Suchergebnisse

Before the Federal Parliamentary Investigative Committee Act (Parlamentarisches Untersuchungsausschussgesetz) came into effect in 2001, Germany's federal law had lacked a coherent & comprehensive system of remedies with regard to parliamentary enquiries. In discussing the procedural law of the act & the competences of the different courts, it is evident that the new act concentrates & systemizes existing remedies & establishes new ones. The Federal Constitutional Court is still responsible for body claims (Organstreitverfahren) between the highest state institutions, e. g. like the Federal Parliament, the Federal Government, or their partially independent sub-bodies. The Constitutional Court alone has the authority, too, to decline the establishment of a parliamentary committee. Furthermore, the act establishes independent rights & remedies of political minorities in a committee. The Federal Supreme Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) is competent to make decisions on the legality of special investigative measures. Finally, some legal disputes, especially those between citizens & 'lower' administrative bodies, are within the competence of the decentralized administrative justice. Adapted from the source document.

"Most cultures have some concept of a 'just war'. In the West, classical Just War Doctrine lists several specific, necessary conditions, all of which must be met for a war to be deemed 'just': legitimate authority, just cause, last resort, military means proportional to ends, civilian casualties avoided, and a positive ultimate outcome. By these criteria, there have certainly been many unjust wars; yet few admit they are fighting an unjust war. Thus judgments of actual wars involve various psychological mechanisms, such that almost any war can be seen as 'just'. Research reported in this paper explored the relationships between authoritarianism and perceptions and evaluations of the U.S. invasion and conquest of Iraq in March-April 2003, in a sample of American college students. Several hundred undergraduates filled out questionnaires containing Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale and items designed to embody specific Just War criteria. RWA predicted viewing the Iraq War as just, even controlling for gender, U.S. nationality background, and generalized political party preference." (author's abstract)

The appearance of basic income guarantee programs in various countries & the advantages of adopting a basic income guarantee are studied. After connecting the development of the modern basic income guarantee to Alaska's Permanent Fund & acknowledging that Alaska has produced the slimmest margin between highest & lowest income earners of all US states, the movement to establish similar programs in present-day Brazil is discussed; in addition, the presence of basic income guarantee systems in 20th century US & Canadian political thought is noted. Multiple reasons for supporting a universal basic income guarantee program are given, eg, it would discourage some people from unemployment or underemployment & having financial resources to meet basic human necessities is a human right. Questions concerning whether the disincentive to work produced by the basic income guarantee would actually damage American society are answered; in fact, it is demonstrated that implementation of a basic income guarantee would perpetuate capitalist development by increasing people's innovative opportunities. J. W. Parker

The european integration programme is a unique and ambitious attempt on the part of numerous nations, with a long history of armed conflicts and diverse cultural, linguistic, legal and economic traditions, to become integrated under a 'new legal order'. Indeed, the European Union ('EU') can look back with much satisfaction on its record of transforming a large part of Europe, once afflicted by wars, nationalist divisions, Nazism and Fascism, into a region where peace, political moderation and protection of human rights prevail. Now, the EU wishes to externalise its success. As Robert Kagan has argued inPower and Weakness, 'the transmission of the European miracle to the rest of the world has become Europe's newmission civilisatrice. Just as Americans have always believed that they had discovered the secret to human happiness and wished to export it to the rest of the world, so the Europeans have a new mission born of their own discovery of perpetual peace'.

On 3 October the European Union intends to launch its accession negotiations with Turkey. However, the decision to initiate talks may end up not being decided until an extraordinary meeting of the European Council on 26 September, or even until the morning of 3 October itself. For at their informal meeting in Newport on 1 and 2 September 2005, EU foreign ministers failed to reach agreement on the last few unresolved issues, and the political decision-makers' interests are too far apart for them to reach anything but a superficial, ostensible understanding. Accordingly, the Union will probably end up launching negotiations about which only a minority of its Member States have no reservations. And since the Turkish government's euphoria at being considered for accession has also evaporated, the talks could well lead to an outcome other than EU membership. Yet this turn of events should not be the Union's objective right from the outset. (SWP-Comments / SWP)

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol, aims to minimise the cost of Annex B countries' commitments to reduce emissions, but also to limit the risk that the Developing Countries unquestionable right to develop will offset the Annex B countries efforts: the CDM should promote faster progress along a less polluting development path. Beyond political principles, the pertinent players have to be incorporated into the decision making process of future CDM. The issues for host country include attracting the investment capacity, by taking advantage of the additional incentive created by CDM certificates. For private investors, the objective is to maximise the sum of commercial revenues plus CDM carbon income. This paper examines potential CDM project opportunities in the power sector. The Tahumanu project consists of building a hydroelectric power plant instead of subsidized diesel plants in the Bolivian Pando Province. Simulations show that it offers a realistic illustration of possible set up and arrangements of CDM projects with the host country.

This chapter presents three stories of recent events that illustrate three properties of emerging transnational protest: inclusive organization models that favor diversity & issue-linking; social technologies that facilitate decentralized networks & help explain shifts in the scale of coordinated transnational activism; & the political capacities of members to communicate their issues & form effective relationships with the targets of protest. These formulations derive from observations about the growing global social justice movement & its intersection with protests against the US war & occupation of Iraq. A framework is developed for understanding the tensions between & different strategies of today's direct action networks & the more centralized nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) & social movement coalitions that emerged in the earlier era of issue-specific (eg, labor, environment, human rights) transnational activism. Contemporary strategies include less NGO dominance of campaign & policy networks; the evolution of multi-issue organizations (ATTAC in Europe); more direct individual involvement in setting the agenda from below; & the proliferation of permanent campaigns not controlled by NGOs or coalitions. Tables. J. Stanton

The closure of The Daily News, Zimbabwe's only 'independent' newspaper in 2003 attracted both local and worldwide condemnation as the height of the Zimbabwe government's intolerance of diverse viewpoints. This paper critically analyses the circumstances surrounding the closure of The Daily News and argues that to a great degree, and in various ways, the paper contributed to its own closure, not least because of the hidden motives and ineptitude of its management. Despite immense contribution to opening up the democratic space in Zimbabwe, The Daily News had, right from the beginning, inherent problems that conspired with the political environment leading to its closure in 2003. The paper also argues that foreign ownership and foreign funding of media in developing countries can lead to the erosion of the necessary legitimacy that these media need to compete on the local market. It argues that while the independent press has undoubtedly played a crucial role in the democratisation process, they have failed to temper their newfound freedom with responsibility.

