Suchergebnisse

American and international public looks up to American presidents as the chief creators of American foreign policy. A review of the contemporary history of US foreign policy is mostly a review of foreign policy platforms and initiatives of American presidents. Although fundamental prerequisites exist - constitutional powers, executive office of the President as support in the creation and implementation of certain decisions, the expectations of the Congress and the public that President should lead the nation in the foreign policy arena - not all American presidents have taken an equal interest in foreign policy decision-making and the creation of American foreign policy; this has depended on their personal interests and experiences. Despite significant constitutional restrictions of the president's autonomous action in foreign policy and occasionally successful attempts of the legislature to assume control over foreign policy, as well as frequent challenges to presidential powers and numerous actions by the public, we can conclude that American presidents are nevertheless dominant figures in the field of American foreign policy. (SOI : PM: S. 192)

The Croatian Constitutional Court by its decision of June 24, 1992 partly rejected a reqest to start proceedings, and partly terminated already started proceedings, to determine the constitutionality of some thirty emergency decrees passed by the President of the Croatian Republic during the undeclared war with Serbia and the Yugoslav People's Army in the second half of 1991. The Court backed its decision inter alia by the following arguments: the President has the power to pass emergency decrees without declaring first the state of emergency; presidential emergency decrees can be retroactive since Croatian Constitution does not forbid specifically their retroactivity. The Court's reasoning which endorses a permanent coup d'etat, is very probably a corollary of the idea, which is taken for granted by some Croatian constitutional lawyers, that the Croatian Constitution has been modelled on the Constitution of the French 5th Republic so that the sweeping powers of the French President belong also to his Croatian counterpart. The paper challenges the idea and discusses the relevance of comparative constitutional theory for Croatian constitutional practice. The first three sections demonstrate that, despite political similarities between the early years of the French 5th Republic and the Croatian Republic the two semi-presidential systems differ in several important constitutional and legal respects so that the powers - especially emergency powers - of the French President cannot be used as a persuasive authority to interpret powers of the Croatian President. Section four indicates that if anything in French law is authoritative in interpreting Croatian constitutional provisions on the state of emergency it is the effort of the French Conseil d'etat to control, even though in a very limited way, the legality of presidential emergency decrees. The last section points out that assumptions with which Croatian Constitutional Court interprets presidential powers are more in accord with the Weimar Constitution than with the Constitution of the 5th French Republic. The paper ends with the warning that the unrestrained exercise of presidential powers in Croatia may lead, as it did in Mussolinni's Italy and in the Weimar Republic, to a dictatorship. (SOI : PM: S. 165)

After the assassination of king Alexander (1934) the Kingdom of Yugoslavia witnessed a revival of the party and political life and confrontation between the regime and opposing forces. The new president of the government Milan Stojadinovic recognized again the existence of the Croatian question. At all political meetings the followers of Vladko Macek and of the Croatian Peasant Party all over Croatia asked the prince Pavle and the government to abolish the dictatorship. The same happened also at the meeting of Croatian Peasant Party in Sisak (1936), when one of the Party leaders, Ljudevit Tomasic, criticized the political situation in the country. Facing 12000 citizens of Sisak and peasants from the Sisak region, he asked for full sovereignty of Croatian people, Croatian Parliament in Zagreb, and said that Croats had never been nor would ever be Yugoslavs "because Yugoslavism is no nation at all". Because of this speech a criminal proceedings against Tomasic were instituted. It was a political process which included a series of state-run institutions. After the agreement between the new president of the government Dragisa Cvetkovic and Vladko Macek and after the establishment of Banovina Croatia, the procedure against Tomasic was stopped. (SOI : CSP: S. 296)

Based on the literature and the available sources, first of all contemporary press, the author reconstructs the attitude of the Croatian Popular Party on the events concerning the assassination on Stjepan Radic, the representative of the Croatian Peasant Party in the National Assembly of the Monarchy of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Special attention is paid to the entrance of S. Baric, president of the Croatian Popular Party, into the government of Anton Korosec, and reactions to this step. Disappearance of the Croatian Popular Party from the Croatian political scene was closely connected with the resistance (gemeint ist: lack of resistance, SOI, Clw) of its leaders to this extremely unpopular government. (SOI : CSP: S. 245)

