The European Union today stands on the brink of radical institutional and constitutional change. The most recent enlargement and proposed legal reforms reflect a commitment to democracy: stabilizing ...political life for citizens governed by new regimes, and constructing a European Union more accountable to civil society. Despite the perceived novelty of these reforms, this book explains (through quantitative data and qualitative case analyses) how the European Court of Justice has developed and sustained a vibrant tradition of democratic constitutionalism since the 1960s. The book documents the dramatic consequences of this institutional change for civil society and public policy reform throughout Europe. Cichowski offers detailed empirical and historical studies of gender equality and environmental protection law across fifteen countries and over thirty years, revealing important linkages between civil society, courts and the construction of governance. The findings bring into question dominant understandings of legal integration.
The most arresting aspect of the Scottish Enlightenment is its conception of commercial society as a distinct and distinctive social formation. Christopher Berry explains why Enlightenment thinkers ...considered commercial society to be wealthier and freer than earlier forms, and charts the contemporary debates and tensions between Enlightenment thinkers that this idea raised. The book analyses the full range of literature on the subject, from key works like Adam Smith's ‘Wealth of Nations’, David Hume's ‘Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects’ and Adam Ferguson's ‘Essay on the History of Civil Society’ to lesser-known works such as Robert Wallace’s ‘Dissertation on Numbers of Mankind’.
In this interview with Nerina Boursinou and Pierre Monforte, Phevos Simeonidis—cofounder of the Disinfaux Collective—reflects on the role of civil society organizations in the field of refugee ...support in Greece, in particular through the focus on their relations with public authorities. The interview provides an account of the changing environment in the field of migration and the diversity of the organizations working to support refugees in Greece, while it highlights such organizations’ ambivalent relations with public authorities. Moreover, the interview discusses the impact of the measures taken by the Greek government(s) to control or repress the activities of civil society organizations in recent years, including their criminalization. Finally, it makes reference to the complex ethics that accompany migration research and support practices, especially in relation to the collective’s operation and decision-making processes.
The article is an attempt to look at the EU enlargement policy from the angle of the Eastern Partnership as a place of civil society formation. The aim is to present the main motives of the next EU ...enlargement to the east. The research was based on a qualitative methodology with the use of institutional, legal and comparative analysis. The research material covered original acts and press releases of EU institutions, key scientific studies and internet portals devoted to the issue. The research shows the shaping of civil society in the EaP states creating a new perspective for the program and speaks in favor of EU enlargement in this direction.
En la historia reciente de la humanidad destacan varios procesos que marcan un cambio de época. En primer lugar, presenciamos una pandemia, resultado de alteraciones a equilibrios básicos de la ...naturaleza por causas antropogénicas, con efectos desastrosos en términos económicos para las mayorías, que profundiza las desigualdades y la pobreza, y pone en evidencia la incapacidad de los deteriorados o poco desarrollados servicios de salud pública para hacerle frente.
This article makes a map in which the trend lines of contemporary social movements, their characteristics and the lessons of the predecessor movements in the 20th century are revealed. The text ...argues how these new movements go from having forms of individual and local protests to becoming much more permanent forms of protest in time-space with a marked anti-capitalist and anti-systemic character
The article serves to clarify the origin and meaning of the terms conviviality and convivialism and highlights the various layers of social reality that are related to the two terms. The main part of ...the text addresses the concept of conviviality, as used by Ivan Illich, and the updating thereof by the circle of authors and supporters of the first (2013) and the second (2020) convivialist manifesto, which seeks to set out the ideology of convivialism. Convivialism seeks to formulate the common humanistic foundations of modern emancipatory currents and spiritual traditions. The connection between conviviality and the concept of nongrowth is also addressed.
