CONFLICTUL SUNIȚI-ȘIIȚI ȘI IMPORTANȚA SA STRATEGICĂ ACTUALĂ

Author(s): Paul-Alexandru Sanda / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 01/2020

With the invasion of Iraq by a US-led coalition, the West found itself operating in an environment of which it understood little. Military forces, come from countries where religious differences did not matter politically, were forced, in planning and executing the smallest of tactical operations, to take into account the religious specificity of each area, modeled by Islam and by the rift between the two main branches of Islam – Sunni and Shia – rift that can go down to family level. The same thing is true at strategic level, where the Sunni-Shia conflict, if not correctly understood and assessed, has the potential of making irrelevant or pushing into failure the most detailed western plans.

AFGHAN NATIONAL POLICE ‒ PILLAR WITHIN THE NATIONAL SECURITY SYSTEM

Author(s): Traian Maghercă / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2020

The confrontations in Afghanistan, which began in the autumn of 2001, created the premises for starting a process of reforming the security system, in the context of the intervention of the international military force. The evolution of this process was marked by the influence of foreign advisers in all fields of society. The institutions that opened this way of transformation were the army and the police. In the conception of the international community, the police was considered the younger sister of the army, so the efforts to reform the two segments were not identical. The development of the police forces was more difficult, the funds allocated were less, and these aspects contributed to the creation of large discrepancies between the two institutions. Frequent changes in strategy have led to a lack of consistency and continuity. The secondary role assigned to the police sector, within the national security system still has an effect today when it seems that the Afghan national police has remained far behind the army on the way to reform.

THE SUNNI-SHIA CONFLICT AND ITS STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE

Author(s): Paul-Alexandru Sanda / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2020

With the invasion of Iraq by a US-led coalition, the West found itself operating in an environment they little understood. Military forces, coming from countries where religious differences did not matter politically, were forced, in planning and executing even the smallest of tactical operations, to take into account the religious specificity of each area, modeled by Islam and by the rift between the two main branches of Islam – Sunni and Shia – rift that can go down to family level. The same thing is true at strategic level, where the Sunni-Shia conflict, if not correctly understood and assessed, has the potential of making irrelevant or pushing into failure even the most detailed Western plans.

Family and the local community as direct and indirect control agencies in prevention of criminal behavior

Author(s): Maciej Bernasiewicz / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

The text discusses the theory of social control on the example of parental controland local community ways to conform its members. Both institutions of socialization enforcethe social order by means of two forms of control: direct (external sanctions) and indirect(social bond). The text argues that a moderate level of control is a protective factor for crime.

Rodzina i społeczność lokalna jako agendy kontroli bezpośredniej oraz pośredniej

Author(s): Maciej Bernasiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2020

W tekście omówiono teorię kontroli społecznej na przykładzie kontroli rodzicielskiej oraz sposobów konformizowania swoich członków przez społeczność lokalną. Obie instytucje socjalizacji wymuszają porządek (ład) społeczny za pomocą dwóch form kontroli:bezpośredniej (zewnętrzne sankcje) oraz pośredniej (więź społeczna). W tekście dowodzi się,że umiarkowany poziom kontroli jest wyraźnym czynnikiem chroniącym przed przestępczością.

The Analytical Perspective of Refugee Protection and Civil Society

Author(s): Ádám Csáky / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

Feischmidt, Margit, Pries, Ludger and Cantat, Celine (eds.) (2019) Refugee Protection and Civil Society in Europe. Budapest and Bochum: Palgrave Macmillan. XX, 399 pages.

The Risks that Should be Taken Into Account and Conditions that Needs to be Met before the Government Launches a Programme to Attack Corruption in the Civil Service

Author(s): Albert Mcbell Ninepence / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

The critiques surrounding corruption is often brimming with copious disagreements. Central to the significant ambiguities on corruption rests on the various risks government should consider before launching systems to palliate corruption in the civil service.Corruption in the government or civil service has been a lethal canker creating deadweight loss to the economies of various countries. The appropriate structures designed by government to curb corruption is often determined to appeal to notions of fairness, equity and efficiency. The elasticity by which governments achieve notions of fairness, equity and efficiency depends on the willingness of governments to take the necessary risk incentives. More often, the dearth of willingness to undertake essential risk incentives to combat corruption has disfunctionally ravaged effective policy outcomes in particular on allocative efficiency, distributional equity and macroeconomic stability. Also, various researches postulate the common sense argument that for services to be effectively and efficiently provided, corruption agencies and structures need clear mandate, adequate resources and sufficient flexibility to make decisions. Even with this common sense argument, corruption is still rampant across various institutions of the world which raises, pertinent questions on willingness of governments to take risks to expunge corruption.This paper therefore seeks to outline the risks that should be incorporated and the conditions that need to be met by government in an attempt to launch a programme to combat corruption in the civil service.

