The successive stages of development of constitutional democracy in the USA, in particular the experience of "judicial supervision paradox," show us that the U.S. Supreme Court performed at least two different functions: (1) norm enforcement, & (2) policy-making through re-examination & interpretation of the Constitution & the laws in cases brought before the Court. Dissent among American legal experts related to this & other matters prove that debates on judicial activism are not a thing of the past. Still, both advocates & critics of judicial activism share the view that judges have been an important part of the American constitutional process since its inception. The Marbury v. Madison case (1803) affirmed the institution of judicial supervision & denoted a gradual shift of judicial power into the field of public law. Thus further expansion & transformation of judicial power was made possible. In this article, the author establishes a connection between judicial activism & judicial supervision, & adheres to the standpoint that the "judicializing aspect of modern liberalism" deserves as much attention as any other aspect of democratization. Adapted from the source document.
The author deals with the role of constitutional courts in democracies. Though they have religious roots, nowadays they are entirely secularized because interpretation of constitutions is neither a religious event nor are constitutions the Scriptures. Since constitutions today are exposed to a more rapid political change, constitutional courts are the institutions that determine the validity of political projects, which makes them political actors. Although they make decisions based on relatively patent constitutional/legal criteria, they nevertheless contradict the dominant democratic principle. This friction is more pronounced in the field of symbolic politics in which decisions are brought via political argumentation circumventing the formal criteria. Political individuality of constitutional courts consists in moderating the process of political bargaining beyond the principle of democratic majority. The author concludes that their primary task is to maintain a sensitive balance, with uncertain results. 16 References. Adapted from the source document.
The emancipation of the Commonwealth countries had a particular impact on the traditional British principle of inviolable sovereignty of the Parliament. Ever since 1931, when the Imperial Parliament, through the Westminster Act, renounced the unilateral exercise of legislative power in the Dominions, the theory of parliamentary sovereignty as unlimited legislative power has been subject to alterations under the pressure of political reality. The process was most pronounced in the 1982-1998 period, when the United Kingdom & several member-countries of the Commonwealth, as "the last democratic strongholds of traditional legislative supremacy," adopted various documents in which human rights are guaranteed. The author elucidates the characteristics of the new, Commonwealth model of constitutionalism, wherein the constitutionalization of fundamental rights has made possible not only specific forms of judicial supervision, but also an increase of judicial activism. Adapted from the source document.
Autor na temelju arhivskoga gradiva i literature opisuje i objašnjava gospodarske procese na području Karlovca i njegove uže okolice uvjetovane političkim odlukama neposredno nakon Drugoga svjetskog rata 1945. i 1946. godine. ; The topic of this paper are the economic processes initiated through political decisions in Karlovac and its surroundings after World War II, from 1945 to 1946. In a wider context of economic relations, the focus is on the confiscation of the textile industry in Karlovac and its surroundings as a leading initiator of economic development in the mentioned area. Confiscation, through judicial government, meant taking private property away by force with the aim of collectivising property for the needs of the central unitarist and totalitarian government. After studying the available documentation, it is obvious that the most successful companies in the textile industry, but not only them, became the state's property via judicial decisions. After that, the state, through its administrative and central way of governing, made all important business decisions related to the confiscated companies as well as directly about the economic situation in the whole country. Moreover, it is important to emphasise that confiscation was one of the ways used to punish pre-war and wartime political opponents. It was also a way of making them unimportant in social relations, and finally making them dependent on the central government, which, as I have already stressed, dictated political and economic processes on all levels.
