Suchergebnisse

In a relatively short period of time, Romanian political science has made considerable progress, moving from virtual obscurity to unchallenged local prominence. This article examines the efforts to date to institutionalize political science as a separate teaching and research discipline by presenting recently established political science university-level programs, the major groups of authors carrying out research on political phenomena and the recurrent themes emerging from relevant literature. Though the present article is concerned mainly with current developments, occasional references to the political science's position during the communist period are also made. (European Journal of Political Research / FUB)

Political science is two realms, the intellectual and the organizational, and the task is to consider how the organizational realm might be adapted to the highest improvement of the intellectual realm. Political science has a certain competence (domain) in the study of politics as the organization of power. It also seeks to expand competence as capability. Charles Merriam provides a point of departure. Merriam's most successful idea has been that of enhancing competence through improvements in "the field of method". Competence, however, now demands methodological flexibility, so as to probe more into the exercise of power. Four fields are strategic: public administration, political interests, urbanization, and the interpenetration of politics and economics. Competence also leads into unorthodox subjects, such as force and foolish, irrational and pathological decision making (or "the Oxenstierna-Mullins Effect"). Finally, competence demands (and is enhanced by) the reach of political science into serious practical problems of human affairs. (American Political Science Review / FUB)

Recent Western literature concerning the political determinants of economic and social outcomes has primarily concentrated on regime types and the effectiveness of state institutions. While this literature has been influential among scholars of and in the Middle East and North Africa, there has also been an emphasis in the region on the interests and networks of economic and political elites—the interactions between rulers, elites, and the broader citizenry—to explain divergent policy outcomes. This is largely due to the inability of dominant mainstream institutional and structural theories to explain much of what has been observed in the region, viewing it as exceptional in its authoritarianism and resistance to global trends. In fact, the seeds for a more sophisticated understanding can be found in the literature on the Arab world that emphasizes relational dynamics between political and economic actors. Synthesizing the insights of scholars of the region has the potential to contribute more broadly to global debates on how political factors and conditions within states shape the quality of life experienced by their residents. Such a shift to viewing regimes as networks provides a useful framework for bridging the broader trends in political science with the work emanating from scholarship on the Middle East and North Africa.

Despite occasional suggestions to the contrary, the Supreme Court has long since stopped interpreting the Constitution to afford special protection to certain groups on the ground that they are powerless to defend their own interests in the political process. From a series of decisions reviewing laws that burden whites under the same strict scrutiny as laws that burden racial minorities, to the more recent same-sex marriage decision based principally on the fundamental nature of marriage (rather than the political status of gays and lesbians), it is now an uncontroversial observation that when it comes to applying the open-textured provisions of the Constitution, the Court sees no distinction between the powerless and powerful. This Article challenges that conventional wisdom from a perhaps unexpected direction. I argue that the Court has gone further than to merely reject the political process theory of constitutional interpretation, under which powerless discrete and insular minority groups alone would be entitled to heightened judicial solicitude. In several doctrinal areas, the Court has reversed the theory's core prescription by conferring extra constitutional safeguards upon entities that, by any fair accounting, possess an outsized ability to protect their interests through the ordinary democratic process-all while withholding similar protections from less powerful counterparts. After describing these doctrinal developments, this Article offers a critical account of the Court's long and tumultuous relationship with political process theory. I conclude that although opponents of the theory may have been fair to question its ability to restrain judges as a positive principle of constitutional adjudication, political process theory ought to retain force as a negative command. That is to say, even if one believes judges cannot avoid substantive value judgments when deciding which groups are so powerless as to warrant extraordinary protection from the democratic bazaar, attention to the political process ...

Eidintas, A.: A "Jew-Communist" stereotype in Lithuania, 1940-1941. - S. 11-46. Jokubaitis, A.: Stasys Salkauskis and Antanas Maceina as political philosophers. - S. 47-65. Vinogradnaite, I.: The image of political community in Lithuania: the salience of nationality as a criterion of membership. - S. 66-77. Degutis, M.: How Lithuanian voters decide: reasons behind the party choice. - S. 81-123. Clark, T.; Prekevicius, N.: The effect of changes to the electoral law in premier-presidential systems: the Lithuanian case. - S. 124-137. Novagrockiene, J.: Elections to the Seimas 2000. Party system evolution or its transformation? - S. 138-150. Lukosaitis, A.: The context of parliamentary elections 2000. The experience and perspectives of coalition politics in Lithuania. - S. 151-176. Nakrosis, V.: Evolution of the administrative accountability system in Lithuania. - S. 179-194. Lopata, R.; Laurinavicius, C.: Russia's military reform: political trajectories. - S. 197-210. Sirutavicius, V.: Lithuanian-Polish strategic partnership: genesis and prospects. - S. 211-216. Stanyte-Tolockiene, I.: Kaliningrad Oblast in the context of EU enlargement. - S. 217-249. Satuniene, Z.: Political economy of Lithuania's membership in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). - S. 250-273

Only some Americans fully exercise their rights as citizens, and they usually come from the more advantaged segments of society. Those who enjoy higher incomes, more occupational success, and the highest levels of formal education are the ones most likely to participate in politics and make their needs and values known to government officials. Our review of research on inequality and political participation as well as other components of American political life demonstrates an extraordinary association between economic and political inequality.

As recipients of Fulbright-Hayes lectureships, we taught political science courses at two Chinese universities during the academic year 1983-84. Professor Thompson, at the International Politics Department of Beijing University, the major liberal arts university in North China, and Professor Morrison with the History Department of Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, the comparable institution of the south. We were the first western political scientists in residence and teaching on a regular basis in mainland Chinese universities in over thirty years, and taught the first political science courses included in Chinese curricula since the late 1940's. In addition to lecturing in each other's departments. Professor Thompson spent a week at Fudan University in Shanghai and Professor Morrison lectured at Nanjing University. These are our perceptions regarding the current state of political science in the People's Republic of China.