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The article raises a classic question – about the compatibility of capitalism with democracy. Numerous studies and political thinkers have been drawn upon to critically comment on the presumed immanent relationship between capitalism and democracy. The thesis argues that the market economy is fun- damental to democracies as a regime of complete civil equality, then capitalism is not synonymous with the market economy but a particular transformation of it that deepens inequalities. The conclusion is that contemporary global cor- porate capitalism undermines the democratic order by reinforcing inequalities.
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The article explores the growing tension between the constitution and the political process under the influence of various crisis processes and problems in Bulgarian democracy. Their conceptual differences are expressed through the limiting framework of the constitutional norms and the strong dynamics and instability in the political space. The thesis asserts that in conditions of political crisis, democratic institutions and parliamentary parties are more often inclined to violate the constitution or to use it excessively as a tool for institutional op- position in the political process. The concrete manifestations and dimensions of this tension are analyzed, through examples from the Bulgarian political pro- cess in recent years. Mechanisms and guidelines for improving the relationship between the constitutional order and political practice in Bulgarian democracy are proposed.
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The paper aims to analyze the crisis of political representation in Bulgaria, using the conceptual apparatus of Antonio Gramsci’s “Prison Notebooks”. The logic of the argument is as follows: it begins by presenting the motivation and rationale for the usefulness of Gramscian analysis in understanding the crisis of political representation in Bulgaria. The next step, highlights Gramsci's under- standing of crisis and explores how it can be applied to the current situation. At the end, parallels are drawn between what Gramsci calls “morbid symptoms” and certain dynamics in the development of the Bulgarian political environment.
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The topic of the present article is the ideological strategy of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization Party (VMRO) for ethnicizing social problems and their politicization along ethnic lines. First, the research con- centrates on reconstructing VMRO’s nationalist narrative through a discursive analysis of the party’s official newspaper, “Bulgaria,” from 2011–2020. The focus is on VMRO’s attempts to inculcate a public fear of an impending national catastrophe by aggressively imposing topics such as the demographic, ethnic balance, the role of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms Party (DPS) in Bulgarian politics, and the refugee crisis. Special attention is paid to the symbolic construction of threatening and negative images of the Roma minority. Further, the study focuses on the relationship between, on the one hand, the radical messages’ frequency and, on the other hand, the dynamics of the national agenda and VMRO’s participation in governance.
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The article focuses on institutional and organisational changes concerning the formation of a political science centre in Olsztyn, the beginnings of which date back to the late 1960s. The activity of Olsztyn’s political science is presented first of all through the prism of the activity of the Institute of Political Science of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn established in 2001. In connection with the organisational changes, the evolution of the teaching offer and the development of the academic staff is presented, among other things, through the obtained accreditations and the rights to grant academic degrees and titles. Significant attention was paid to international cooperation and publication and publishing activities. Issues of research activity and promotion of science are also covered, as well as scientific cooperation with students and political science involvement of secondary and primary school students.
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The 21st century can be called a „century of reforms” in the Polish system of higher education and science. Each successive ruling party was looking for an opportunity to revise the way the Polish Academia was organized. Those reforms were aimed at changing the system of evaluation of higher education institutions (and the associated system of granting public subsidies thereto). But also they were targeting the list of scientific disciplines recognized and subsidized by the government. That was possible thanks to the fact that each piece of legislation on funding the Polish system of higher education was imparting power on the Minister of Higher Education to issue an executive act. Such discretionary decisions allow for influencing the way institutional science is organized in Poland. It is also a reason why in Poland „scientific lobbying” has arisen and various research coteries have been trying to promote their subfields to the rank of „discipline” by influencing the Ministry. This paper is an attempt at summing up the 21st-century debate over the shape and legal foundations of the institutional dimension of the realm of political science. It is also an attempt to provide evidence that in Poland it is not theory that is influencing the decisions of recognizing new disciplines that are arising from the field of political science, but rather the political (and lobbying) practice as well as discretionary decisions of the Ministry are shaping the development of theory.
