Povijest komunikacijskih i medijskih studija u Hrvatskoj: Politička misao u komparativnoj perspektivi
In: Politička misao, Band 51, Heft 1, S. 133-170
In: Politička misao, Band 51, Heft 1, S. 133-170
World Affairs Online
In: Politička misao, Band 35, Heft 2, S. 171-188
The author demonstrates the importance of public finances as a source of the theory of public choice. He identifies the contributions of the continental theorists of public choice from late 19th and early. 20th century, particularly that of the Swedish economist Knut Wicksell. The author considers his concept of the method of fair taxation the central source of the theory of public choice by James Buchanan and other representatives of the Virginian school. In the author's opinion, Wicksell's approach is basically normative but the author's detailed analysis of Wicksell's key work on the theory of fair taxation points to a series of salient points which are redolen of the positive theory of public choice as it was mapped out in the middle of the 20th century. (SOI : PM: S. 188)
World Affairs Online
In: Politička misao, Band 35, Heft 4, S. 98-131
The analysis has shown that both approaches are legitimate and useful in understanding and maintaining democracy. Of course, the interactional approaches are more complex, as well as more important and more vital for understanding democracy. The analysis has shown how political culture (democratic legitimation or political trust, support for civil freedoms, satisfaction with the functioning of democracy, etc.) often depend on the elements of the very political structure (party systems and coalition models, election patterns, patterns of democracy, positions in power structure, etc.). Political culture is autonomous in relation to political structure, but frequently its role greatly depends on the relations among political actors and the variables of the political culture itself. The analysis has also demonstrated how these investigations into the interaction (combined effects) between political culture and structure are extremely sophisticated and that in the future they are going to become the most fruitful part of political science, making possible not only a deeper understanding of the "dynamic regularities" in the functioning of democracy but also the attempts at its "innovative sustainment" and gradual development. (SOI : PM: S. 131) + The purpose of this essay is to prove the connection among political culture, political structure and democracy. All the arguments pointing to such a connection have been analysed within the framework of two fundamental approaches to the relationship between culture and structure i.e. within the framework of the classical approach to their correspondence (which claims - primarily in line with the functional theory of culture - that there is a functional concordance between culture and structure, that democracy is mirrored by the civic political culture, i.e. that "culture is a structure's way of life", that culture determines the structure) and the contemporary interactional approach (in which - primarily in line with the theory of culture "as meaning" or "social functioning" - complex relations among various cultural variables and structural variables are analysed as well as their combined effect on democracy as the consequence of these relations). The latter approach considers democracy not as a "fixed condition" but rather as a dynamic phenomenon or the end result of the combined interactional relationships between culture and structure
World Affairs Online
In: Politička misao, Band 34, Heft 2, S. 216-240
The Ministry of Science of the Republic of Croatia decided on a new "Rule book of definition of scientific areas". By the "Book", politology is a scientific field in the area of social sciences. The field is divided in three branches: 1. politology, 2. theory and history of politics, 3. political philosophy. The author of this article shows by documents how the "political science" is quite differently structured by IPSA and APSA, and describes 120 years of dominantly American development of "political science" and of professions of political scientists which brought out a recent new world standard with around 100 subdisciplines and areas of expertise which are structured in 8 fundamental disciplines: 1. political institutions, 2. political behaviour, 3. comparative politics, 4. internationa relations, 5. political theory, 6. public policy and public administration/management, 7. political economy, 8. political methodology. The author points out that a voluntaristic intervention in the definition of scientific areas could mean an attack on development of science, research organisation, renewal of teaching staff on University, and on academic education of political scientists, as well as on internationally comparable competence of Croatian experts, and Croatian democratic political thought and political culture in general. (SOI : PM: S. 240)
World Affairs Online
In: Politička misao, Band 36, Heft 4, S. 151-178
This essay is an attempt to explore structural, value, ideological, and performance premises of partyism. It has been modelled after the methods and findings of eminent researchers (e.g. Inglehari, Klingemann, Knutesen, and others), who have devoted a major portion of their research to the relations among the mentioned concepts. The empirical research was conducted on a sample of Croatian students in 1998/99. By using complex analysis models of the mentioned variables we have showed that the ideological (left-right) orientation is more important for the electoral choice of Croatian students than the value orientations (religious/secular, left/righ materialism and materialism/postmaterialism). The author then shows why (in line with the results of European studies) the party orientation is more important than the values. What is most important here, however, is the finding that the two variables (the assessment of the democratic performance of the system and the ideological left/right orientation) are relatively the most significant variables for explaining the party identity and electoral choice of Croatian students. It has been shown that the leftist and the opposition parties in Croatia can count on the more left-oriented students and those who are dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy in Croatia, plus those more secularly and post-materialistically oriented. The used analytical methods can contribute to a more detailed elaboration of the theory of partyism (party identities and electoral choices) and to the model of political polarization in the society. And this is surely one of the central tasks of modern political science. (SOI : SOEU: S. 178)
