The Kosovo crisis once again brought the powerful, unscrupulous and destructive Milosevic media apparatus into the spotlight. This is nothing new nor surprising for all those who have been covering his political ascent from the very beginning, but this time he used his heaviest artillery, never mincing words nor flinching from using all possible means to achieve his ends: to justify the genocidal policy and rallying Serbs once again around the well-known platform of national unity and Greater Serbia rhetoric. On one side, we had a well-oiled media machine that mercilessly rolled over everything on its way, not respecting any basic journalistic principles, not to mention ethics. On the other side, there were the most powerful world media, aggressive, assertive, equipped with the state-of-the-art technology, but with one major flaw: these are mass media, not a propaganda machinery. Two completely different structures clashed head-on. Thus, the media in war turned into the war of the media, a totally unfair war between a powerful propaganda machine and democratic media. (SOI : S. 113)
Mixed government, which is commonly regarded as a distinctly medieval form of government, is relevant also to contemporary constitutional states. It is the best form of government, since the aristocratic element is a continuous source of virtue, especially of justice, and a check not only on the executive, as the monarchical element which is the seat of political power, and the legislature, as the democratic element which expresses the will of the majority, but also groups and institutions that have the might and will to impose themselves as oligarchies. Mixed government is also the form of government that is practised by most developed contemporary constitutional states: USA, UK, France, Switzerland, Germany etc. European nobility is the original aristocratic institution, by virtue of the fact that it was a system for the transfer of both virtue and general conditions of life. Three institutions that emerged in the late Middle Ages assumed structures and functions of the nobility. + The first is the clergy. When, as a result of the differentiation of feudal society ethical and intellectual virtues of the nobility could no longer maintain general conditions of life, the clergy, by virtue of their abstract knowledge that ranged from philosophy and theology to law and medicine, became a class of new experts in generalities and thereby a new aristocracy. The second modern aristocratic institution is the judiciary, which has a structure and function similar to earlier aristocracies. The task of judges is to establish the highest virtue o constitutionalism. It is justice by law, which regulates general conditions of life in the state and society. What qualifies judges for the task is expertise in the new generality. The expertise includes not only education and experience in law but also impeccable private life and demonstrated professional ethics. + The third modern aristocratic institution is the profession, whose most important instance is the legal profession. It shares its structure and function partly with the judiciary and partly with other professions. It seems that modern professions are degenerating. In the key area of data processing, due to rapid changes of technology, professions as systems of the transfer of virtue do not even seem to be possible. Professional aristocracies are replaced increasingly by oligarchies of capitalists and technocrats. (SOI : PM: S. 111)
The author poses the question: what makes Francois Mitterrand the "classic" type of ruler i.e. what makes him above-the-average contemporary politician. Following the well-documented analysis of the entire period of his rule, the author concludes: history will reveal Mitterrand's various masks, but never his true face. He exploited the classical mise en scene of power, so his true persona should be sought in the interplay of his numerous disguises. Mitterrand stands out among the contemporary political figures in the ability to use his power to ward off all attempts at its usurpation, th transforming his own power into the memory of the coming generations. (SOI : S. 178)
The United States of America are the front runner of the contemporary process of globalization. The global American superiority in the political, military, economic, and cultural spheres goes hand in hand with the globalization trends, focusing on the activity of the global leader. The design of the new strategic approach which was to include its vision of the new relations as well as of its global leading role, has been unhurried and circumspect. In the course of two Clinton's mandates the finishing touches of that new outlook got concrete contours in practical actions, so it seems that the search for the place of the leader is soon going to called off. The American politics is entering the next millennium as a well defined and organized enterprise with well thought out global objectives. (SOI : PM: S. 41)
The theory of public choice is a major link between political science and economic science. It includes economic research into the issue of non- market decision-making i.e. the application of economic analysis to political decision-making. The champions of the theory of public choice have most confidence in the market and the market institutions. They try to explain political decision-making by means of the standards operating on the market. The public choice theory approach is based on the concept of methodological individualism and homo oeconomicus, since individuals try to promote their own interests both on the market and in politics. Theoreticians of public choice investigate voters' behaviour, the roles of politicians, political parties, and interest groups in complex democratic societies. Central for their research is the political process in which voters behave as buyers, politicians as entrepreneurs, while bureaucrats are prone to self-aggrandisement and their ambition is to boost the significance of their office. The theory of public choice emphasises the category of exchange (political exchange) and the catalectic approach to economy. (SOI : PM: S. 100)
