Around the bloc: More Physical, Legal Barriers for Migrants
Migrants clashed with police on Macedonia’s southern border over the weekend.
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Migrants clashed with police on Macedonia’s southern border over the weekend.
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Council of Europe’s top rights official urges Budapest to scrap laws that criminalize migration.
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Last week the Czech Republic witnessed the emergence of Bohuslav Sobotka as a major new political player.
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Zmiany o charakterze polityczno-gospodarczym, które miały miejsce w Polsce oraz w wielu krajach Europy pod koniec XX w. wpłynęły również na powstanie i rozwój nowych problemów społecznych. Jeszcze kilkanaście lat temu ich rozwiązywaniem zajmował się głównie sektor publiczny. Współcześnie, nowoczesne społeczeństwa charakteryzują się funkcjonowaniem w zasadzie czterech przenikających się wzajemnie sektorów: prywatnego, publicznego, pozarządowego oraz ekonomii społecznej, z których ogromny potencjał do rozwiązywania kwestii społecznych ma ostatni z wymienionych. Podmioty ekonomii społecznej stanowią bowiem doskonałe uzupełnienie gospodarki publiczno-prywatnej. Dzięki swoim założeniom mogą skutecznie rozwiązywać problemy społeczne, a zwłaszcza przeciwdziałać wykluczeniu społecznemu. Z uwagi na fakt, że organizacje ekonomii społecznej, takie jak przedsiębiorstwa społeczne, działają zwykle w sferze lokalnej, ważne jest podjęcie dyskusji o wspólnotach w niniejszym kontekście. Głównym celem artykułu jest ukazanie znaczenia wspólnot w rozwoju ekonomii społecznej. Chcąc zrealizować powyżej przedstawione zamierzenie, konieczne było zarysowanie tła teoretycznego, w którym szczególną uwagę skupiono na rozkwicie ekonomii społecznej w Polsce oraz roli przywództwa w rozwoju wspólnot lokalnych. Ponadto, aby unaocznić różnicę pomiędzy historycznym a współczesnym ujęciem wspólnot i wskazać ich cechy charakterystyczne, które należy brać pod uwagę przed angażowaniem obywateli w działalność podmiotów ekonomii społecznej, w artykule podjęto polemikę na temat historii badań nad wspólnotami lokalnymi oraz ich miejsca w strukturze społecznej. Zagadnienia natury teoretycznej umożliwiły m.in. wskazanie przyczyn braku skuteczności działania zbiorowości w rozwiązywaniu problemów społecznych, a przynajmniej łagodzeniu ich skutków oraz pokazały, jak aktywna wspólnota, dzięki pomocy lidera społecznego, może wpływać na rozwój przedsiębiorstw społecznych, a jednocześnie, jak podmioty ekonomii społecznej mogą pozytywnie oddziaływać na wzmacnianie wspólnot w szerokim rozumieniu tego pojęcia. W artykule wykorzystano głównie piśmiennictwo z zakresu ekonomii społecznej, socjologii, nauk o polityce, a w szczególności samorządu terytorialnego i wspólnot lokalnych. Wybrane zagadnienia wymagały również zaczerpnięcia wiedzy z innych dziedzin, takich jak: historia, zarządzanie czy prawo. Wnioski wysunięte z niniejszego artykułu będą przydatne zarówno dla teoretyków, jak i dla społeczników-praktyków, którzy chcą wzmacniać obywatelską aktywność, a tym samym wpływać na rozwój ekonomii społecznej.
