Георгий Плеханов versus Фридрих Алберт Ланге

Author(s): Iva Manova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 5/2016

Georgij Plekhanov (1856–1918), the “father” of the Russian social-democratic movement, was one of the earliest writers who attempted to interpret the history of philosophy from the dialectical materialist standpoint. In the present article, Plekhanov’s approach to the history of philosophy is compared with the approach of the neo-Kantian philosopher Friedrich Albert Lange (1828–1875), whose book Geschichte des Materialismus greatly influenced the social-democratic thinkers of the revisionist current. Plekhanov disagreed with Lange on crucial issues, going as far as to accuse him of having contributed to the spread of a completely false notion of the essence and history of materialism. The aim of this article is to bring into focus the main differences between the two authors as regards their views on the history of materialism, and to outline the importance of “Plekhanov’s heritage” for the development of Soviet philosophical historiography.

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.

THE END OF POLITICS: DECONSTRUCTION, DECLINE AND ALTERNATIVE OF THE STATE

Author(s): Nikola Ilievski,Goran Ilik / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

The paper represents theoretical investigation into the phenomenon of decline of the state. It addresses three basic and mutually connected investigation areas, introduced in deconstruction of the state, decline of the state and alternative of the state. Primarily, theories of the origin of the state are exposed, where the state’s essence is located; its function – identified and the role it has been playing – observed. In following, the decline represented as a process of transfer – with the state as its main subject, is interpreted through different prisms, particularly the one of federalism, postmodernism, decentralization and libertarianism. The specific focus is laid on the process of decline of the state, following the libertarian theoretical framework. The process is determined by the decrease of the state’s functions, occurring in certain period of time. Accordingly, the process is analyzed and divided into four phases, each of them identified with a certain type of state, with an exception. Ultimately, the alternative of the state is emerging as last phase and final outcome of the process of decline of the state, while introducing a new era, the one of no politics.

THEORETICAL HYPOTHESIS AND METHODOLOGICAL OPTIONS IN RESEARCH OF REMINANCES DUE TO COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY IN ROMANIA

Author(s): Vlad Ovidiu Cioacă / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

We are of the opinion that historiographical science has long reached the limit of its explicative capacity in terms of Romanian communism, and recent history becomes with every research carried out an increasing field of research for socio-human sciences. These, with the extensive methodological arsenal available to them, are entitled to claim this object of study in an attempt to highlight regularities that can not be investigated with the instruments of the historian. In this paper we will enumerate the main steps of this kind undertaken so far to study the reminiscences due to communist ideology in Romania. We will try to integrate and correlate these concerns, to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each theoretical and methodological model in part. From the sphere of social psychology, we will take on the theory of social representations and the dramaturgic model, which we will apply for the decryption of the way in which the everyday life took place during the totalitarian regime. We will analyze the concept of "social representation", highlighting the main research directions in this field, applying to Romanian communism. Conquests in the field of sociology of culture provide us with extensive information about the Romanian cultural profile as well as about the influence of the communist period in shaping the value of this profile.

INVOKING THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT: THE DEROGATION OF ITS PRINCIPLES AND IMPLEMENTATION

Author(s): Bama Andika Putra,Abdul Razaq Cangara / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2018

The principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was unanimously endorsed in principle during the UN World Summit 2005. The principle reaffirms the state's responsibility in protecting its citizens, as well as proclaims the International responsibility to citizens. The World Summit emphasizes the importance of citizens to be protected from large-scale humanitarian crisis such as genocide, war crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Responsibilities to provide such protections will shift from the hands of state actors to the International community if states cannot provide the provision of the outlined protections. Since the implementation, invocations of the R2P have been rare and not implemented in cases that fulfill the criteria of the R2P principle. Such issues have led to the derogation of its principles and implementation, marked with a number of primary cases that are related to the R2P, including: (1) lack of clarity in regards to the criteria of “Crimes against Humanity”, (2) prevalence of political interests that occur in the application of the “Just Cause” criteria, and (3) misinterpretation of the Responsibility to Protect. The major cases have proven disastrous, as the issue of not invoking the R2P principle, or the misapplication of the principle, have led to the humanitarian crisis felt by millions of innocent civilians located all over the globe, which urgently required external assistance and protection at that time.

JOURNALISTIC ETHICS DURING THE 2019 ROMANIAN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. A METHODOLOGY PROPOSAL

Author(s): Sînziana Maria Jurău / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

The article presents a methodological proposal for the study of journalistic ethics during the 2019 Romanian presidential campaign. In order to do so, the article discusses the most relevant ethical provisions, enshrined in the Ethical Code, that were adopted in 2009 by the majority of the Romanian media outlets. The methodological challenges are presented and assessed, along with potential solutions that could mitigate the risks of errors of the assessment.

