Manoeuvring on Three Levels. The Impact of Public Opinion and Media Framing on German Foreign Policy During the Crisis in Ukraine

Author(s): Klaus Bachmann / Language(s): English Issue: 04/2015

German foreign policy during the Ukrainian crisis is best explained as a three level game between a divided public opinion, a hawkish US government and the EU, during which the government of Angela Merkel did its best to avoid sanctions against Russia, because of the anticipated backlash for Germany's economic ties with Russia and for an acquiescent and war-fearing public. During the crisis, several critical moments can be identified, during which public opinion, media coverage and foreign policy changed their mutual relation. First, during the Euromaidan media coverage, policy and public opinion overlapped. This changed dramatically during Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea, when public opinion started to deviate from the media mainstream and Germany's foreign policy. After the downing of the MH17 flight in July 2014, all three started to converge again. However, whereas most Germans agree with the basic lines of Angela Merkel's policy toward Russia and Ukraine, a large minority regards media coverage as biased and anti-Russian and does not support incremental sectorial sanctions against Russia. Based on an adapted three-level model, the article finds that shifts in German foreign policy during the Ukrainian crisis were triggered on the domestic level by shifts in public rather than popular opinion when external pressure was low or external influences counterbalanced each other.

Europa i novi svjetski poredak

Author(s): Robert Howse / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 20/2015

Opće je prihvaćena spoznaja kako se između Europe i Amerike otvorio golemi jaz, ili je barem da nas postao vidljiv. Tu tezu dijele intelektualci s objestra ne Atlantika; zastupaju je neokonzervativni stručnjaci, kao što je Robert Kagan, koji je u svojemu zloglasnome tekstu objavljenom u časopisu Policy Review rekao da, prema shvaćanju međunarodnoga poretka, Europljani i Amerikanci dolaze s različitih planeta, i filozofi iz Starog svijeta, kao što su Jürgen Habermas i Jacques Derrida, koji su zanemarili mnoge teorijske razlike te su zajedno napisali manifest u kojemu traže novu Europu čija bi unutarnja i vanjska politika bila protuteža američkoj hegemoniji.

MINORITY ELITES AND POLITICAL REPRESENTATION IN ROMANIA AFTER 1989. THE SELF-ORGANIZATION OF THE HUNGARIANS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL. A CASE STUDY

Author(s): Tibor Toró / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

This paper focuses on self-organization of the Hungarian minority in Romania and elite recruitment of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania after the 1989 revolution in Timisoara, a city in the Banat region of Romania. By analyzing events in a single town, it explores how the Hungarian elite was recruited and under which circumstances the self-organization of the community developed. Additionally, the paper compares its findings to the existing literature on elite-transformation and post-communist discourses in order to understand both the generalities and specificities of the analyzed case. I will argue that the self-organization of the Hungarian community was orchestrated primarily by the pre-1989 cultural elite and Hungarian members of the nomenklatura, as a result to their pre-revolution social networks and cultural capital. Moreover, I will claim that this kind of capital had become more relevant then the symbolic capital gathered by other actors from the revolution itself. Furthermore, I will present that as this elite recognized the newly formed organization’s legitimacy deficit, they tried to integrate people with revolutionary capital and sought the support of the local Hungarian community as well.

Controversies among historians on the cultural legacy in post-communist Europe. Poland as a case study

