Suchergebnisse

An examination of the concept of community from theoretical & political perspectives emphasizes the centrality of the question in contemporary societies. The impossibility of community, as one of the radical theses of political theory, is defined against the background of the real limitations of a global world that does not allow for the existence of community. The effectiveness of the thesis of the impossibility of community is tested using H. Kelsen's analysis of the parliamentary concept of democracy. In treating community as a political space where political & judicial systems & cultures meet, Kelsen's definition of community avoids the real manifestations of the world. Kelsen defines revolutions as political catastrophes that evoke the framework of the Other where freedom appears as the destruction of social integration. Adapted from the source document.

This article deals with the European integration policy of the Holy See from the 1950s until the resignation of Benedict XVI at the beginning of 2013. The goal of the study is to describe the integration policies of individual popes in the context of political science theories. In the first half of the study we will briefly introduce the major typologies of political science for the study of integration policies of political parties. From the list of the existing approaches, we choose the typology of Petr Kaniok as the most appropriate for this study. In the second half of the study, individual popes are classified according to the framework of Kaniok's typology. The goal of the study is not only to investigate the major moves in the integration policy of the Holy See, but also to utilize a theoretical approach traditionally used for the study of political parties on the issue of the Holy See. Adapted from the source document.

It is clear from political science literature that political parties are not static entities. Similar to other political institutions, they tend to transform with time, in response to changes in their surrounding environment. If the economic, social, cultural and political parameters in society are to substantially change, it is possible to deduce a change in the role of a political party and its organisational structure. The transition from totalitarian to democratic societies in Central, and partially in Eastern Europe, presents a process so unique that one may legitimately question if this has not resulted in a serious modification of the catch-all party type. In the region of Central Europe, Czechoslovakia - and after 1993 the Czech Republic - presents a special case, where during political and economic transformation next to general features, specific factors were also enforced, which eventually influenced the set-up and formation of parties in their early stages. It is left to consideration and further scrutiny to decide whether the unrepeatable environment of the Czech-Moravian melting pot, has not cultivated the clientelistic form of political party. Adapted from the source document.

The paper deals with the organizational model of political parties created by Italian political scientist Angelo Panebianco. For presentation of this, outside Italian academic discourse, an 'unknown' model is necessary to briefly describe the whole organizational theory and to introduce the review of this model. After that we examine the applicability of Panebianco's scheme on the structural transformation of communist political parties at the end of 1980s. This suitability will be measured on the case example of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The PCI was historically the strongest and most influential communist party outside the Soviet bloc and that is why it is convenient to apply the organizational model to the organizational changes of the PCI during its transformation. We also define five main criteria of these changes and their compatibility with the Panebianco's model. Thus the main aim of this paper is to prove the suitability of the organizational model not only to the structural transformation of the Italian communists but using this case example also to the universal transformation of the communist parties in the western world. Adapted from the source document.

The EU crisis has brought about fundamental impacts on the constitutional framework of the EU governance. The internationalization of EU law, the strengthening of the intergovernmental form of decision making with the crucial role of the European Council and the corresponding weakening of parliamentary bodies can be seen as symptoms of a shift of the EU towards an executive form of federal governance. However, this trend may not be interpreted simply as a 'return' of the sovereign state as the key actor within the European polity, as it might be according to traditional theories of emergency powers. The decision making is de facto relocated from the political level to the level of administration. Thus, instead of de-parliamentarization, we can speak about de-politization or a reconfiguration of the political. The crucial role here - even in decisions of summits of the European Council and the Euro Council - is played by administrative bodies, particulary those of the Council Secretariat and the Commission's services. While the economic crisis is (hopefully) already overcome, the overcoming of the crisis of democracy is not in sight. Adapted from the source document.

The paper analyzes the far right People's Party Our Slovakia (LSNS) in 2006, 2010 and 2012 Slovak parliamentary elections. The main questions that the paper seeks to answer are 1) whether and how has the party changed its main themes during the periods before elections, 2) what the party's position toward the Roma minority has been, and 3) how the thematic adaptation has affected electoral results of the party. The paper analyzes the changing position of the party toward the Roma minority in the context of three electoral periods and it links the party's electoral results with the occurrence of so-called Roma settlements in the areas, where the party gained a significant share of the vote. We found that during the 2006 elections the party mostly emphasized the need for the renaissance of the (Slovak) nation and the reflection of its roots and national historical figures. In both the 2010 and 2012 elections the party for the most part sharply criticized the Roma minority and the mainstream political parties. We argue that this change was reflected in the party's electoral gain. Since 2010 the party has changed its focus to an active campaign against Roma and electoral results of the party have improved. In 2006 LSNS gained the most votes in areas where the local appeal of its leaders emphasizing the nationalistic themes was the largest and in both 2010 and 2012 the party gained the most votes in regions with the highest occurrence of Roma settlements. We also identified all four features that according to Mudde (2000) characterize far right parties in the electoral themes emphasized by LSNS. Adapted from the source document.