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Plus, Georgia and her allies decry Russia-Abkhazia pact; Estonia opens its e-government platform to the world.
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The aim of this paper is to analyze and explain the interaction of Albanian political parties with another important elements of democracy such as civil society organizations. The study argues that civil society organizations have been used by political parties for increasing their legitimacy of their actions and performance, in the eyes of the electorate and the wider public. Civil society organizations, in specific moments, have provided political parties with candidates and have helped them in regenerating and ‘cleaning’ the political staff. In the medium term, this trend has brought a slow loss of image of civil society organizations and their study products and activities in the community. The study applies some main theoretical works to the Albanian case and it is also based on the events of last political elections of 2009.
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Në literaturën rreth demokracisë, demokracia përfaqësuese shikohet si një produkt i shtimit të popullatës dhe zmadhimit të njësive politike. Argumentohet se në pamundësi për të pasur demokraci të drejtpërdrejtë, qytetarët qeverisen në mënyrë indirekte nëpërmjet të zgjedhurve. Në këtë artikull argumentohet se qeverisja nëpërmjet zgjedhjes së përfaqësuesve politikë nuk është një produkt i demokracisë moderne, por një trashëgimi e qeverisjes oligarkike nga e kaluara, një qeverisje që vazhdon edhe sot. Demokracia nuk tregon një formë të caktuar qeverisjeje apo shoqërore, ajo nuk është gjë tjetër veç një kuadër i imagjinuar, me qëllimin për të mbështetur një parim të caktuar të mirëqeverisjes. Shoqëritë, sot si dhe dje, janë organizuar nëpërmjet ndërveprimit të oligarkive dhe nuk ka qeveri demokratike në kuptimin e mirëfilltë të fjalës. Gjithmonë pakica qeveris shumicën.
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This study aims to examine the political behavior of Zazas living in Turkey in the frame of their sectarian differences during the AK Party era. The voting behavior of Sunni and Alevi Zazas in general and local elections (municipal presidency, provincial council membership, municipal council membership), referendums and presidential election results between 2002 and 2017 were examined during this period. Considering the purpose and scope of the work, Tunceli was chosen as the representative of Turkey's Alevi Zazas and Bingol as Turkey's Sunni Zazas. This study is concluded as follows: In all general and local elections, Sunni Zazas voted for the AK Party; Alevi Zazas voted for the leftist parties and ethnic Kurdish parties. In the referendums, while Sunnis Zazas voted "yes" in favor of the AK Party and therefore the government; Alevi Zazas voted "no". In the presidential elections, Sunni Zazas voted for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is also a candidate for the AK Party and also its former chairman, while Alevi Zazas voted for Selahattin Demirtas, the candidate of the ethnic Kurdish movement, for the most part.
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Recently, the issue of intercultural relations between immigrants and the host society has been widely discussed. Taking into account the increasing spatial mobility of non-EU foreigners, it seems highly important to examine their relations with the host community on the local level. This article presents the results of the qualitative study conducted in the first quarter of 2014 in the Lesznowola municipality (Mazowieckie province, Piaseczno district) in Poland. It aims at analysing the situation of the Vietnamese community and its engagement in the local life of the municipality and examines attitudes of both Vietnamese and Poles towards prospects for granting local voting rights to migrants in Poland. Through several years of successful business and social cooperation, the Vietnamese immigrants have become a recognizable part of the social landscape of the municipality. The degree of social and political participation at the local level on the part of the Vietnamese community has also increased, which can be observed, for example, through such practical indicator as cooperation with local educational institutions. Therefore, we can argue that the Vietnamese community has been transforming itself from a marginalized and self-sufficient homogeneous group into more and more self-aware and active socio-political group of actors.
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After a brief theoretical consideration of the cultural memory and political communication in electoral campaigns, this paper analyses statements of politicians during the 2015 Croatian parliamentary campaign. The main goal of the paper is to establish the manner in which events and happenings from modern Croatian history and the various ‘collective memories' surrounding them were present in the media excerpts analysed. Research of excerpts from the leading Croatian media outlets (daily newspapers, TV stations, web portals) was performed through content analysis. The results show that excerpts including political communication about modern historical themes were present to a significant extent, and that discussions of these topics were most often provoked by the largest political parties, Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). On the level of general conclusion, it can be claimed that the electoral campaign largely became a "site of memory" where further political conflicts surrounding historical issues were generated, while discussions of solutions to numerous social problems were neglected.
