THE FUTURE OF THE NATION-STATE IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION

Author(s): Jelena Ristik / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2012

The structure of the system of nation-states, established with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, as a new political order in Europe which rests upon sovereign and independent states, constantly evolves and changes. Today’s trend of globalization, as a complex process that involves not only a commercial process which includes exchange of goods, capital and services across national borders, but also an increased number of interconnections in politics and culture, has a serious influence on the traditional concept of the world order and the international relations, according to which the basic unit that determines the way we act globally is the nation-state. Namely, globalization, as a concept, contradicts the traditional understanding of the primacy of the nation-state in the world order and introduces a possibility for parallel existence of various non-state subjects, which would have equal or even superior role to the nation-state. Moreover, globalization seriously affects the classical concept of sovereignty that explains the nature of the nation-state and represents one of the basic conditions for its existence. This paper has placed its focus on the future of the nation-state in the era of globalization. The question whether it is going to succeed to survive under the pressure of globalization, or what would its eventual further transformation and adaptation look like, as a response to the challenges of globalization, is the theme which is equally important for everybody, as a member of one of the almost 200 nation-states which exist in the world today.

DYNAMICS OF IDENTITIES IN TRANSITIONAL SERBIA

Author(s): Danijela Gavrilović,Dragana Stjepanović-Zaharijevski / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2012

Due to rapid social changes, Serbia faces an enhanced dynamics of identities and their alteration, appearance of new and disappearance of old identities, as well as oscillations in the emotional legitimacy attributed to these identities. Apart from global social processes, the specificities of the Serbian transitional society also play an important role in the creation of identity matrices. This paper deals with these changes in the identity map of Serbia, trying to determine the types of present identities, their dynamics, and emotional legitimacy attributed to them by the respondents, and analyzing the results of the research conducted in the period from 2007 to 2011: Culture of Peace, Identities and Interethnic Relations in Serbia and in the Balkans in the Process of European Integration (Centre for Sociological Research of the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, 2007; European Value Survey, 2008; Cultural Practice of Population in Serbia (Institute for the Study of Cultural Development); Social and Cultural Capital in Serbia (Centre for the Empirical Study of Culture, 2011). The authors’ intention is to capture the change, tendency, process – the dynamics of “old” (ethnic, religious) and “new” (professional, civil) identity. Family identity can occur both in a traditional and modern form, therefore we are also going to deal with the issue of family identification in order to recognize the dominant model in Serbia. Although identities have to be “fixed” to a certain extent, still the identification of the individual and collective creation is a living process which reacts to current social happenings.

THE GLOBALIZATION OF MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES AS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CULTURAL IMPERIALISM

Author(s): Victoria Kafedjiska / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2012

In addition to the numerous definitions for globalization, most of the authors collectively agree that it represents the increasing trend of the world countries to bond on an economical, social and cultural level. However, social sciences often conclude that the concept of globalization is a disputable one because even if the definition is accepted as true, the dilemmas whether globalization brings more positive or more negative implications would still exist. Today globalization is also perceived as “americanisation” or more precisely as an effort of the USA to impose not only their economic, politic and war power but their attitudes and values as well. The fact that the countries nowadays are considered as main factors in shaping the foreign politics results from the fast development of transport and communication technologies. The growth of nations and national ideas in the 18th ad 19th century increased the ever so great differentiation between the societies of different cultures and identities. The wish to mix and share different cultures was welcomed with eagerness among the supporters of globalization. Another dimension of the cultural but also of the media globalization is that, globalization allows for various encounters, i.e. getting acquainted with the “other worlds”. On the other side, even though these benefits of globalization are publicly acclaimed, there is a stream of opinions which propagate the development of national, regional or even the local belonging, acknowledging the turbulent changes of globalization as a threat to the former.

GLOBALIZATION, SOVEREIGNTY AND THE NATION-STATE

Author(s): Jove Kekenovski / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2012

Worldwide, a more mature understanding of the globalization process, understood as connecting people, nations and countries, the poor and the rich, the weak and powerful civilizations and cultural development, is inevitable spreading. Increased awareness of the forces causing globalization raises different arguments and considerations. While on the one hand there are clearly expressed tendencies and practices of regional association among nations and states, on the other hand there are quite strong aspirations of nations and their national communities to regulate their own lives in “their own house”, to be politically independent and sovereign states within their territory. Today most of the ideologists and promoters of globalization consider absolute national sovereignty as one category and there is exceeded willing invocation to identify sovereignty with nationalism. Supporters of globalization argue that technological determinism sentenced them to decline sovereignty and globalized financing and industry, fleeing from state control, considering that national regulation is outdated and national sovereignty is senseless. Also undisputed is the fact that the sovereign state remains the main actor in world politics, but its central position in the future looks quite weak. However, states remain important actors in world politics and the myth of sovereignty strongly affects the way the international system functions. There are small chances that the nationstate in the near future will not survive, but it is certain that transnational forces and institutions will continue to erode the importance of territoriality and global politics that revolves around the state.

