Asger Sørensen
Approaching Political Philosophy through the Critique of Liberalism
Understanding political philosophy as practical implies reflecting on principles as well as on material matters, on justice as well as on government. Liberalism is the main challenge to political philosophy, since its optimistic laissez faire attitude denies the legitimacy of political government. Even the modern political liberalism reflects these basic traits of liberalism. However, liberalism returns again and again, since it makes sense for human beings, who need to trust and have a capacity to imagine, but find themselves deceived by political authority. The conclusion is that we must overcome liberalism to be able to practice politics and political philosophy in the way presented here.
Neomal Silva
Emancipation through the Use of Liberal Democratic Values?
Liberal democracies today face a number of challenges. One arises from the fact their citizens often have different philosophical and religious convictions. How can a liberal de- mocracy draw up a constitution that all of them can accept in spite of those differences? Political liberalism is Rawls’ solution to this. Feminists like Susan Okin and Iris Marion Young point out that liberal democracies face another – arguably much more potent – challenge from their citizenries. Citizens differ not just in terms of their religious and philosophical con- victions, but also in terms of class, gender, race, sexuality, and other socially-salient traits. Those traits structure how each citizen perceives her society. They shape her day-to-day experience of it. Can all citizens accept a liberal democratic constitution despite their socially-salient differences? Rawls thinks that his political liberalism can meet this challenge. Yet it is nonetheless unclear whether everyday folk – i.e. non-philosophers in civil society – are able to voice their concerns wholly in terms of the political values – values like equality, reciprocity, liberty, etc. – engendered by his political liberalism. Indeed, history reveals that women (and structur- ally oppressed people in general) often expressed their concerns using alternative commu- nication forms – such as stories, oral history, and rhetoric. I recommend that political liberalism incorporate a stage during which people can express their concerns using alternative communication forms. Society is thence more likely to de- tect more people’s political concerns in the first place. Each of those concerns can then be “translated” into one or more of the liberal democratic values that could capture and express gender difference.
Jakub Franěk
Arendt and Foucault on Power, Resistance, and Critique
The present article compares Hannah Arendt’s and Michel Foucault’s critique of typically modern forms of power or domination, as well as the modes of resistance against such domination these authors envision. It also touches upon their reflections on the status of their own critical thinking or their stance vis-à-vis modernity. Its principal aim is twofold. First, to reveal various connections between Arendt’s and Foucault’s political theories and thus demonstrate that they are much closer to each other than usually appears. Second, to use the comparative analysis of their works to resolve some apparent paradoxes associated with their respective theories.
Babrak Ibrahimy
Schmitt and Mouffe on the ‘Ontology’ of the Political
This paper addresses the issue of ‘ontology’ in Schmitt and Mouffe. Two related questions are important in this regard. First, it is of interest to see whether Schmitt considered the political in its ontological form, specifically in his The Concept of the Political. By ontological I mean that the political has had a particular form throughout history, without room for other manifestations than the known friend/enemy distinction. Second, I will propose that the ‘ethical dimension’ present in the treatise informs the relation and the tension of the political in its ontological form. By focusing on passages on neutrality and pacifism in Schmitt’s treatise, my claim is that the content of the political as friend/enemy distinction cannot solely be articulated in antagonistic form, which is Mouffe’s osition.
Pelin Ayan Musil
Does Antagonism Precede Agonism in Challenging Neoliberalism? The Gezi Resistance in Turkey
Mouffe argues that the effective way of challenging the power relations in liberal demo- cratic capitalism is to embrace agonism, not antagonism. That is, the left should acknowl- edge the contingent character of the hegemonic configurations in liberal democracies, and in order to put liberty and equality into practice, it should similarly adopt hegemonic tac- tics. Such tactics include the disarticulation of existing practices as well as creation of new discourses and institutions. Yet, by stating that ‘the task of democracy is to transform the antagonism into agonism,’ Mouffe also implies that antagonism should precede agonism and thus contradicts her very position of how to challenge the neoliberal order. Indeed, the anti-neoliberal movements that occurred in Latin American countries in 1990s as well as in New York, Greece, Spain, and elsewhere during the occupy movement in 2010s show that without the emergence of antagonism, there is no room for the development of democracy in an agonistic way. In defense of this argument, this article conducts a within case research in Turkey in order to attain a deeper analysis of how the rise of a social movement can transform the con- flicts and power relationships in neoliberalism from being hidden to being visible: The social movement in Turkey helped in the discursive construction of a left-wing identity that repre- sented ‘everything but the repressive and authoritarian government’ and thus acted as the neoliberal government’s constitutive other. Prior to the appearance of the social movement, yet, the hegemonic articulations of the neoliberal order prevented agonistic politics from arising in the first place. This article thus argues that the agonistic approach of democracy can only emerge following an open antagonistic construction of the we/they relation in a neoliberal order.