Henry Kissinger is one of the most eminent and influential intellectuals in American foreign policy. His work and achievements may be divided into three phases of his participation in the creation of American foreign policy. In the first - scholarly - phase of his career, he criticized US foreign polic His works from that period clearly reflect his "realpolitik" outlook. Particularly important for his life and work is the second phase when he was able, as a national security adviser and later as Secretary of State for presidents Nixon and Ford, to use his remarkable intellectual capital and successfully practice realpolitik as the creator and proponent of American foreign policy. After his retirement from foreign policy administration, Kissinger did not cease to use his clout in the field of international relations and American foreign policy. He has been one of the most significant American intellectuals who have exerted an influence on American foreign policy. (SOI : SOEU: S. 133)

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)

Nothing is more prone to errors than newspapers. Croatian newspapers (dailies, magazines and a few journals) were studied during a several- month period in 1997. The review is not comprehensive, nor have all the pages been scanned, since this would require a sort of analysis for which there were no necessary funds nor researchers. Nevertheless, the picture of the typical newspaper errors is all-inclusive. The errors which are a result of haste, hard working conditions and obsolete technology are bearable and excusable. However, flagrant carelessness shows disrespect for readers and the profession. Even worse is ignorance. Journalism is advancing fast, but there are certain well-known basics which can be easily learned. There is no excuse for ignorance-based errors, as there is no justification for a surgeon who would - due to ignorance - amputate a healthy instead of a diseased leg. But, what to say about the intentional, deliberate distortion of facts? It is unforgivable not to inform the public about the opinions of the President or the Governor of National Bank or to give a true dimension to a crime. This side of journalism must be rectified by educated professionals who respect the rules of the profession and whose primary concern are not ideological connotations and drifts. (SOI : PM: S. 198)

An analysis of the US foreign policy strategy shows that a more intensive advocacy of human rights and democracy is us usually a characteristic for democratic American presidents and their administrations. The numerous challenges of the new world order which Bill Clinton was faced with, required the redefinition of the role, goals, and interests of the sole remaining superpower in the new international community. The promotion of democracy and liberal market values and the protection of universal human rights have been the guidelines for Clinton's administration's foreign policy during both of his mandates. Due to the specific features and intensity of geopolitical changes, which resulted in armed conflicts in the South-Eastern Europe, the consequence of the American policy towards the newly-created countries (the so-called young democracies on the Old Continent, including the new Russia) was that the first NATO's military "out of area" campaign on Kosovo was justified as an attempt to stem the flood of refugees and to make an end to the violation of ethnic and other human rights. Since the US have announced their intention to intervene when and if (and based on their interests), they deem that basic human rights and democratic values are violated, it can be said that a new pattern of behaviour has emerged which would have to be adopted by the other members of the new world order as well. (SOI : PM: S. 122)

More than a decade has passed since the momentous events of 1989 that changed the world order and redefined the geopolitics of Central Europe. This is just the right moment to assess the results of these changes and discuss the future of that region. Based on the past comparative studies or those currently going on, we may say that Central Europe differs from the post-communist East (the former Soviet Union) and the South-East (the former Yugoslavia with the exception of Slovenia) and Albania. First, Central-European states overthrew their communist regimes earlier and in a more decisive manner than the USSR; second, the economic transformation of Central Europe, though not completely smooth, is nevertheless much smoother than the transformation of the member countries of the CIS; third, the post-communist societies differ in the pattern by which their systems of social stratification have changed after the collapse of their communist regimes; fourth, there are big differences between the Central-European post-communist states, including the Baltic states on the one hand, and the CIS members and Serbia/Montenegro-Yugoslavia on the other regarding their international orientation. The author highlights three significant events that are going to leave their trace on the regional geostrategic situation: NATO's eastern expansion, NATO's campaign against SKY and the election of Vladimir Putin for president of Russia. The regional geopolitical picture may become more stable with closer ties between the states of Central Europe and Germany. (SOI : PM: S. 11)