Suchergebnisse

Today's world is shaped by the processes of globalization and economic liberalization, which dominantly determine the social, economic, environmental and political conditions. As part of these processes, there is an increasing rhetoric about the activities of the state to build a legal system 'ideal for attracting' foreign investment, to establish state institutions in charge of 'attracting foreign investment', and to create a business environment conducive to 'attract' foreign investment. Faced with citizen requests and pressure to create conditions for employment, in initial negotiations with foreign investors state, authorities articulate their willingness to meet these requests. The affirmative stance of governments towards the investments of multinational companies easily can be changed. Once the investment begins, the pledges made by one contracting party to the other may prove to be unrealistic and economically unjustified. The tensions generated between the host state and foreign investors jeopardize the foreign investment contract concluded by the contracting parties. Further fulfillment of contractual obligations from foreign investment contracts will be possible if the contracting parties resolve the resulting conflict through mutual negotiations. Through negotiations, the contracting parties can depreciate the impact of the changed circumstances, including a range of economic, political, legislative and environmental conditions. Initiating negotiations at the right time and conducting them in good faith may lead to a solution. Even if an agreement is not reached, the renegotiation may contribute to a better understanding of contractual partners and redefining the positions of the contracting parties.

The essay describes the evolution of the concept of political culture, from th concepts such as Comte's 'consensus', Durkheim's 'collective awareness', Weber's 'significance of individual actions', to Parson's 'action frame of reference', and Mead's 'national character'. The development began with Comte's search for differentia specifica of social sciences in relation to oth positive sciences and finished in 1963 with the introduction of the concept of political culture into political science by G. Mmond and S. Verba. Our analysis has shown that many definitions of political culture point out that i essence lies in people's beliefs since political culture is a set of beliefs regarding politics. As much as it may seem a paradox, it cannot be reduced to mere individual beliefs, but represents a system of inter-subjective opinions on various political objects. This explains the possible discrepancies between the political events and the political beliefs of the people, between their behaviour and political culture, and so on. Contrary to the belief of some authors, it has been shown how political culture may and should be taken as a common denominator for a variety of opinions on politics. Political attitudes, values, norms, public opinion and political ideologies are nothing but different manifestations of political culture. Thus, the concept of political culture includes diverse facets of the subjective attitude of people towards politics. This is the asset and not the downside of this concept, as some authors would have it. It is pointed out that the manifold manifestations of political culture do not carry the same 'weight' in explaining the political activism of people and the functioning of political systems. The relationship between these manifestations is extremely complex and a challenge for research. It is this very relationship that could explain the stable and less stable (i.e. stable and vacillating) reactions of people in their political activity. (SOI : PM: S. 128)

The author looks into the methodological features of public choice theory. On the example of James Buchanan's contribution, he demonstrates the differences between that kind of approach (often dubbed political economy) versus welfare economics and mainstream economics. Unlike welfare economics, which tries to work out the optimal state of allocation and distribution of economic resources by using certain logical rules based on Pareto's principles, or mainstream economics, which tries to identify the improvements in observable economic categories (such as national income or investment consumption), political economy encompasses the process of collective decision-making i.e. politics. In this, the efficacy criterion is t extent of consent (consensus) in collective decisionmaking. On the example of Buchanan's and Tullock's joint contribution in the book "The Calculus of Consent", the author concludes that this paved the way for introducing a legitimate categorial mechanism for investigating the costs of political decision-making into political science. (SOI : PM: S. 88)

The authors analyse the constitutional position of the Polish parliament after the democratic revolution of 1989 as well as its internal political dynamics. The parliament has two houses, endowed with different constitutional competences: Sejm (lower House) and Senate (upper House). The 460 members of the Sejm were elected in three electoral cycles (1989, 1991, and 1993) by means of majority and a proportional electoral system with various prohibitive clauses, while the 100 senators were elected by the majority electoral system. The changes in the electoral rules resulted in the altered parliamentary "contractual" Sejm. The seats (in accordance with a political agreement) were divided between the ruling communist bloc and the oppositional "Solidarity", the first freely elected Sejm had an extremely fragmented party structure with 28 parties, while the second Sejm is moderately pluralist, with two parties of the government coalition and four opposition parties. The most remarkable feature of the Polish political culture is an increasing professionalization of the parliament members as well as a growing political apathy of general public and a meagre turnout at the polls. (SOI : PM: S. 120)

The collapse of the communist systems has brought about the crisis of identity and the political efficacy of the left not solely in Eastern Europe but in the West as well. Due to this situation, the author claims, all the elements of the traditional leftist identity have come under scrutiny. This applies both to the political ingredients common to all leftist parties (the primacy of economy, rejection of private ownership and market, egalitarianism, collectivism and the theory of progress) as well as the elements which instigated irreconcilable differentiations within the left (internationalism vs. nationalism, parliamentary democracy, the attitude towards violence, reform vs. revolution). The author concludes that due to the complex structure of the problems facing leftist parties and other political protagonists as well, there is little possibility for the emergence of an all-embracing leftist political programme; instead, partial programme variations should be expected. (SOI : PM: S. 21)

The article looks into the changes in the party and the social structure of the first House of the Croatian parliament (Sabor) in the transitional period. A total of twenty-six political parties have had seats in the Parliament; sixteen of them secured their place in it through a prior support of the electoral body, while ten of them secured their parliamentary status solely through individual lists. The author shows that the party fragmentation has occurred due to the process of parliamentary parties' factioning and the transfer of delegates from the parliamentary into the non-parliamentary parties. The degree of the party fragmentation in the Sabor is considered moderate and not disruptive for the functioning of the Parliament. This is due to the continued and stupendous mandate dominance of the majority party and to the fact that the party fragmentation has primarily involved the opposition parties. An analysis of the social/demographic characteristics of the representatives has shown that the Sabor is dominated by male, college-educated, forty-eight years old Croats with a bit more than four years of parliamentary experience. The educational structure of the Sabor does not differ much from other European parliaments, but the number of senior representatives is somewhat higher than in other European countries, while the share of women is the standards. It has been suggested that the most effective strategy the Croatian parliamentary political parties could employ regarding the gender and age representation are internally determined quotas for women and young people on their candidates' lists for elections. This would indirectly influence the social structure sof the Croatian parliament. (SOI : PM: S. 174)

Democratic consolidation of post-authoritarian and post-totalitarian societies is looked into at the levels of (1) basic political institutions; (2) chief proponents of representative democracy (political parties and interest associations); (3) behaviour of powerful informal political actors (army, church, entrepreneurs, etc); and (4) civic culture. Democracy is stable only after it has been consolidated on all four levels. This "maximalist concept" of democratic consolidation excludes the explanation of a breakdown of democratic systems by voluntaristic and non-conceptualized descriptions of "deconsolidation". (SOI : PM: S. 150)

The author's assumption is that a regular rotation of the left and the right in power has been a long-standing feature of stable European democracies. In most East European countries the collapse of communism was followed by the electoral defeat of leftist parties. However, in the last two years these regions have witnessed a return to power of more or less transformed leftist parties and leaders. This does not mark the return of communism, which has definitely become a thing of the past, though some of these leftist parties nurture certain revisionist traits. In less developed countries, former communist elites are being transformed into national political elites, while in more developed countries of Eastern Europe the transformation of leftist parties into social-democratic parties has been completed. The author underlines the prominence of the national element in the political programmes of leftist parties. He goes on to conclude that the main reason for the resurgence of the left in East European countries lies in the social repercussions of the transition and the fact that the right has been turning a blind eye to these problems. (SOI : PM: S 41)