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The image of a city is the ultimate product and is formed in the course of activities that are a process. A city wishing to achieve market success should strive to shape a positive image. In this aspect, it is necessary to regularly study the image of the perceived city. The identity and brand of the city play a fundamental role in this. The purpose of this article is to identify the image of Warsaw promoted by local authorities and the perceived image of the city among its residents. The thesis that has been verified is that there is no full correspondence between the image of Warsaw promoted by the local authorities and the image of the city in the consciousness of its residents. The article consists of three parts. The first discusses the concepts of identity, brand and image of the city. The second characterizes the brand of the capital city of Warsaw and its components. And in the third, the perceived image of the capital city of Warsaw is presented. Such research methods as literature studies, analysis of internal documentation of the Warsaw City Hall in the form of reports and reports in the area of image issues, analysis of source documents in the form of the city development strategy, analysis of reports and reports on promotional and image issues of cities in national and international dimensions, and deductive analysis were used. The considerations carried out showed allowed positive verification of the thesis. In addition, they showed that a positive image of a city is an important factor in its development.
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This article examines the linkage of markets and democracy in the post-1989 Czech transition as a neoliberal populist discourse that delegitimized alternatives to the market as a return to authoritarianism. Using Laclau’s concept of equivalential linkages, I analyze Václav Klaus’ texts surrounding the voucher privatization program to determine how he formulated this linkage and communicated it to the public. Framing markets as natural, essential, and fundamentally Czech, Klaus constructed the people as a virtuous community of market individuals while othering those who opposed markets as communist holdouts and, elitists. Klaus further legitimized marketization through identification with international neoliberal projects and thinkers. Through his moralized and dichotomized discourse, Klaus communicated to the public that there could be no freedom without markets, nor markets without freedom: a circular formulation that continues to influence Central and Eastern European political economy.
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The research conducted for this article has explored the controversy between the EU and Hungary surrounding the interpretations of the Europeanisation process: to what extent do they diverge, and to what degree do they converge? Both before and after its 2004 accession to the EU, Hungary has tried to follow the EU’s approach towards liberal democracy. And yet, from 2010 on wards, the state has developed an illiberal political and legal system. This fact revealed a rift between Hungary and the EU. The research questions focused on the problem of the trajectory of the systemic deterioration of democracy in Hungary, the EU’s reaction to this situation and its decision to apply a conditionality mechanism in 2022. The main hypothesis of this research is that the EU’s reluctance to use more severe sanctioning tools after 2010 has helped Hungary utilise the EU funds to develop an illiberal democratic state which diverges from the EU’s concept of Europeanisation. The research methods we have employed are: the quantitative and the qualitative methods, synthesis and analysis of facts, the comparative method, and the neo-institutional approach. The results and conclusions allow us to state that until 2022, the EU has been unable to force Hungary to obey the rule of law and other liberal democratic principles, though it has made some efforts in this direction. The worsening of the economic situation, after the COVID-19 pandemic and the onset of the war in Ukraine, determined the EU to create a conditionality mechanism that correlates the access to EU subsidies with the observance of the EU rules.
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The Russia-Ukraine war is a disruptive event not only from a geopolitical point of view, but also from a societal perspective because it affects people’s daily lives. For Romania, a bordering country to the Russian-Ukrainian conflagration, the beginning of the war was marked by overwhelming media coverage, anxiety and concerns about the war, as well as polarised attitudes, either supporting or blaming Russia for the conflict. This paper seeks to understand the factors that influenced the Romanian citizens’ stances towards Russia, immediately after the onset of the war. A national survey (N=1006), conducted in April-May 2022, investigated to what extent pro- and anti-Russia attitudes could have been predicted by people’s news consumption habits in that period, by their concerns about the war, by political cynicism and ideology, or by a conspiracy mindset. The findings of the survey show that the concerns about the war influence most people’s attitudes towards Russia. Other significant predictors are doomscrolling (people’s incessant need to check negative news about the war), embracing a conspiracy mindset, political cynicism, and the degree of news consumption. It seems that the high levels of news consumption, especially on social media, lead to increased pro-Russian attitudes.