Author(s): Piotr Mazurkiewicz / Language(s): English Issue: 43/2016

This article refers to the cultural legacy in Poland “after communism”. It covers three questions: What is the nature of this Polish cultural legacy? Who has the moral right to represent it? What kind of transformation is this legacy exposed to under the current modernization process? The nature of the cultural legacy is described based on eight factors analysed by Pope John Paul II: a nation as a product of culture; anthropology as the criterion of the evaluation of culture; its relationship to Christianity; its relationship to cultural pluralism; the understanding of ideological neutrality; its relationship to democracy; the requirement for reconciliation in the truth; and the process of European integration. The answer to the second question is based on a revised “theory of four players”, developed originally by Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan. It assumes that a process of democratic transformation can start only if there are fractures in the communist and democratic opposition camps at the same time. As a result, the Communist bloc has to be dominated by “the reformers” and the opposition camp by “the moderates”. In this model of transition, the camp of “the reformers” has a significant impact on politics and the economy well after the formal collapse of the communist system. This article also presents “four steps” which can gradually lead to the total de-communization of the political scene. The third issue covered in this article is the process of modernization after the fall of communism. This process is taking place in a specific cultural context, as Western Europe – which to some extent represents a model of modern society and is the object of the aspirations of post-communist societies – is experiencing today a deep cultural crisis. Paradoxically, the opposition to the initial totalitarian and later authoritarian system in Central Europe has strengthened the conviction that traditional European values are necessary in public and political life. Therefore, the question is how to find a proper balance between these components of cultural legacy that should be changed under modernization and those that should be preserved in the name of continuity of cultural tradition. In other words: How to modernize a society without discontinuation?

Michael Walzer, The Paradox of Liberation, Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions

Author(s): Marko Veković / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 16/2016

From class-society to a democracy in permanence. Petr Uhl’s “Program of social self-management”

Author(s): Dirk Mathias Dalberg / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

The paper deals with the normative democratic theory of the Czech dissident Petr Uhl (born in 1941), a revolutionary Marxist and Trotskyite. It describes the ambitions and analyses the problems of his main political work “Program of Society’s Self-Organization” written in the late 1970s. In this work Uhl attempted to describe, interpret, and criticize the existing political system in Czechoslovakia but also in the Western world and designed a normative democratic theory. The article also discusses the question of who influenced his thinking and answers two further questions: How was his “Program” perceived? and Did Uhl change his political point of view in the years following the publication of his program?

Ruský komunizmus a duch prvej svetovej vojny

Author(s): Michał Bohun / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2014

In this study, the author aims his attention to relatively intricate but frequently described era of the First World War and communist revolution in Russia. In regard to unclear character of available terms, the text provides reflection on hidden nature of the Russian communism and its more or less immediate causes. Author points to the connection between First World War as a modern war and Russian communism, its essence and characteristic features. The question of relation between Russian communism and modern war is examined through the prism of ideas of two great Russian philosophers of “The Silver Age” who were immediate witnesses of war as well as of revolution: Fedor Stepun and Evgenij Trubeckoj.

СТАНОВЛЕННЯ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОЇ ІДЕНТИЧНОСТІ НАСЕЛЕННЯ ЗАКАРПАТТЯ В КІНЦІ ХІХ. – ПОЧАТКУ ХХ. ст.

Author(s): Ivan Strjapko / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2014

The study analyzes the development of national identity of the Transcarpathian population. Author describes the discussion among Transcarpathian intellectuals about the national identity. The refusal from russophilism by the part of intellectuals led to the development of narodovetskyy movement. The author explains this process as stage before development of Ukrainophile movement. The attention is paid to the development of Russian national identity and Ukrainian national identity in the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century.

Metavaldymo samprata ir struktūra

Author(s): Alvydas Raipa / Language(s): Lithuanian Issue: 4/2016

Over the last decades of the 20th and the start of the 21st century, the main features of changes in public administration have involved the evolution of traditional forms of such administration into postmodern public governance systems. This paper examines the evolution of public governance theory and practice. The underlying research question is: what is metagovernance and what structure does it take (in terms of the governance of governance)? To answer this, the article uses meta-analysis, theoretical modelling, comparative analysis, and interpretative and prognostic methods as a basis to evaluate many definitions of new public governance. The description of the development of metagovernance connects and combines the line of new forms and doctrines of public governance as good, smart governance, post new public management and new public services. All these theoretical definitions and models of new forms of transformation of governance can be characterised as forms, subsystems or elements of basic metagovernance systems. The term “metagovernance” encompasses the complexity of modern governance and suggests including hierarchies, market and network forms of governance. Metagovernance can be defined as a mutual, hybrid form of three ideal types of governance in the 21st century. The concept combines the best features of theory and governance practice from traditional public administration, new public management and postmodern forms of new public governance.

