Free Speech and Censorship around the Globe

Author(s): / Language(s): English

Free Speech and Censorship around the Globe contains stories about how imagination and rational thinking in wildly different cultures capture, imagine, and conceptualize what freedom of speech means. This book treats the reader not as a tourist, but as a traveler. It does not stop at every famous tourist site that have been the most visited. Instead, it goes up many side streets. It provides an opportunity for curious people who would like to understand whether free speech can be contextual to take a journey of exploration. It draws a map of the concepts and contexts of free speech in the second decade of the 21st century. 1989 and 2011 are only two recent turning points when freedom of speech and freedom of the press emerged, or at least powerful efforts were made to support their emergence, although disheartening backlashes followed in several countries. The book also tells many other free speech narratives that emerged, or evolved outside the frames of 1989 and 2011, also with several troublesome repercussions. Reborn restrictions to free speech—as have taken place, for example, in some Central European and East European countries, such as the backlash in Hungary that received broad international attention—make the critical assessments presented in this volume especially timely. Comparative studies must help to avoid such backwards steps and to create enabling environments needed by any culture in order to develop and sustain the spirit and practices of freedom of speech.

Balkan - teror kulture

Author(s): Ivan Čolović / Language(s): Serbian

Ivan Čolović is an ethnologist, an essayist, and the founder of The 20th Century Library (1971). He has published thirteen books and numerous articles on issues and problems of literature, urban ethnology, ethno-linguistics, and political anthropology. In the thirteen essays of which tis book consists the author speaks of culure as a detonator of hatred and wars in the Balkans. ”I had seen it at work over the years of crisis and war in former Yugoslavia, then I saw it come out of that cisis and those wars more or less intact and ready, to serve – if need be – the same purpose – that of detonating. This prompted me to pay particular attention to the post-war ”patriotic” discourse about culture in Serbia and other Balkan countries in order to determine in which manner, thanks to these retorical strategies, it manages to preserve its explosive potential. Thus, I became interested in myths of the so called ”national spiritual and cultural space” or those of ostensible organic oneness between the Balkan nations and the soil on which they live, and to which they lay exclusive claim. My attention was focused on cults of the national tongue, of poets and their tombs and monuments, of the epic tradition and its main symbol ”the gusle”.(From the Foreword).

Urušavanje ili slom demokratije

Author(s): Ilija Vujačić,Bojan Vranić / Language(s): English,Serbian

POLITYKA IMIGRACYJNA IZRAELA

Author(s): Remigiusz Sosnowski / Language(s): Polish

Książka jest wielowątkowym przeglądem zagadnień związanych z polityką imigracyjną Izraela, opisującym zarówno działania samego państwa, jak i wspólnoty żydowskiej. Ukazuje plątaninę społecznych, historycznych, religijnych, ideologicznych i kulturowych uwarunkowań omawianej polityki oraz skomplikowany i płynny system przyjmowania żydowskich imigrantów i integracji nowych obywateli. Cechuje go wiele nietypowych rozwiązań, między innymi udział w polityce imigracyjnej organizacji pozarządowych czy programy propagujące imigrację w diasporze. W pracy został także omówiony wpływ uwarunkowań demograficznych na działania Państwa Izraela.Książka jest przeznaczona głównie dla osób interesujących się problematyką konfliktów i migracji międzynarodowych oraz współczesną sytuacją polityczną i społeczną Izraela oraz diaspory.

Leonarda Marcina Świeykowskiego (1721—1793) ostatniego wojewody podolskiego życie codzienne i publiczne oraz jego myśli o Rzeczypospolitej