THE EUROPEAN UNION AS AN “UNKNOWN POLITICAL OBJECT” OR A POSTMODERN POLITICAL COMMUNITY IN THE PROCESS OF CONSTITUTING OF ITS OWN INTERNATIONAL

Author(s): Goran Ilik / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2012

This paper represents an explication of the fundamental premises for the definition of the term identity in a political / international political sense, in correlation with the ontology of the European Union as a specific legal and political entity. Therefore, we should not talk at any costs about the EU “nationalisation” or “etatization” because of the specific geopolitical, strategic and certainly the geo-economical conditions, in which it is born, grows and functions, which are also radically different in relation to others. Namely, when talking about the Union in relation to others, at the same time its specificity must be stressed, also autonomy and distinctiveness as attributes of its international political identity. The title of the paper stems precisely from the formulation of the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who once said: “The EU is functional, but also an unknown political object on the international political scene”. In this respect, are presented the key benefits of the Lisbon Treaty in this area, because it appears as a “new opportunity” for the embodiment of the EU as a political union. This Treaty, initiates the Union in a politea sui generis in status nascendi or a political community of particular type in a phase of birth. In this regard, this paper underlines the postmodern nature of the Union, which makes it different than other global actors even more. On this basis, there is emphasis that identity is not something static, or fixed, but it is a dynamic process of (self) recognition, differentiation and establishment of a recognizable image of the particular political community in the existential environment. While taking into account the growing “density” of the multilateral relations, permanent communication with other international actors and the intensity of the globalization as an unstoppable process, the Union within its Common Foreign and Security Policy, aims to produce a referent level of solidarity and cohesion as essential elements of such political / international political identity. In addition, the paper presents the theories and doctrines of realism, liberalism and their derivatives, such as: neorealism, neoliberalism and neofunctionalism as dominant theories that more accurately specify the essence of the international political identity, nature and profile of the Union in the international relations.

POLITICAL IDENTITY AND RESPECT OF POLITICAL DIFFERENCES

Author(s): Nazmi Malichi / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2012

Political tolerance is regarded as a part of the concept of recognition that allows the existence of differences between people who are careerists/creators of policy/policy makers. It is these differences and their recognition that are the main source of tolerance. Consequently, there is no tolerance without recognizing the right of these differences. But, on the other hand, the recognition itself of the right of differences between people opens numerous questions and difficulties about the functioning of tolerance. Do functional or populist politics dominate? Are common cultural values to be nurtured and preserved in the state exactly/accurately defined? With regret we can conclude that within the official, politicized and party culture, we build an authoritarian culture that creates an environment to make/making citizens live in fear of identity preservation, rather than promoting projects that will help them live with the political reality. Today, educational system and ethics-related education must become a necessary conception as an essential concept of ethical virtue. More should be invested in young people’s lives in order to create ethical and tolerant beings. If we are supporters of democracy and more specifically the values of liberal democracy, we should accept the fact that every citizen has the right to defend its system of national, religious and all other values. This often creates relations of conflict, complicating or generating implications on the existing values as a result of conflicts. In such circumstances, it seems that misunderstandings occur as a result of different ideas and preconceptions about myths or mythology, rise of national myths of the past, when people make attempts to expose their ideas in a way that leaves the impression that they conform to part of the historians or politicians, but without any significance for the present and future. If they insist/intend to build the future of a nation in present time, relying purely on mythology, one can suspect that there is something wrong in that nation and its political elites. It might be regarded as an indicator of their attempts relating to the intended method of how to build the future or, more accurately, national, cultural, political, economic prospects of the country. To avoid building the idea of myths, in fact, it is better to follow a different direction. Namely, it would be more sensible to explore the values and gain a deeper insight, thereby trying to identify their implications for the present situation. The attempt to find space for hope in the current time is a kind of intellectual challenge for an individual, and in view of this we will seek to build/develop a policy and diplomacy that includes historical events, but at the same time we should have in mind the words of the winner of Nobel prize in literature Camilo Jose Cela: “We should not be on the side of those who make history but on the side of those who suffer in it.”

