessment. The judgements of the authors concerned have been brought to bear upon the issues arising in scholarly debate; and since the division between one article and another cannot be absolute and rigid, there is room for differences of emphasis and approach in the handling of topics that are relevant to more than one article. It is hoped that such differences do not amount to contradictions and that their presence may yield a degree of cross-fertilisation rather than confusion.
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Hereditary monarchy and enlightenment political theory hardly seem to be reconciled at first glance. And yet, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchical succession according to lineage were a continuous subject of debate between some of the most prominent enlightenment thinkers. Outlining this debate, the paper at hand gives an – even if eclectic – account of a controversy that spans over more than two and a half centuries.
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This article reviews Jan Werner Müller’s What Is Populism?, one of the current bestsellers in the field of political science. In his book Werner Müller undertook the project of understanding the rise of anti-establishment political forces in Western democracies. While the book is grounded in current approaches of political theory, it is written in a style and with the goal to make it comprehensible for the wider public. In his argument Müller confronts democratic and populist claims for representation to prove that the latter threatens the freedom of modern political life. Consequently the book defines populism not only as an anti-liberal and anti-establishment phenomenon, but also as an anti-democratic one, which can be identified by its exclusionary, moral based political and social claim.
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The Middle East was remolded when the Ottoman Empire was divided through the Sykes Picot Agreement, prepared by Great Britain and France on 19 May, 1916. While the Arabs had expected to gain absolute freedom from the empire, history unfortunately has shown that this was merely a tale well suited to the Arabian Nights. That agreement erased one region, replacing it with another; and the Middle East has primarily been ruled since then under totalitarian regimes, at least until the so-called Arab Spring. The Arab Spring uprisings shook most of the region’s totalitarian regimes to their foundations, with very few left untouched. A total of 18 countries were eventually affected: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen. While some, like Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen were heavily shaken; some are emerged with little damage, like the UAE and Iran. Nevertheless, surely the Arab Spring is the second biggest event in the Arabian geography since the Sykes Picot agreement. In contrast to Sykes Picot, the Arab Spring was started by the people not by foreign intervention. As mentioned before, Sykes Picot was a backwards step for Arab independence; similarly, neither the current anti-democratic events against Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, nor Syria’s current civil war situation are very promising for the future of the Arab Spring. This paper explains developments in Turkey’s perceptions of the region and Arabic states since the foundation of the Turkish Republic. To do this, it reviews key events from the Atatürk Era to the Arab Spring. After outlining the historical background of relations between Turkey and the Arabian Middle East, the article discusses the Arab Spring in relation to the heavily affected states. Finally, through this review, Turkey’s humanitarian diplomacy towards Syria will be examined.
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Over the past fifteen years, Hungarian literary historians have outlined an idea of an interdisciplinary research program that aimed at exploring the early modern history of Hungarian political thinking. One of the most important elements of the proposed work has been to ensure the availability of the texts to be analysed (or analysable) for the purposes of research. The texts to be considered for research purposes are coming from highly various genres. One of the less well-known and less exploited types of texts to be analysed are pamphlets (disputations) that are related to the politics of the period and that educated the dozens of Hungarian peregrinating students who were raised in the 17th century. Contemporary students could gain an insight through these texts and disputes into one of the most popular disciplines of the era, the fundamentals of political science.The study and its annex attempt to identify all the disputations that were protected by students from Hungary or Transylvania at a university of Germany and the Netherlands in the 17th century. It gives an overview of the role of the disputes in the education and their place in contemporary political science. It compares the features available from the database of 3000 disputes protected at German universities with the similar data from its own collection.In these so far underrated works, we should recognize the first traces of theoretical foundation of the Hungarian political thinking.
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Before I started to ask feminist questions, I thought I was grappling with enough complexity to make adequate sense of international politics. When I investigated the post-colonial politics of Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, I asked about class; I asked about ideology; I asked about race and ethnicity; I asked about rubber, sugar, tin and the state. When I dug into the politics of state militaries, I tracked the ethnic identities of rank and file soldiers, as well as of their officers; I kept an eye on each military force over several generations; and I monitored the often tense, sometimes intimate relations between any state’s military and its multiple police forces.
