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The article discusses the problem of political trust and its importance for the functioning of democracy, as well as the differences in the origin and structure of political trust between the old and the new democracies. Political trust is a prerequisite for the legitimacy of democratic regimes. In the new democracies, the commitment to democracy does not automatically create political trust. The problem of democratic functioning of institutions in the circumstances of widespread distrust, that is, the problem of creating trust in the circumstances of institutional inefficiency, revives the determinism of the socio-cultural matrix in transitional societies. The origin and the structure of political trust are discussed within the framework of the cultural and institutional approach. The cultural approach considers trust to be exogenous and determined by socio-cultural characteristics, while in the institutional approach trust is considered to be endogenous, and resulting from functioning institutions. The author points out the limits of the institutional approach since it neglects the fact that existing socio-cultural factors are not compatible to the new political structure caused by the developmental and political discontinuity of the transitional societies. The author also points out the importance of trust in the system's institutions. Trust is an important socio-cultural feature which enables the consolidation of democracy. The institutions may gain political trust exclusively by being reliable and working in bringing about democratic relations. Workable institutions demand responsibility of political actors, and by respecting democratic norms and procedures they secure the liberty and equality of citizens and enable active political participation. Only in this way can institutions generate trust that would underlie the legitimacy of democratic regimes. Therefore building institutions that would be autonomous to demand efficiency and responsibility from political actors, and would be responsive towards the citizens is the biggest problem and a most important task of the democratic consolidation. Adapted from the source document.

The article discusses the problem of political trust and its importance for the functioning of democracy, as well as the differences in the origin and structure of political trust between the old and the new democracies. Political trust is a prerequisite for the legitimacy of democratic regimes. In the new democracies, the commitment to democracy does not automatically create political trust. The problem of democratic functioning of institutions in the circumstances of widespread distrust, that is, the problem of creating trust in the circumstances of institutional inefficiency, revives the determinism of the socio-cultural matrix in transitional societies. The origin and the structure of political trust are discussed within the framework of the cultural and institutional approach. The cultural approach considers trust to be exogenous and determined by socio-cultural characteristics, while in the institutional approach trust is considered to be endogenous, and resulting from functioning institutions. The author points out the limits of the institutional approach since it neglects the fact that existing socio-cultural factors are not compatible to the new political structure caused by the developmental and political discontinuity of the transitional societies. The author also points out the importance of trust in the system's institutions. Trust is an important socio-cultural feature which enables the consolidation of democracy. The institutions may gain political trust exclusively by being reliable and working in bringing about democratic relations. Workable institutions demand responsibility of political actors, and by respecting democratic norms and procedures they secure the liberty and equality of citizens and enable active political participation. Only in this way can institutions generate trust that would underlie the legitimacy of democratic regimes. Therefore building institutions that would be autonomous to demand efficiency and responsibility from political actors, and would be responsive towards the citizens is the biggest problem and a most important task of the democratic consolidation. Adapted from the source document.

The author analyzes the relationship between political science & political education by identifying the fundamental contributions of political science to the design, implementation, & promotion of political education & lists the most significant political science arguments proving the necessity of political education. Drawing on research by Putnam, Ostroom, & others, he tries to show how the so-called social capital, to a large extent inclusive of the contents of democratic political culture, is a major factor in the efficient operation of democratic government & in the political development of democracy. The three most important issues (dimensions) of politics that compose the axis of political education are analyzed in detail, dealing with the relationships between politics & democracy, citizenship & identity, & cohesion & diversity (fragmentation & pluralization) in society. The answers to these questions (liberal, communitarian, republican, postmodern) influence the concept of political education: its terms, goals, programs, methods, & other aspects of its implementation. The author stresses the complexity of these dimensions & consequently the sensitivity of political education. Adapted from the source document.

The author firstly examines cultural & historical potentials of Russia, analyzing them in their positive & negative aspects. Western ability to fully confront contemporary problems is then challenged through a brief account of the cultural crisis in its society in order to establish, through an analysis of the specific reception of that crisis in Russia, whether it can offer new, fresh &/or different solutions to global problems. Finally, basic Russian cultural & political values are depicted through the history of their actions globally & the power & significance of those values is defended as exceptionally fruitful for appliance to the contemporary socio-political situation, as to the challenges that lay before the global society in the future. References. Adapted from the source document.

