Suchergebnisse

Dr. V.Mazyrin makes the first attempt in national oriental studies to analyze the fundamental civil freedoms' variability in Vietnam with the aim to reveal core changes in domestic political system during 2004-2005. This scholarship is based on huge historical background and reliable sources of information, i.e. variors western researches, international non-government organizations (NGOs), Vietnamese officials and mass media. Summing up his review, the author concludes, that core civil freedoms in Vietnam are still very limited, while the state keeps its authoritative nature in many respects. At the same time there are signs of gradual progress in this domain: Vietnam countries its transition towards liberal parliamentary republic with mono party system. The deepening of market reforms has created preconditions for the emergence of human rights, simultaneously having strengthened social and national inequality. It is argued, that Vietnamese population, being satisfied primarily with economic freedom, bears such political regime quietly due to the lack of democratic mentality and legal consciousness. The country's leadership successfully governs society, ignoring the ideas of personal freedom and democracy, basing state management on paternalist traditions and norms of rural community.

On July 1, 2005, following Chancellor Schroeder's request, the German Parliament held on a vote of confidence for the Chancellor. As expected, less than a majority of the Parliament voted for the vote of confidence, & on July 21, 2005, Chancellor Schroeder dissolved the Parliament & set new elections for September 18, 2005. The Constitutional Court has in its recent decisions (August 23, 2005 & August 25, 2005) advised against requests by members of Parliament or political parties to dissolve the Parliament & set new elections. According to the author of this article, these decisions give reason to rethink the problem of dissolution. Each time the Parliament has been dissolved -- in 1972, 1983, & 2005 -- the vote of confidence was expected to fail in order to usher in re-elections. The article describes: 1) the principal admissibility to use a vote of confidence for Parliamentary dissolution; 2) the apparent paradox of the vote of confidence; 3) the Constitutional Court's decisions concerning the vote of confidence; 4) the constitutional controls; & 5) the effects of early elections on "small parties.". References. A. Kallioinen

On 5 December 2004 the citizens of Hungary were called to decide through referendum on two issues: (1) that the health system remained under full state control, and (2) that ethnic Hungarians living in the neighboring countries were granted citizenship preferentially. Sixty-five percent of the Hungarians who went to vote gave a favorable answer to the first question, and a little more than 51% gave a yes answer to the second question. Despite this, however, the referendum failed because of the low voter turnout of only 37.49% of the electorate. According to Hungarian law, for a referendum result to be valid it is required that at least 25% of the electorate endorses it. In this referendum a little less than 19% of all franchised citizens voted for granting double citizenship to ethnic Hungarians living in the neighboring countries.

In this reprint of a chapter from Giovanna Bono's book The Impact of 11 September 2001 & the "War on Terror" on European Foreign & Security Policy (2006), the author challenges the assumption that the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) is emerging as a legal norm in international relations, but rather the debate is fraught with misunderstandings & hidden agendas. Demonstration that the principle is barely a political commitment assesses the International Commission on Intervention & State Sovereignty (ICISS) & the UN World Summit of September 2005 to identify a lack of political commitment & will, & that no consensus has been achieved on fully legal grounds. Analysis of the position of the EU toward R2P supports the argument that the normative identity of EU security & defense policy better equips the EU to implement R2P, although the EU has never pledged support for a unilateral right to intervene. The partial success of the R2P is concluded to be related to the UN members hold on the sovereignty principles, the ideological changes occurring at the international stage, & the overlooking by academics of the role of power. References. J. Harwell

For most EU members, Old Europe died as a consequence of processes linked to French–German reconciliation, détente with the Warsaw Pact states, the decline of ultranationalism, and the onset of nuclear disarmament. They have embraced a concept of peace implying much more than "the absence of war." The United States still has much to learn about peace, as illustrated by women‐driven policies in both the European Union and Germany. Adopted at the UN Beijing Conference as well as by the EU in 1995, gender mainstreaming is reshaping "sustainable peace" policies at the supranational and national levels. The author profiles German efforts to operationalize "Beijing norms" under a Red‐Green coalition, driven by a critical mass of female ministers between 1998 and 2002; the activities of Heidi Wieczorek Zeul (Development and Economic Assistance) reveal that the application of gender mainstreaming, officially adopted by the European Union in 1995, creates new opportunities for advancing equality policies at the national level in heretofore impervious domains, for example, in relation to foreign policies, economic development, and immigration policies.

In this article in the special edition on Masculinities After Yugoslavia, the author investigates the question of the gendered nature of men's motivations for participating in war to argue that ethnicization of the public sphere in Serbia attempted to redefine the gender roles by the patriarchal, pre-socialist past. Application of ethnographic methodology to war participation using a snowball sample & interviews is analyzed in terms of the links between nationhood & gender. A historical discussion of Serbian society traces the gender reforms to patrilocal & patrilineal gender relations from traditional society through the 1990's. Examination of data on gender-related practices & discourse indicates male war participation was the ultimate test of manhood, & was proven at the cost of the family. Being a Serbian man in the time of war is concluded to be part of the processes of masculinization & ethnicization. This finding supports the feminist theorization on ethnicization of the public sphere of a revived normative masculinity that impacted women by restricting & subordinating their needs to the needs of the nation, placing women as symbols rather than political actors. Tables, References. J. Harwell

Among the most pressing tasks confronting leaders of the Central Asian states is the reconciliation of their desire to expedite legitimation of rule by reifying titular cultural paradigms with the need to construct inclusive civic modes of national self-conception. Kazakhstan is perhaps the best example from the region wherein the construction of a multicultural, inclusive homeland concept is essential to the future of the state. The poignancy of Kazakhstan's situation relates to the fact that its population consists of nearly equal numbers of titular and non-titular peoples, often living compactly in different regions of the state. Large-scale migration of predominately European ethnic minorities from Kazakhstan's territory since the late Soviet period has coupled with high birth rates among ethnic Kazakhs and the "return migration" of diasporic Kazakhs to elevate the titular community to a 53.4% majority (from 40.1 in 1989).

In this Top Twenty Commentaries section of the Centennial Issues of the journal, the Arthur Miller reviews his highly cited article Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964 - 1970(1974). The study of citizen trust in government in the article is asserted to address both the role of trust in democratic theory as a scholarly inquiry, & also speaks to the political concerns of the broader public as well. The value of the original hypothesis that traces the relationship of discontent accumulated across a set of authorities, distrust of the government institutions & regime would increase is exemplified in the fact that the theory has remained the focus of much subsequent work. The author narrates his career focus on political alienation through his years at University of Michigan throughout the 1960's & 70's. The article is concluded to have made a contribution to political science as an addition to conceptual, empirical, & normative theory building regarding the relationship between citizens & government, & presented the first evidence of a long-term trend of growing political distrust among US citizens. References. J. Harwell