The study relies on a complex research project, financed by the European Union, which aimed at measuring, first of all, the training and managerial consultancy needs of entrepreneurs and of those who wish to start a business in the rural environment in the North-Eastern, Central and South-Eastern areas of Romania (18 counties). In order to understand these training and consultancy needs, the research also investigated the issue of values. By identifying the specificity of rural entrepreneurial culture, we can understand the current situation in the entrepreneurial environment of Romanian villages and draw up strategies for its development. The research shows that there is a great deal of interest to start a business among young persons, but the existent managerial culture is extremely poor.
The Church-State relationships in EU Member States are in a process of a radical transformation. This is the result of a rapid political integration and also of the major transformations of the modernity. Religion is still part of the European public space even if, according to modernity premises, it should be only a private matter. According to Max Weber and other authors, secularization diminishes the role of the religion in society. However, these theories are being contested in recent years, due to the interpretation of statistical data and to the emergence of fundamentalist religious movements spreading around the world. Consequently, secularization is a tendency and not an "iron law". As regards the current role of the religion, Silvio Ferrari developed the theory according to which there is a common European model. This model does not exist yet, but certainly we live in an era defined by the continuous searching of such a model. There is no European identity without common values. Some of these values, like toleration, do have a profound religious foundation. European integration is based on the action of different actors, including interest groups located in Brussels. The Churches and the religious organizations are also part of this category of actors and they try to be part of a process by which a common space for consultation will emerge.
The article presents the characteristics of the language used in the prison employees and inmates. There is a nonverbal language, gesture that is learned by imitation two social categories in the everyday interaction. And there are two types of verbal language - one official and one secret slang. In the universe of prison three languages intertwine not possible without each other. To understand the functioning of an institution's total language understanding is essential, for it is vital for human interaction flow, understanding and functioning of formal and informal rules for the two categories internalization of social values.
The survey was conducted between March 30 and April 11, 2021 on a national sample of 1420 subjects. He measured the state of religiosity of the citizens with the help of several indicators: faith in God, frequency of prayers, church, fasting, confession, observance of holidays, reading the Bible, etc. The survey also measured attitudes toward teaching religion in schools, same-sex marriages, faith in the horoscope, trust in priests, attitudes toward abortion, the pandemic, politicians, and voting intentions.
The article is an attempt to connect the concepts of public diplomacy and human security through the experience of the European Union, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first part, the concepts of public diplomacy and human security are analyzed. Public diplomacy is a form of contemporary diplomacy focused on information, understanding and influencing the public in other states in order to achieve the goal. Human security aims at the quality of people's lives, in the way that any factor that diminishes their quality is perceived as a threat to security. The second part focuses on identifying the defining aspects of public diplomacy in the European Union, as a way to achieve foreign policy and security objectives. The last part deals with the ways in which the European Union has tried to respond to the challenges posed by pandemic and infodemic coronavirus with implications for human security. Also, the values of human security that are promoted through public diplomacy activities have been identified, both inside and outside the European Union.
The European continent, under the urge of the events generated by the process of building Europe that has led to an enlargement of the external European Union borders towards the east, undergoes a process of alteration. No matter on which side of the EU border they may be, the citizens of the European countries are entitled to enjoy the fruit of welfare, security and freedom. The development of a coherent neighbourhood policy in Brussels becomes an imperative resulting from the need for communication and cooperation amongst people and countries. No matter the view on the European Union external border, the dialogue on all levels of the society through the means of inter-university cooperation is a factor providing the communication needed for good neighbourhood. Thus, the stiff borders fade away. By setting up a university network comprising both partners from within and outside the European Union, a bond is established over the external border of the community. From this point of view, inter-university cooperation at the external borders of the European community turns into a promoter of good neighbourhood values.
This study aims to answer the question whether Christian Orthodoxy can inspire political movements. In so doing we start from the political theories of modernity where the link between Christianity and democracy is central. Our result sounds unexpected: interaction between Orthodoxy and democracy seems to not have a perspective. It is too late for it since most political movements in post-communism do not have the religious identity of their members as criterion. The situation was not different before. As an example the effort of the orthodox theologians and laymen in Romania before the outbreak of the Second World War is quoted here. Almost without an exception all focused and restricted their interest on the question of the nation. Therein we see the principal reason for the above postulated perspective of an orthodox political doctrine until now. On the European level the situation looks also no better. Even the parties, which attribute themselves the Christian values, have at present large difficulties to convey their message. It remains only to hope that the political actors rediscover the social and actively support the Christian ethics in the public area. Only so can democracy be regarded as one of the most important binding forces also under the Christians.
