Volume 2, Issue 1

Having fallen out of the scholarly and public spotlight after the cessation of the conflicts in the 1990s, Serbia nowadays seldom takes the central place in scholarly analysis. With the six-year rule of Aleksandar Vučić, nowadays the President of Serbia (in addition to being the former Prime Minister), however, we are of the opinion that his reign needs to be tackled from a scholarly perspective. With the diminishing of media freedoms, constant attacks on the free press, the suppression of almost all opposing political organizations, parties, and activists/politicians, Serbia is nowadays more and more often described as a “dictatorship” under the rule of one man, Aleksandar Vučić. In December 2018, a series of mass public protests started occurring regularly in several Serbian cities, all aimed against the rule of Aleksandar Vučić. Observing Serbia’s autocrat through the lens of elite theory, we tackle the protests against him, including the government’s official responses, as well as the smearing of the protests by the government-supporting media.

This essay critically examines why the United States Government (USG) has been reluctant to accept legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets (LBGERTs). The paper notes that four factors are essential in explaining this, namely the economy, scepticism about climate science, hegemonic drives and a quest for distributive justice. Notwithstanding, USG reluctance to accept LBGERTs is shaped by the convergence of interests of key actors in US political system who conceive government action to combat climate as a threat to their interests, although this can be reinforced or dissuaded by party ideology. While party ideology could strengthen or weaken US actions to fight climate change, the shielding of its sovereignty remains paramount regardless of ideological differences between the Democrats and Republicans. It indicates that while it could be argued that the Kyoto Protocol was a failed regime given the wide acceptance of the Paris Agreement, the planned withdrawal of US from Paris Agreement demonstrates that the Kyoto Protocol was not wholly a failure and buttressed the need to have a legally binding agreement (LBA). Also, it argues that the success of the Paris Agreement is a function of trust, reputation and reciprocity among countries that are parties to it.

The trend toward the concept of humanity in political theory has arisen largely as a reaction against the mistreatment of vulnerable people such as immigrants. The issue of immigrants’ vulnerability has led political thinkers to ponder on how to apply the principle of humanity to the question of the treatment of immigrants. I would like to address this matter by examining two questions: what is humanity, is it a value property, or a virtue? Does it really matter if the means by which an immigrant immigrates is demeaning to his own humanity as a person? The most common or intuitive reply to these questions would probably be: ‘humanity’ is simply a value-bestowing property, so regardless of immigrants’ actions they are owed respectful treatment. The aim of this paper is to emphasise instead that ‘humanity’ should be conceived as a virtue of actual commitment to act on moral principles. I explore three different meanings of humanity. First, I discuss ‘humanity’ as the common ownership of the earth. Second, I discuss ‘humanity’ as a value property. Third, I discuss humanity as a virtue of acting, on the one hand, with humanity, and on the other hand, on moral principles.

The 21 st century has witnessed a significant transformation of the economies of many developing countries. Consequently, many studies have argued that the centre of gravity of the global economy is shifting from the Western core to the semi-peripheral East. Vassilis Fouskas and Bülent Gökay’s global fault-lines model detailed in their book titled The Fall of the US Empire: Global Fault-Lines and the Shifting Imperial Order is an attempt to use some ideas of the theory of plate tectonics to explain the historical-geographic tectonic shifts in the global political economy. This paper shows the major arguments of the global fault-lines model and shows the link between the plate tectonics theory and the global fault-lines model. Finally, it highlights the implications of the tectonic shifts in the global political economy and by so doing argues for the expansion of BRICS and strengthening of the south-south cooperation paradigm.

This paper seeks to examine why political parties in Hong Kong are fragmented and how the development of political parties in Hong Kong leads to social discord. Political parties started to emerge in Hong Kong in the 1980s. They had a golden opportunity to develop in the 1990s due to political reform, but why are political parties in Hong Kong still small, weak, with poor reputations and weak support? The author points out five factors that lead to the malfunction of political parties in Hong Kong. Although some factors are caused by the political parties themselves, the author argues that they are, all in all, constitutional or institutional factors, as they are long-term restraints directly set by the government since the colonial era. Due to the failure of party development in Hong Kong caused by constitutional and institutional restraints, the author will also discuss how this failure has lead to the political and social discord in the past two decades since the handover and the future.