Author(s): Dariusz Rolnik / Language(s): Polish

Leonard Martin Świeykowski was not one of the outstanding figures of the Stanislaus period, although he most certainly constituted an extraordinary and remarkable personality. In some circles, however, he was known as a very influential and opinion-forming person. Politically, he was connected with Stanislaus Augustus – he became one of the king’s closest associates in the second half of the 1780s in the Podolia and – to the greatest extent – Braclav voivodeships. It was the very monarch who appointed him to run the Crown Tribunal in the years 1782–1783, and this mission of his was largely appreciated by the general public. As a reward for performing the Marshal’s role, Stanislaus Augustus gave him a senatorial chair, later also the office of Castellan of Kamieniec, and then, in 1790, the Podolia Voivodeship. Moreover, L.M. Świeykowski enjoyed respect in his “Ruthenian”province, which was a reflection of – one might assume – becoming close to the house of Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki. His position was largely affected by his attitude in the courts and tribunals – he was considered one of the best law practitioners of the Stanislaus period, which was later quite mistakenly interpreted and assessed by some researchers. In the mid-nineteenth century, Konstanty Podwysocki wrote: “as we were dying, such high seats in the Senate, which had hitherto been given to Chomętowski or even Czarniecki in recognition of their bloody merits to the state, now were offered to some podstarosta grodzki (a borough substarost) [...], trained in jurist battles, a royal plenipotentiary and schemer [...], precisely like one of those attorneys whom Orzechowski compared to a prostitute saying that the former deals in shame whereas the latter – in his mouth, such a one now sat in the Senate, and it was ostensibly him who was expected to save the sinking ship of the state.” Historians rather did not judge L.M. Świeykowski’s actions; he did not actively participate in the political life of the state, only his Targowica period was mentioned and even that was done through the prism of his already very active sons, Michał and Jan Nepomucen, somehowalways executors of their father’s will. In the eyes of their contemporaries, Jan Nepomucen and Michał Świeykowski were considered traitors, and in October 1794, L.M. Świeykowski’s sons were mentioned among the first Targowica confederates, and their portraits were hung along with the portraits of S. Sz. Potocki, K. Branicki and Seweryn Rzewuski. It can be presumed that such a negative assessment of wojewodzice (the Voivode’s s ons) was influenced by their relationship with the Marshal of Targowica Confederation, S.Sz. Potocki, as well as the attitude of some of the other members of their family, and above all Józef Świeykowski’s, Voivode’s brother, “pit of iniquity,” though it is a big exaggeration, if not altogether a mistake. An analysis of L.M. Świeykowski’s biography and his relationship withStanislaus Augustus shows how important the political program was becoming in the construction of the royalist party – which nobody has hitherto paid any closer attention to, and which seems to attest much better to the nobility of political elites of the last decades of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. All of the above clearly shows the process of L.M. Świeykowski’s departure from his earlier support for royalists after 1791. The basis for thelast Voivode’s decision to leave the royalist party was not a lack of specific profit, but –evidently – his ideological and political considerations. The Voivode L.M. Świeykowski himself, apart from indeed few moments of his political activity, did not expose himself to the ridicule of public opinion. He was a man certainly well acquainted with the intricacies of political meanders, and at the same time he realized, despite numerous honours he was granted, where his place in line was. In his public life he always behaved properly and did not rail justice; he adhered to similar principles in private life, though here sometimes the issues connected with trials obscured those principles to him. At every turn of his life we know, he was always accompanied by the ancient Polish Commonwealth principles. The last voivode of Podolia always tried to combine these ancient principles with the service to the Commonwealth and the king.Although since the Stanislaus period the Świeykowski family had belonged to minor nobility, their political and