Mixed marriage is one of the factors providing the link between interethnic and interreligious communities. Ethnic and confessional diversity of the population imposes a communication, an interference of different ethno-confessional communities. As these communities were living together, it was natural that this "cooperation" should be visible in the case of marriage. Given the context, mixed marriages acquired an innate multiculturalism due to the need for living together. The "social barriers" completed the ethnic and confessional differences. The State becoming more and more powerful in time imposed itself and promoted a new perception of mixed marriage through a lay legislation. On the other hand, in the mixed Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic communities, inter-confessional marriages were more easily accepted officially as both confessions were under the same hierarchic authority, the Pope. It is important to get a glimpse of the ethnic structures and their dynamics, as well as of the confessional realities to have a clear image in the analysis of interethnic or inter-confessional marriages. Marriage may be one of the social mechanisms to change the demographic volume of certain communities not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively, and to alter traditional spiritual values.
This article examines the influence of the soft power on the process of ensuring the national interests of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Moldova. The author determines soft power as an important mean of securing national interests, an essential component of the process of realizing relations between states, deducting that soft power contributes to the foundation and promotion of national interests, the consolidation of stability, of order and peace and the creation of a positive image of the state on the international arena. Taking into consideration that the concept of soft power has developed, gaining a legal foundation in the Russian Federation quite recently, the importance of research on the subject is growing to follow how this concept has been defined and how its own action plan is developed and materialized without adapting the Western templates to Russian realities. The research of the soft power role in promoting the national interests of the Republic of Moldova stems from the fact that our state requires a clarification of the foreign policy objectives and their means of realization, a determination of the role of soft power, its specificity and its efficiency in the transmission of values by a democratic and modern state to other actors of the international process.
Our study, as we intend it, upon the vulnerability when confronted with death and death rate is structured as a research which is closed to classical historical demography but without neglecting the particularities and individualities of this phenomenon. We are interested both in the general tendencies and in the specific ones. This being our intention, we will try to catch both the phenomenon of regional mortality and the event of death in the many families we have studied during this research work. The profound economic crisis of this period in the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy together with the epidemics (we have in view especially the 1872-1873 cholera and its prolongation) exercise a strong demographic pressure that brings to our attention mainly the vulnerability of these communities. Towards the end of the analyzed period we can notice a certain decrease in the rate of mortality in the two counties, values that are close to the average ones in the counties of Transylvania. These tendencies may be caused by the remarkable progress in the field of medical assistance, progress that indicates more and more rare strong zones of high mortality. The diminishing of the death rate in the two counties was due to a clear progress recorded by the urban communities of Oradea and Satu Mare.
Transitional Justice in the Arab World and its Effects in the Light of the "Arab Spring" Launched in 2011 The events that took place in early 2011, known as the "Arab Spring", sparked several discussions in relation to regions that were considered closed to the democratic values promoted by Western states. Chain revolutions have primarily addressed a key issue, that of transitional justice, thus trying to bring truth and reconciliation to societies where for decades terror, totalitarianism, serious human rights violations, political repression have reigned, including those committed by police and security organs. Unfortunately, we must note that the lack of traditions in this regard has not allowed the realizations of tasks put before the transitional judiciary in these countries, although, we must admit, some successes have been achieved. Evenimentele ce au avut loc la începutul anului 2011, cunoscute sub termenul de "primăvara arabă" au trezit mai multe discuţii în raport cu regiuni care erau considerate închise pentru valorile democratice promovate de statele occidentale. Revoluţii în lanţ au abordat în primul rând un subiect cheie, cel al justiţiei tranziţionale, astfel încercând să aducă adevărul și reconcilierea în societăţile în care timp de decenii au domnit teroarea, totalitarismul, încălcări grave ale drepturilor omului, represiuni politice și din partea organelor de poliţie și de securitate. Cu regret, trebuie să constatăm faptul, că lipsa unor tradiţii în acest sens, nu a permis realizarea sarcinilor puse în faţa justiţiei tranziţionale în aceste ţări, deși, totuși, trebuie să recunoaștem, anumite succese au fost atinse.
Conceptual-typological Aspects of Local Electoral Systems A democracy cannot be built unless it is based on free elections. Elections are a sine qua non condition of democratic governance. Elections are the central procedure of representation in modern democracies, and our generation has made substantial progress in understanding how voters come to make decisions. The elections were imposed in the constitutional history of the world as activities whose social and political effervescence in society is specific, competitions in which the best ones win. In fact, we make the first finding: the local electoral system is a fundamental area of society, the way it is managed and carried out, it reflects the level of development of democracy. The country's implementing bodies are chosen and this is why it is so important that it is organized and carried out correctly, transparently and democratically. The local electoral system is essentially created for citizens and must represent their interests, which we must recognize, often in practice does not happen very often. The actuality of the theme of this article starts from the premise that an electoral system is closely linked to democracy, because it expresses its values, thus constituting an indicator of the democratic character of a society and, at the same time, it contributes to the strengthening of democracy. Although there are different realities, and the electoral procedures differ from state to state, however, it can be said that, depending on how the mandates for the eligible positions are distributed (won), there are three modalities of electoral system: majority electoral system; proportional electoral system; mixed electoral system.