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Among the many beatification processes initiated in individual dioceses, several of them attract special attention. Among the many figures, especially those whose candidacy for the altars resulted from heroism or martyrdom, there are people who are not obvious. These include politicians – parliamentarians who, as public figures, gave an example of their attachment to God and the Catholic faith in everyday life. Some of these trials, despite the fact that at least half a century has passed since the death of the candidates for the altars, it turns out that many of the candidates’ characters still arouse emotions, influencing contemporary politics. The aim of the article is to present the figures of parliamentarians with the status of the Servant of God and to show the spheres in which these figures affect the present day.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed characterisation of a regulation as a source of procedural tax law. A statutory norm of competence may constitute the basis for the issuance of executive acts in the form of the regulations by public administration bodies. Such a normative act, which is not self-contained, serves to implement the law, and thus regulates matters covered by the statutory regulation, specifying the provisions of the authorising act. Ordinances governing procedural relations contain abstract and general norms, and, in exceptional cases, specific norms. They also define the procedural relations necessary for the implementation of the norms of substantive tax law. Regulations may develop in a more detailed and comprehensive manner the provisions of tax procedure contained in laws. Therefore, the provisions of the tax law contained in regulations may influence the shape of the tax proceedings. The provisions of the ordinances may cover individual procedural steps and systemic issues related to entities responsible for specific procedural activities.
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The subject of the analysis is the question of the limits of the countersignature of official acts of the President of the Republic of Poland. The considerations are made in the context of the institution of presidential announcement on vacant judicial positions in the Supreme Court of Poland and the Supreme Administrative Court of Poland. Firstly, the genesis and nature of the prerogatives of the head of state, the concept of prerogative powers against the background of the institution of countersignature, the substantive and formal limits of the countersignature, as well as the notion of the legal effect of the presidential official acts were discussed. Secondly, the question of the legal qualification of the presidential announcement was analysed and, based on it, the conclusion was drawn that the material limits of the institution of countersignature stand in the way of recognising the presidential announcement as a official act subject to countersignature. Next, the concept of instrumental sub-competences was proposed, which, as fragments of prerogative powers, include within their scope acts that depend on the underlying official act. In the final part of the study, fundamental arguments are presented in favour of adopting the view that the presidential announcement analysed is a sovereign official act which by its nature is not subject to countersignature.
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The main purpose of the article is to describe differentiated integration in the EU energy policy which concerns the exemption of the Nord Stream 2 and OPAL pipelines from European law, and more precisely from the so-called Third Energy Package. The attempt to derogate EU law in relation to these pipelines in Germany was of great economic and political importance for Central Europe as a whole. It also affected the modification of EU law and thus had systemic consequences for the entire EU. In this article, I will analyse the process aimed at derogation from the application of European law and its consequences. Furthermore, I will try to answer the question to what extent the public discussion hindered the possibilities of exemption from European law. Finally, I will turn to clarifying the reasons why exclusion from EU law in the case under review has failed. This seems to be of great importance when explaining other failed attempts to diversify integration in recent years as well; it may also help delineate what limitations there are for the very process in the future.
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The primary purpose of this article is the analysis of the evolution of bilateral relations between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and the Russian Federation in the field of military cooperation. It gives answers to following research questions: 1) what is the role of defence collaboration in bilateral ties, 2) what are the most essential elements of Russia-Vietnam military relations, 3) what are the common reasons/ incentives for developing links regarding arms trade, 4) do the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and invasion of Ukraine in 2022 change goals of Vietnamese politics towards Moscow, 5) How do Chinese and US factor affect military cooperation between Russia and Vietnam? The theses of this paper assume that: 1) the government in Hanoi maintains friendly relations with Moscow on the political level in the face of the conflict in Ukraine and continues military cooperation, however Russian arms exports to Vietnam has declined, 2) Vietnam diversifies weapon trade partners expanding cooperation with Israel, Belarus, US and South Korea, but Russia still remains crucial arms importer for Hanoi.The analysis is focused mainly on the situation from 2002 to the present, and intends to examine the evolution of military cooperation between Hanoi and Moscow after the signing of the Declaration on Strategic Partnership. The article includes a short overview of Russia-Vietnam relations emphasizing its strong historical background. Paper is also focused on important arms trade contracts, agreements on military cooperation, includes statistics published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) to show the scale of collaboration, and points out major challenges for future cooperation.
