Advocates of remedying historical injustices urge political communities to take responsibility for their past, but their arguments are ambiguous about whether all past injustices need remedy, or just those regarding groups that suffer from current injustice. This ambiguity leaves unanswered the challenge of critics who argue that contemporary injustices matter, not those in the past. I argue instead for a focus on injustices that have roots in the past, and continue to the present day, what I call enduring injustice. (...) Instead of focusing on finding the party responsible for the injustice, I argue that we use history to help us understand why some injustices endure, which I suggest is partly due to the limitations of liberal justice. I conclude with a conception of responsibility for repairing enduring injustice that deemphasizes searching for the causal agent, and instead focuses on how to repair the injustice, which I explain through an expansive conception of shared space. (shrink)

A challenging question regarding compensation for historic injustices like slavery or colonialism is whether there is anyone to whom it would be just to ascribe duties of compensation given that allegedly all the perpetrators--the guilty parties--are dead. Some answer this question negatively, arguing it is wrong to ascribe to anyone compensatory duties for injustices committed by others who died multiple generations ago. This objection to compensation for historic injustice, which I call the Historical Responsibility Objection (HRO), takes as its (...) core premises (1) that one must be guilty of wrongdoing with respect to a given historic injustice in order to bear a duty to compensate for the injustice, and (2) that no one alive today can be considered so guilty because no one alive today was alive when the historic injustice occurred. The result is that we cannot ascribe compensatory duties to anyone for any historic injustic. While all arguments I am aware of that refute HRO reject premise (1), this paper sketches a novel refutation of HRO by exploring the implications of rejecting premise (2). Doing so would invoke the state as a collective agent, distinct from its constitutive individual agents, liable to acquire compensatory duties for wrongs it commits that none of its constitutive individuals bear. To the extent that states that are collective agents committed historic injustices, such states have duties to compensate for historic injustice. (shrink)

The paper aims to explore the relationships that exist between party structure, party system, patronage, and the appointments of the political elites. It is focused on the extent to which political parties can control the allocation of jobs as well as find out which are the institutions over whom the political parties can exercise power; the extent to which historical legacies influence patronage patterns; the extent to which party patronage is exercised in a ‘majoritarian’ as opposed (...) to a more ‘consensual’ manner across the spectrum of political parties; and the relationship that exist between the structure of the party, the appointment of political elites and patronage. The conclusion is that the party in public office and its allies in the coalition cabinet control the post of ministers and vice-ministers. While these last ones control the posts of their subordinates, it is hard to understand whether they select the employees from the party pool or from their personal networks. The other finding is that the structure of the party creates strong links between patronage and appointment, these last ones done with the scope of having control over government resources and distribution of resources. On the other hand, the research didn’t prove any link between historical legacies and patronage and party system and patronage. (shrink)

This article considers the question of the responsibility that present day generations bear as a result of the actions of their ancestors. Is it morally significant that we share a national identity with those responsible for the perpetration of historic injustice? The article argues that we can be guilty of wrongdoing stemming from past wrongdoing if we are members of nations that are responsible for an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties. This rests upon three claims: that the failure to (...) fulfil rectificatory duties is unjust; that nations can bear collective responsibility for the actions of their leaders; and that nations are comprised of overlapping generations rather than successive generations. The claim that present day parties should apologise for historic injustice is then considered, and it is argued that such an apology is best understood in relation to an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties. (shrink)

This is the Guest Editor's Introduction to a volume of Philosophia Reformata that considers Jaap Klapwijk's book in which he seeks to discuss evolutionary biology in relation to Christian philosophy.

This paper is a part-review analysis into the modern conception of both the word and Jihād and the violent nature of Islam. In order to develop an overarching modern theory of Jihād, current opinions and general argumtations in the literature are examined. Two theories have emerged in defining Islam and the role of Jihād in Islam. The first is that of the so-called Muslim apologists; scholars who define Jihād as mainly a personal struggle, and whose physical application (warfare) is only (...) in self-defence of the Islamic community. The second sponsors the concept of ‘offensive’ Jihād: that Islam is imperialistic and has a vision of global domination. The stark contrast in the divisions that the scholarship have are indicative of two opposing parties, likely each basing their respective policy positions on beliefs on the nature of Islam as a violent of peaceful ‘religion’. (shrink)

The present paper explores diffident and dissident practices reflected by the political talk at the end of the 19th-century in Romania. Relying on Jacques Rancière’s theories on the ‘aesthetic regime of politics,’ the introduction sketches a historical frame and proposes a focus change: the relation between ‘politics’ and ‘aesthetics’ does not stand on a set of literary cases, but on political scripts as such. Thus, the hypotheses investigated by the next three parts can be formulated as follows: 1. though (...) determined by an ideological direction (Conservative or Liberal), the political speech still preserves his tendency towards aesthetic autonomy. 2. oratorical merits (hinting at aesthetic autonomy) can turn into practices of political autonomy, diffidence and, then, dissidence. Methodologically, two types of aesthetic practices organize the chosen materials; both the diffident script and the theatre of dissidence help us to perceive how the philosophical and moral meaning of these practices could change into an ideology of dissidence. The formalization of diffident practices, their conversion to outspoken dissidence, also corresponds to the symmetrical symptom of unlimited authority; when old-time politicians warned on ‘Caesarism,’ ‘Vizierate,’ ‘Despotism,’ ‘Omnipotence’ or ‘Tyranny,’ the Romanian society had already been training for a long experience of ‘dictatorship.’. (shrink)

This thesis explores the party system and political parties in the post-communist Albania. The overarching question of the thesis is what kind of party system has developed and what is the structure and organization of the Albanian political parties. The study analyses the period 1991-2013, that is the period between the first and the last general elections. I argue and test that the Albanian party system is stable and that the Albanian political parties are mass clientelist parties (...) with deep territorial penetration. The members of the parties have ceased to paly their traditional roles of the era of mass party and their attachment tot he party is not ideological but aims to ensure material benefits in return for the support provided to the party in elections times. As parties don't have many tools at hand they use their organizational structure to stabilize electorate, which explains the low level of electoral volatility in Albania and as consequence the stability of the party system. The thesis ahs an institutional embedded and a historically structured framework according to which party strategies are shaped by both the institutional context and the historical setting in which parties are created and operate. Following this line of reasoning, the weak societal roots of parties do not allow for party identification or voter alignment; the early access to public funding reduces the incentives of parties to create strong links with the members and society to collect financial resources and; in line with the features of the patrimonial communism which is characterized by clientelism and nepotism, the Albanian political parties develop the same relationships between the higher echelons of the party and the lower strata of the party structure. On the other hand the lack of media access in the early phase of organization and the need to stabilize the electorate, encourage the Albanian political parties to seek a deep territorial penetration which results in the creation of mass clientelist parties. In order to test the hypothesis I have undertaken three steps: a) the analyses of the Effective Number of Parties and Electoral Volatility; b) the internal distribution of power, the role of the membership and the relationship of the organization with society and; c) the identification of financial resources of the political parties. (shrink)