The Corona-Virus Pandemic and its Impacts on Human Security in West Africa

Author(s): Chukwueloke Emmanuel Chukwufumnaya,Ejiroghene Augustine Oghuvbu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

The outbreak of the novel corona-virus pandemic across the globe has presented itself as a global crisis which calls for urgent global attention. The viral spread of the virus in different continents remains an overall concern to public health and for human security. This article discusses the impacts of the corona-virus pandemic on human security in West Africa. It argues that the realities from the spread of the virus have created an atmosphere of panic resulting in a pandemonium across West Africa. The study reveals that the spread of corona-virus comes along with new emerging threats to peace and security in West Africa. The paper upholds the 1994 Human Development initiative from the reports of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to discuss essential dimensions to human security in West Africa. Through the use of secondary data, the paper argues that the impacts of COVID-19 tramples upon various dimensions of human security across West Africa states ranging from economic, health, political, community, environmental, and food security. The studies envisage that public health issues should be included on the top agenda of international organizations like the UN Security Council, Africa Union, and ECOWAS respectively. It concludes that the impacts of the pandemic will recalibrate the socio-political and economic structure of states within the sub-region. The study recommends that greater supports from states within the region and other regional institutions alike will help a great deal in the fight towards eliminating the virus from the region.

Professionalised 'civil society' vs. grassroots 'uncivil society'? The 'Little Czech' 20 years later

Author(s): Ondřej Slačálek,Eva Svobodová / Language(s): English Issue: Spec 5/2017

The article is an analysis of the five most distinctive public mobilisations in the Czech Republic in the past 20 years. The analysis builds on two key debates regarding post-communist civil society (civil vs. uncivil society and transactional vs. participatory activism) and also on an analysis of Czech nationalism by the anthropologist Ladislav Holý. In the empirical part, it looks at the image of the nation and civil society in the cases of the movement against the opposition agreement (Thank You, Now Go, and Czech Television – A Public Affair), the movement against the American radar base, the anti-austerity protest movement, the anti-Roma protests and the islamophobic movement. The self-conception of the movements is complemented by an analysis of the images of them that were held by their opponents. The article points to the vague and indefinite nature of Czech national identity, and the fact that in the past two decades, it has been markedly connected with the image of the West and a relatively low significance of class. It also shows that “NGO-ised” transactional activism has become the subject of hostile rhetoric which may rely on the legitimacy deficit that this type of activism has. However, it concludes that to a certain extent, it shares this type of deficit with another type of civic activism; in the case of participatory activism, it identifies a dilemma between the polarisation of society and political ineffectiveness.

Friend or foe? Foreign donors’ role in the formation of civil society in Ukraine

Author(s): Maryna Shevtsova / Language(s): English Issue: Spec 5/2017

For a long time, civil society in independent Ukraine lacked visibility and seemed passive and underdeveloped. Yet lately foreign observers have defined civil society in Ukraine as the richest in the former Soviet Union in terms of the number and variety of organizations. In the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity, as the state institutions are unable to perform their basic functions, civil society organizations (CSOs) have been compelled to take over some of their duties, getting involved into multiple spheres of public life, such as volunteering in the army, crowd-funding for internally displaced people and military needs. They are particularly strong in advocacy for reforms and acting as watchdogs of institutional change. However, while having proven its resilience in crisis, civil society in Ukraine still shows low sustainability and a high level of dependency on foreign donors. Having acknowledged the positive role of foreign donors in the development of national civil society, the present article goes beyond this one-sided evaluation and answers the following questions: How do foreign donors influence Ukrainian CSOs working with civic participation and human rights advocacy? What are the main obstacles the CSOs face on the way to full independence and sustainability in post-Euromaidan Ukraine in the years 2014–2017? Drawing on the empirical data collected through the analysis of major national media sources and social media, participant observation, and interviews with civil society actors, policy-makers and foreign donors’ representatives, this article argues that the role of foreign donors may be more complex than the way it used to be portrayed, as it should be assessed in the context of domestic social and political dynamics. The failure to do so may lead to unintended consequences and render previous achievements null.

