The author looks into one of the most important concepts in the last decade of comparative research: social capital. The concept of social capital was originally developed in sociology, where it denotes potential benefits that individuals enjoy, derived from their involvement in various social networks. This concept was fully utilized in the field of comparative politics into which it was "introduced" by Robert Putnam in Making Democracy Work, in which he presents the results of his research in which he establishes a positive link between social capital -- embodied in the norms of generalized reciprocity, horizontal networks, & trust -- & higher levels of democratic efficiency. In the last decade, the concept has been used in a number of studies in comparative politics, the starting point of which was the thesis that spatial & temporal differences in the levels of political efficiency may, at least partly, be explained by the level of social capital of a community. By comparing the concepts of political culture & social capital, the author concludes that social capital is a major conceptual innovation in comparative politics & represents a revival of social/cultural variables in comparative analysis. 63 References. Adapted from the source document.
The author's argument is that Europe must renounce Kant's universalism & adopt political means in resolving its permanently conflictual situations. In that way it is to construct its new identity that stems neither from the divergent past of its members nor from their divergent perceptions of the future, but is being built in the politically active present. The European Union as a community sui generis is founded on a paradox. Namely, it does not grow from its familiar historical identity, but is growing into it by permanently resolving the conflictual situations of the state of nature by political means. That paradoxical political project may be subscribed to only politically: mythologies, religions, ideologies & metaphysics would, as it were, create a state-of-nature but only at a higher cultural level. 4 References. Adapted from the source document.
Did the social changes of 1989/90, both on the territory of the former Yugoslavia & the entire Eastern Europe, surprise political analysts? Or did the research in social sciences, particularly political science, sociology, & psychology, perhaps supply enough material pointing to the possible changes as well as to the course they were going to take? In this work, the author gives a critical review of his studies conducted & published between 1980 & 1990 &, by hindsight, shows their relevance for understanding the recent radical & dramatic changes. Inevitably, the conclusion is that the author's research had pointed to the existence of all psychological conditions necessary for the events that followed. The long crisis, first economic & later political, gave rise to social unrest, which soon turned into general agitation. The powerful presence of the authoritarian structure of personality in these territories, the enduring xenophobia that, in combination with the appropriate ideological manipulation, easily leads to open inter-ethnic conflicts, the lack of both an adequate political culture & the democratic mechanisms of overcoming conflicts, within the context of decrepitude of an ideological project in a multiethnic community rife with historical conflicts, inevitably led into open conflicts. 5 Tables, 2 Figures, 15 References. Adapted from the source document.
By using the analytical framework of the theory of modernization, the author analyzes the fundamental features of social community in postmodern society, in which it rests on kinship, religion, & cultural patterns. In modern society a new form of social community is established -- nation. It emerges within a constituted political framework as a community of individuals, subordinated to an integral legal framework. Contrary to the western model of "state-nation," there is the East European model of "culture-nation" or ethnic nation, which might be said to be an incompletely modernized social community. The dominating model in Croatia is one of the cultural or ethnic community. The consequences of such a model are the strengthening of authoritarian tendencies & the arrested development of democracy. In such a concept of social community there is no place for opposition. In Croatia, cultural & political modernization in the direction of social community with a more prominent role of intellectual elites & other social actors is vital. 15 References. Adapted from the source document.
Članak donosi pregled najosnovnijih postavki transhumanističkog pokreta. Transhumanistički pokret počinje krajem 20. stoljeća i zalaže se za korištenje tehnologije u svrhu unapređivanja ljudskog stanja. S obzirom na izvjesnu razinu sličnosti s posthumanizmom, pregled transhumanizma počinje analizom osnovnih pojmova: transhumanizam, posthumanizam, transhumano biće i posthumano biće. Nakon toga, transhumanizam se proučava iz perspektive različitih disciplina. Te su discipline: filozofija znanosti, metafizika, etika, filozofija uma, filozofija religije i filozofija politike. ; This paper features an overview of the foundations of transhumanism. The transhumanist movement has existed since the end of the 20th century and espouses the use of technology for enhancing the human condition. Due to a certain level of similarity to posthumanism, this overview of transhumanism begins with an analysis of basic terminology: transhumanism, posthumanism, the transhuman being and the posthuman being. After that, transhumanism is studied from the perspectives of different disciplines. These disciplines are: philosophy of science, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion and political philosophy.
