Studia Politica, vol. XII, no. 1, 2012
ARGUMENTUM
RUXANDRA IVAN, International Politics of Justice. The Political Underpinnings of the Emergence of an International Regime (pp. 9-22)
Abstract
This paper is an attempt at reconstituting the emergence of the international mechanisms of criminal justice after the Cold War from the point of view of the articulation between the fundamental norm of the modern system of states – sovereignty – and the corpus of human rights, more precisely, on the regime formation of international criminal justice. Our approach will focus on the political, rather than on the legal aspects of this process. While it is difficult enough to conceptualize and to theoretically justify the link between sovereignty and the possibility for individuals to become subjects of international law, a further obstacle to the emergence of international criminal justice is the overcoming of the strategic interests of particular states, especially great powers, in establishing such a jurisdiction. Since international law remains politically negotiable, we will try to look into the political context that allowed for the developments that led, at the end of the 1990s, to the creation of the ICC, as well as to the transformation of the meaning of ”sovereignty”, in order to include the responsibility to protect citizens against ethnic cleansing, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Thus, some of the questions addressed in this contribution will be: which is the conceptual link between sovereignty and human rights? Subsequently, how do individuals become subjects of international law? Which is the extent of the ”universality” of human rights? The linkage between these sets of questions might provide a critical perspective on the transformation of international politics.
Keywords
International Criminal Court, transitional justice, sovereignty, human rights.
ARTICULI
RADU CARP, Religia în sfera publică sau în afara ei? Elemente ale unei posibile dezbateri în jurul modelului propus de Jürgen Habermas (Religion in or outside the Public Sphere? Items for a Possible Debate around the Jürgen Habermas Model) (pp. 25-30)
Abstract
This article intends to analyze the role of religion in the public sphere in Habermas’s theory. Despite the fact that the concept has been launched in a book published in 1961, only in 2005 the well-known German thinker has dealt explicitly with this issue. Even the critics of his public sphere model do not mention the lack of religion from the whole paradigm. Some of Habermas writings related to religion prior to 2005 are discussed. The role of religion in the public sphere is, according to Habermas, related to the issue of religious freedom and the State-Church separation, a model opposed to French laicité. For Habermas, the state must not only be neutral to the religious discourse, but it must also encourage the participation of political organizations in public life. Another issue that is discussed by Habermas is the relationship between religious majorities and minorities. Habermas does assume a middle position between laicité and the refuse of the modernity-imposed borders between religion and politics. The article takes an insight into the way Charles Taylor deals with the role of religion in the public sphere, a helpful argument for showing that the debate on this issue is only at the beginning.
Keywords
modernity; public sphere; religion; secularization; separation between State and Church.
ALINA ISAC ALAK, The Reform within Islam and the Legitimacy of the Contemporary Reinterpretations of the Qur’anic Text (pp. 31-40)
Abstract
Considered through the lens of Western liberalism, progress and emancipation seem to be incompatible with Muslim reformist outlooks. However, the exegesis of islah, the Islamic reform, examined in its own paradigm, reveals alternative approaches to modernity which are able to escape the antinomy tradition - modernity as Islamic reform occurs within the tradition, not against it.
Keywords
Islam, reform, modernity, tradition, Qur’anic.
ROXANA MARIN, Some Considerations on the Evolution of Defining ”Fascism” (pp. 41-61)
Abstract
The present paper is an attempt to examine the fashion in which the concept of ”fascism” was defined in successive historical periods, starting from 1932’ Mussolini’s essay to present the ideology he put forward and ending with the latest definitions of a mature Western scholarly, deprived of ideological biasness and struggling in philosophical cleavages and capable of understanding the subtleties of a phenomenon still problematic in definition and proper description. The paper briefly recapitulates the most significant contributions for the definition of ”fascism” (of which a special place is occupied by the studies authored by S.G. Payne, Roger Griffin, Roger Eatwell, Robert Paxton, Walter Laqueur, G.L. Mosse, H.A. Turner), but it tackles also the problŽmatique of ”totalitarian studies”, as developed in the 1950s and the 1960s by the renowned Hannah Arendt, Ernst Nolte, W. Sauer, C.J. Friedrich and Z. Brzezinski. For the sake of establishing patterns of definition in the case of ”fascism”, this paper traditionally discriminates between Marxist (Mason, Poulantzas, Renton, Kitchen, Betham, Vajda) and liberal interpretations (A. James Gregor, de Felice, Linz) of the concept; however, due to the sequence of the argument followed here, Marxist definitions might succeed liberal ones and conversely. The approach adopted does not seek to pillarize two allegedly antagonistic traditions of conceiving fascism, but to observe an evolution that both these traditions registered over sixty years of study. Lastly, in a quite short and yet lacunary theoretical undertaking, it inquires attempts to define fascism in Romania and fascist specificities in a setting dominated by backwardness, starting from the treatment given to this topic by Eugen Weber, Nicholas Nagy-Talavera and Henry L. Roberts.
Keywords
fascism, totalitarian studies, Marxist theory of fascism, ideology, liberal theory, movement, political culture, intellectual foundations, historical evolution, legionarism.