This study is an attempt to analyze the factors that have contributed towards the success of the Democratic Party of Albania. It seeks to introduce new dimensions in measuring the success of a political party. The study rejects the elements of ‘office-holding’ and ‘policy – or performance-based’ measures of success, because they are determined by a complex array of economic, political, social and institutional factors. The concept of “party success” is defined in terms of: ‘breadth’ and ‘durability’. (...) At the same time the study aims at ‘emancipating’ the political parties from the past and macro-institutional factors, to which very often are ascribed the reasons for the perceived failure of politics in Albania. The approach used in this study has regarded the political parties as the real political actors that as such should assume the responsibility for the perceived failures. Neither the lack of political culture, nor the communist system, are the main factors to shape the activity and development of political parties in Albania. Both macro-institutional and historical structural approach has limited explanatory power for the success of the Democratic Party. Its success is a direct consequence of the decisions that the political parties themselves, including Democratic Party as one of the key actors, have taken. The research showed that the Democratic Party of Albania has been successful because and when its elite have been able to craft inclusive ideological programs and because of its extensive penetration in the country, which it owes to its structure as a mass party. The party has established patronage linkages with its sympathizers, the rank and file and militants and consequently has ensured their loyalty and maintained an extensive electoral penetration in country. (shrink)

In Marxist circles it is common to refer to Karl Marx’s The Civil War in France for a theoretical analysis of the historical significance of the Paris Commune, and to Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray’s History of the Commune of 1871 for a description of the facts surrounding the insurrection of the Paris workers and its repression by the National Assembly led by Adolphe Thiers. What is less well-known is that Marx himself oversaw the German translation of Lissagaray’s book and made numerous (...) additions to it. In this article we describe Marx’s addenda to Lissagaray’s work, showing how they contribute to concretising his analysis of the Paris Commune and how they relate to the split in the International Working Men’s Association between Marxists and anarchists that took place after the Commune’s defeat. We also show how Marx’s additions to the German version of Lissagaray’s book were linked to his involvement with the recently created Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany and to his criticism of the programme it had adopted at the congress celebrated in the city of Gotha. (shrink)

Under one of the last remaining single-party communist regimes, Vietnam’s in-progress transition is a hybrid between post-Soviet reforms and Chinese authoritarian compromise. This chapter provides a brief account of the historical events and cultural attributes that have shaped the current political and economic configuration of the country, a coverage of globalization and entrepreneurial endeavours in relation to trade liberalization, an analysis of growing consumerist tendencies and the solidification of a circle of economic elites, an overview of Vietnamese foreign (...) trade, with a focus on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China as significant partners, and a macroeconomic assessment of the country. (shrink)

One of the most historically recent and damaging blows to the reputation of utopianism came from its association with the totalitarian regimes of Hitler’s Third Reich and Mussolini’s Fascist party in World War II and the prewar era. Being an apologist for utopianism, it seemed to some, was tantamount to being an apologist for Nazism and all of its concomitant horrors. The fantasy principle of utopia was viewed as irretrievably bound up with the irrationalism of modern dictatorship. While these (...) conclusions are somewhat understandable given the broad strokes that definitions of utopia are typically painted with, I will show in this paper that the link between the mythos of fascism and the constructs of utopianism results from an unfortunate conflation at the theoretical level. The irrationalism of any mass ethos and the rationalism of the thoughtful utopian planner are, indeed, completely at odds with each other. I arrive at this conclusion via an analysis of the concepts of myth and narrative, and the relationships these have with the concept of utopia. (shrink)

Vera Zasulich’s shooting of Trepov, a governor of St Petersburg who had ordered the flogging of a political prisoner, in January 1878, catapulted her to international fame as a revolutionary heroine, a reputation that she put to good use by becoming one of the five ‘founding parents’ of Russian Marxism that created the ‘Group for the Emancipation of Labour’ in 1883. But her act of self-sacrifice also triggered, to her dismay, the institutionalisation of individual terrorist tactics in the Russian Populist (...) movement with the creation of the ‘People’s Will’ (Narodnaya Volya) Party in 1879. The organisation went into decline after the killing of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, and Populism itself was increasingly superseded by Marxism as the hegemonic force on the left with the rise of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). But individual terrorist tactics reappeared with the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1902, prompting Zasulich to write an article for Die neue Zeit, the theoretical organ of German Social Democracy, in which she both condemned the Neo-Populist tendency as deleterious to the rising labour movement and supported the organisational plans for the RSDLP sponsored by the Iskra group, developed at length by Lenin in his book What Is to Be Done?, published in March 1902. This article provides the background to Vera Zasulich’s article ‘The Terrorist Tendency in Russia’ (December 1902), setting it against the history of the Russian revolutionary movement from 1878 to 1902. (shrink)

The new theory of reference has won popularity. However, a number of noted philosophers have also attempted to reply to the critical arguments of Kripke and others, and aimed to vindicate the description theory of reference. Such responses are often based on ingenious novel kinds of descriptions, such as rigidified descriptions, causal descriptions, and metalinguistic descriptions. This prolonged debate raises the doubt whether different parties really have any shared understanding of what the central question of the philosophical theory of reference (...) is: what is the main question to which descriptivism and the causal-historical theory have presented competing answers. One aim of the paper is to clarify this issue. The most influential objections to the new theory of reference are critically reviewed. Special attention is also paid to certain important later advances in the new theory of reference, due to Devitt and others. (shrink)

Many suggest that we should look backward and measure the differences among various parties' past emissions of greenhouse gases to allocate moral responsibility to remedy climate change. Such backward-looking approaches face two key objections: that previous emitters were unaware of the consequences of their actions, and that the emitters who should be held responsible have disappeared. I assess several arguments that try to counter these objections: the argument from strict liability, arguments that the beneficiary of harmful or unjust emissions should (...) pay, and arguments from distributive justice. I argue that none of these successfully justify a backward-looking approach to the temporally remote portion of the climate burden. (shrink)

In actuarial parlance, the price of an insurance policy is considered fair if customers bearing the same risk are charged the same price. The estimate of this fair amount hinges on the expected value obtained by weighting the different claims by their probability. We argue that, historically, this concept of actuarial fairness originates in an Aristotelian principle of justice in exchange (equality in risk). We will examine how this principle was formalized in the 16th century and shaped in life insurance (...) during the following two hundred years, in two different interpretations. The Domatian account of actuarial fairness relied on subjective uncertainty: An agreement on risk was fair if both parties were equally ignorant about the chances of an uncertain event. The objectivist version grounded any agreement on an objective risk estimate drawn from a mortality table. We will show how the objectivist approach collapsed in the market for life annuities during the 18th century, leaving open the question of why we still speak of actuarial fairness as if it were an objective expected value. (shrink)

The origins of the Transitional Programme in Trotsky’s writings have been traced in the secondary literature. Much less attention has been paid to the earlier origins of the Transitional Programme in the debates of the Communist International between its Third and Fourth Congress, and in particular to the contribution of its largest national section outside Russia, the German Communist Party, which had been the origin of the turn to the united-front tactic in 1921. This article attempts to uncover the (...) roots of the Transitional Programme in the debates of the Communist International. This task is important because it shows that the Transitional Programme’s slogans are not sectarian shibboleths, but the result of the collective revolutionary experience of the working class during the period under consideration, from the Bolshevik Revolution to the founding conference of the Fourth International. (shrink)

Enclosed is a guidebook for philanthropists, advocates, and policymakers who want to do the most good possible. This book introduces the philosophy of “longtermism,” the idea that it is particularly important that we act now to safeguard future generations. -/- The future is vast in scale: depending on our choices in the coming centuries, the future could stretch for eons or it could dwindle into oblivion, and be inordinately good or inordinately bad. And yet future generations are utterly disenfranchised in (...) the world today: they cannot participate in our markets, our movements, or our civil society. This presents 21st Century philanthropists with a historically unprecedented opportunity to do good by protecting the long-term future. -/- The essays within are from the pioneers who have developed the intellectual foundations of longtermism, as well as the experts and advocates who are now putting it into practice. Readers will hear the case for longtermism from professors at the University of Oxford and Longview’s own founders; longtermist policy proposals from political philosophers, members of the House of Lords, and the All-party Parliamentary Group for Future Generations; the case for work on biosecurity, artificial intelligence, and climate change from leading experts; and the first ever essay on longtermist cultural change from the former Chief of Cabinet to the Finnish President. -/- Together, these essays chart the path forward toward maximising the good that we do for our grandchildren, our grandchildren’s grandchildren, and every generation beyond. (shrink)