International Relations (IR) scholars, particularly those working in the rationalist tradition, argue that costly signalling is one of the main tools that policymakers have to resolve interstate bargaining disputes and, ultimately, to minimize the occurrence of war. Recent rationalist work has greatly advanced our understanding of how costly signalling works in global politics, particularly by unpacking how militarized escalations can signal potential antagonists (e.g. Slantchev 2011). But the current literature is too hasty in dismissing the importance of non-militarized signalling during international crises, particularly for leaders worried about the risk of accidental wars. This paper presents mandatory evacuations (MEs) as a form of non-militarized escalation that states have been increasingly using since World War II to credibly signal their opponents. We illustrate our claims with a case study of China’s preparations for the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, when it ordered a massive evacuation along its northern border as a costly signal towards the Soviets.

The problem of underdevelopment in the Muslim world is often associated with their weak economy and lack of a capitalist system. Turkey, as a Muslim dominated but secular state, aims to integrate itself into the Western world and capitalist economy as well. Since Weber claimed that modern capitalism first emerged in Western societies because of a Protestant work ethic, many scholars from various areas have examined whether the capitalist system is compatible with Islamic culture. Analyzing the transformation of Islamic culture, and Turkey’s Islamic-Ottoman heritage and top-down modernization process may help better understand the relationship between Modern Islamic culture and economy. Building upon previous research on Islam and capitalism, this article analyses the interaction between religious culture and other social factors and assesses transforming Islamic culture as one of the important determinants to explain the development of the modern capitalist economy and its sociopolitical consequences in Turkey.

Development of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Negotiations (UNFCCC) is based on the Conference of the Parties meetings. The Paris accord is a political act setting goals to, operationalize the rulebook agreement. The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poland agreed on a set of guidelines for implementing the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement. Katowice was a major step forward for operationalizing the Paris Agreement perspective though the negotiations were incomplete. The Article 6 chapter- market and non-market cooperative approaches - is being sent for completion to the next COP in Santiago. The present research has stressed that in COP25, article 6 would increase high level engagement of countries to finalize guidance with a perspective to prepare a decision by the end of the COP.

This article examines criminality that can emerge within the context of a political party’s large group regression. The group behavior of the Democratic party after its loss in the 2016 United States Presidential election serves as a case that illustrates this concept. Psychoanalytic concepts discussed by Vamik Volkan are used as the framework for understanding the party’s group behavior. Since its loss in the election, the Democratic party has demonstrated remarkable coherence in its hostility towards Republicans. The hostility has ranged from uncivil behavior to violence manifested across a range of socioeconomic statuses and locations. The steep decline in the Democratic party’s civility towards its opponent is indicative of a large group regression. The loss of the 2016 Presidential election precipitated the party’s regression, which has left its members responding in primitive psychological ways. A range of criminality has emerged within this regressed state, such as assault, battery, and false police allegations. The regressed state of the party leaves it vulnerable to malignant narcissistic leadership or dysfunctional ideologies, which can normalize the regressive behavior. The large group regression examined in this paper may apply to other Western societies that experience dramatic sociopolitical change.

The present study is an attempt to investigate students’ attitudes towards the social status of Moroccan women and the variables that may influence the cause of women’s liberation. These variables may include feminism, female activism and international human rights on the one hand. On the other hand, factors such as religion, patriarchy and marriage legislation could stand against the cause of female emancipation. The paper uses a theoretical and practical part. The review of literature is broad and inclusive that it trespasses the national intellectual framework on the issue of women’s liberation to referring to western major feministic movements for women’s emancipation worldwide such as liberal feminism. The field work is conducted through distributing a representative number of questionnaires, 350 questionnaires. Briefly, the findings proved that the majority of respondents, 55% hold the view that religion stands as a primary factor behind conservative gender perception, whereas 49% of the respondents believe that education is the factor behind such perceptions. Furthermore, 40% believed that the patriarchal system is the element behind traditional treatment of gender. Concerning marriage legislation, 55% agree with the reforms in Al Mudawana in 2004. For female activism, 72% believe that women largely contributed in bringing about the changes in the Al Mudawana reforms of 2004. This helped to generate an increasing female participation in politics as proved by 58% of the respondents. Finally, 65% hold the view that women’s social status nowadays is semi-liberal and improving.

The financial crisis has paradoxically protected many sectors of the Greek economy from collapse. The ownership structure of companies in Greece was dominated by state and local government companies. Private companies have not only contributed capital and protected employees from unemployment, but have also given a new organisational culture to companies.