DIASPORA AND IDENTITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE: CULTURAL COMMUNITIES AND THE NATION

Author(s): Vandana Pednekar-Magal / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

The following article is based on a keynote speech on Diaspora and Identity in the digital age. Cultural Communities and the Nation delivered at Media Culture Days at the College of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on May 17, 2019

Etyka cnót w polityce

Author(s): Grzegorz Chojnacki / Language(s): English,Polish Issue: 19/2019

Na drodze dialogu ekumenicznego powstają różnorodne inicjatywy – na poziomie hierarchicznym, naukowym, lokalnym etc., które z jednej strony są wynikiem mozolnego dyskursu, modlitwy, spotkań, z drugiej zaś świadczą o chęci uczestnictwa w toczącej się debacie publicznej i przemianach społeczno-kulturowych. Ze względu na fakt, że ten głos jest zabieramy regularnie i przez wielu partnerów dialogu, tym bardziej można zauważyć jego rezonans w przestrzeni międzynarodowej, krajowej czy lokalnej. Przykładem tego ekumenicznego zrozumienia jest wspólny dokument Konferencji Episkopatu Niemiec i Rady Ewangelickiego Kościoła w Niemczech pod znamiennym tytułem: Demokratie braucht Tugenden („Demokracja potrzebuje cnót”). „Rehabilitacja” cnót w przestrzeni społeczno-politycznej wypływa z wizji antropologicznej człowieka, opartej przede wszystkim na jego istocie, a nie funkcjonalności. Metafizyczno-deontologiczne spojrzenie na człowieka i jego relacyjne odniesienia pozwala ugruntować pogląd, że cnota sprawiedliwości i solidarności wyznaczają kierunek zrównoważonego rozwoju społeczeństwa.

Współczesne spojrzenie na teorię totalitaryzmu

Author(s): Damian Winczewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2019

The aim of this article was to examine the cohesion and political connotations of the term „totalitarianism”, which is often used in the public debate in Poland. On the basis of a contemporary critical research, the content of the most popular concepts of totalitarianism has been analyzed, paying particular attention to the so-called „Cold Ward efinition of totalitarianism”, as it seems to be the most popular in a public debate. The author claims that the concept of „totalitarianism” was created in specific historical conditions and was frequently used as a tool to sanction the rule of liberal ideology. Thus, although „totalitarian model” is generally recognized in social sciences, it should be used with caution in assessing entire political or ideological currents.

Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-Monday, 12 October, 2020

Author(s): Ioana Caloianu / Language(s): English Issue: 10/19/2020

Regional headlines: elections in Tajikistan and Lithuania; Belarusian president meets jailed opposition; crackdown in Khabarovsk; and military games in Serbia.

Recenzja książki: Agnieszka Polończyk. (2019). Bundeswehra 1955–2030. Kulturowe i strategiczne uwarunkowania użycia sił zbrojnych Republiki Federalnej Niemiec. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Pedagogicznego w Krakowie, ss. 194.

Author(s): Adam Sokołowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2020

Projektowanie podręczników w naukach o bezpieczeństwie. Poszukiwanie dobrych praktyk

Author(s): Tomasz Pawłuszko / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2020

The article describes the priorities in the development of a scientific organization and teaching toolbox in the field of security studies. Security studies remain a quite new discipline in social sciences and are based on traditions of military science, political science, pedagogy, and other sciences. The newest complex handbooks dedicated to security studies scholars on the local market have been published for the last few years. In this essay, the author examines local and global practices in the creation of professional handbooks for security studies in order to find good practices in teaching students in the Eastern European environment. Theoretical analysis was conducted on the basis of learning organization theory.

Przyrost ludności w świecie a migracje do Europy jako proces historyczny. Analiza politologiczna uwarunkowań społeczno – ekonomicznych

Author(s): Piotr Kwiatkiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2019

Inflow and settlement of people originating from the Near and the Middle East in Europe is anything but a new phenomenon. It has its long-standing tradition and well documented history. Since the Early Middle Ages these processes were an inseparable element shaping ‘European identity’. Therefore the recent intensification of the migration process from the Middle East to Europe should not be perceived as an unique event. Within such a context, cyclical character of migration processes may be worth consideration. A new contextualization of the recent migration processes needs to take into account new criteria, especially dynamics of the demographic growth. This article argues that aforementioned circumstances in the regions surroundings Europe are of primary importance for its future, and strives for proper understanding of their impact. For Europe, North Africa and Near East are especially important.

On striking Similarities between Chapters XIV – XIX of Machiavelli’s The Prince and the Fifth Book of Aristotle’s Politics

Author(s): Aleksandr Mishurin / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

In the article, I try to refute an old and widespread superstition according to which the new political philosophy created by Niccolo Machiavelli breaks with classical political philosophy by taking a novel position toward the political; that is, that classics were idle “idealists” while Machiavelli is a coldblooded “realist”. To do that, I compare the most explicit part of The Prince (chapters XIV-XIX) with the end of the fifth book of Aristotle’s Politics and attempt to show that in the most pivotal chapters of his most famous work, the Florentine, in fact, often borrows Aristotle’s advice on how to preserve a tyrannical rule.

