Suchergebnisse

The article presents the concept of strategic planning adapted to the realities of social assistance and attempts to prove that this concept significantly affects the demand for research on local social problems that is carried out in local social assistance institutions. This increasingly significant activity, mainly concerning diagnosing and forecasting, influences both the identification of new tasks of social welfare and, consequently, new elements of its organizational structures, which were called local laboratories for research on social policy in the title of the article, and the need to delegate these tasks to specialists in social policy.

The starting point for this article was research conducted from February to April 2017 and in January and February 2020. The purpose of the work is to show the image and position of the Russian Federation in the eyes of respondents who participated (incl. residents of Moscow, Arkhangelsk, Saint Petersburg and Vladivostok) in in-depth interviews conducted by the author. The principal analysis concerns the results obtained in 2017, and the specific changes observed three years after the initial surveys were completed.

The aim of the article is to demonstrate how science and researchcooperation may help to reintegrate the Baltic region in the 21st century withthe participation of Russia. This is done through the analysis of documentsand strategies of Baltic Sea regionalism in the context of the regional knowledgeregime. Attention is paid to different positionalities of the regional actorsand their narratives. The theoretical framework is secured by an analysis ofcritical junctures drawing on case studies from the years 1989-91 and 2014 andthe subsequent reconfiguration of the power / knowledge nexus. The analysisshows that this reconfiguration actively contributes to creating and changingthe content and context of the Baltic Sea regionalism as based on new symbolic,economic, and political capitals. The conclusion points to the potentialof Russia's involvement in the co-creation of the regional knowledge regimeand defines the conditions and methods of possible cooperation.

The article discusses the nature and role of constituent power in contemporary constitutional democracies. It presents the genesis of the concept of constituent power (phrased by Joseph Emmanuel Sieyès within the distinction between «pouvoir constituant» and «pouvoir constitué»), different approaches to this concept framed in the XXth century legal science by such thinkers as H. Kelsen and C. Schmitt, and finally the contemporary interpretations of this concept. The author indicates and analyses two major issues relevant to the nature and role of constituent power in the contemporary constitutional democracy. Firstly, he examines the thesis that the democratic constituent power's activity remains normatively undetermined. The search for internal normativity that might characterise constituent power in democracy determines such practical constitutional issues as discretion of the legislator within the process of making or amending the constitution. Secondly, the author points out that analysis of the role of pouvoir constituant» in contemporary constitutionalism should not be limited to analysis of the "constitutional moment" only; the significance of constituent power should not be seen just in the framework of the one-off act of making the constitution. Constituent power should remain an active participant of constitutional discourse which induces a search for new principles ensuring balance between constituent and constituted power in constitutional democracies.