This article analyses the development of the European Union (EU) project of a Charter for Services of General Interest (SGI) from the mid-1990s to the publication of the White Paper on Services of General Interest and the draft European Constitution in 2004. Though service charters are often associated with New Public Management (NPM) reforms related to privatization, they are also an integral part of the process of EU institution building, and need to be understood alongside developments such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Using a four-stage model of international NPM convergence analysis four phases of the Charter for SGI experience are examined and compared to Anglo-Saxon experiences. Though there are important similarities linking the charter initiatives in the EU and the Anglo-Saxon world, there are also a number of important differences, which can be explained by the project to construct a supranational political citizenship, as well as vital institutional differences in capabilities related to EU competences and issues of governance.

The Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) is a highly visible institution in Russia, and arguably the most prominent and influential religious or cultural body. The Orthodox Church figures prominently in various discussions as the driving force behind Russia's post-Soviet renewal and recovery. Surveys show that Russians trust the Orthodox Church more than any other public institution, including law courts, trade unions, mass media, the military, the police and the government. Estimates of the number of self-identified Orthodox adherents range from 50 million, which amounts to slightly more than one-third of Russia's population, to 70 million, or roughly one half of the population. A leading newspaper consistently ranks Patriarch Aleksii II, head of the Moscow Patriarchate, the governing body of the Orthodox Church, in the top 15 of the country's most influential political figures. These indicators confirm that the Orthodox Church has a significant role in Russia's post-Soviet development. This is widely accepted by commentators both within and without the Orthodox Church, and within and without Russia.

Using survey data on European countries, this paper examines the degree of correspondence in left-right policy positions between political parties and the citizens who vote for them through the prism of two competing views on what the ideal correspondence should be. The views are proximity theory, which holds that voters prefer parties to be as close as possible in policy terms, and Rabinowitz-Macdonald (RM) directionality theory, which asserts that voters prefer parties to take positions with greater emotional intensity than the voters themselves feel. It is shown that while the correspondence between party and voter is strong, parties tend to adopt positions that are relatively more extreme than those held by their voters and that the voters, perceptual distortions notwithstanding, are aware of it. This is usually taken as evidence for RM directionality but it is demonstrated that this theory does not and, in fact, cannot explain the discrepancy between what voters want and what parties deliver.

Research on party attitudes towards European integration has concentrated on the relationship between party ideology and positions related to European integration as an economic and/or political process, ignoring the representational aspect of party discourse. This study aims to contribute towards filling this gap by examining how Italian parties represent the European Union, the nation(-state) and the relationship between the two in their electoral platforms and parliamentary debates. We shall therefore analyse critically how parties use specific representations of Europe, the EU and the nation to frame and support their ideologies and positions and how they shape these representations in different ways depending on the challenge they are confronted with. We shall also look beyond presumed clear-cut relationships between party ideology and party attitudes towards European integration, exploring the complexities and ambiguities of party discourse and highlighting how specific EU or nation representations are used as legitimisation strategies by parties in combination to their left- or right-wing ideology.

Deinstitutionalisation is represented as a major step toward social inclusion through the resettlement of disabled people residing in segregated large‐scale institutions into community‐based homes. By promoting the right to live in ordinary community residential settings, deinstitutionalisation fundamentally changes both the support services and housing arrangements of former institutional residents. In Australia, as in many western countries, debates on community care have tended to focus on the location and nature of non‐housing supports for people leaving dependent care. This focus, however, overlooks the fact that deinstitutionalisation involves a radical rehousing of people in care. This paper explores the character and implications of deinstitutionalisation in Australia as a rehousing process. It is based on a recent national research project that has examined the housing futures of people with intellectual disabilities who have been, or will be, deinstitutionalised. The paper considers the increasingly divergent socio‐political perspectives that have emerged in recent discussions about social inclusion, institutional reform and independent living and their implications for housing and community care policies.

El derecho a la identidad cultural ha sido reconocido en diversos instrumentos internacionales, tanto regionales como universales. Sin embargo, aún hoy los pueblos originarios latinoamericanos, acorralados en Estados multiétnicos dominados por una minoría de cultura occidental, siguen siendo sometidos en el plano económico, social y político. Desde una concepción etnocéntrica, la cultura occidental hegemónica avasalla y erosiona a las culturas subalternas, manipula la cuestión étnica, usándola como bandera política, como justificación de las desigualdades socioeconómicas, o como pieza de museo, llegando en algunos casos a negarlas definitivamente. ; The right to cultural identity has been recognized in several international instruments, both regional and global. Nevertheless, at present, primitive Latin American towns - trapped within multiethnic states dominated by an occidental minority- are still surrended in the economical, the social and the political scope. From an ethnocentric point of view, the hegemony of occidental culture subdues and erodes the sub alternating cultures. It also uses ethnic issues as propaganda, pretending to justify or even to deny the socioeconomic differences. ; Instituto de Relaciones Internacionales