Although the representation of women in national parliaments has been on the increase since World War Two, the number of women in assemblies has yet to reach 20 percent. The parliaments in which women participate with 30 or 40 percent are most viewed as laudable exceptions rather than (as yet) the unattained objective. The reasons lie in the specific gender obstacles ie., political, socio-economic & socio-cultural factors affecting the entry of women into parliaments. This paper deals with these factors & the consequences of a stronger female representation for the political system & the society on the whole. The author concludes that besides satisfying the ideal of justice the increased share of women in national parliaments may improve the position of women in the society & also strengthen the trust of both women & men in representative institutions. Tables, Graphs, References. Adapted from the source document.

Although the representation of women in national parliaments has been on the increase since World War Two, the number of women in assemblies has yet to reach 20 percent. The parliaments in which women participate with 30 or 40 percent are most viewed as laudable exceptions rather than (as yet) the unattained objective. The reasons lie in the specific gender obstacles ie., political, socio-economic & socio-cultural factors affecting the entry of women into parliaments. This paper deals with these factors & the consequences of a stronger female representation for the political system & the society on the whole. The author concludes that besides satisfying the ideal of justice the increased share of women in national parliaments may improve the position of women in the society & also strengthen the trust of both women & men in representative institutions. Tables, Graphs, References. Adapted from the source document.

What is the state of consciousness of modernity presently like? Is modernity as out of date as is claimed by neoconservatism in general & the postmodernists in particular? Neoconservatists accuse modern culture of undermining the ethical foundations of social life. The author shows that neoconservatism does not understand the relation between culture & society, & that it ascribes to cultural modernity the pathological syndromes (hedonism, narcissism, loss of identity) which are, in fact, the product of capitalist modernization of economy & society. Through money & power, the systemic imperatives of market economy & of the bureaucratic state gravely endanger the world of life & the process of cultural reproduction & social integration. Thus, it is solely through distinction between societal & cultural modernization that one can also understand the pathological effects resulting from the sphere of culture itself. While societal modernization is characterized by a growing autonomy of purposefully rational activity (in market economy & administration), which leads to colonization of the world of life, cultural modernization is marked by an increasing differentiation of cultural value spheres (science, morality, art) based on varied aspirations to validity (truth, rightness, authenticity) & by a differentiation of structures of rationality (cognitive-instrumental, moral-practical, aesthetic). Conservative critics of the aporiae of modern culture reject the entire project of modernity, advocating either a return to pre-modernism, or a step forward into postmodernity, or else mere anti-modernity (philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Bataille, Foucault, Derrida). In contrast to them, the author sees the potentials of modernity in the protection & development of the sphere of communicational rationality against the systemic imperatives of economy & of the state, in the reestablishment of links between the spheres of science, morality & art, & in connecting the corresponding expert cultures with the communicational practice of the world of life. Thus perceived, modernity is still an unfinished project, which encompasses historical emancipatory potentials only as a differentiated reactive linkage of modern culture with everyday practice, only if societal modernization can also be steered down other non-capitalist paths, if the world of life can develop out of itself institutions limited by the dynamics of the economic & administrative system. Adapted from the source document.

The author claims that Haberle's theory of the constitution is a science of culture, opposed to formalism, decisionism, positivism, & statism. It is based on the continuity & the relationship among culture-building, law, & state. The subjects of the constitution-formative authority are mutually culturally linked citizens who decide on the objectively given subject-matter & procedures. The theory of the constitution as a science of culture is based on the assumption that serious conflicts among the open societies of Western Europe are highly unlikely. This represents a significant departure from the positivist theory of the state grounded in the conflict of interests & opinions as well as the strong regulatory role of the state. The author challenges Haberle's disregard for the crisis potential of modern societies & proposes that these two opposed theories should complement each other. The author goes on to describe Haberle's research method, which includes an analysis of both the cultural context & the normative/constitutional solutions. He applies this research method to the constitutional laws of Germany, Switzerland, & Austria, & also when comparing large & small states, or developed & underdeveloped ones. Haberle espoused Taylor's definition of culture: culture & civilization are equated so that the systems of culture are on the one hand products of activity, & on the other the conditioning element of future activity. According to Haberle, the culture of a community starts from the traditional, innovative & pluralist aspects that are the orientation points for constitutional science as a science of culture. Regarding tradition, culture is mediation of things past. The innovative aspect is based on the idea that culture is a further development of things past. Since culture is not uniform, its pluralist aspect should not be forgotten. Thus the citizens of a democratic constitutional state make up the cultural/anthropological premise, while the state is only one aspect of the constituted res publica. The constitutional state today goes beyond the scope of the national state since the regional European constitutional state has been evolving together with the outlines of "the world community of constitutional states.". 9 References. Adapted from the source document.

