Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Apparently capitalism and neo-liberalism have elevated the market to a position of omnipotence as a spontaneously occurring best resources' distributor. However, neo-liberalism as a philosophy that informs capitalism has always sparked divergent opinions as to its core spirit and practice. Neo-liberalism has always been netted into different perspectives. Although the consensual bottom-line of neo-liberalism philosophy is the free market, there is no consensus on its interpretation, contextualization and practices. As a whole, there is optimism in neo-liberalism the same as there is skepticism.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Analyzing coalition governments in Western parliamentary democracies has followed more or less the same design throughout the years. The objective has been to “predict” or “explain” the formation of governments in general. Although the explanatory power of models has improved, even the most comprehensive are able to predict government formation in less than half of the cases. 1 This can mean either that the process of coalition formation is to a significant extent idiosyncratic or that current models have not been fully specified.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
J.G.A. (John) Pocock is a renowned historian of political ideas and is most associated with the so-called “Cambridge School” of political thought whose founding members in the 1960's also include Quentin Skinner and John Dunn. This volume is a collection of essays arranged more-or-less in chronological order of publication that are “concerned with relations between history and political theory” (ix) and encompasses the full length of Pocock's half-century-long writing career. As such, it is very instructive for getting a grasp of a major author in a significant current of contemporary political thought.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
In his 2010 best-selling book Germany Is Doing Away with Itself former German Central Bank executive member Thilo Sarrazin denounced the structural integration unwillingness of the Turkish community in Germany. The book sparked a fierce controversy especially among young, liberal, German-speaking Turks who feltCEU Political Science Journal. Vol. 8, No. 2 267 deeply offended by Sarrazin's allegations. The German unease with Islam and Turkey has cast a shadow over bilateral relations between the two states. With the rise of radical Islam and ongoing human rights violations in Turkey, tensions have been on the increase.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Years of international and national accountability efforts in the former Yugoslavia have only partially helped post-conflict societies to transition. To complement retributive justice efforts more recently, human rights activists have launched a campaign to establish a regional truth commission. This article explores the intricate efforts among nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in several states across the region – particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina, croatia and Serbia – to coordinate this movement. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this study illustrates the movement's struggle from within – caused by the conflicting interests of its members – and from outside, as it seeks support from international and region-specific organizations as well as national governments. While activists have remained unsuccessful in institutionalizing new truth spaces, this article argues that the state-centered strategy of human rights advocates during the campaign widened the gap between the activist leaders and victims' groups, their principal supporters.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
This paper critically explores Carl Schmitt's theory of democracy. I present the emergence of the democratic principle of legitimacy as described by Schmitt, then elaborate on the people as sovereign qua constituent power and present its threefold relationship with the constitution. Later I formulate three lessons to be taken from Schmitt's theory and discuss its importance and implications for democratic theory in terms of the normative and formative principle of democracy, core subject and core mode of democratic politics, and conditions of possibility of constituent democratic politics. In concluding Part I discuss the difference between liberal, republican and deliberative model of democracy and Schmitt-inspired theory.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
This article seeks to answer two questions. First, is government policy in contemporary democracies congruent with public opinion? Second, what are the factors that determine opinion-policy congruence? The opinion-policy incongruence is conceptualized as the distance between actual government policy and the policy preferred by the median citizen. This article uses international survey data that assessed citizens' preferences regarding government spending in 33 countries. The results suggest that opinion-policy congruence is more often absent than present in contemporary democracies with significant variation between countries. This variation is explored using fuzzy-set qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). I identify two casual paths leading to the opinion-policy congruence: richness and relatively equal distribution of income or richness, decentralization, and usage of non-proportional electoral system.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
The article tests the assumption that the deepening integration brought on by the European Union's Treaty of Lisbon should have a palpable effect on the dynamics of EU Member States' action at the United Nations. Building on existing scholarly literature, on interviews with diplomats and staff of the European External Action Service at two UN headquarters locations, as well as on a case study of what is arguably the most universal of multilateral bodies, the UN General Assembly, the article asses the "voice of the EU" on the global multilateral scene. It concludes that, in spite of the abundance of theoretical and practical arguments for increasing the unity of European diplomacy, action in the UNGA does not provide grounds fo an overly hasty departure from a state-centric view of EU foreign policy.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
It seems that despite the transformations in world politics in the last two decades, the realist paradigm still continues to provide the main framework for the understanding and explanation of international relations. Tracing its origins to the writings of Thucydides, realism has long been perceived as the cornerstone of the discipline. Dylan Kissane's study, however, emphasizes that the stature that realism has acquired is unfounded. He meticulously goes on to debunk the very foundations of realist thinking – the belief in an anarchic international system, in the awareness that this it merely offers a simplified representation of reality.
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
From Post Communism toward the Third Millennium is a collection of contributions whose origins are different in style and content. The main aim of the book can be found concisely within the last part of the title 'toward the third millennium'. It offers a consumptive panorama after a period where most of the political transitions in the area were either resolved or had reached a conclusion defined by the membership in NATO or the EU, or had simply come to a standstill.