economic position was weaker than the Borderland families’, such as: the Potockis, the Lubomirskis or the Sanguszkos; additionally, in this region, the family could be qualified as nouveau riches. Moreover, significantly, L.M. Świeykowski had to himself seekdocuments from his ancestors’ past, which he did with great commitment; he even lacked knowledge where his father was born, which in itself positioned him in the same, relatively low local Borderland hierarchy; his family name was unfamiliar to such an extent that most people mispronounced and misspelt it. He owed his social advancement as well as political and economic strengthening to the Lubomirskis, and then to Stanislaus Augustus. In vainone may search for the Świeykowski representatives on the lists of main officials of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; they are also missing among castellans and voivodes of the Commonwealth until the Stanislaus period. He began his public career as podsędek (a deputy judge) of Bratslav and finished it as the Voivode of Podolia, which was a huge advancement since he was the 14th in the hierarchy of voivodesof the Commonwealth, which gave him a place in the forefront of Secular Senators. An even greater advancement was recorded in the sphere of his property, as he started from the proverbial scratch, and in 1793 the value of his estates amounted to 5 million zlotys, which gave him the seventh position among the richest men in the Borderlands. He came to it himself, thanks to his own work and thanks to a very good sense of economics as well as theaforesaid engagement in court cases, in which he truly always did his best to be honest and fair. L.M. Świeykowski was also the author of interesting political ideas relating to the Commonwealth, which were recorded in his political writings and letters to his sons. These – among others, Opuscula L.M. Świeykowskiego (L.M. Świeykowski’s Opuscula) – are comprised in the second part of the work titled Pisma i listy „polityczne” L.M. Świeykowskiego (“Political” Writings and Letters by L.M. Świeykowski). In turn, the first part of the work, titled: L.M. Świeykowski, jego życie, gospodarstwo, działalność publiczna i poglądy (L.M. Świeykowski, His Life, Estates, Public Activity and Opinions), consistsof nine chapters, was written based on the extensive Świeykowski’s Archive, whose largest part is stored in the Library of Kórnik – a few dozen volumes. The rest of this archive can be found in the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, in the Ossolineum in Wrocław, and in Stefanyk National Science Library in Lviv. Volumes from the Świeykowski’s Archive are also stored by the National Library in Warsaw; moreover, and two collections of court extracts kept in the Academic Library of the PAU and PAN in Kraków as well as the collections of letters in the Raczynski Library in Poznań are presumably of the same provenance.The biography begins with Chapter One titled Family and Connections – from “Świeykowo” under the “Tulczyn Roof” of Szczęsny Potocki, which depicts the youth of the last Voivode of Podolia and L.M. Świeykowski’s progress from central Poland, i.e. from the titular Świejki in the Sieradz Voivodeship, through the Rawa Land to the south-eastern frontier of the Commonwealth, where he gradually becomes one of the most influential citizens. Here onecan also find information about the history of L.M. Świeykowski’s ancestors. Chapter Two, Estates and Economic Position – from the Tenant of Novosyelitsa to the Owner of Bratslav Land, complements the first chapter and shows the growth of L.M. Świeykowski’s importance in the south-east Borderlands of the Commonwealth. It also illustrates the development of an extraordinary career of building up an estate by a man who was, after all, a nouveau riche in these lands, and partly shows the mechanism that allowed him to create this economic power. Chapter Three, Lawsuits – Between Politics and Household Interests, presents one of the most important elements affecting the functioning of L.M. Świeykowski’s entire grand estate. It points to the ways of accumulating wealth, but not only as it also shows the owner’s attentiveness as the manager of his land. This is a very important facet of his portrait, which on the one hand explains his behaviour in many cases on the political scene, his restraint in making sometimes risky political decisions, and on the other testifies to his unquestionable political power, which can be observed in the lawsuits against the Czetwertyńskis or