U članku se daje prilog poznavanju povijesti Balkanske banke d.d. Zagreb od njezina osnutka (1922.) pa sve do formalnoga završetka njezine likvidacije (1948.). Poslovanje banke razvijalo se je u početku izuzetno povoljno. U kolovozu 1922. predsjednik banke Dušan Plavšić pozvan je na dužnost pomoćnika ministra financija. Kako je vlada kojoj je Plavšić pripadao u prosincu 1922. dala ostavku, uslijed tadašnjih političkih prilika nastala je novinska kampanja koja je bila uperena i protiv Balkanske banke. Time je taj slučaj dobio i čisto političku konotaciju. Tada je počela propast Balkanske banke. Kontinuiranim napadima novoga ministra financija, radikala Milana Stojadinovića, na Dušana Plavšića, novinskom kampanjom protiv Plavšića i Balkanske banke te katastrofalno izvedenim devizno-čekovnim transakcijama, cjelokupno poslovanje Balkanske banke došlo je u vrlo tešku financijsku situaciju. Krajem 1924. banci je odobrena prinudna nagodba. Na temelju te nagodbe banka je na svojoj izvanrednoj glavnoj skupštini 1925. zaključila likvidaciju. Banka je pravno postojala sve do 1948., kada je nakon praktično formalizirane likvidacije brisana iz trgovačkoga registra Okružnoga suda za grad Zagreb. ; The paper presents research results of the structure, business and liquidation of the Balkan Bank Ltd. in Zagreb from 1922 when it was founded, 1925 when it entered the liquidation process, until 1948 when its liquidation was formally finished. The bank had a branch in Belgrade. The bank's business had at first developed favourably, however, in August 1922 its president Dušan Plavšić took over the duty of the assistant finance minister. Since the government to which Plavšić belonged resigned in December 1922, a campaign in the press began due to political circumstances of that time and it was also aimed at the Balkan Bank. This gave the entire case a purely political connotation i.e. the bank's founders and managers were members of the Democratic Party, hence, Dušan Plavšić as its president was one of the prominent Party members. On the other hand, the next government was formed by Nikola Pašić and his Radicals and one of the latter, Milan Stojadinović, became a new finance minister. Plavšić's criticism of Stojadinović's financial policy caused his fall into Stojadinović's disfavour. After taking over his new duty Stojadinović continually attacked Dušan Plavšić. The campaign in the press had severe consequences for the bank. The alarming news about the bank's inability to pay its obligations caused its investors to withdraw their money. Within several months the bank had to return from the current accounts circa 20.000,00 dinars to various creditors, mostly other banks. This demand compelled the bank's management to take drastic measures, since these demands put the entire business of the bank into a very difficult situation. The bank had to accelerate the turnover of its funds as much as possible, which could mostly be achieved in foreign exchange turnover. The bank went rather naïvely and precipitously into the badly executed transactions involving foreign currency cheques, which proved disastrous. Namely, the bank forced selling of the dollar cheques, securing them in foreign currency. However, even though the bank bought large foreign currency funds in cash from various financial institutes in Zagreb and Belgrade in order to secure the sold cheques, the institutes did not produce the bought funds in time. Hence, not having enough funds at its disposal the bank was unable to secure its issued cheques. This forced the bank to cease its activities concerning foreign currency. Naturally, the press denounced the bank for selling bounced cheques. Just when it was thought that things cannot get worse, the Ministry of Traffic revoked the concession of the construction firm of the Graduated Engineer Nikola Plavšić for constructing the Vardište-Šargan railway, which was financed by the bank as a partner. The ensuing court battle did not enable the bank to regain even half of its invested funds, which took away its last hope to acquire larger financial funds. Its management had no alternative but to request the opening of the proceedings of agreement with creditors. The latter was adopted on 23 October 1924 and the decision of the Judicial Table as the agreement court in this issue was proclaimed on 10 November 1924. The agreement became final on 10 March 1925. Based on that agreement the Balkan Bank should have concluded its liquidation. The Extraordinary General Assembly on 18 April 1925 unanimously accepted the conclusion on the bank's liquidation. The bank legally existed until 1948 when after its liquidation was formalised in practice it was deleted from the commercial register of the County Court in Zagreb.
Glavni cilj disertacije je analizirati ideologiju glavnih predstavnika radikalne desnice u Poljskoj. Ova doktorska disertacija dizajnirana je kao studija slučaja unutar okvira kulturalnog pristupa u političkim znanostima. Kao metoda istraživanja odabrana je kombinacija kvalitativne analize sadržaja i konceptualne analize ideologije Michaela Freedena. Iako je najveći fokus istraživanja na dvjema političkim strankama (Zakon i pravda i Liga poljskih obitelji) kao glavnim predstavnicima radikalno desne političke scene u Poljskoj, istraživanje se bavi i drugim akterima, prije svega organizacijama civilnog društva, društvenim pokretima i medijima, koji sudjeluju u konstruiranju i promoviranju ideologije radikalne desnice. Pritom istraživanje nije ograničeno na sadržaj ideologije i aktere koji tu ideologiju promoviraju, već ono uključuje i analizu procesa putem kojih se ideologija radikalne desnice eksplicira i formulira, kao i analizu dinamičnih odnosa među akterima procesa proizvodnje ideologije doprinoseći istraživanju ideologije radikalne desnice kao i istraživanju procesa konstruiranja političkih ideologija općenito. Kao polazište za navedenu analizu u disertaciji se koristi ponešto modificirana definicija radikalne desnice poznatog politologa Casa Muddea prema kojoj su konstitutivna obilježja radikalne desnice integralni nacionalizam, autoritarnost i populizam. Analizom je utvrđeno kako su sve tri ideološke karakteristike tipične za radikalnu desnicu prisutne kod glavnih aktera istraživanih u ovoj disertaciji. Na tragu konceptualne analize, ova disertacija je pokazala kako središnji konstitutivni koncept radikalno desne ideologije u Poljskoj predstavlja nacija, i kako svi ostali okolni koncepti detektirani