Transitions Online_Around the Bloc - 1 October
Regional highlights: governmental NGOs; domestic violence in Tajikistan; Tito’s yacht; a North Macedonian documentary; and body positivity on RuNet.
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Regional highlights: governmental NGOs; domestic violence in Tajikistan; Tito’s yacht; a North Macedonian documentary; and body positivity on RuNet.
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News from TOL’s coverage region: German teens in Romania; generation gap in Kazakhstan; Moscow City skyscrapers; Sarajevo cemeteries; and the fall of an Armenian businessman.
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The issue of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania in Romanian and Hungarian public opinion
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Cooperation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and public organizations is one of the most important elements of relationship between state and third sector, as well as between the state and the citizen. In Poland, this cooperation is locally and regionally diverse in terms of forms and areas of cooperation. The goal of this article is to show and evaluate local inter-sectoral cooperation in civil dialogue based on the example of Cracow. Basing on conducted quality research, authors reconstruct shaping of civil dialogue by NGOs, actions and obstacles and identify expectations of its change. Results show that civil dialogue in Cracow has some problems – a dialogue exists in a form of the information and consulting, a conflict of interests between public and non-governmental sector was observed and forms of civil dialogue are built with incomplete involvement. Those characteristic cause the meaning of common actions and civil dialogue common creation becomes lost.
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The changing nature of today’s threats, including increased incidence of natural disasters, forces a new model of national security systems. Polish society is faced with problems not only like natural disasters, but also technological ones, as well as terror attacks. Classically perceived crises - natural disasters, floods, large fires, technological failures, give way to new threats such as terrorism, interference in the functioning of information systems and integrated tools for crisis management, preventing simultaneous use of military and civilian components, at every level of response, i.e.: international, national and regional, in relation to the widest range of threats. In addition, defense tasks, carried out by the Polish Border Guards, are an important component of the national defense system.
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Новите социјални политики насочени кон лицата со попреченост ја нагласуваат потребата за премин од институционална заштита кон грижа во заедницата, преку социјални услуги и служби кои се придржуваат кон моделот за човекови права во однос на попреченоста. Реформата во секторот на социјални услуги за лицата со попреченост опфаќа промена на парадигмата во однос на попреченоста – од медицински модел и модел заснован на милосрдието кон социјален модел и пристап заснован на човекови права. Еден од специфичните аспекти на секторот за сервисни служби за лица со попреченост е потребата од вистинска рамнотежа меѓу редовните и специјализираните сервисни служби што се обезбедуваат на ниво на заедницата (двоен пристап). Друг предизвик е процесот на деинституционализација преку кој институционалниот системот на грижа, кој првично се стремеше кон заштита на лицата со попреченост преку нивно исклучување од општеството, се трансформира во систем кој се стреми да овозможи учество преку услуги и служби што се обезбедуваат на ниво на заедницата, со почитување на принципите на избор и одлучување. Овој процес е суштински поврзан со развојот на нови видови социјални услуги и служби за лицата со попреченост, обезбедувајќи ланец од постојана поддршка во независното живеење, образованието, рехабилитацијата, вработувањето, мобилноста, слободното време итн. За развојот на овие нови социјални услуги за лицата со попреченост важно е воведувањето на плурализмот во давањето социјални услуги, каде голема улога имаат граѓанските организации. Децентрализацијата на одговорностите во полето на обезбедување социјални услуги е уште еден клучен елемент за реформата, кој опфаќа трансфер на одговорностите, капацитетите и ресурсите од државно ниво до локалните власти. Во Република Северна Македонија, промените кои се неопходни вклучуваат: развој на услуги во заедницата, воведување на нови стандарди за квалитет, следење и развој на услуги во заедницата, зајакнување на капацитетот на работната сила и обука, свесност и застапување, како и учество на корисниците во целиот процес на давање социјални услуги.
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The purpose of this article is to describe the phenomenon of the digital crowd, which is a phenomenon specifi c to the functioning of political debate on the Internet (with particular emphasis on social media). Referring to the concept of Le Bon and Girard, it presents the behavior of the digital crowd and its importance for the development of public debate in the area of mass communication such as the Internet.