the Tyszkiewiczes. The next Chapter: Land Owner and Supervisor of His Peasants – Economics on the Periphery of Grand Political Affairs shows the usual daily functioning of a large estate in the south-east Borderlands of the Commonwealth with its internal problems, which the owner had to face on daily basis: from escapes of peasants,through dishonesty of various types of administrators, and human flaws, to the fundamental issue, namely the sale of manufactured goods, in which respect the close proximity of Russia was sometimes helpful, and so was Świeykowski’s acquaintance with Gregorij Potemkin. Chapter Five, Public Career – On the Way to Honours, shows the beginnings of L.M. Świeykowski’s public career. This chapter describes the mechanisms that allowed him tobecome known on the political scene in the Borderlands of the Commonwealth, i.e. the support he received from Stanisław and Józef Lubomirski and later from Stanislaus Augustus himself, but also L.M. Świeykowski’s diligence, energy and good political intuition. Chapter Six, Senator of the Commonwealth – between Stanislaus Augustus and Borderland Magnates covers the years 1783–1787 and points to the crux of political dilemmas, which undoubtedlyL.M. Świeykowski must have had when considering whether to support the king or his opposition. Moreover, he has been presented in this chapter as a good politician of the royalist party – in certain areas, an effective one and, at the same time, not devoid of cynicism. Questions connected with the political career of the last Voivode of Podolia show the progress of his advancement in the society, but not only as they also set it within the political realities of the Stanislaus period, between the royalist party of Stanislaus Augustus and the anti-royal opposition, in which the republican ideology played – at least verbally – a leading role. What is more, the whole situation coincided with the physical proximity of Russia, which further complicated the already difficult political choices. L.M. Świeykowski’s ambiguous attitudeand concerns are discussed in Chapter Seven, During the Great Sejm – Observer, Executor, and Critic of the Dictate of “Sejm Debaters”. The chapter presents the process of deepening L.M. Świeykowski’s dilemmas in his perception of the Commonwealth. Obviously, the quotation marks in “Sejm Debaters” suggest the usage of the phrase as a metaphor and so the term applied here should be treated more broadly, referring to the then entire political reality with its clashes between different currents and concepts for repairing the Commonwealth.L.M. Świeykowski was initially a supporter of reforms, advocated the aukcja wojska (i.e. the augmentation of the army) and the introduction of taxes; later, after the adoption of the Constitution of May 3, which he had not expected after all, he became a critic of everything that was happening in Warsaw, and he considered the parliamentary reforms to be an attack on the freedom of the Commonwealth. At this point, he became a declared en emy of Stanislaus Augustus. This chapter also shows the factors which contributed to his transition to a group of malcontents. Chapter Eight presents the last period of political activity of the last Voivode of Podolia, when he openly stands against Stanislaus Augustus and tries to justify his decision. It is a short period in his life, when – at least in theory – he gains so far the highest position in the Commonwealth, which does not need to be measured against his place in the Senate. This Chapter, titled The Targowica Confederation – Advisor to Marshal of Confederation?, shows his commitment to the works of the confederation, not so much directly, but rather in theoretical terms, which – in his opinion – would lead to the formation of the right image of the Commonwealth. The last chapter, Political Views – A Republican with the King or a Monarchist with Republicans?, refers to the L.M. Świeykowski’s politicalopinions and discusses them. The bases for the chapter’s development constitute the “expressions” and “deeds” of L.M. Świeykowski throughout his whole life as well as his “political” writings. The biography of L.M. Świeykowski, the last Voivode of Podolia, constitutes a vast study, which shows the complexities regarding not just one man, but also discusses the complicated and complex political and economic reality of the Stanislaus period. Thus, it portrays not only the Voivode of Podolia but also the whole circle of political elites in the south-eastern Borderlands of the Commonwealth.

