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Aim of this article is to analyze politician Bernie Sanders, who tried win nomination of theDemocratic Party to the White House. Sanders autoidentity is democratic socialist, he is admirer ofFranklin Delano Roosevelt presidency. This persona is strictly connected with an alter-globalistmovement, especially Occupy Wall Street. Sanders made great effort to promote in Americasocialdemocratic ideas.
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Migrant women are often stereotyped. Some scholars associate the feminization of migration with domestic work and criticize the “care drain” as a new form of imperialism that the First World imposes on the Third World. However, migrant women employed as domestic workers in Northern America and Europe represent only 2% of migrant women worldwide and cannot be seen as characterizing the “feminization of migration”. Why are migrant domestic workers overestimated? This paper explores two possible sources of bias. The first is sampling: conclusions about “care drain” are often generalized from small samples of domestic workers. The second stems from the affect heuristic: imagining children left behind by migrant mothers provokes strong feelings of injustice which trump other considerations. The paper argues that neither source of bias is unavoidable and finds evidence of gender stereotypes in the “care drain” construal.
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In this article the author argues that contemporary political practice supersedes political theory and political philosophy that are still not able to comprehend and articulate its movement. The author argues that what is lacking is not only „the name“ for political subjectivity but understanding of its meaning and possibility of appearance. Contrasting biopolitics – as antipolitics proper – to the political, in the second part the author discusses current theoretical trends of biopolitics (neoliberalism and postmodernity) and traces the conditions necessary to answer it.
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The article is a twofold attempt: at re‑reading the category of a topos after the Shoah and at interpreting the particular record of the oral history in the context of the liminal metamorphoses the notion of the topoi – crucial in European culture and literature – has undergone. In the first part of the text, the author recapitulates the studies on the aforementioned category – from Aristoteles to the twentieth century scholars (Curtius, Lausberg, Ziomek, Abramowska, Panas); in the second part, she tries to apply it in interpretative practice.
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Left-right self-placement on a unidimensional scale is a standard question in many social and political surveys to measure respondents’ ideological orientation in a minimalist way. Although the left-right scale is a standard question, the scale design is not standardized across surveys. One aspect of scale design is the offer of a midpoint. This paper is about design effects on central left-right scale placement in a cross-national context. How do respondents answer if there is no true midpoint: Do respondents who want to express a middle position, in the case of a 10-point scale, use scale middle categories as a substitute for a true midpoint? Are findings consistent across countries? Offering a midpoint is much debated among researchers and quite often, a midpoint might serve as a hidden “don’t know” or a missing attitude. Does nonresponse increase when non-attitudes cannot be expressed by choosing the neutral midpoint to hide nonresponse? If middle categories in the 10-point scale work as substitute for a true midpoint in the 11-point scale, nonresponse will not differ. We tested these questions in a split-half experiment where either a 10-point or an 11-point scale was asked in an experimental web survey fielded in six countries. Our results seem to confirm the idea that respondents who favor choosing a scale middle find a virtual center in the 10-point scale. However, results are inconsistent in cross-national perspective.
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AN ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY RADICAL PARTIES IN EUROPE
The paper provides a comprehensive overview of European radical parties. The main aim of this paper is to examine whether there are common patterns regarding these parties, and to analyse the implications of this phenomenon. In order to achieve the above, the paper proceeds as follows: Firstly, the phenomenon of political radicalisation in contemporary Europe is explored. This leads to mapping the radical political landscape in Europe. Finally, the paper concludes with the analysis of the possible outcomes of radicalisation of European politics including the possible societal effects. By doing so the paper argues that a fresh theoretical approach to comprehend the phenomenon is necessary.