RALUCA MĂRGĂRIT, Întreprinderea socialistă – loc de producere a regimului comunist. Combinatul Siderurgic Hunedoara în primele două decenii comuniste (The Socialist Enterprise: the Production Place of the Communist Regime. The Hunedoara Integrated Iron and Steel Works in the First Two Decades of Communist Rule) (pp. 63-90)
Abstract
At the end of the Second World War, on the Romanian Communist Party’s agenda two major points were highlighted: massive industrialization and the recruitment of party members. The article explores the role and functions of the socialist enterprise in communist Romania, a place where the interaction between party and society was strongly emphasized. Focusing on the first two decades of communist rule, I have chosen as a case study an enterprise with an old tradition, created at the end of the XIXth century: The Hunedoara Integrated Iron and Steel Works. In the confined space of the socialist enterprise, the political, economical and social objectives of the communist regime were put in practice. In this context, the socialist enterprise became one of the most important places of propaganda, domination and control.
Keywords
communism, socialist enterprise, workers, Stakhanovism, cultural and artistic activities.
SABINA-ADINA LUCA, BOGDAN GHEORGHIŢĂ, ANNAMARIA KADAR, DRAGOŞ DRAGOMAN, The Sociocultural Identity of Young People in Post-communist Romania. Attitudes Towards Work and Emigration (pp. 91-102)
Abstract
The identity model of young people in Romania undergoes multiple changes nowadays. We try here to identify the young people’s way of reporting to the social values at work and the commitment to their own country, and as to unravel their attitudes towards corruption, poverty and emigration. This survey in based on data gathered during sociological investigations, surveys, interviews and focus groups. Some of the conclusions of our research are that young people do appreciate work, especially under the circumstances in which they get benefits, particularly financial ones. Some other aspects which concern a profession, or a job, are an easy schedule and the lack of responsibilities. The vocational aspect is much less found among the answers given by youngsters. And, besides all, the lack of jobs and the insatisfaction that goes with it increases the chances for young people to have favorable attitudes towards emigration.
Keywords
identity, culture, emigration, young people, Romania.
RONALD F. KING, PAUL E. SUM (eds.), Romania under Băsescu. Aspirations, Achievements, and Frustrations during His First Presidential Term, Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, 2011 (DRAGOŞ DRAGOMAN) pp. 105-108
HEINRICH BEST, JOHN HIGLEY (eds.), Democratic Elitism: New Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives, Brill, Leiden, 2010 (ROXANA MARIN) pp. 108-117
WOLFGANG C. MULLER, KAARE STROM, TORBJORN BERGMAN (eds.), Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining: The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe, Oxford University Press, 2008, (Paperback 2010) (VERONICA ANGHEL) pp. 118-121
CONOR O’DWYER, Runaway State-Building: Patronage Politics and Democratic Development, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (Maryland), 2006 (ROXANA MARIN) pp. 122-127
DENIS DUEZ, L’Union européenne et l’immigration clandestine: de la sécurité intérieure à la construction de la communauté politique, Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, 2008 (GABRIELA IONAŞCU) pp. 128-131
CHRISTINE DELPHY, Classer, Dominer. Qui sont les "Autres"?, Editions La Fabrique, Paris, 2009 (CRISTINA FOMETESCU) pp. 131-133
ANNETTE INSDORF, Indelible Shadows. Film and the Holocaust, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2003 (TITUS ŢECHERA) pp. 133-136
ANDREW LINKLATER, The Problem of Harm in World Politics. Theoretical Investigations, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2011 (ALEXANDRU CLIMESCU) pp. 136-139
VITALY V. NAUMKIN, Radical Islam in Central Asia. Between Pen and Rifle, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, 2005 (ANAMARIA ELENA GHEORGHE) pp. 139-141
WAYNE NORMAN, Negotiating Nationalism. Nation-building, Federalism, Secession in the Multinational State, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006 (MĂRIUCA MORARIU) pp. 141-144
JOSEPH S. NYE, JR., The Future of Power, Public Affairs, New York, 2011 (MANUELA-ELENA TOBOŞARU) pp. 144-149
JAVIER FERNANDEZ SEBASTIAN, JUAN FRANCISCO FUENTES (Hrsg.), Diccionario politico y social del siglo XIX espanol, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 2002-2003; Diccionario politico y social del siglo XX espanol, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 2008 (VICTOR NEUMANN) pp. 149-153
JAVIER FERNANDEZ SEBASTIAN (ed.), Political Concepts and Time. New Approaches to Conceptual History, Cantabria University Press, Mc Graw-Hill, Interamericana de Espana, Santander, 2011 (VICTOR NEUMANN) pp. 154-159
RICHARD BELLAMY, Political Constitutionalism: a Republican Defence of the Constitutionality of Democracy, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007 (ANDREI SCHWARTZ) pp. 160-162
NICOLAE TURCAN, Credinţa ca filosofie. Marginalii la gândirea Tradiţiei, Colecţia Universitas, Seria Theologia Socialis 15, Eikon, Cluj-Napoca, 2011 (RADU CARP) pp. 162-164