For several years the number and importance of Italian honorary consuls beyond borders of the country was rising. Among the crucial factors, deciding about the new status of the honorary consul, ...should indicate the economic crisis which forced the Italian administration to redun- dancies, but also the reorientation of the foreign policy and the related revision of the role of professional consuls in EU Member States. Although the duties of an honorary consul are not assigned to trained diplomats, the service goes far beyond protecting and caring for Italian citizens. One of the main functions is contribution in the development of bilateral cultural relations and the promotion of the Italian language, implemented in direct cooperation with other units of cultural diplomacy. In this article I focus on some of the practical dimensions of holding the office of honorary consul, based on the priorities of Italian cultural diplomacy, experience of the honorary consul in Szczecin, and chosen activities of cooperation between Western Pomerania and Italy. What is the role of honorary consul? What actions he takes? What are his/hers main goals? These are the questions that I will try to answer.
Compulsion in Religion relies on extensive research with Ba’thist archives to investigate the roots of the religious insurgencies that erupted in Iraq following the American-led invasion in 2003. The ...Iraqi archival records demonstrate that by the 1990s, Saddam’s regime had developed institutions to control and monitor Iraq’s religious landscape. The regime’s ability to do so provided it with confidence to launch a national “Faith Campaign” and to inject religion into Iraqi politics in a controlled manner. Islam played a greater role in the regime’s symbols and Saddam Hussein’s statements in the 1990s than it had in earlier decades. This increase in religious rhetoric did not represent a shift from secular-nationalist ideology to Islamism, however. The regime’s official policies toward religious leaders and institutions remained remarkably consistent throughout the Ba’thist period; Saddam spoke derisively about all forms of Islamist politics in Iraq throughout his presidency. He promoted a Ba’thist interpretation of religion that subordinated it to Arab nationalism rather than depicting the religion as an independent or primary political identity. Saddam did so explicitly to undermine Islamists and the revolutionary religious movements that would emerge after 2003. When the American-led invasion of 2003 destroyed the regime’s authoritarian structures, it unhinged the forces that these structures were designed to contain, creating an atmosphere infused with politically instrumentalized religion but lacking the checks provided by the former regime. Sadrists, al-Qaida, and eventually the Islamic State emerged out of this context to unleash the insurgencies that have plagued post-2003 Iraq.
The aim of the article is to analyse the phenomenon of security integration of Central Asian states within regional international organisations created around Russia and China. It enabled the ...authoritarian leaders to lower the cost of maintaining the non-democratic systems. The tactical strategies invented in one country, institutional and legal solutions and mythological constructs were also used by other participants. Moreover, they provided international infrastructure that not only gave external legitimacy to authoritarian regimes, but also served to weaken civil society and eliminate all forms of political competition. The article attempts to answer the questions of how threats were defined within regional integration structures and how international infrastructure was built to combat regional threats such as extremism, terrorism and separatism. Furthermore, preventive strategies at the institutional and legal levels are considered. Finally, the article analyses selected aspects of the so-called cultural prevention, which was intended to combat security threats and ensure regional stability.
The article attempts to answer the question about the chances of sovereignty being obtained by the Kurdish community, one of the oldest communities in the world. The article is part of a monograph ...entitled Independent Kurdistan. Challenges for the stabilisation of the region and the world, in which the same authors present a much broader approach to the problem, which has so far been omitted in reference literature and treated by political scientists and analysts of international relations superficially and without due attention.
The basic question posed by the authors is: how is it possible that the Kurds, the second largest stateless nation in the globe after the Tamils, constituting a community of almost fifty million spread throughout the world and involved for decades in the work of self-determination, do not have their own state? The answer is much more difficult and requires analysis of the complicated situation in the Middle East and North Africa. This is the least stable region in the world, which suffered the painful effects of European colonialism after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. This period is the basic time cessation for the analysis of the Kurdish nation’s history as new national borders were determined at that time, often across cultures, traditions, religions and customs.
The authors present prospects for the establishment of an independent Kurdish state and the framework for its functioning on the political map of the globe, primarily against the background of internal and international situation in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. These four countries, each inhabited by the Kurdish community, have been sharing one goal for decades, i.e. to effectively block the Kurds’ independence aspirations
The creation of barriers has always fueled emotions and led to heated debates. The case of the wall, which Israel began building in 2002 to isolate Palestinians living in the West Bank, was no ...different. This barrier took the form of a network of electric fences and concrete wall. In the wall, Israel created more than 70 checkpoints, most of which are usually closed.
The sense of powerlessness against the construction of the wall and the desire to catch the attention of the international community inspired inhabitants of villages located in close proximity to the wall to start expressing their objection and taking regular actions. They turned to the methods of civil resistance well known to them from the past.