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The article offers an overview of the position of the Visegrad Group in the history of Central-Eastern Europe. The Group emerged in the 14th Century as a coalition of three medieval kingdoms: Poland, Bohemia and Hungary. Towards the end of the century, Poland favoured an alliance with Lithuania, motivated by the conflict of both states with the Teutonic Order. The shift involved a personal union under the Jagiellonian dynasty, which in the course of time evolved into an actual union (the Union of Lublin, 1569) creating the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów). Nationalist ideology, which emerged after the partitions of the Commonwealth towards the end of the 18th Century, resulted in the disintegration of entire Central-Eastern Europe into nation states formed on the basis of ethnic differences. The present study have aimed to verify the potential of the cultural contribution of the Visegrad Group and the Eastern Alliance for the development of European integration processes. The influence of these groups of countries in the external environment in the development of European civilization has been presented in terms of historiosophical. Today, the former medieval partners are members of the European Union, where they revive the Visegrad Group in order to pursue their narrow interests, thus affecting the progress of European integration. Unlike the Visegrad Group there is Easter Alliance perceived as a bloc of countries with a potential for introducing progressive ideas for a constructive development of the European Union.
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On the borderline between political theory and moral philosophy it is usual to bring up the question of Truth in Politics (writings of Hannah Arendt are important in this respect). If we invert the question and try to discover the nature of lying in politics, we immediately face the discursive nature of politics. In this respect, the oral nature of politics introduces “lying” as part of e political action. This means a fundamental change of framework because the moral aspects are de-emphasized and in discursive restraints appear in the foreground and shape the political actions. The study examines some circumstances of the discursive nature of the politics, such as politicization, the question of the populism and of the objectivity.
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This politico-philosophical paper presents the libertarian theory of threat. It is claimed that the concept of threat is logically dependent on the concept of natural property rights. First of all, the common account of threat, according to which the difference between threats and offers depends on decrements and increments in the subjective well-being of an individual, is dismissed as untenable. The authors demonstrate, in a logical and deductive manner, that threat and property rights or, more specifically, violation of these impact each other logically and therefore the libertarian theory of threat or, more broadly, the natural rights account of threat is the only possible consistent theory of threat. The second section presents the so-called common account of threat (CAT) and the third section criticizes CAT as counterintuitive and based on an unsound background theory. The fourth section characterizes the so-called libertarian account of threat (LAT) and shows that it matches our considered moral judgements better than CAT. The theory of natural property rights is identified as the background theory of LAT and it is demonstrated that LAT is the only consistent account of threat. These investigations are conducted using the method of reflective equilibrium.
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Political realism claims that politics can be understood only on its own terms. Realist political theory attempts to have the autonomy of politics recognized and to emancipate politics from the authority of other domains such as ethics, economy or aesthetics. After the democratic transition, Hungarian political theory has claimed autonomy of politics as opposed to technocratic and other deterministic approaches. The study discusses two texts of Hungarian political theory which, differing from the mainstream, conceived the problem of the autonomy of politics in the context of the relationship between politics and morality. János Kis’ ‘Politics as a Moral Problem’ and István Schlett’s answer to that book, ‘Morality as a Political Problem’ represent the two main standpoints in the realist – moralist debate described by contemporary realist theory, however, neither of them fi ts into those positions perfectly. The differences analysed in this article emerge regarding the autonomy of politics. As a conclusion, it is supposed that the concept of the autonomy of politics cannot account for a realist approach to politics.
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The aim of the paper is to contribute to the debate about the role of distinction between moral and political standards. Many argue that political realism is based on an anti-moralist position (while others think that realism is about anti-utopianism or anti-idealism). However, as the paper asserts, there is no commonly accepted defi nition of anti-moralism in the realist literature. Actually there are at least two different types of realist anti-moralism: a Hobbesian and a Machiavellian one, but some authors try to fi nd a middle-way between these mainstream approaches. The paper shows that, for example, Andrew Sabl’s Aristotelian-Ciceronian theory of “democratic constancy” is a viable alternative to the two mainstream versions of realist anti-moralism.
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The essay focuses on answering the question of what happened to transitology, the main narrative of the 1989–90 process of democratization, after it prevailed. The theory lasted for just one decade and already at the beginning of the millennium Thomas Carothers declared the end of transitology. However, many things happened between its birth and demise. This essay aims to map this intermediate phase, as well as to present two experiments for the theoretical adaptation of transitology: the theories concerning the foundation and consolidation of institutions, and those concerning the creation of hybrid and illiberal regimes. The analysis would like to call attention to the fact that the theories of the period of transition were far from identical, they went through serious changes during the 90s. These changes however came about not outside of the trend, but within, therefore the approach of the founding theory pervades these pieces of writing. In some places the essay refers to criticisms incurred by transition theories, nevertheless, these are external critiques of transitology, therefore the essay only speaks of these tangentially. The author comes to the conclusion that though transitology has run out of wind, the theoretical and attitudinal lessons of it remain largely unprocessed to this day.