Politika izolacionizma koju su Sjedinjene Američke Države vodile sve do sredine 20. stoljeća naglo se izmjenila nakon napada Japanaca na Pearl Harbor. Krajem 1941. godine SAD su se aktivno uključile u Drugi svjetski rat. Prije toga su u ratu sudjelovali neaktivno, odnosno kroz razne programe kojima su Europi slali materijalnu i financijsku pomoć. Uskoro su slijedili sastanci i mirovne konferencije saveznika – Sjedinjenih Američkih Država, Sovjetskog Saveza i Velike Britanije, koji su se borili protiv sila Trojnog pakta. Na konferencijama se raspravljalo o budućnosti nakon Drugog svjetskog rata. Izmeu ostalog, dogovoreno je osnivanje organizacije Ujedinjeni narodi, koja će u budućnosti brinuti za sigurnost i mir u svijetu. Velike nesuglasice izmeu Saveznika sa zapada i Sovjetskog Saveza rezultirale su zahladnjenjem odnosa i započeo je period Hladnog rata. Hladni rat označava krizno razdoblje izmeu dva bloka u kojem su se velike sile svijeta natjecale u naoružanju i borbi za interesna područja. Usporedno s početkom Hladnog rata u Europi započinje integracija europskih zemalja. Najveći utjecaj na to imale su upravo Sjedinjene Američke Države koje su od kraja rata pomagale europskim državama u obnovi i razvoju. Novom američkom politikom, nazvanom Trumanova doktrina, političari Sjedinjenih Američkih Država odlučnije su se krenuli boriti protiv sovjetskog ekspanzionizma. Marshallovim planom ponudili su Europljanima ogromnu količinu novca kako bi se uz gospodarstvo, podigao i demokratski standard zemalja. Američkim poticajem, 1949. godine osnovan je Sjevernoatlantski savez koji je u slučaju rata trebao štiti europske zemlje od Sovjetskog Saveza i njihovih satelita. Time je započelo čvršće vezanje Sjedinjenih Američkih Država i europskih zemalja te je označilo direktan ulaz Amerikanaca u europsku politiku. ; Political isolationism which was led by the United States before the middle of 20th century, significantly changed after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. At the end of 1941. year, United States joined the World War ...
The author analyzes the role of religion in the formation of national identities in Central & Eastern Europe on the example of the Catholic Church in Poland in the 20th century. In Poland, like in most Central-European & Eastern-European societies, national identity developed against the state & was founded on certain elements of ethnic culture & tradition, the central position belonging to the Church. During communism, the Polish Catholic Church had the leading position in the construction of national identity, which identified Polishness with Catholicism. The Church also had a crucial role in the destruction of the communist system. However, it has found it increasingly difficult to adapt to the new conditions of political democracy as well as ideological & cultural pluralism. As has been sown through the debates on abortion & religious education in state schools, the attempt by the Church to achieve the statues of moral arbiter, above all democratic institutions, has resulted in new divisions & jeopardized its influence in the society. 7 References. Adapted from the source document.