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For several months in 2013-2014, thousands of Ukrainians and Bulgarians participated in anti-government protests. However, the outcomes could not be more different. The Bulgarian government politically survived #DANSwithme, while Euromaidan precipitated President Yanukovych’s fl ight from Ukraine in late February 2014. Why did #DANSwithme gradually dissipate, while Euromaidan escalated into the worst episode of political violence since Ukraine’s independence? We know that medium levels of repression applied inconsistently during protests can lead to radicalization and violence. But we do not know whether the judiciary’s behaviour before and during the protests could affect the likelihood of an escalation towards violence. This article proposes a complementary explanation of protest radicalization, which posits that recent, unambiguous, and effective use of a pliable judiciary by political incumbents to punish and undermine the opposition raises the odds that both sides will engage in violence. Politicized selective justice raises the stakes ofvictory both for the government and for the protesters, and reduces the possibility of a compromise. In Bulgaria, where the judiciary, albeit politicized, has not been effectively used to undermine political opponents, protesters perceived the government’s attempts to engage in legal persecution as a hassle and the chances of imprisonment as remote. Neither should the Oresharski government have expected to be prosecuted in the event of losing offi ce. In Ukraine, by contrast, the judiciary had a clear recent track record of politicized selective justice both against protest participants and high-level politicians. Former PM Yuliya Tymoshenko and another Orange Revolution main actor and former minister of interior, Yuriy Lutsenko, served lengthy prison sentences. Consequently, both the leaders of the opposition and Yanukovych and his coterie probably expected that imprisonment would be inevitable if they did not come out as winners of the Euromaidan standoff.
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Bulgaria may detain migrants in gated centers after violent incidents in one of the country’s refugee centers.
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Analyzed civilizational and historical factors of public awareness genesis in Ukraine. It is noted that the development of any civilization has two components chrono-vertical and chrono-horizontal. It is alleged that the Ukrainian people’s awareness combines the values of eastern and western cultural and civilizational systems, privileging the second one. Determined features of the Ukrainian people’s legal consciousness in historical retrospective. In this context was analyzed directions of development and was singled features as institutional and non-institutional sense of justice in Ukraine.Emphasized that civilizational and historical development of the Ukrainian people is characterized with stages, inconsistency and cultural features. In its turn, sense of justice in Ukraine based on axiological basis using the following basic constants: patriotism; justice; sense of national dignity; responsibility for the fate of the motherland; awareness of the importance of implementation of individual rights and freedoms in the domestic environment; respect for the rights and freedoms of other nations; recognition of the intrinsic value of Ukrainian culture and language.
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After embracing his Jewish heritage, former far-right party leader is focused on fighting anti-Semitism.
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The paper is analyzing causes and character of irredentist activities of Hungarian governments in relation to Czechoslovakia during the monitored period. Principal aim of irredenta was to establish an alternative to the direct annexation of Slovakia, or at least of part of the Slovak territory inhabited by the Hungarian minority. The goal of irredenta, besides other, was also to reinforce ethnic awareness of the Hungarian population in Slovakia, to cultivate a historic legacy of Hungary and to eliminate integral processes, which could weaken connections of members of the Hungarian community toward their kin country. Parallel with the increase of political instability during the second half of thirties, intensify also irredentist activities among ethnic Hungarians. The status of majority of Hungarians living in Slovakia was dramatically changed after the annexation of the majority of Hungarians to Hungary.
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This article focuses on the content analysis of the theoretical concept of non-democratic regimes by Juan J. Linz in his major publication Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (2000) and its application to the regime of the Slovak Republic in the years 1939 – 1945. The aim of this paper is to define the character of regime in Slovakia and determine whether the regime of the first Slovak republic was directed more to the totalitarian or authoritarian type of the non-democracies. The main aim of work is reflected in the structure of the paper, divided into two chapters. The first one describes the principal characteristics of totalitarianism and authoritarianism and difference between them. The second one analyzes threebasicfeatures ofauthoritarianism – limited political pluralism, mentalities and political mobilization – and applies them toSlovak terms in 1939 – 1945. The application has shown there were features which are identical with characteristics of authoritarianism specified by Linz. Therefore, we cannot say the regime of the first Slovak Republic was totalitarian, but it was regime which tended to authoritarian type of non-democracies.
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The present study examines the causes, unfolding and outcome of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 from a cultural-structural perspective and argues that this revolution can be explained on the basis of a theoretical model which focuses on structural, conjunctural and nation-specific factors. This study concludes that, although an incipient “snowballing effect” did occur in 1956, the aggregation of the factors mentioned above did not lead to a regime change in Hungary, but to a communist counter-revolution conducted by Moscow. The long-term effects of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 were undeniable:in 1989, the countries which opened the sequence of collapse of the communist regimes in ECE were Poland and Hungary, that is, those countries that had already experienced a revolutionary situation in 1980–81 and, respectively, in 1956.
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This is a review of Florin Abraham's book, Romania since theSecond World War: A Political, Socialand Economic History, BloomsburyAcademic, Londra-New York, 2016,360 p.