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When considering the issues related to the fi ght for women’s political it is not possible to disregard some of the most important factors determining the level of women’s participation in political life. As regards scientifi c discussion on the presence of women in government roles, the most frequently cited reason contributing to lesser representation of women are biological, social, ideological, structural, cultural, religious and economic factors. 100 years have passed and women, who account for slightly more than a half of the Polish society, still have too low representation in the parliament, in many cases their salaries are lower than those of men at similar positions, they play specifi c social and professional roles assigned on the grounds of sex, and still some people try to marginalize them professionally and deprive of their freedoms. The aim of this text is to analyze premises for the establishing of the Association of Congress of Women and results achieved over the past ten years. The main objectives adopted for purpose of the text include the verifi cation of demands set by the Association and their implementation, and the analysis of its activity in terms of socio-political changes. Content analysis was used as the method.
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In The Netherlands on March 21st, 2018 a non-binding referendum was held on the new act on the intelligence and security services. In many respects this was a unique moment in the (Dutch) history of intelligence. The Netherlands has no long lasting history of referenda and probably never will. In 2016 it held a referendum on the EU association agreement. It led to a clear no-vote and although the referendum was not binding, it was a shock to the government, which had to bend over backwards to explain to its European partners how it had gotten itself into this position and to legitimize to the voters that it still signed the agreement. As far as the government was concerned this was a -once-and-never-again experience. However, just before it managed to close down the possibility of national referenda, enough signatures were collected to have a non-binding vote on the Dutch act on the intelligence and security services. The outcome of the referendum surprised friend and foe: 49.5 percent of the voters rejected the act against 46.5 yes-voters. This paper discusses the issues that were involved and the way the government treated the referendum. The government tried to follow two objectives simultaneously when it drafted the act. First, it wanted a law that would be independent from technological developments, precisely because a former one had restricted the services’ room for manoeuver especially due to technological considerations. Second, it wanted to make a law that would be ECRM-proof. This led to a balancing act and a very complicated bill. Opponents stated that past practices and the vague wordings of the bill were reasons for distrust. Champions of the bill said that it combined the enhancement of the services’ powers with a broadening of the oversight mechanisms. They blamed the opponents because of factual misunderstanding. What they did not take into account enough was that it was not so much a matter of good intentions or practice but an issue of images. In a belated effort to save the act unscathed representatives of the services appeared more often in the media in the three months before the referendum than in the preceding half century. This contributed to the beginning of a serious intelligence debate in The Netherlands. The changes the government promised after the referendum were not inserted into the law itself and were considered to be only cosmetic by opponents. The law entered into force on May 1st, 2018 as scheduled. At the time of writing both summary and substantive proceedings against the law, initiated by both humanitarian and privacy organizations and professional associations of lawyers and journalists, are pending.
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The purpose of the paper is to review literature on the challenges and the way forward of the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) in Ghana. Literature informs us that the key challenge to the Computerized School Selection and Placement System was the human factor in terms of refusal of parents and students to accept placement into other schools apart from their chosen high endowed schools. It is also found from the literature of this paper that, there was the challenge of some parents not being able to pay the school fees for their wards who have been placed in private schools due to the high cost of private schools' fees. Methodologically, this paper relied primarily on secondary sources of information such as online literatures on computerized school selection, archives, some excerpts from the daily graphic among others. Parents, Headteachers of Junior High Schools and Senior High Schools, students, policy makers and stakeholders in education were the focus in this study. Finally, the review established that the CSSPS has become fertile grounds for bribery and corruption in our dear country Ghana. From the review, it is therefore recommended that there is the need to revisit the policy of developing some of the senior high schools in each region as model schools, with all the modern facilities required in a standard second cycle school. Also, we recommend that Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ghana Education Service (GES) should provide inputs in time to the least endowed schools and also upgrade the infrastructural facilities in the least endowed schools to make them attractive to students so as to reduce pressure on the highly endowed schools.
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István Fischer was one of the most fruitful Transylvanian fi lmmakers, who directed more than 35 documentariesthroughout his career. He worked at Romanian, Hungarian and German television stations as well, but regardless of therespective country and its political conditions, he chose to thematize issues related to minorities on numerous occasions. Inthis study I analyze these fi lms, how this pattern connected to minorities unfolds. As we will see, the theme of minoritiesencompasses other essential phenomenona like emigration, the everlasting transit-feeling and the opposition towards theauthorities.
