Suchergebnisse

Lisbeth S. Fried's insightful study investigates the impact of Achaemenid rule on the political power of local priesthoods during the 6th-4th centuries B.C.E. Scholars typically assume that, as long as tribute was sent to Susa, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, subject peoples remained autonomous. Fried's work challenges this assumption. She examines the inscriptions, coins, temple archives, and literary texts from Babylon, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Judah and concludes that there was no local autonomy. The only people with power in the Empire were Persians and their appointees, and this was true for Judah as well. The Judean priesthood achieved its longed-for independence only much later, under the Maccabees

E-government refers to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve functions and processes of the government and it is one of the most frequently researched topics. In current research, the use of ICT at the local self-government level is mostly associated with processes that take place between the organization and the citizens, i. e. e-services. Internal processes of public administration organizations, like administering and leading employees using ICT, have been insufficiently taken into account. However, it has so far received less attention, especially in the context of local self-government. Although first studies on this topic already exist in Lithuania, the systematic analysis of e-leadership concept and practice in municipal administrations is still lacking both in Lithuania and abroad. This study examines how e-leadership refers to e-government and what are features of e-leadership at local self-government that should be taken into account when considering leadership issues in the context of digitization at local self-government. The study has revealed that previous e-government dimensions are usually directed outwards, i. e. to the relations with citizens by providing them with e-services or general information, by participating them into the processes of public administration organizations. In difference to that, e-leadership represents a dimension of e-government that focuses on internal processes, i. e. human resource management in the public sector when digitalisation is taking place. During the COVID-19 pandemic period e-leadership has become an integral part of public sector institutions, including local self-government. E-leadership at local self-government has already required and still requires new skills from municipal leaders and managers to ensure organizational processes, to move quickly and efficiently to new channels and platforms of communication, to adapt to new political, social and technological environments, to learn how to allocate more autonomy, responsibility and freedom to employees, and to manage the emotional and psychological difficulties of employees. The peculiarities of e-leadership at local self-government result from the national legal framework, the institutional structure (based on the political-administrative duality), the purpose of public administration to promptly respond to local citizens' expectations, and the pursuit of efficiency using limited organizational resources.

The research aims at establishing which activities or situations in maritime domain, which threaten maritime safety and / or maritime security, fall within the concept of international peace and security. Having demonstrated the validity of the international law principles that safeguard international peace and security in maritime area, the research reveals a changing list of the threats to international peace and security, which now encompasses activities and situations at sea, including terrorism, sea piracy and armed robbery against ships, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, etc. A maritime space safe from such kind of threats generally means maritime security. Thus, a great part of the threats to maritime security are or may constitute threats to international peace and security, subject to their recognition as such threats by the United Nations Security Council in its resolutions. Usually such threats also pose risk to maritime safety (safety at sea, safety of navigation, ships, crew and passengers); however, any threat to maritime safety does not necessarily endanger maritime security or amount to the threat to international peace and security.

This article analyzes the concept of admissibility of evidence in Lithuanian civil proceedings and arbitration. The first part of the article reviews the past and current legislation, case law and doctrine, which reveal the concepts of the admissibility of evidence in both civil and arbitral proceedings. The second part of the article provides a critical assessment of these concepts. It is proposed to improve the concept of the admissibility of evidence in civil proceedings, and an alternative of this concept is presented. As far as arbitration law is concerned, it is acknowledged that the concept of the admissibility of evidence in arbitration causes legal uncertainty in the proceedings, which forces to consider possible corrections to this concept.

The article deals with identifying provisions of the 1918–1919 Lithuanian Constitutional Acts, which entrench the democratic political regime of the state. It discloses and assesses their dynamics, describes the nation's sovereignty, elements of direct and representative democracy, and parliamentarism.

Under the conditions of constant social, economic and political change, parents face new, previously unexperienced social phenomena and challenges of parenting, therefore the need for parental pedagogical education arises. Successful parental pedagogical education is one of the main educational conditions for achieving higher quality pre-school education. The aim of the research is to analyse the possibilities for improving the situation of parental pedagogical education in pre - school education institutions. The qualitative research was carried out. The applied research methods include the analysis of scientific, pedagogical, psychological literature, documents, meta-analysis (to reveal the theoretical context), semi-structured oral interview (to collect empirical research data) and content analysis (to analyse empirical data). The results of the empirical research revealed that traditional forms of individual communication are the most recognized and the most widely used by pre-school teachers as the forms of improving the situation of pedagogical parental education. The emphasis is placed on virtual communication with parents, providing information, and providing feedback through virtual means. The following possibilities for improving the situation of parental pedagogical education are highlighted: the involvement of parents in practical activities in the institution, appropriate invitation used by the teacher, demonstration of attention to parents by expressing gratitude for participation, clarification of expectations through surveys. Teachers' personal qualities and pedagogical skills are especially important. The conditions that improve the situation of parental pedagogical education have been singled out: the development of positive relations with parents on the initiative of the institution, the search for more innovative forms of parental pedagogical education. The relevance of the parental initiative is emphasised. Keywords: parental pedagogical education, pre-school education institution, ...

