Suchergebnisse

A review essay on a book by Josef Gorny, Entre Auschwitz et Jerusalem. Shoah, sionisme et identite juive (Hansson, Nelly [Tr], Paris, 2003). Are the Jews an ethno-religious group or a nation with the right to self-determination? This was an open issue at the turn of the 19th & 20th century. In the wake of Holocaust & of the establishment of the modern Israel, the answer became much more determinate, even if- due to the split between Israeli & Diaspora Jews -- still not unambiguous. The Eichman abduction & trial in 1960-62 & the victorious war with the Arabs in June 1967 offered new opportunities for the reconstruction of the Jewish identity in view of both the unprecedented catastrophe of the Jewish people & the subsequent resurrection of its statehood. Gorny elaborates two ideal types of the Jewish self-conception that followed from two opposite interpretations of Holocaust & of the foundation of Israel. Post-zionism gives these two events a universalistic reading, neo-zionism (or ultra-zionism) a particularistic one. The two interpretations imply two competing versions of the Jewish identity; one is open towards the world & other peoples, the other focuses exclusively on the Jews. Accordingly, two different approaches towards the Palestinians follow; one seeks to understand their grievances & to find a compromise, the other relies on the brute force & remains intransigent. Even tough the book was published two years before the second Intifada broke out, Gorny's ideal-typical dichotomy still offers the best access to deep sources of the current predicament of the Jewish identity & Israeli politics. 1 Reference. Adapted from the source document.

The legitimacy of political regimes does not lie only in the manner in which these regimes use their power. A key role is played by the way these regimes are perceived by their populations. Following this insight, the paper defends and elaborates one necessary condition of legitimacy of every political regime: the justification of power provided by the regime must "make sense"to the citizens. This "making sense"can be best understood as a correspondence between the proposed justification of political authority and the citizens' understanding of themselves. In other words, a political regime "makes sense"to its population only if it resonates with their conception of themselves and their role in the society. The paper then analyses the possible correspondence between the Rawlsian conception of liberal self-understanding, where citizens view themselves as "self-authenticating sources of valid moral claims", and the legitimacy of contemporary democratic societies. This perspective reveals the sources of deep egalitarian assumptions behind the legitimation frameworks of contemporary societies, as well as the necessary limitations of power of contemporary states. The correspondence between our self-understanding and the legitimacy of the present-day states also reveals the fundamental importance of the human rights framework in current political life.

Due to the different and mutually incompatible interpretations of Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, there is still an ongoing dispute between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Spain on the question of the sovereignty of Gibraltar. In the United Kingdom's view, which is largely shared by legal scholars, Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht grants full and entire sovereignty over Gibraltar to the UK. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Spain argues that Article X yielded to the crown of Great Britain only the property of Gibraltar's castle, town and port. Sovereignty over Gibraltar, however, continued to be retained by the Spanish state. In spite of their disagreement, both states started negotiating a form of condominium at the beginning of the 21st century. In the end, they failed to achieve this goal, which seems to be incompatible with the UN General Assembly resolutions on the decolonization of Gibraltar. The people of Gibraltar, who are the third actor in the Spanish-British dispute, claim their own sovereignty and their right to self-determination. However, according to the UN General Assembly, the decolonization of Gibraltar requires as a precondition that the Kingdom of Spain and the UK solve their dispute on the question of sovereignty. Otherwise the decolonization of Gibraltar cannot occur. Both the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Spain are European Union members but their inter-state dispute under international law cannot be solved within the EU context. Thus, three hundred years after the signature of the Treaty of Utrecht, the future of Gibraltar remains completely unclear. Adapted from the source document.

Samoobrona (Self-Defense) and League of Polish Families (LPR) won the seats in the Sejm in the parliamentary elections in September 2001. Both parties represent radical opposition in the Polish parliament. They critisize Poland´s accession to the EU and the situation in the country after 1989 in general. The following text describes the history of both parties and the cardinal points of their policies. ; Samoobrona (Self-Defense) and League of Polish Families (LPR) won the seats in the Sejm in the parliamentary elections in September 2001. Both parties represent radical opposition in the Polish parliament. They critisize Poland´s accession to the EU and the situation in the country after 1989 in general. The following text describes the history of both parties and the cardinal points of their policies.

One of the fundamental features of liberal democratic systems is the existence of diverse interests that seek to influence government decisions. It is therefore no surprise that the activities of organized interests present a natural and legitimate part of the democratic process. Nevertheless, we regard lobbyists with considerable skepticism, and the concept of lobbying often has negative connotations. This situation is mainly the result of a growth in the diversification and number of organized interests that often act in informal or unfair ways. Trying to distinguish lobbying from corruption or other illegal ways of influencing people in public office has led many countries to make efforts to level the playing field and the processes that take place in it. The result of these efforts is the introduction of the regulation of lobbying, which may be achieved by means of various tools. The aim of this paper is to briefly map the attempts by the Slovak government to establish rules governing the behavior of organized interests in the Slovak Republic and to identify the preferences of the particular actors in the Slovak political system with respect to the issue of regulating lobbying in Slovakia.

Explores the representation of old age in post-1995 educational literature for the elderly published in the Czech Republic. Educational literature covers handbooks that propose individual strategies & recommend a specific lifestyle for old age. The theoretical framework presents aging as an individual as well as societal experience, which must be understood in a new social & cultural context. The interpretative analysis looks at the themes of general lifestyle, health, & disease, & sexuality on the basis of arguments about the possibility to affect the process of individual aging, emphasizing self-responsibility & health maintenance. Educational literature for elderly people represents a type of social acquisition, which is intended to help people achieve the ideal of a new type of aging.

The article presents a brief survey of selected trends observable within political science in the Czech Republic & offers a tentative interpretation of some major features that can be seen as typical for the current state of the field. However, the article is not intended as a comprehensive analysis; rather, it is meant to open up a discussion related to self-perceptions in Czech political science, & their relation to reality. Issues like methodological, research & teaching foci are all elaborated here, & serve to highlight the possible weaknesses & benefits of Czech political science, thus claiming a space for further, more substantial research. In this sense, the article should be understood as an attempt to make Czech political science launch a process of its own self-definition & self-identification. Adapted from the source document.

In connection to the process of the public administration reforms which take place in most of the European countries and also in connection to the "European administrative space", the issues of studying and mutually comparing administrative systems of various European countries, especially EU member countries, become more and more topical. They focus not only on purposeful and effective mutual use of experience in administrative systems improvements, but also on improving orientation in the already mentioned "European administrative space". There is nodue attention devoted so far to the systematic study of administrative systems of (other) European countries. Most of the publications which focus on this issue (mostly study books, study materials, or occassional articles) describe it only on a "descriptive" (mostly simplified) level. The cause of this lies in (apart from time and financial demands) significant complexity of the given issue, in terminological complications and in difficulties of getting adequate (essentially necessary) factography and in practically non-existing adequate methodology. Legal comparative jurisprudence and comparative studies of political systems might inspire onewhen developing the methodology. Even under the current situation, it would be efficient to pay more attention to the comparative studies of the structure of administrative systems, or to some selected areas of the public administration, for example to personnel systems in the public administration, financing public administration or administration of the public property. A thorough "stock -taking" of all the materials which have ever been published about this matter (even in different contexts) in our country orabroad might serve as a basis of these fragmented studies.