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An important factor for successful development of civic society and socio-cultural processes is the involvement of young people in making socially important decisions. These are young people who have to resolve problems that directly affect them, and other participants should support them, but not order what to do. The aim of the article is to investigate civil involvement and participation as an important instrument of the work with youth. On the basis of literature sources analysis the article determines that civic engagement and participation is the involvement of young people in volunteer and community activities, increase of youth participation in decision making processes, creation of advisory board, formation of enabling mechanisms for the implementation of civic education etc. There are many forms of youth participation in public decision-making processes: participation in elections; social councils; public hearings; local initiatives; participation in the activities of civil society organizations; youth social projects; interest clubs; peer-to-peer networking etc. Youth participation can also be viewed as a form of youth-adult partnership. The advantage of partnership between young people and adults is that it benefits from the young people's skills and talents, as well as from the experience and knowledge of adults.
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Public associations and movements play an increasingly important role in social and political life. Unlike political parties, they do not claim to be directly involved in the exercise of power and do not fight for power. They are included in political activities to the extent necessary to meet the challenges in the economic, social, cultural, environmental and other fields.
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Counterintelligence is a special type of activity aimed at ensuring national security. The Ukrainian legislation regulates the rights of the authorized subjects of this activity in relation to intelligence, terrorist and other unlawful attacks of the special services of foreign states, including organizations, individual groups and persons that may adversely affect the national security of Ukraine. The purpose of this study is to identify the problems of interference in private communication during counterintelligence activities and to to private communication develop strategies for solving them, to explore the legal principles of interference with privacy, and in particular in the process of such activities. The results of the study will contribute to the development of the theory of national security, that is, to develop a procedure for intelligence and counterintelligence units to gain access to information transmitted between individuals in the process of direct communication or communication through connectivity.
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This article deals with the problem of defining the status of global civil society as this problem is set in the works of certain representatives of European critical theory, in particular, Nancy Fraser, Ulrich Beck and Jürgen Habermas. The notion of national civil society was described, and the key elements indispensable for the establishment and functioning of national civil society have been identified. Based on works of the aforementioned representatives of European critical theory, it was shown that certain key elements are still missing before we can talk about a fully sophisticated global civil society. The ways of solving the problem of the status of global civil society proposed by the aforementioned representatives of European critical theory have been outlined.
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The aim of this article is to present and evaluate the legal regulations concerning a bill initiated by citizens from the perspective of the practice of its application. This issue does not have a theoretical dimension only, but is also of significant practical importance, because an interest in this legal mechanism amongst citizens is increasing rapidly and influences the shape of the civil society. The problem that continues to exist are numerous barriers or regulations governing parliamentary works that make it difficult for citizens to use the right to initiate bills that is constitutionally guaranteed. They range from the requirement to register the committee at the initial stage to the final stage of parliamentary work on the project. In the concluding part of the article some proposals of the necessary amendments to the existing regulations governing the civil right of legislative initiative are made.
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In the research single unresolved questions of military metaphor typology, identification of its functions in the media discourse, establishment of its lexical and grammatical features in language of the English and German mass media are considered. The general and the specific dominating functions of the military metaphor in the modern English and German media discourse come to light. The main research procedures are a hypothetical-deductive method, an inductive method, a descriptive and comparative method, a modeling method, a method of the definition analysis, component analysis, interpretive analysis, quantitative analysis, elements of frame and discourse analyses, and reception of continuous selection. As research material we use 4500 units in equal shares in the English and German languages which were selected from foreign and domestic periodic sources of the end of the 20th century – the beginning of the 21st century. The description and explanation of military metaphor linguocultural specifics in the modern English and German media discourse is obviously important for contrastive linguistics.
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The purpose of this article is to analyze the healthcare policy in the light of securing citizens’interests by bringing the perspective of patients’ advocacy organizations. The papertries to supplement the discussion on the role of this particular group of stakeholders in thedecision-making process in the healthcare sector. Referring to empirical examples, theauthor assumes that the entire Polish healthcare system does not serve patients’ interestswell because of organizational, financial and personnel shortages, while the constitutionalpromise of equal access to healthcare services is paradoxically an effective barrier to anychanges aimed at improving the way of functioning of the system. Despite the impressionof a “patient-centered turn” in the healthcare policy in Poland, the organized interests ofpatients centered around advocacy organizations still have little impact on the process offormulating and implementing important changes in this sector policy.
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