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The end of the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union had shown its impact on the Black Sea region as well. The emergence of the new states, and the changing maps had also changed the geostrategical balance in the region. Besides these changes, due to varying facts, the Black Sea had become a region which gains importance and which attracted the attention of international powers. Today, the Black Sea is an important issue of the international security agenda. The security of the Black Sea, which has gone beyond regional level and gained an international and global identity, has an important place in Turkey’s foreign and security policy. In the Cold War era, in order to ensure the security of the Black Sea, the mechanisms of international organizations like EU, NATO, OSCE have been used, besides new entities like Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), BLACKSEAFOR, and Black Sea Harmony (OBH) has been composed. In this article, the international bodies which have policies through the region and their present and potential effect on the security of the Black Sea and Turkey are examined.
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In old Turkish society no social classes had occurred. There were no aristocrats, no freepeoples, no slaves. Classnessness had its effects on social, political, economical, military and judicial fields. Matters relating to the nation or the state were being discussed and brought to a conclusion in the assemblies. The old Turks had a greatly developed sense of independence. Justice, utility, equality and universality were immutable considerations in their juridical understanding. Atatürk knew quite well the characteristics and the history of his nation. Fort hat reason he put forward the idea that "the republican regime is the most favorable on efor the Turkish nation taking her nature and character into consideration". As a vision depending upon justice, utility, equalty and universality had come into existance since the early times of Turkish history the republican regime was easily adopted. Classless social structure, assemblies, elected administrators, giving importance to the priority of wisdom and science are some of the peculiarities of Turkish nation which have been transmitted through history to the present day.
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The developments occured after the Cold War lead Turkey to set a new foreign policy vision and strategy considering “regions” and “global powers/ power candidates” and to draw a new road map. So in this study, following a proactive foreign policy is discussed because of the new threat perceptions and instability in strategic inners of Turkey especially after September 11. In this perspective, the title “Four Styled Policy” of this study is conceptualized as a continuation of Turkey’s strategic interests in its former imperial geograpyh. In this new course called “The Four Styled Policy”, the choices of Turkey 1. “Expanded Great Asia Project (EGAP)”, 2. “Turkish World Union”, 3. “The Islamic World Based in the ex-Ottoman Geography”, 4. “The New West Policy” projects are explained and analyzed.
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The Slovak government is examining the treatment of Romani youngsters in school. But is it asking the right questions?
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Putin again uses raw power, and again the result is a major failure.
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As Serbia takes tentative steps to reform its decrepit social security system, some say far more radical change is needed.
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An interview with Radmila Sekerinska, Macedonia’s deputy prime minister in charge of European integration.
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Slovak public TV can't make up its mind between profit maximizing and public service.
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An asylum case casts Romania’s judiciary in a bad light just as Brussels considers admitting the country to the EU next year.
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The article explores the dynamics of the Cyprus conflict and aims at proving that the failure of resolution stemms from the psysical and mental segregation of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The main purpose of this article is to identify the weaknesses of long term peacekeeping operations, using the example of UNFICYP, and to prove that in the case of Cyprus, monitoring the separation of military forces has also led to the preservation of ethnic division. We argue that, despite its efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict, the United Nations, through the presence of UNFICYP and its subsidiary tasks, actually contributed to the preservation of internal borders.
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Since 1996, the academic journal Studia Europaea, issued by the Faculty of European Studies, has been representing an open arena for promoting research endeavours. The journal is refereed by international specialists and officially acknowledged by the Romanian National University Research Council (CNCSIS). Studia Europaea is covered by several prestigious databeses, such as ProQuest CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, ProQuest CSA Sociological Abstracts or Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL). Each article is reviewed by two independent academics in a “double-blind” system. Senior as well as junior academics from Europe and from the United States have found in Studia Europaea a way of expressing their preoccupations by publishing academic articles that have focused on the European experience and perspectives in various fields of social science.
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The ecologic crisis is undeniably the product of the Western civilisation, particularly of the modern ameliorative task, now projected on a planetary scale. Is it, however triggered by a more profound determinism, which finds its roots in the original religious vision of Christianity? More precisely, in the biblical mandate God has given men to multiply and dominate the Earth as a king over his dominion? There are, actually, some ecologist “prosecutors” who are making exactly this point. Christianity is, on the long term, to be held as ultimate responsible for the heavy mass of this “eco-cide” civilisation. Evaluating such spiritual roots of the disaster, we discovered however, in the “epileptically” advancing Western history a fundamental differentiation between this royal status given to man in the Bible over the Earth, and the “psychosis” of modern Faustian project. Given the fact that, from a theological standpoint, such a divine mandate implied however a divine surveillance and correction, the neurotic progressivism of the Faustian principle was not completely released, until the proclamation of the Death of God. It is in this way only that man could become his own master. He was now able to freely dispose of the great cosmic reservoir without accounting in front of any instance higher than himself. It is, in conclusion, not in the least the contemplative Christianity to be hold responsible for the ecological crisis, but, indeed, the Faustian modernity.
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After the Congress of Berlin (1878), the international pressure to eliminate from the Constitution the exclusions based on religious criteria produced an ideological battle, which raised the Romanian antisemitism to a new level. Of the representatives of the Romanian antisemites, Mihai Eminescu is the figure that has the widest public recognition. We can find in Eminescu’s writings a pattern of discourse which it was used later (without any nuances) in the Romanian antisemitic discourse. Eminescu contributed to the development of a specific Romanian antisemitic understanding of the Jewishness, as a cultural product – a function of religion, of economic interest and of ethnicity.
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In March this year, the European Union celebrated the 55th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. This Treaty was a start of the European construction which gave a new face to the continent after centuries of conflict. With 6 founding members, amongst which Belgium, the first steps of the European Economic Community were, as stated in its denomination, exclusively economically oriented. From the outset however, the founding fathers after the first years of settling the organisation, understood that deepening and widening the construction was the only answer for Europe to strengthen its objectives and be taken seriously by third countries. This political awareness was gradually boosted by the will to create a European environment within which the economic platform would be consolidated and the four freedoms would prevail, thereby eventually putting the quality of life of the population at the heart of its policies and placing social and global relations high on the agenda. It is therefore not by chance that, more than 50 years after the EU’s inception, art. 3 of the Lisbon Treaty pronounces: ‘The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples’. The attraction of the EU towards other European countries is today not limited to economic matters
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The effects of the Lisbon Treaty at the Central and East-European level have revealed a set of significant patterns, germane to the political and juridical changes that characterise the post-Lisbon agenda in this geographical area. Thus, each member state of the European Union from this ex-communist space has been able to play a role, for the first time in history, in the juridical modelling of the new institutional configuration at the Community level. This article presents some of the most prominent implications of this participation.
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The ECOWAS in its integration process has evolved from an organisation with economic mission to a local collective security. It is in this perspective that in order to solve the security issues in its geographical space, it continues to set and develop legal and political mechanisms. These mechanisms allow the institution to intervene in member states facing conflicts or crises. The intervention of ECOWAS in the crisis of Togo is valued differently by the stakeholders. We have to notice however a constant in the the socio-political speeches: the incapacity of the institution to resolve impartially the complex political issues.
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