Smith has argued that moral realism need not be threatened by apparent moral disagreement. One reason he gives is that moral debate has tended to elicit convergence in moral views. From here, he argues inductively that current disagreements will likely be resolved on the condition that each party is rational and fully informed. The best explanation for this phenomenon, Smith argues, is that there are mind-independent moral facts that humans are capable of knowing. In this paper, I seek to (...) challenge this argument—and more recent versions of it—by arguing that historical convergence in moral views may occur for various arational reasons. If such reasons possibly result in convergence—which Smith effectively concedes—then the moral realist would require an additional a posteriori argument to establish that convergence in moral views occurred for the right reasons. Hence, Smith-style arguments, as they stand, cannot be mobilised in support of moral realism. Rather, this investigation demonstrates the necessity of a genuine history of morality for any convergence claim in support of a meta-ethical view. (shrink)

The post-Westphalian Nation State developed by becoming more and more an Information Society. However, in so doing, it progressively made itself less and less the main information agent, because one of the main forces that made the Nation State possible and then predominant, as a historical driving force in human politics, namely Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), is also what is now making it less central, in the social, political and economic life of humanity across the world. ICTs enable (...) and promote the agile, temporary and timely aggregation, disaggregation and re-aggregation of distributed groups around shared interests across old, rigid boundaries represented by social classes, political parties, ethnicity, language barriers, physical and geographical barriers, and so forth. Similar novelties call for a serious exercise in conceptual re-engineering. This paper argues for the need to understand how the new informational multiagent systems may be designed in such a way as to take full advantage of the socio-political progress made so far, while being able to deal successfully with the new global challenges (from the environment to the financial markets) that are undermining the legacy of that very progress. (shrink)

Sortition, i.e. random appointment for public duty, has been employed by societies throughout the years as a firewall designated to prevent illegitimate interference between parties in a legal case and agents of the legal system. In judicial systems of modern western countries, random procedures are mainly employed to select the jury, the court and/or the judge in charge of judging a legal case. Therefore, these random procedures play an important role in the course of a case, and should comply with (...) some principles, such as transparency and complete auditability. Nevertheless, these principles are neglected by random procedures in some judicial systems, which are performed in secrecy and are not auditable by the involved parties. The assignment of cases in the Brazilian Supreme Court is an example of such a procedure, for it is performed using procedures unknown to the parties involved in the judicial cases. This article presents a review of how sortition has been historically employed by societies and discusses how Mathematical Statistics may be applied to random procedures of the judicial system, as it has been applied for almost a century on clinical trials, for example. A statistical model for assessing randomness in case assignment is proposed and applied to the Brazilian Supreme Court. As final remarks, guidelines for the development of good randomization procedures are outlined. (shrink)

During its first four congresses, held annually under Lenin, the Communist International went through two distinct phases: while the first two congresses focused on programmatic and organisational aspects of the break with Social-Democratic parties, the third congress, meeting after the putsch known as the ‘March Action’ of 1921 in Germany, adopted the slogan ‘To the masses!’, while the fourth codified this new line in the ‘Theses on the Unity of the Proletarian Front’. The arguments put forward by the first two (...) congresses were originally drafted by leaders of the Russian Communist Party, but the initiative for the adoption of the united-front policy came from the German Communist Party under the leadership of Paul Levi. This article explores the historical circumstances that turned the German Communists into the pioneers of the united-front tactic. In the documentary appendix we add English versions of two documents drafted by Levi: the ‘Letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany’ on the Kapp Putsch, dated 16 March 1920, and thekpd’s ‘Open Letter’ of 8 January 1921, which gave rise to the united-front tactic. (shrink)

A commentary on the Symposium as a challenge and a gift to Athens. I begin with a reflection on three dates: 416 bce, the date of Agathon’s victory party, c. 400, the approximate date of Apollodorus’ retelling of the party, and c. 375, the approximate date of the ‘publication’ of the dialogue, and I argue that Plato reminds his contemporary Athens both of its great poetic and legal and scientific traditions and of the historical fact that the (...) way late fourth century Athens appropriated them in some way led to the city’s demise at the turn of the century; thus the dialogue is Plato’s challenge to his contemporary Athens to recognize and overcome its flawed relation to its cultural resources. Heard in this way, the key moments are Aristophanes’ implied critique of Pausanias and Eryximachus and Socrates’ implied critique of Aristophanes and Agathon. Proceeding by a close reading, I argue that Plato exposes, for those moved to rise to his challenge, the failure of his great predecessors to conceive the divine in a way that, worthy of the height and otherness divinity requires, can provide substantive orientation for the burgeoning new reason that animates the city’s culture. (shrink)

This study seeks to trace the boundaries of the sign in the phenomenological tradition of Edmund Husserl. The approach adopted here is largely historical and has no other ambition that to identify those questions that pertain to the sign and have been of interest for phenomenology. The article is divided in four parts : the first examines an essay from 1890 entitled Semiotik and situates it in the context of the young Husserl's work in the philosophy of mathematics ; (...) the second part concerns the first section of the Logical Investigations ; the third one seeks to account for the changes that testify to the evolution of Husserl's thinking regarding the sign between the Logical Investigations (1900-01) and "Origins of Geometry" (1936) ; the last part considers the contribution of post-Husserlian phenomenology, from Martin Heidegger to Merleau-Ponty and beyond, to semiotics. -/- Résumé. Notre étude vise à délimiter l'espace dans lequel la question du signe s'est posée à la tradition phénoménologique depuis Edmund Husserl. Cette étude est largement historique et elle n'a d'autres ambitions que d'identifier certains aspects de la question du signe qui ont suscité l'intérêt de la phénoménologie. Elle se divise en quatre parties : dans la première, nous examinons le texte de 1890 intitulé Semiotik en le situant dans le contexte des recherches du jeune Husserl sur la philosophie des mathématiques ; la deuxième section est principalement consacrée à l'étude de la première des Recherches logiques ; la troisième partie vise à rendre compte des chan-gements qui ont marqué l'évolution de la pensée de Husserl sur le signe, des Recher-ches logiques (1900/1) à "Origine de la géométrie" (1936) ; finalement, nous esquis-serons à grands traits la contribution de la phénoménologie post-husserlienne à la sémiotique, de Martin Heidegger à Maurice Merleau-Ponty, et au-delà. (shrink)

