Suchergebnisse

Finer investigated the phenomenon of politics within its spatial and temporal framework, trying to look into as many forms of government as possible and to fmd uniformity in their variety. He paid particular attention to a study of institutions of government which he considered the core of politics. His investigations focused on the state. By condensing the consequences of the emergence of the state on the forms of government, Finer came up with two variables: the extent in which rulers establish a standardized central administration and the extent in which homogeneous culture, religion and laws have been achieved. The second topic which held an important place in Finer's research is military organization. He wanted to demonstrate how the survival of a state, international order, social distribution of power, governing, the degree of bureaucratization, and a regime's nature, are intertwined with the structure of the state's military institutions. His opinion was that the military organization is necessary for the establishment and preservation of political communities, regimes and governments. According to Finer, the state's key function are preparing for wars, waging wars and reconstructing the country after them, and expecting the next one. Finer's third topic is the relationship between political and religious systems of belief. He stressed their dualistic nature, with two more or less independent hierarchies which have been a source of serious tensions. Furthermore, Finer links the existing system of beliefs, social stratification, and political institutions. Where these factors are balanced, the political community achieves permanent stability. (SOI : PM: S. 182)

Sustainable development is a developmental concept that takes into account the economic, the environmental, and the social dimension of development. The modem approach to the concept of sustainable development implies acknowledgement of new dimensions or pillars of development. The subject of this paper is the institutional dimension as the fourth dimension of sustainable development. The path to sustainable development requires interconnectedness, harmonization, and coordination of different dimensions of development. Institutionally, new principles or concepts are necessary to improve the functioning of the various institutions and actors involved in the process of achieving the goals of sustainable development. The aim of this paper is to indicate that economic, ecological, and social development based on sustainability requires institutional support as a complementary and necessary dimension.

As regards the concern for and protection of artifacts of Croatian culture, the Society occupies an unparalleled place in Croatian history. Innumerable times it has supported, when it has been allowed the means, the restoring, building and archeological research of important Croatian cultural objects. The largest project undertaken by the BHZ, besides the restoration of Ozalj, was the building of the St. Cyril and Methodius Basilica in Duvno (today's Tomislavgrad), as a monument to the celebration of the millenary of the Croatian kingdom. Its construction, in 1925, made a large impression on Croatians both at home and abroad. (SOI : CSP: S. 40) + The BHZ ("Braca Hrvatskog Zmaja": "Brethrenhood of the Croatian Dragon") Society appeared on the Croatian cultural scene at the beginning of the twentieth century. Its objective was to protect monuments dedicated to important Croatian cultural figures and historical events, as well as to protect and restore artifacts of Croatian culture. But above all else, its main activity was the erection of monuments and memorial plaques. Even today, more than two hundred of these exist throughout Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Austria. In Zagreb, the society founded the City Library in 1907 and the City museum in 1909. It also began a Popular University, founded the institute for conservation, the ethnographic museum, and supported the creation of a number of popular libraries in many Croatian cities. In particular, the Society supported and protected the monuments dedicated to the Zrinskis and Frankopans, old Croatian noble families who played a very important role in the political and cultural life of Croatia. In 1928, the Society was given the city of Ozalj to administer, where it then created the Zrinski-Frankopan museum. During the period of the Independent State of Croatia (1941-1945), the Society was transformed into the Knightly Order of the Croatian Dragon. In 1946, after the communists came to power, the Society was disbanded. When democracy was established in 1990, the Society was reconstituted