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The political process of implementing the decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH in the U-23/14 case pointed to several critical points in the electoral legislation as well as in the constitutional system as a whole. First, it turned out that there are not clear enough rules on the jurisdiction of the state and the entities to regulate the election process of House of Peoples in FBiH. Consequently, there are simultaneous initiatives to change electoral legislation at the state and entity levels, which undoubtedly leads to a conflict of competencies. Secondly, there is a clear inconsistency between the Constitution of the FBiH, the Election Law of BiH and the Constitution of BiH, so it is very uncertain how the envoys of the FBiH House of Peoples can be elected without breaking a constitution or law at the same time. And third, it turns out that domestic political actors are doing homogenization of the electorate, while they simply leave the High Representative to BiH to solve this legal and political problem. In its persistent refusal to execute and enforce the decisions of the highest court instances, Bosnia and Herzegovina has gone from the point of disregarding fundamental human rights to the danger that it will no longer be a functional state. With careful analysis of the decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH in the case of U-23/14 and the whole spectrum of its implications, it comes to the conclusion that this decision can not be properly implemented by merely modifying the Election Law of BiH. Proper implementation would mean changes to the constitutional structure at the level of FBiH and BiH through the harmonization of these acts and electoral legislation, through a clear delineation in the competencies of certain levels of government and the adaptation of constitutional and legal texts presented by the Constitutional Court's understandings and interpretations. Any changes to the constitutional structure in BiH carry the need for a comprehensive revision of the constitutional structure of all levels of government, including the implementation of other verdicts and decisions such as the Sejdić and Finci cases, Zornić, Pilav and the City of Mostar. Decision U-23/14 could therefore be a catalyst for constitutional changes, as constitutional changes are "necessarily evil" for this decision to be implemented and the state to continue to function. However, it is very certain that the problem will be solved by imposing a High Representative's decision that would become a permanent interim solution and where there would be no comprehensive review of the constitutional structure in BiH and the possibility of constitutional changes.
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The general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are to be held in October 2018, are questioned. Due to the failure to comply with the Decision of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina U-23/14, the incompatibility of the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and with the international standards of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the normative framework for elections has become so deficient that it will require very detailed analysis and reform! There is no time since the elections are coming very soon, and public officials at the state and federal level, motivated by electoral campaigns, have diametrically different attitudes. For a number of years now, the international community, aside from the mediative and advisory role, will not take any radical measures to enforce the solutions. It is to estimate, therefore, that blockade will occur because of the impossibility of forming power at federal and state level after the elections. This could really turn into a deep crisis of democracy, which might even come close to situation of endangering the security situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Fortunately, for such a situation, the High Representative still has Bonn Powers, de iure and de facto!
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The article examines how the issue about the sanctions against Russia, imposed by the EU in response to the Crimean annexation and the destabilization of Ukraine, was politically (mis)used in the 2017-election campaign in Bulgaria. The empirical data presented show that certain politicians and political parties used a mix of untrue facts, speculatively selected facts and opinions presented as facts, in order to frame the topic according to their party lines. Ultimately, some politicians (mis)used the subject, while deliberately misleading and misinforming the audience. Against the backdrop of recent discussions about fake news and disinformation, focusing primarily on the online media, the case study presented here demonstrates how easy it is for the disinformation to penetrate traditional media when politicians are its main sources and speakers.
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The new science of complex networks provides computational tools that are effective at analyzing big data sets from a wide array of scientific fields, ranging from medicine to engineering, technology, and social networks. Here, we explore the party co-affiliation networks of Romanian politicians who were in Parliament after the regime change in 1989, while focusing on individual party switchers. As such, we propose a set of three novel measures to understand the context of party switching, at both micro level (individual MPs’ career choices), as well as macro level (the party performance of the receiving political organizations). We thus build a network in which nodes represent individual politicians, while links represent shared membership within the same political party over the same electoral cycle. We combine these insights with a centrality analysis of influential switchers during the period of 1990 to 2018. By applying the PageRank centrality in our network of Romanian politicians, we make explicit the link between heterogeneity of strategic party switching choices at the individual MP level and homogeneity and political fragmentation at the party level, as party switchers fill in structural holes in a multi-party system. Although the act of party switching is controversial at individual MP (micro) level, the dynamic movement of individual MPs across the political spectrum of parties appears to have unexpected consequences at the party system (macro) level. Our analysis has implications for party politics and the study of party systems, as well as for MPs’ career development opportunities.