Teško zemlji

Author(s): Tony R. Judt / Language(s): Serbian

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we think about how we should live today.In Ill Fares The Land, Tony Judt, one of our leading historians and thinkers, reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment. Judt masterfully crystallizes what we've all been feeling into a way to think our way into, and thus out of, our great collective dis-ease about the current state of things.As the economic collapse of 2008 made clear, the social contract that defined postwar life in Europe and America“ the guarantee of a basal level of security, stability and fairness -- is no longer guaranteed; in fact, it’s no longer part of the common discourse. Judt offers the language we need to address our common needs, rejecting the nihilistic individualism of the far right and the debunked socialism of the past. To find a way forward, we must look to our not so distant past and to social democracy in action: to re-enshrining fairness over mere efficiency.Distinctly absent from our national dialogue, social democrats believe that the state can play an enhanced role in our lives without threatening our liberties. Instead of placing blind faith in the market—as we have to our detriment for the past thirty years social democrats entrust their fellow citizens and the state itself.Ill Fares the Land challenges us to confront our societal ills and to shoulder responsibility for the world we live in. For hope remains. In reintroducing alternatives to the status quo, Judt reinvigorates our political conversation, providing the tools necessary to imagine a new form of governance, a new way of life.

The Centrality of the Regime for Political Science

Author(s): Clifford Angell Bates Jr / Language(s): English

The book concentrates on the crucial Aristotelian concept of politeia, trying to show how its understanding has evolved for years, often towards fallacious interpretations. The text also points out how reconstruction of the original meaning of the concept can help in creating the frames for modern political science to avoid the traps of ethnocentrism and methodological reductionism that appear in most of today’s models used by the political science and by the theories of the political systems.In the last 20 years interest in Aristotle’s works has increased, resulting in reconsideration of their problems, especially of Aristotelian political thought. Many researchers offered redefinitions of politeia, but it is worth noticing that most of the previous analysis did not take into consideration central role of the concept and its constant liveliness, suggesting rather its archaic character and usefulness only from the historical point of view. Clifford Agnell Bates Jr proves the opposite: for him politeia is the universal concept that helps to understand the internal structure of modern political systems, their dynamics and mutual relationships.

Revisiting the Objectivist/Subjectivist Debate

Author(s): Tibor R. Machan / Language(s): English

Not only is philosophy a discipline that’s rarely discussed outside of the academy; sometimes it’s regarded to be a very curious, obscure subject matter, one that people don’t know where to place. Yet no one can avoid philosophy entirely. Even to try amounts to being philosophical. When it comes to philosophy’s various branches, most would list only ethics as a familiar one since the question of how people should conduct themselves is difficult to classify as a branch of any other discipline, such as sociology, economics or chemistry. Ethics is pretty widely acknowledged to be part of philosophy as well as an everyday concern while it’s also quite problematic. Within ethics it is pretty usual to find that people wonder whether one can discover anything that is objectively true, as most of us would agree it’s possible in fields such as physics or chemistry. The natural or hard sciences, in other words, would all be about what is true, what is not, how we tell the difference, and so forth. Other disciplines are viewed to be less amenable to that possibility. In the field of ethics a lot of people believe truth is difficult if not entirely impossible to find. Is it true that one should not lie, deceive, steal, cheat, mislead, etc.? Or is it something that’s up to the acting agent or one's cultural group? In other words, are ethical claims subjective or objective? Yet that’s not the only branch of human inquiry wherein this issue arises. Are religious claims subjective or objective? Are claims in such fields as sociology, anthropology, or economics open to objective investigation or are these mostly subjective, a matter of what the person who is involved in considering them decides?We often hear that beliefs or claims in these areas are advanced from someone’s point of view, which is to say they are subjective. In this short book that is the issue that’s the central focus: are judgments people make in various fields of concern subjective or objective, can they be the latter or only the former? If the former, will we then ever get to know the world as it really is? Or only as we like it to be or it appears to be? If objectivity is available, is it restricted only to the natural sciences? Or could we be objective about politics, art and psychology? That is basically what this book is about, whether people can obtain objective knowledge.

TechnoFeminist Science Fiction

Author(s): Sümeyra Buran / Language(s): English

This study has coined the term TechnoFeminist Science Fiction by grounding it on the insights of Judy Wajcman’s TechnoFeminist approach that combines cyberfeminism and cyborg feminism following the philosophies of Sadie Plant and Donna Haraway. The core study of TechnoFeminism gives voice to the mutual relationship between women and technology that is a constructivist and a sociotechnical network by rejecting technological determinism. Likewise, TechnoFeminist Science Fiction, a new trend in women or feminist science fiction, provides both technoscientific politics and TechnoFeminist politics in desire for women or feminist science fiction writers to be more active in creating female cyber and cyborg images in their technoscience fictions. Thus, it aims to create new women perspectives and point of views by erasing the gender duality problem with characterization of emancipatory cyberself and cyborg embodiment through breaking down the boundaries between human and machine, animal/organism and machine, and physical and non-physical organisms. The aim of this study is to demonstrate how British novelists, Justina Robson and Sue Thomas, have opened a different technodigital space for equal and mutual relationship between gender and technology by weaving the issues of TechnoFeminism and the concepts of technoscience, AIs, genetic technologies, the internet, regenerative technologies, communication technologies, nanotechnology, biotechnology, molecular biology and they have also developed an image of the cyborg consistent with any of Haraway’s cyborg metaphors and cyberspace consistent with Plant’s cyberfeminism with wired, wet, fluid, flexible, adaptable, mutable, multiple, ever-flowing, unstable, self-controlled, virtual cyberselves.