The term politics, from its origin until nowadays, has been closely related to coercion and effects of coercion. The first rulers were finding support in a belief in the divine nature of power, but since, in time, this belief faded, the solution was found in physical superiority of rulers. The development of politics as an activity by which a community can be governed instrumentally, conditioned its closer linkage to force. Politics was sometimes identified with force, and sometimes politics was using force as an instrument for taming the bullying by others. Undoubtedly, the man is a rational and instinctive being. Monopolization of bullying within political activity made it possible to place the force, depending on the circumstances, into the service of one or the other attribute of human nature. Integration processes in political, economic, military and other areas, significantly contributed to changing the role of a national state in its formerly inviolable spheres, even in those elements that are considered classic attributes of the state as an institution (sovereignty, independence, monetary policy, defense, state power legitimacy, etc). Does this power, which is 'taken away' from the national state, go away, through integrative processes with other international subjects, to some distant power and alienated centers, or does it, on the contrary, enter the corpus of political activity that strengthens its overall position? Without immersing into more profound analysis about what is closer to the truth, it is a fact that through integrative processes a number of 'state' activities is transferred to joint institutions. In the spirit of this paper, the most important institutions are those which decide about organization, preparing, functioning, and using of the state (interstate) power. Strategic solutions concerning these matters, are a part of domestic and intergovernmental policy. They are products of a great number of internal and external factors, starting from economic and institutional, to social and cultural-traditional, and to international.

The author analyses Schmitt's and Luhmann's theory of democracy and the constitutional state. By comparing them, he concludes that Schmitt's critique of the democratic pluralistic state has ended in the theory of direct or plebiscitary democracy in which the constitution is subject to an unpredictable will of political majority which can change it wilfully in line with the power relations. Luhmann, on the other hand, starts from the assumption of the separation between law and politics and builds his concept of the constitutional state on the bipolar differentiation and the mutual checks between law and politics. The author concludes that Luhmann does not give up on Hobbes' pessimistic conviction that human nature is bestial; he only offers a different strategy for the coexistence of cultured savages. (SOI : PM: S. 67)

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)

When researching multiculturalism and the process of Europeanisation in Serbia and countries of the region, one must first examine the status of multiculturality and multiculturalism, from the normative framework to states' policies which decidedly determine the nature and functioning of a political community. Starting from the fact that the context, nature and structure of a political community determines the essence of rights and freedoms stipulated by the constitution and laws, as well as that a synergy of good laws and sound policies enables an effective policy of multiculturality, integration and interlacing of cultures of diverse national communities in a society, the proclaimed multiculturalism was studied in this paper, with a view to ascertain whether such constitutional and legislative framework and policies exist, and if they did, whether there was concerted action between them. The key finding was that the states of the region support a civil state in principle, that they are exclusively or predominantly nationally legitimised by the highest legislative acts and that the factual state is marked by various national cultural identities that are not integrated into the model of plural citizenship. The paper shows that there is a lack of political will to transform the declared support for a pluralistic civil state into public policies affirming the values of multiculturalism, as well as that there is a lack of strong institutions to support such policy. Creating civil awareness, strengthening civil values and virtues are not priorities for state institutions or media controlled by governments. Rather than that, their priority is to strengthen national identities. Hence, based on the above, we can affirm that civil states, civil values and civil identities are only at initial stages, i.e. that they are still, only occasionally, at the level of general programme orientation and set aims. The necessary ingredient for their firm establishment is a consolidated democracy and acceptance of universal values of developed democracies, such as the rule of law and protection of human rights and freedoms.

Taking into consideration all the benefits and pitfalls of its political, economic, military, and cultural legacies, the People's Republic of China has adopted a policy of reliance on rapid economic growth and improvement of the standard of living, conducive to political and social stability of Chinese society and state. This goal has been accomplished only temporarily and partially, while the final result primarily depends on the ability of the Chinese leadership to find the golden mean between the two opposites: the closed political system and the need to maintain an open economy. In its search for a place in today's world, the People's Republic of China is faced with the central choice of the equitable participation in global community: full acceptance of its mechanisms and principles (beginning with the United Nations) and international trade norms, the protection of human rights, armament control, environmental protection and so on. However, the Chinese see in this a threat of the erosion of Chinese independence and the possibility of choice and political independence of the Chinese state. (SOI : PM: S. 44)