This article is the attempt of an historically oriented analysis focused on the role of Nigerian music as a cultural hub for the export of African cultural influences into the Black diaspora in the United States and its anticipation by the Free Jazz/Avantgarde-scene as well as the import of key-values related to the Black Power-movement to the African continent. The aim is to demonstrate the leading role and international impact of Nigeria's cultural industry among sub-saharan African nation states and its (...) specific ability to absorb and incorporate elements of Western culture. -/- After a short discussion of African influences on jazz music in general and the socio-political, cultural, and artistic context in which Free Jazz emerged, examples for the articulation of African consciousness among influencing key figures such as saxophonist John Coltrane or the Art Ensemble of Chicago are being presented. Furthermore, the personal and ideological links between the Avantgarde Jazz-scene and the Black Power-movement - especially the Black Panther Party - are made transparent. -/- In a second step the central influence of the Nigerian drum-pioneer Babatunde Olatunji on the Africanization of US-Jazz musicians, his personal and creative impact on John Coltrane, as well as the Black Power-movement is being highlighted. On the other hand, Coltrane, Free Jazz, and the Black Panther Party are being portrayed as a central creative and ideological turn in the career and work of Fela Kuti and towards political activism and his efforts to implement and apply the Africa-inspired Black Power -struggle of the US on the African continent in order to fight post-colonial forms of oppression. -/- . (shrink)

Nearly everyone agrees that sexual exploitation occurs and that, when it does, it is morally wrong. However, there is substantial disagreement over what constitutes sexual exploitation and why it is wrong. Is sex between freely consenting adults ever exploitative? Is prostitution always exploitative? What features of sexually exploitative interactions lead us to regard them as morally wrong? And if sexual exploitation is morally wrong, what should be done about it?These are not new questions for the social philosopher. However, recent criticisms (...) of social contract theory may lead us to wonder whether contractarianism has the resources to criticize important cases of sexual exploitation—particularly prostitution. Some liberals have defended prostitution “in principle,” arguing that when prostitution is truly consensual, there is nothing wrong with it. This is called “sound prostitution.” Indeed, in cases where the parties to a sexual exchange are both competent adults, liberals and libertarians have a difficult time criticizing it, since to do so runs the risk of imposing a local and historically specific sexual ideal on members of society who explicitly reject it or else suggests that the prostitutes and their clients are not really competent agents. (shrink)

All efforts undertaken so far to establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians have failed to seriously address the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. This failure stemmed from a conviction that the question of historical justice in general had to be avoided. Since justice is a subjective construct, it was argued, allowing it to become a subject of negotiation would only perpetuate the conflict. However, the experience of these peace efforts has shown that without solving the problem (...) of the Palestinian refugees an agreement cannot be reached. And the problem cannot possibly be solved without addressing the key Palestinian demand on this issue — the right of return. For both sides, the right of return, more than any other issue, touches on the essence of their history since the beginning of the conflict between them, and on their future. The national narrative of each side thus centers on its version of the history of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, in the course of which the Palestinian refugee problem was created. And each side maintains the fundamental belief that its future national existence hinges on whether, and how, the issue of the right of return is resolved. For the Palestinians, the right of return is an inalienable right that defines their national identity and their struggle for liberation. For Israeli Jews, the right of return is perceived as an existential threat to the Jewish character of their society, if not to its very existence. It is not surprising, therefore, that within each of the two societies a national consensus has been built around this issue and that the position of each society seems to stand in complete opposition to that of the other. However, we argue that a morally and politically sound basis could and should be established for a workable solution and that such a basis can be provided by the notion of "transitional justice." Transitional justice stresses two major steps as necessary for reconciliation between parties involved in an historic conflict: recognition and restitution. Recognition entails revealing the historical truth about the injustices committed and according their victims dignity and respect as rights-bearing human beings. Restitution is meant to alleviate some of the material deprivation suffered by the victims and is also a form of recognition. In the Israeli-Palestinian case, recognition by Israel of the right of return would entail its assumption of responsibility for the uprooting of the majority of Palestinian society in 1948. This would satisfy a demand that has become a fundamental element in Palestinian national identity. Recognition would then enable the two parties to enter negotiations over restitution, in particular the implementation of the right of return. In these negotiations, as many Palestinian political leaders have indicated, the concerns of Israeli Jews with their national identity would be taken into account. Only if the fundamental concerns of the two parties, which center on the issue of the right of return, are met can the road towards reconciliation between them be opened. (shrink)

Issues of sociopolitical systems’ stability and risks of their destabi-lization in process of political transformations belong to the most important ones as regards the social development perspectives, as has been shown again by the recent events in Ukraine. In this re-spect it appears necessary to note that the transition to democracy may pose a serious threat to the stability of respective sociopolitical systems. This article studies the issue of democratization of countries within globalization context, it points to the unreasonably high (...) economic and social costs of a rapid transition to democracy as a result of revolutions or of similar large-scale events for the countries unprepared for it. The authors believe that in a number of cases the authoritarian regimes turn out to be more effective in economic and social terms in comparison with emerging democracies especially of the revolutionary type, which are often incapable to insure social order and may have a swing to authoritarianism. Effective authoritarian regimes can also be a suitable form of a transition to efficient and stable democracy. The article investigates various correlations between revolutionary events and possibilities of establishing democracy in a society on the basis of the historical and contemporary examples as well as the recent events in Egypt. The authors demonstrate that one should take into account a country’s degree of sociopolitical and cultural preparedness for democratic institutions. In case of favorable background, revolutions can proceed smoothly (“velvet revolutions”) with efficient outcomes. On the contrary, democracy is established with much difficulty, throwbacks, return to totalitarianism, and with outbreaks of violence and military takeovers in the countries with high illiteracy rate and rural population share, with low female status, with widespread religious fundamental ideology, where a substantial part of the population hardly ever hears of democracy while the liberal intellectuals idealize this form, where the opposing parties are not willing to respect the rules of democratic game when defeated at elections. (shrink)

This article studies the issue of democratization of countries within globalization context, it points to the unreasonably high economic and social costs of a rapid transition to democracy as a result of revolutions or of similar large-scale events for the countries unprepared for it. The authors believe that in a number of cases the authoritarian regimes turn out to be more effective in economic and social terms in comparison with emerging democracies especially of the revolutionary type, which are often incapable (...) to insure social order and may have a swing to authoritarianism. Effective authoritarian regimes can also be a suitable form of a transition to efficient and stable democracy. The article investigates various correlations between revolutionary events and possibilities of establishing democracy in a society on the basis of the historical and contemporary examples as well as the recent events in Egypt. The authors demonstrate that one should take into account a country's degree of sociopolitical and cultural preparedness for democratic institutions. In case of favorable background, revolutions can proceed smoothly (‘velvet revolutions’) with efficient outcomes. On the contrary, democracy is established with much difficulty, throwbacks, return to totalitarianism, and with outbreaks of violence and military takeovers in the countries with high illiteracy rate and rural population share, with low female status, with widespread religious fundamental ideology, where a substantial part of the population hardly ever hears of democracy while the liberal intellectuals idealize this form, where the opposing parties are not willing to respect the rules of democratic game when defeated at elections. (shrink)

This work, in English "Struggle for power, organic crisis and judicial independence", has its origin in research academics of the IAEN carried out to provide expert advise to the Inter American Court of Human Rights in the case Quintana and others (Supreme Court of Justice) vs the State of Ecuador. The research is about the nature of the evolution of the ecuadorian state, the dynamics of its institutions, its players, parties, laws, its factors of instability, the way rights have been (...) deployed since the return to democracy in 1979, those who have benefited from neoliberal democracy and those who have paid the costs, and where in all this was the Supreme Court of Justice. The Introduction takes a look at this origin of the work and its intellectual import, provides a brief characterization of the Inter American Sistem of Human Rights Protection, how the Quintana Case fits within it, and an overview of the chapters and their logic. The first chapter analyzes the institutional and sociological factors that have contributed to Ecuador's historically unstable state, based primarily in an antagonistic struggle for power between the Executive and Legislative branches. The second chapter analyzes the economic and political factors that provoked an organic crisis, or crisis of hegemony, between 1997 and 2007 in Ecuador. The third chapter analyzes the evolution of the way in which judges are selected in Europe, the outcomes they have generated, and how they compare with the ecuadorian systems of judge selection in terms of securing judicial independence. The fourth chapter develops a theory of judicial independence in democracy and analyzes how Ecuador measures up to that standard, from when it became a neoliberal minimal democracy in 1981, to when it became a neoliberal false democracy as a consequence of instalation of a system evidently lacking in the people's support under the guise of the 1998 Constitution and its system of judge selection, and the new democratic horizons set by the 2008 Constitution, and the judicial system that springs from it. (shrink)