The The Ottoman Turks since the mid-fourteenth century led a gradual conquest of Anatolia and the Balkans. It’s symbolic culmination was the capture of Constantinople in 1453. In this way, a great population of Orthodox Greeks came under the rule of a Muslim sultan. Many of them decided to escape abroad to avoid robbery, rapes and captivity by the victorious forces. In the following years, when initially gentle policy towards the conquered community began to tighten, another wave of Greek migration emerged outside the Ottoman state. Subsequent groups fled from persecution after successive anti-Turkish uprisings. Of these refugees, the largest group settled in neighboring countries - Moldova, Wallachia and Hungary. People with greater financial or intellectual potential - philosophers, scholars, members of the social elite of the fallen Byzantine Empire - chose exile. They headed for Western culture centers, where they could continue their careers or seek support for their political plans. Merchants and craftsmen, who wanted to use their capital and skills at the crossroads of trade routes in the then Kingdom of Poland, which was in union with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, also constituted a larger group. Thanks to their unique handicraft skills and trade contacts in the south, many of these Greeks gained a strong position in the new environment. Some of them made a fortune and even obtained noble titles, though many of them lived modestly or even went bankrupt as a result of the actions of their Polish competitors and had to leave the country. The circumstances and effects of Greek migration leaving the Ottoman state show many similarities to the migration of the population during the modern migration crisis in Europe. An analysis of the events from half a thousand years ago may prove useful in building plans to solve the problem of refugees from the Middle East and to root and integrate migrant communities within the European Union.

In the 13 th and the 14 th century, grand dukes had the exclusive right to dispose of aquatic resources of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and they kept it up to the 15th century despite the distribution of rights to royal aquatic resources which lasted since the reign of Vytautas. Aquatic resources of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania could be used not only by their heritable owners and lessees, but also by local people who were allowed to fish ducal lakes and rivers by virtue of the customary law. Since the second decade of the 16th century, grand dukes became more and more interested in the economic productivity of royal land of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and in particular in the exploitation of the aquatic resources. It was mainly caused by the increasing financial needs of the Lithuanian treasury connected with the Muscovite-Lithuanian wars and the economic activities of Queen Bona and Sigismund II Augustus. The monarchs signed legal regulations, which concerned their royal land in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. These regulations provided better management of the royal land and protected fish from excessive catch.

The article analyses attitudes of the Lithuanian nobility towards the inheritance of the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the Commonwealth) in the period of the Four-Year Sejm (1788-1792). Thorough analysis of historiography and research of narrative sources amplifies the position of the Lithuanian nobility towards the issue of inheritance of the throne of the Commonwealth as it was reflected in the political literature of 1787-1789 period. Analysis of the documents produced by the February and November dietines (Pol. sejmiks ), 1790 of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the GDL) reveals changes in the position of nobility towards selection of the successor to the throne with the king still alive. It was established, that in supporting the idea of a hereditary throne, Lithuanian political writers suggested different strategies in realizing this idea and proposed as candidates for the throne representatives of ruling dynasties of several states: Russia, Prussia, Saxony and Great Britain. Changes in the position of nobility were significantly influenced by the activism of patriotic-reformist faction, which proposed the very idea of a hereditary throne and a candidate from the dynasty of Wettins: the GDL districts (Pol. powiats ), having ignored the question of throne inheritance in the February dietines of 1790, in November of the same year agreed to the selection of Elector of Saxony as the successor to the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Stanislaw August. However, even if agreeing to the Wettin candidacy, the GDL nobility did not support establishing of the principle of such inheritance. Most of the GDL dietines supported limited monarchy, politically and financially dependent on the political will of the nation. The Elector of Saxony was given certain conditions, the departure from which was to bring back an elective monarchy.

In the Commonwealth of the Two Nations, significant legal texts were implemented under the rule of King Stanislaw August, the most important being the Constitution of May 3, 1791, adopted during the Four-Year Sejm (1788-1792). Its framers faced numerous challenges, first, because then only nobles were considered as constituting the Republic, one was to define who should be considered as a member of the People, who could be elected deputy to the Sejm, and at which condition. Second, since the 1569 Union of Lublin the Commonwealth is made of two distinct states: Poland (the Crown) and the Grand-Duchy of Lithuania, drafters had to handle Lithuanian statehood in a Constitution, which was primarily seen as a way to enhance unification of the two nations. Third, the Grand-Duchy of Lithuania having its own legislation, enclosed in the Lithuanian statute, (adopted in 1529, followed with a Second Statute in 1566, and a Third Statute in 1588), the question of its maintaining or not too had to be taken into consideration by framers. We hope that considering how these different issues were handled will shed a new light on the permanence of Lithuanian laws and political tradition in the May 3 Constitution.

