Suchergebnisse

This study aims to answer the question whether Christian Orthodoxy can inspire political movements. In so doing we start from the political theories of modernity where the link between Christianity and democracy is central. Our result sounds unexpected: interaction between Orthodoxy and democracy seems to not have a perspective. It is too late for it since most political movements in post-communism do not have the religious identity of their members as criterion. The situation was not different before. As an example the effort of the orthodox theologians and laymen in Romania before the outbreak of the Second World War is quoted here. Almost without an exception all focused and restricted their interest on the question of the nation. Therein we see the principal reason for the above postulated perspective of an orthodox political doctrine until now. On the European level the situation looks also no better. Even the parties, which attribute themselves the Christian values, have at present large difficulties to convey their message. It remains only to hope that the political actors rediscover the social and actively support the Christian ethics in the public area. Only so can democracy be regarded as one of the most important binding forces also under the Christians.

In my point of view, someone cannot speak about a constant influence of the Belgian Constitution of 1831 over the Romanian political elite. Not from 1848, at least. The most well known and prized 1848 revolutionary project - the one elaborated by Mihail Kogălniceanu, has been transplanted in a very important amount (60%) from the French Constitution of 1848. Generally speaking, must be emphasized that the principles and the institutions of the Belgian Constitution haven't represented a constant and overwhelming model for the 19th century's Romanian constitutionalism. The birth of the modern Romanian constitutionalism has thus been a difficult process, almost exclusively indebted to the ideological and normative legal import. The imported model hasn't been singular, ruther someone must think about an alternation of the French and Belgian constitutional models. This is why we are speaking about therminological vagueness, normative incoherence, incompletness of the principles and institutional hesitations.

This article attempts to analyze how the bureaucratic principles of organizing public administration evolved from Max Weber to public administration at the beginning of the 21st century. It is mentioned that M. Weber's formulation regarding the ideal type of bureaucracy is a classic approach of public administration. Public administration practice confirms that bureaucracy is not as predictable and clear as described in M. Weber's theory of bureaucracy. Unlike the ideal model of bureaucracy developed by M. Weber, the current system of public administration is an open system and incorporates much more complex features. This fact is conditioned by a series of factors that influence the activity of the public administration including: the level of development of democracy, economic and social development, information technologies, leadership style, administrative culture, professionalization of civil servants, etc.

Public access to accurate and reliable information is vital for democracies and the media play a key role in informing citizens about the political process. While a large body of research shows that media exposure influences electoral behavior, less is known about the factors that shape people's propensity to actively search information about politics in the media. Based on explanatory models of political participation and using public opinion survey data, the results show that material endowments and education along with motivational variables largely explain why some people are more prone to seek political information in the media. The results illustrate the importance of defining media exposure to political messages as a form of cognitive involvement in politics as this analytical strategy provides valuable insights into the socio-economic inequalities that bias public access to information.

The family, its formation, the relationships between man, woman, children and relatives, as well as the relationships with the rest of the community were filtered by the "village gossip". The need for a strong solidarity that was necessary in the unfriendly conditions at the time compelled the individuals to accept the cohabitation with other members of the family (including the extended one) and with the rest of the community. More often than not, the individual behaviour acquired the expression of the collective behaviour. Such an influence of the community was obvious in the traditional rural societies. However, in time, it became progressively diluted under the pressure of modernity.
We can see that there were deep changes as the area integrated to an economic circuit that would lead to imposing new mutations in several economic sectors. The economic development and the dissemination of non-agricultural activities associated to urban development whose influence went growing brought about alterations in the family relations. Then, there were mutations in the relationship between the family, the domestic group and the household resources. These changes were not obvious in all localities in the region: some of them were still anchored in the traditional as the new managed to penetrate more difficultly, while major changes on the level of the collective mental could not be perceived on a short span of time. Nevertheless, under the influence of modernity, society influenced the family not only in point of form, but also insofar as its role and functions were concerned. Mentalities changed together with the form and nature of society. Family was no longer big; it did no longer accept the interference of the relatives and even less that of the community. Changes were more visible in the city; however, once the social, cultural and economic changes, they became obvious in the countryside too. The nuclear family was the new family model where interference from the outside was insignificant.

The trans-ethnic voting ant the current cooperation between the Saxon and the Romanian communities in Sibiu/Hermannstadt could easily make believe in a perennial peaceful cohabitation. But the ethnic relations at the beginning of the XXth century are rather dissimilar, since they are marked by the strong affirmation of the Romanian community - especially by its political and cultural values - in the cadre of a multi-ethnic state - as Austria-Hungary - and of a Saxon dominated city - as Sibiu/Hermannstadt. The conflict between elites is pointed out by the prejudices enounced and by the symbolic weight of the disputes. More deeply, there is a conflict between two diverging political projects: the preservation of autonomy and of collective rights by the Saxon community, and the political, economic and cultural integration of the city into the recently made Romanian National state, in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Treaties. The two political projects originate -in fact- into distinctive models of citizenship: an exclusive citizenship, promoted by the Saxon community as a heritage from the Middle Ages; an integrative citizenship, preferred by the Romanian state in order to obtain a full allegiance from the new citizens. Since Romania has unexpectedly become a multi-ethnic state and minorities were more educated, urbanized and politically active, supporting the Romanian element became vital. The unsuccessful political strategies of Romanian elites, before 1920 -and of Saxon elites afterwards- lead to external sources of power: the Romanian National state and Nazi Germany. Whether Romanian authority proves to be quite successful, the German influence has disastrous consequences for the Saxon community. The persecutions and vexations following the German defeat in 1945 mark out the beginning of the great migration for the German community in Transylvania, following eight hundred years of coexistence.

One of the essential objectives of this work is to change the optical approach of the local power phenomenon, opting for the approach of the territorial organization of local power from the perspective of the realities of the contemporary world. Within the thematic framework of the paper, I have pursued that the territorial organization of local power to be treated from the perspective of political and administrative sciences, referring to the Moldovan realities, but also to the influences of the integration in the European space. In order to solve the theoretical and practical problems related to the efficient territorial organization of the public power, I have used the paradigm of the territorial organization of the public power as the basis of the phenomenon investigation. The key idea of the paradigm is that the phenomenon of public power in the contemporary democratic state must be tackled not only in relation to the state but more broadly in the aspect of the existence of both the public power of the people and the existence and functioning of the local collectivities' public power as a power that has the same social nature but is different as form and content from the state one. These communities have their own public power, based on two essential elements: the local population and the local electoral system through which its representative bodies (decision-making and executive) are elected. The chapters of the papers imply complex researches regarding the territorial organization of the local power, in the idea that they would allow to identify a model of territorial organization of the local power in terms of the interests and needs of local collectivities in the Republic of Moldova. The final objective of the paper was to develop a theoretical vision of the reform of the territorial organization system of local power in accordance with the new realities and that would meet the political, social and economic challenges facing the Republic of Moldova. Reforming the territorial organization of the local public power on the basis of the recommendations made in the paper will help to overcome the negative tendencies that occur in the processes taking place in the society. Searching solutions to solve or identifying possible ways to resolve a problem does not necessarily mean finding an undoubtedly mean to solve the problem or a definite answer to the existing issue. In many cases, scientific researches does not put the end point in a scientific dispute or in a contradictory approach of a phenomenon, they only develop it, broaden the knowledge space and update it, providing research space to other researchers concerned about that issues and opportunities of choice and documentation for political decision-makers.