Patterns of civic participation among politically active students in Hungary

Author(s): Dániel Oross,Dániel Róna,Andrea Szabó / Language(s): English Issue: Spec 5/2017

The article aims to describe common characteristics of politically active college and university students in Hungary and to give an insight into their divergent values, ideologies and motivations. First, we identify their participation in different forms of political action. Then we use a 'phenomenological', intrinsic approach that is able to understand the “voice” of young people based on the suggestions of former research that young people`s political communities influence their willingness to participate. We found that direct forms of participation are the key to understanding the political participation of the university students and we conclude that their political way of thinking and their consequent political action may be determined by three political communities in the long term.

Quantity vs Quality Сitizens and anti-citizens in the Bulgarian protests of 2013

Author(s): Jana Tsoneva / Language(s): English Issue: Spec 5/2017

Protests are often waged against governments but can end up fighting the constituencies that rush to the defence of embattled governments. The enmity between the protest and the authorities thus bifurcates into an antagonism not only against the government, but also against another protest. This paper focuses on instances of such triangulation of social antagonism, and the effect they have on the discursive constitution of civic identities. More specifically, it traces the delineation of the boundaries of legitimate belonging to civil society and the community of citizens during anti-governmental and so-called counter-protests (or pro-government protests) in Bulgaria in the summer of 2013. Those boundaries were drawn along class, aesthetic, epistemic and ethnic lines. I treat “civil society” as a contested terrain of competing discourses and show how protesters refocus it – contra Hegel's understanding of civil society as a “system of needs” – into the cultured domain of the greatest distance from material necessity and need. According to the protesters, what made 2013 stand out in the history of protests after 1989 is that people rallied behind immaterial things such as “European values”. However, this strong anti-materialist view does not make the protesters independent from the materiality of class. Rather, one of the main points of these protest discourses was that the protests are the expression of the “new middle class”, embodying civil society, and this was articulated with ruminations on what makes one an authentic citizen. This self-designated “new middle class” which spoke on behalf of civil society came to imagine itself as the legitimate arbiter of what constitutes the public interest and belongs to the community of citizens, and denied the claims of other “interest groups” to be able to define the common interest. In this paper, I consider the protests and counter-protests as a class conflict unfolding on the terrains of civil society and citizenship, a conflict mediated by new articulations of (middle) class and civic consciousness. I draw on Ernesto Laclau's theory of populism which thematizes the antagonistic constitution of identities. I supplement it with a term of my own – the anti-citizen – against which a vision of the model citizen was discursively articulated by the protesters. The anti-citizen captures the ambivalent position of people who are formally citizens, yet symbolically excluded by the (self-appointed) legitimate representatives of civil society due to their alleged lack of knowledge and misguided political positions.

Protection de l’enfance et enfants prives de famille en Algerie

Author(s): ABLA ROUAG-DJENIDI / Language(s): French Issue: 17/2021

The establishment of an efficace child protection system requires social policies to mobilize the resources of the populations to make them agents of change of their own situation. Social work is the most important part of all protection systems. It constitutes the responses provided in terms of services, programs and human resources that would help to atenuate risk situations, vulnerability factors and their negative impact on children and their families. The aim of this study, using documents devoted to the responses provided to childhood deprived of family in Algeria, is to summarize the mechanisms and child protection devices, the efficacy of these responses, the main difficulties encountered, and propositions concerning social work.

THE PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL SOLIDARITY IN EUROPEAN UNION NORMS AND ROMANIAN LAW

Author(s): Roxana Radu,Cezar Avram / Language(s): English Issue: XI/2010

Solidarity itself is a guiding principle for social policy. This documentconsists of reviewing the legal framework of a theory of solidarity. The theory ofsolidarity is the theoretical basis of the principle of social solidarity, which appliesnational law, European law and international law. The results of investigation ofthe concept of solidarity will be compared to the legal concepts at two levels:national law and European law. An explanation and analysis of the meaning ofthe concept of solidarity is essential in the current European debate and theglobal economic crisis. It is suggested that attempts to promote growth andeconomic prosperity of every member of society can only be for the universalgood.

