Volume 25, Issue 2

The article focuses on descriptive representation, which is a fundamental theoretical concept underpinning the introduction of gender quotas. The main question I consider in the paper is how to overcome the essentialism of descriptive representation. I consider the essentialist line of reasoning as unsustainable because it pays little attention to differences among women. I claim that a possible and desirable solution is based on the concept of gender as seriality-by Iris Marion Young. Although women do not constitute a homogenous group, it is meaningful to talk about women as a group in some sense, specifically as a social collective. In this connection, I highlight the advantages of gender as seriality. Firstly and most importantly, it overcomes the essentialism of descriptive representation. Secondly, the concept of gender as seriality enables us to identify the barriers faced by women in politics. Finally, it highlights why quotas are legitimate tools that can be used to increase women’s political representation

This article looks at the ways in which political representation is used as a symbolic resource of legitimacy by those acting as intermediaries between the private and the public sectors- professional lobbyists. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Michael Saward, the article puts forward an analysis of whether, how and in relation to whom, lobbyists claim to be representatives so as to acquire a recognized position in the policy-making process. Representative claim-making by lobbyists matters, we argue, because it is an indicator of the status afforded by the public to private actors in politics. In the Czech and Polish cases, even though the invisible character of lobbying practices seems to limit the range of roles lobbyists can adopt in front of the general public, lobbyists mobilize representation as a resource both directly and indirectly when having to justify their involvement in public decision-making

The paper deals with the paradox of the incommensurability of the demands of responsiveness and performativity in representative democracy. To solve this puzzle, the paper first analyzes Pitkin’s concept of symbolic representation. Pitkin sees symbolic representation as a caricature of democracy because of its performativity, non-rationality and vagueness. The paper argues that these are indeed the key characteristics of every single representative act and that their presence does not make representation undemocratic. Using the work of Claude Lefort, the second part of the paper attempts to set out the conditions that would enable us to differentiate between the performativity of representation appropriate in a democratic society and the sheer falsification of the popular will. The paper claims that such a distinction would demand that we extend our understanding of representation to go beyond the relation between the representative and the represented and focus instead on the contestability of governmental claims to represent

The turn of the 1990s saw the emergence of “the political” in feminist theory. Despite there being a number of publications devoted to the theme, the concept itself has remained rather undertheorized. Instead of producing a thoroughly developed concept, it served to create an epistemic community devoted to the (supposedly dead, modernist) political aim of women’s emancipation. In the article, I argue that it would be beneficent for feminist theory to adopt an affirmative stance towards the contingency of politics. This of course poses a challenge to feminist politics, which still operates mainly within the framework of the politics of representation. Nevertheless, Linda Zerilli’s approach, which interprets contingency in an Arendtian vein as the condition of the world-creating and world-building power of feminism as a practice of freedom may prove to be a productive way of approaching the challenging issue of contingency in feminist theory

The way in which folklorists study their “scientific subject”, that is the creativity and the rich ways people attach meanings to their existence, has often been considered to be static and decontextualized. An interest in popular culture for propaganda purposes is associated with past regimes. Therefore, the notion of “folklore” still carries contradictory meanings and connotations. The author starts from a debate prompted in Italy by Alberto M. Cirese: in recent decades, Italian “native” ethnology has focused on endangered village traditions rather than opening itself up to new instances of cultural change. The main risk was misrepresenting the methodology proposed by Antonio Gramsci in 1929. Today Italian research into folklore places the subject of “folklore” in its broadest context, investigating developments in society associated with the shift from a peasant to an industrial society, and embarking on additional research domains through transnational cultures. This research draws on the growing interest in cultural heritage in the public sphere, and, simultaneously, draws on recent advances in the study of uses of culture and memory. The paper studies two aspects of daily life: pure yarn handmade clothes and ornaments, and long-life tomato sauce. The study concludes that contemporary everyday folklore takes on many free and unofficial forms that call for a renewed approach. To evaluate the multiplicity of folklore meanings and their capacity to integrate interactions between the traditional and the contemporary in specific contexts, the author explores the practicality of a new idea of folklore as sustainable, popular, domestic creativity using material and immaterial goods. This idea implies a rethink of the concept of heritage and of the complexity of its increasingly official, bombastic and rhetorical manifestations

The study focuses on the phenomenon known as internet memes and their possible use in the creation and re-creation of media discourse. The main materials used are photos of Vladimir Putin and the famous Situation Room photo released by the White House. The stance taken in the study is based on the familiar and simple assumption that thanks to the new media we are facing the end of classical photography, sometimes described as the post-photography era. In post-photography, the connotations and context are more important than the content itself. Internet memes, a phenomena typical for the new media, can then also be used in a political context, where the “original” photographs of politicians and political events, usually officially released by PR departments, are altered not only to change the content, but above all the connotations. While regarded by most as jokes and puns, user-generated re-interpretations of Vladimir Putin and Obama’s war on terror can also have deeper meanings and impacts

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the evolution of the legislative process concerning ART (especially PGD) in the specific cultural, societal and political contexts of two countries- Slovakia and Germany. Our analysis is based on 1. mapping the variety of discourses on ART in order to gain an understanding of the perspectives of the main actors and their arguments; and on 2. exploring the reasons for the differences in the current regulation of ART among European Union member states. In both Slovakia and Germany we found there was a deficit of democratic legitimacy, because the arguments and experiences of those primarily affected by the restrictive measures on the use of ART in medical care-infertile women and men-are not taken into consideration with any seriousness. On the contrary, government and legislators pay too much attention to the ethical opinions of the Catholic Church. Government intervention in Germany is highly problematic because there is no sufficient justification of the reasons behind restrictions on parental autonomy and the procreative freedom of women and men. Moreover, the restrictions are not consistent across an array of similar cases and are not applied equally to all (they differ depending on whether the embryo is in vivo or in vitro and healthy or unhealthy). Instead of an interventionist approach which protects the embryo against its own potential mother, it would be more sensible to adopt the “women-centered” approach already suggested by several authors (see for instance Freedman & Isaacs, 1993, Himmel & Michelmann, 2007). It holds that both the mother and embryo have to be at the centre of bioethical and legal considerations, instead of there being an exclusive reliance on ethical principles and expert opinions with regard to the embryo alone

The paper outlines the concept of the human being as homo biotechnologicus. This concept is just one version of many possible human self-interpretations, since human beings can answer their own fundamental question of ‘who are we?’ simply using their ‘human, all too human’ self-descriptions. However, technology is a substantial part of the human being as a natural being, and biotechnology is, moreover, its root. The biotechnology of today’s world means that humanity is set on a path to transcending its own human nature, with all the risky consequences that entails. The author considers these radical developments from the standpoint of posthumanism

The paper addresses the question of how to explore Slovak NGO use of new media to foster civic engagement. We argue that it is not possible to focus solely on the NGOs’ online communication; that would make sense only in the context of the overall communication. Hence, this paper deals with the borderlands between online and offline communication. It focuses on five main theoretical and methodological challenges: the fact that the existing body of research focuses on peak periods of public unrest, the predominance of an etic perspective, the predominance of quantitative studies, the blending of activities done on- and offline, and the complex, changing nature of the object of research. We sketch out several analytical strategies, focusing on qualitative approach and emic perspective