Emanuele Leonardi
In On Populist Reason (2005), Ernesto Laclau revisits in a profoundly original way the philosophical meaning of the notion of populism. The root of Laclau‘s formulation is the following: an idea of people as a contingent yet formally repetitive political construction. Against every temptation of sociological descriptivism, populism represents a performative act of nomination which is at the very same time necessary and yet unable to fully saturate the ontological split that marks the social field. Thus, in Laclau‘s view the notion of populism perfectly overlaps the political field: there is no politics other than populist politics. The present paper critically reviews Laclau’s discussion of Italian populist formations pre- sented in Chapter 7 of his work, in particular his thesis about the deep continuity between the “national task” claimed by the Italian Communist Party under Italy’s First Republic and the creation of a fictitious country (“Padania”) by the Northern League in the 1990s. The main argument is the following: although such a philosophical continuity might help in ana- lysing certain aspects of the Northern League, it is very problematic in historical terms and ultimately fails to assess the crucial link between processes of local governance in Northern Italy and transnational circuits of valorization as fostered by global neoliberal networks.
Marc Woons
The ever-expanding European Union (EU) presents the potential member states (PMs) with a difficult choice: adopt its values to join the EU or miss out on the benefits that come with the membership. From the perspective of the EU, a state’s decision to join depends on the democratic and voluntary will of its people. However, from the perspective of potential member states, the EU’s “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude might be seen as the root of an unjust dilemma. On the one hand, joining the EU promotes increased wealth and redistribution, particularly in the case of less-developed eastern states. On the other hand, joining de- mands the future member states to sacrifice certain aspects of their culture. This dilemma largely rests on the EU’s unwillingness to fairly negotiate with PMs. In practice, member states must often weigh socio-economic benefits against the loss of the state’s national culture(s). While Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland are strong enough economically to avoid this dilemma, less powerful PMs face a tougher choice. This paper primarily aims to explain the nature and extent of the dilemma within Europe. This is followed by a discussion of three normative positions one can take on the matter, namely accept, compensate for, or minimize the dilemma. It is suggested that while the EU enlargement has so far largely com- bined the first two approaches, there may be benefits to minimizing the dilemma.
Mihai Dinescu
EU Democratic Deficit and the Civil Society: A Theoretical Perspective on European Democracy
The European Union has long been trying to find a remedy for its so-called ‘democratic deficit’. In the absence of other means for a direct relation with the citizens, as only the Eu- ropean Parliament is elected by all European citizens, the European Commission assumed its role of the ‘guardian of the Treaties’ and implemented a greater openness towards civil society in the early 2000s in compliance with the values of democracy in Europe. In this context, I propose a closer look at the origins of EU’s democratic deficit and, more broadly, at the current status of democracy in the European Union mostly based on a his- torical comparative analysis between the birth of the EU and the classical model of Ameri- can federalism as the most appropriate state model for a broad representation of interests. Moreover, the very nature of the most influential political regime during the initial stages of the European integration process – France’s Fifth Republic – contained elements that were bound to sooner or later lead to a crisis of democratic representation and legitimacy, and subsequently to a crisis of liberal thought. In the long term, Europe needs to address this issue through an authentic constitutional debate in order to reflect the Europeans’ wish on how this project shall develop in the future, although nobody ever asked them about it before.
Vladimíra Dvořáková, Petr Vymětal
Postkomunistický stát a jeho kapacity: jak to změřit?
The post-communist state and its capacities: how to measure it?
Since the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe there have been passed democratic constitutions, pluralistic society and competitive market economy have been formed and many countries have been integrated into European Union. Nevertheless, the new democracies are far to be consolidated; deep mistrust into the politics and institutions of democratic state reflect everyday experience of the citizens with bad governance, corrup- tion, nepotism and patronage. This study argues that the path of transformation has had a key impact on the character of the state and its capacity and that the post-communist state and its institutions work in different manner than the state and institutions in conso- lidated democracies. The main goal of this study is to open the discussion inside academic community how to measure such capacities of the state, which data are available and what can be the methodology used to verify the hypothesis about the low capacities of the post-communist states.