Editorial

Author(s): NRHR NRDO / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 4/2021

Konvivialita a konvivialismus

Author(s): Jiří Silný / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2022

The article serves to clarify the origin and meaning of the terms conviviality and convivialism and highlights the various layers of social reality that are related to the two terms. The main part of the text addresses the concept of conviviality, as used by Ivan Illich, and the updating thereof by the circle of authors and supporters of the first (2013) and the second (2020) convivialist manifesto, which seeks to set out the ideology of convivialism. Convivialism seeks to formulate the common humanistic foundations of modern emancipatory currents and spiritual traditions. The connection between conviviality and the concept of nongrowth is also addressed.

SEARCHING FOR OPPORTUNITIES FOR MORE ACTIVE CIVIL PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES

Author(s): Algirdas Astrauskas,Kristina Čelkė,Andrius Stasiukynas,Kęstutis Vilkauskas / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

The purpose of this article is to introduce two items:1) the Civil participation Tool developed by the Council of Europe’s Centre of Expertise for Good Governance, for the purposes of selecting, evaluating and classifying civil actors into groups and selecting the most appropriate forms of participation in decision-making processes as well as providing accurate information for classified stakeholders and develop the most appropriate strategies to activate the processes of participation for different stakeholders, based on the assessment of their potential to engage, and to enhance the level of participation; 2) the results of educational pilot projects implemented in Lithuania in 2020. The results of the educational pilot projects confirmed the scientific hypothesis raised by the authors of this article that more active civil participation in decision-making processes can be expected while recognizing the objective differences of the local stakeholders and according to that, provide different forms of information, as well as different strategies for improving their skills and increasing their engagement in participating in decision-making processes.

Particulars of Modern Slavery as a Deviant Social Phenomenon

Author(s): Željko Bjelajac,Miloš Marković,Zoran Pavlović / Language(s): English Issue: 1146/2012

Trafficking in human beings is a global phenomenon that adversely affects the countries in the political and economic transition or in the post-conflict stress. This phenomenon is also present in the economically developed countries. It is not an individual phenomenon that poses a threat to a limited number of persons. It rather has deep social and economic implications, because it thrives on globalisation and introduction of high-end technologies. Human trafficking affects almost all: women, men, girls, and boys. It affects every continent and all regions of the world where it is becoming a growing trend. The forms of exploitation that generates huge profit differ, yet all of them imply forced exploitation, abuse of human beings, and violation of human rights. In view of the fact that the data relating to this phenomenon are alarming, combating trafficking, along with combating terrorism and drug trafficking, has become a priority of governments and international officials worldwide.

New Challenges of the Regional Police Cooperation Within MARRI Initiative

Author(s): Sergej Uljanov,Dragan Đukanović,Mina Zirojević Fatić / Language(s): English Issue: 1147/2012

Due to the fact of perspective European integrative process of Western Balkans the authors focus their attention to the importance of Migration, Asylum, Refugees Regional Initiative (MARRI) as the specific form of the regional police cooperation. New challenges of the MARRI initiative are considered combating illegal migrations, harmonization of the national legislative frameworks regarding the EU asylum policy and the solving of the problem on refugees and displaced persons in the region of Western Balkans. The crucial support for the MARRI initiative is to be provided by the international organizations as: UNHCR, IOM, INTERPOL, OSCE, EUROPOL, FRONTEX and SELEC, as well the support from the MARRI Member States is tremendous and crucial for the initiative and for its ownership; it must be mentioned. Western Balkans countries are to implement bilateral agreements in the fields of legal and illegal migrations, asylum and refugees’ status being challenged by the phenomena of people smuggling, trafficking in human beings, drug and weapon smuggling, travel documents forging and the other forms of transborder crime. Speeding up of the EU accession process of Western Balkans states will enable overpowering of the MARRI’s challenges by finding out adequate ways of enhancing regional police cooperation.

Prevention of Women Trafficking

Author(s): Mileta M. Tomić / Language(s): English Issue: 1147/2012

The purpose of this article is to review the prevention of women trafficking since there is no way to have complete prevention but only to alleviate it to certain extent. It can be done thanks to network planning i.e. prevention measures undertaken by various organizations such as the police, the State Prosecution and Courts, NGOs (“Safe home”, “Temporary house”), International Organization for Migrations (reintegration of women and children and repatriation), Social welfare services, counselling and educational workshops. In addition to above mentioned the role of media should be emphasized as well because cooperation with media on this sensitive issue is very important.