Around the bloc: Criminals Face Albanian Politics Ban
Elected and appointed officials could be barred from public service for 10 years or more.
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Elected and appointed officials could be barred from public service for 10 years or more.
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U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating reports that government-backed hackers may have penetrated Democratic Party servers.
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The armed group that took over a Yerevan police station has surrendered.
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The auxiliary units of Gdansk have become a permanent element of its structure. On the basis of the adopted legal measures, local authorities are not obliged to establish auxiliary units (but in Gdynia it is obligatory to appoint auxiliary units), but it follows from the grassroots activities of citizens. The mechanism of forming auxiliary units has become a means of inhabitants participating in municipal life. The unique functioning of the Gdańsk auxiliary units relies on their ongoing transformation, caused by multiple amendments of local laws. The above is a result of searching for the best solutions. Above all, multiple actions undertaken by the local government are focused on the stabilisation, as well as improvement of the functioning of auxiliary units.
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This paper seeks to present the changes in Poland’s territorial division and assess it at the local level (communes). The reference point is provided by the territorial reforms of other EU states, especially those with a three-tier structure, like in Poland. The basic thesis is that the territorial organization of public administration should change so as to keep up with political, economic, social and spatial processes, the latter bearing special importance for this. The paper concludes with recommendations for ways of changing local administrative structures, such as combining, or fusions of urban and rural communes.
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Since 2002, town mayors in Poland have been elected in direct elections every four years. In thirty towns with county rights the same persons were elected in the years 2002–2010. They are named ‘everlasting mayors’ (multi-term mayors, incumbents). In the 2014 local elections three of them resigned from the campaign for re-election, ten ‘everlasting mayors’ lost the elections and seventeen of them won the elections once again. Their successes provide the starting point for determining the position of political parties and nonpartisan committees on local political scenes. The assumption is made that the political position of parties is powerful if the ‘everlasting mayor’ is effective in trying to gain re-election while formally representing this party on the local political scene. And conversely – parties have a weaker political position on the local political scene when the incumbent prefers to lead a nonpartisan election committee in the rivalry for re-election (an electoral committee of voters, or an electoral com- mittee of a nongovernmental local organization). The nal conclusion of the analysis is the following: in the 2014 local elections in Poland most of the ‘multi-term mayors’ were re-elected as representatives of nonpartisan committees. Only in two cities (Gdańsk, Świnoujście) were mayors’ seats won by party political incumbents.
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The article outlines the politics of memory towards the Soviet past in Ukraine in 1991–2015 and shows the origins of presentday ideological debates, political decisions and historiographic controversies. Two competing historical narratives – nationalistic and late (neo)Soviet - co-exist in popular perceptions and state politics of history in Ukraine. Both of them are eagerly instrumentalized by politicians throughout the post-Soviet period of one of the most diverse, pluralistic and ambivalent countries in Eastern Europe. The Euromaidan, the Russian annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbass region actualized the problems in the attitude towards the complex Soviet past of Ukraine. The victimhood narrative, the removal of Lenin statues, the adoption of the so called ‘decommunisation’ laws and the prohibition of the Communist Party in Ukraine posed numerous questions about the limits of state’s interference into memory and history issues, the correlation between anti-Soviet and anti-Russian political claims, and the future of the regional diversity of Ukraine. The author argues that Ukraine’s diversity does not imply its underdevelopment or a hopeless division into ‘Russian’ and ‘Ukrainian’ parts. He shows also that the ‘Soviet’ label serves as the foremost ‘Other’ in the post-Maidan mainstream political discourse.
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This article concentrates on the phenomenon of Russophilia in Greece and situates it within the context of national populism. Numerous political analysts and journalists have not examined Russophilia in Greece as a component of a national populism which cuts across the traditional ‘left-right’ spectrum. This research is very topical at a time when Russia is emerging as a competitor to the EU and the Kremlin is searching for political allies throughout Central and Southeast Europe. This study demonstrates that the foundations of public Russophilia in Greece are feebler than many external commentators tend to estimate. A rather ahistorical and almost ‘Messianic’ notion of Russophilia interweaves with national populism in the light of the dispute with the EU and Germany over the management of the economic crisis.
