Suchergebnisse

If the guerrilla war is interpreted according to the concept of Carl Schmitt, its relation to the political nation becomes apparent. It takes little effort to see in "the defensive-autochthonous defender of home" the modern citizen par excellence -- the one who is ready to take up arms in defense of his fatherland. However this interconnection escaped the attention of C. Schmitt himself. Therefore "The Theory of Partisan" was left independent of the C. Schmitt's concept of the sovereignty ("Sovereign is he who decides on the exception"). The C. Schmitt's concept of the sovereign dictatorship seems to answer the question. Being the sovereign dictators the partisans act as if they were actual sovereigns -- they do not consider themselves bounded by any previous law. On the other hand as the representatives of the political nation they are only empowered to seek the objectives compatible with the general will of that nation. Adapted from the source document.

O artigo refuta o argumento de que o federalismo no Brasil enfraquece a União e favorece minorias sobrerrepresentadas no Congresso, mostrando que a regra de desproporção adotada no Brasil impede o veto da minoria sem que a maioria, por sua vez, tenha recursos para tiranizar a minoria. Além disto, a União tem amplos poderes legislativos, e os partidos inibem tendências inerentemente limitadoras do federalismo. Por fim, não é fato que a aprovação de matérias de interesse federativo exija aprovação em uma multiplicidade de arenas decisórias em que supermaiorias são necessárias. Em conjunto, as instituições do federalismo brasileiro aproximam o Brasil das fórmulas que favorecem a autoridade do governo central.

The present paper draws attention to three of the various problems posed by our democratic life: the divorce between the People, on the one hand, and the political class and the parties, on the other hand; a closed partisan system that feeds off the oligopolistic allowances awarded to it by the Constitution; and, lastly, a partisan bloc dependent on private interests. A number of alterations are proposed which, altogether, would make a change in the Portuguese political panorama. Some of the effects would be immediate, others would take more time, until the country reacquires confidence in its politicians and parties. Adapted from the source document.

Partisan activity has been the main and the most important mode of institutionalized political participation (in addition to electoral participation) in the modern democracy. Even though mass party membership is a distinct feature of modern political system (although not necessarily democratic), since 1960-ies the decline of party membership is observed in many democratic countries. Lithuania is a typical example of post-communist region, where party membership is regarded as a specific elitist activity rather than an ordinary practice of political involvement. In the article, the attitudes of Lithuanians towards party membership are analyzed to answer the question if and why people are not keen to join political parties. Public attitudes are explored using the data of a representative public opinion survey carried out in 2005 and qualitative data of in-depth interviews with ordinary people collected in 2008. Using a mixed method research strategy, the article analyses the image of political parties in Lithuania, determines the potential of party membership and investigates the dominant reasons of avoiding partisan activity. In the first part of the article, the theories explaining partisan activity are presented. In addition to Civic voluntarism model and General incentives theory used by Paul Whiteley and Patrick Seyd to explain partisan activity, the broader theories explaining changes of political culture and transformation of party models are discussed. Moreover, the theoretical arguments for the exceptionalism of post-communist societies are presented. In the second part of the article, the analysis of the qualitative data is presented. The exploration of public attitudes reveals that partisan activity can be perceived in several different ways: as a specific occupation, as a civic self-expression, as belonging to power elite, as a privilege, as dependence, and as partiality. These images of parties held by people are related to their attitudes towards party membership. The reasons provided by the people of not joining political parties can be grouped into three groups: 1) the lack of necessary resources or personal characteristics (e.g. old age, low education, etc.); 2) critical attitudes towards political parties; 3) dislike of partisan activity because of indifference towards politics or individualism and appreciation of personal independence. In the third part, the quantitative data drawn from the public opinion survey is analysed. The data shows a surprisingly high potential of party membership in Lithuania: about 11 percent of all respondents and about 20 percent of respondents in the age group of 18-39 have an inclination to join a political party. However, 87 percent of individuals admit that they were not invited to join a political party during the last 5 years. This proves that Lithuanian political parties are not active in expanding their membership. The quantitative data approve the trends observed from the qualitative research. The two most popular reasons of not joining a party are the lack of resources or necessary characteristics (surprisingly, young age seems to be one of the most important of them) and an indifference towards politics. These two motives fit well into the Civic voluntarism model. Disappointment with politics or a negative attitude towards political parties in general, contrary to expectations, proved to be of secondary importance. The importance of individualist attitudes, i.e. the avoidance of commitment and appreciation of independence, unfortunately, could not be evaluated due to the lack of data. Summing up, the analysis of Lithuanian case suggests that low party membership in post-communist countries might be explained by low demand rather than low supply. In other words, we should look for the explanation of low enrolment in the process of recruitment of party members rather than in the attitudes of people. The research do not provide any evidence for a popular theory of "communist legacy" claiming that a "bad" image of parties inherited from communist regime accounts for the low party membership in post-communist societies. On the contrary, the data demonstrate rather positive attitudes towards partisan activity among Lithuanian population. Adapted from the source document.

Neste artigo, o autor atualiza e esclarece suas análises da democracia de público à luz de pesquisas recentes, em especial no que diz respeito à erosão das fidelidades partidárias, o papel dos partidos nas democracias contemporâneas e o aumento da participação política não institucionalizada, indicando que a democracia representativa não é incoerente com algum grau de influência direta dos cidadãos na tomada de decisão sobre políticas.