Th is work is a companion piece to "The American Worker," Karl Kautsky's reply to Werner Sombart’s Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? (1906), first published in English in the November 2003 edition of the journal Historial Materialism. In August 1909 Kautsky wrote an article on Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, on the occasion of the latter's first European tour. Th e article was not only a criticism of Gompers’s anti-socialist "pure-and-simple" unionism (...) but also part of an ongoing battle between the revolutionary wing of German Social Democracy and the German trade-union officials. In this critical English edition we provide the historical background to the document as well as an overview of the issues raised by Gompers' visit to Germany, such as the bureaucratisation and increasing conservatism of the union leadership in both Germany and the United States, the role of the General Commission of Free Trade Unions in the abandonment of Marxism by the German Social-Democratic Party and the socialists’ attitude toward institutions promoting class collaboration like the National Civic Federation. (shrink)

Increased participation in public affairs by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during the highly contentious 2012 Presidential election has seemingly brought the traditions of Catholic social teaching and socialism into a high profile conflict. While it is clear that President Obama is not what most academics would consider a “socialist,” modern discourse still presents what I argue is a false dichotomy- one can be either endorse natural law (especially of the Catholic variety) or socialism, but not both. While my (...) goal in this article is to refute the alleged incompatibility, not to determine its historical roots, some speculation about its origin may be illuminating. Recent work on religious identity in the United States suggests that Americans largely identify Christianity with the right wing of the American culture war. Additional research is required to fully grasp where this perception comes from, but one can venture several guesses: the rise of the “Christian Right” in Republican Party politics of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the concept of “social justice” being lampooned by Right-wing talk show hosts, and decades of a Catholic Church that firmly opposed Cold War-era Soviet Communism. The contrast between left-wing and right-wing thought on social issues (same-sex marriage, abortion, etc.) is very well documented and widely discussed. Differences between leftists and natural lawyers on economic issues, however, are more often assumed than argued for. Perhaps this is a matter of “guilt by association,” with those arguing that leftist social policy is at odds with natural law simply assuming that the same must be the case with leftist economic policy as well. Thus, natural law, long tied to Christianity throughout its history, is gratuitously appropriated by right-wing political ideology. Against this claim of incompatibility, I argue that one can rationally hold both socialism and natural law to be true. In his landmark Natural Law and Natural Rights, John Finnis offers what is arguably the twentieth century’s most complete theory of natural law. I will argue that the conception of socialism laid out by G.A. Cohen in hisWhy Not Socialism? is compatible with Finnis’s account of the human goods, and that natural lawyers can therefore reasonably endorse Cohen’s prescription for socialism. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to analyze, clarify, and reconstruct the concept of class consciousness by developing a dialectical account of political agency at work in the concept. I defend a dialectical account of agency, that includes both the way in which individuals come together to form groups, but also the capacity of a collective to transform social conditions. I argue that this account of political agency is necessary in order to understand the possibility of social transformation or change. I trace the (...) development of the relationship between consciousness and agency in the early tradition of Western Marxism, focusing primarily on the account of class consciousness given by Georg Lukács in History and Class Consciousness. Against his account of the world historical agency of a unified proletariat, however, I defend Theodor Adorno’s insistence on nonidentity, and the importance of unreconciled groups in capitalist society. In order to understand these groups, such as the vanguard, party, or proletariat, we must understand the way in which individuals form groups, as well as their inherent collectivity. -/- My account of the political agency at work in the concept of class consciousness is broadly speaking pluralist. I argue that a multiplicity of methodologies is needed in order to arrive at a complete picture of the concept. I defend an account of class consciousness that is neither reductive nor deflationary with respect to other dimensions of social domination. This class forward approach seeks to build intersectional political coalitions in order to undertake revolutionary action. Successful revolutionary social transformation is never guaranteed in advance; however, the concept of class consciousness, reconstructed through the lens of political agency, offers conceptual resources to address the problems of today, for the sake of a better tomorrow. (shrink)

The book aims to offer a contribution to the historiographical and conceptual reconfiguration of the evolutionary revolution in the light of the centuries-old tenets of the Aristotelian biological tradition. Darwin’s breakthrough constitutes a thorough overturning of the fixist, essentialist and teleological framework created by Aristotle, a framework still dominant in the 17th Century world of Harvey and Ray, as well as Galileo, and then hegemonic until Linnaeus and Cuvier. This change is exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such (...) as the sightless eyes of moles, already discussed by Aristotle, and which Darwin used almost like a crowbar to unhinge the systematic recourse to final causes. This is an ancient teleological heritage present in various forms in the concept of natural selection, but by then confined within an eminently historical framework open to randomness. Un contributo alla riconfigurazione storiografica e concettuale della rivoluzione evoluzionistica alla luce della tenuta plurisecolare della tradizione biologica aristotelica. La svolta di Darwin si delinea quale puntuale rovesciamento dell'impianto fissista, essenzialista e teleologico coniato da Aristotele, ancora dominante nel Seicento di Harvey e di Ray, nonostante Galileo, e poi egemone fino a Linneo e Cuvier. Svolta esemplificata dall'analisi morfologica delle parti inutili, come gli occhi ciechi della talpa, tematizzate già da Aristotele, e che Darwin usò quale grimaldello per scardinare il ricorso sistematico alle cause finali. Antica eredità teleologica presente in varie forme nel concetto di selezione naturale, ma ormai calata entro una griglia eminentemente storica e aperta alla casualità. (shrink)