analizom, poput solidarnosti, jednakosti šansi, pravde, demokracije, slobode, zadobivaju svoje značenje na temelju svog odnosa prema središnjem konstitutivnom obilježju ideologije. ; In the last thirty years or so, the influence of the radical right has been constantly growing throughout Europe. This political success has been accompanied by an increasingly intensive scientific research on the phenomenon of the radical right, which has resulted in several studies that address various aspects of the radical right phenomenon in Europe. Paradoxically, despite such an abundance of research papers, their review suggests that there are relatively few papers that have a systematic and in-depth approach to the political ideology of the radical right. This doctoral dissertation fills this research gap and focuses on the political ideology of the radical right, taking into account the thesis of the well-known researcher of political ideologies Michael Freeden, that political ideologies are the center of political analysis because the study of ideologies can provide relevant insights necessary for understanding politics and political processes. In the context of the debate on the wave of radicalism in Europe, Poland is a particularly interesting case. Firstly, it is the largest and most populous post-communist country that became a member of the EU and a country in which the radical right won three parliamentary and three presidential elections between 2005 and 2020. Secondly, in academic papers and media Poland is often portrayed as an example of a country that has successfully gone through the process of transformation to liberal democracy and as an example of the most successful transition economy in Europe. The Polish case is also interesting because it is a a country with more than 90% of declared Catholics and where, primarily due to historical development, Catholicism plays a significant role in political, social, and cultural life; it has become a key component of the Polish national identity. In contrast to Western European countries, in Poland Political Catholicism, did not spark the development of strong Christian- Democratic parties, it rather gave rise to radical right-wing parties instead. In addition to cultural factors, historical heritage is often considered a fertile ground for the emergence of this type of parties, especially its influence on political processes and on the processes of building a national identity. Namely, the Polish historical heritage, specifically the one related to the 20th century, was marked by a short period of democratic rule (1918-1925), and two long periods of authoritarian rule, that of Jozef Pilsudski (1925 to 1939), and that of the communist authoritarians (1945 to 1989). Thus, the main goal of the dissertation is to analyze the ideology of the main representatives of the radical right in Poland by exploring its discursive manifestations, as well as the way in which the radical right ideology is produced. This doctoral dissertation is designed as a case study within the framework of a cultural approach in political sciences. The cultural approach is characterized by the insistence on the importance of context, which, on the other hand, makes it difficult to define clear independent, dependent, and intervening variables. Therefore, in the cultural approach, a case is most often taken as the analytical unit taking into consideration all the complexity of its historical and socio-political distinctiveness. Qualitative content analysis was chosen as the research method, and conceptual analysis of Michael Freeden's ideology was added to it, since this approach allows us to better understand the morphology of ideologies and their operationalization in politics. The first chapter is about the theoretical and methodological framework. Since the concept of the radical right is one of the deeply contested concepts which there is no consensus about in political science, and since the aim of this doctoral dissertation is to explain this concept, the first part of the chapter consists of a review and analysis of recent literature. The notion of the radical right was analyzed through comparison with related terms such as the extreme right, right-wing populism, and the far right. As a starting point for analysis in the dissertation, a somewhat modified definition of the radical right by the well-known political scientist Cas Mudde is used. According to him, the constitutive features of the radical right are integral nationalism, authoritarianism, and populism. Like the concept of the radical right, the concept of ideology is also ambivalent and can be understood in different ways which result in multiple uses of the term ideology which are often contradictory. This doctoral dissertation is largely based on the morphological approach to the study of ideology developed by Michael Freeden. The second chapter deals with the history of Poland before 1989. The first part of the chapter explains the early context of the emergence of Polish nationalism, which has its roots in the 'noble democracy' of the 17th century, as well as in the national struggles for independence of the 19th century. However, the chapter focuses on two periods that significantly influenced the emergence and growth of Polish political nationalism in the early 2000s. The first is the interwar period (1918-1939) in which two traditions of Polish political thought, Sanacja and Endeca, crystallized, and from which two visions of the Polish nation, national identity, and the nation-state, emerged. The second period is after the Second World War, i.e., the period of the People's Republic of Poland in which the legitimization and institutionalization of the nationalist discourse take place. Equally, in this period there emerged and formed social groups with different visions of the Polish state after the fall of communism. The third chapter deals with the transformation of the People's Republic of Poland into the The third Republic and with an account of political and social events in the first decade after the fall of communism. This chapter sheds light on the political and social context within which the dominant social divisions in Polish society emerged, which in large part resulted in the evolution of radical right-wing parties in the early 2000s. In particular, the very nature of the transformation process emerged as the main subject of dispute. Namely, the Polish right believes that due to the contractual