Suchergebnisse

The author discusses the history of Croatian teaching in the Independent State of Croatia, a topic seldom written about up to now. For the first time a short review of the organization of the secondary school education in Zagreb during the World War Two is presented, and particularly the development of Croatian educational concepts and practice in the Independent State of Croatia. (SOI : CSP: S. 567)

The author analyses the role of religion in the formation of national identities in Central and Eastern Europe on the example of the Catholic Church in Poland in the 2Oth century. In Poland, like in most Central-European and Eastern-European societies, national identity developed against the state and was founded on certain elements of ethnic culture and tradition, the central position belonging to the Church. During communism, the Polish Catholic Church had the leading position in defending national identity, which identified Polishness with Catholicism. The Church also had a crucial role in the destruction of the communist system. However, it has found increasingly difficult to adapt to the new political conditions. As has been shown through the debates on abortion and religious education in state schools, the attempt by the Church to achieve the status of moral arbiter, above all democratic institutions, has resulted in new divisions. (SOI : PM: S. 143)

Education and breeding, like culture in general (cultus, colere), are, in the broadest sense, universal human phenomena inseparably linked and interactive. Anthropology, generally speaking, is a holistic science of man, his nature and culture, so its approach and findings are always current and unavoidable even for the scientific pedagogic treatment of education and its application. Because of that in this conspectus the notions "education" and "breeding" and "anthropology", as a science of man and culture, are first theoretically determined so it can both contextually and explicitly be deduced and pointed at their necessary dialectical connection and mutuality. The second, applied part of the next is about religious education (scientifically, religiologically based) as a school subject and studies in the context of democratic social and political changes in Croatia and about its relation to catechism. (SOI : PM: S. 210)

The paper deals with three aspects of teaching political education: 1. problems of teaching social sciences in Croatia regarding their content, method and instruction; 2. the quality of teaching according to the ISO 9000 norm; and the study of the quality of the programme of teaching politics and economy to secondary school pupils. The methods of work chosen have made it possible to give an account of the contemporary developments in the world in the field of methodology and instruction regarding this subject. All suggested solutions and models have not simply been copied, but adapted to the existing conditions of secondary education in Croatia. The intention is to activate fresh forces with Croatian school system that will, taking into account the realities of our situation find new education paths, aware that the sole way out is the quality of learning and the complete satisfaction of pupils, parents and the society. This approach does not seek unobtainable material resources, but demands much effort and numerous changes in the policies and the work of all those directly or indirectly involved in teaching. (SOI : PM: S. 230)

Mixed government, which is commonly regarded as a distinctly medieval form of government, is relevant also to contemporary constitutional states. It is the best form of government, since the aristocratic element is a continuous source of virtue, especially of justice, and a check not only on the executive, as the monarchical element which is the seat of political power, and the legislature, as the democratic element which expresses the will of the majority, but also groups and institutions that have the might and will to impose themselves as oligarchies. Mixed government is also the form of government that is practised by most developed contemporary constitutional states: USA, UK, France, Switzerland, Germany etc. European nobility is the original aristocratic institution, by virtue of the fact that it was a system for the transfer of both virtue and general conditions of life. Three institutions that emerged in the late Middle Ages assumed structures and functions of the nobility. + The first is the clergy. When, as a result of the differentiation of feudal society ethical and intellectual virtues of the nobility could no longer maintain general conditions of life, the clergy, by virtue of their abstract knowledge that ranged from philosophy and theology to law and medicine, became a class of new experts in generalities and thereby a new aristocracy. The second modern aristocratic institution is the judiciary, which has a structure and function similar to earlier aristocracies. The task of judges is to establish the highest virtue o constitutionalism. It is justice by law, which regulates general conditions of life in the state and society. What qualifies judges for the task is expertise in the new generality. The expertise includes not only education and experience in law but also impeccable private life and demonstrated professional ethics. + The third modern aristocratic institution is the profession, whose most important instance is the legal profession. It shares its structure and function partly with the judiciary and partly with other professions. It seems that modern professions are degenerating. In the key area of data processing, due to rapid changes of technology, professions as systems of the transfer of virtue do not even seem to be possible. Professional aristocracies are replaced increasingly by oligarchies of capitalists and technocrats. (SOI : PM: S. 111)

The author's thesis stated in the title is based on the theoretical and practical experience of modern political regimes, particularly on the example of the Croatian postcommunist experience. The author shows how the belated political constitution of the nation has occurred at the expense of political emancipation, pluralization and democratization. Small nations, which did not take part in the creation of modern state and the establishment of the contemporary political and legal culture, suffer from a double setback: they did not have a state of their own and are regarded small, "unhistorical" peoples. The fascination and obsession with the state and the identification of the nation with the state is especially visible in those postcommunist societies that have not gone through the process of political emancipation, i.e. the emancipation of the state. The author points out that the fascination with the state has had serious consequences for the development of democracy since any oppositional opinion and activity or a criticism of the government is disqualified as an attack on the state. This fascination and the identification of the nation and the state is a barrier to state building since it stands in the way of its emancipation and integrational processes. (SOI : PM: S. 109)

We bring the most important Opinions in order to show how they have resolved in an unbiased and contradictory manner certain dilemmas about the constituent elements of a state, the conditions for the creation and the recognition of a new state and the effects of its recognition by third states. The document is of vital importance for the process of the constitution of the Croatian state. (SOI : PM: S. 177)

The revival of the nation has shocked German intellectuals who think that the nation-state is historically obsolete and that new models should be upheld: the united Europe, a world community of responsible states, globalisation of markets, a universe of human rights. The contrary tendencies in today's world are marked by giving up on huge political entities which have been replaced by smaller nationality-based states. It seems that political freedom leads to the formation of nation-states based on democratic constitution. This process requires looking into the relation between the nation-state and democracy. The key for the explanation of their relationship can be found in the notion of nation. Citizenship mediates between the people (in its real manifestation as a social group), and democracy as a constitutional principle. It gives to the state as a personal entity legal structure on which to build a democratic form of the state and guarantees legally applicable taxonomies and limitations. (SOI : SOEU: S. 17)

The author analyzes two famous critiques of the bourgeois state: Marx's thesis on the withering away of the state as an instrument of force of the economicall dominant bourgeois class which, by means of the quasi-neutral state as the higher third instance controls the the class antagonisms whose disappearance will make the state as an instrument of repression obsolete; and Carl Schmitt's thesis that the state will become unnecessary in the world in which there are no longer any enemies, only offenders who violate humanistic norms and human rights. (SOI : PM: S. 68)