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The article shows the experience of participation of intelligentsia in the development of social movements in the countries of Latin America in the middle - the second half of the 20th century. On the basis of the particular cases of cooperation analysis the objective conditions and characteristics of development of interaction attending its success are revealed. The article studies the influence of the intelligentsia on the following aspects of civil movements formation: the formation of identity, and the dynamics of the participants’ aims; methods of action, forms and ways of the goals achievement; mobilization of resources and development of the movements’ organizational potential
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The article investigates the dialectic relationship between the opponents – Russian, French, and English— during the Crimean (Eastern) War (1853–1856) in a small Crimean peninsula. The basis of the publication formed the memoirs and letters of veterans, eyewitnesses of the war: a Russian officer N. Berg, a French staff officer S. Bose, Sisters of Charity of the Holy Cross community, ordinary soldiers. The materials collected in the article allow us to understand the feelings of people at war, how they perceived the enemy and how they understood the circumstances and their role in those circumstances.
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The article dwells upon the using of the symbol of the Motherland in the discourse of the Russian protests 2011-2013 (the «Snow Revolution»). The author analyses legitimation and delegitimation of power as forms of the symbolic politics. The first part of the article is devoted to role of the symbol of the Motherland in Russian culture. The next section concentrates on employing the symbol in legitimation of power. In the third part the author demonstrates how the protesters exploit two modes of delegitimation of power with the help of the symbol: the «populist» and the «liberal».
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The aim of this paper is to analyse the image of Yugoslavia in the collective memories of the post–Yugoslav societies. The author of this text, basing on an assumption that every society has a great number of collective memories, highlights the fact that among the Balkan nations one can find both supporters and opponents not only of the SFRY but also of the idea of the cooperation among the Southern Slavs. Both positive and negative opinions of Yugoslavia in the collective memories are based not on the sober assessment of the historical facts but on collective emotions and historical and political myths. The anti–Yugoslav discourse in primarily based on the national mythology. The discourse of the supporters of the Yugoslav tradition one the other hand, goes back in a large extend to the transnational myths. By discussing these two types of ideas about Yugoslavia, the author of this text tries to show their impact on the current political decisions.
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The paper presents results of the qualitative–to–quantitative narrative analysis of the transitional remembrance policy in South Africa during Nelson R. Mandela’s presidency. It refers to findings on the structure of political applications of historical interpretations to the issue of national identity reconstruction during democratisation. Therefore, the paper considers a degree in which remembrance story–telling was used to legitimise, justify, explain and promote the Rainbow Nation, the inclusive and non–racial vision of South Africa’s ’ideal self’ based on Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s theology of Ubuntu hoping. It investigated these relationships on eight levels – legitimisation of new elites, presence of former elites, transitional justice, social costs of transformations, promotion of new standards, the symbolic roles of democratisation, need for national unity and the new state’s identity in international politics. Moreover, the paper introduces a draft comparison with other cases of transitional remembrance policy – Chile, Estonia, Georgia, Poland and Spain – and it offers the structural model of the use of historical interpretations in South African transition, as well as discussing it with reference to the general model of the transitional remembrance policy.
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The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is one of the key actors in the political process in Egypt. However, its ideological agenda is still a subject of controversy. Some experts regard it as deriving from the radical ideas of Sayyid Qutb, who was the main ideologist of the Society in the 1950s and 1960s, while the recent MB leaders claim to refuse them. This paper discusses the fundamental political concepts established by the most significant ideologists of the MB. A number of their basic works reflecting political, legal and social theories were collected and investigated. By analysing and comparing the basic political ideas reflected in these sources, we were able to discover common roots in the theories of earlier and later generations and to trace differences between their views. It is concluded that modern MB thinkers generally adhere to modern and even reformist interpretations. This conclusion provides a quite different understanding of the MB ideology, which has been primarily perceived as a radical and ultra-conservative since the 1950s.
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The article discloses the possibilities of interaction between public institutions and state authorities in a federal subject, based on the analysis of the activity of the Civic Chamber of the Mari El Republic. The work shows the increasing role of civil institutions in public control over the activity of state power and reveals certain legal wants, the filling of which will enhance the public vector in the state.
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