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Celem artykułu jest ocena socjologii Jakuba Karpińskiego, a w szczególności – jego teorii komunizmu. Opierając się na teorii Rene Girarda, która na przykładzie pisarzy wyjaśnia „powieściowe nawrócenie”, artykuł opisuje „nawrócenie socjologiczne” polskiego socjologa. To socjologiczne nawrócenie polegało na pozbyciu się iluzji autonomicznego podmiotu i odkryciu własnej zależności od czegoś, co przekracza jednostkę i czemu można dać świadectwo. Już na samym początku swojej drogi akademickiej Karpiński wybrał służbę swojej wspólnocie narodowej i naukowej, a całe jego pisarstwo jest opisem tego, w imię czego i przeciw czemu walczył. Wynikiem pracy polskiego socjologa jest integralna teoria komunizmu, która wartościuje i wszechstronnie opisuje miniony system, a zarazem wskazuje dwie drogi wyjścia z niego: prawdę i solidarność.The goal of the paper is to describe Jakub Karpiński’s sociology and specifically - his theory of Communism. It extends the Girardian concept of „novelistic conversion” to show that sociologists, just as novelists, undergo conversion that makes them realize that they are dependent on something they can give witness to. Already in the beginning of his academic career, Karpiński decided to serve his scholar and national community. His further work articulated what he fought against and what he fought for. In consequence, he constructed an integral theory of Communism, which validates, describes the bygone system as well as points to ways of overcoming it: truth and solidarity.
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Local policy in urban areas is a topic frequently undertaken in sociological literature. One of the analyzed areas is “grassroots” activity of citizens. It can be stated that it is developed on many levels: while using social media, participatory budget or getting involved in political organizations. Such activities are undertaken for example in Bialoleka, a district in the north-eastern part of Warsaw. In this paper, the thesis is made that the intensity of the activity is related to development of infrastructure. On the basis of the research carried out in 2015 and 2016, authors argue that the lack of subjective satisfaction with infrastructure boosts social activity and institutional participation while in contrary – the participatory activities may be suppressed and focused on inner integration when such an assessment turns out to be mainly positive.
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Many share a conviction, that Marxism was a discourse that elevated futurological hubris to its extremes and its failure. Yet, do we know well, what is the actual centre of Marx’ futurological endeavour, what is the actual status of ‘future’ in his works and what do we read about when we find predictions in his works? This article is an attempt at systematic reflection upon the status of future, that in fact for Marx is not an ‘utopian assumption’, but rather is systematic elaboration of what can be read from the ‘here and now’ of capitalistic development. An important context of analysis would be the question, which one of the futures Marx thinks is possible to predict? Are the dynamics of political changes possible do predict in the same way, as the effects of general structural relationships? First part of the paper is an overview of critical conceptual tools, that in Marx’ works bring together the analysis of the present, of its historical genesis and of future necessary workings of social forms. In the second part there is an example of analysis, that for Marx was a prediction, extracted from interpretation of structural relationships, but in our times can be treated as an actual description of present social reality.
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From an epistemological prospect, the upsurge of the conventional establishment within the New World Order remains mutually conditional at times, yet different at a notional level. Regarded as an innovative tool in Central and Eastern Europe, 16+1 is a cooperation platform solely conceived in China’s laboratory of regional diplomacy. Quintessentially, terms associated with China’s 16+1 remain diffused and altered, despite the pursuit of accelerating the concretization of the platform itself and the adjacent projects. Therefore, this article plans to explore how these fractions reflect in Central and Eastern Europe on a smaller scale, namely through analyzing China’s 16+1 platform in the case of Romania.
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« THE BRIDGE » is offered in PDF format comprising always the full issue as one file, not devided into individual articles. Please take a look into the TABLE of CONTENT and into the EDITORIAL for authors and texts of your interest.
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The article explores the way of conceptualizing Decembrism in the Soviet historiography of the mid-1950s. The narrative of Soviet historians about the goals of the Decembrist movement is taken as an example. It is shown that such signs as people, freedom and progress in the texts of Soviet historians enabled to correlate the characteristics of the Decembrists with the ideology of the campaign against cosmopolitanism. As a result of these correlations, the historical narrative acquired additional semantic depth – besides the scholarly level, it also had a culturally determined level. The texts of Soviet historians testified not only to the revolutionism of the Decembrists, which is quite obvious if these texts are considered at the level of the denotative sign system. Due to the presence of the elements of an anti cosmopolitan code, these texts contain the connotations of the undoubted patriotism of the Decembrists. Moreover, it was said that the Decembrists’ patriotism was typologically similar to the Soviet one. It is therefore possible to say that the conceptualization of Decembrism was carried out at the level of the connotative sign system. Soviet historiography of Decembrism in the mid-1950s was characterized by undoubted polysemanticity. Therefore, the analysis of the works of Soviet historians of this period cannot be complete without taking into account the corresponding cultural and semiotic code.