U članku su opisane ključne ranoislamske tradicije prema kojima se Jeruzalem smatra trećim po važnosti svetim gradom u islamu. Iz perspektive vjerskih, međuvjerskih, političkih i povijesnih okolnosti analiziran je njihov sadržaj te su razmotreni mogući razlozi za nastanak tih tradicija. Pozornost je posvećena tekstualnim i materijalnim vrelima, razini njihove autentičnosti, datiranju, te njihovu tumačenju od strane uglednih orijentalista i povjesničara umjetnosti. U članku su obrađene pojedinačne teme, kao što je Jeruzalem u islamskim kanonskim tekstovima, Muhamedovo noćno putovanje u el-Aksu, legende o Omarovu osvajanju Jeruzalema, imena Jeruzalema u djelima ranoislamskih ljetopisaca, uloga Židova i židovskih obraćenika u nastanku ranoislamskih tradicija te izgradnja, ukrasi, inskripcije i simbolika Kupole nad Stijenom. Autor u zaključku razmatra pitanje u kolikoj je mjeri religijsko čašćenje Jeruzalema u islamu povezano s autohtonim ranoislamskim vjerskim tradicijama, a u kojoj s ranom muslimansko-židovskom interakcijom te političkim procesima, od unutarislamskoga raskola u vrijeme prelaska rašidunske vlasti na umajadsku i Abdul-Malikova sukoba s hidžaskim kalifom el-Zubeirom, preko Križarskih ratova, do današnjega arapsko-izraelskog sukoba. ; The article describes major early Islamic traditions in which Jerusalem has been designated as the third holiest city in Islam. Their content has been analyzed based on the historical context and religious, inter-religious and political circumstances in which they were forged. Particular attention has been paid to textual and material sources, their authenticity, dating and their interpretation by prominent orientalists and art historians. The article addresses specific themes, such as Jerusalem in Islamic canonical texts, Muhammad's Night Journey to al-Aqṣā, the legends of Caliph 'Umar's conquest of Jerusalem, names for Jerusalem in Early Islamic chronicles, the influence of Jews and Jewish converts on early Islamic traditions, and the construction, symbolism, ornaments, and inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock. In the concluding remarks the author considers the question of to what degree attributing holiness to Jerusalem in Islam has been based on autochthonous early Islamic religious traditions, and to what degree on Muslim-Jewish interaction in Palestine, political processes, such as fitnah during early Umayyad rule, 'Abd al-Malik's struggle with Caliph Ibn al-Zubayr in the Hejaz, the Crusades, and the present-day Arab-Israeli conflict.
The author argues that democracy is not appropriate for the resolution of the relationship between law & the democratically conditioned state authority in the multinational Europe. The so-called democratic deficit should be understood not only as the empirical fact of a multinational Europe, but also as a paradoxical structural attribute of modern political thought from Kant until today. The author claims that the people should not rule as they might violate all the laws they enacted themselves. Thus the question of the equality of citizens cannot be a democratic one but legal & constitutional. Democracy cannot lay claim to be the sole provider of the legal equality of citizens just as law cannot be the only arbiter in making democratic distinctions among them. Since democracy should be understood as an independent autopoietic & autoimmune medium relatively independent of political power & legal constraints as its setting, the author concludes that the existing forms of immediate & representative democracy, as well as of the traditional form of democratic decision/making represent a risk of regressive progress in Europe in the direction of democracy limited by nation, religion or by class. Adapted from the source document.
Religion & religious communities as active components of each social & cultural set & as major factors in its functioning may contribute to social processes & relations or affect them both integrationally & disintegrationally. The paper lays out the theoretical & methodological grounds (functionalism) for the analysis of these processes & relations. As the examples of the integrational influence on the social & political processes in Croatia following all the social & political changes, we can mention the activities of the Catholic church (particularly in the Diaspora) &, to a degree, those of the Pentecostal church, while the disintegrational influence was exemplified by the activities of the Serbian Orthodox church. The text also includes a comparative analysis of the empirical data obtained from two studies carried out in Croatia (based on several partial indicators), which indicate a marked turn towards religiosity. Highlighted are possible individual & social aspects of these changes as well as the need for a complex & systematic monitoring of the religious developments in Croatia, the results of which might point to the possible integrational or disintegrational potentials of this "new religiosity" within a broader social framework. 4 Tables, 9 References. Adapted from the source document.