Data shows that significant events such natural disasters, anthropogenic disasters and malign activities by hostile actors, often having cross-border effects, have been on the rise. However, the studies of the effects of those events on public policies, governance and institutions remain inconclusive. In this article we present a research agenda which proposes the classification of the significant events on the basis of their characteristics backing it with a newly compiled data set on significant events which took place in Lithuania in 2004-2020 and outline the directions for an in-depth analysis of the causal mechanisms of how those events affect policy and institutional change. We conclude with concrete proposals for further research which could provide theoretically innovative and policy relevant insights into the political processes which translate responses to significant events into policy and institutional changes affecting welfare institutions and resilience of society.

In the 2000's excessive credit and asset price growth led to a global economic boom that was later followed by the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The prelude and nature of the Global Financial Crisis revealed that banking sector can amplify economic cycles, and that banking regulation had been too micro-oriented. In response to this, a new type of policy emerged, which aims to mitigate systemic risk and increase the resilience of the financial industry and real economy. Macroprudential policy is in place in Lithuania for more than a decade, yet it is not well understood, as there are only a few academic studies on the topic. The aim of this dissertation is to assess the impact of macroprudential policy on the economy of Lithuania by building general equilibrium models. The developed models in the dissertation reveal that the tightening of policy measures may slightly increase interest rates and decrease lending, however, the impact on the general economy is quite small. Although the tightening of policy measures that are aimed to reduce indebtedness may decrease the speed of economic convergence in the long run, macroprudential policy should also reduce the volatility of Lithuania's economy.

The aim of the research is to substantiate the methodological foundations of empirical research by revealing the concept of the expression of dimensions of smartness in cultural management. The article formulates theoretical construct based on expression of smartness dimensions in cultural management. This construct is formulating by combining cultural management and smart governance concepts and closely linking cultural management with the implementation of cultural policy and seeing the specifics of smart cultural management. The expression of smartness dimensions at culture management model consist of six main dimensions: strategics, creative development, harmonization of interests in the cultural sector, empowered cultural sector parties, harmony of intellectual and technological capital, the culture of shared value creation. Methodology strategy is based on two philosophical approaches by combining induction and deduction which result is abduction approach. Qualitative analysis was performed of theoretical sources of foreign countries and Lithuania. Another part of qualitative research is based on the interviewing chosen respondents to get information about the expression of smartness dimensions at culture management model functioning. There would be chosen about 30 experts (till data saturation) by using quadruple helix. Experts are chosen from government, science, business and nongovernmental organizations' sphere. Gained results let to form research results conception which consists of three parts: theoretical model, current situation model, perspective situation model. The trajectory of the change from the current situation model to the perspective situation model helps to highlight the areas requiring improvement of the functioning of the cultural field, planned directions (trends) of change. In future research, it is planned to form the indicators for all 6 theoretical dimensions of the expression of smartness dimensions at culture management model. Analysis based on this theoretical model also will ...

Stalking is considered a serious public health problem as well as a harmful form of victimization often leading to severe consequences for the victim. Although there is still little agreement on the exact definition of stalking, it has been recognized that the core elements of stalking include deliberateness and recurrence of the stalker's actions as well as victim fear and concern for safety. The main purpose of this article is to debate on the definition of stalking as well as provide the rates of stalking in Lithuania. Authors conclude that stalking refers to a constellation of a diverse range of actions and may include both direct communication with the victim and the use of cyberspace technologies. A rapid development of modern digital technologies leads to a wide variety of complex stalking behavior patterns that makes it complicated to generate an adequate legal response to this phenomenon. The results of a public survey conducted by a research group from the Law Institute of the Centre for Social Sciences in 2021 show that the rates of stalking in Lithuania are comparable to those reported in foreign studies as 17.5% of Lithuanian population have experienced stalking at least once during their lifetime. Stalking by the current or former intimate partner was the most prevalent stalking category, as it comprised nearly 39% of all stalking cases in the state. The article also covers some aspect of court practices in stalking-related cases during the period from 2016 to 2020, before anti-stalking legislation was introduced in Lithuania. By year 2021, when stalking was criminalized in Lithuania, 23 European Union member countries have managed to develop criminal anti-stalking legislation. Another aim of this article is to discuss the way criminal anti-stalking legislation was introduced in Lithuania and compare Lithuanian approach to the legal provisions enacted in other countries. Authors conclude that although the introduction of criminal anti-stalking legislation in Lithuania was an important step towards ...