World Affairs Online
The Mediation Act has been applied in the Republic of Serbia since 2005. In the past period, the application of this Act has pointed out to a number of drawbacks and deficiencies in the system of resolving disputes through mediation. The dominant features of the current mediation system are some inadequate legal solutions, poor organization and insufficient preparation of the courts to internalize mediation, failure to provide relevant information about mediation to litigants and other participants in the judicial process, insufficient judicial training and education of lawyers and parties on mediation and other ADR methods, etc. Considering that the primary purpose of mediation is to diminish the litigation caseload and reduce the costs of court proceedings, the basic goal of introducing mediation into the Serbian legal system has not been accomplished. In order to improve the mediation system, the Serbian authorities launched a public debate in 2010 on designing a new legislative act which would eliminate the shortcomings of previous act and improve the efficiency of mediation. After nearly four years, the extensive debate and confrontation of different mediation concepts led to adopting a new Draft Mediation Act in 2013. As compared to the applicable 2005 Mediation Act, the Draft Mediation Act contains some innovations, such as the enforceability of a mediation agreement under specific conditions and the opportunity of introducing mandatory mediation in some cases. In this paper, the author analyzes the above issues on the basis of findings of economic theory and the results of the empirical study on the efficiency of mediation in Serbia in civil matters. In this context, the author argues that the achievement of the above objectives (to reduce the caseload and legal costs] calls for establishing a sustainable mediation system. In addition to instituting good legal solutions (such as mandatory mediation], the system should be supported by joint efforts and financial resources of responsible institutions and individuals. In a nutshell, mediation may come to life only if the legislative efforts are accompanied by a large-scale social action aimed at promoting this form of dispute resolution.
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Cilj ove doktorske disertacije jeste da pruži argumente u prilog epistemičkog opravdanja demokratije. Tvrdićemo da zbog toga što čisto proceduralno opravdanje definiše autoritet i legitimnost demokratije samo u odnosu na pravičnost same procedure, ono ne može biti adekvatno objašnjenje za sve ono do čega nam je u demokratiji istinski stalo. Ljudima je u demokratiji veoma važan i sam ishod demokratskog procesa. Legitimost demokratske procedure, dakle, zavisi i od kvaliteta odluka koje ta procedura proizvodi. Uspon epistemičkih teorija o demokratiji je u skladu sa porastom popularnosti ideje o "mudrosti gomile" koju pronalazimo u različitim oblastima istraživanja. Zbog toga ćemo se osvrnuti na razvoj i rezultate organizacione teorije i predstaviti psihološke nalaze o kapacitetima ljudskog rasuđivanja. Instrumentalne ili epistemičke teorije tvrde da je demokratija legitimna ako i samo ako ima tendenciju da nas dovede do "dobrih" ili "istinitih" političkih odluka. Tvrdićemo da ono što omogućava da demokratsko odlučivanje, pod određenim uslovima, ima veću epistemičku vrednost od alternativnih formi odlučivanja jeste postojanje kognitivne raznovrsnosti unutar grupe koja donosi političke odluke. Pružićemo teorijske i empirijske argumente u prilog epistemičke vrednosti kolektivnog, demokratkog donošenja odluka. Ukazaćemo na značaj političkih institucija koje mogu da omoguće prisustvo kognitivne raznovrsnosti i povećaju nivo pojedinačne kompetencije opšte javnosti. Takođe ćemo tvrditi da je neophodno kombinovati deliberativnu i agregativnu metodu, i to upravo tim redosledom, s obzirom da i jedna i druga imaju važne epistemičke karakteristike. ; The aim of this doctoral dissertation is to provide arguments in support of the epistemic justification of democracy. We will argue that because a purely procedural justification defines the authority and legitimacy of democracy only in relation to the fairness of the procedure itself, it can not be an adequate explanation for all the things we really care about in democracy. The outcome of the democratic process itself is very important to people in democracy. The legitimacy of a democratic procedure, therefore, depends on the quality of the decisions that this procedure produces. The rise of epistemic theories about democracy is in line with the increasing popularity of the idea of the "wisdom of the crowds" that we find in various fields of research. Therefore, we will look at the development and results of organizational theory and present psychological findings about human reasoning capacities. Instrumental or epistemic theories claim that democracy is legitimate if and only if it has a tendency to lead us to "good" or "true" political decisions. We will argue that what allows democratic decision-making, under certain conditions, to have a higher epistemic value than alternative forms of decision-making is the existence of the cognitive diversity of a group that makes political decisions. We will provide theoretical and empirical arguments in favor of the epistemic value of collective, democratic decision-making. We will point out the importance of political institutions that can enable the presence of cognitive diversity and increase the level of individual competence of the general public. We will also argue that it is necessary to combine a deliberative and aggregative method, precisely in this order, given that both of them have important epistemic characteristics.