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The aim of the article is to show the falsity of the dominant perception of Adam Smith’s doctrine. In the context of different interpretations, the paper draws attention to four issues. Firstly, the formalistic revolution in economics contributed to ignoring the institutional dimension of the market mechanism. Secondly, the idea of natural liberty emerged as a reaction to the mercantilist policy and was directed not against the sovereign as such but against policies advancing particular interests. Thirdly, the liberty was to serve not only the capital and the employer but, above all, the labor and the employee. Fourthly, the Smithian market order is a form of metacoordination, hence John Nash's game theory cannot prove Smith's ideas wrong.
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The article focuses on the analysis of Singapore’s political adaptation. The author attempts to answer the following question: What kind of strategy of political adaptation has been adopted by Singapore as regards its activity in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)? The paper verifies the hypothesis that Singapore’s political adaptation is characterised by creativity, which means that Singapore strives to adjust to the changes taking place in the regional environment and tries to influence its shape. The article is divided into several parts. In the first one, the author discusses the concept of political adaptation, the second one focuses on the vision and principles of Singapore’s foreign policy, and the subsequent ones describe the country’s activity in ASEAN.
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Compendium
The present compendium of selected best practices addresses the threat of fraud and corruption from multiple perspectives, with the underlying purpose of providing practitioners from Romania and Greece with a set of state of the art approaches for addressing the threat of fraud and corruption in the complex multi-layered national public procurement systems. This publication is based on ideas presented at the international seminar EU's Financial Interests under Threat: New Approaches in Assessing the Risks from Public Procurement and EU Funds Fraud, organised on 31 October – 1 November 2013 in Sofia, with the support of the European AntiFraud Office (OLAF).
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African Studies in the countries that were under communist rule and that today are known as post‑ communist, have originally developed an interest in Africa based on ideological, political and economic interests of the state. There has been a gradual shift from ideology to economy while the study of African politics seems to follow the vagaries of the influence that Africa exerts on the world scene. Characteristically, until recently AEGIS did not include a single centre or association based in post‑ communist Europe even though in countries such as Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary African studies currently experience considerable growth. This reflects both the hegemony of Western Europe with its strong colonial and neo‑ colonial emphases and weak official interest that post‑ communist Europe shows for Africa. The article describes changing emphases of eastern European Africanist scholarship and discusses the question of legitimacy of the marginal but non‑ colonial approach to African studies. In contradistinction to the Western European African studies and with Eastern European approaches it shows that the latter perspective is useful for a critical look at the hitherto dominant paternalistic style of African studies in Europe.
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The present volume offers interdisciplinary analyses of utopian phenomena.The interdisciplinary nature of studies in utopianism (and also in other fields) is becoming more and more accepted, yet the cooperation of the various disciplines in interpretation is not automatic, and their emphases and approaches may differ substantially.
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The political reality of the European Union is not reflected in the general discourse on the relationship between Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe, which is characterized by an adverse attitude towards the latter. This impacts identity construction on the European level, where Central and Eastern Europe has long been regarded as the “Other” against which the European “self ” was defined. However, a new discourse on this relationship has emerged in literary works written by scholars and journalists that are able to take an overarching perspective. The present study analyses four publications to see how the relationship between Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe is portrayed in terms of the self and the Other, employing the Discourse Historical Approach and a spectrum of the self and the Other perspectives. It emerges that the discussed authors share a discourse which respects differences, focuses on similarities as well as differences and shows an awareness of the interwovenness of the narratives of the self and the Other. This new, shared discourse holds directions for the further development of a European-wide discourse that includes the same notions of respect and the interwovenness of narratives, and which could in turn influence European identity construction.
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