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This article presents a detailed analysis of the concept of nation in the work of Austro-Marxist Otto Bauer. In his view, the nation is conceived as an evolutionary process of political, open and plural construction. His work also unravels the connections of nation with a plurinational democratic state, which was at the time a novel political and institutional vision. The article argues that his work is very relevant today, with rising complexity of the new contexts of global society and the multiplication of migrations and refugees; and the need to respond through an accommodation of minorities through mechanisms of territorial and non-territorial autonomy. Much of these concerns form the substance of Otto Bauer’s work.
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Karl Renner’s theory of national autonomy has not been sufficiently taken into account by scholars due to difficulties in its reception and puzzling content. Neither liberal nor communitarian, his original theory combines individual rights with collective rights, territorial autonomy with personal autonomy, classical federalism with establishment of nations as constituent parts of the state. This paper will introduce the reader to Renner’s main concepts. It will start by presenting Renner’s ideas on the nation, the multinational state, the role of the majority principle, and the need for nations’ legal recognition by and within the state. Then, Renner’s core notion of national autonomy and its organisation through the personality principle will be discussed. Further, the paper deals with Renner’s concept of the representation of national interests at the federal or supranational levels. Lastly, it sums up the discussion and draws conclusions regarding Renner’s theory of autonomy in general.
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The Kurdish-led autonomous entity called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) – also known as Rojava – considers women’s liberation an imperative condition for shaping a democratic society. The practice of autonomy in NES shares strong resemblances with Non- Territorial Autonomy (NTA) models; however, it introduces a novelty in the role of women as active agents in building a plurinational democracy. This paper examines (1) the intellectual and political origins of the political role ascribed to women in autonomous administrations and (2) how the practice of autonomy in Rojava has advanced women’s rights by shedding light on both institutional implementation of women’s rights, as well as the creation of (non)-territorial spaces of women’s emancipation within the autonomous model. The argument made is that the conceptual framework of the Rojava model goes beyond the Kurdish question and can be considered an attempt to resolve a democratic deficit of liberal democratic nation-states through bringing together solutions that address the intertwined subordination of minorities and women.
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Dünya Sağlık Örgütü’nün 2020 yılının Mart ayında bir pandemiye dönüştüğünü (WHO, 2020) bildirdiği Kovid-19 hastalığı, salgın hastalıkların çok hızlı ilerleyen ve dönüşen ekonomik, politik, tıbbi olaylar olduğunu açıkça ortaya koydu. Yaşamakta olduğumuz pandemi, gün be gün yeni toplumsal meseleleri düğümleyip çözerek varlığını devam ettiriyor. Neredeyse tüm dünyada, 2020 Mart’ında ve takip eden bir iki ayda ülke sınırlarının kapatılması, karantina, insanlar arası mesafe alma ve hijyen önlemleri ile salgın kontrol altına alınmaya çalışıldı. Bu erken dönem önlemler, ilk bakışta, toplumsal eşitsizliklerle karakterize olan yaşamlarımızı dönüştürebilecek potansiyeli taşıyor gibi görünüyordu. Çünkü sürüp giden dünya sistemi, küreselleşme, tüketim, günlük yaşam ve alışkanlıklar kesintiye uğruyordu. Bruno Latour’un 2020 Mart ayında söylediği üzere küreselleşmenin ani sekteye uğrayışı belki bir devrim değildi ama sistemin piksel piksel çözülmesini beraberinde getiriyordu (2020). Yine Kovid-19 paniğinin dünya çapında yüksek düzeyde olduğu bu başlangıç günlerinde, Slavoj Žižek, “ya güçlü olanın hayatta kalma ilkesinin en vahşi mantığını kabul edeceğiz ya da küresel koordinasyon ve işbirliğiyle yeni bir komünizm icat edecek ve onu uygulamayı seçeceğiz” diye yazmıştı (2020).
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During the Pandemic, the World Bank estimations suggested that remittances globally would fall about 20 per cent. The live results show mixed reactions and IMF reports show significant resilience in some corridors. This is in line with our earlier studies and predictions. Regulations and restrictions keep remittances costs high and particularly higher in some corridors involving poorer countries. There are already calls to reduce the costs and make sending money home easier and attractive. In this issue of Remittances Review, Fernando César Costa Xavier discusses the terminology of irregular remittances with a particular reference to the Venezuelan immigrants’ money sending practices. Sena Kimm Gnangnon shows the effect of remittances inflows on public finance by examining the effect of remittances inflows on fiscal space using a sample of 109 receiving countries over the period 1980-2015. The last paper by Rodolfo García Zamora and Selene Gaspar Olvera shows that Mexican migrants’ remittances from the US had been suffering the effects of COVID-19 in April 2020.
