Contemporary states are undergoing a process of rapid transformation that encumbers their functioning & sustains their state of crisis. Their external sovereignty is undoubtedly on the wane, in relation to both global economic actors & transnational & supranational political structures. Internally, the hierarchical functioning of government has been called into question. Although the state's share in the social product is constantly increasing, so are the demands for the state's support & regulation in various areas, resulting in a permanent fiscal crisis of the state. The author claims that the contemporary metamorphoses of the state & the prospects for its development can be understood solely by analyzing the changes in contemporary society. The industrial society, even the "service society" (Dahrendorf), is being transformed into an information & communication society, in which the key processes are the production & distribution of knowledge, while the central power resources are mechanisms of the monopolization of knowledge. The information & communication media play the central role in social & political processes. The new increase of social inequality has intensified the tendency of social desolidarization. The new level of social dynamics, mobility, complexity, & contingency requires a new type of state. The author calls it the "cooperative state" -- the state that provides for the production of essential collective goods in the cooperative process of negotiation & bargaining, in which a plethora of social actors take part. 25 References. Adapted from the source document.
Mass media produce various communicational products in the form of messages coded in the symbolic language of writing, sound or image, which they distribute through the open public space for unknown users. Unlike the traditional theories, which directed their attention above all to the social effects of media products, the systemic theory inquires into the very process of their production, deeming that precisely the latter is the real reality of mass media: the factual operations which are performed systemically, through application of the binary code of information/non-information, and according to the internal rules of its structure. The real reality, however, is inaccessible to the observer. Consequently, he can gain knowledge of it only in such a way as to construct from the forms in which it appears to him an observed reality as his own perception thereof. The systemic theory suggests that its construction of mass media reality is most congruous with their real reality. Keeping in mind that each observer performs his construction of reality of the thing observed in accordance with his own knowledge and understanding, the author asks himself: where is the evidence of the trustworthiness of such constructions? Adapted from the source document.
The unstoppable advance of technology has brought about major changes at the socio-economic level that affect, among other things, the developments & the changes in the media industry. Technological advances have enabled the emergence of a new multimedia environment that has wiped out the traditional boundaries between telecommunications, audiovisual industry & informatics. These advances have been most propitious for the media pluralism & diversity. Due to the interactivity they enable, the individual is no longer a passive user of the media content. Owing to the accelerated process of the production of contents & services, the media market has become strikingly competitive, & the increasing selection of specialized contents has fragmented audiences, causing a drop in the revenues from advertising. These changes have left their mark both on the commercial media & the public service whose choice of programs has conspicuously changed, while the drop in the size of audiences brings into doubt the legitimacy of the compulsory subscription fee & consequently the financial health ie., survival of this public service. The public broadcasting service is faced with a more pronounced identity crisis. Its future can be secured only if it is redefined or restructured & if a new, convergent, multimedia, interactive public service enables citizens to access a broad range of information, knowledge & entertainment. References. Adapted from the source document.
The paper reports partial findings of a research project into Croatian ethnonationalism (Croatian: narodnjastvo) as a religion (in the sense of a human invention of the sacred). The practical problems are as follows: ethnonationalism as a religion, which implies inter alia that an ethnic community (Croatian: narod) has the potential and/or capability to develop into, and ought to become, the substratum of a (nation-)state; consequences of ethnonationalism, which include the unattainability of ethnic democracy, ethnic economy and ethnic maturity; conditions of Croatian ethnonationalism, primarily the Catholic Church as a condition in 1961-71, and also before and after the period, especially since 1990. Theoretical problems, i.e. inadequacies in scholarly knowledge of the practical problems, include the following: firstly, Croatian Constitutional Court jurisprudence on ethnic and religious communities; secondly, systematic history of law and state in Croatia and Yugoslavia 1945-90; thirdly, transformation of both communism and catholicism into ethnonationalism; fourthly and fifthly, social structure and representation/agency. To attain the general goal of the research project, which is the use of reason in public affairs, the research is carried out within the theoretical and methodological framework of an integral theory of law and state which includes a modified Lasswell and McDougal's policy analysis expanded by historical institutionalism and critical theory. The subject-matter are the following features of Catholicism as an institutionalized religion, especially in Croatia 1961-71: (1) law, i.e. (1.1) sources of law; (1.2) internal law (organs, members, means); (1.3) external law (relations with the state and non-Catholics); (2) the Church and economy; (3) the Church and nation; (4) Catholicism on theory and practice. The hypotheses (which are ideal-types and as such cannot be either verified or falsified conclusively) are that ethnonationalism in Croatia is a consequence of, inter alia, the following beliefs maintained by the Catholic Church in Croatia in the 1960s and to a significant degree later on: 1. the only acceptable relationship between the Church and the state is the partnership of two legally equal public orders over the same subjects within which the Church has the exclusive power to regulate matrimonial and other family relations, and the power to control education in public schools; 2. peasant family is the basic organic human community; 3. the subjects to the ecclesiastical -- originally feudal -- power tied in fact to land make the ethnic community (Croatian: narod), which is united with the clergy into the Christian community (Croatian: krscanski narod); 4. since fundamental truths are accessible by theology only, and practice is an application of theory, practical knowledge, especially on the appropriate relationship between the Church and the state, is valid only if in accord with Church teaching. The evidence presented in the paper supports to a significant degree the hypotheses. The research findings contribute to the solution of all the theoretical problems, providing major contributions to the second and the third: the most probable reason why the Catholic Church in Croatia was rather silent in the Yugoslav and Croatian Spring 1961-71 and quite vocal since the 1990 is the Croatian Church's allegiance in matters of Church and state more to the First than to the Second Vatican council (which abandoned the Church's "divine" right to be co-sovereign with the state, exposing the "right" as a human invention of the sacred); the Church's ethnonationalism, which facilitates the political partnership of the Church and the state and ensures the dominant position of the clergy within the Church, has coincided with the interest of Yugoslav communists to retain their might and power by a metamorphosis, with the Church's assistance honoured by a concordat, into Croatian ethnonationalists, who, as newly born capitalists, have appropriated the greater part of the former socialist property and continue appropriating the greater part of present public goods. Adapted from the source document.