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The death, without a successor, of Sigismund II August on 7th July 1572 opened the epoch of free royal elections, a new phase in the history of the Polish state, marked by a checkered pattern of individual reigns and intervening interregna. Historians specializing in the late 16th century were usually attracted by these interstices, probably because they produced a number of innovations which paved the way for the establishment of the institution of electio viritim, in which all members of the nobility were eligible to vote for the future king. The reign of Stefan Batory (1st May 1576 – 12th December 1586), which filled most of the transition period between the rule of the two major royal houses, the Jagiellons and the Vasas, seems to have had less appeal, even to the historians of law and Polish parliamentarianism. A researcher of the age of Stefan Batory has to confront a number of difficulties which are not faced by those specializing in the periods directly preceding or following that reign. The main obstacle is the dearth of source material that has been printed or is readily available in the Polish archives; moreover, the some of the items that are listed in bibliographies of various studies and monographs of that segment of Polish history are difficult to trace. A thorough sifting of the archives for documentary evidence of the Sejms of 1576–1586 has produced relatively little in all respects, i.e. the circumstances attending their convocation, the preparatory work, the actual proceedings as well their legal and political consequences. The most acute problem for any research in this field is the lack of parliamentary records, or Sejm diaries – of which there are plenty for the preceding and subsequent periods. Alternatively, a searcher of Batory’s sejms, can fi nd out what happened in those convocations from thumbnail descriptions in some contemporary chronicles or by digging up the relevant private and public correspondence, examining parliamentary speeches – some of which were printed – or by trying to infer the agenda and points of debate from the text of the acts adopted by the local sejmiks. As the main subject of my research is the legislative activity of the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm in the period 1576–1586 in the context of the legislative competences of the monarch, I extended my archive trawl to those fi les that could possibly include the text of both parliamentary and royal legislation, like the Libri Inscriptionum of the Polish Crown Register Metrica Regni Poloniae, volumes 113–133 as well as the inscriptions of the Cracow Land Register, housed at the Wawel Castle Branch of the National Archives. Another important source for the history of Sejms and the eff ects of their law-making as well as the royal legislation in the age of Stefan Batory are copies of documents that were deposited in various archives or were collected for publication. There is no comprehensive study of the Sejms convened during the reign of Stefan Batory or their legislation, nor is there much information about that chapter of parliamentary history in the historiography of the 16th century especially when compared with rese the preceding and following periods. However, over the last two decades the standstill has been broken by some scholars. Aditionally, some information about the Sejms proceedings and lawmaking during the Batory’s epoch can be fi nd in the distinct studies touching the miscellaneous aspects of that time including the biographical ones.
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This paper discusses how negative stereotypes, cultural conflicts and tensions related to age and generational membership are used in election campaigns. The social media are presented here as a venue where the political values are discursively paired with age and generational membership and perpetuate risks of an increase in ageism and generational conflict in symbolic universes. It presents a case study of YouTube video political campaigning and Facebook site commentaries to draw a picture of negative connotations used to build the “we” versus “them” generational categories which may result in further deepening the ageist moods in Czech society.It further shows, how these discursive practices may influence the perception of intergenerational relations in our society, but it also argues that they may have only limited influence over the actual behaviour of both younger and older in elections and political representations. The conclusion calls for deeper understanding of connections between generational conflict, age, and voting behaviour.
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This paper focuses on the most important judgments issued by the European Court of Human Rights about Bosnia and Herzegovina electoral system. According to the Court, the ethnic and territorial principle on which this system is based is inconsistent with the principle of non-discrimination set by the Article 1 of Protocol no. 12 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. A recent decision (Pilav v. Bosnia and Herzegovina) has come after the Sejdić and Finci and the Zornić case, which already stated the inconsistency of the electoral system with the abovementioned principle. After a comparison among the sentences, the article closes with some musings on the trajectory of the country towards the accession into the European Union and its recent developments. The praxis for countries aspiring EU membership, states the obligatory respect of the so-called Copenhagen criteria, related with the market economy, the stability of democracy, the rule of law, the protection of fundamental rights and minorities, the adoption of European legislation as well as the Euro. Is Bosnia and Herzegovina following these requirements or the political standstill is still adversely influencing the approach to the Brussels institutions?
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The aim of this essay is to show the importance of the Council of Europe (CoE) and its mechanisms during transitional justice processes in European countries. The CoE can provide a broad measure of what might be called transitional justice assistance to build up a new democratic order, encompassing rule of law, democracy and human rights standards. There will be a special emphasis on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), specifically on one case that appeared before the European Court of Human Rights – Sejdic and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this case it will be shown how different mechanisms of the CoE, the Venice Commission, the Committee of Ministers and primarily the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) and its ―watchdog the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) can identify violations of human rights and can actively set up standards of human rights, rule of law and democracy.