The Georgia Lectures on Principles, Transitions and Development

Author(s): Tibor R. Machan / Language(s): English

These lectures were given in Tbilisi, Georgia, for a group of students and faculty interested in classical liberal social and political thought. Given their accessibility, they may be of use to others who want to have a clear view of what best supports that position. I advance a natural rights defense of classical liberalism, drawing on the work of many scholars who have discussed the ideas involved. (Several of my other books take up the more specific topics that need to be addressed in laying out the case for the society of free men and women, a society of free minds and free markets.)

The Normative Defense of Free Market Capitalism: Did the Free Market Cause the Financial Fiasco?

Author(s): Tibor R. Machan / Language(s): English

Machan’s book advances an indispensable normative case for the free market system of economy. He addresses the different approaches taken to showing the superiority of the system to others and also discusses the charge that the recent financial fiasco was caused by “market fundamentalism,” as the likes of Paul Krugman keep claiming. This is a vital entry into the on-going debate about whether the economic system based on the principles of freedom of economic conduct, free exchange, private property rights, etc., is better than one regimented from the top, either by some czar or a democratic assembly. Anyone who is concerned with both the productivity and decency of an economic system needs to address Machan’s arguments.

Liber amicorum: A Philosophical Conversation among Friends - A Festschrift for Michael A. Peters

Author(s): / Language(s): English

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE STRATEGIES XXI. The Complex and Dynamic Nature of the Security Environment - Volume 1

Author(s): Mirela Atanasiu / Language(s): English

The conference provides the appropriate academic exchange of ideas, opinions and communication of the latest results of scientific research in the field of security and strategy.

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE STRATEGIES XXI. The Complex and Dynamic Nature of the Security Environment - Volume 2

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The conference provides the appropriate academic exchange of ideas, opinions and communication of the latest results of scientific research in the field of security and strategy.

Krajské volby 2012

Author(s): Stanislav Balík,Andrea Smolková,Monika Dvořáková,Michal Pink,Vít Šimral,Alena Macková,Miloš Gregor,Otto Eibl,Michal Nový,Vlastimil Havlík,Petr Voda,Petr Gongala,Kamil Gregor,Lenka Hrbková / Language(s): Czech

Regional (Kraj) elections in 2012, unlike the elections to the Chamber of Deputies in 2010 or 2013, certainly did not indicate a reversal in Czech politics. On the other hand, 2012’s elections were hardly boring, uninteresting affairs, where everything ran according to plan. Seen from the perspective of second-order elections theory, we had an opportunity to confirm that voters punished parties in the national government and rewarded the opposition, depending on the issues that dominated – whether it was for inappropriate reasons, such as salient, but national-level topics, or for appropriate, but boring, regional reasons. These and the entire gamut of other topics may be understood by arange of reasons. Superficially, through blanket “impressionism“, by way of individual independent case studies, or by pursuing a complex and deeper understanding of causes and effects. Using the format of this monograph focused on a single election (though necessarily with comparisons to previous ones) allows the topic to be investigated with the latter method. This is exactly what the authors of this book have attempted. The structure of the book corresponds to the logic of the electoral process, combining descriptive as well as interpretive and analytical methods.

Přímé a nepřímé financování soukromých neziskových organizací z veřejných rozpočtů České republiky v letech 2008 až 2013

