Suchergebnisse

Taking as its starting point the recent Romanian controversy over majority-minority & state-nation relations, this article explores the political representation of ethnic Hungarians in Romania. It critically reviews the history of the DAHR, the main political organization of Hungarians in Romania, from its founding to the present day, discussing the DAHR's constitutional principle of including various platforms under a single roof, analyzing the major actors & their struggles for influence within the alliance. Reflecting the fact that the role played by ethnic Hungarians in Romanian political life can be decisive, the conclusion takes the results of the analysis to make more general remarks on political co-operation & future inter-ethnic relations. Adapted from the source document.

The death of Kosovo's president Ibrahim Rugova on 21 January pushed Kosovo once again in the headlines of the international media. The loss of Rugova shortly before talks on the province's final status should start makes an already difficult political & economical situation even more complicated. In our assessment of the development in Kosovo from the end of the military operations in June 1999 up to present time, we have come to the conclusion that the state of affairs in Kosovo's central social sectors is still to be considered as a crisis situation, with limited positive exceptions. The article provides a systematic & critical assessment of the six years of state-building process in Kosovo led by the UN & other international organizations, asking for possible ways to overcome the present crisis & the blockade. Adapted from the source document.

Fact-finding committees like the Schlesinger Commission are there to find out about individual & collective responsibilities for criminal or political acts. They may be instrumental in enlightening about societal collective myths, thus building faith & norm consciousness. Does the Schlesinger Report fulfill these premises? The paper highlights key findings & recommendations of the Report. Though the Schlesinger Report is shown to be informative in some aspects, it is a central point of this article that the Commission missed the chance to weigh the Abu Ghraib abuse cases in the light of the Guantanamo precedent where the proliferation of abusive treatment was started. The suspension of ethical & legal standards in the name of necessities of the war on terror might turn out to transform at least in parts the military & thus a society's sense of justice, since it is assumed that the results of fact-finding committees enter human rights awareness with relative ease. Adapted from the source document.