Suchergebnisse

In this article, I will try to open a new discussion on the intersection between Gramsci and Foucault. First of all I will try to identify if these two authors could be used together in order to analyze the power relations in a society, by discussing some of the most important contributions on this subject. I will identify the points of intersection and the points of tension between the two authors, in order to find the best way to combine the theories of hegemony and governmentality. The main goal of the article is to find if the two theories can be compatible and how they could work together in order to obtain a better understanding of the power relations. Gramsci could offer a better tool to analyze the institutional context, the role of the social classes and the way in which the interest of the classes are build. By using the concept of governmentality one can analyze the way in which the techniques of power are working and which rationalities contribute to the change of human behavior.

This study depicts the biography of a young communist (Ion Călin) who volunteered for the International Brigades in Spain, and thus it features - within the historiography of the topic -
the destinies of the antifascist Romanian combatants. Since the vast majority of these combatants was composed of members and supporters of PCdR, the regime of popular democracy honored
and glorified them after March 6, 1945, in the same vein as those Communist inlanders who were
repressed by the "bourgeois regime". The Romanian Communists who fought in the French Resistance received a similar follow-up. After 1989, the names of the Romanian volunteers who had joined the Spanish Republicans' cause went in the shadow due to their political affiliation to a party utterly compromised in the eye of the public.
This study also deals with a broader context, including international politics, the reasons
behind such an enthusiasm binding young people to go abroad to a front at over 2.000 km, the social
strata they derived from, PCdR's efforts to organize and send combatants across the borders, Ion Călin's clandestine journey to the Iberian peninsula (via Czechoslovakia, Austria, Switzerland, or France), as well as aspects and details of the fights of which he was a part of during the war.

The author sketches a vivid intellectual history of the content and bearing of Raymond Aron's work, particularly with respect to the great scholar's analyses of totalitarian regimes and of Marxism as a "Christian heresy". He describes the dominant themes of the French philosopher, political scientist, sociologist, historian and journalist from The Opium of the Intellectuals, to Progress and Disillusion: the Dialectics of Modern Society, or Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations; from De Gaulle, Israel and the Jews to Politics and History, or to Main Currents in Sociological Thought; from Marxism and the Existentialists, to Introduction to the Philosophy of History: An Essay on the Limits of Historical Objectivity; and from In Defense of Decadent Europe, to the Memoirs and to the Committed Observer… and this list is not an exhaustive one. He writes about the most prominent of Aron's contemporaries, and about his most enthusiastic followers, particularly in the Western world. As an autobiographical detail, Tismăneanu does not fail to mention Aron's readership among the Romanian students before the fall of the Berlin wall, a triumphant moment which the great champion of "methodological doubt" and the enemy of total metaphysics and ideological orthodoxies did not live to witness.

The aim of the article is to reframe the political ideas Dimitrie Gusti has been expressed alongside two decades of the interwar period, through the conservative political doctrine. Dimitrie Gusti did not relate his political perspective to the conservative label. Still, his political commitments and ideas, as these have been summed up in 1932-1933, when he was Ministry of Public Education in a Government led by National Peasant Party, allow seeing him amongst the leading personalities who has resumed the prewar conservatism in Romania. My arguments revolve around this latter thesis.

The paper explores the merits of Protagoras' view of politics as a possible intellectual source of the post-communist theory of democracy. Unbeknownst to themselves, Romanian politicians and political scientist tend to understand the function of politics in the footsteps of Plato and Lenin, as an art, or science of leadership. Interested mainly in the effectiveness of government, they give no significant heed to the issue of rights and liberties. The great discourse of Protagoras of Abdera could supply, in a normative way, the conceptual tools for a different approach to politics, as a pedagogical rhetoric of legal and political equality.

Scopul acestui studiu este de a identifica argumentele realismului stiintific, formulate de catre Alexander Wendt, pe baza carora statul se defineste ca persoana sau ca actor in sistemul de state. Voi vorbi despre aceste argumente si motivele pentru care acestea pot explica comportamentul statelorca actori rationali. In prima parte mi-am propus sa identific componentele teoretice din cadrul realismului stiintific, conform carora statele sunt autoorganizate, seamana cu organismele biologice, adica au o structura interna cu elemente constituente functionale care actioneaza in sens colectiv in virtutea reproducerii si supravietuirii sistemului, iar spre exterior acestea isi stabilesc limite/granite pentru a se defini ca o identitate. Pe baza componentelor biologice ale sistemului voi identifica si componenta cognitiva a unui stat, ceea ce il defineste ca o persoana psihologica cu interese, constiinta si memorie, astfel elementele constituente actioneaza in sensul supravietuirii identitatii colective. Fiind date functiile cognitive ale statului acesta isi va putea proiecta si strategii de relationare cu ceilalti actori statali. In a doua sectiune a lucrarii voi vorbi despre paradigma realismului ofensiv, din cadrul relatiilor internationale. Astfel pe baza structurii teoretice din realismul stiintific voi extrage conceptele cheie si le voi operationaliza, sau cel putin le voi asocia cu asumptiile mai aplicate din realismul ofensiv formulate de John J. Mearsheimer care susþine ca principalul factor motivant pentru state in sistemul international il reprezinta dorinta de putere astfel voi testa asumptia principala a lucrarii conform careia statele sunt persoane supradimensionate.

This article compares the ideas of two political thinkers representative for their time and region - Kautilya (of ancient India) and Machiavelli (of modern Europe). The analysis reveals important similarities and differences, and offers potential explanations for the findings. Most significantly, the similarities between Kautyla's Arthasastra and Machiavelli's Prince are visible particularly when it comes to their treatment of war, 'state' administration, diplomacy, monarchy and the features of a good leader. Such similarities suggest that the development of modern European philosophy has been influenced by other cultural spaces, including Ancient India.

The article is an account of Romanian Marxist discourse between 1970 and 1980, one that was completely engaged in the justification and legitimation of the contemporary totalitarian political regime. Radu Florian's works, one of the most representative authors of this decade, are analysed via the conceptual lenses of Austrian economic theory. This methodological approach is quite fertile, since it generates clear explanations why Marxist theory and the communist state incarnating its teachings could not and cannot implement their claims. The samples of Romanian Marxist discourse under scrutiny are a showcase of philosophy invaded by rhetorics and converted into ideology. The author concludes that Romanian Marxism in the designated period represents a long line of contradictions resulting from the attempt to adapt a cruel reality to a generous and humane self-construction of a political programme.