We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
The article will define and identify features of the ecological humanities understood as a symptom of the emergence of a new scientific paradigm. I am interested particularly I ecoposthumanities a tendency that is developing since the late nineties in the frame of posthumanist criticism of anthropocentrism, Eurocentrism and Western science. The paper will indicate the role of traditional ecological knowledges and native knowledges as well as the development of biohumanities (an inclusive type of knowledge that connects human, social sciences and life sciences) as important aspects of ecoposthumanities. The ecological humanities offers an utopian vision of meta-communities of humans and non-humans based on symbiotic relations, co-evolution and co-dependency and anticipates future knowledge productions in terms of extended mind and distributed cognition.
More...
community engagement focuses on a four-linkages methodology for enabling high-listed concepts within the context of six official documents of the period 2001-2017: (1) “Report from the Commission Fourth Report on Citizenship of the Union (1 May 2001 – 30 April 2004)”; (2) “Report from the Commission Fifth Report on Citizenship of the Union (1 May 2004 – 30 June 2007)”; (3) “Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee On progress towards effective EU Citizenship 2007-2010”; (4) “EU Citizenship Report 2010 Dismantling the obstacles to EU citizens’ rights”; (5) “Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social committee and the Committee of the Regions under Article 25 TFEU On progress towards effective EU Citizenship 2011-2013”; (6) “EU Citizenship Report 2017 Strengthening Citizens’ Rights in a Union of Democratic Change”. The study appeals to the quantitative and qualitative content analysis of more than forty key topics configuring the citizenship values - participation behaviors - community engagement within the official documentation of the European Union.
More...
The present study witnesses the social agenda and the civic participation within the European Union multilevel institutional establishment. The paper introduces and scrutinizes more than seven alternative items in the field of social action and civic engagement representing active displays of the European social praxis and referring to the innovative citizen-society empowerment links that define the theoretical structure of the European Union multilevel governance: development, innovation, inclusion, solidarity, entrepreneurship and legal settings. The aim of the study is to employ a seven-step content analysis of the main topics of the social agenda and civic participation using the following research model: 1) defining the main topics of the social agenda; b) targeting the conceptual understandings of each topic; 3) mapping an analytic framework based on the social action and social praxis of legal encounters. The paper develops a theoretical and practical approach to the emerging areas of the European social establishment.
More...
In the Constitution of Montenegro, the political identity of Montenegro is defined as a civic identity, and Montenegro is grounded as a civic country. In a demographic sense, according to the results of the latest population census, Montenegro can be described as a multicultural country with significant ethno-cultural pluralism. In the normative-political sense, Montenegro adopted institutional and legal provisions with the intention to introduce equality between ethno-national communities, both in their political participation and at the level of preserving their ethno-cultural specificities. Accordingly, one of the most important fields that requires improving normative solutions and practical implementations is the field of political participation of national minorities. The current legal provisions, within the electoral legislation and within the field of protection of the minority collective’s rights, provide a solid foundation for political representation, but are equally bound by limitations that must be solved.
More...
In spite of the obvious fact that EU and MERCOSUR are clearly different realities (we are speaking about an intergovernmental organization and, on the other ahand, about a supra-statal structure), the two entities can be compared, mainly because they do have a strong common denominator: that of continuously maintaining a set of strict rules and, above all, that of continuously promoting democracy and respecting human rights by means of using significant institutional elements (some of them described along the pages of the study). The academic framework used as the main tool enabling us to compare EU and MERCOSUR is the so-called „historic institutionalism”, and the author strongly relies on the works of two significant institutionalist writers, James March and Johan Olsen.
More...
The article is trying to investigate which were the reasons that determined the international community to choose decentralization as a mean of transforming Kosovo in a multiethnic democratic society. The special character of decentralization in Kosovo will be emphasized in the article. Asymmetric solutions have been used to accommodate the interests of different groups both in consolidated democracies (see. Spain, United Kingdom) and post-conflict societies. In Kosovo, after a reconstructions process that lasted almost ten years, the international community decided it is high time for the province to move forward towards independence. The asymmetric decentralization was seen as an important aspect in this process and a sine qua non condition for the development of a stable democratic country.
More...
The aim of this paper is to relate some of the main postcolonial issues and key concepts to postcommunist studies and determine their reliability in this juncture. Is postcolonial discourse a suitable source and voice for the former communist area? Where can the two go together and where should they be separated? The author has focused on some brief issues in methodology and society related terms for both discourses, although numerous other directions should be explored.
More...
In a global context whose main feature obviously is the clear need for enhanced global security, global stability and global development, the problem(s) of global governance become(s) more and more important. This quite condensed study explores two different areas: first of all, that of the way in which we can define global governance and the way in which we can understand its basic features. A second chapter is made up of several sound historical examples: some of them offering a vivid image of the capabilities global governance has and of the positive results it can generate; the other ones, on the contrary, offering the reader a sound image of the limits (and failures) of the same global governance (or of its constitutive elements), along the 19th and 20th centuries.
More...