This article reviews the importance of national interest in the context of democratic transformations. The Republic of Moldova has to define its national interests as an opportunity to demonstrate that it has committed itself to respecting the values of freedom and tolerance, to demonstrate that it is open to bilateral and multilateral dialogue and cooperation and it tends to become a reliable security partner also by that gaining more audience and credibility. Even if the national interests of the Republic of Moldova are of a regional character, because its political and economic potential is limited, so it can not claim global roles in the world arena, the national interests synthesize the trajectories on the basis of which the Republic of Moldova conceives its present and the future. In democratic transformations, the role of state power in contemporary conditions does not diminish, but vice versa complicates and increases. Regardless of the social model that our society develops on, the state is the most important instrument for increasing people's well-being, building civical and political activity as well as strengthening the sense of citizenship. Thus, the course and results of democratic transformations are to a large extent determined by the quality of state leadership. The national interest is a well known determinant of political behaviour which motivates and stimulates different actors to develop political goals, to take actions that address both the political sphere as well as other social spheres. Starting from the premise that we are still doomed to governments formed by coalition, we consider absolutely necessary for all political formations to place on the first place the national interest, democratic transformation, sovereignty, human dignity, rights and freedoms, and not the narrow interests of the party or group.
The trans-ethnic voting ant the current cooperation between the Saxon and the Romanian communities in Sibiu/Hermannstadt could easily make believe in a perennial peaceful cohabitation. But the ethnic relations at the beginning of the XXth century are rather dissimilar, since they are marked by the strong affirmation of the Romanian community - especially by its political and cultural values - in the cadre of a multi-ethnic state - as Austria-Hungary - and of a Saxon dominated city - as Sibiu/Hermannstadt. The conflict between elites is pointed out by the prejudices enounced and by the symbolic weight of the disputes. More deeply, there is a conflict between two diverging political projects: the preservation of autonomy and of collective rights by the Saxon community, and the political, economic and cultural integration of the city into the recently made Romanian National state, in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Treaties. The two political projects originate -in fact- into distinctive models of citizenship: an exclusive citizenship, promoted by the Saxon community as a heritage from the Middle Ages; an integrative citizenship, preferred by the Romanian state in order to obtain a full allegiance from the new citizens. Since Romania has unexpectedly become a multi-ethnic state and minorities were more educated, urbanized and politically active, supporting the Romanian element became vital. The unsuccessful political strategies of Romanian elites, before 1920 -and of Saxon elites afterwards- lead to external sources of power: the Romanian National state and Nazi Germany. Whether Romanian authority proves to be quite successful, the German influence has disastrous consequences for the Saxon community. The persecutions and vexations following the German defeat in 1945 mark out the beginning of the great migration for the German community in Transylvania, following eight hundred years of coexistence.
The last years of World War II have brought, per ensemble, complex problems for the "Regele Ferdinand I" University, which, after the Vienna Treaty of 1940, has been functioning in exile from Sibiu and Timişoara. From 1944 the model of the modern University of Cluj was brutally converted to an instrument of propaganda for a communist ideology, far fetched from its original nationalistic vocation. The period of transition from democracy to totalitarianism, 1944-1947, was marked by a series of events such as: the beginning of the process of politicization within the University of Cluj, the problems related to the foundation of "Bolyai" University, the return in 1945 of the University to its original sight from Cluj, the students strikes in January-June 1946, the university repression generally speaking, and particularly the repressions of students, and, last but not least, the debates of the University Senate concerning the politicization of the academic environment and the dismissal of some "compromised" members of the teaching staff. After 1944, the communists were interested in eliminating all political rivals, therefore the dismissal threats, followed by the contractions within the Departments of the University of Cluj, became a cruel reality between 1944-1948. Like all the other Romanian universities, the Cluj University began compiling "expurgation" dossiers for the so called "fascist" university professors, and substituting the old rectors and deans with new ones from amongst those who had adapted to the "new age". The public stand of the academics has gradually declined after 1944, when their life and activity has been brought to challenge, the changing values after March 1945 favouring the devotion towards the new regime, and praising less and less the academic fulfilment. On the background of "democratic" reforms, the new regime authorities have intensified the brutal isolation, especially of scholars among which a great number of university professors, by means of massive arrests. The most invoked reasons were: denigration of the power of the state, opposition to the construction of socialism, or the need to re-educate the "hostile" elements from within the Popular Republic of Romania.
