Around the Bloc: Romanian Senators Propose Amending ‘Books by Crooks’ Law
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Prisoners can reduce jail terms by 30 days for each work of ‘scientific value’ they publish.
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European Commission ponders disciplinary action; media watchdogs howl over Warsaw’s ‘violation of fundamental EU values.’
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The aim of this article is to examine to what extent the Polish parliamentary election of 2015 adopted features typical of the presidential ones. The author takes into consideration 8 committees that registered their lists in all the 41 voting constituencies (Law and Justice, Civic Platform, Kukiz ’15, Modern of Ryszard Petru, United Left, Polish People’s Party, KORWiN and Razem Party). Due to the fact that only the leading candidates of the Civic Platform (PO) and the Law and Justice (PiS) had a real chance to become the Prime Minister, the study will focus on these two major political parties. The analysis will concentrate on the last four weeks of the campaign and is conducted at six levels: (1) the aim of the election, (2) the nomination of candidates, (3) the main product of the campaign, (4) the campaign strategy, (5) the reports of the mass media and (6) the figure of the opponent.
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The study contains considerations for the evolution of the legal means of pre- venting the removal of trees without the required permit. The analysis carried out concerns the legal regulations introduced after the Constitutional Court's judgement of 1 July 2014 issued in case SK 6/12. The author presents the criticisms of existing regulations in the field relating to the legal situation of entrepreneurs who, without the required permit, removed a tree for the purposes of their business activity and proposes de lege ferenda solutions.
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The aim of this article is to find out whether – and if so – to what extent, provisions included in the Polish constitution are a barrier in the process of harmonization of the Polish law with the EU law and in the process of full achievement of the objectives of the European regulator. Looking for the answer to this question, this paper includes analysis of changes introduced by the Act of the 5th of August 2015 on macroprudential supervision of financial system and crisis management in the financial system. This act transposes the directive No 2013/26/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of the 26 June 2013 on access to the activity of credit institutions and the prudential supervision of credit institutions and investment fi rms, amending Directive 2002/87/EC and repealing Directives 2006/48/EC and 2006/49/EC, to the Polish legal Framework. This act also introduces adjustments of Polish law to provisions included in Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on prudential requirements for credit institutions and investment fi rms and amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012. The analysis conducted in this article leads to the conclusion that provisions included in the Constitution of Republic of Poland are a barrier in the process of harmonization and gives opportunity to put forward de lege ferenda implications.
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The right to the environment is one of the fundamental rights of the individual and collective rights. Hence, the legal environmental protection also requires ethical and economic elements that are derived from the principle of precautionary. Its assessment should always be interpreted in the context of the cultural changes taking place to promote new aims and values. Because of that, nowadays legal environment protection is is combined with the principle of sustainable development, which requires foresight in anticipating the possible consequences of human activities. Given the intensive development of technologies based on the use of living biologi- cal systems are as complicated as issues of intergenerational justice. Balanced deve- lopment policy, thus solving problems of resource use, taking into account the integrity of the nature's various elements. It requires education and development of environmental ethics witch should be understood as restrictive ethics, i.e. selection and willingness not to abuse the available resources. That ethics consists of accoun- tability and respect for future generations which also have the right to inherit the environment that fits for life and provides opportunities for development.
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Host societies typically draw boundaries towards immigrants on the basis of specific axes of diversity that are important to their self-understanding. This article analyses Turkey’s self-definition and resulting treatment of immigrants in the context of the current refugee influx by evaluating choices and justifications of political decision-makers. It argues that the highlighting of religious brotherhood towards Syrian refugees and the use of religious arguments to justify hospitality point to a recurrence of religion as key variable of identification in Turkish society and provides evidence for a neo-Ottoman turn. Furthermore, it suggests that Syrian refugees in Turkey are mainly treated as temporary guests who are tolerated, rather than seen as permanent members of society. Thereby, Turkey highlights a boundary towards outsiders and protects a homogenous core, thus employing aspects of an assimilationist mode of immigrant incorporation. Overall, this research outlines how the underlying self-image can find relevance in political decision-making such as the treatment of immigrants and thus sheds light on how boundaries and social categories are created and dissolved. It furthermore provides an indication of the state of contemporary Turkish society, which constitutes a foundation for future assessment on the direction it might be heading.
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In this article, I read Andrew McGahan’s novel Underground as a criticism of the Australian government under the leadership of John Howard in the era following the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. I draw out the satire of Howard’s perceived role as President George W. Bush’s little brother, which becomes a synecdoche for Australia’s relationship with America. I situate the novel in the context of America’s cyclically neo-colonial history in Australia and draw upon the work of Homi K. Bhabha to suggest that McGahan portrays Australians as an “in-between” people who are guilty of adopting American policies—and thereby relinquishing control of their nation’s sovereignty to America—without compunction. I further suggest that, in the tradition of satire, the novel could be read as a warning to Australians against following the United State too closely. With the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Australia has witnessed the re-emergence of the political climate that is reflected in Underground, renewing its relevance to contemporary audiences.
