Suchergebnisse

Social reforms had an important position in the process of transition changes in Serbia in the previous decade. Their strategic framework and aims have been defined in the first years after the 'democratic changes' of 2000 and their realization followed by a series of problems. The transition from the 'socialist welfare state' to the concept of 'active social policy' has been in compliance with the accepted model of (liberal) reforms and changes in the institutional sphere. Analysis of effects and achievements have pointed to an inadeaqucy of the accepted model and deficiencies in the practice. From the point of view of the current situation and expected changes in the future, there is an obvious need for a comprehensive evaluation of cause of (un)success of social reforms. The reason for that lies in the elimination of insufficiencies and creation of a basis for the construction of a system in compliance with the national objectives, the European standards and global challenges.

The term politics, from its origin until nowadays, has been closely related to coercion and effects of coercion. The first rulers were finding support in a belief in the divine nature of power, but since, in time, this belief faded, the solution was found in physical superiority of rulers. The development of politics as an activity by which a community can be governed instrumentally, conditioned its closer linkage to force. Politics was sometimes identified with force, and sometimes politics was using force as an instrument for taming the bullying by others. Undoubtedly, the man is a rational and instinctive being. Monopolization of bullying within political activity made it possible to place the force, depending on the circumstances, into the service of one or the other attribute of human nature. Integration processes in political, economic, military and other areas, significantly contributed to changing the role of a national state in its formerly inviolable spheres, even in those elements that are considered classic attributes of the state as an institution (sovereignty, independence, monetary policy, defense, state power legitimacy, etc). Does this power, which is 'taken away' from the national state, go away, through integrative processes with other international subjects, to some distant power and alienated centers, or does it, on the contrary, enter the corpus of political activity that strengthens its overall position? Without immersing into more profound analysis about what is closer to the truth, it is a fact that through integrative processes a number of 'state' activities is transferred to joint institutions. In the spirit of this paper, the most important institutions are those which decide about organization, preparing, functioning, and using of the state (interstate) power. Strategic solutions concerning these matters, are a part of domestic and intergovernmental policy. They are products of a great number of internal and external factors, starting from economic and institutional, to social and cultural-traditional, and to international.

In the research traditions of social and political science two central answers are being sought. The first is, what is the relationship between the specific con-figurations of the proponents of social changes and the particular outcomes of their activity? The other is, which changes in the configuration of the proponents lead to better results than the existing ones relative to th value criteria such as peace, feasible development, or social justice? This makes the reference frame-work of contemporary discussions on institutional shaping of the relations between the state and the society. In this work, the author first mentions three dominant dimensions of social change to which all of us are exposed. Second, by changing perspective, he goes over from a passive to an active approach in order to observe the actors (citizens) and the forms of their activity (civilness) that might challenge th forces of change and transform them into tolerable or even desirable outcomes. And third, he contributes to the discussion about civilness and depicts in bigger detail six fallacies that must be avoided if one wants to attain a competent configuration of activity. (SOI : SOEU: S. 37)

Did the social changes of 1989/90, both on the territory of the forrner Yugoslavia and the entire Eastern Europe, surprise political analysts? Or did the research in social sciences, particularly political science, sociology and psychology, perhaps supply enough material pointing to the possible changes as well as to the course they were going to take? In this work, the author gives a critical review of his studies conducted and published between 1980 and 1990 and, by hindsight, shows their relevance for understanding the recent radical and dramatic changes. Inevitably, the conclusion is that the author's research had pointed to the existence of all psychological conditions necessary for the events that followed. The long crisis, first economic and later political, gave rise to social unrest which soon turned into general agitation. (SOI : PM: S. 114)

Joint effect of 2008 economic crises and continous world-wide present deficite of political legitimacy have in 2011 given birth to global resistance, but also facilitated development of its new strategies and tactics. Aldough we are still by large able to understand these contemporary models of collective action with help of New Social Movement Theory, today they objectivelly grasp a wider field of meaning, mainly for reason of their demands for radical transformation of both economic and political system. Contemporary social movements are still struggling for re-interpretation of meaning, and identity issues, but not any more for any particular goal. Instead, they seek systemic change. This extremelly important shift of strategic orientation, which makes new movements a bit old – that is classical, remains in our oppinion, undervalued both in academic, and general public for the reasons that we will try to comprehend, in this writing. ; Sadejstvo udara ekonomske krize iz 2008. i kontinuiranog deficita političkog legitimiteta dovode 2011. do pojave globalnog otpora, ali i do razvoja njegovih kvalitativno novih strategija i taktika. Iako je savremene modele kolektivne akcije dobrim delom i dalje moguće razumeti uz pomoć teorije novih društvenih pokreta, oni danas objektivno zahvataju jedno šire polje, najpre zbog zahteva za radikalnom promenom u ukupnom ekonomskom i političkom sistemu. Savremeni društveni pokreti i dalje se bore za reinterpretaciju značenja i priznanje sopstvenog identiteta, ali ne više za bilo koje pojedinačno pitanje, već za sveobuhvatnu promenu sistema. Ta izuzetno važna promena strateške orijentacije, koja nove pokrete čini pomalo starim – upravo klasičnim, ostaje, čini nam se, nedovoljno primećena iz razloga koje ćemo pokušati da rasvetlimo.

The author analyses the relationship among legal nationhood, social nationhood, and democracy in democratic constitutional states. After identifing the definitions of democratic constitutional state, he concludes that it is an efficient structures within which one can mvestigate the relationship among democracy, legal and social nationhood. He suggests that these three principles have their normative roots in human freedom i.e. in the freedom of participating in p0litical negotiation, in the freedom from coercion and unjust rule, in the freedom from exigency, and in the free participation in the "we" of the modern industrial, technological and information society. And finally, the author analyses the tension between the legal and social nationhood which may be fruitful only if democracy contributes to the accomplishment of major social changes that maximise human freedom. (SOI : PM: S. 91)

The aim of the research was to find out whether the recent socio-economic changes in Croatia generated the corresponding change in the religiosity of Croatian youth and if so, what was the nature of this change. To this end, the results of the studies of Croatian youth of 1986 and 1999 are compared. Several indicators of religious devotion are included: confessional and religious self-identification, beliefs, and religious practice. Since all four indicators have increased significantly, this means that in the mentioned period religiosity registered a marked increase, which signifies a massive shift from the non-religious to the religious orientation of Croatian youth. This is an indirect confirmation of the claim that this shift in the religious devotion of Croatian outh and its remarkable increase is due to the social changes such as the fall of communism, the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, the creation of the independent Croatian state, and the Serbian aggression against Croatia. (SOI : PM: S. 160)