The author claims there are various types of tolerance. He defines tolerance as a dispositional feature of human beings vs other human beings. The basic formula of democratic tolerance runs as follows: mutual tolerance is better than both the risks of tyranny due to intolerance & the risks of a civil war. It disguises the latent aggressiveness underlying our democratic societies. Dangerous developments have been detected for the future of the European Union. It is faced with a choice: Is it going to develop according in the direction of national states or the Europeanization of national states? The first leads into an increasing intolerance. The solution lies in tolerance, which can be preserved by the Europeanization of democracy. Adapted from the source document.
The Sarajevo Convention, at which the Sarajevo Declaration & the Pact on Stability were adopted, represents a finale to the ten-year conflict in the Balkan region. The most important elements in the dynamic process of Europe's preparation for accepting the countries of Europe's Southeast have been the Brussels study by the Center for Political Analyses, the German "new politics," & US support. The analyses of the goals & mechanisms of the Pact show that it is a major political instrument, though hailed as a mixed blessing. If all the actors -- states, nongovernmental organizations, associations, & individuals -- are provided with long-term conditions for creating affiliations, joint views, & projects, the process of building better relations may be initiated. The Europeanization of Southeast Europe is going to be a lengthy & complex process, & the Pact on Stability may become an important form of building new relations in this region. Adapted from the source document.
The processes of Europeanization have invaded the public policy sphere & introduced into it, among other things, the altered views of the roles of policy players & their relationships in the processes of the formation & the implementation of public policy. As soon as these new developments had been detected, numerous political science debates understandably ensued about the changed roles & competences of the actors who operate at different political levels in the European Union. The paper begins with the definition of the policy actor in the research of the EU policy process. The usability of the traditional & the contemporary understanding of the policy actor in the EU policy system is looked into by means of the indicators of (non)statehood & the existing view of the role of the state, thereby articulating the dilemmas & the prospects for the potential new taxonomies of policy actors that might emerge as a consequence of the policy activity at the EU level, since the newly identified features breed suspicion in the unequivocal adequacy of the existing taxonomy of the actors. Also, the appropriateness of the categorization of the players according to their political level or to the structural-functional character of their activities is discussed. References. Adapted from the source document.
The author analyzes the direction that the European Union has taken after the Nice conference. In order to create an appropriate & transparent competency system for the European Union, the priority on today's agenda are the models borrowed from the constitutions of different federal states. The first model is the so-called dual federalism that evolved in the US. This model aspires to strictly separate the European competency & the member countries' competency. The second option has been provided by the German Fundamental Law (Constitution). According to this model, the European Union would be accorded competences in line with the systematics of the exclusive, competitive & comprehensive legislation. The author is of the opinion that this would lead to a sort of formal transparency but would not completely prevent the overlapping of the competences of the Union, its member countries & other territorial units. A special focus is given to the transparency & efficacy of the reform process. Also, it is emphasized that a coherent coordination of the horizontal & vertical reform of the competency system is called for. Regarding democracy, the author thinks there is no need for a new model of democracy, but a systematic revision of the existing system of decision making in the European Union. Besides, a genuine democratization would not set its sights solely on reforming institutional regulation, but also on strengthening the mediation bodies. This would improve the relations between the public & the parliaments of the nation-states & the federal units concerning European issues. This would go hand in hand with an expansion of European party organizations & a more efficient "Europeanization" of central associations & institutions for interest-promotion. And finally, the author looks into the traditional boundaries between the private & the public. The public sector would take over from private economy some established procedures or would completely hand over certain tasks. This would require well-defined criteria. Also, an efficient control by parliaments & government bodies is necessary as a guarantee of innovation & cost-effectiveness & as a protection against abuse. This might help to turn Europe into a place of unity & cooperative behavior. Adapted from the source document.
This contribution to the discussion about Dag Strpic's book Karl Marx and the Political Economy of Modernity focuses on the author's assessment that the weakening of US economic hegemony is questionable, especially with regard to the future prospects of capitalism (and its development), and prefers to speak of a "redesign" thereof. Accordingly, this article analyses in detail three aspects of capitalism redesign: the causal, the contingent and the functional aspects. Regarding causality, the partial redistribution of leading roles in world economy is caused by the introduction of new methods, from industrial and media technology to financial speculations and new wars -- which make profit-making possible. Regarding contingency, the shift in the centre provides opportunity for a small number of countries, such as China, India and Brazil, which are endowed with capitalist "talent" (in the sense of combining the policy of resource mobilization with elements of positive evaluation of labour in the local culture), to climb the ladder of successful development. The functional aspects indicate the favourable effects of the shift in the centre not only for newcomers to the club of the most developed, but also to the USA. The financialization of (primarily American) economy, along with giving over leadership to other industrial powers in many branches of industrial production, and in the rate of economic growth -- i.e. with a "new division of labour" in the centre -- gives to the US some sort of "aristocratic" status in the world of capitalism. Such a status is not incompatible with the cyclic process of capitalism development. Instead of a dialectical leap toward socialism, it rather aspires to a partial restoration of feudalism, as a global order of strong states in the centre and weak or apparent states on the margins. This, however, is not the worst possible ending of modern history. If a much more pronounced decline of US economic power in favour of the newcomers were to occur, this would probably strengthen the brutality of capitalism rather than weaken it. Provided that, in the EU, the trend of further decomposition of the welfare state is stopped, and the indispensable balance between the requirements of economic growth and of social solidarity and general well-being is restored, only a genuine and comprehensive "Europeanization" of the capitalist system could make possible the emergence of a global capitalism with a human face, and probably also of a world state which would provide for a balanced development of all parts of the world. Adapted from the source document.