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On 28-29 May 2020 in full Coronavirus pandemic upsurge and lockdown conditions the Eleventh Conference on Baltic and Nordic Studies gathered on Zoom instead of The Palace of Culture and The Middle Age Citadel of Târgu Mureș as initially planned. The meeting was summoned in partnership with Rethinking Europe in order to reflect, from the perspective of the Baltic Sea Region, upon the Old Continent in the context of Brexit and the pandemic. Questions on the impact of the recent evolutions on Baltic and Scandinavian states have been raised, but the perspective was much wider looking on how the countries of this region responded to structural changes or alterations of the international environment over time. The two plenary sessions on the EU after Brexit: Perspectives on the Future of Europe and Constructions of Christian Identity and the Idea of the Holy Land in the Northern Periphery: The Sawley World Map in Twelfth-Century England appropriately mirrored the sequential diversity of the conference. Panels have been devoted to Encounters, fantasies and perceptions in shaping Europe, Rethinking Europe in Nordic and Baltic cultures, Rethinking the Baltic Sea Region in Europe during the interwar period, Rethinking Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea Region in Europe during the two world wars, Intercultural relations in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Reception of Nordic literature, New perspectives on Norwegian literature, Teaching and use of Nordic languages. The main theories, concepts and ideas presented are resumed in the Book of Abstracts published before the conference, while the full papers are assembled in volume 12, issues 1 and 2 of our biannual peer review journal.
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The core approach of the work deals with postcolonial studies and the geographical reference area of “Western Borderlands”, which largely consists of Eastern and East Central Europe. However, the Baltic states stand at the focus of the analysis and as such they are devoted the largest share of the eight chapters of the book. Colonialism, coloniality, and post-colonial are insightfully analyzed in the monograph and the author blends them to concepts such as colonial subject positions and colonial ideology. How to behave properly, what one could speak or do in public and what one instantly felt was forbidden, what could be published and what was rather to be shelved established certain boundaries between the conceivable and the inconceivable. Everything was driven by the colonial ideology which Annus defines as “a system of beliefs and corresponding statements that motivate and guide colonial discourse”. Spotlighting both colonial subject positions and colonial ideology and further encompassing the notion of colonization in the meaning of “territorial acquisition” and “system of domination”, the book is clearly operating in an innovative conceptual framework which turns it into a vital contribution in colonial/postcolonial studies.
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This paper provides an overview of project proposals for the Hungarian Culture and Education from the Bethlen Gábor Fund in Hungary. The Fund aims to support cultural, educational, publishing and other activities of Hungarian organizations abroad. The analysis is based on the lists of project proposals published annually by the Fund, and provides an overview of the application requirements and the changes in the budget. It also reviews the organizations that applied for assistance in the years between 2012 and 2019, the nature of their project proposals and the funding priorities of the Fund. The distribution of applicants, project proposals and of the funding by country, project type and applicant type is presented. Finally the data are used to provide a profile of the composition and structure of ethnic Hungarian institutional systems in the countries from which applications were received.
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The aim of this study is to analyse the operational characteristics of Hungarian nongovernmental organizations in Slovakia. The first part of the study provides an overview of the domestic and international trends; it elaborates on the traits of organizational culture and the emergence of the not-for-profit sector and aid policy. The paper then describes the research objective of the study and the methodology and research methods used. The last, most extensive part is devoted to a detailed overview of the research results and summarized the research conclusions. On the one hand, the study found mostly minimal differences between the members of the NGOs by sex, education and age. On the other hand, for each category, significant differences were observed based on the time spent in the organization.
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Hungarian regime change in 1989, the number of Hungarians in contiguous territorial areas has decreased by nearly three hundred thousand. This outmigration is even the case for youth with strong national identities in Székelyand. The target countries were Hungary first and then Western European states. The process is fueled not only by the hope of a better life abroad, but also by the current national policy in Hungary. Due to the latter, the self-determination of Hungarians in Romania is increasingly towards an independent Székely national identity, differentiating them from both Romanian and Hungarian national identities. The research focused on the three important elements of the emerging Szekely identity: language, lifestyle, and homeland. The research sought to isolate the role of territorial identity towards Székelyland, as a source of strong national and ethnic identity among Székely youth (18–35 year olds). The research, based on a secondary analysis of previous large-scale representative youth surveys and a recent questionnaire survey, provided the basis for a series of focus group interviews. The analysis revealed a particular interpretation of the Székely identity, which makes it impossible to develop a universally applicable method to promote the return. However, the strengthening of economic, service and cultural aspects of territorial identity can offer hope for reducing outmigration and promoting the return to the native land.
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Euro-orphan/EU orphan is a neologism naming left behind children when the parents leave hearth and home for some time to find employment abroad. The study of children that have been left behind in the field of social sciences is still at an early stage of development. It only uses limited research of a larger database of EU orphans, their mothers, fathers, and grandparents. The paper presents the results of a 2019 survey whose primary aim was to reveal Transcarpathian Hungarian EU orphans’ risk behavior. It tries to answer two main questions: (1) what are the basic statistics of 14–17 year olds in transnational Transcarpathian Hungarian families, and (2) what deviations can be seen within the main theme of the research in the data of children that were left behind compared to the youth brought up in a traditional family model, i.e. what are the negative consequences of the parents’ (father or mother) employment abroad? Our analysis is not comprehensive; numerous questions are left unanswered and will form the subject matter of further research.
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