In the first half of the 18th century, the position of the Catholic Church in the Commonwealth was strengthen and it dominated other Christian denominations. The network of the parishes was expanded, and the accessibility to churches improved. New forms of saints cult as well as other forms of piousness had developed. The preaching played an important role in this process. The preaching in the Commonwealth was not just a Sunday sermon, but above all sermons related to homiletics of the late Baroque, connected with religious ceremonies eg. funerals. The preacher was to work through emotions, the achievements of Baroque rhetoric used, although in the Commonwealth, own solutions were developed to enable effective communication with the recipient representing the Old Polish culture. The size of this impact was significant, as evidenced by numerous prints dating back to that period, but also manuscripts with recorded places of preaching, or impressions from preaching preserved in memoirs or correspondence. It should be emphasized that the sermons not only carved the system of moral values or the piety of the society, but also influenced the ideas of everyday life, the roles of individual and groups in society, as well as the relation to authority

The paper deals with the role played by the Jesuit in the political formation of the Lithuanian elite during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The author analyzes the influence of the Jesuit school system on the political culture of the nobility through rhetoric, theatre and public examinations. In particular, it shows the elements of continuity, such as the unquestioned value of classical literature and Humanistic formation. These contributed to shape the political ethos of Polish-Lithuanian elites, based on consensus and active participation in public life. The changes introduced as a result of the reform of Jesuit school system did not alter the traditional understanding of education, but rather answered to the need for better qualified civil servants in an age of modernization of the Polish-Lithuanian state.

The Great Northern War changed not only the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also the countries of Central Europe. This war brought many tactical and strategic innovations that could be observed on the battlefields and during the war campaigns. That is why it seems appropriate to recall the battles that took place during the Great Northern War. An example of such a battle is a clash between the Swedish-Lithuanian army and Lithuanian-Russian army, which took place near Kryżbork/Jakobstadt on 26 July (5 August) 1704. In this battle the Lithuanian troops fought on both sides. On the Swedish side they were commanded by Kazimierz Jan Sapieha, and on the Russian side – by Michał Serwacy Wiśniowiecki.

The activity of representatives of the elites of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which sought equality with the Crowners, but also the defense of their prerogatives was present from the first days after the signing of the Lublin Union. Analyzing this issue, it should be remembered that the Crown and Lithuania were separated state bodies, which union did not merge into one country, but formed a federal state. They were characterized by a separate treasury, army, offices, judiciary, law, local government institutions, i.e. basically everything that determines the administrative independence of the country. Lithuanians wanted to guarantee the same rights as the Crown nobility had, however, remaining separate. Thus, offices were established having the same prerogatives in the Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, such as the Grand and Field Hetman, Chancellor and Vice-Chancellors, Treasurer and Grand and Court Marshal, as well as a number of land and town dignities and dignitaries. The first of these were allocated appropriate seats in the senate, behind their crown counterparts, which caused quarrels between Poles and Lithuanians. However, manifestations of activity guaranteeing and “reminding” Poles of Lithuania’s separateness from the Crown were evident throughout the entire existence of the federal Commonwealth.

Research concerning the history of government and administration should be based not only on historical documents (like legal acts) but also narrative or literary sources such as chronicles. These texts contain large amounts of information about old forms of administration. A good example of that kind of narrative source is the description of European Sarmatia written by Alessandro Guagnini. The author of this text was Italian, who lived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the turn of sixteenth and seventeenth century. This text was a historical and geographical relation about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its neighbours. It was reprinted in different editions and in few languages having a considerable impact on a perception of abovementioned state and even Central and Eastern Europe as well. In modern times Guagnini’s works have been quite forgotten, nevertheless its renewed analysis leads to interesting information at various levels. One of them is presentation of government model in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The described state consisted of few great regions each of which had its own administrative division, history and customs. Together they merged into a great political entity ruled by one monarch and approaching unification. The purpose of this article is to present administrative division in the pages of the described chronicle and how that division was ideologically legitimated by appealing to ancient Sarmatia.