The paper reports partial findings of a research project into Croatian ethnonationalism (Croatian: narodnjastvo) as a religion (in the sense of a human invention of the sacred). The practical problems are as follows: ethnonationalism as a religion, which implies inter alia that an ethnic community (Croatian: narod) has the potential and/or capability to develop into, and ought to become, the substratum of a (nation-)state; consequences of ethnonationalism, which include the unattainability of ethnic democracy, ethnic economy and ethnic maturity; conditions of Croatian ethnonationalism, primarily the Catholic Church as a condition in 1961-71, and also before and after the period, especially since 1990. Theoretical problems, i.e. inadequacies in scholarly knowledge of the practical problems, include the following: firstly, Croatian Constitutional Court jurisprudence on ethnic and religious communities; secondly, systematic history of law and state in Croatia and Yugoslavia 1945-90; thirdly, transformation of both communism and catholicism into ethnonationalism; fourthly and fifthly, social structure and representation/agency. To attain the general goal of the research project, which is the use of reason in public affairs, the research is carried out within the theoretical and methodological framework of an integral theory of law and state which includes a modified Lasswell and McDougal's policy analysis expanded by historical institutionalism and critical theory. The subject-matter are the following features of Catholicism as an institutionalized religion, especially in Croatia 1961-71: (1) law, i.e. (1.1) sources of law; (1.2) internal law (organs, members, means); (1.3) external law (relations with the state and non-Catholics); (2) the Church and economy; (3) the Church and nation; (4) Catholicism on theory and practice. The hypotheses (which are ideal-types and as such cannot be either verified or falsified conclusively) are that ethnonationalism in Croatia is a consequence of, inter alia, the following beliefs maintained by the Catholic Church in Croatia in the 1960s and to a significant degree later on: 1. the only acceptable relationship between the Church and the state is the partnership of two legally equal public orders over the same subjects within which the Church has the exclusive power to regulate matrimonial and other family relations, and the power to control education in public schools; 2. peasant family is the basic organic human community; 3. the subjects to the ecclesiastical -- originally feudal -- power tied in fact to land make the ethnic community (Croatian: narod), which is united with the clergy into the Christian community (Croatian: krscanski narod); 4. since fundamental truths are accessible by theology only, and practice is an application of theory, practical knowledge, especially on the appropriate relationship between the Church and the state, is valid only if in accord with Church teaching. The evidence presented in the paper supports to a significant degree the hypotheses. The research findings contribute to the solution of all the theoretical problems, providing major contributions to the second and the third: the most probable reason why the Catholic Church in Croatia was rather silent in the Yugoslav and Croatian Spring 1961-71 and quite vocal since the 1990 is the Croatian Church's allegiance in matters of Church and state more to the First than to the Second Vatican council (which abandoned the Church's "divine" right to be co-sovereign with the state, exposing the "right" as a human invention of the sacred); the Church's ethnonationalism, which facilitates the political partnership of the Church and the state and ensures the dominant position of the clergy within the Church, has coincided with the interest of Yugoslav communists to retain their might and power by a metamorphosis, with the Church's assistance honoured by a concordat, into Croatian ethnonationalists, who, as newly born capitalists, have appropriated the greater part of the former socialist property and continue appropriating the greater part of present public goods. Adapted from the source document.