Revista Intelligence Info este o publicație trimestrială din domeniile intelligence, geopolitică și securitate, și domenii conexe de studiu și practică. -/- Cuprins: -/- EDITORIALE / EDITORIALS -/- Tiberiu TĂNASE Considerații privind necesitatea educării și formării resursei umane pentru intelligence–ul național Considerations regarding the need to educate and train human resources for national intelligence Nicolae SFETCU Epistemologia activității de intelligence Epistemology of intelligence Nicolae SFETCU Rolul serviciilor de informații în război The role of the intelligence agencies in a war Nicolae SFETCU (...) Evoluția inteligenței artificiale în domeniul securității naționale The evolution of artificial intelligence in the field of national security -/- INTELLIGENCE / INTELLIGENCE -/- Ovidiu BOUREANU O scurtă istorie a spionajului: spionajul modern de la Războiul Rece la Războiul împotriva terorii A Brief History of the Spy: Modern Spying from the Cold War to the War on Terror Ioana PĂIUȘ, Tiberiu TĂNASE Securitate și informații într-o lume în schimbare Security and intelligence in a changing world Nicolae SFETCU Activitatea de intelligence - Ciclul intelligence Intelligence Activity – Intelligence Cycle Tiberiu TĂNASE Controlul asupra Intelligence –ului Control over Intelligence Tiberiu TĂNASE Informația și nevoia de gestionare a resurselor informaționale Information and the need to manage information resources Tiberiu TĂNASE Controlul parlamentar al serviciilor de informații Parliamentary control of intelligence services Tiberiu TĂNASE Mecanisme de control democratic al activității serviciilor de informații Mechanisms of democratic control of the activity of intelligence agencies Nicolae SFETCU Analiza informațiilor Intelligence Analysis Bogdan-George RĂDULESCU Cum ar trebui să fie utilizată analiza intelligence pentru a contracara războiul cognitiv? How should intelligence analysis be utilized to counter cognitive warfare? -/- ISTORIE / HISTORY -/- Tiberiu TĂNASE Biroul de Informații al Secției Militare din Transilvania și rolul său în campania pentru apărarea României Mari The Intelligence Office of the Transylvanian Military Section and its role in the campaign for the defense of Greater Romania Stan PETRESCU Pacepa, Kuklinski, Pollard și românii Pacepa, Kuklinski, Pollard and the Romanians Tiberiu TĂNASE Contracararea de către SSI a activităților informative și acțiunilor Serviciilor Germane și Sovietice de Informații implicate în evenimentele din 21 - 23 ianuarie 1941 Countering by the SSI of the informational activities and actions of the German and Soviet Intelligence Services involved in the events of January 21-23, 1941 Tiberiu TĂNASE Alexandru Ioan Cuza, fondatorul Intelligence-lui statului modern românesc Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Founder of the Intelligence of the Modern Romanian State Tiberiu TĂNASE, Bogdan MUSCALU Puncte de vedere privind tradițiile romane în istoria intelligence-lui Viewpoints on Roman traditions in history intelligence Tiberiu TĂNASE Istoria Serviciului Român de Informații – serviciu de intelligence competitiv, și strategiile de intelligence History of the Romanian Intelligence Service – competitive intelligence service, and intelligence strategies Rodica LISEANU Reformele serviciilor secrete de la Mihail Moruzov la Eugen Cristescu, între inovație și decadență Secret service reforms from Mihail Moruzov to Eugen Cristescu Rodica LISEANU Take Ionescu – O biografie vectorială în istoria partidelor politice și în semantica diplomației Take Ionescu - A Vectorial Biography in the History of Political Parties and the Semantics of Diplomacy Remus MACOVEI Trădători și trădători Traitors and traitors -/- GEOPOLITICA / GEOPOLITICS -/- Antoaneta AVRAM Pandemia de COVID-19 și consecințele ei în peisajul anului 2022 The COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences in the landscape of 2022 Darius-Antoniu FERENȚ, Ioan MANCI Analiza conflictului ruso-cecen din perspectivă militară Analysis of the Russian-Chechen conflict from a military perspective Lisa-Maria ACHIMESCU Apusul universalismului european The decline of European universalism Emilian M. DOBRESCU Hegemonia chineză în producția de pământuri rare Chinese Hegemony in the Production of Rare Earths Ionuț-Daniel GORGOVAN ”Descurajarea integrată”. Analiză asupra strategiei SUA în Pacific "Integrated deterrence". Analysis of US Pacific Strategy Tiberiu TĂNASE, Violeta Ioana NAGÂȚ Conflictul arabo-israelian. Percepții privind cauzele și natura conflictului. Repere istorice și actualitate The Arab-Israeli conflict. Perceptions of the causes and nature of conflict. Historical landmarks and current affairs -/- SECURITATE / SECURITY -/- Tănase TIBERIU Minighid de pregătire și protecție contrainformativă Counterintelligence preparation and protection mini-guide Darius-Antoniu FERENȚ ISIS - Jocul morții - Martiri, asasinate și fascinație The Killing Game - Martyrdom, Murder and the Lure of ISIS Traian OSTAHIE Abordări generale ale conceptului de cultură de securitate For a 21st century realism Dalia Elena SILAGHI Terorismul cibernetic: o formă contemporană de terorism Cyber Terrorism: A Contemporary Form of Terrorism Paul Alexandru HELER Conflictul asimetric și consecințele sale în securitatea Asiei Asymmetric Conflict and Its Consequences in Asian Security Daria-Maria TÂRNĂVEAN Confruntarea informațională și repercusiunile sale asupra mediului actual de securitate The Information Confrontation and its Repercussions on the Current Security Environment Darius-Antoniu FERENȚ Analiza atacurilor cibernetice, precum APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) și ransomware Analysis of cyber attacks such as APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) and ransomware Daniela Georgiana GOLEA, Oana Ștefania COȘA Nevoia de adaptare managerială a noilor probleme de securitate modernă The need for managerial adaptation to new modern security issues Darius-Antoniu FERENȚ, Corneliu PREJA Implicarea NATO în domeniul apărării cibernetice NATO's involvement in cyber defence Alexandru CRISTIAN Paradigme în mediul internațional de securitate Paradigms in the international security environment Alexandru CRISTIAN Schimbarea paradigmelor în mediul internațional de securitate Changing paradigms in the international security environment Dan D. FARCAȘ Adevăr și dezinformare în fenomenul OZN Truth and disinformation in the UFO phenomenon Alexandru CRISTIAN Un nou mediu de securitate A new security environment -/- ȘTIINȚA INFORMAȚIEI / INFORMATION SCIENCE -/- Oana Ștefania COȘA Rolul structurilor de intelligence medical în atingerea obiectivul de consolidare a sistemului de sănătate The role of medical intelligence structures in achieving the objective of strengthening the health system Nicolae SFETCU Preocupări legislative în mineritul datelor Legislative concerns in data mining Nicolae SFETCU Utilizarea analiticii rețelelor sociale în intelligence Using social network analytics in intelligence Nicolae SFETCU Ingineria cunoașterii în colectarea informațiilor Knowledge Engineering in Intelligence Gathering -/- ISSN 2971 – 9089 ISSN-L 2821 – 8159, DOI: 10.58679/II26972. (shrink)

This paper recommends recognition theory as one useful tool in the diagnosis of the recent rise in two pathologies of democracy, specifically the surging success of populist politicians and parties across many consolidated democracies, and, increases in the social polarization of citizens along partisan lines in several of those nations. It begins by defining and discussing the resurgence of populism in two forms, before turning to a discussion of the concurrent increase in partisan polarization that is puzzlingly unconnected to policy (...) polarization. It then argues that recognition theory does a better job explaining these phenomena than alternative approaches by tying together social changes, moral psychology, and politically powerful social dynamics of identity, in a way that is sensitive to historical changes in recognition orders. It also argues that recognition theory provides an understanding of the specific political psychology supporting populism and polarization that does not treat supporters as mere passive victims of blind emotion, but rather as motivated by distinctly moral experiences of misrecognition and as making claims for recognition to the broader society. In the end, the paper suggests that a central causal role behind populism and polarization must be assigned to responses to a changing recognition order, especially where those enter into a fateful reinforcing causal dynamic with other economic and political causes, potentially turning the engaged use of democratic political freedom into its opposite. (shrink)

This paper argues that we can let go of the conception of narrative history, not because we know history to be something else entirely, but because the conception too often leads to needless confusion about the methodological basics of historical research among both history students and professional historians themselves. One may view history simply as knowledge of the past and as an ongoing discussion between historians (and other interested parties) over the best account of any given past phenomenon. Given (...) that we politically disagree on where exactly history has brought us, the safest epistemological position for a practicing historian is that the past is just as messy as our own present in which we attempt to find political solutions for a better future. Rather than clinging to any inherently narrative character of history, or of historical representation, the practicing historian may well concentrate on explaining the meaning of a given phenomenon in the past and its possible historical significance for the present, and at least attempt to distinguish between these two. (shrink)