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The paper explains the motivations behind radical Islamism and the recruitment to engage in jihadist terrorism. More precisely, it outlines the common patterns which define the process of Islamic radicalization in western European societies. The paper argues that Islamic radicalization must be understood as an individual phenomenon and not a problem affl icting Muslim communities more systemically. Moreover, the phenomenon is distinctly youthful in form. In sum, the paper demonstrates that radicalization is a youth revolt against society articulated on an Islamic religious narrative of jihad. It is not the uprising of a Muslim community victim of poverty and racism: only young people join, including converts who did not share the ‘sufferings’ of Muslims in Europe. These rebels without a cause fi nd in jihad a ‘noble’ and global cause, and are consequently instrumentalized by a radical organization (Al Qaeda, ISIS) that has a strategic agenda. The paper concludes by outlining a general strategy to counter radicalization and the recruitment for jihadi terrorism. The priority, beyond building a more sophisticated intelligence system, is to debunk the narrative of heroism, to break the ‘success story’ of ISIS as being invincible (including on the ground) and to let Islam in Europe appear as a ‘normal’ religion. The aim is to accentuate the estrangement of radicals from the Muslim population and to dry up the narrative of Islam as the religion of the oppressed.
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This article explores the role of students as actors during protests in Ukraine. It focuses primarily on the 2013-2014 Euromaidan revolution, but uses a broader historical context and comparison with the so-called Revolution on Granite in 1990 and the Orange Revolution in 2004. While it demonstrates that students were on the forefront of all three major upheavals, the article underlines the key differences between the three ‘revolutions’. The Euromaidan protests and the ensuing Revolution of Dignity are chronicled and subsequently analysed from the point of view of students’ actions. The article examines why students were not able to leave their mark, even though they had in fact spearheaded the protests. It points to the absence of a clear set of demands, the ambiguous role played by new social media, and the lack of organizational structures within the student movement. More so, the article concludes that though there were certainly similarities between Euromaidan and the other protest movements in the so-called global protest wave since 2008, it was foremost the experience of previous maidans that framed the protests in Ukraine.
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This article aims to analyze the Bulgarian student occupations in 2013 in terms of two different rationalities - instrumental rationality and value rationality - which were referred to respectively by the opponents and the supporters of the protests in order to justify their account of them. The analysis elaborates a typology of the anti-protest rhetoric, distinguishing three main types: the fi rst insisted on the opposition between ‘moral’ and ‘social’, and criticized the protests as being based on an ‘abstract’ and ‘hazy’ moralism; the second treated the protests as a direct or indirect expression of private interests; the third claimed the protests were just a means to a particular end, be it that of the oligarchy or of the protesters themselves. The final part of the article argues against these instrumentalist approaches to the protests of Bulgarian students and introduces another perspective, suggested by Albert Hirschman in his analysis of the meaning of collective public action. According to Hirschman, public action should not be evaluated on the basis of its immediate results, because its value consists in the very act of protesting which educates and constitutes citizens as a critical civic community.
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This article examines the uprisings since 2011 through a global lens. It focuses on a form that has become common to all: the continuous occupation of public space. Beginning in 2011, people from all walks of life came to the central squares of the world’s cities and formed various semi-permanent sites of protest. The article assesses the historical lineage and signifi cance of these public occupations and discusses their impact for our understandings of revolution, democracy, and their interrelation. What happened during these uprisings, how the people who were present took part in them, offers a radically different version of democracy, in theory and practice, from the liberal representative one that has become hegemonic today. This article will underscore how this alternate vision of a democratic society is intimately tied to a new form of contentious politics, one predicated on occupation and arrest rather than movement and dispersal. To do so, it highlights how these prisings have called into question two assumptions common to the liberal understanding of contemporary politics: the association between democracy and representative government; and the association betweensocial struggle and the category of movement. In this context, the article challenges the continued use of the term social movement to defi ne contentious political struggle in the 21st century and makes the case for a theory and practice of social arrest. It argues that a politics of social arrest has come to defi ne the global occupations of public space since 2011, a politics that has turned these spaces into immanent sites of democratic self-institution.
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This article concentrates on the phenomenon of Russophilia in Greece and situates it within the context of national populism. Numerous political analysts and journalists have not examined Russophilia in Greece as a component of a national populism which cuts across the traditional ‘left-right’ spectrum. This research is very topical at a time when Russia is emerging as a competitor to the EU and the Kremlin is searching for political allies throughout Central and Southeast Europe. This study demonstrates that the foundations of public russophilia in Greece are feebler than many external commentators tend to estimate. A rather ahistorical and almost ‘Messianic’ notion of Russophilia interweaves with national populism in the light of the dispute with the EU and Germany over the management of the economic crisis.