CHANGES AND PROSPECTS OF CONTEMPORARY ETHNIC IDENTITY - The case of Bulgaria

Author(s): Tanya Nedelcheva,Stefan Em. Nikolov / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2012

Contemporary social changes in Bulgaria instigate a broad range of interactions between various ethnic groups, from harmony to tensions. Involved is transformation of national identity, emergence of new, different from existing, types of identities. First process here is the crisis of the built in another historical contexts Bulgarian national identity. Its flexibility and ability to co-exist with various ethnic groups, to enforce multiculturalism, to set new forms of integration and differentiation is contested by the imperatives of social time. Second process occurs from redefining of the very concept of ethnic identities within the nation-state. The design of the dominating unified and monolithic nation is no more taken for granted. Due to various reasons, in Bulgaria from the late 1980s and early 1990s each one of the major ethnic communities (Bulgarian, Turkish and Roma) ‘rewrite’ the basic parameters of their self-consciousness, the we-image and they-image. These processes are characterized by • enhanced ethno-centrist attitudes; • increased ethnic distances; • prevalence of negative They-images; • enhanced intra-ethnic stratification 21st century brought systematic and contemplated building of ethnic and national identities. In our case, historically established cultural substance, the Bulgarian people, holds as a principle compatibility, and co-existence of diverse groups. It is rather a process of institutionalization and continuation in noticeable forms of this traditional version of the relationships between the different ethnic backgrounds. Important here is to emphasize the productive, positive trend, linked to the transformation of national identity, which is modified according to a larger community, that of the European peoples.

RESHAPING IDENTITIES: ROMANIA, BORDERLINE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Author(s): Maria-Antoaneta Neag / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2012

The European construction is about to redefine and complete its structures in a globalisation era. In this world of movement, digitalisation, rapid means of transportation, European integration, to what extent do we know what is defining for a people/country/nation? The concept of European identity still remains blurred. EU, and globalization in general, have had unexpected effects when it comes to identity matters. The umbrella paradigm inevitably limits or simplifies national identities. Each Member State is undergoing a process of reshaping in order to transform its national identity into an EU “brand”, in other words, some aspects of the national substance are threatened to be lost in favor of a simplified and easily recognizable image. As several scholars already mentioned, Romania is a complex country, difficult to define using only geographic criteria. The frontier metaphor fits Romania as both historically and culturally, it was the borderline of several empires: Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Several civilisation models crossed the country leading to the formation of a diverse and complex identity. The aim of this research is to capture, by means of oral history techniques, the Europeans’ perceptions about Romania. Today, we are facing another identity challenge: Romania, borderline of the European Union.

Zöld út a regénynek (Miloš Urban: Hastrman, a vizek fejedelme)

Author(s): József Keserű / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 02/2004

“According to Franz Kafka, a good book stings and gnaws and hits our head to wake us up. Miloš Urban’s Hastrman is exactly such a book.” The study takes a close look at the “green”- prompted novel of the Czech writer.

Nyelvkritika és a történelem iróniája (Patrik Ouřednik: Europeana)

Author(s): András Pályi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 02/2004

“His magic lies in not hiding himself in the text, or more precisely he hides in just as many forms as many truths he formulates.” The review is about the young Czech writer, Patrik Ouřednik’s novel published first in the Hungarian language.

Milyen a jó múzeumi katalógus?(Várkonyi György: Modern Magyar Képtár I. 1890-1950 Sárkány József és Várkonyi György: Modern Magyar Képtár II. 1955-200

Author(s): Gábor Ébli / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 02/2004

“Modern Hungarian art is presented through a strong, high-standard filter.” The review analysing the catalogue of the Pécs Gallery, uses the methodological problems of museology as an important aspect.

Mi a pálya? (Pályák emlékezete. Szirák Péter beszélgetései irodalomtudósokkal)

Author(s): Tamás Kisantal / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 02/2004

“Péter Szirák brings scholars close to us whose books were read by generations of students.” The collection of interviews reviewed lets a glimpse into the workshops of the most significant contemporary Hungarian literary thinkers.

A nemzet mint árnyék (Jaroslav Durych: Wallenstein árnyai)

Author(s): László Márton / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 02/2004

“From the Czech literature between the two World wars, beside the leftist-progressive Hašek’s Švejk can the rightist-conservative Durych’s Wallenstein say something universal on the power relations of the area?” The main question of the review is what conclusions the novel offers from the angle of the particular improvement of Hungarian literature.

Ellenszegülés a gyakorlatnak (Irodalmi kánon és kanonizáció)

Author(s): Tibor Bárány / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 02/2004

“There are few problems in literary scholarship that could not be reached in a very short way from the question of canons.” The review studies the reader concerning the problematic of literary canons and canonisation, the structure and the proportions of the book.