How is law as both a set of standards of conduct and a way of reasoning related to politics, economy and culture? The approach to the problem taken in the paper is practical and instrumental rather than theoretical for its own sake. The aim is to appraise the subject-matter with a view of facilitating its change towards the basic values of the inquiry. Since the values are postulated by a stipulative definition of law, which implies relations of law to politics, economy and even culture, it may appear that the approach unduly trivializes rather than solves the problem. The approach may nonetheless be valid, if the stipulated definition of law is sufficiently integral, that is, inclusive. To that end the paper attempts to integrate into the stipulated definition of law three major philosophical traditions, which are still building blocks of -- and hence the keys to -- contemporary doctrines and cultures. In the classical (ontological) key (which is analysed in the first part of the paper) law is conceived of as a constituting and correcting aspect of the whole consisting of politics, economy, law and religion qua centerpiece of culture. In the modem (epistemological) key (analysed in the second part of the paper) ideas of law range from the conceptions that law is the constituent of modem social systems and hence an indispensable means of identifying modem social phenomena to the theories that law, as well as politics, economy and culture, is a phenomenon reducible to its natural causes. In the contemporary (linguistic) key (also in the second part) law, which is the constituent even of religion, can be understood only from within of the culture -- including politics and economy -- into which it is woven. The three traditions differ most markedly in their views of the contact between reason and action. In contrast to the classical tradition, which recognizes that reason can be action-guiding, reason and action are in the epistemological key separated by a logical gap, whereas in the linguistic key they are hardly distinguishable. The triple solution of the problem of inquiry increases both heuristic and practical potentials of the stipulated definition of law. By integrating diverse philosophical traditions, the definition is serviceable to the integrity of a pluralistic legal order, that is, to achieving the postulated basic values within the limits of the law. However, the approach taken in the paper, while more inclusive than more partisan approaches, is still merely an approach which is in the final analysis also partisan. Moreover, when seen from a culture that has not been integrated by the definition, the approach may be parochial or even inimical. Adapted from the source document.
How is law as both a set of standards of conduct and a way of reasoning related to politics, economy and culture? The approach to the problem taken in the paper is practical and instrumental rather than theoretical for its own sake. The aim is to appraise the subject-matter with a view of facilitating its change towards the basic values of the inquiry. Since the values are postulated by a stipulative definition of law, which implies relations of law to politics, economy and even culture, it may appear that the approach unduly trivializes rather than solves the problem. The approach may nonetheless be valid, if the stipulated definition of law is sufficiently integral, that is, inclusive. To that end the paper attempts to integrate into the stipulated definition of law three major philosophical traditions, which are still building blocs of -- and hence the keys to -- contemporary doctrines and cultures. In the classical (ontological) key (which is analysed in the first part of the paper) law is conceived of as a constituting and correcting aspect of the whole consisting of politics, economy, law and religion qua centerpiece of culture. In the modern (epistemological) key (analysed in the second part of the paper) ideas of law range from the conceptions that law is the constituent of modern social systems and hence an indispensable means of identifying modern social phenomena to the theories that law, as well as politics, economy and culture, is a phenomenon reducible to its natural causes. In the contemporary (linguistic) key (also in the second part), law, which is the constituent even of religion, can be understood only from within of the culture -- including politics and economy -- into which it is woven. The three traditions differ most markedly in their views of the contact between reason and action. In contrast to the classical tradition, which recognizes that reason can be action guiding, reason and action are in the epistemological key separated by a logical gap, whereas in the linguistic key they are hardly distinguishable. The triple solution of the problem of inquiry increases both heuristic and practical potentials of the stipulated definition of law. By integrating diverse philosophical traditions, the definition is serviceable to the integrity of a pluralistic legal order, that is, to achieving the postulated basic values within limits of the law. However, the approach taken in the paper, while more inclusive than more partisan approaches, is still merely an approach, which is in the final analysis also partisan. Moreover, when seen from a culture that has not been integrated by the definition, the approach may be parochial or even inimical. Adapted from the source document.
The author suggests that the multilayered concept of secularization should be understood as the dezideologization of culture, religion, nation, language. economy, opening the space for democratic decision-making in the European Union, & consequently the space for politics with the capacity for collectively binding decisions in the democratically generated pluralism, & not in the historically generated pluralism of the old Europe. Secularization originally meant the transfer of clergy (priests or monks) from regular to secular thereby making them secularis or laypersons. Since the Westphalian Treaty of 1647 the word secularization has meant the transfer of ecclesiastical property to civil possession or use. Secularization means a strict separation of the church & the state. It also means a secular implementation of Christian postulates of universal equality of equals among equals. Today, the concept of secularization is used metaphorically as dezideologization i.e. as the criticism of state forms such as fascism and communism which possessed only ideological & not democratic legitimacy. In that sense the thesis of the cultural or spiritual unity of Europe as its legitimizing grounds is undemocratic as it replaces & conditions democracy with a vague concept of culture or spoken communication. References. Adapted from the source document.
