Around the bloc: Croatian Parties Fail To Agree On New Premier
Newcomer party could play kingmaker role when consultations resume.
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Newcomer party could play kingmaker role when consultations resume.
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Labeled ‘foreign agents,’ ‘undesirable,’ and threatened with closure, pressure groups mull creating a union to protect their common interests.
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Remarks may revive conspiracy theories about Russian involvement in disaster that killed Polish president, many other officials.
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Albin Kurti and 86 others rounded up amid latest anti-government protests in Pristina.
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A divided high court says the Republika Srpska holiday is discriminatory.
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Ex-Yugoslav country accomplishes long-held goal, but not all are happy about it.
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Now a Ukrainian citizen, the ex-president says the decision exposes the authorities as ‘scared and failed.’
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Despite recent release of 23 prisoners by separatist forces, Ukraine says many more being held, as well as political prisoners in Russia.
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Whether the result of a Ukrainian military plot or infighting in rebel ranks, the attempted assassination underlines rising tensions in the Donbas.
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Post-communist leader Ion Iliescu’s 1990 crackdown on protestors led to several deaths.
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On first foreign trip since 2011, Syrian President thanks Russia for fighting ‘terrorism.’
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Star Wars characters make unsuccessful runs in local and regional elections.
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Corruption and measures to counteract it have been subject to so much research and political attention that it would seem that their every aspect must have been explored. Yet corruption proves bafflingly resilient, always finding new conduits for spreading; squeezed temporarily out of one public sector, it reappears in another. It could only benefit the anticorruption effort, therefore, if novel methods for analysis and prevention were found. It is in response to this need that the current report seeks to build bridges between the evaluation of anticorruption policies and the measurement of corruption. Monitoring Anticorruption Policy Implementation (MACPI) was born of the understanding that innovation in anticorruption is as important as it is in other social and economic fields. MACPI provides the anticorruption community with a precision-guided tool, which gives exhaustive feedback on the enforcement of policies.
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In St. Petersburg, Erdogan is expecting praise for his crackdown at home, and understanding of his Syria policy.
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Recently, the ongoing dynamic transformation of the international order has activated significant changes in the roles, functions and tasks of the military. In the erst-while, Cold War order, the significance and utility of the armed forces were indisputable, obvious and intelligible. Jeopardies and their structures would be recognised at the time sufficient for undertaking any rational actions against them. The character of these jeopardies ranging from ideological to economic influencing vital state interests would cause few dilemmas as regards the exercise of the armed forces. The rationale behind the armed forces was therefore clear and workable. In the new international environment it is far more difficult to recognise which interests ought to be safeguarded by the state, and delineating state activity theatres borders on infeasibility. Another year of the so-called war on terrorism is coming to its close. An attempt both to provide an answer to the question of the effectiveness of the military's operational methods utilized during humanitarian missions and to demarcate the responsibilities of the contemporary warfare would be untimely.
More...Selected Issues
After the Second World War the question of the unified Europe became the central point of attention. However, it has been a difficult (sometimes even impossible) task to develop and implement a common concept concerning the integrity of Europe. Over the years, the intensification of integration processes and an increase in the number of the EU members states have diversified the Union s structure as well as enhanced its internal diversity. In such circumstances, the application of the flexible integration concept, definedas one of the EU basic principles, became crucial. The flexible integration elements were introduced to the primary law in the form of an enhanced cooperation mechanism relatively late, namely via the Treaty of Amsterdam. Nevertheless, the European initiatives in which not all of the member states took part (for instance, the Schengen Agreement, or the Economic and Monetary Union) already existed. In the current considerations attention is drawn to the fact that certain forms of "flexibility" existed since the beginning of the integration process and continued through the subsequent stages of the Union's broadening and deepening; the developments which, to an extent, facilitated the acceptance of the flexible solutions. Although the flexibility policy is inconsistent with the European integration paradigm, it has accompanied thisprocess since the beginning and is now vital for its continuation of the integration process. The issue of the flexible integration fits well in between two competing theoretical concepts - these of federalism and intergovernmentalism — whose theoretical approaches recognise and respect the diverse European reality.
More...Od Konwencji Madryckiej do podejścia makroregionalnego
The cooperation of regional authorities in Europe is made possible via the existing international conventions and internal documents of the European Union. Studying the vicissitudes of the European regional cooperation from the Madrid Convention to the creation of a macro-regional approach, one cannot but notice the significant development of the concept of interregional relations. These relations have been evolving fro the promotion and support cross-border cooperation by the Member Stales to its completion as the EU macro-regional concept elaborated with the participation of the regions and organisations acting on their behalf Within the next few years it will turn out whether these concepts have in their entirety fulfilled their function and enhanced the internalEU cooperation.
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This article aims al presenting the activity of Scotland as a sub-state entity with reference to the field of its foreign policy. Its main assumption is that the concept of foreign policy has significantly changed in recent decades. The term most often used to describe this phenomenon is 'para diplomacy" understood as the involvement of non/state actors in autonomous diplomatic practices.The article will argue that Scotland's activity within the international arena allows for it being considered as paradiplomatic, even protodiplomatic. It will be further demonstrated that the most important target of Scotland's paradiplomatic activity in Asia is China. The motivations of the Scottish paradiplomacy towards Asian countries can be seen on the regional, state and external levels. The article concludes that the relations between Scotland and the United Kingdom as regards foreign policy can be studied as bridging the complementary and discretion models
More...Przypadek elektronicznego głosowania
From the 1970s, the world has been undergoing the so-called "digital revolution” generally understood as the change from the mechanical and electronic technologies tothe high tech. digital ones. The role of ICT has so gained in importance that some theo-reticians of democracy speak of the necessity of paradigm changing as regards both theunderstanding of a democratic system and introducing the notion of electronic democracy (e-democracy).The aim of this text is analyzing the electronic voting (e-voting) as one of important forms of electronic democracy. The article attempts at approaching several researchquestions. First, what is the impact of ICT on voting procedures? Secondly, what is theessence of electronic voting and what are its main features? Finally, what are the advantages and fears related to e-voting systems?This paper gives a theoretical overview of the electronic democracy and electronicvoting, and demonstrates their essence, characteristics, goals. The author tries to presentand critically assess the main drawbacks and problems of the existing e-voting systems.The theoretical considerations framework is based mainly on the concept of electronic de-mocracy created by Martin Hagen With reference to electronic voting, the author of thisarticle uses definitions as given either by the International Institute for Democracy andElectoral Assistance, or the Competence Center for Electronic Voting and Participation.She also uses definitions constructed by Andrzej Kaczmarczyk. an e-voting expert
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This article aims at analysing the post-election political structure in Stargard Szczecinski in the years 2002—2014. The author presents the theoretical considerationson the subject together with the results of Stargard local government elections in the firstpart of the paper. She particularly emphasises the existing political configurations as well as analyses the intertwining of the political and administrative spheres at the localgovernment level.
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