Suchergebnisse

Thanks to theoretical advances in the natural sciences and the decreased cost of computer technology, computational modeling is becoming an increasingly popular tool in the social sciences. Due to its relative novelty and somewhat marginal position in most disciplines, however, research of this kind has primarily focused on methodological challenges posed by applications to social phenomena. By contrast, the method's theoretical foundations are still relatively poorly understood and many theoretical possibilities remain unexplored by computational scholars. At the same time, social theorists, following in the footsteps of Georg Simmel's pioneering contributions a century ago, have developed a process-based research tradition that anticipates the scientific practices of today's computer-based research. In short, if the sociological process theorists have been computational modelers avant la lettre, the latter can be seen as process theorists "après la lettre".

This article is based on three hypotheses. First, the legal requirements for
establishing political parties in Romania are among the most restrictive in Europe.
Second, electoral participation decreased globaly during the last two decades;
however, when a party succeeded in registering and endorsed a non-ideological
position, the electoral participation slightly increased; so, if the legal requirements
will be relaxed, new parties might emerge and a greater participation to the
elections might be taken into consideration. Third, the current legal procedure
for registering political parties contradicts the constitutional provisions on the
freedom of association and the right to be elected. In the light of this findings, the
article suggest a revision of the current legislation.

Political behavior research starts from the assumption that democracy cannot function properly without citizens' political involvement. In general, studies of political activism aim to understand democratic processes, focusing on the nature of the relationship between citizens and public authorities. Despite a relatively large number of studies devoted to this research topic, many controversies remain regarding political participation in contemporary democracies. What is the optimal level of political engagement in a democracy and the consequences, how do citizens get involved in political processes, and what factors best explain the differences between participants and non-participants, respectively? These questions guide the study of the relationship between political participation and democracy in the present book.

Monografia jest rezultatem wysiłku intelektualnego, którego podjęli się wspólnie naukowcy z Mołdawii, Niemiec, Polski, Rumunii, Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki i Ukrainy podczas Międzynarodowej Konferencji Naukowej "Wspólne dziedzictwo kulturowe i językowe" w Jastrowiu w czerwcu 2019 roku. Na publikację składają się poszerzone wersje wypowiedzi zaprezentowanych podczas tego spotkania. Tom, który oddajemy do rąk Czytelnika, pomyślany jest jako zbiór zróżnicowanych spojrzeń na problematykę dziedzictwa. Języki i kultury Bukowiny stały się inspiracją dla analiz wychodzących poza tematykę tego regionu. Autorzy tekstów reprezentują różne perspektywy i dyscypliny naukowe: językoznawstwo, kulturoznawstwo, literaturoznawstwo, historię, politologię, socjologię, etnologię i historię sztuki. Do tomu zaproszono doświadczonych naukowców i młodych badaczy zajmujących się bogactwem językowym i kulturowym historycznej Bukowiny, obszaru karpackiego oraz Europy Środkowej. Książka składa się z trzech części. Część pierwsza obejmuje teksty poświęcone językowi rozumianemu jako dziedzictwo kulturowe. Część druga poświęcona jest pamięci dziedzictwa. Kolejna część prezentuje dziedzictwo kulturowe w działaniach społecznych i aktywności twórczej. ; This collective monograph comes as a result of intellectual work undertaken jointly by the American, German, Moldovan, Polish, Romanian and Ukrainian scholars who participated in the international conference entitled "Bukowina: Wspólne dziedzictwo kulturowe i językowe" (Bukovina: Common Cultural and Linguistic Heritage), held in Jastrowie, Poland, in June 2019. The present volume, which contains extended versions of their papers, is conceived as a collection providing different perspectives on the issue of cultural heritage. The cultures and languages of Bukovina have also inspired contributions which go beyond the issues of the region but are related to it in the geographical or cultural sense. The invited authors represent various perspectives and fields of study: linguistics, cultural studies, literary studies, history, political studies, sociology, ethnology and art history. The list of contributors includes experienced scholars and young promising researchers studying the cultural and linguistic richness of the historical Bukovina, the Carpathian region and Central Europe. The volume consists of three parts. The first one includes contributions on language as cultural heritage. The second part is devoted to the memory of heritage. Part three presents cultural heritage in social and creative activity. ; Publikacja przygotowana w ramach zadania: "Międzynarodowa konferencja naukowa Wspólne dziedzictwo kulturowe i językowe" – zadanie finansowane w ramach umowy 570/P-DUN/2019 ze środków Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę. ; The work has been prepared in fulfilment of the task "Common Cultural and Linguistic Heritage – an international conference", financed under contract no. 570/P-DUN/2019 from the funds of the Minister of Science and Higher Education allocated for the dissemination of science.

The article explores the rationale of the Romanian political community as defined by its successive constitutional layouts, since the first fundamental law of 1866, including the Communist constitutional settings, and concluding with the post-communist constitutional design. This consistency of the political community is tested by means of an analytical distinction between the Nation-State and the National State. The former is understood as the institutional underpinning of a community bearing a political project. The latter is seen as the institutional outcome of an ethnic group and the warrant of its political integrity. Such an examination of the Romanian constitutional production sheds light on the historical and unambiguous predominance of the National State, while the Nation State emerged briefly and warily in the Romanian setting in the form of the socialist nation state. By the same token, this approach questions the adequacy between democracy and this rationale of the Romanian political community. While the socialist Nation State, as it was constitutionally designed, failed to guarantee the effectiveness of popular democracy, the Romanian National State, as it was shaped by the successive constitutional texts, pre-communist and post-communist, was always unable to accommodate completely with democracy.

The article examines a few episodes during the 1866-1871 legislatures of the Romanian Parliament. The debate on the annual budget for 1867 represents a good opportunity for the members of the Parliament to define politics as a matter of opinion, with negative connotations, in opposition to the face-value and clearness represented by the mathematical percentages and figures. The latter ought to guide, in their opinion, good governance, which does not belong to the realm of politics. According to such a mental scheme, the members of both Chambers of the Parliament appear to be convinced that majoritarian politics and the fragmentation of the political parties must be utterly rejected in order to adequately realize representation. The difficulty of the Romanian members of the Parliament to define politics influences their difficulty to define their own role, namely the nature of political representation.

This study proposes an analysis of how the National Liberal Party (PNL), the National Peasant Party (PNT) and the National Christian Party (PNC) used caricatures, lyrics or electoral posters to build a more favorable image of their own party or compromise the opponent. Based in particular on the sources existing in the official party press and the so-called independent one, we proceeded to a description of the three elements, including the meanings and messages intended for the electorate. With a predominantly rural population (over 80%), poorly educated in regard to civic issues, caricature and electoral lyrics were used in particular by the PNT and the so-called independent press to attack the ruling party, as well as the formation of A. C. Cuza and Octavian Goga, and to target those with a nationalist-peasant affiliation. Through the three types of confrontation, the parties in our study have endeavored to transmit as effectively as possible the eccentric populist and manipulative messages aimed at attracting thousands of voters. Although both the national and the nationalist-peasant press used caricature and versification as a political weapon, there are immense differences between the contents of the two camps, the caricaturist Petrică Lazar and the anti-Semitic poet Vasile Militaru - known also under the pseudonym of Radu Barda - preferring the construction of satirical images and poems that contained huge doses of grotesque, beliefs and prejudices about the Jewish minority.