transformation of the system, the 'revolution' is not over and that the left-liberal groups have made an agreement with the former communist establishment. They believe that the Third Republic is a product of this agreement and that it serves the left-liberal and former communist elites to maintain positions of power and rule the The third Republic to the detriment of the oppressed people. This conspiratorial narrative represents the foundation around which the politics and ideology of the radical right have been built in Poland since 2000. The fourth chapter deals with the emergence and profiling of two radical right-wing parties, Law and Justice (Polish: Prawo I Sprawiedliwość – PiS) and the League of Polish Families (Polish: Liga Polskich Rodzin – LPR) . The chapter is structured in such a way as to first present the history of the formation of these parties, with an emphasis on the main actors who participated as the originators and implementers of these projects. In both cases, these are largely the 'family projects' of the Kaczynski brothers (Law and Justice) and father and son Giertych (League of Polish Families). From the Kaczynskis' biographies, it is obvious that they come from an environment dominated by the legacy of Sanacja, while father and son Giertych openly presents themselves as the heirs of the interwar Endecja. After presenting their political activities and the first successes in the elections, the ideology of these two parties is reconstructed, primarily from their programs and other party publications. The research showed that until 2005 both parties contained all the constitutive elements of the radical right according to Mudde's conceptualization. While these constitutive elements have been present in the League of Polish Families since its founding, the party Law and Justice gradually became radicalized. This period, at least from the perspectives of PiS and LPR, is dominated by the conflict between the post-communist elites (former communists and left-liberal intellectuals) gathered around the left Democratic Left Alliance (Polish: Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, SLD) and the so-called "patriotic' camp that emerged from Solidarity. This chapter also covers the period between 2005 and 2007 when these two parties, together with the Self-Defense party, formed a government that lasted less than two years. This first, shorter coming to power of the radical right in Poland is not important because of the public policies they pursued during that period, but because of the experience and lessons gained by PiS during its rule in the liberal democratic system. Namely, after 2007, the LPR disappeared from the Polish political scene, leaving the PiS as the only relevant political actor of the radical right. The fifth chapter covers the period between 2007 and 2015. It is the period of rule by the Civic Platform (Polish: Platforma Obywatelska, PO), a center-right party with strong pro-EU views and liberal economic and social policies. Due to the disappearance of the left from the Polish political scene, the main social and political conflict underwent a radical change. PiS formulated a new conflict – the struggle between solidarity and liberal or corporate Poland – and built its ideology around this conflict. This period in Polish political and social life was marked by the immigration crisis that hit Europe and the debate on the acceptance of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women, the so-called Istanbul Convention. Both topics as well as the pro-European orientation of the PO government led to the mobilization of radical right-wing social groups and media that skillfully occupied public space by successfully imposing their topics on the public agenda. As this dissertation will show, PiS has adapted its discourse to that of radical right-wing organizations and has successfully presented itself as their political representative. On the one hand, this 'alliance' helped the PiS succeed in the 2015 presidential and parliamentary elections, while on the other it marked the further radicalization of the PiS, especially when it comes to issues of morals and values. The sixth chapter deals with the period between 2015 and 2020. During that period, the PiS won both the presidential and the parliamentary elections twice. This chapter emphasizes how PiS translates its ideology into public policies. Namely, during this period PiS focused its efforts on two projects: 'repairing the state' and rebuilding the community (nation). The first project was marked by the judicial reform and the crisis related to the Constitutional Court; it aimed to strengthen the executive branch to the detriment of other branches of government. The PiS community reconstruction project was conceived as a change in the material and spiritual dimension of the community. The first is mostly related to social policies, the emphasis being on family policies. Changes in the spiritual dimension imply changes in cultural policy, within which there has been a reform of public media and the announcement of the "recolonization" of private media. In changing the spiritual dimension, PiS placed special emphasis on the defense of the traditional way of life on the one hand, and on the politics of history on the other, in which the Institute of National Remembrance played an exceptional role. The seventh chapter takes the form of a final discussion in which the basic theses of the radical right ideology in Poland are reconstructed. The aim of this discussion is to position the topic of this dissertation within the framework of a broader theoretical discussion between liberals and their critics. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the main research results in this doctoral dissertation and points to the possible direction of future research, especially research of countries with a strong radical right and with a similar historical and cultural heritage. Equally, the conclusion points to the fact that this dissertation has not fully answered the research question related to finding out how ideology is constructed, and the actors involved in the process. Namely, the problem was the research design and selection of the analysis method. The conclusion is that a more complete answer to this research question would require some field research, preferably using the method of interview or survey. Finally, we believe that some future research on ideology should move in that direction.