The emergence of a populist model in politics. The direct appeal to popular support, to the power of action and the vote without political projects, ideologies or institutional and party structures. The postmodern condottiero addresses himself directly to the masses of individuals who feel a special loyalty to him, to her, and a historical responsibility to show active support. Farewell, then, to the ideological debate on the shaping of institutional power and its guarantees of rights, welcome to a (...) new principle of leadership. In the face of this thinking, the tradition of modernity and the Enlightenment, the public square as a meeting place for equals to debate, to reveal their own freedom and that of others, is rethought. Modernity does not promise freedom, but constitutes it. (shrink)

This paper analyses the interpretation of the Marxist dialectic proposed by three important French philosophers of the twentieth century: Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Raymond Aron (1905-1983). Starting from different theoretical and political points of view, they criticize the historical determinism of the Marxist dialectic and propose three different “philosophies of freedom.” In the Adventures of the Dialectic (1955), Merleau-Ponty criticizes a theory of human history based only on economic structure, and denounces the violence of the Soviet (...) communism. He also accuses his friend Sartre – who had a more favourable attitude towards Soviet communism – of “ultrabolshevism.” Merleau-Ponty was subsequently active in the French non-communist Left. The existentialist philosopher Sartre always sympathized with the Left, and supported the French Communist Party (PCF) until the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. In his Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960), Sartre also underlined the failure of the Soviet revolution, and criticized the violence of Marxist revolutionary thought. The last part of this paper deals with the philosopher and political sociologist Raymond Aron, who had a lifelong, sometimes fractious, friendship with Sartre. He always defended a “skeptical and anti-ideological” liberal position. In his best known book The Opium of the Intellectuals (1955), Aron argues that in post-war France, Marxism was the opium of the intellectuals. In this book, Aron chastised French intellectuals for what he described as their harsh criticism of capitalism and democracy and their simultaneous defense of Marxist oppression, atrocities, and intolerance. In opposition to the dialectical ideology of Marxism, Aron proposes an antitotalitarian philosophical and political theory based on the development of individual liberties. (shrink)

No USA president in history has received as much opposition as Donald Trump has from all three components of the Establishment, namely the financial establishment, the political establishment and the corporate media establishment. The election of Donald Trump to the office of presidency is marked with dozens of historical first events that are anything but lackluster, yet a bleak picture of Fascism has been painted to describe Trump. This is an extraordinary piece of disinformation, as no modern president has (...) been more consistent in plainly saying what he will do regarding US military and geopolitical goals, both outside and in office. This, even though his stated position is clearly opposite to the wishes of the dominant cabal, supported by both parties, and to US foreign policy since WWII. USA history is not very long, but Trump presidency and his inaugural speech marked a historic starting point for this 'democracy'. Every sentence of Donald J. Trump's inaugural speech was a departure from diplomacy. Knowing what diplomacy actually means, it's a great step toward transparency. It is the best thing that happened in US political history. It is no surprise the Media established completely flipped, the political establishment gasped, and the financial establishment started to conspire a different strategy (George Soros declaring he wants Trump presidency to fail). In the mean time, the typically apolitical science and technology establishment declared Trump completely unfit for the office that he has just been elected to. Trump’s inaugural speech that contained phrases like, "It's time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots", was in sharp contrast to how Abraham Lincoln viewed America, when he said, "I, as much as any other man, stand in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race… I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races." Trump’s embrace of humanity and righteousness was reminiscent of Prophet Muhammad’s last sermon at the pilgrimage, where he said over 1400 years, "An Arab is no better than a non-Arab, and a non-Arab is no better than an Arab; a red man is no better than a black man and a black man is no better than a red man – except if it is in terms of piety." Yet, Trump took oath of office swearing on the bible used by Abraham Lincoln. In this two-part paper, the key research question answered is what Trump presidency stands for. In answering this question, the first part deconstructs some of the dominant theories of Fascism. Then, a delinearized history is constructed in order to understand how democracy, as applied in USA, has an inevitable outcome of achieving the same goals as a Fascist regime. The concept of religious extremism, including “Islamic terrorism” or “radical Islam” is also discussed with relevance to ‘war on terror’. The history of US presidency then shows that the office of presidency is used as a tool to advance a Fascist agenda, albeit being packaged as USA exceptionalism. The ground is set for part 2 that analyses the rise of Trump and the demise of DNC integrity, followed by deconstruction of various allegations against Trump. (shrink)

Unreproducibility stemming from a loss of data integrity can be prevented with hash functions, secure sketches, and Benford's Law when combined with the historical practice of a Pli Cacheté where scientific discoveries were archived with a 3rd party to later prove the date of discovery. Including the distinct systems of preregistation and data provenance tracking becomes the starting point for the creation of a complete ontology of scientific documentation. The ultimate goals in such a system--ideally mandated--would rule out (...) several forms of dishonesty, catch computational and database errors, catch honest mistakes, and allow for automated data audits of large collaborative open science projects. (shrink)

The central postulation made in this essay is that the current plight of the Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province of China is two-pronged in its cause. The first involves a deeply-rooted historical rejection, or at least suspicion, of any religion that is not Chinese in origin and secondly involves a concerted effort on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party to gain greater control over a people group whom it sees as representing a threat to its authority and (...) dominance in the province of Xinjiang. To justify the validity of this statement, this essay will be divided into three distinct parts; the first two parts will explore the historical background and present day context of Islam in China with the aim of clarifying the Chinese worldview on foreign religions and people groups. These will act as important contributions to culminate into the third part which will focus on the current occurrence of sinofication/sinicisation in the Xinjiang province (Ruwitch, 2018) to the detriment of the human rights, religious and cultural liberties, and the very existence of the Uighur Muslim ethnic group (Rahman, 2005). The essay will provide a historical context by explaining the timeline of the presence of Islam across different parts of China where it experienced the most activity and adherence. This particularly includes the southwestern ports where it was brought into the country by Arab traders as well as in the westernmost reaches as a result of being part of the outer edges of different Islamic empires that held territory across Central Asia. The idea that China is suspicious of foreign people, foreign religions, and that the Communist Party considers any group with outside connections to a wider community (such as Christians or the Muslims) to be a threat to the stability of their rule is central to our discussion (NowThis World, 2016). However, we shouldn’t mistake China as being alone in this kind of xenophobia for the evidence of this worldview is pertinent on the continent of Europe currently with significant undertones of its presence in the vote for Brexit in the United Kingdom (Rzepnikowska, 2018) as well as in the rise of the far right in continental Europe (Immerzeel & Muis, 2017; Lazaridis, 2016). Aversion to foreignness is therefore widespread, but it is the way in which an organisation deals with foreignness that is indicative of its approach to diversity and its respect for human rights. The third and final part will act as the climax for the essay as a thorough analysis is conducted on the current affairs of the Communist Party in the Xinjiang province resulting in the plight of the Uighur Muslims. The processes involved in the sinofication of the province will be highlighted with the aim of understanding the range of reasons as to why the Communist Party may be acting in this way by drawing on the current Chinese economic and political landscape. The essay will close by considering the future of the Uighur Muslims and the intentions of the Communist Party for the entire Xinjiang province by analysing the most recent news escaping from the region and as a means to understand the distinction between Islam and Muslims. (shrink)

This article aims to present the Georgian reality regarding the sharing economy and its future trends based on the market players and already appeared innovative businesses through sharing platforms. The sharing economy, with its in-depth context, is not developed in Georgia either at the national governance or the societal level. However, the sharing of goods and services to each other was a good habit between Georgians historically. Moreover, in the world of the Internet, personal computers, and smartphones, it is simplified (...) today for the parties of sharing to find and connect. However, may this kind of action be considered as a sharing economy, joint consumption, or collective economy? The present article discusses the issues about the sharing economy market in Georgia. There is an overview of the normative base and regulations referring to the sharing economy, expressed the readiness of sharing through people, describes the companies that operate in sharing market so far. There are recommendations for the government and the whole society for future development. (shrink)

This book examines the artistic policies of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) during the early post-war years (1944-1951), after the defeat of Fascism in Europe and the outbreak of the Cold War. It brings together theoretical debates on artists’ political engagement and an extensive critical apparatus, providing the reader with an historical framework for wider reflections on the relationship between art and politics.