Lukáš Novotný
Liquid democracy a Pirátská strana v Německu
Liquid democracy and the Pirate Party in Germany
The Pirate Party Germany (Piratenpartei Deutschlands) achieved probably the biggest upswing in comparison with other pirate parties in recent years. The party became the most visible bearer of ideas of pirate movement in the whole Europe. This analysis deals with the Pirate Party Germany and concept of „liquid democracy“ which is associated with the party. The analysis is focused on the origin and developement of the Pirate Party Germany. But it ́s also focused on its recent activities (its strongpoints and weaknesses). This analysis is looking for causes of success of this party but it ́s also looking for failures which are seen recently.
Tomáš Váňa
Aplikovatelnost teorie komunikace na zkoumání politických systémů
Applicability of communication theory to the study of political systems
This article presents a brief outline of Deutsch’s communication theory and proposes its mo- dified adaptation in order to make it understandable in the current discourse. It thus argues that the viability of political systems can be analysed through the discernment of six crucial abilities of political systems, necessary for their viability, which are the creation, reception and processing of information and creation, application and reflection of decisions made on the basis of information. The argument is pursued through the application of the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) on the fall of the Eastern bloc at the end of the 20th century.
Petra Ježová
The new East vs. West cleavage in the European Parliament in the 2004-2009 electoral period: evidence from the analysis of roll-call votes
The main aim of the presented text is the research of external signs of new potential cleavage East vs. West in the European Parliament after the so called Eastern enlargement. The rendered statement is that considering the most massive enlargement of the EU about twelve new member states, mainly from central and eastern Europe that have undergone democratic transition, there has arised new cleavage East vs West, or new vs. old members in the European Parliament. This research attempts to capture external signs of cleavage observable empirically in the sixth electoral period of the European Parliament, 2004-2009. For this purpose there is going to be analysed shift in political group cohesion via roll-call votes analysis. Comparative index for the sixth electoral period there is going to be the fifth electoral period of the European Parliament, 1999-2004, in the fields of budgetary, structural funds, common agriculture policy, asylum policy and free movement of person policy. Analysed are going to be only drafts finally accepted by the EP or conceded to other institu- tions included in legislative processes.
Matěj Trávníček
Současná podoba a perspektivy volebního systému pro komunální volby v České republice
The current form and perspectives of the electoral system for local elections in the Czech Republic
The focus of this article is to introduce current state of Czech local electoral system, with all of its variables and as well hortly point out history of its development. Later, there is an effort to elaborate electoral system effects and an attempt to categorize it. Final section is dedicated to electoral engineering, which in context means at first a possibility of creating the electoral districts for a purposes of local elections and secondly contemporary (year 2013) proposals to change electoral system.
Blanka Říchová
The Role of Political Elites in the Devolution of States from the Comparative Prospective
Jan P. Kučera
BANKOWICZ, Marek: Kritikové marxismu
Martin Hakauf
Martin Kubánek
Kamil Švec
KLIMOVSKÝ, Daniel: Základy verejnej správy
Miloš Brunclík
Co jsou úřednické kabinety a za jakých okolností vznikají? Česká republika v mezinárodním srovnání
What are technocratic cabinets and under what circumstances are they formed? The Czech Republic in international comparison
The article inquiries into the issue of technocratic cabinets both in theoretical and empirical perspectives. Given the lack of literature in this area the article seeks to clarify the concept of technocratic cabinets that need to be distinguished both from caretaker cabinets and presidential cabinets. After conceptual matters are clarified, the article discusses the key conditions under which technocratic cabinets are formed. As far as the empirical facet of the article is concerned, a list of technocratic cabinets in Europe after 1945 is presented. This overview serves as a pool of empirical examples to underpin some of the conceptual ideas as well as to support arguments about the origins of the technocratic cabinets.
Lukáš Linek
Net and overall electoral volatility in the Czech Republic 1990-2013: same concept, different measurements and similar conclusions?
The aim of the paper is to analyze electoral volatility in the Czech Republic during the years 1990-2013; and to evaluate whether during that period electoral volatility decreased, inc- reased or was stable. The paper distinguishes between net and overall/gross volatility. The first one uses aggregate level data from the electoral results and measures the changes in the support of the political parties in consecutive elections. The second one uses individual level data from post-election surveys and measures the overall party switching between political parties. This division allows to compare both types of electoral volatility and to eva- luate their biases. Moreover, the study decomposes the electoral volatility into within-sys- tem and extra-system volatility and into block and within-block volatility. Whereas electoral volatility had been decreasing since the middle of 90’s, the 2010 and 2013 elections marked a significant increase in electoral volatility. This volatility stemmed from the support for new parties and party switching within the blocks of left-wing and nonleft-wing parties.