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The article is an attempt of a short analysis of the Russian-language New Cold War narrative in order to capture the perception of linguistic influences on the recipients of (multi)media information, both in the Russian and Western spaces. The linguistic image of the world built by Russian agitation and propaganda machine does not necessarily appear in symbiosis with the non-linguistic image of reality, but it has a specific influence on its “structure”. Some of the linguistic justifications of warfare are even contradictory to Russian reality but they are so suggestive and effectively based on the propaganda foundations built during the previous Cold War period that are immediately accepted by Russian/Russian-speaking audiences (Russian Field, 2022; Levada-Centr, 2022; WCIOM, 2022). It can be concluded that the determinant of the end of the post-Cold War order is the Russian return to the above-mentioned Soviet terminology of propaganda, in line with (deliberate and subliminal) terms borrowed from the previous Cold War period of 1947–1991. These terms are well-tried/proven both in theory and in practice, in particular from the post-fascist period – it is about the perception of the linguistic and extra-linguistic world of an average Russian, i.e. an actor/player/participant in the current opposition. From 1945 until now, the anti-fascist propaganda and scaring Russians (Soviet people) with the fascist threat (and the rotten capitalism of the West) is so powerful that the use of this terminology is clearly associated with the fear of war, murder, rape, etc.
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The challenges and threats from cyber security are increasing every day in the world. All this has a significant impact on international relations. When we are dealing with such a revolutionary development of technology as in the 21st century, it is already necessary for all states to have high-standard cyber security systems. This is not an easy issue to solve, because cyber security requires quite a lot of finances, human resources, and also specially trained professionals. Threats emanating from cyberspace need a proper response, in this case we have no choice, the whole world is facing danger. Cybercrime and the damage caused by it are increasing year by year. Also, all this affects a person psychologically and leaves a feeling of insecurity. The biggest problem is that aggressive states, terrorist organizations, non-state groups, large corporations, etc. are mostly involved in this virtual war (as in the real one). As an example, we can cite such an aggressor state as Russia, which carries out major cyber attacks against Ukraine, Georgia and other states whose cyber security systems are less protected. The transition of political, military, social or criminal processes into cyberspace has made cyber security one of the main segments of state security. Countries with developed cyber-offensive potential, primarily Russia, successfully use cyberspace both during war and conflict, as well as in peacetime, to gain geopolitical advantage. This article discusses the challenges and threats associated with the development of modern cyber and information technologies, analyzes the threats associated with the new information security capabilities of modern states, including cybersecurity. The aim of the paper is to present the role of cyber security in the Russia-Ukraine war and the threats arising from it. The following methods are used in the paper: methods of historical-descriptive, policy research and comparative analysis. The paper uses the theories of balance of power and securitization.
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The article contributes to three areas. First, it presents the process of the revival of Polish activity in Lithuania after World War II. Secondly, it focuses on the political activity undertaken by the Polish minority at the state level. Third, in the example of the Soleczniki Municipality District, it characterizes the activity of the Polish minority at the level of local government administration. I attempt to find the following answers: (1) How does the Local Government Council function, whose representatives are mostly people from the Polish minority? (2) Does nationality matter in the functioning of the Council? The choice of the time frame (1990–2016) is dictated by the beginning of the collapse of the USSR and the greatest political success of the Polish party at the parliamentary level in 2016. According to various statistical data, the Polish minority in Lithuania ranges from 200 to 250 thousand inhabitants in 3 million Lithuania. It is an indigenous and well-organized community. The Polish revival in Lithuania after the devastation of World War II began more or less in the 1960s and reached its peak at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. In the newly emerging state, the Polish community was not idle. Associated with the Union of Poles in Lithuania, she began cultural, educational, and political activities. The article is the result of many years of observation of the work of local government activists, preceded by a historical analysis of the emergence of national states and national minorities.
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Effective management is the key point of each organization’s wellfunctioning, political parties likewise. This article is an attempt to present the importance of the management in politics with particular emphasis on managing the political parties. Essential data for reaching the goal has been taken from literature analysis as well as market observation performed by the author with special attention of international research and Polish marketplace background. Research problem is complemented by comparative analysis of presented concept and polish practice which offers the local conditions identification and good practice recognition it the process of gaining the competitive advantage. An additional value of the text is the pointing out of the fundamental differences and similarities in the area of management between the political and commercial organization.
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