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The aim of the article is to present two opposing visions of the common good (value) in the history of political and legal doctrines. Such outline of extreme positions allows the author to assess the wide range of doctrinal differences in particular epochs and to impose the principles of the rule of law expressed in art. 2 of the Constitution in the historical tradition derived from the ancient republicanism and political and legal thought of the Middle Ages and which absorbs the postulates of modern liberalism, republicanism and conservatism, based on the democratic model.
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The article describes the concept of e-democracy and analyzes the prospects and obstacles to its realization. In the article stated that the development of communication technologies contributed to the formation of global information space, which includes political, economic, social and cultural institutions and as media plays a significant role in the restructuring of socio-political reality, the e-democracy is definitely the subject that should be analyzed. The relevance of the article is to study the phenomenon of e-democracy, its forms, as well as the prospects and constraints that exist on the way of its realization. In the text there are named different multiple prerequisites for e-democracy implementation. Among some of them are: the lack of qualified management decisions and as a result the necessity to adopt new ways of decision-making; increasing levels of political participation as nowadays a significant power relies not only on state authorities, but also on civil society (as a result, in order to increase the activity of citizens in social and political life of the country it is necessary to introduce new mechanisms of policy-making); the opportunity for the citizens to make real actions at different levels as e-democracy is not confined to voting via the Internet.Also in the article there is a given classification of e-democracy (open-source democracy, e-government, semi-direct democracy, e-consultations, computer lobbying) and its features (publicity, collectivity, assessment by the population the quality of work of the authorities). The article indicates the stages of development of informational and communicational cooperation between the authorities and the population. Moreover, the problems of implementation of e-democracy are also analyzed. Among named are: legal regulation problems (while implementing e-democracy, the question of Internet control by authorities arises), necessity of political and moral problems solution (there is definitely the risk of «black» technologies usage), technical problems (unfortunately, not every citizen of our country has a possibility to find Internet access). In the conclusion, it is stated thatedemocracy promotes transparency of activities of public authorities through the usage of modern technologies and providing citizens access to information. It is said that e-democracy is a tool supporting the political activities and ensuring greater transparency and accountability of politicians to the electorate. Finally, it is stated that e-democracy is a tool to improve the quality of high-rank decisions relating to how each individual and society as a whole participate in the political process.
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La morale et la politique ont été traditionnellement considérées par la théorie des relations internationales comme deux sphères disjointes de l’existence humaine, s‘appuyant chacune sur un système axiologique propre et spécifique. L’analyse des relations internationales de nos jours nous fait comprendre que les valeurs et les principes éthiques jouent toutefois un rôle considérable dans la politique internationale, non seulement au niveau purement normatif, mais aussi comme facteurs modeleurs de la conduite des États.
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In contrast to the readings that oppose a first 'revolutionary' Simone Weil to a second 'conservative' Simone Weil, this article supports the thesis of a profound continuity and coherence in Weil's political thought, parallel to the overall unity of her philosophy. Just as there is no opposition between her political thought of the early and the late 1930s, there is no opposition between her 'mystical' philosophy from the period in Marseille and her "political" philosophy from the period in London. However, this does not abolish the distance that must be maintained between religion, mysticism and politics, because the "synthesis" of these levels is not historical-political, but eschatological. Ultimately, we show that Weilian thought supports both the dual necessity and the mutual insufficiency of mysticism and politics, which enables it to escape both totalitarian idolatry and the mysticism of a pure afterlife. If she ignores the opposition so common in modern thought between "Amor Dei" and "Amor Mundi", it is because she wishes to comply with the dual Platonic and Christian injunction to bring the Good down into necessity without confusing both, thus making political action the criterion of truth of political thought.
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This article examines human vulnerability in relation to the changing socio-political context of the contemporary world, resulting from the undermining of the established international order in recent decades as a result of Russia's large-scale war against Ukraine, military actions in explosive areas such as the Middle East, and the hybrid warfare that dictatorial regimes and terrorist organizations are waging against the free world. The poles of confrontation are outlined, broadly labelled as the global ghetto versus the global city. The second part presents the two largely contradictory discourses – modern and postmodern – within which human vulnerability in the Western world is thematized. Several themes of the discourse critical of modernity are presented, such as 'structural violence'; the specific identity of minority groups and the demand for specific rights; and postcolonialism and anti-colonialism, which require policies that contradict those derived from the modern discourse and promote ghettoization both within individual societies and in the world. The hypothesis proposed in this article is that war, especially open war, clarifies dividing lines and challenges a rethinking of emphases in defining human vulnerability
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