Lenka Hrbková
Emocionální volič: stav studia emocí v politologii
The emotional voter: the state of the study of emotions in political science
The main purpose of this article is to present current research of the role of emotions in po- litical thinking and behaviour. Emotions have become an important topic in political science and political psychology in past 20 years. However, up to date not many related issues have been reflected in the Czech political science research. Emotions in political research can bring new perspectives on various interesting topics and also explain some basic processes of the black box of voters decision making and behaviour. The article presents a short intro- duction in the study of emotions, then there are basic theoretical approaches to emotions in politics discussed and also how can emotions be relevant to traditional issues of political science research is summed up. Concluding remarks deal with new challenges and opportu- nities within this field of study.
Vratislav Havlík, Jana Kotrbová, Kristina Špottová
Targeted transformation of Czech city councils as a basis for success? A contribution to the Europeanisation of communal polity
The article tracks and analyses changes that appeared on the level of municipalities after the admission of the Czech Republic to the European Union. It deals with two Czech cities, namely Olomouc and Ostrava and uses their cases as a best practice examples. Concerning the time setting, they are taken into consideration since the beginning of the current bud- getary planning period of the EU, thus approximately since 2007. The text concentrates on the structural changes of polity, with special emphasis on the setting of the procedures and departments connected to structural funds. Its ambition is not to make any major ge- neralizations but to show how the two cities performed in the adaptation to this aspect of europeanisation.
Jiří Mertl
„Kvalifikační standardy lidských zdrojů“ aneb metafory v reformách českého vysokého školství
"Qualification Standards of Human Resources" or metaphors in reforms of Czech higher education
This critical and empirical text deals with the issue of the reform of the Czech tertiary edu- cation system, which has been taking place since 2009. The analysis is focused on the basic rationality of the reform, legitimization of the reform through the political communication, and setting the reform to the European context. The main theoretical and methodological approach to the issue is based on the metaphor analysis (Schön’s generative metaphors and Charteris-Black’s critical corpus analysis), governmentality, and communicative hege- monization of public space through the chains of equivalency. The outcome of the analysis is the fact that the reform was/is an effort to economize and neoliberalize the Czech tertia- ry education, in accordance with the European trend and Bologna process, and discussion whether the neoliberalization is desirable process.
Martin Riegl
Parlamentní volby 2014 v JAR ve znamení oslabené většiny Afrického národního kongresu?
Parliamentary elections 2014 in the Republic of South Africa marked by a weakened African National Congress majority?
Text provides an analyses of key political, demographic and economic factors at the state as well as provincial level which will heavily impact voting behavior and preferences during at fifth parliamentary (and provincial) elections next year. The most interesting questions about the following parliamentary elections are not concerned with who will win but with such questions as capability the political parties – Joseph Malema ́s far-left Economic Free- dom Party, centrist Agang and the main opposition party Democratic Aliance (DA) to chal- lenge the African National Congress’ (ANC) predominant position in the political system of Republic of South Africa and its aim to gain a constitutional majority in The National Assem- bly. ANC is also close to electoral defeat by DA in the far most important province Gauteng, which is the political as well as the economic center of the state. The aim of the text is to analyze possible changes in voting patterns which might lead to crossing the political line still based on the racial cleavage. Political and economic destabilization of the Republic of South Africa would lead to broader regional destabilization.
Miroslav Hroch
The political cultures of Europe in historical context
The article focuses on historical roots of diversity of political cultures in Europe from mac- ro-regional, social, as well as religious perspectives. As historian the author indicates that arguments used in contemporary discussions are usually weakened by the lack of histor- ical knowledge of historical differentiation. According to him it is important to focus on four basic elements: atitude to the state and state authorities, quest for participation, responsibility towards the state as representative of the society, and readiness to accept consensual decisions and the attitude towards using the power as a component of politi- cal struggle.
Miloš Brunclík
Blanka Říchová
Josef Mlejnek
HANUŠ, Jiří, VLČEK, Radomír a kol.: Lenin. Kontinuita a/nebo diskontinuita ruských dějin?
Irina Valko
HOUGH, Peter: International Politics of the Arctic: Coming in from the Cold
Michal Kubát