Нравствеността като изграждащ и променящ правото фактор

Author(s): Georgi Mihaylov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2021

This article studies the specific designation of morals under the conditions of a modern society. Due to the circumstances that morals are able to overcome differences between the social regulatory systems and to unite the perceptions of a regulatory framework, they have become a major contemporary metalegal regulator. Being a significant social regulator, morals also play a mediation role between law and other social regulatory systems. In this role of theirs, they make a substantial factor having an influence on building and changing legal prescriptions. Morals are also studied as a variable in the conditions of a dynamically developing society and changing conditions of living. Some models of behaviours, which were considered to be against moral only several decades ago, are nowadays regarded as completely normal.

Bugging: The Kaleidoscopic Literary Politics of Insects

Author(s): Nina Seiler / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

This article analyses the appearance of insects in Polish literature of the mid-socialist period. It will elaborate a post-humanist perspective on the peaking presence of flies, wasps, bugs or worms in literary texts both as a motif and as an aesthetic strategy. The article investigates the way the deployment of insects in and through the text modulates the view of and the perspective on their human fellows, and how these modulations can be traced to the social reality of the socialist 1960s and 1970s.

Идеята за човека в политическата философия на модернизма

Author(s): Stoyanka Georgieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

The article analyzes the development of the idea of the "political man" in the context of its dependence on the specifics of the political system, as well as the dependence of the power system on the idea of human freedom. The problem of the transformation of the individual into a citizen, whose political independence is stimulated by the existence of rights and his expression in the public sphere, is studied in the article. Unveiling the human dimension of polity provokes the need to analyze the problem of the political subjectivity of the individual, the autonomy of the will and the dignity of man.

Państwa rachityczne jako wyzwanie dla współczesnej koncepcji bezpieczeństwa międzynarodowego

Author(s): Ryszard Ficek / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The article analyzes the influence of fragile states on the contemporary strategy of international security. The above inquiry aims to depict the fundamental factors responsible for the threats that destabilized fragile states pose to modern global security systems. Therefore, primary research questions concern issues responsible for various forms of antagonisms undermining the socio–political situation of fragile states. To achieve the above research goal, however, the author exposes the complex specificity of fragile states in the context of the multidimensional dynamics of recent geopolitical changes. Analyzing the conceptualization process of these issues reveals attempts to use them instrumentally. In addition, the presented discourse discloses an evident ambiguity, semantic ambivalence, multi-faceted nature, and even inconsistency of the fragile state concept, especially in the context of the discussed aspects. It is why the above issues are considered the most complex and “wicked” problems of the modern world, particularly affecting the peripheral areas of the Third World. Henceforth, diagnosing the impact of the discussed factors may help shape a more effective international security strategy, as well as create better support programs enabling effective resolution of the multiple problems affecting fragile states. Moreover, the answer to such questions is significant in the context of contemporary global political changes, which, combined with the concepts of the so-called “political correctness”, are becoming a severe challenge for the entire international security agenda.

Ilustrowany Kuryer Codzienny wobec problemów Wielkiej Brytanii (1919–1921) w Irlandii, koloniach oraz dominiach i jej polityki względem Rosyjskiej Federacyjnej Socjalistycznej Republiki Radzieckiej i Polski

Author(s): Paweł Przybytek,Piotr Przybytek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2022

The popular Cracow daily, Ilustrowany Kuryer Codzienny tries to explain the tense Polish-British relations with the English strategy adopted towards Soviet Russia, taking into account the global context - not only European but also Asian, African, and North American. At the same time, it seems to show understanding for the Irish struggling for independence, even as they seek allies in the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, he is hostile to the Jews, whom it accuses of inspiring the anti-Polish policy of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Comparing the news from the IKC column relating to such topics with the contemporary scientific literature leads to a preliminary conclusion that the newspaper was well-versed in the international situation at that time. The verification of a research problem formulated in this way requires extensive and, at the same time, detailed exploration.

Spiral Coercion: Nazi Power and Family Authority in Charlotte Salomon’s Autobiographical Work Life? Or Theatre?

Author(s): Eleftheria Karagianni / Language(s): English Issue: 11/2022

Life? or Theatre? is a visual-theatrical, textual, and auto-biographical play of Charlotte Salomon, a Jewish talented artist, executed at a very young age in the Auschwitz concentration camp. In this paper, I consider Salomon’s work a document of life, and a testimony of her personal intra-familial, and personal experience of “the before—Auschwitz” (Jenn-Gastal 228) depicting, among others, historical and socio-political facts articulated and expressed through narrative and painting. Since in Sociology life stories or autobiographical narratives constitute a valuable tool, I will employ Salomon’s drawings, captions and texts as a “synergetic fusing of social sciences and the arts” (Bagley 34), in order to shed ample light on her reconstructed lived experience. This research aims at examining Salomon's autobiographical work from a sociological and philosophical perspective, referring to the views of great theorists, such as Hannah Arendt, Zygmunt Bauman, and the founders of the Frankfurt School, who tried to explain the origins of totalitarianism, power relations and the causes of the Holocaust.