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The main purpose of this article is to look at local politics from political sciences perspective and topropose the understanding of local politics as, quite opposite to the dominating political narratives,a field of ideological character. We divide the text into two main parts: in the first one we focusmainly the theoretical side of the whole issue with its specifics and the issues of the political and ideological character of this level of political scene. In the second part it is our intention to closelyexamine the current political practices in this matter – basing, most of all, on the phenomenon ofpolish „urban movements”, and draw conclusions on the actual essence of (non)political characterof Polish local politics.
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Current debates about racism seem to be dominated by two main approaches: theory of cultural racism and the Marxist problematization of racism as a result of contradictions in economic and political spheres. The most recent conceptualization of the first orientation build on anti-essentialist notion of culture and identity developed by a number of authors disputing the problem of multiculturalism in the 1990s. One can refer to researchers such as Zygmunt Bauman, Ash Amin and Simon Weaver as representatives of this approach suggesting that race is a category constructed as the consequence of complex political and historical-cultural processes. Marxist perspective should be understood to a large extent as a criticism of the first orientation. Adherents of this camp (Edna Bonacich, Eric Hobsbawm or James Blaut) argue that all the „discursive strategies of racialization” analyzed within the cultural racism paradigm are a reflection of – or, more precisely: the façade hiding – more basic mechanisms in the sphere of production and productive relations (economic base): the exploitation of labor as a consequence of the capitalist pressure to minimize costs and maximize capital accumulation, made possible thanks to the existence (and maintenance) of „reserve army of labor” (displaced residents of villages during the industrial revolution as described by Marx; and cheap labor in the colonial plantation-slavery system and in peripheral zones and within postnational civic-immigrant societies of the contemporary world-system). I would like to emphasize a need to provide an approach combining, synthesizing together the two above theories where racism would be defined as a common thread of racist phenomena in concrete, historical narratives and practices. It is necessary to avoid both the „liquidation„ of the problem of racism, reducing it to a set of elusive tensions between social and discursive positions on one hand, and translating it exclusively (while looking for a „subject of emancipation”, ways to end the economic exploitation and complete the process of „national liberation”) onto the domain of instrumentalization of ethnic and cultural differences – on the other hand. This strategy may prove fruitful in reflections on contemporary racist tendencies avoiding oversimplifications on one hand and too hasty analogies – on the other.
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The purpose of this article, is to introduce – awakening a growing concern of demographers and policy-makers – phenomenon of the deficiency of women in the populations of many countries in Asia, with a particular focus – leading in an escalation of this phenomenon – China and India. The thesis of the present paper is that the phenomenon will have in the future a very negative social, economic and political consequences to the two countries, which, despite many years of efforts, can not or are no longer able to reverse the negative demographic trends. The article discusses: the specificity and scale of the phenomenon, its spatial location, direct – physical and indirect – cultural, religious and moral reasons for the negative trend, but also presents attempts to counter negative trends and their current and potential impact on the society.
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The article discusses some problems of classical Marxist reflection on war and military service. Wewill some military writings of Friedrich Engels and his some Karl Marx's historical analysis of therole of war in the process of economic transformation of society. Engels is also the author of a richlegacy on military history. We will also discuss will some problems with militarism in writings ofleading representatives of social democracy such as Wilhelm and Karl Liebknecht's August Bebel,Franz Mehring and Rosa Luxemburg.
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Gender Mainstreaming (GM) was introduced by the European Union(EU) in 1997, as a strategy to achieve gender equality in all policy areas. Yet, European countries greatly diverge in their progress of implementation. We investigate the role GM played in Romanian and German policies aimed at achieving work-family reconciliation, using concepts from feminist policy analysis. Our analysis shows that pre-existing policies and discourse, the economic situation, as well as the relationship with the EU have shaped and impeded the implementation process of GM in both countries. While Germany slowly moves towards more egalitarian policies,GM as label and strategy did not succeed. In Romania, GM has only impacted work and family reconciliation indirectly through EU legislation.
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The present work is intended to highlight some general lines common to the English Gothic literature mainly until the 1890s. After locating literary Gothicism and presenting some general features shared by the Gothic novels, attention will be paid to the atmosphere, the stock features, narrative techniques, themes and symbols present in such type of writings. A special place is played by the language of terror that generates fear, awe, suspense, emotion, excitement, ontological uncertainty. As far as the Gothic aesthetics is concerned, the illustrative examples are meant to certify once more the place of the Gothic novel among the texts embodying and evoking cultural anxieties.
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