Baudolino, Szent Baudolino (Umberto Eco: Baudolino)

Author(s): János Kelemen / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 02/2004

“Eco – as in his other novels – solves the task to reformulate problems of theoretical thinking, which he has also dealt with as a scholar, in a narrative form.” The review highlights the main philosophical and epistemological problems in the background of Eco’s novel.

Broukn csek (Kulcsszavak Jáchim Topol prózájához)

Author(s): Krisztián Benyovszky / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 02/2004

Jáchym Topol is one of the most significant writers of the young generation of contemporary Czech literature. The present study is a close analysis of two novels by the author published also in Hungarian.

Donos wywiadu Gwardii Ludowej do gestapo na rzekomych komunistów i kryptokomunistów (wrzesień 1943 roku)

Author(s): Władysław Bułhak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2008

Opanowanie Dynowa przez UPA 16 listopada 1946 roku. Dokumenty polskie i ukraińskie

Author(s): Artur Brożyniak,Paweł Fornal / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2008

Kolaboracja na terenach wcielonych do Rzeszy Niemieckiej

Author(s): Ryszard Kaczmarek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2008

The article analyzes the phenomena of collaboration and collaborationism in all territories incorporated into the Third Reich. Nowhere, apart from a specific situation in Luxembourg, one may find in those territories national collaboration, that is to say the creation of state institutions collaborating with the Germans. The reason was the lack of initiative on the part of Germans. All territories incorporated into the Reich were treated offi cially or unofficially as parts of the Third Reich, and that is why the possibility to create there state semi-sovereign institutions was not planned. The support of collaboration in the annexed territories looked different. Simultaneously when integrating with the Reich the attempts were made to develop collaborative attitudes by Nazifi cation. The process of Nazification was very unequal and was taking place differently in every analyzed territory. In the Polish incorporated territories the process of establishing the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party) and transmitting organizations were nearly instantly being initiated. They acquired members nearly solely from the circle of the representatives of the pre-war German minority members who were politically active before 1939. The membership in the Nazi Party was elitist in the east and amounted to 2–3 per cent. In the west the intermediary solution was adopted, that is to say – the national socialist movements were being created which constituted the step in the path to the membership in the Nazi Party. The membership in those organizations in Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine was a mass scale phenomenon, and was not restricted by ‘racial’ limitations. After the end of the war, there were no precise criteria how to differentiate between the collaboration attitudes in the incorporated territories from those which are described as adjustment and passive and active resistance. It resulted in accusing a large part of the native population of collaboration without differentiation between that group and the German minority which in fact participated in that process on a mass scale. The indicator factor of collaboration in the eastern territories was rather the membership in Nazi organizations, than the active engagement in the activities of the German state apparatus, party structures and terror apparatus.

Ogólne założenia sowieckiej polityki okupacyjnej w Polsce

Author(s): Albin Głowacki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2008

The first source of the USSR policy guidelines referring to the inhabitants of eastern territories of the Second Republic of Poland known to historians are included in the confidential directives for the Red Army which invaded Poland on 17 September 1939. The details concerning the organization of the Soviet-occupied territories were prepared by the the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (bolsheviks) on 1 October 1939. Those guidelines constituted the basis for immediate and resolute activities undertaken by new authorities. The aim of the occupier’s policy was to unify newly annexed territories with the USSR and Sovietization of the inhabitants as quickly as possible. It meant the necessity to transform radically and on a large scale all spheres of political, social, cultural and economic life in compliance with patterns realized until that moment in the state which dealt with ‘building socialism’. The article deals with the following: changes in the administrative division (adjusting to the standards of the USSR); regulations concerning the citizenship of inhabitants of the occupied territories; personnel policy (radical changes in Polish staff – replacing them with confi dents from the East); ownership transformations and transforming the economy (nationalization of enterprises and factories, forfeiting landed gentry’s estates, division of land between smallholders and peasants without any land, creating collective farms, replacing Polish zloty with ruble, top-down planning); fight against religion (anti-religious upbringing and propagation of atheism among society); informative policy (monopolization of mass media, supervision of the party over mass media, censorship); restructuring of educational system and higher schools (structural, staff and curriculum-related changes, popularization of education, indoctrination by school system and teachings); nationalization of and ideologizing cultural institutions; changes in labor, social insurance, tax and health care laws. The fundamental role in the facilitation and speeding up the process of Sovietization of the mental sphere, social and economic relations, and depolonization of annexed territories was played by different reprisal forms (arrests of members of leading social and professional groups, deportations, and genocide). Soviet occupation policy was a function of relations between the USSR and the Third Reich and it was subject to evolution depending on the changes in those relations.