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The purpose of his article is to analyze the process of Scotland`s independence movements and to identify the main challenges in the economic sphere in the aspect of potential separation of Scotland from United Kingdom. As a basis for the research method a study based on the analysis of selected information sources was used. The attempts by Scotland to separation from the Great Britain, taken over the centuries, ended in failure, but have contributed to increase of Scottish autonomy. The results of the referendum on the United Kingdom’s continuing membership of the European Union have become the impulse for intensification of Scottish activity towards secession from the Great Britain. Scotland wants to decide independently on its own economic development based mainly on oil and natural gas as well as renewable energy sources. The EU membership would enable Scotland to attain the goals set up by Scottish government. The benefits of being a member of the EU, such as access to the Single European Market, structural funds, etc., Scotland may lose if it stays within the United Kingdom. The government in London is fully committed to maintaining the unity of the United Kingdom and blocks Scottish activities aimed at independence. Further scenario will depend on the results of the negotiations and decisions reached by the United Kingdom and the European Union on the conditions on exiting the Union and the future directions, forms and principles for further co-operation.
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The author in the article examines the historical roots and economic and social reasons for the coming to power of the unconventional representative of the US Republican Party, multimillionaire Donald Trump. Trump’s phenomenon is interpreted by the author as an American form of revanchism, as revenge for the past, in which the United States lost its positions in the development of the national economy and social sphere. The main characteristics and motivational aspects of the voting of the typical voter D. Trump (white middle-aged men) are revealed. The loss of privileges and economic and social status for whites in the outsider states is seen as the main revanchist motive for supporting L. Trump’s electoral core. Parallels are drawn between the phenomenon of the right-wing politician in France, M. Lipin and D. Trump, which in many respects repeats the ideological vector of the French nationalists. The exploitation of patriotic virtue and intense xenophobia are common features of the campaigns of M. Le Pen and D. Trump. The first year of the reign of US President D. Trump and the policy of American revanchism with its close ties with dissatisfied whites provoked the growth of protest moods and extremist groups. The author concludes that President Trump and trampism are not a new or unprecedented political phenomenon in the United States. Trumpism is the result of the activity of an opportunistic candidate who uses in the classic revanchist context the fears of his supporters who face profound social changes.
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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be fighting the March local elections in ‘eco-friendly’ cyberspace, following the opposition’s pioneering use of social media for politics.
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As predicted, the country’s anti-immigration party scored massive gains even as traditional parties still came out on top.
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In this paper an attempt is made to reconstruct the process of the establishment of the Yugoslav Radical Peasants’ Democracy/Yugoslav National Party controlled by the regime in the district of Brod according to archival records and local newspapers. After the establishment of the dictatorship, all political parties were prohibited and local politicians willing to cooperate with the regime came to the fore. The dictatorship was formally terminated with the Octroyed Constitution and after the calling of parliamentary elections; subsequently the regime party was established. The supporters of the new party in the Brod area were extremely heterogeneous; from the very beginning this led to the establishment of two fractions, mutually exclusive and struggling for supremacy. What made the situation even more complicated was that Nikola Nikić, representative of the Brod people, had refused to join the party and that he, so to say, had switched to opposition to the regime. Under these circumstances Nikić’s former close confidant Tomo Kovačević, royal senator and head of Sibinj, became the most significant supporter of the regime. After the establishment of the dictatorship, almost all significant political positions in the city and the district were held by people who were close confidants of Nikić; hence a special personnel cleanup was considered necessary by the leadership of the new party. The most significant change was the establishment of a new city administration led by Henrik Duffek, the president of one of the party fractions. This initiative caused new problems because members of the other fraction were completely neglected and now, with the support of Kovačević, tried to place some of their own members in the new city administration. The leadership of the party repeatedly tried to unify the fraction; formally this was accomplished after the elections in September 1933. After that, although a unified organization of the regime party was established, differences still remained; this became evident at the municipal elections as most of the municipalities fraction lists were put up.
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Vrijednosno-motivacijski aspekt izbora osniva se na određenoj spoznajnoj komponenti, što znači na nizu informacija o ciljevima izbora, njihovu značaju, kao i upućivanju na povezanost izbornog postupka i interesa radnih ljudi i građana. U toj fazi izbornih procesa u kojoj se daju osnovne značajke izbora ukazuje se na neposredne zadatke, ali ujedno daje i presjek postojeće društvene situacije, problema s kojima je društvo suočeno i ciljeva koje želi postići.
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