Suchergebnisse

This article analyzes the formation of the "Association for the Yugoslav Democratic Initiative" (UJDI), promoted by a group of intellectuals from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Zagreb in early 1989. The aim of this association was the democratic transformation of Yugoslavia during a period of political and economic crises. The paper focuses on the debate about constitutional reform and the constitutional "model" proposed by UJDI. Through UJDI's experience, the author analyzes some of the aspects and implications of the political cultures at the end of the 1980s. Furthermore, the author contributes new perspectives on the Yugoslav political crisis and the attempts of UJDI to call for democratization as the country teetered on the brink of war. Adapted from the source document.

Belief in market economy has shown particular strength in post-socialist countries as being accompanied by great expectations regarding economic improvements at the individual level. Twenty years after the fall of the, so-called, real existing socialism these hopes have been fawned for the great majority of the citizens of these countries. The equation offered to explain the tendential low of individual living standard despite of increasing GDP, the access to European integrations and the implementation of structural reforms in the first decade of 2000s has been that the transition towards market economy has not yet been completed and that the problems with the wider prosperity of the citizens are due to inadequate or too slow course of the reform enforcement. This article proposes the exact opposite view by arguing that the wide economic deprivation of the citizens as well as the current economic crisis in which they are caught, are the effects of the neoliberal re-structuration and concomitant "democratization", and not the result of the lack of compliance to it. This article holds that the economic prosperity for the great majority is not compatible with the project of neoliberal economy cum conservative liberal democracy and that it can not be achieved within this frame. In post-socialist countries this simple conclusion has been obscured by the eschatological discourse about "transition towards democracy". Adapted from the source document.

The text analyzes the ambivalent role of the army in the recent Egyptian revolution and the ensuing process of democratic transition. On the one hand, the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak's regime was a result of the activity of the army, which supported the protesters since the onset of the revolution. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military body which has taken over power in Egypt, promises to ensure a peaceful transfer of power within a free and democratic system. On the other hand, some acts of the military authorities in the transitional period suggest that, in the next period of time, precisely the army could become the main blocking factor of the process of democratization. The authors deem that the main goal of the army is not to hold on to power, but to build such a political system in which it would enjoy a privileged position, free from civilian control. In the authors' judgement, if a halt to the process of democratization is to be prevented, the USA must make use of its influence and persuade the military leaders, who are preoccupied with their own reputation among the public, to carry through the initiated reforms. Adapted from the source document.

The author gives an account of the evolution of the theories of institutional design or constitutional engineering in political science in the last twenty years. This is a special branch of political science that looks into how political institutions may serve as the means of conflict management in divided societies & whether they may be constructed in such a way as to contribute to the conflict resolution, democratization & the democratic stability of societies in general. Their rise was theoretically enabled by new institutionalism & historically by the third wave of democratization of autocratic political regimes since the 1970s & particularly since the 1990s. Using several seminal works to illustrate her point, the author shows how the theories of institutional design overlap with the theories of democratic transformation, consociational democracy, liberal democracy, & others. 42 References. Adapted from the source document.

This research deals with the stages of development of the political order of Florence, focusing on the changes of the republican order. Starting from Machiavelli's Florentine Histories, which set forth a criticism of the first period of republican government until the establishment of the Medici seigniory, the author also analyses the other two stages of republican government in Florence. He thus puts together a periodization of three republican models of Florence during the Renaissance, which he refers to as the First, Second & Third Republics. The period of the First Republic stretches from 1250 to 1434, until the establishment of the first Medici seigniory. The period of the Second Republic, which lasted from 1498 to 1512, is assessed here as the period of a mature republic, which also witnessed a clear-cut defining of the theory of civil republicanism, primarily through the works of Machiavelli & Guicciardini. The Second Republic ended with the Medici restauration, when the republican government was once again suspended, & the republican institutions were abolished, although the state formally retained the designation of republic. After the fall of Rome in 1527, the Medici rule in Florence also collapsed, & the period of the Third Republic began; it lasted from 1527 to 1530. This short stretch of time saw a radicalization of the Florentine republicanism, but the social antagonism within the city-state was also radicalized. For this reason, the Third Republic did not manage to withstand the internal tensions & conflicts, & thus to face a deteriorated international state of affairs. The republican government collapsed again & made way for the second Medici restauration. The author describes & analyses in the text the republican institutions & their metamorphoses from the First Republic to the Third Republic, as well as the attempts to stabilize the republican government & realize Machiavelli's theory of the mixed form of government. The Florentine political order is therefore outlined as a development from communal democracy to civil republicanism with strong democratic elements, which, as a result of historical circumstances, was superseded by oligarchic forms of government. Adapted from the source document.

The problems of democratic legitimation & the ineffectiveness of the democratic system characterize the postsocialist societies despite their normative-institutional democratic constitution. The socioeconomic conditions affect democratization, but it seems that the sociocultural factors (especially the patterns of dominant political cultures) are the key determinants for the survival & development of the democratic political system. Transitional societies are marked by developmental discontinuity. Normative-institutional & culturological changes possess different dynamics & do not occur concurrently. This discrepancy brings into question the legitimacy & success of democratic consolidation. Such an interactive relationship between the political culture & the political system (structure) makes up the framework for the study of major political-cultural preconditions for democratization. The paper deals with the sociocultural features of transition, the nature of cultural changes (value changes & institutional learning), political trust, legitimacy, the features of civic political culture, the attitude towards power & authority, political participation, the role of political elites, the sociocultural aspect of economic development, & the interest in politics. It is possible to overcome the distinctive discrepancy between culture & structure primarily by means of the transformation of sociocultural preconditions i.e. as democratic resocialization (through the processes of value change & institutional learning). It turns out that democratic consolidation is essentially defined by this sociocultural transformation. Sociocultural conditions i.e. political-cultural preconditions, are the key predictors of the success of the democratizational process. Apart from the implemented values of democracy & the citizens' acceptance of these values, democracy also requires active citizenry, hence the expansion of citizens' participation is seen as the main goal of that transformation. References. Adapted from the source document.