This dissertation describes and assesses post-1961 Soviet discussions of the nature of the person. It focuses on post-1961 literature because the volume of Soviet material on the nature of the person increases dramatically following the 22d Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . At that congress the CPSU declared that the USSR had become a socialist nation and that the country would now build a communist society. According to the CPSU, building communism required educating persons capable (...) of living in communist society. ;Unlike many Western theories on the nature of the person, Soviet theories do not proceed from the proposition that a person's consciousness or self-consciousness differentiates him from all other kinds of entity. They proceed rather from the proposition that a person is different from all other kinds of entity because he is social. Soviets attempt to describe what makes persons social. ;Soviets have argued among themselves concerning a number of issues regarding the nature of persons. During the early 1960s some argued that no general theory of the person was possible and that theories must center on persons of particular classes and historical eras. In the late 1960s Soviets came to believe that a general theory of the person is possible. ;General theories of the person presented by Soviets sometimes distinguish between persons, humans and individuals. This distinction is most clear when these are conceived as properly social, bio-social, and properly biological entities, respectively. There is no general agreement concerning this distinction, however, and this lack of agreement has carried over into discussions of the essence of Man. This essence is said to consist in social relations. ;Soviets have attempted to account for a person's social nature by concentrating on his ethical behavior, his social roles and his activity. None of these accounts succeeds in describing what makes persons social. ;Since social relations are considered the essence of Man, Soviets attempt to characterize them. The best attempt to do this describes social relations as relations between conscious entities. This attempt fails because it is inconsistent with Marxist dogma that consciousness is a consequence--not a cause--of Man's social nature. It also fails because it does not exclude some apparently non-social relations. ;Research for this dissertation was conducted at the libraries of Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Moscow State University and Leningrad State University, and at the Library of Congress and the Lenin Library. (shrink)

Having a ‘title to govern’ is critical for regime survival. Authoritarian rulers have also attempted to legitimise themselves as justified rulers. Numerous case studies have examined rulers’ collective efforts to explain their right to govern (legitimacy claims, or legitimation). This thesis tries to examine how the ruler’s seizure of power shapes legitimation capacity in order to gain a thorough grasp of the relationship between legitimation and regime resilience. Using comparative historical case studies of Vietnam, Mongolia and North Korea, this (...) project argues that regimes with indigenous political origins have institutional legacies that are advantageous for engineering legitimation claims, such as strong sub-party organs, effective military and security section control, and collective social norms among political elites during violent revolution. By contrast, an externally imposed political origin lacks these institutional benefits. When rulers face regime crises, these two distinct legitimation claim mechanisms help explain regime resilience or failure. This thesis contributes to the burgeoning literature on authoritarian legitimacy and resilience, and it also expands our understanding of political changes in divergent post-communist countries throughout East Asia. (shrink)

"Resolution of Jerusalem’s status arguably remains controversial because of the divergent analytical lenses through which the conflict’s parties, and others, view its intertwined legal, territorial, historical and religious issues. Thus, Jerusalem persists as an intricate and intractable cornerstone of the Israel-Palestine conflict." Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Resource Centre.

SUMMARY The research focuses on the three main political parties in Albania, namely Socialist Party, Democratic Party and Socialist Movement for Integration. Its objectives are to measure the Intra-Party Democracy(IPD) in the Albanian political parties and to explore the meaning that party members attach to it. The IPD is understood and broken down into categories and sub-categories so that parties in particular and all interested actors in the field of political parties and democracy could understand, which (...) component of IPD parties are performing better and where they are performing worse. IPD is measured against two dimensions: inclusiveness and decentralization. Inclusiveness denotes the extent to which party members have the right to express their opinions and participate in the decision-making process. With decentralization is understood the process which makes possible the decentralization of the decision-making process from the highest national party level to party sub-national levels and party members. In a decentralized party, subnational party units enjoy a certain level of autonomy from the party in the center. The analysis is based on both primary and secondary data. Content analysis of party statutes particularly focuses on measuring IPD, while focus groups with party members and interviews with high-ranking officials of the political parties are used to explore the meaning that party members have on IPD, as well as validate content analysis findings. The main findings are: -/- Content Analysis of Party Statutes: Parties do have rules that govern their internal life, however these rules need to be improved in order to strengthen IPD. Especially problematic were the provisions for the role of the executive committee and party president, which provide these two institutions, especially the leader of the party with powers that don’t hold him/her accountable to the party members and middle level organs. Furthermore, members were not sufficiently involved in the procedures of candidate nominations for MPs, in the election of the national Executive and Executive Committee and in the election of the Party President. The analysis also finds that voting procedures are not sufficiently at place to allow members express their will and participate in the decision-making process and that members are not or little consulted in terms of programmatic issues. The analysis of the relationship between the national and subnational levels of party organization revealed that the center of the party has accumulated power to the detriment of the subnational units which enjoy little autonomy in the decision-making process. -/- Focus Groups and Interviews: The study finds that party members linked system-level democracy with IPD and that they have a very clear understanding if IPD: what it is and how it could be achieved. They linked IPD with the structure and organization of the party, seeing it as an important instrument that allows for decentralization of power and integration of rank and file into the decision-making process. The party members considered the statute as an important educational political tool and invoked it whenever disputes rose or decisions had to be taken. They linked IPD with the electoral system and considered that closed list proportional was a system that strengthened the power in the hands of the few at the party top executive level and weakened IPD. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore and understand the Albanian Party System. The analysis will cover the period from the collapse of the communist regime in 1991 until 2014. It will try to investigate what forces drive the battle of the parties, what cleavages 'divide' society and consequently the party system as well as which are the parties that count the most. in order to assess this, the paper will focus on the parliamentary parties and will (...) relay on various theoretical concepts of the contemporary literature on political parties. First it will draw on Sartori's concept of 'relevance' in order to understand whether all the parliamentary parties over the course of twenty four years of pluralism are important or not and what weight do they have. Then it will use the Laakso - Taagepera index of the Effective Number of Parties to understand how power is distributed within the parliament. (shrink)

The article argues that AI can enhance the measurement and implementation of democratic processes within political parties, known as Intra-Party Democracy (IPD). It identifies the limitations of traditional methods for measuring IPD, which often rely on formal parameters, self-reported data, and tools like surveys. Such limitations lead to the collection of partial data, rare updates, and significant demands on resources. To address these issues, the article suggests that specific data management and Machine Learning (ML) techniques, such as natural language (...) processing and sentiment analysis, can improve the measurement (ML about) and practice (ML for) of IPD. The article concludes by considering some of the principal risks of ML for IPD, including concerns over data privacy, the potential for manipulation, and the dangers of overreliance on technology. (shrink)