Compulsory basic military training is characterized not only by being challenging but also by being stressful. Assuming a high frequency of perceived stress events as a negative outcome of training, this article provides evidence on how the perceived frequency of stressful situations is affected by three types of factors: (i) biological stress response variables measured by hair steroid hormone levels, (ii) personality traits measured using the Big Five personality test, and (iii) group cohesion measures in military squads. A total of 112 conscripts in 11 squads participated in the research at the beginning (T1), in the middle (T2), and at the end (T3) of compulsory basic military training. Hair steroid hormone levels (cortisol, cortisone, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)) levels were measured by liquid mass spectrometry; other data were collected using self-report questionnaires. The results of the Poisson regression analysis indicated that hair steroid hormone cortisol had a statistically significantly impact and could increase the perceived frequency of stressful situations by up to 1.317 (e0.275, T2) times. The concentrations of other hormones (cortisone = 1.157, e0.146, T3 and DHEA = 1.020, e0.020, T3) also had a statistically significant effect. Other factors had a decreasing effect on the frequency. Extraversion was significant with an effect of 0.907 (e−0.098, T2) and 0.847 (e−0.166, T3), while task cohesion had an effect of 0.946 (e−0.056) and norm cohesion of 0.954 (e−0.047). The research indicates that the three groups of factors affect the perceived frequency of stressful situations during compulsory basic military training, but their impacts are considerably different.

The legal challenges arising from the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem are widely discussed in legal theory. Less attention is given to the trial in the framework of political and moral philosophy, where the key focus remains on the nature and the origins of evil (without a doubt, fuelled by Hannah Arendt's definition of banality of evil). However, the trail itself present equally challenging question of human response to evil: how are we, the members of the modern political locus to respond to the evil of inhuman proportions? This article aims to answer the question through the reconstruction of debate that took place during the period of the trail (from the date of capture of Eichmann in 1960, till his execution in 1962) and the arguments "for" and "against" the trial by Arendt, Karl Jaspers, Isaiah Berlin, Gershom Scholem and Martin Buber. Beyond these arguments, there is an engaging philosophical debate about the nature and origins of justice, the limits of guilt and retribution, crime and punishment. It is argued that Arendt's pro-trail stance provide for a way of engagement with the questions of evil by modern political men.

In spite of a growing number of contemporary publications in the field of political philosophy that are dedicated to the concept of honor and to it's analysis, there still is a lack of a systemic presentation of the conceptual field of honor itself. Political theorists and philosophers that treat the subject of honor state out their definitions of honor and compare them with one another, yet a general overview of the competing definitions and their critical comparison is still a rarety. A systemic presentation of all prominent contemporary philosophical studies that treat the concept of honor is useful in two ways. It facilitates the understanding of the main arguments that determine different definitions of honor, as well as it identifies major polemical issues that set the diferent concepts of honor apart. This article suggests two main arguments – a critical and an adaptational – for interpreting and comparing the different concepts of honor in contemporary political philosophy. Structuring the conceptual field of honor with these two arguments offers an analytic tool for further analyses of honor that are based on concrete polemical issues. It also gives a new perspective to explain the reemergence of honor in contemporary political philosophy.

This dissertation analyzes five memoirs written in English by North American writers of Lithuanian descent, published between 2001 and 2017 in the United States and Canada: Painted in Words—A Memoir (2001) by Samuel Bak, The Barefoot Bingo Caller (2017) by Antanas Sileika, White Field, Black Sheep: A Lithuanian-American Life (2010) by Daiva Markelis, A Guest At the Shooters' Banquet (2015) by Rita Gabis, and Siberian Exile: Blood, War, and a Granddaughter's Reckoning (2017) by Julija Šukys. In their memoirs, these writers reflect on and challenge aspects of Lithuanian historical trauma (the Holocaust) and Lithuanian cultural trauma (deportations to Siberia, World War II, the postwar experience, the refugee experience, immigration). They consider the impact of those historical events on their ancestors, themselves, and their descendants. All five embarked on postmemory rite of return journeys to Lithuania after Lituania's independence from the Soviet Union, seeking answers about family narratives. These memoirs function both as memory and postmemory narratives. In each of the memoirs, the writers explore personal narratives as narratives of culture against the backdrop of collective memory and historical and cultural trauma. Superimposed onto their individual memory narratives are explorations of familial and affiliative postmemory that are geographically, historically, and culturally distant for these writers living on the North American continent, and yet vitally important to them. There is a belatedness to these memory narratives, which in part is caused by the divisions of the Iron Curtain and Cold War politics, and in part because of the time needed to process and heal from extreme trauma (the first generation) or come to terms with inherited postmemory traumas (the second and third generations). Writing in English about Lithuania, these writers function as cultural translators who translate their postmemory experience for an audience of North American readers. Their work is representative of a growing body of literary novels, memoirs, essays, plays, and poems that explore postmemory topics related to Lithuanian cultural and historical trauma and collective memory that are written in English and published in North America by both university presses and commercial publishers.