Since 2005, the inhabitants of the village of Bil’in have grown up as action leaders. They have managed to draw the attention of global media and to persuade international activists and observers to participate in their actions. This form of regular protest came to be called the Bil’in model. The villagers were often referred to as Palestinian Gandhis as the basic principle set by the leaders of the protests was to conduct the campaign in a non-violent way. A characteristic feature of the demonstrations was the inclusion of creative forms of protest, which the protesters predicted would attract media attention. Creativity has become the trademark of the Bil’in protests. During the protests, which often took the form of events, the villagers used a range of symbolic works from styrofoam coffins and cages, to works symbolizing justice. There were references to well-known historical figures, films, and other current events in the world. As a result, hundreds and even thousands of international activists visit the village each year.
This book is a collection of essays in Indonesian history and archaeology dealing with different and multiple trajectories, along four broad themes. The first part of the book covers competing or ...evolving representations of events, customs or traditions, and historical personae in Indonesian official and popular expression, as they are shaped by economic, political, and cultural forces. The second part deals with memories of war and peace, examining transnational conflict and collaboration, the role of political elites and state projects dealing with the aftermath of military aggression, while also focusing on the impact and responses of civilians. The third part focuses on how state and civil societies frame historical figures, in ways that transcend the dichotomy of heroes and victims. The fourth part of the book looks at the way Indonesian museums and museology serve as sites where new kinds of memory work occur, in a post-1998 era. The book is designed with the aim of clearing a space for a plurality of memory works. Discussions in this volume extend from Loloda island in Eastern Indonesia, to Sabang island at the north westernmost end of the archipelago, and to the cosmopolitan centers. Temporally, it covers the colonial, the post-independence and contemporary eras. By juxtaposing diverse works, the book offers a new vista of multiple trajectories of memory being traced out in and about Indonesia. This is an open access book.
Elections are episodic; governance is routine.This book studies patterns in public opinion on politics and society between elections in India. By using the survey data covering 24 Indian states ...including the National Capital Region of Delhi (NCR), it will serve as State barometers of public opinion.The surveys seek to understand how politics and governance processes are nested in the social and political relationships between citizens inter se and with government functionaries. The book explores citizen perceptions about the social and political universes they inhabit in periods between elections. It examines social attitudes of citizens, friendship ties across social groups, gender roles and relationships; opinions on governance, ease of public service access, the citizen-state interface, and trust in political institutions; and, political attitudes and identity, nationalism, freedom of expression, and populism. This book explores public perceptions of everyday development and governance outcomes that are shaped by how the government functions between elections: how it relates to citizens on a regular basis; how it provides routine public services to them; and how public order is maintained.An incisive study on public opinion on politics, society, and governance in India, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political science, governance, public policy, and South Asian studies. It will also be of immense interest to bureaucrats, policymakers, think tanks, and organisations working in the areas of development studies, politics, society, and governance.
Why has democracy failed to take root in Russia? After shedding the shackles of Soviet rule, some countries in the postcommunist region undertook lasting democratization. Yet Russia did not. Russia ...experienced dramatic political breakthroughs in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but it subsequently failed to maintain progress toward democracy. In this 2005 book, M. Steven Fish offers an explanation for the direction of regime change in post-Soviet Russia. Relying on cross-national comparative analysis as well as on in-depth field research in Russia, Fish shows that Russia's failure to democratize has three causes: too much economic reliance on oil, too little economic liberalization, and too weak a national legislature. Fish's explanation challenges others that have attributed Russia's political travails to history, political culture, or to 'shock therapy' in economic policy. The book offers a theoretically original and empirically rigorous explanation for one of the most pressing political problems of our time.
Revealing how the quest for independence and challenges of democratization created a contest between nationalists and Europeanists, two powerful forces in domestic politics, after the collapse of ...communism, Fisher sheds light on the nationalism and post-communist transitions.
Vampires, demons and spectres are permanent elements of the world of terror. They are also used as symbols in texts devoted to political thought to emphasise the fear associated with negative ...phenomena. In this article, I argue that there is an analogy between tyranny and vampirism. In particular, I see vampiric features in Machiavelli’s ideal prince. The Florentine relativised the category of good and evil and recommended the ruler to use hidden motifs. A politician who is guided by this ideal works primarily for his or her own interest, which is to stay in power and the means to this end is a continuous game of appearances and hiding the motives of his or her behaviour. I argue for the thesis that this kind of behaviour is similar to the behaviour of a vampire, who is guided primarily by hunger and constantly hides and acts in the dark under the cover of the night to remain undiscovered.
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