Neposredna demokratija u monopartijskim socijalističkim državama: o minimiziranju volje naroda i paradoksima savremene politike

Author(s): Elvis Fejzić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 73/2016

The 20th century authoritarian socijalist states developed an atypical vision of the government by the people, that actually had antidemocratic attributions or, more precisely, it appropriated the real will of the people. A distinct model of government – we label it as communal democracy – was preferred within a soviet model of government. This type of government has had underlined totalitari an characteristics. The concept of the radical socijalist democracy was not based on the principles of the private property and individualism propagated by liberal democracy, but on the collective property and the system of the socijalist workers’ selfgovernment, which had the attributions of the direct political participation. According to the theorists of radical socialism the economic sphere of life was the cause of the oppression of the working class and all inequity in society, so they believed in the success in their effort to democratize economic sphere of life by applying specific instruments of direct and indirect political participation. Actually, socijalist states that – to a certain level - adopted model of market socialism ensured significantly better provisions to articulate the true will of the people, and apply direct democracy. Thus socijalist ideology and socijalist regimes do not have a single attitude towards direct democracy, the use of its instruments, and the decision making based on the direct political participation of the people.

Adam Smith on migration

Author(s): Daniel Rauhut / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2010

Adam Smith considered poverty and unemployment as push factors for migration and wages high enough to provide for a worker and his family as a pull factor. Migration as a free mobility of labour leads to an optimal allocation of the factor commodity labour as well as changes of employment which necessary to equalise wages between different geographical entities. The consequences are not only promoting economic growth and prosperity, but also reducing poverty. Smith has no contemporary empirical support for his theory.

Osvrti, prikazi, recenzije

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1-2/2013

Aleksandar Gordić - Važan spomenik srpske filozofije Dobrica Gajić - Hajdgerova epistolarna filozofija Jovica Trkulja - Federalizam u ustavnom sistemu Bosne i Hercegovine Mirela A. Avdagić - Sudbina jednog priručnika Jovica Trkulja - Mene srpske političke retorike

Etičko preispitivanje demokratije

Author(s): Dritan Abazović / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 1-2/2014

Affiliations in regards to democracy are unequivocally positive, principally due to the fact that they indicate an incomparable tenure yet known. Undoubtedly such observations endure validity, hence in the modern world there have not been societies which are more sophisticated and practical than democracy. However, utopian societies do not exist, and neither do ideal regimes. Nevertheless, in the age of globalization democracy becomes a victim of its idealism. Democracy’s identification of different diversions which follow, in the future will be a repetitious phenomena in social sciences. Granted that today’s most regimes are democratic, confidence in democracy is diminishing. Why this is happening probably cannot be answered in a single article, but what stands in the following text is a thorough analysis of this current phenomenon taking into account democracy’s anomaly towards the people and the general approach towards the public good.

Je li egalitarni sindrom samo teorijska fantazija? Empirijski hommage Josipu Županovu

Author(s): Aleksandar Štulhofer,Ivan Burić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 03/2015

The egalitarian syndrome theory (EST), proposed in 1970 by Croatian political scientist and sociologist Josip Županov (1923-2004), is likely the most important theoretical contribution to the Croatian social sciences. Due to the fact that EST has never been operationalized and systematically verified, its influence has been steadily diminishing – particularly among mainstream researchers. The aim of this study is to operationalize EST and, using confirmatory factor analytic approach, to construct and validate a multi-faceted measure of the egalitarian syndrome. Based on two models characterized by acceptable fit to data, the authors propose a longer version (27-item long) and a shorter version (15-item long) of the Egalitarian Syndrome Scale. The initial validation of the scale suggests that the composite measure can be useful in a wide range of social science studies. For the first time, Županov’s claim that egalitarianism remains a persisting obstacle to the country’s socioeconomic development can be rigorously tested.

