Search results for "Political Science"
showing 10 items of 7570 documents
Civil Society in the 2004 Romanian Elections: Watchdog, Involved Arbiter or Political Actor?
2010
Abstract Civil society has proven outstanding capacities of involvement in the 2004 general elections in Romania and put a remarkable pressure on the political society. This paper aims to discuss the consequences of such involvement for both the political and civil society. We also investigate the conditions that have favoured a successful challenge of the main political actors by the most visible civic advocacy organizations. Further, we inquire how deep can an actor from the civil society go into the lands of the political society. In the end, we weight the achievements and the failures of civil society’s active involvement in the game of elections.
BRIDGING THE NATION AND THE STATE: CATHOLIC CHURCH IN POLAND AS POLITICAL ACTOR
2020
One of the most recognized features of social-political reality in Poland is the role of Catholicism as the determinant of national-political identity and of Catholic Church as the influential political actor. Being undoubtedly peculiar Polish case can be viewed as the example of the religiosity intertwined with national and civil identity existent in different forms in the CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) region. The article aims at casting specifics of Polish case in the wider context of religious-political nexus in CEE stressing the distinctness of the region compared to some other parts of Europe. The conducted analysis focuses on the evolution of Church-state relations in Poland displa…
Kulturen des Reparierens
2018
Reparieren und Instandhalten sind ökonomisch wie kulturell zentrale Praktiken im »Leben« technischer Dinge und Infrastrukturen. Der Band rückt diese bislang wenig untersuchten Tätigkeiten in den Vordergrund und fragt nach den Wissensformen der unterschiedlichen Kulturen des Reparierens. Die Expertisen und politischen Ambitionen menschlicher Akteure finden dabei ebenso Berücksichtigung wie die Eigendynamik der Dinge. Die Beiträge untersuchen Praktiken wie die Uhr- oder Computerreparatur sowie Räume wie die Wohnung und das Krankenhaus, das Repair Café und die Stadt des Globalen Südens. Nicht zuletzt geht es um die Frage, inwiefern Reparieren und reparaturfreundliches Design zu mehr Nachhaltig…
Civil Society in Making: <i>Challenges of the Somali Diaspora Organizations</i>
2013
This article contributes to the discussion on migrants and civil society by directing attention towards the importance of transnational processes. Somali organizations in Finland will be addressed against the state-failure and conflict in Somalia. Among the Somalis, an NGO largely remains an alien and donor-driven concept, whereas clan, religious affiliations and associational structures may be blurred in complex ways. There is a need to rethink the concept of ‘civil society’ and how it could be analytically used in understanding transnational civic participation. The data comprises interviews with INGOs as well as observations and discussions with Somali associations.
Institutions, crises, and political confidence in seven contemporary democracies. An elite-mass analysis
2017
There is ample consensus in the literature that institutional confidence by the public is needed in democracies and at the same time elites, particularly political elites, need to share this confidence in their guidance of state institutions, if political stability in established democracies and the consolidation of new democracies are desired. The research takes the form of a quantitative analysis based on the World Values Surveys and the elite surveys (parliamentarians) conducted in 2006 (before the financial crisis) and in 2012–2013 (post the crisis when apparently, the worst of the economic crunch had lessened up) in the 7 countries selected. We explore what lies at the base of politica…
International development aid and young people's participation in societal development of the global south
2018
International development aid has in recent years sought to strengthen youths’ societal participation by cooperation between international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) and local youth associations. In this paper, we address and conceptualise some of the underlying causes that may enable and/or limit such efforts to support youth participation in the global south. We seek to contribute to the growing literature exploring the multiple scales of young people's political agency. A core argument proposed is that notions of generational relationality, as seen in the case of international development aid targeting youth, must include conceptions of power as a topological relation across …
Social capital of Ukrainian society after the Revolution of Dignity
2021
This article is devoted to the issue of the social capital of Ukrainian society a few years after the Revolution of Dignity. Its basic goal is to try to answer the question of whether the society, which at the turn of 2013 and 2014 coordinated its activities in order to achieve the common goal: the removal of the former government, set the pro-Western course. Indeed, a civil society was characterized by permanent resources of social capital. In order to get the answer to this question, the article analyses a number of indicators that are customarily related to social capital, such as: the level of trust in individual state and social institutions, the level of involvement in volunteering an…
The role of civil society organisations in European responsible research and innovation
2018
EC policy reveals a strong conviction that CSO’s main function in EU-funded research and innovation projects is to take care of the ‘societal perspective’, which would not be adequately represented otherwise. With this, CSOs are supposed to be the main advocates of RRI in project consortia and are supported by all kinds of EC policy measures to fulfil this role. This conviction is not only problematic due to definition problems concerning CSO as such. Empirical data about the role of CSOs in high-tech/high-innovation research projects and the distribution of RRI activities among consortia members reveal that the role of CSOs is much more multi-faceted (data providers, providers of access to…
Legal Norms Against the Italian Mafia
2016
Legislation expressly aimed at combating mafia-type crimes in the Italian criminal system has long represented a specific and distinctive set of rules, comprising provisions of criminal law, procedural criminal law and penitentiary law, and including provisions of administrative and civil law of a more preventive kind. However, the law constitutes only one aspect of the complex Italian anti-mafia policy, which indeed results from the combination of several factors, such as human losses, political choices, legislative solutions, evolving case law and reactions of the civil society. In the international arena, among the multiple actors engaged at various levels in the fight against organised …
Law, Borders, and Speech Conference: Proceedings and Materials
2017
Tensions between national law and the Internet’s global architecture have existed since the network’s earliest days. They took on new urgency in recent years, with developments like French regulators’ efforts to globally enforce “Right to Be Forgotten” laws. New cases, technologies, and platform responses seem to come along every few months. Expert-level discussion of these issues is dynamic and fast-moving -- but the written literature is only starting to catch up. This volume contributes to that literature by capturing insights from the Stanford Center for Internet and Society’s Law, Borders, and Speech conference. The event honored the twentieth anniversary of David G. Post and David R. …