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The security and political context of Uganda’s 2016 general elections suggest that in his fifth term in office, President Yoweri Museveni will most likely face higher levels of civil unrest, political violence, and security volatility. Is Museveni’s Uganda, once given as an example of stability, drifting into a regime crisis that will inevitably lead to a political breakdown? Drawing upon the concept of ‘competitive authoritarianism’ developedby Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, this paper assesses the sources of durability of Museveni’s regime at the beginning of his fourth decade in power. By explaining the coercive (material) and ‘soft’ (non-material) sources of Museveni’s governance, it seeks to contribute to the current discussions about Uganda’s political future.
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The adoption of a zoning plan or any change to it may result in an increase or a decrease in the value of real estate. In the case of increased property values, the Law on Spatial Planning and Development provides for a possibility for zoning fees to be determined by municipalities. The research thesis of the article is the statement that planning fees are not fully enforced due to property owners appealing against the decisions on establishing the fees. This paper aims to analyse the scope of the adopted local zoning plans in Cracow as well as zoning fees, charged relative to the increase in real estate value.
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Russian interest in Bosnia and Herzegovina is equally direct and indirect. It is direct to the extent to which the Russian Federation is today a strong east-Slav-Orthodox question, and is indirect to the extent that concerns the interests of Serbia in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are allied relations between the Russian Federation and Serbia, which include mutual protection, meaning even the political and diplomatic one. For Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina is the main political goal today.There are two key reasons for Russia’s current strong diplomatic position in the world. First,it is directly militarily engaged in the global war against terrorism. Second, it possesses vast natural resources, natural fuels, oil and gas. NATO had bombed Serbia before the war against terrorism. Then the RF was on the opposite side to the West. This text presents more than twenty undisputable facts of RF policies that hinder the process of integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its joining the Atlantic and European integrations.
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A former refugee from Iraq, now running refugee services in the U.S., offers his recommendations for improving the anti-migrant climate in the Czech Republic.
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Political competition is defined as the level of control held by individual political parties as captured by the measures of effective number of parties, number of parliamentary parties etc. This article investigates the effect of political competition on the rate of government expenditure growth using competing theories and panel data from 21 OECD countries. In the existence of political competition, neo-classical theories predict a relatively lower rate of growth, while public choice theories suggest an excessive rate. The empirical results presented here are more supportive of neoclassical predictions. The results also show that competition does constrain government growth even after controlling for ideology. Furthermore, the results show that competition has a greater constraining impact on government growth when there is a change in the ruling party or coalition.
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We analyse the variability of the costs of the construction of motorways in Europe. Attention is paid to the formation of the cost of motorway sections run in mountainous areas and in tunnels. A method for calculations is proposed and the costs of building roads with tunnels in Slovenia and in Poland are compared. The paper presents the developed authorial cost estimate for the excavation of the tunnel in the stretch of the expressway S7 Naprawa - Skomielna Biała and examines the value of individual works presented by the 6 bidders who participated in a restricted tender. Conclusions are focused on the assessment of the cost level of road construction in Poland in the context of the expenditures incurred in the European countries.
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Dayton Accords is the peace agreement reached on Nov. 21, 1995, i.e twenty years ago. During this period many scientific meetings were held in the world, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina too. The abstract of all these meetings could be the question if this international agreement’s good or not, whether it should be changed or upgraded, or neither of these things should be done. Without any doubts, Dayton Accords was historical moment not only for B&H, but also for its people and nations, because this agreement’s result was peace. Nevertheless, we didn’t get fair peace which meant equality of all its citizens and nations. It is all proved by the solution – one country, two entities, and three constitutional but not sovereign nations. Dissolution of B&H into two entities and disintegration of constitutional structure and agreement of two parties (Bosniaks and representatives of Yugoslav Federation) harming by this third party (Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina), brought the constant crisis of Bosnian and Herzegovinian society. This work brings few examples of violation of agreed obligations or secretly changed solutions by legislative power of B&H. All changes have been made mostly by harming Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Experience has shown that all these changes damaged overall state of Bosnian and Herzegovinian society, and they didn’t bring prosperity for this country. Dayton Peace Agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to experience return to authenticity and necessary changes in order to create more equitable, more functional and cheaper union of three constitutional nations and its citizens.
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