Author(s): Zuzana Prouzová / Language(s): Czech

The economic power of non-governmental and non-profit organizations (NGO-NPOs), whether considering the broader or narrower definition of the private non-profit sector, is not very large in comparison with other sectors. The distinguishing characteristic of the non-profit sector is that it exists in areas where common interest is promoted and public services are provided. These areas are less intensive in terms of financial capital, although they depend on human capital. The significance of NPOs lies in activating human capital, generating free voluntary work, creating free non-market production, and producing goods for economically insignificant prices. In 2008–2013, the definition of non-profit organizations developed by the Czech Statistical Office’s Satellite Account of Non profit Institutions (SÚNI) included 13 legal forms. There were 6 legal forms for NGO-NPOs (of which three forms were a mere selection. There were 84,000–127,000 organisations in the Czech Republic in total) for the years 2008–2013. In 2008, there were 66,000 NGO-NPOs. The share of non-profit organizations in GDP (calculated by means of the expenditure method) was 1.6%, in 2008. In 2008–2013, 100,000–105,000 people (full time equivalent) worked for non-profit organisations, i.e. the share in the employment rate was 1.96–2.09 %. Volunteering also played an important role (25,000–27,000 volunteers, full time equivalent).

Understanding Policy Attitudes: Effects of Affective Source Cues on Political Reasoning

Author(s): Lenka Hrbková / Language(s): English

How do citizens form their political attitudes? How do political actors influence people’s political views in their everyday lives? Do people’s feelings towards political parties and politicians influence the public opinion? The book presents a series of laboratory experiments focused on the formation processes of citizens’ attitudes to political issues in the context of their emotional attachments to political actors. The research puts emphasis on negativity and negative feelings of citizens towards political actors and shows that this type of negative attachment influences the way people think about political issues. Since the experimental method is a newcomer in the field of Czech political science, the volume’s ambition is also to introduce experiments as a relevant and useful tool for extending knowledge of substantial political processes and phenomena.

FALLING BEHIND: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES ARE FAILING TO COMBAT INAUTHENTIC BEHAVIOUR ONLINE

Author(s): Sebastian Bay,Rolf Fredheim / Language(s): English

From the 2014 invasion of Ukraine to more recent attempts to interfere in democratic elections, antagonists seeking to influence their adversaries have turned to social media manipulation. At the heart of this practice is a flourishing market dominated by Manipulation Service Providers (MSPs) based in Russia. Buyers range from individuals to companies to state-level actors. Typically, these service providers sell social media engagement in the form of comments, clicks, likes, and shares. Since its foundation, the NATO Strategic Communication Centre of Excellence in Riga has studied social media manipulation as an important and integral part of the influence campaigns malicious state and non-state actors direct against the Alliance and its partners.

Èthos przywódcy politycznego w myśli starożytnej i renesansowej. Platon, Cyceron, Machiavelli, Guicciardini

Author(s): Marta Czapińska-Bambara / Language(s): Polish

Plato, Cicero and Machiavelli are considered the classics of political philosophy. Their research constantly stimulates the imagination of researchers and provokes further interpretations. What seemed particularly interesting to me was to illustrate, by dint of deliberations focused on the ethos of a political leader, a certain continuity of thought that can be noticed in the views of these thinkers, and also to indicate the differences appearing in them, resulting from the personal nature of their perceptions and individual understanding of state reality. Despite a keen interest in the writings of Plato, Cicero or Machiavelli, and in the few works that compare ancient thought with the opinions of Renaissance authors, there is still a shortage of this kind of study. My sense of unsatisfaction was augmented by the realization that the work of Francesco Guicciardini – which is a valuable source of information about the social and political situation of Renaissance Florence and offers an additional reference point for Machiavelli's opinions, in this way painting a more complete picture of the era and allowing a better understanding of the contemporary trends – has not been properly recognized in the Polish literature.

Liberální demokracie v době krize: Perspektiva politické filosofie

Author(s): / Language(s): Czech

Liberal democracy seems to be facing systemic threats that can be no longer labelled as normal oscillations in trust or explained as retreat of political activity to non-electoral participatory spheres. This volume brings together several key debates in political philosophy and theory which aim to provide responses to the perceived difficulties of liberal democracies. The authors share the conviction that the announced crisis of liberal democracy has important political roots – in other words, that its origins are to be primarily looked for in the normative background and institutional structure of extant liberal-democratic political systems. At the same time the book aims to provide an “advanced introduction” to contemporary debates in political philosophy, so that both students and researchers can draw on a balanced exposition of some central problems which animate political thinking about deeper roots of the systemic crisis of liberal democracy.