The paper focuses on the current socio-political issue and discourse on the topic of the terrorist attacks in Europe and their interpretation by important and influential media outlets. Focus will also be put on the relationship of media and terrorists. The author studies the phenomena using comparative and descriptive methods as well as content analysis. The author examines research related to different interpretations of terrorist attacks by different media outlets. In particular, attention will be paid to the role of geographical distance on the media coverage of terrorist attacks.
More...
Despite rising tensions in East Asia, the Japanese government has not adopted a comprehensive policy, doctrine, or institution for strategic communication (StratCom) to date. The lack of a formal StratCom concept or framework, however, does not mean that Japan is not engaged in strategic communication. The review provided in this article reveals the heavy reliance of the government on the machineries of public diplomacy to communicate its policy and intent, through which it wishes to integrate its messages.Moreover, Japan is an avid practitioner of ‘messaging via deeds’, an aspect hitherto not understood as a Japanese StratCom practice. Japan’s de facto practice of strategic communication reflects the fundamentally political nature of strategic communication,building as it must upon the particular political and historical landscape of the nation,in which the rise of China is a central factor. The analysis outlines the key challenges for Japanese StratCom practice, namely, the danger of miscalculations occurring as a result of uncoordinated messaging, especially via deeds; the ‘say-do gap’ as the government struggles to fulfill some of its aspirations under the rubric of ‘proactive contribution to peace’, and the difficulty of sending coherent messages and avoiding unintended messaging.
More...
Strategic communications is gaining traction as a potent tool of countering insurgency.State and non-state actors—including insurgent groups—are increasingly turning to it in pursuit of their goals. This article offers a comparative study of the use of strategic communications by both the Nigerian Armed Forces and the jihadi group they seek to obliterate: Boko Haram. It also assesses their impact on the media coverage of their activities. The jihadists deployed both their communications skills and their infamies to put their insurgency onto the global scene. The Army employed a range of tools—some effective, some less so—to counter them. The media’s obsession with jihadi stories gave the insurgents an edge, but the Army managed to disrupt most of their strategies.Extraneous factors do influence strategic communications campaigns, but honesty—or the perception of it—is a necessary condition for their long-term efficacy.
More...
Do influence campaigns based on data-driven psychological profiling work? Both Cambridge Analytica and a significant part of the campaign apparatus for the UK to leave the EU appeared to think so. That is, until they didn’t.
More...
On the walls of the Musée Anne-de-Beaujeu in Moulins, a small town in the Auvergne, hangs a striking painting. It’s called La Vérité or, more descriptively, ‘La Vérité sortant du puits armée de son martinet pour châtier l’humanité’—‘Truth emerging from the well armed with her whip to chastise mankind.’ Truth, in the painting, is naked; rendered almost photographically; and if her eyes and mouth, fixed in a barking rebuke, are anything to go by, she is angry. Very angry.
More...
Review of: ‘We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us’. An analysis of NATO Strategic Communications: The International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, 2003–2014 Brett Boudreau. Publisher: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
More...
This study focuses on the discussion of ‘conservatism’. Important theoretical discussions have been made within the framework of what it means as a concept and how it should be defined. The concept of conservatism is reconstructed from different perspectives and is interpreted in different contexts based on different theoretical viewpoints and gains functionality. These different perspectives naturally may lead to separate consequences at the social and political levels. At this point, we come across different concepts used to define conservatism: Darwinian/Evolutionary conservatism, metaphysical conservatism, historical/peculiar conservatism, conservatism as a doctrine of tradition(alism), universal conservatism, situational conservatism, etc. In this study, previously mentioned different conceptualizations of conservatism will be examined with a critical perspective and especially analyze/criticism of ‘situational conservatism’ will be made. According to our main argument of this study, in order to accept conservatism as an ideology separate and detached from liberalism or socialism, we need a perspective that goes beyond the concept of ‘situational conservatism’. If we stay within the boundaries of situational understanding, conservatism will be very pragmatic notion without any essence or fixed principles and will be able to integrate with any kind of ideological position.
More...
This writing aims to outline the principles of researches on philosophy in Central and Eastern European countries, preferably USSR, in the latest soviet and post-soviet periods. In author’s opinion,the crucial points for such kind of research are: a) to discover a correlation between philosophy and the phenomenon of totalitarianism; b) to correlate a soviet philosophy with totalitarian experience. The article considers methodological and axiological problems in research of post-totalitarian practices in general as such as in philosophy. In author’s opinion the main problem in development of the post-soviet philosophy is interiorisation of intellectual, cultural and social practices, which were formed concerning to totalitarian experience. This became a reason of “cynicism” and “nihilism” of post-soviet philosophy.It’s impossible to cast mentioned phenomena off without consideration of totalitarian phenomenon and critical reconsideration of the own totalitarian experience
More...
The Bulgarian Social Policy model is a mixture of increasing social expenses payed from the State, low social benefits and relatively high income inequality. This strange combination of peculiarities is a consequence of the try to stabilize without changing the market social policy model shaped during the 90s. The inclusion in the European transfer of social policies tends to support this situation. Because of specific European institutions it takes soft forms that change the ideas, lightly influence the practices and keep the models stable.
More...