The paper deals with the possible impact of globalization and decentralization on the future role of public spending in Croatia. In the first part, the author describes the elements of government intervention in the economic process during the 20th century and the theoretical origin of public goods as a resource that the market is incapable of efficiently providing. After that the characteristics of the process of globalization and decentralization (localization) are listed. These are the two simultaneous processes whose intensification leads to the reduction of the regulative role of the nation-state and public spending. The second part of the article first discusses the structure of public spending in Croatia, and then a possible impact of the two processes on its structure and volume. (SOI : PM: S. 193)
"Globalism" and "globalization" are suggestive and vague terms so that extreme caution is required when using them to define phenomena. There is no doubt there are certain actual issues due to which the world on the whole is becoming an object of attention to a bigger extent than it used to be. However, when the consequences and implications of these issues are concerned, it is easy to give free reigns to imagination and overestimate their farreaching repercussions, just as it is possible to underestimate them, believing "there is nothing new under the sun". (SOI : PM: S. 8)
Comparative politics is a political science discipline which has in its evolution continuously reflected the developments in the field of international politics. The author outlines the genesis of this discipline, which boomed in the 1950s with the framework of American politology. He first defines this discipline and the goes on to give an account of the evolution of the fundamental research principle, the expansion of the subject matter and the importance of the key concepts that delineate this academic discipline (political power, political system, politic regime). The author analyses the role of comparative politics in the context of other disciplines of political sciences as well as its applicative potentials. As analysis of the history of this discipline he points to the connection between shift of the interest and the focus in practical politics and the thematically specialized subdisciplines within comparative politological research. In the conclusion, the author points out the importance and the applicatory value of discipline for Croatia (as a country in the process of democratic transition) regarding the comparative analysis of the experiences of developed democracies and countries in transition. (SOI : PM: S. 148)
The European entrepreneurial undertaking, in the form of an equipped and armed merchant ship, ready to circumnavigate and conquer the Globe, created the modern world as a world with one side only: the mondialised West. To be globalised today, such a world has to be made as a new net, but now as a new multitask and multidirectional entrepreneurial feedback. Contemporary global liberal interventionism and governmental entrepreneurship are segmented today into a dangerously simplified multitask global pyramid of governance through onedirectional cascades. For a real globalisation, this process has to be twodirectional at least: from the center to the periphery - but from the periphery to the center, too. Otherwise, at the beginning of a new "centennial trend" and a "great cycle" there is the risk that the collapse of the liberal civilization of the 19th century could be repeated. Once again because of the weakness of the world system peripheries. The question how to strengthen the "anonymous" global economic, cultural and political processes of that twodirectional kind, is becoming the central global and strategic issue for today's politics and political science. It has turned out that this kind of state and its processes real global environment could be successfuly analyzed and effectively made use, of only with the complete unreduced methodical front of all the fields of political science together and even more than that. So as they could be practically surmounted only with a very complex political and economic action through the whole set of expertly managed public policies. From the historically based Croatian point of view, a possibility of integration into the world center was always in founding a world-market "niche", and never in making even a mini-empire or in controlling a mondialized or a mega- national net. Without a methodically global political science approach, also leaning on Central European and Mediterranean cultural and politological traditions, such Croatian interest will not be accomplished. (SOI : PM: S. 179)
Although it is not the primary reason for Russian economic collapse which occurred in August of 1998, the permanent crisis of Russian political system after 1991 had contributed to this breakdown. A major role in all this was played by the process of privatisation by which Russian natural and economic resources remained in the hands of the political/economic elite. The crisis of the political system in Russia has another consequence - bringing into question not only the attained degree of democratic development but also the future of democracy in Russia. (SOI : SOEU: S. 117)
The author discusses the works by Croatian and foreign theologians and historians (Ivo Pilar, Alois Hudal, Janko Simrak, Krunoslav Draganovic, Fran Grivec and Dragutin Nezic) about the Serbian Orthodox Church which appeared in the inter-war period. These authors posed a series of questions which are still open for debate today. Pilar describes the Serbian Orthodox Church as an institution which has an important role in the process of Serbian national integration. Hudal analyzes the reasons for the decline of Catholicism in the Balkans, discussing the negative consequences which befell the Roman Catholic Church in the Yugoslav Monarchy, which supported the expansion of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The works of Simrak, Nezic, and Draganovic deal with the complex process of attempting a union between the Roman Catholic Church and orthodox Christians. The author mentions that these writers and their works are not well known to the Croatian public, and that only during the 1980s was more intensive research undertaken by Croatian academics on the topic of the political and cultural activity of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The author concludes the article by suggesting that these works by Croatian and foreign historians and theologians can serve as the basis for further research on this topic. (SOI : CSP: S. 573f.)