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Cilj ove doktorske disertacije jeste da pruži argumente u prilog epistemičkog opravdanja demokratije. Tvrdićemo da zbog toga što čisto proceduralno opravdanje definiše autoritet i legitimnost demokratije samo u odnosu na pravičnost same procedure, ono ne može biti adekvatno objašnjenje za sve ono do čega nam je u demokratiji istinski stalo. Ljudima je u demokratiji veoma važan i sam ishod demokratskog procesa. Legitimost demokratske procedure, dakle, zavisi i od kvaliteta odluka koje ta procedura proizvodi. Uspon epistemičkih teorija o demokratiji je u skladu sa porastom popularnosti ideje o "mudrosti gomile" koju pronalazimo u različitim oblastima istraživanja. Zbog toga ćemo se osvrnuti na razvoj i rezultate organizacione teorije i predstaviti psihološke nalaze o kapacitetima ljudskog rasuđivanja. Instrumentalne ili epistemičke teorije tvrde da je demokratija legitimna ako i samo ako ima tendenciju da nas dovede do "dobrih" ili "istinitih" političkih odluka. Tvrdićemo da ono što omogućava da demokratsko odlučivanje, pod određenim uslovima, ima veću epistemičku vrednost od alternativnih formi odlučivanja jeste postojanje kognitivne raznovrsnosti unutar grupe koja donosi političke odluke. Pružićemo teorijske i empirijske argumente u prilog epistemičke vrednosti kolektivnog, demokratkog donošenja odluka. Ukazaćemo na značaj političkih institucija koje mogu da omoguće prisustvo kognitivne raznovrsnosti i povećaju nivo pojedinačne kompetencije opšte javnosti. Takođe ćemo tvrditi da je neophodno kombinovati deliberativnu i agregativnu metodu, i to upravo tim redosledom, s obzirom da i jedna i druga imaju važne epistemičke karakteristike. ; The aim of this doctoral dissertation is to provide arguments in support of the epistemic justification of democracy. We will argue that because a purely procedural justification defines the authority and legitimacy of democracy only in relation to the fairness of the procedure itself, it can not be an adequate explanation for all the things we really care about in democracy. The outcome of the democratic process itself is very important to people in democracy. The legitimacy of a democratic procedure, therefore, depends on the quality of the decisions that this procedure produces. The rise of epistemic theories about democracy is in line with the increasing popularity of the idea of the "wisdom of the crowds" that we find in various fields of research. Therefore, we will look at the development and results of organizational theory and present psychological findings about human reasoning capacities. Instrumental or epistemic theories claim that democracy is legitimate if and only if it has a tendency to lead us to "good" or "true" political decisions. We will argue that what allows democratic decision-making, under certain conditions, to have a higher epistemic value than alternative forms of decision-making is the existence of the cognitive diversity of a group that makes political decisions. We will provide theoretical and empirical arguments in favor of the epistemic value of collective, democratic decision-making. We will point out the importance of political institutions that can enable the presence of cognitive diversity and increase the level of individual competence of the general public. We will also argue that it is necessary to combine a deliberative and aggregative method, precisely in this order, given that both of them have important epistemic characteristics.
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