The European entrepreneurial undertaking, in the form of an equipped & armed merchant ship ready to circumnavigate & conquer the globe, created the modern world with one side only: the globalized West. Contemporary global liberal interventionism & governmental entrepreneurship are segmented today into a dangerously simplified multitask global pyramid of governance through unidirectional cascades. For real globalization, this process has to be bidirectional at least: from the center to the periphery, but also from the periphery to the center. Otherwise, at the beginning of a new "centennial trend" & 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 of how to strengthen the "anonymous" global economic, cultural, & political processes of the bidirectional kind is becoming the central global & strategic issue for today's politics & political science. It has turned out that this kind of state & its processes in the real global environment could be successfully analyzed & effectively made use of only with the complete unreduced methodical front of all the fields of political science together -- & more. As such, they could be practically surmounted only with a very complex political & economic action through a 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," & never in making even a mini-empire or in controlling a globalized or a mega-national net. Without a methodically global political science approach, also leaning on Central European & Mediterranean cultural & politological traditions, such Croatian interests will not be accomplished. 41 References. Adapted from the source document.

The author looks into the relation between politics, state and religion from the political-science perspective, as part of an analysis and evaluation of tasks, achievements and failures of polity, policy or politics from the standpoint of normative-constructive philosophy of equity. At present the central task of policy is to stimulate and strengthen the Western political culture based on the fundamental distinction between "reasonable" and "unreasonable" pluralism. "Reasonable" pluralism rests on the assumption that the state is a just power, the sovereignty of which can be recognized in distinguishing the "public" and the "private", the just and the good, and, in connection therewith, it is almost self-understandable that such a liberal guaranteed private sphere must be the primary arena of religious practice and religious freedoms. The crucial trait of the relation between state and religion is manifest in the fact that only the legal state and the liberal constitution are competent to state what the freedom of individuals consists of within the framework of norms of what is just. The author defines "religion" in the comprehensive sense as central to the processes of forming cultural identity, and he deems that cultural policy (which, in principle, has to do with relations between state and religion), as policy of equitable integration of multi-culturally shaped political unities, must be oriented toward stimulation of those attitudes and values which make possible the reasonable pluralism defined according to Rawls. Since the political encompasses also the possibility to make enemies, the author advocates the cultural policy of "weakening the feelings of enmity" (N. Elias). In this way, a systematic concept of policy would be created, one which would reflect and preserve the conditions of reasonable pluralism. On the policy level and, in particular, on the politics level, cultural policy is a very demanding project. Perhaps it is precisely Switzerland, with its special prospects of civil democracy, that offers promising cultural-policy opportunities for activity, which are as yet still insufficiently researched. Adapted from the source document.

The author argues that cosmopolitism has become a sign that we need a new -- cosmopolitan view to understand the cosmopolitan world. He, thus, welcomes cosmopolitanism in the social sciences and demands that they dispense with the old categories build around the nation state. According to the author, it is especially important to think Europe in a cosmopolitan way so that the member states could be freed from the fear that with the enlargement of Europe they are committing a cultural suicide. The further integration should not be oriented towards the inherited vision of a unity of one European 'federal state', but the starting point should be the irreducible many sidedness of Europe. Only in this way, claims the author, is it possible to connect two, at a first glance, contradictory demands -- the recognition of difference and the integration of the different. Adapted from the source document.

