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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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The paper aims to provide an analysis of the politics of two local interest groups of Prešov, the so-called city parties, as specific forms of middle class dissatisfaction in the interwar period. Based on contemporary election results and archival sources, the first part of the study examines the political behaviour of the inhabitants of Prešov between 1920 and 1935, which helps to determine to what extent the city parties were popular among the multilingual and multi-religious voters. The second part investigates the social composition and the political discourse of the city parties. These local political groups were supported by 10-12% of the voters. Most of their followers were organized among the liberal middle classes, who were not able to identity with the politics of the big parliamentary parties. Their members defined themselves mainly against the Communist and Catholic movement. However, they also criticized the measures of the Czechoslovak government. And at the level of discourse they expressed dissatisfaction with the domestic policy of Czechoslovakia in the form of a virtual community of city burghers, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds. It is argued that because of the high percentage of Hungarian and Jewish intellectuals and entrepreneurs among the leaders and supporters of the local parties, this type of local politics might have been an alternative to the Jewish and Hungarian national politics at a local level.
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The text suggests an analysis of the “culture of protest“ within the time frame of the “protest year of 2013“ in the cultural and social context of Bulgaria. The basis of the study – inscription (“thick description“) and specification (“diagnosis“) in the sense of Clifford Geerz (1971) – is a “microscopic“ social fact, namely the book Smilov, Daniel and Lea Vaysova (eds.). #Theprotest: Analyses and Positions in the Bulgarian press, the Summer of 2013. Sofia, “Iztok-Zapad“, 2013 (Смилов, Даниел и Леа Вайсова (съст.). #Протестът: анализи и позиции в българската преса, лято 2013, София, „Изток-Запад“, 2013). The publication which collects and (re)frames selected media stream within particular period of time, i.e. the book as an abstract collection of words/images (text) existing in a material form, is here understood as a social fact in the sense of Emile Durkheim. The adoption of such approach allows the comment to acquire specific outlines – the study of this „text-as-a-book“ neither brings to the fore the abstract dimensions (the text) of the book, which is usually the field of the literary critique and the text hermeneutics, nor focalizes exclusively the material dimensions, which is reserved for the history of the book and the analytical bibliography. The aim here is to describe and understand society and the social by examining and tracing the connections which exert an influence and exist between the simultaneous engagement of the abstract and the material side of this book as a social fact, as well as the social activities within it.
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The 10th Majlis election was held in the Islamic Republic of Iran on 26 February 2016. The election witnessed a record number of disqualified candidates by the Guardian Council. Notwithstanding this, the pro-government candidates were well-received by the voters. President Hassan Rouhani’s foreign policy and the nuclear deal that had concluded with the international community, held a special place in the political debates during the election. This paper first analyses the importance of the 10th Majlis election in Iran in the light of President Rouhani’s foreign policy. Secondly, it explores the election process. This paper argues that elections in Iran suffer from four types of issues. First characteristic is closely linked with the theocratic nature of the Iranian political system. Second one is connected with the Iranian electoral system. Third one arises from the inefficiency of electoral institutions. Finally, those issues caused by the discriminative approach of the Iranian ruling elites towards certain political parties and ethno religious groups.
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This is the second Alternative Progress Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s path towards the EU membership. The report is a joint effort of dozens of individuals and organizations whose common goal was to show the current state of integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the perspective of civil society organizations. Having in mind that the official Progress Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina is a political report of the European Commission, we believe that the publication of the Alternative report can affect its content. Because of this, we are publishing this Alternative Progress Report nearly three months before the publication of the official one, hoping that it will have an impact on the formulation of the formal report. The report completely relies on the so-called political criteria, focusing on the following questions: - Democracy and the functionality of the State, - Rule of law and corruption, - Human rights, especially the rights of minorities and vulnerable groups, and - Transitional Justice During the 2013 and 2014, we have witnessed that no relevant progress has been achieved. The process of implementation of the Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina ruling is completely displaced from the Parliament. Performance of the democratic parliaments and governments on state, entity and cantonal levels is extremely low. The work of the institutions is characterized as unstable, inefficient and with notable lack of transparency. The decisions of the constitutional courts are still not implemented. No significant and systematic policies to combat human rights violations have been adopted. Judicial reform has been stopped and Structured Dialogue on Justice between B&H and the EU does not show any progress. Not a single significant case of corruption has been processed. Minority and vulnerable groups still live in difficult conditions. Discrimination and violence are all-present, and the law on prohibition of discrimination did not show the expected results, having in mind that five years after the enactment of the law, only two final judgments were passed. Comprehensive anti-discrimination policies for social integration either do not exist, or are almost never applied. Floods additionally hit the most vulnerable groups in society. Furthermore, the most vulnerable groups in society have been affected by the recent floods. The prosecution of war crimes and dealing with the past, as prerequisites for creating a healthy environment and building a common state, represent an additional problem. Political support for war criminals by the leaders of political parties only further divide the already highly fragmented society. We hope that the general elections in October of 2014 (although held by discriminatory rules) will bring more stable political structure, ready to face different problems. Initiative for the Monitoring of the European Integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina will certainly advocate change, in terms of adopting new laws and policies, and the implementation thereof. We also hope that the BiH authorities and the EU institutions will support a stronger representation of civil society within the various forums within the EU integration. Civil society must become the third actor in this process along with the State and EU institutions.