Political, economic, social and environmental changes that accompany the development of the modern world, encourage states to implement changes in the security field. One of these countries is the Netherlands, which reformed its system of public security by introducing safety regions. The safety regions represent a new form of organization in the field of emergency and disaster. They are not a new level of local government but rather a new form of public policy that involves all levels of the system of local self-government. Therefore, the mentioned regions have a direct impact on the establishment of a new form of organization of functioning of the local self-government, and their responsibilities in relation to emergency situations. This particularly applies to their powers regarding the fire brigades. The safety regions directly result in the reduction of municipal competencies and enlarge the jurisdiction of the region in preparations and actions in case of emergencies. However, it is the firefighting units that constitute the backbone of the preparation and response to emergencies. The main tasks of these units have not been changed by introducing safety regions, but there has been a shift in their management and directing their wider duties.

The European Parliament and the European Council have adopted the Directive 2008/96/EC relating to the safety of traffic infrastructure. This Directive binds the EU Member States to implement the guidelines on roads comprising the parts of the Trans-European traffic network, regardless of the stage those roads are in. EU Member States have a possibility to adopt the guidelines and regulations from the Directive and build them into the national regulations on parts of the roads that are not a part of the Trans-European roads. Based on the facts stated above, there is a research problem in a form of a question "Can the Directive 2008/96/EC be applied in the traffic in Bosnia and Herzegovina?" i.e. are its guidelines implemented as a manner of approximation with the EU regulations, and what are the effects of its implementation. This is a traffic problem in its nature, closely related to road traffic safety, and we find the answer to the research problem in theoretical and empirical research in this area.

The aim of the research was to find out whether the recent socio-economic changes in Croatia generated the corresponding change in the religiosity of Croatian youth and if so, what was the nature of this change. To this end, the results of the studies of Croatian youth of 1986 and 1999 are compared. Several indicators of religious devotion are included: confessional and religious self-identification, beliefs, and religious practice. Since all four indicators have increased significantly, this means that in the mentioned period religiosity registered a marked increase, which signifies a massive shift from the non-religious to the religious orientation of Croatian youth. This is an indirect confirmation of the claim that this shift in the religious devotion of Croatian outh and its remarkable increase is due to the social changes such as the fall of communism, the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, the creation of the independent Croatian state, and the Serbian aggression against Croatia. (SOI : PM: S. 160)

There have been a number of philosophical, legal and political concepts dealing with the issue of peace. The most famous discourse on the topic of peace is undoubtedly Kant's writing "Perpetual Peace" not only for the cogency of its ideas but also for the applicability of the majority of them in practice, particularly in terms of collective security. Kant's starting point was that peace is a rational and moral imperative of human nature, realized solely through human efforts. Though written two hundred years ago, his ideas have found acolytes in the post-coldwar period since they are, to a large extent, considered as emancipatory. Kant finds the guarantees for the realization of peace in the moral doctrine and thus rejects the use of force in the creation of peace. The relations among states are based on cooperation, not competition so that some elements of his project are reminiscent of the solutions applied in the system of collective security. The author looks into the viability of Kant's ideas in the post-coldwar period. (SOI : PM: S. 69)

NATO's military action in Yugoslavia is a pivotal event that is going to leave an indelible impact on the further direction of international relations. The author first analyses the underlying causes of the campaign, among which were: the international community's resolve to finally punish Milosevic', be instrumental in eliminating his regime, drive out Russian interests from the Balkans, espouse a positive stance towards Muslim countries and, finally, the internal political American reason: the desire to strengthen President Clinton's position. This action has also had a manifold significance for the new world order since it poses the questions of the world order's content and nature, its leadership and norms in a new light. In the process of establishing of the new post-cold-war relations, various tendencies that will pave the way to the new millennium will clash. On the one hand, there will be the exclusive approach based on force and interests, and on the other, the desire to establish the relations in which human rights will be the fundamental criterion for assessing the suitability of a country for a full membership in the newly unified international community. (SOI : S. 24)