Suchergebnisse

This article presents a possible solution to the problem of the fall of the public in the political thought of Hannah Arendt & Jurgen Habermas. Arendt presents the public as the action of equal people discussing among themselves. Habermas sees it as the discussion of equal people too, but on the pages of newspapers or on radio waves. Both thinkers warn against the fall of the public & propose how to restore it. Arendt considers a system of councils to be a solution, whereas Habermas talks about the institutionalization of corresponding procedures of communication as a new form of the public. This article tries to put these solutions together. It applies Arendt's ideas to the communal or municipal level & those of Habermas to the national level, both in the context of the Czech Republic. One significant difference between a council system & the Czech political communal system is the recall of representatives. Recall can make representatives more responsible to citizens & citizens more engaged in politics so that they become the public, both at the communal & national level. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThe processes that will drive the next stage of the Czech transition are likely to be similar to those promoting real convergence in the countries of the EU periphery. We draw on previous modeling research on these latter economies to construct and calibrate a small macrosectoral model of the Czech Republic. Model simulations explore some key policy issues facing CEE‐country decision‐makers: labour market reforms, disinflation and industrial development. Our analysis suggests that much can be learned from the experience of countries like Ireland and Portugal which have converged substantially towards EU average living standards.