Suchergebnisse

This article aims to tease out the transformation of communist identity and the sense of legitimacy within the ruling parties of the Eastern Bloc (particularly Poland, Czechoslovakia and the GDR) in 1956. It explores how communist identity was negotiated and reshaped beyond the highest level of party leadership and prominent communist intellectuals and how ordinary party members perceived this ideological turnabout. It seeks to demonstrate how the sense of belonging was articulated in the reflection of the parties' recent past by ordinary party members on a local level: functionaries, apparatchiks, propagandists and local party historians. In the aftermath of 1956, communist and working class identities were seriously challenged by renewed national, ethnic, confessional or regional identities in a steady process of exclusion and inclusion. Examining the de-Stalinization "from below", the study concludes that despite the earthquake-like ideological upheavals a new form of identity emerged among the parties' rank-and-file that, centered around the parties as an imperfect yet heroic collective, secured the sense of legitimacy for the decades to come.

The article deals with the concept of the advantage of "backwardness" and its use in comparative research on European parties and party systems. Politics in the "post-Rokkanian" world, characterized by de-aligning patterns of interest representation and intermediation, raises new questions and challenges in the field of research on political parties, pressure groups, and social movements. The text poses questions that should be asked in regard to this "post-Rokkanian" transformation of political processes connected to the opening of new research perspectives on multilevel party competition in European countries. The article elaborates the concept of the advantage of backwardness at three main levels: the organizational patterns of internal life within political parties, party systems, and interest intermediation systems generally. The article also tries to put the whole concept of the advantage of backwardness into the proper geopolitical and historical area in the framework of European countries. Adapted from the source document.

The article tries to evaluate the Europeanization research agenda from the point of view of a politics-sphere and actor-centered approach. The authors postulate that the concept of Europeanization is lacking in regards to problems of political process and its dominant actors -- political parties and interest/pressure groups. The article consists of several parts. First, a critical examination of existing Europeanization conceptualizations is provided. Second, the impact of democratic transition and consolidation upon Europeanization in new member countries of the EU (and in potential candidate states) is examined. Third, ways of necessary adaptation suitable for analyzing politics in terms of Europeanization are suggested and discussed. The article concludes with sections devoted to agenda-setting for research about the Europeanization of political parties and interest groups. The overall tenor of the article is to point out the necessity of integrating Europeanization-related issues, methodological, and research tasks into a broader framework of comparative politics/comparative government; and that the theoretical basis of actor-oriented Europeanization research should be drawn more from this area of political science than it has been in previous research. Adapted from the source document.

The process of democratic transition & consolidation has established conditions for important Czech interest groups in which interest groups have begun to face the challenges of Europeanization. The article focuses on changes that trade unions have been undergoing during the Europeanization process in respect to their internal structure, interactions with other political actors both on the Czech & European levels, changes of advocated interests, strategies of action, etc... Appropriate attention is paid also to the reaction of Czech trade unions to new challenges driven by European integration. The authors conclude, using data from original long-term qualitative research, that Europeanization is a proper conceptual tool eligible for the analysis of Trade Union. Adapted from the source document.

While Marek Louzek has drawn attention to several issues important for International Relations (IR), his conclusions are highly controversial. In his identification of the basic theoretical approaches to international relations, Louzek disregards liberalism & radicalism, which, alongside the realism identified by Louzek, constitute the three basic approaches in IR. Louzek also inaccurately defines, & rather overestimates, the general significance of public choice theory (PCT) as a possible perspective on international relations & European integration. In this context, the real intellectual core of PCT does not lie in an emphasis on the role of individuals, as Louzek claims, but on the role of social groups. Moreover, a large number of other theories, both in IR & European Studies, emphasize the importance of social groups. Finally, Louzek's explanation of the EU's Eastern enlargement based on PCT lacks a well-developed methodology, has a narrow scope, & subsequently fails to convince. Adapted from the source document.