The author argues that cosmopolitism has become a sign that we need a new -- cosmopolitan view to understand the cosmopolitan world. He, thus, welcomes cosmopolitanism in the social sciences and demands that they dispense with the old categories build around the nation state. According to the author, it is especially important to think Europe in a cosmopolitan way so that the member states could be freed from the fear that with the enlargement of Europe they are committing a cultural suicide. The further integration should not be oriented towards the inherited vision of a unity of one European 'federal state', but the starting point should be the irreducible many sidedness of Europe. Only in this way, claims the author, is it possible to connect two, at a first glance, contradictory demands -- the recognition of difference and the integration of the different. Adapted from the source document.

The Council of Europe, founded in 1949 to promote greater unity & safeguard the political & cultural heritage of the continent, has become the largest international governmental organization in Europe with its 46 members. It proclaimed the year 2005 the "European Year of Citizenship through Education." The promotion of democracy & democratic political culture is one of the chief objectives of the Council of Europe, & the interest & active participation of citizens in public affairs are the conditions necessary for the development of democratic political culture. The awakening of citizens' interest & civic involvement begins at school. The Republic of Croatia as a member of the Council of Europe will observe 2005 as a Year of Citizenship through Education. In January of that year, the Croatian Ministry of Education, Science, and Sports set up a special commission consisting of 22 members representing educators & teachers from all three levels of the educational system, nongovernmental organizations, ministry departments, & mass media. The commission developed an action plan which it presented to the public in March of 2005 & which contained the principal objectives that the country's schools should seek in their teaching democratically minded citizenship. Z. Dubiel

The author regards his book Karl Marx and the Political Economy of Modernity, as a summarized polemical autobiography. For him, above all, Marx is an extremely successful key for a new understanding of the classical political and political-economic theory and for its applicability in future analysis and projections of ways out from the actual world crisis. Even though in his book he documented and elaborated ways of completing Marx's critique of political economy in accordance with Marx's plan from Das Kapital, and demonstrated also the possibility of founding a critical political theory on the basis of the critique of political economy. For Dag Strpic, a critical political theory, contradictory to Marx's planning, would be required already in building a concretized theory of markets and prices in the "competition of a multitude of capitals" on the "surface of civil society" -- based on Marx's methodology. Somewhat aside from that, in this article Strpic is focused on an extended clarification of the Modern Normal's meaning. The Modern Normal (MN) in his book was constructed in an analysis based on a combination of classical modern and contemporary political and political-economic theory. But also on analytical use of results of all social sciences and humanities in principle, and science as a whole -- especially by necessity of problem-solving public policy. With a fundamental and implementational focus on an integral political science. In this, Strpic holds on to the basic scheme of the Modern Normal, Fl, from his book. Strpic's Modern Normal in this basic form is designed as a cross-section view of a corridor of cyclical movements of changing orders and fluctuating processes in mutually structurized elements of modern nation-states and their world-system. Those orders and elements developed various foundations on classical modern political and political-economic principles. With various centers of gravity or normals and different formating dominants in a structure of sequential political/political-economic counterpoints of development in series of historically different variants of the Modern Normal. Strpic observes the conjunctures and crises of development of those processes and orders, and also the actual worldwide economic, political, social and cultural crisis, through cycles of the Modern Normal as a whole. This is most evident in semi-centennial and (multi)centennial cycles, and most striking in great crises and pics of conjunctures. Adapted from the source document.

The author analyzes the future prospects of diplomatic service in the era of globalization. In his analysis, he draws from the German experience & the book Wem dient der auswartige Dienst? The author claims that foreign policy is determined by economic issues so it is pointless to separate the security/political & the economic/political aspects & competences of a government. The same applies to diplomatic corps: they cannot be exempted from economic tasks. Heads of diplomatic offices today have to be partners regarding economic topics when discussing politics & economy of the host country. Concerning the role of nongovernmental organizations, the author thinks that they cannot replace the state & its civil servants. For communicating with them, foreign service needs "generalists" more than "specialists." The key value of the future foreign service includes an overall review of the bilateral relations with the host country; this envisages that diplomats are to retain their central role in the networking of various actors & areas. Besides the legal/consular, economic, cultural & security/political tasks, diplomatic offices regularly maintain contacts & cooperate with the host country in specialized fields such as defense, science, social issues, & agriculture. 16 References. Adapted from the source document.