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„Alexandru and Aristia Aman” County Library, together with „Alexandru and Aristia Aman” Fundation as organizers, the Romanian Academy, „C.S. Nicolaescu Plopșor” Social–Humanist Sciences Institute – Craiova, Scientists Academy of Romania, the Archaeological and Historical Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of Theology, as partners, organized during October 25 – November 5, 2015 the 8th International Conference State and Society in Europe. The works of the conference lasted for almost two weeks, October 25 –November 5, 2015, and were held at „Alexandru and Aristia Aman” County Library of Craiova, The Restoration Center of the Faculty of Theology of Craiova and The Universitaries House, Romania.
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The current socio-political and economic environment places Europe’s youth in a burdensome position. The financial crisis from the past decade, as well as the remnants of the political transitions after the fall of communism in Southeast Europe, have spelled some of the worst conditions for young people in historic terms, particularly in this region.Youth unemployment is unprecedentedly high. The education system seems to fail in providing young people with the skills and knowledge to succeed. Governments are perceived as vastly detached from the issues relevant to their youngest constituencies. Political apathy is rampant. In the present environment, perspectives of young people are increasingly important, as they signal the urgent areas of action and can navigate social research and government policy. The present paper provides an overview of the current attitudes among young people in Bulgaria and Southeast Europe based on previous research and personal observation, filling some of the existing gaps in common perceptions of young citizens.
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In a matter of just two years, the devastated Ukrainian army has turned itself into one of the most efficient armies in Europe, mostly thanks to volunteers and private donations. However, reform of the defence system has lagged due to the rampant corruption and bureaucracy of the state, forcing many volunteers to give up.
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Young People in Greece and Europe
Greece – as well as many EU countries – is in an admittedly hard situation, regarding politics,economics, social injustices, etc. This situation has taken its toll on everyone, but mostly on the younger generations and their perception of the future of Europe. On the one hand, we are facing extremism, which has started to arise since the beginning of the refugee crisis. On the other hand, youth unemployment and cut-backs on public expenditure – with whatever consequences these may have – are examples of how a stable future for young people is slowly being destroyed.Is Greece capable of protecting its young citizens from dangers such as waste of potential?Does moving to some other EU country sound more appealing? Is there light at the end of the tunnel for the younger generation? I frequently like to think maybe, but possibly not. I also feel that we must remain committed to create this light, to enlarge it and share it with the young in Greece, in Southeast Europe and elsewhere. Despite everything and in light of.
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Neo-liberalism is, undoubtedly, today’s dominant economical and political ideology. This paper is an attempt to give a general outline of where it derived from, what was it based on, and how it became the leading driving force in the field of economy and politics.
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The reflections in this article concern the creation, definition, and use of a concept that, while supposedly pertaining to the sphere of literature and the arts, was central to the ideology and culture of socialist societies: socialist realism. The article discusses transformations in Western reactions to the vocabulary and practice of socialist realism after its introduction as a formal doctrine in the USSR in the early 1930s, and after the creation of the Soviet Bloc in the late 1940s. The author argues that initial attempts by external observers to make sense of the term and related policies were refl ective of the semantics of the early Cold War in general. Exploring the vicissitudes of its (mis)understanding by Western journalists, intellectuals and politicians can help us understandthe mechanism behind much of intercultural and political communication between the two camps.
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Russians who are currently behind bars for political reasons are a good representation of the country that Vladimir Putin’s Russia has become. They are being punished for exercising their fundamental freedoms, for exposing the web of corruption on which the state is built and for threatening local oligarchs loyal to the Kremlin. Often, they are imprisoned for all three.
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More than a decade after the completion of the democratic transition of the Visegrad Four countries, crowned by their membership of the EU, it is legitimate to ask whether the concept of “transition experience sharing” is still relevant to either the EU’s democracy support programs or the Visegrad Four ODA1 programs. This paper seeks to provide a basic empirical account of some of the fundamental processes of transition sharing while describing its core trends. It also makes recommendations, addressed partly at the V4 governments, but mainly at the respective EU institutions, on how features of “transition experience sharing” could be incorporated into democracy support schemes, thereby tailoring them in response to actual needs.
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#DANSwithme is the longest-lasting anti-government protest in the history of Bulgaria. Acting as a temporary intervention into the urban fabric of Sofi a, the protest was a battle for the access to truth in the public sphere. Through this battle, a particular discursive critique and practical critical ethos were developed, which were aimed at uncovering the overarching relations of power and dominant systems of truth hidden behind the regime of a façade democracy in Bulgaria. It is argued in this paper that #DANSwithme functioned as a specifi c kind of diagnosis of the present because it generated distinct battles for the access to truth both about the present through the past and about the present through the future.
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An interview with Kerstin Jacobsson, professor of sociology. Interviewer: Agnieszka Lichnerowicz
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In October 2014 a citizens’ initiative called ‘In the Name of the Family’ collected more than 380,000 signatures demanding a constitutional referendum on comprehensive electoral reform in Croatia. The Initiative aimed to introduce preferential voting for MPs; new criteria for the establishment of electoral constituencies; a lower electoral threshold from five to three per cent; abandon pre-electoral coalitions and joint lists of several parties; and postal and electronic voting. The constitutional referendum demanded by the initiative was not held due to the organizers collecting an insufficient number of signatures for the referendum petition to be valid, and only a limited reform of the electoral system was enacted with the introduction of preferential voting for MPs. What had started as a bottom-up citizens’ initiative (or ‘mass imposition’in Renwick’s terminology) finally ended as an ‘elite majority imposition’of an electoral reform.
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