Pitanje društvenog jedinstva danas

Author(s): Vladimir Vujčić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 03/2015

Author tries to analyze possible sources for social cohesion in the realm of social pluralism. Analysis has shown that contemporary theories of justice do not provide sufficient explanatory potential. This argument is based on theories of communitarianism and others such as Taylor, Sandel, MacIntyre and Mouffe. Moral as a social problem should be contextualized and not perceived on its own. This means that without a certain notion of political community such as the one based on national identity, social cohesion is neither possible nor sustainable. With this argument it becomes clear that the terminology taken from the position of rights or needs of citizens does not represent a possible source of social cohesion.

Modeli političkog čovjeka

Author(s): Kosta Bovan / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 03/2015

Reflections on political systems are necessarily based on some sort of model of political man – an individual who thinks, decides, discusses, and participates in politics. This paper offers a review of modern conceptions of political man structured in five models. The personality model highlights the importance of childhood experiences for political behavior and belief in adulthood; the sociological model highlights the importance of primary and interest groups; the sociopsychological model highlights the importance of party identification; the rational economic model highlights the efficiency of thought and self-interest;while the cognitive model highlights the citizens’ mental capabilities.The main assumptions, methodology, and findings for each model are presented in the paper. Also, implications for democratic processes for each model are explained. The conclusion offers a critical survey of the current state of research on political man, as well as recommendations for further research.

Kritika jedne interpretacije Hanne Arendt

Author(s): Enes Kulenović / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 02/2016

Elizabeta Mađarević, “Izbjeglička kriza – najveći izazov za nacionalne države i Europsku uniju”, Notitia – časopis za održivi razvoj, 1 (1), 2015, str. 101-115

Skrivena filozofija federalizma

Author(s): Heinrich Ott / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 01/1998

U ime Društva bosansko-švicarsakog prijateljstva želim Vas pozdraviti i prenijeti izraze zahvalnosti svima koji su pomogli da se organizira ovaj simpozijum i našu žarku želju da ovaj skup bude prvi korak na putu zajedničkog promišljanja o vitalnom pitanju našeg vremena - o temi od suštinskog značenja ne samo za naše dvije zemlje, Bosnu i Hercegovinu i Švicarsku, već i za cjelokupno svjetsko društvo.

Ustavno uređenje i politička struktura Bosne i Hercegovine

Author(s): Neđo Milićević / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 01/1998

Prema Dejtonskom ustavu, Bosna i Hercegovina je složena državna zajednica, izrazito komplikovane državne strukture, u kojoj njena dva entiteta imaju visok stepen obilježja države. Ona, van sumnje, ima određeni broj obilježja federacije, ali - sa aspekta vršenja državne vlasti - takođe i veliki broj obilježja konfederacije, i inače saveza država.

Kant i moderna demokratska misao

Author(s): Dick Howard / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 02/1997

Prije nego što krenem sa svojim izlaganjem, želio bih precizirati u kakvom je ono odnosu prema generalnoj temi: "Moral i demokracija". Ustvari, naslov mog izlaganja može navesti na pomisao da sam ja želio reartikulirati odnos kantovske moralne teorije prema demokraciji čija bi moderna forma omogućila rješenje sumnji (aporija) Kantove političke misli. Tu bi se radilo, naprimjer, o tome da se prevladaju protuslovlja između monologističkog morala i nužno pluralnog političkog društva, počevši od dostignuća komunikacionalne ili diskursivne teorije; ili, pak konkretnije, ja bih poduzeo ponovno iščitavanje teza o "kosmopolitskoj historiji" i o "vječitom miru" u svijetlu našeg XX stoljeća koje se bliži kraju, preuzimajući, naprimjer, Kantov očito dvosmisleni stav prema Francuskoj revoluciji ili pak, njegova razmatranja o projektu prosvjetiteljstva.